#i started to think maybe i was actually the problem

[auroracalisto]

Hey can you do a fiyero x reader where the reader is afraid of being vulnerable and he helps them?

yes, superfartninja, i think i can.

to be changed.

movie!fiyero x gn!reader, 3.4k words summary: to be vulnerable meant to be defenseless. it was a liability and that's all it ever would be. fiyero couldn't have that, now could he? a/n: please remember that i only have movie knowledge, so this will be based solely on what i saw in the movie. :P also, shout outs to house song by searows (was on repeat for this fic). erm. this kind of got away from me. i started it was 12 AM and now it's nearly 2 AM. hope it's coherent.

It wasn't like you to be vulnerable. It just didn't happen. It was like... asking a fish or an elephant to climb a tree, or some other weird analogy that you heard oh-so-long ago, when vulnerability aged you more than it helped.

To be vulnerable meant to be hurt. To be ridiculed, to be laughed at, to be made a fool in front of anyone who cared to look your way. It was something that you knew was not needed. You would be fine living by yourself. You came into this world alone and screaming, and you would leave this world the same way.

If you cut out the wound before it began to fester, you solved the problem immediately. Or so they say.

So that's what you did, long ago, when you swore to yourself that the pain you felt would be the very last time. It would never happen again. It couldn't happen again.

Oh, Oz, it couldn't. Your heart couldn't take it.

What was left of your heart, anyway. Sometimes you feared you no longer had one, especially when you feared the pain that would haunt you if someone else came along and made you feel that way again.

It's not that you were afraid. No, fear of being vulnerable was foolish. At least... you believed that you weren't afraid of being vulnerable.

Perhaps that was an act of foolishness in itself. Pretending that you weren't afraid. Pretending that having few friends and few moments of happiness didn't pierce your heart with every passing second.

Perhaps you needed to be better. To be vulnerable, to swear off that silly promise you made to yourself so many years ago.

But it was so difficult.

Being vulnerable was to be in pain. To be lost to a world of sorrow. To be... hurt by the very thing you swore you'd never be hurt by again.

It wouldn't happen.

You wouldn't let it.

He existed in the back of your mind. His beautiful blue eyes, the way those pretty locks fell in front of his eyes when he actually studied his books (if he ever did, of course).

When was the last time he actually tried...? No. You couldn't think of him like that. Too much thinking about his pretty face would ruin you.

You had only talked to him a few times here and there, and the first time was to merely ask him to move out of the way. He took up quite a lot of space—or at least, maybe it was his confidence. It oozed from him like an air of upmost superiority.

No...

You were just being cruel. He was just standing in the way, out of breath from singing to Galinda in the library (because of course—who didn't sing to pretty girls in libraries anymore?).

The second time you spoke to him was over the essay you had to write in your literature class. Peer reviews were the bane of your existence, and this essay, because of course it did, had a simple prompt in response to one of your readings: Taking into account the author's sheer disdain for the idea of magic, write what you believe Oz would be like without magic.

Thought-provoking, yes. You wrote a decent two pages, handwritten of course.

He gave you a paragraph.

If the world of Oz existed without magic, perhaps we would all be better off. No more bickering over the usages of it all, no more idiosyncrasies, no more debates on whether you are intelligent or mediocre if you hadn't the ability to wave a wand or utter a simple spell. If we didn't have magic, perhaps life would be far more difficult, but I also feel as if we should see what it would be like. Maybe there would be less heartbreak. More happiness to go around.

Okay. A piss-poor paragraph that made you wonder how he was even passing Madame Lillabet's literature class.

Maybe he wasn't.

You didn't feel pity for the man—nobility had the ability to do so many things that you would only ever dream of. Why should you feel pity—vulnerability—for a man you didn't know, let alone understood?

Oz, even now, his essay haunted you. You did your best with your review, pointing out the obvious things missing—a decent thesis, body paragraphs that proved his thesis, and just in general, an entire essay that was expected of the entire class.

He merely read over your essay and made one simple comment: Excellent.

Oh, yes, excellent. It was excellent to know that he was just trying to help your essay, yes? Leaving that little comment, even though you didn't make full marks—how was it supposed to help you?

Pity be damned. He was a fool, through and through.

Things muddled in your mind like they often did. Thoughts racing, heartbeat close behind the quick pace.

If you had magic, you'd be sure to quell it.

These thoughts were the one thing that you wished you could squash under the heel of your boot. They were the bane of your existence, the utterance of a foolhardy penance to the god of whatever looked down upon you and wished for pain.

Perhaps that was what was meant for you.

A life of pain—of pity from others, of the amenability to be swayed by those around you even when you tried, desperately, to stay away from those who may catch your attention.

Like him.

Oh, Oz, just like him.

Fiyero.

The man who'd lose his head if it wasn't attached to his shoulders. The man who once told you in passing that if he hadn't a brain, perhaps classes would be easier—then he wouldn't truly be all there, and he'd easily get around the... well, specifics of it all. The man whom you felt tugging at your heartstrings, even when you told yourself no.

It would not happen.

It could not happen.

You would not let it.

In typical, terrible luck fashion, you found yourself wandering the halls of Shiz late at night, unable to sleep. The thoughts racing through your head of so many things, not just him (although they kept leading back to the fool), they just weren't stopping.

An exam was to be held tomorrow. Perhaps you could create a distraction—keep the professors from being able to do as they needed. There were a box of fireworks hidden in one of the many corridor closets, kept for special occasion. You could whip a few of them out and create so much chaos that they'd surely have to cancel the exam!

You leaned against the railing, looking down at the stonework of Shiz's courtyard. A chill ran down your spine from the cold breeze, and for once, all was silent if only for a moment.

His voice brought you out from your thoughts.

"Y/n," he said, an obvious smile playing at his lips.

You squeezed your eyes shut and glanced back at him. Without saying a word, you acknowledged him.

"Doesn't look like your dorm," he continued. "What are you doing out here, all alone?"

"Thinking."

His eyebrow quirked. "Thinking? Oh," he softly hummed, coming to stand beside of you. "Well, that's no fun, now is it? What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing."

He snorted softly. "You're thinking about... nothing?"

"Whatever I'm thinking is none of your business," you retorted.

He stared you down for a moment, tilting his head curiously. He hummed again and looked out at where you had been staring moments prior.

"You are right," he softly said, voice much quieter this time. "Let me lead you back to your room. We have an exam tomorrow, remember? You at least need to pretend to sleep."

You paused. Since when did he care about exams? You glanced at him, fighting the urge to question him. You let out a soft sigh and shrugged, allowing him to lead you to your dorm.

The walk was quiet, and you almost questioned how he knew where your dorm was, but you didn't. He seemed to pay attention better than most (it was part of that aloofness, you've noticed), and it wasn't the first time he had seen you near your dorm.

It was at least the third. The number had to be easy to memorize by now. 133.

As you opened your door, Fiyero spoke. "You know, I've been thinking..."

"Dangerous thing for you, isn't it?" you quipped, not looking at him as you stepped inside.

He let out a soft chuckle. You amused him to no end.

"Yes, perhaps," he softly said. "But besides. I was still thinking. I've been... well, wondering if perhaps you would—"

"—no."

He blinked slowly. "What? No? Y/n, you didn't even hear what I had to say—"

"—the answer is still no," you said. You glanced up at him from the spot you had been staring at, frowning. "I don't know what this is, but we are not friends. Do not ask me for favors."

"Not friends, hm?" he softly hummed, leaning against the doorway as he locked eyes with you. So knowing your dorm number was just a fluke.

"Not friends. Now if you'll excuse me, I should probably go and pretend to sleep."

His upper lip quirked in a faint smirk. Not friends, but you still joked with him as a friend would do. He rolled his eyes and gave you a rather joking half-bow.

"Of course," he said. "Do not let me keep you up. Perhaps I should find my dorm as well."

"You should do that," you simply said, shutting the door right after.

You didn't give him a chance to say anything else, quickly locking the door and heading back to your bed.

Heart pounding, mind still racing, but not with the thoughts of earlier. No, dear reader, your mind raced with thoughts of him.

So impressionable, so—so kind, so—well, was he really kind?

To you.

He was kind to you.

Nearly a week passed you by. The exam went rather well, without any kind of distraction. Passing marks and a somewhat decent night sleep.

You do everything you can to try and avoid Fiyero. Running this way and that, going through all of the longer corridors instead of the shortcuts you knew by heart. You did everything you could to avoid his handsome face.

You did everything you could to avoid the vulnerability that plagued your heart every time you thought of him.

If you simply embraced the wants of Fiyero, perhaps not having a brain would keep you from thinking this way. You'd still have a heart, sure, but it was much better than keeping yourself on your toes wondering if you'd see the damned man at any passing second.

On the hour of the rising moon, almost exactly on the dot, Fiyero spotted you. And this time, you were not evading him.

He practically took off after you, leaving his friends behind. They scoffed and called after him, but he didn't look back. His focus was on you.

He grabbed onto your wrist as you went to leave, not letting you go.

"Y/n! There you are," he softly said. "I have been looking everywhere for you. I wouldn't have thought it would be so difficult to find you, but—"

"—there you go, thinking again," you blurted, unable to stop yourself. Your tongue was wagging faster than your brain was working.

He weakly smiled. "Yes. I know. How ironic, hm?"

You watched as he stared you down.

"Look," he softly began. "I truly—I do not know what I did to deserve you ignoring me at any which way, but I wish you would tell me why. What did I do, Y/n? I thought—well, I assumed that we were friends, but perhaps I was wrong. I find myself wrong quite often nowadays."

"I—well, Fiyero, I—" you paused. You squeezed your eyes shut and inhaled a deep breath. "I don't have friends."

He blinked slowly. "You don't have friends? What of the one girl you were with the other day? Milla?"

"I do not have friends," you repeated. "I have... acquaintances. People I do not get attached to."

"That is sad."

"What?"

He raised an eyebrow. It seemed like a commonality when he spoke with you. The staple eyebrow raise had to happen or else he wasn't really chatting with you.

"It is sad. Why wouldn't you want to get attached to people?"

"I don't want to have meaningless relationships," you said. You avoided saying, I don't want to have relationships at all. "Not everyone can be as friendly as you, Fiyero."

He rolled his eyes. "Friendly. Yes. I talk to people, but I would rather not have all the attention that I do."

"Oh, that's rich," you said, scoffing. "You play the popular little prince and then claim you do not want it? What is that, Fiyero?"

Fiyero pursed his lips. "It is just—this is not a conversation about me. I wanted to have an intervention for you since you seemed as though you were avoiding me every which way. Now. Just—"

"—an intervention? What? Please. You sound ridiculous."

"So do you!" he returned, hands to his hips like an older man scolding a child for something they broke. "You vex me, Y/n! You act as if you are interested in me, then run away hiding like a scared little pup. You act as if you are afraid to get close to anyone."

You stared at him, lips parted ever-so-slightly. But it was enough. You were done for.

He let out a curt laugh. "You are."

"What?"

"You are. Scared. I can see it in you. You listen to what I have to say, even when the others don't. I've made an effort to pay attention to you. To see what you—"

"—Fiyero, stop."

"Do not tell me to stop, Y/n," he said, voice low with conviction. "Not now. Not when I've finally figured you out. You are scared. But of what? Being close to someone? Having a friend?"

You frowned. "I am not scared—"

"—you look at me like if I were to touch you, you'd melt."

"That doesn't mean anything!"

"I can see it in your eyes, Y/n," he said, not looking away. He held eye contact with you and hoped that you would continue to do the same. "You—you're scared. To open your heart to the people around you."

You frowned, again. It was perpetual anymore. "And you're a sad man who dances and pretends everything is fine because Galinda said you looked pretty one day."

He blinked slowly, a smile quirking on his lips. "Maybe. But this—this isn't about me, Y/n. This is about you."

"What even is this? I didn't agree to have you psychoanalyze everything I've ever done."

"Neither did I, yet here we are," he said. "I've had a lot of time to think, to mull it over, and I know it. I know it now. You are scared. I don't know what happened to you. I don't know who hurt you in your past, or if something tragic happened to make you so cold inside, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with being... with being vulnerable, Y/n. There's something... magical, even, about opening up to others."

"Oh, and you would know, wouldn't you?"

He frowned. "Y/n—"

"—no. Absolutely not. You do not get to sit there and ridicule me for not wanting to be close to people and then not take what I give you," you said. "You do not let anyone close to you. Sure, Galinda, but what does she know about you? Does she know how you half-ass everything? How you hardly even talk to your 'friends' and just let them float along with you like everything is fine and dandy? You're as sad as I am, if that's what you're trying to say. Don't try to fool yourself."

"I am not trying to fool myself," he softly said. "I am only trying to make it known that I see you. I see myself in you."

"Oh, that's rich," you said, scoffing. "The rich, popular boy sees himself in little ol' me. That's perfect."

"Y/n—"

"—no. Don't. Stop. Just. I don't want to talk to you anymore. We're not friends. We never were friends. Just leave me alone."

It's simple, but it shuts him down. And with that, you run from his side, rushing to hide away in your dorm.

You couldn't believe what you did. Blowing up at him instead of listening to what he had to say. He read you like the children's book your heart truly was—while everyone else focused on the words, he focused on the pictures. The minute details that seemed to pass by everyone's mind because the story was flowing far too quickly.

He saw the delicate brush strokes, the intricate colors, the pieces of you that the words did not show.

He knew you.

And it scared you.

Only you knew yourself. If anyone else were to know who you were, deep inside, well, that would be disastrous.

It couldn't happen.

You couldn't let it.

Fear.

Perhaps fear was the best way to describe the way you felt.

You sat by the edge of the lake in the forest just beyond Shiz's campus, fingers gently brushing against the water. The surface rippled, sending small waves to the end of the shore.

You were afraid.

Of what?

Of a man knowing you?

Of Fiyero knowing you better than even your family once knew you?

You sat there, thoughts racing through your mind. It was as if you couldn't avoid them anymore.

Days had passed since you blew up at Fiyero and ran. You couldn't avoid him forever, you knew that, but it seemed as if your thoughts believed the same.

Tears pricked at your eyes. The warm, salty tears began to fall before you could even try to stop them, and a soft sob bubbled at the back of your throat.

"Y/n?"

Shit.

You quickly wiped your tears away and looked back at him—at Fiyero. But your tears wouldn't stop. A soft sob rippled through you and you turned your head away.

Fiyero came to your side, kneeling down in the soft earth beside of you. He inwardly grimaced at the dirt, but he said nothing of it. He'd bathe in mud if it meant you would stop your tears.

He reached forward, gently placing a hand to your cheek. He turned your head to face him.

"Y/n," he softly said. "It's alright. You... you're alright."

Another sob.

He pulled you into his arms, and you let him. You didn't pull away, melting into his embrace as he said you would before. He pressed his chin to the top of your head, situating himself so he would be more comfortable near you.

He softly hummed a soft tune—you remembered it. The one thing he hummed quite often when you caught him alone, or trying to focus on his school work.

Dancing through life, skimming the surface... Life's more painless for the brainless.

He was just a sad boy with needs of his own, much like you were scared of being seen. Of being known.

Of being loved.

Oh. Oh, that's what it was.

It terrified you to no end.

Fiyero pressed a soft kiss to the top of your forehead, gently cupping your cheeks in his hands.

"What's got you so upset, love?" he softly asked, wiping your tears away gently with his thumbs.

You shook your head. "I... later," you mumbled. You leaned into his grasp, and you could have sworn you saw his eyes soften.

He released a soft, shaky sigh of his own, before he pulled you back into his arms. He'd hold you until the end of the world if that's what you needed him to do.

Being vulnerable—it was the one thing you had told yourself you would never do. Ever again. And here you were, letting this man hold you and practically lull you into a calmness you'd never felt before.

Is this what it felt like? To be... weak? To be... frail?

No.

Vulnerability... it didn't mean that.

It meant that you were... open. That you had managed to open your heart to a more... malleable form.

To be changed.

To find the one thing in life that you knew would keep you going for as long as it could.

To be vulnerable meant to be loved.

[sunniques]

— 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥

➺ PAIRING: kim mingyu x female reader

➺ GENRE: stepbrother au, smut

➺ SUMMARY: mingyu will do anything to make sure no man takes his place in his stepsister’s life.

➺ CW/TW: stepcest, yandere themes, stalking, violence, blood, manipulation, mentions of blackmail, jealousy, possessiveness, mingyu can lift reader, slight size kink, oral sex (f & m), 69, unprotected sex, riding, creampies, cockwarming

➺ WC: 7.7k

NOTE: don’t like don’t read. as always, thank you to my oomf @wonustars for beta reading <3

If anyone were to ask you about Kim Mingyu, you’d have nothing but nice things to say.

The large, puppy-like man is the epitome of kindness and happiness. Despite his tall stature and modelesque looks, he’s pure-hearted and a little naive. It’s why you’re so endeared with him. No one in this world is more lovable than your foolishly kind stepbrother.

“Are you gonna need a ride today?”

You look up to see Mingyu leaning against the doorframe, watching you with a small smile on his face. Your heart jumps, still not fully used to how handsome he is. The loud thrum of your heart is easily ignored when you remind yourself that you can’t do anything except acknowledge your stepbrother’s good looks. In another world, you’d definitely allow yourself to have a crush on him, maybe even flirt with him a little.

“No,” you say as you unplug your phone from the charger. “Minghao is picking me up.”

Because you’re busy making sure you have all your things, you miss the look that crosses Mingyu’s face.

“Oh. I didn’t know you guys were talking again.”

Part of you feels a little embarrassed. Mingyu is very much aware of how things ended between you and Minghao. After all, it’s his broad shoulder you cried on after everything was said and done.

“It’s not like that,” you insist, feeling your face get hot from how intense his stare is. “We’re just friends now.”

Mingyu frowns but doesn’t say anything. It’s times like these you’re grateful that he’s such a nice guy. Anyone else would’ve pointed out that you and Minghao were never actually friends. You two just fucked around until he got sick of you. It was devastating for you in the worst way, but since he reached out to you under the pretense of wanting to be friends, you couldn’t say no. The last thing you want is to let him know how much he hurt you.

“Okay. Well if you need a ride later just text me.”

You’re grateful that Mingyu isn’t judgmental like you know the rest of your friends are going to be when they inevitably find out.

When you’re done with your last class of the day, you text Minghao to let him know you’re ready for him to come get you. A sickening feeling coils in the pit of your stomach when ten minutes go by without a response from him. You bite your lip as you contemplate sending him another text. Double texting wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t Minghao. Given the way you two left things, you don’t want to seem desperate. (Although you’re pretty sure it’s a little late for that.)

When another five minutes go by, you’re sure you’ve been stood up. You’re so angry that you feel like crying. The entire situation is so humiliating. To think that you thought giving him a second chance was a good idea. You feel so stupid, and you know that there’s no way you can ever tell anyone about what happened.

Well, there is one person. 

As soon as you call your stepbrother, he drops everything he’s doing to come get you. Because it’s Mingyu, you don’t feel as stupid and embarrassed when you get into his car. Not even when you start to ramble on about what an asshole Minghao is. Mingyu listens attentively, offering supportive comments here and there. There’s no judgment or pity when he talks, either. Just empathy that gives you enough comfort to make you feel like you’ve finally made it back to your safe place.

“Don’t even think about him,” Mingyu says as he grabs your hand. He brings it to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to the back of it before letting go. “He doesn’t deserve you or your anger.”

His words make you smile and feel warm inside. Aside from feeling a little embarrassed, you’re okay. Especially because your stepbrother makes it his mission to make sure you feel better.

You spend the rest of the day with Mingyu, and it’s not long before you completely forget about Minghao.

“I used to like you, you know.”

You choke on your drink, eyes going wide as you splutter embarrassingly. “What? Seokmin—!”

“I don’t any more!” He reassures you, looking around with slight panic. “And keep your voice down! I don’t need your guard dog acting up if any rumors start.”

You’re still too shocked by his confession to question who he’s talking about. You messily wipe your mouth and focus on getting Seokmin to explain because what he said doesn’t make any sense. Especially because of how things went down after you drunkenly admitted to liking him back freshman year.

“When was this?”

Seokmin looks ashamed. “A little after we met.”

There’s no way.

“You’re fucking sick. When I confessed to you that year, you friendzoned me.”

Seokmin has the decency to look sheepish and guilty. “It was a dick move, I admit it. But it’s not my fault!”

You raise a disbelieving eyebrow at him.

“Your stepbrother had made it clear that you were off limits, okay? I wasn’t about to cross him.”

You stare at him, dumbfounded. “Literally, what are you talking about?”

Seokmin blushes and looks around again. You’d laugh if his behavior wasn’t so odd. You’re not sure why he’s acting like he’s scared of something or someone, but you can’t focus on that too much. His bizarre story is throwing you off.

“Mingyu has always been very protective of you, and he’s actually really fucking scary when he wants to be.”

Silence. 

You two stare at each other until you burst out laughing. That’s all you can do because there’s no way your friend is being serious.

“Hey!” Seokmin slaps your arm to calm you down. “I’m being serious!”

“Mingyu? Kim Mingyu?” You say between breaths. “Your best friend—my stepbrother?”

“Yes, lovely Kim Mingyu who wouldn’t hurt a fly!” Seokmin scowls as you keep laughing.

Of all the reasons Seokmin could come up with for rejecting you while allegedly having feelings for you, you didn’t think he’d use your stepbrother. It was such a cheap cop-out. Mingyu has never cared about your unexciting love life. He’s always encouraged you to have fun and find a guy who deserves you. 

There’s no way what Seokmin’s implying is true. Even if it was, you’re sure he’s exaggerating. Your goofy stepbrother doesn’t have one mean, intimidating bone in his body. 

“Okay,” you wheeze. “Let’s say I believe you, which I don’t. What exactly did Mingyu say for you to reject me?”

Seokmin blinks and hesitates. Maybe it’s better if you don’t know all the details. “He just… advised me to not play with your feelings if I wasn’t ready for a relationship.”

You roll your eyes. Instead of bringing up the fact that he freely dated around after turning down your confession, you choose to steer the conversation in a different direction. There’s no need to keep rubbing salt in an old wound, anyway.

“Whatever. You’re still sick,” you say. “Anyway, are you still going to Chan’s on Friday?”

“Are you?” Seokmin counters. “Minghao will be there.”

Your lip curls up in disgust. “Like I’m going to let that asshole stop me from having fun.”

“True. And actually, he might not even go. I think he’s still recovering.”

“Recovering? What do you mean?”

“You don’t know? Minghao got into a fight last week! He won’t say with who, but he got fucking wrecked.”

You’re shocked into silence. A fight? It’s pretty hard to believe since Minghao is a pretty passive guy. He rarely gets angry or upset. 

So many things are going through your mind at once that you can’t get any of your thoughts straight. Had it happened the day he stood you up? If it did, why didn’t he say anything?

“Poor guy looks like shit. I doubt he’ll be going anywhere for a while.”

You frown. Sure, Minghao isn’t your favorite person in the world, but that doesn’t mean you would wish something like that on him. You know you shouldn’t be worried about him, but part of you still is. 

“Oh my god,” you mumble with a frown, not really knowing what to say. “Poor him.”

“Poor who?”

Your head snaps up at the sound of a familiar voice. A smile lights up your face when you see your stepbrother approaching the table. 

“Minghao,” Seokmin says as his best friend sits beside you. “Remember I told you someone beat his ass?”

“Oh, yeah,” Mingyu says with a frown as he slings his beefy arm over your shoulders. “Poor guy. I hope he gets better soon.”

You lean into your stepbrother, chest warming at the worried frown on Mingyu’s face. His kind heart is so admirable. Despite Minghao being a certified piece of shit, he still has the empathy to feel bad for the guy. It reminds you of how Mingyu is someone who’s a way better person than you, and you can’t resent him for it.

“Don’t worry, love. Minghao will be okay.” Mingyu says as he squeezes you into his side.

Like always, your stepbrother knows what you’re feeling without you telling him. It’s hard to stop the affection you feel from deepening when he always makes sure to comfort you first. His thumb gently caresses your shoulder absentmindedly as he and Seokmin start to talk about their statistics class. Just knowing your stepbrother is so understanding of your complicated feelings makes you feel so much better, and it’s not long before the topic of what happened to Minghao is long forgotten.

Mingyu will never forget the first time he saw you.

It was at one of Seungcheol’s notorious frat parties. Back then, he hadn’t been too into the party scene. Honestly, he’d gone out of pressure and boredom more than anything. One day he’ll have to thank his older friend for being the reason he saw you.

Unlike Mingyu, you were letting loose and having fun. He can’t forget how beautiful you looked while taking shots and laughing without a care in the world. Something inside him switched that night, and instead of being scared of the unfamiliar feeling, Mingyu quickly embraced it.

The feeling pushed him into watching you all night. To this day, Seungcheol thinks his friend had as much fun as everyone else. Which he had, just a different kind of fun.

At the end of the night, Mingyu secretly followed you as you stumbled your way back to your dorm. It’s not like you went home alone, but he had to make sure you were safe. (He also was curious to know if you lived on or off campus.)

Finding out your schedule wasn’t hard. As an attractive man, it’s always been easy for Mingyu to get what he wants. One charming smile and a little harmless flirting had him securing a paper with all your classes on it within minutes. Everything was too easy after that, and Mingyu couldn’t feel anything like guilt or shame as he went to go find you.

For weeks, he watched you from afar. Despite knowing he was most people’s type, Mingyu was still nervous about talking to you. He wanted everything to be perfect. Setting up a meet-cute was hard work, which meant calculating the time and place took a tremendous amount of effort. Honestly, he did start to get a little impatient when watching you no longer felt like enough for him. Mingyu was itching to know you and everything about you. To have you all for himself.

Luckily for him, swooping in when you almost got hit by a football was the perfect opportunity to worm his way into your life. Mingyu played the perfect part of a knight in shining armor, one that was undeniably kind and empathetic. Exactly what you wanted.

Mingyu still fantasizes about the way you looked at him that day. The lidded gaze you directed at him and the way you bit your lip was tantalizing in the sweetest way. It was easy for you to become friends after that.

There was an unexpected roadblock a month later when his mom told him she was marrying the man of her dreams. It’s both devastating and thrilling for him to find out that man is your father. You’ll be closer to him than ever, but now there’s this forbidden aspect that wedges itself between the attraction between you two.

Despite this, you two grow closer. All of your interests and hobbies line up almost perfectly, and the fixation Mingyu has on you steadily grows, slowly morphing into an undeniable obsession. Luckily for him, the new role he has in your life allows him to ward off any vultures that are lurking around you.

The loser in your calculus class was the easiest to get rid of. Once Mingyu caught him staring at you at a party, approaching him and telling him to stop staring at you like a fucking creep was enough for the guy to never look at you again. Then, there was your scummy coworker. Mingyu had to politely remind him that it wouldn’t be a good idea to keep bothering you unless he wanted his parents to find out he had dropped out of college and spent all of his financial aid partying.

Then there was his dear friend, Lee Seokmin.

“Y/N is single right?”

Mingyu looks up from his phone, jaw tightening as he fixes his dark stare on Seokmin. His friend is oblivious to the dangerous territory he’s venturing into, and there’s a moment where Mingyu contemplates whether or not to disregard the many years of friendship they have to impulsively act on his dark thoughts.

“Yeah,” Mingyu’s tone is clipped.

Seokmin hums thoughtfully. “Do you think she’d say yes if I asked her out?”

“I don’t think so,” Mingyu says through gritted teeth, still trying to be somewhat nice. “You’re not good at commitment, and that’s what she’s looking for.”

His best friend doesn’t seem to care for the advice he’s getting. “I can do whatever for someone I actually like.”

“You really like her?”

Either Seokmin doesn’t hear the venom in his friend’s voice, or he doesn’t care. Mingyu’s not sure which pisses him off more.

“Yeah,” Seokmin replies. “She’s smart and pretty. Exactly my type.”

Seokmin flinches when Mingyu slams his fist on the table. A dark look he never thought his friend was even capable of making is being directed at him, and he suddenly feels like he’s unknowingly walked into the lion’s den.

“Don’t you even think about going near her.” Mingyu spits, not caring that he sounds like an asshole. “I’ll cut your dick off if I find out you even hint at wanting anything more than a friendship with her.”

Seokmin laughs weakly. “You’re not serious—”

“Test me and find out.”

Mingyu smiles, but it’s a chilling smile. One that has Seokmin spluttering out an agreement before he realizes it.

After that, Mingyu knew he had to make sure everyone knew you were off limits.

The only dumbass that didn’t take Mingyu’s warnings seriously was Xu Minghao. The idiot had the audacity to laugh in his face when Mingyu suggested he find someone else to fuck around with. Unfortunately, Minghao didn’t have any dirt on him—not any that was serious enough for Mingyu to use as blackmail, anyway.

And so, Mingyu was forced to back off—for the time being.

His promiscuous ex had always been so eager to please that she didn’t hesitate to give in to Mingyu’s request to seduce and ensnare Minghao. It left you heartbroken and ready to receive your stepbrother’s comfort. Everything slowly went back to the way it was supposed to be. You were more dependent on Mingyu than ever, which made it easy for him to slowly erase that asshole from your life.

Until he finds out that scumbag was worming his way back into your life. 

Instead of attending his first class, Mingyu has his ex lure Minghao to her apartment building where he puts an end to that idiot once and for all.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Minghao groans and he coughs up a bit of blood.

Mingyu slams him into the wall, wounded hands moving to squeeze his throat and cut his words. “I warned you a long time ago to stay away from Y/N. This is the last time I’m going to tell you.”

When he does let go of Minghao, the idiot stops Mingyu from walking away. Even through large intakes of breath and spluttered coughs, he manages to piss Mingyu off some more. “You think Y/N will forgive you when she finds out what you did to me?”

Mingyu spins on his heels before landing a hard punch on Minghao’s nose. The loud crack echoes in the air, and it sounds almost dull compared to the yell that idiot lets out. Blood pours from his nose immediately, and it slips through the cracks of his fingers as he holds it in pain.

“You think she’ll believe you over me?” Mingyu’s laugh is dark and cruel. “Y/N knows I would never hurt anyone. Not even a piece of shit like you.”

Minghao’s heart rate spikes when he sees the way Mingyu smiles at him. A chill goes down his spine when he realizes just how depraved the man in front of him is. So for once, he does the smart thing and decides to cut off all contact with you. It pains him to stand you up and ghost you, but no pussy is worth this. Not even yours.

Mingyu sees you before you see him. You’re sitting at one of the many tables in the refectory, but you aren’t alone. Some guy is talking to you, grinning from ear to ear like some disgusting creep. Immediately, he recognizes the starry-eyed look in his gaze. A lot of guys get that same look when they see you. Even if you don’t notice it, Mingyu always does.

“Hey, man.” The stranger has the fucking audacity to smile at Mingyu as he sits across from you.

As much as Mingyu would like to tell the creep to fuck off, he can’t. Not while you’re around, at least. “Hey.”

“I’ll see you in class,” the guy says with an unattractive smile as he slowly stands. 

Mingyu feels like throwing up when you actually smile back.

“Bye.” You wave with a cute laugh.

The guy finally leaves, and it takes everything in Mingyu to behave normally. Dark thoughts loom in his head, ones that involve taking care of that idiot like he did to your ex situationship. He forces his depraved thoughts to the back of his mind to focus his attention on you.

“Who was that?” He wonders casually like he’s not losing his mind.

“That’s Josh. He’s in my communications class.” You say indifferently.

“Did he ask you out?” Mingyu wonders, trying to make the lilt in his voice sound teasing. And like the very thought isn’t killing him inside.

“Yeah,” you say. “He wants to hang out after my last class.”

Mingyu’s stomach turns. He smiles at you, so pained that you’re being so casual about some loser hitting on you. Especially in front of him. He’ll have to find out more about that asshole later and figure out exactly how he’s going to get rid of him, but right now there’s a more pressing matter.

“And?”

You give him a funny look. “And I told him no. We’re hanging out tonight, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.”

It’s a relief, and Mingyu hopes it doesn’t show on his face.

An unsavory feeling settles in Mingyu’s chest after that day. You slowly start to mention Josh more and more without knowing how insane it makes your stepbrother feel. It’s all so maddening because this Josh character is actually close to being a perfect guy. He’s been in a few relationships that have all ended up on good terms, and he doesn’t have any questionable behaviors. Mingyu almost considers fabricating something so he can get the loser away from you.

It’s not until a random Friday night that Mingyu decides he’s finally had enough. You were supposed to have been home hours ago, and you’re barely getting here. Accompanied by dumbass Josh, no less. He almost feels like throwing up as he watches you from the security camera. Mingyu clenches his jaw as anger seeps into his bones and clouds his mind.

Something inside him snaps, and he decides right then and there that you can’t keep doing this to him, and he can’t keep torturing himself like he has been.

“I had fun with you,” Joshua says sweetly.

Mingyu almost smashes his phone when you give him a hug and respond in a dulcet tone. “Me too.”

When he sees you waving at Josh with both of your hands in the cute way you always do, he’s quick to lock his phone and go downstairs to intercept you. 

It’s quiet when you enter the house. You didn’t see your stepmom’s car or your dad’s in the driveway so you know they aren’t home. Since it’s so quiet, you wonder if Mingyu is asleep or something.

“Where have you been?”

You jump with a quiet yelp, not expecting your stepbrother to be waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs. There’s a look in his eyes that you’ve never seen before, and he almost looks threatening.

“Um,” you stutter, not sure what to make of the shift in his demeanor. “I was with—”

“With who?”

Dark eyes examine your face, demanding answers. Mingyu stalks toward you until he has you pressed against the front door. His large hands cage you against it as he leans close to your face.

“Tell me. I want to know why you’re so late when you promised me you’d be home sooner.”

You stare at him with wide eyes. “What? Gyu—”

“Let me guess,” he hums, sounding completely depraved. “You were with Josh.”

You swallow nervously, wondering why he sounds jealous. The thought sends a jolt of thrill down your spine. “Yeah. He just wanted—”

“Wanted what?” Mingyu’s glaring eyes get more intense. “To fuck you?”

You’re completely floored. That was the last thing you expected your sweet stepbrother to say, and for some reason it makes you feel dizzy in a thrilling way. You lick your lips, feeling your skin get hot as anxiousness mixes in with arousal. It’s been too long since you had sex, which is why you started to get wet from Mingyu’s uncharacteristic behavior. 

“N-No.” You say somewhat firmly. “We’re just friends.”

“Then why was he touching you?” He growls as one of the hands braced on the door moves to your neck.

Your cunt throbs at the action, and you feel like your mind is swimming from the sudden turn of events.

“It was a quick hug,” you say as he lightly squeezes your throat. “Something between friends.”

Mingyu raises an eyebrow, seemingly unbelieving of your words. More slick pools in your panties as the dark gaze stays locked in your face. You try not to make squeezing your thighs together obvious, but you haven’t felt so turned on in a long time.

“You’re sure?” Mingyu’s voice sounds entirely different as he squeezes your neck again.

“Yes,” you easily say. Deciding to act on instinct, you slowly smooth your hands over his chest and look at him through your eyelashes. “Promise, Gyu-Gyu.”

As always, he’s putty in your hands as soon as he hears that cute little nickname you gave him. Mingyu lets out a shaky breath as you go to cup his face. His eyes fall shut, and he lets himself lean on you and sandwich you between his body against the door. Your thumbs gently, caress his cheeks as you work to placate him. He loves every second of it, and just being pressed up against you has his cock twitching in his pants.

Fuck it.

Mingyu opens his eyes, pupils blown wide. “I’ll let it go this time, baby girl, but I better not catch him or any other guy touching what’s mine.”

He sounds completely insane and feral, but that only makes you want him more. It’s almost like you’re in a trace as you lock your arms around his neck to bring him closer to you. The heat in his eyes makes you feel like a goddess, and you wonder if it’s always been there.

“Say it,” Mingyu demands as his hands trail down your body to squeeze your ass. “Tell me you won’t let any asshole touch you ever again.”

You whine in your throat. “I won’t let anyone else touch me. I promise.”

Mingyu grins, little fangs poking out like the cat who ate the canary. “Good girl.”

With that, he easily lifts you and locks your legs around his hips. For a moment, his pretty eyes search yours as if he’s trying to search for any sign of hesitation. He seems satisfied with what he sees, and in the next second his lips catch yours in a wet, heated kiss.

You mewl into his mouth as you grind down on his very large bulge. It all feels so good, and you groan when Mingyu eases his tongue into your mouth. There’s a desperation behind his movements that make you more horny than you already are.

Everything else happens in a blur, and before you realize it, you end up sprawled out on Mingyu’s bed. He handles you with care, but there’s also a roughness to his movements. It makes you gush because that’s exactly what you like.

“Naughty baby. Gonna have to teach you a lesson.”

There’s that switch again, and it makes you squirm. You squish your thighs together, both anticipating and dreading what’s in store for you. Mingyu seems like a feral animal, one that’s close to acting on primal instincts only. The thought excites you.

“Why?” You pout, wondering how you can get him to just fuck you. “I’ve been a good girl.”

You’re such a little minx, and Mingyu has to turn away so you don’t see the fond smile that forms on his face. As usual, you’re too cute for your own good. It’s always so disarming, but all Mingyu has to do is remember what led to this for him to get himself back on track.

“Don’t be a brat,” he warns as he takes his shirt off.

Mingyu’s cock twitches when your pout accentuates. You still nod obediently, though. He kicks off his pants until he’s left in only his underwear. The way you hungrily eye his body (especially his large bulge) makes him feel like he’s in the clouds. All his plotting and waiting was really worth it.

“Show me your panties.”

You whimper quietly, not believing how filthy your stepbrother is. It makes you that much more eager to give him what he wants.

Slowly, you discard your jeans and spread your legs to show Mingyu how wet you are. His eyes are dark dark dark when he sees the material is almost see-through.

“Fuck,” he moans as he palms his throbbing cock. “Take them off.”

The fabric slips down your legs and dangles from your fingertips in the next second. Mingyu snatches them from your hands and presses the soiled fabric to his nose. His eyes stay on your pretty pussy as he carefully places your panties on his nightstand

“For later,” he clarifies with a filthy smirk.

You curse under your breath as more arousal drips out of you.

“You like that, baby girl?” Mingyu coos as his eyes stay on your dripping pussy. “Like that your stepbrother is going to use your cute little panties to jerk off?”

“Yes,” you admit through a whine. “Fuck, Gyu. I’m so wet right now.”

“I know,” his eyes flicker up to your face for a second. “But I still have to teach you a lesson.”

You pout at him again. “Even though I promised you already?”

His laugh is dark. “Have to make sure you keep it.”

“I’ll be good, I swear. Please, Gyu-Gyu?” You bat your eyelashes at him, and any resolve he has just breaks.

Mingyu slips out of his underwear, and he smirks when you gasp at the sight of his hard cock slapping against his abdomen. It’s so hard and leaking with so much precum. You’re eying it so hungrily that he decides to get the upper hand once again.

“I’ll give you what you want, baby. Just play with my cock first.”

“Really?” You ask eagerly, as Mingyu starts to stroke his huge cock.

“Yeah. Use that pretty little mouth on me, and I’ll give you anything you want.”

You jump to your knees in excitement. “Okay!”

“You want to gag on your stepbrother’s cock that bad?” Mingyu laughs as you eagerly nod and crawl toward him. “What a slut.”

“Can’t help it,” you say as you push on his shoulder to get him to lay back. “Want your pretty cock in my mouth.”

“Fuck,” Mingyu hisses as he leans against his pillows. His cock throbs at the fact that you’re making every one of his fantasies come true.

You press a gentle kiss to the tip, lovely eyes staring at Mingyu. A string of precum sticks to your lips, and you’re quick to lick it off with a salacious moan. You start to kitten lick his fat tip until his cock steadily leaks with sticky blobs of precum. The mewls and moans your stepbrother lets out only make you that much more eager to please. He’s really too hot for his own good.

With a grin, you wrap your lips around the head and slowly take him into your mouth. Slowly, you force the girthy organ down your throat. Your eyes start to glaze over, already addicted to the thick cock in your mouth. Mingyu thrusts his hips forward, sinking another inch into your hot mouth. The fat tip teases the back of your throat, making you gag on his dick. A loud moan tears from his throat when you take it like a good girl before pulling off with a wet cough.

“Messy girl,” Mingyu says with a groan.

You moan and start to lap at his cock again. Your tongue teases around his tip, and you can’t stop your thighs from clenching together. The arousal is practically leaking from your pussy, wetting your thighs obscenely.

“Aw, baby girl. Look at how fucking horny you are,” Mingyu coos. “Bet that little cunt’s soaked. Can’t wait to taste it. Gonna eat you out for hours after this.”

“Why not now?” You pout against his dick. “I suck dick better when I get eaten out.”

Mingyu tries not to blow his load at your filthy words. “Yeah? Want me to lick your little clit over and over and then suck it in my mouth until you’re begging to cum?”

Once again, Mingyu is putty in your hands when you blink up at him with your cute pout and tell him that’s exactly what you want.

And so, within seconds you’re laying on Mingyu’s hard abs, suckling on the head of his cock as you wiggle your ass, teasing Mingyu with your pussy. He groans, savoring the sight of your pretty pussy hovering over his face. Deciding that he deserves this treat more than anyone, he finally takes what you’re so willingly giving him.

You cry out when Mingyu licks across your swollen clit. He grabs your ass and spreads you open so he can lick into your pussy easier. Eagerly, he starts to lap up all the arousal from your drippy pussy. He loses himself in your taste, fucking his tongue deeper into your clenching hole. You’re the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted, and he’ll be damned if he ever lets anyone else drink from his sweet oasis.

“Mingyu,” you slobber against his cock, grinding your cunt into his eager mouth. “Fuck. Your mouth feels so good.”

Mingyu groans as you start to suckle on the head of his cock before you fully sink your mouth on it again. Your hot little mouth works his cock, giving him the best head he’s ever gotten. You’re so messy and eager, kissing and licking all over his cock. The way you’re getting him all wet and messy almost makes him feel like you’re prepping him for your cunt. That turns him on more and has his muscular thighs clenching with restraint. 

Your stepbrother moans into your cunt as you suck his dick. The vibrations run through your fluttering walls as his tongue fucks deeper into your hole. Pleasure consumes you as Mingyu continues to slide his tongue in and out of your soaking pussy with a filthy schlick sound. All the sweet sounds you’re letting out are slightly muffled by Mingyu’s cock, and he loves every second of it.

Mingy sucks your pulsing clit into his mouth, making you whine around his cock and grind harder on his tongue. Your orgasm abruptly hits, and your cries of pleasure are gagged by Mingyu shooting his cum down your throat. You continue to suck eagerly as you rub your messy pussy all over your stepbrother’s face.

You pull off Mingyu’s big cock after you swallow all his cum, mewling in pleasure when he starts to press soft kisses on your pretty pussy. God, he’s unreal.

“Sweetest little pussy ever,” he moans reverently, not ready to separate from the heaven between your legs.

Your face gets hot, pussy clenching at his praise. The fact that someone as hot as Mingyu is so into you feels surreal, and it makes you more eager to get his big cock inside you.

Mingyu apparently thinks the same thing because he’s quick to lay you on the bed and get on top of you. His dark eyes drink in your naked body, licking his lips like he didn’t just finish eating you up. 

“You have no idea what you do to me.”

And you really don’t.

“Mingyu,” you whimper desperately when he starts to rub his dripping cock across your sensitive cunt. 

The sticky tip of his cock catches on your leaking hole and you moan loudly. God, you’ve never wanted anyone to fuck you so badly. He’s so hot, and you know he’s going to send you into another world of pleasure.

“Fuck, Gyu. Need you to fuck me. Please. I need it so bad,” you beg against his mouth as you start to kiss him repeatedly.

“Yeah?” He grins, blush spreading across his face at the affection you’re giving him. “Need your stepbrother to stuff you full of cock?”

“Yes.” You whimper shamelessly. “I need you to stuff my little pussy full. Want you to breed me.”

The groan he lets out is feral, and Mingyu buries his face in your neck so you won’t see the depravity your words cause. He kisses and nips at your neck as he grinds his cock on your messy pussy.

“Please, Gyu-Gyu.”

“Fuck. You’re so hot, baby girl,” Mingyu groans as he slips the head of his cock inside your needy hole. 

He pulls back to watch your face as he slowly sinks into your pussy. You’re so overwhelmed with arousal, and it’s evident. It makes the feral beast inside Mingyu yearn for more.

“I’m gonna ruin you for everyone else, baby. Gonna make sure the only cock you want is mine.”

With that, he bottoms out with a loud moan as you whine loudly. Your pupils are blown wide as your nails scratch against his broad chest. It turns you on to feel and see how big he is. He’s completely enveloping you in the best way. All that fills your mind is your stepbrother and his big cock.

“So fucking tight,” he hisses as he rolls his hips and fucks his cock deeper into your pulsing heat.

You wrap your legs around his waist to get him as deep as possible. Moans spill from your mouth as your hands smooth up his muscular chest and clasp around his neck. No one’s ever been so deep inside you, and you love it.

“Fuck me, Gyu.” You mewl, brain fuzzy from the stretch his dick provides. “Want you to fuck me dumb.”

“Shit,” Mingyu grunts with dark eyes. “My slutty baby wants her pussy creamed so fucking bad, huh?”

“Want it so bad, babe.” You whimper as you buck your hips.

Mingyu snaps when he hears the little pet name. Immediately, he starts to slam into your squelching cunt over and over again. You cry out loudly as juices leak from your stuffed hole. It takes him no time to find your g-spot, and he angles his cock to hit it every time he snaps his hips.

“Fu-Fuck, Gyu.” You whimper as you tug him closer to ghost your lips across his. “Gonna cum again. Gonna cum all over your big cock.”

“Do it, baby. God. Need to feel you cream on me,” he groans. 

You move your hips to meet his thrusts, eager to gush all over his dick and give him what he wants. Mingyu goes to kiss you deeply, moaning in satisfaction when your pulsing pussy clamps down on him again. His mind is swimming with pleasure as you cry out for him.

Mingyu’s heavy balls slap against your ass as he fucks deeper into your wet hole. You’re gushing so much that he knows you won’t be able to stop at just one orgasm. Which is exactly what he wants. He needs you addicted to his cock so you don’t ever consider going to someone else. Even if you do, he’ll get rid of them. Now that you’ve given him a taste, he’s going to make sure no one else has the chance to.

“God, Mingyu.” You whimper, toes curling in pleasure. “Just want you to keep me stuffed with your fat cock all night.”

Mingyu groans and presses a chaste kiss on your lips. He’ll give you anything you want. “Don’t worry, baby. That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Gonna breed you all night.”

Your stepbrother’s promise pushes you over the edge. Those filthy words make your legs tighten around him as your pussy clamps down on his dick. You moan out Mingyu’s name loudly as you cover his cock with your orgasm. Your legs tremble as you keep getting fucked through your mind-numbing pleasure.

“That’s it, baby. Cum all over your stepbrother’s cock. Fuck. So good for me.”

Mingyu’s thrusts get rougher as he pistons his cock deeper into your pulsing cunt. There’s no hotter sight than you cumming all over his cock. The pretty face you make is something that he’ll never forget, and that’s all he needs to reach his own climax. Mingyu buries his cock to the hilt and spills all his hot, sticky cum inside you with a loud moan of your name. He keeps fucking his cock into your hot cunt, stuffing it full of cum. 

“Take it like a good girl,” he pants, eyes shut tightly as he keeps fucking his aching cock inside you. “Take every fucking drop, baby girl.”

You move your hands to cling to his hair, grinding your sloppy pussy to get his cum deeper inside. Your eyes roll to the back of your head as he creams your pussy.

“Gyu,” you whimper. “You came so much—fuck. Feels so hot inside.”

Mingyu groans as he buries his face in your neck, cock pulsing at your words. “Shit, baby. Making me want to fuck you all over again.”

You hum, deciding that you won’t be leaving his bed anytime soon. “It’s my turn.”

Mingyu grunts in surprise when you push him off and make him lean against the headboard. Immediately, you go to straddle him before smashing your lips together. He hungrily kisses you back, big hands gripping your ass to grind your messy cunt onto his hot cock. 

“So hot,” you gasp in between kisses. “You’re so fucking hot."

Mingyu giggles into your mouth. “Yeah?”

You hum in confirmation as you suck on his tongue. Again, you tangle one of your hands in his hair and pull his head back so you can kiss him deeper. The kiss you share is nasty, and it just makes you needy for him all over again.

You pull away and grab his cock. Mingyu bites his lip as you slowly sink down on it. He slumps back against the headboard, giving you time to adjust to the stretch of his thick cock. Your stepbrother smooths his thumbs across your hard nipples, smirking when you clench down on him.

“God, you’re fucking pretty,” Mingyu growls as he punches your nipples. “My pretty baby.”

“Mingyu,” you sigh as your eyelashes flutter in pleasure.

You grind down on him, hips swivelling to fuck him just right. It doesn’t take long for him to become a mess under you. You smirk and start to bounce on him, loving how he’s practically writhing with pleasure. 

“I just wanna be inside you all the time,” he tugs on the sensitive buds until you’re arching into the motion. 

You duck your head down to sloppily kiss Mingyu again when there’s a knock on the door. Even to your surprise, you don’t stop your movements. It feels too good. You pull away, wondering when your parents came back home and how you didn’t hear them. Your pussy gets tighter, and Mingyu bites his bottom lip as he grabs your hips to keep you from moving.

“Mingyu? Are you still awake?” His mom calls through the door. 

At that moment, you two make a decision. A nasty, filthy one. Mingyu maintains eye contact with you and slowly fucks his cock up into your sloppy pussy. 

“Yeah. Do you need something?”

Your eyes roll back, cunt spasming around Mingyu’s dick. The lewd switching coming from your pussy seems louder now, but you don’t think to stop your stepbrother from bullying his cock in and out of your hole. 

“Have you seen Y/N? She’s not in her room.”

“She’s in here. We were watching a movie and she fell asleep,” Mingyu’s voice is smooth and even. It makes you start to bounce on him again. “I’ll take her to her room in a second.”

Your stepbrother’s dark eyes never leave yours as he starts to whisper. “You like that we might get caught?”

You nod again, barely able to hold back your moans.

“Okay good. I was worried since it’s getting late.”

Mingyu grinds his cock deep in your cunt and moves his thumb down to rub your clit roughly. You’re so wet that even with Mingyu's slow, deep thrusts, your pussy is squelching with every movement. 

“Dirty little slut. Imagine if she had opened the door,” Mingyu holds back a groan as your hot cunt clamps down on him again. “She would’ve seen how much you love your stepbrother’s cock.”

You bounce a little harder on his dick when you hear his filthy words. His thumb continues to flick and rub at your swollen clit. Your head tips back as your pussy gushes around his cock when your orgasm hits out of nowhere. 

Mingyu watches your throbbing pussy clamp down on him as he slowly thrusts into you. You feel his hands squeeze your hips hard enough to bruise. His slow thrusts are prolonging your orgasm, walls fluttering constantly around his dick. Mingyu’s thumb is still rubbing your clit, overstimulation making the muscles in your thighs jump. 

“God, baby.” Mingyu groans. “So fucking dirty, cumming all over my cock like that. Did thinking we were gonna get caught turn you on that much?”

“Yeah,” you mewl, too turned on to feel embarrassed.

Your thighs shake with the force of your second orgasm, pussy trying to milk Mingyu’s cock for more cum.

“You’re so nasty, baby girl.” Mingyu moans, raising to suck on your nipples. He smirks when your pulsing pussy clamps down on him again.

“My dirty little slut. Fuck, I’m gonna cum.”

He bites down on your nipple as he pumps his hips into your soaked cunt. You moan as his hot cum fills your greedy pussy, walls fluttering and urging him to spill more inside of you. Mingyu fucks it deeper into you until all you can do is whimper and mewl like the fucked out slut he turned you into.

After a few minutes, he relaxes back into the bed, pulling you down to lay on him. You close your eyes, completely sated and full. As you go to move, Mingyu holds you still before his cock can slip out of you.

“Stay where you are,” his voice is commanding. “Want to keep you plugged up.”

You shiver and relax against him. “Okay.”

Soon enough, your breathing evens out and you fall asleep. Mingyu places a gentle kiss on your hair, loving that you’ve fallen asleep with his cock and cum still inside you. He closes his eyes and squeezes you against him like he’s afraid you might disappear.

It took a long time to get here, but it was all worth it

From suggesting to his stepdad that you moving back home would be a good idea to making sure his mom did the same. That made it easier to listen in on the many calls you had with your friends and find out everything about your ideal man. It helped him mold himself into everything you wanted, which wasn’t too hard because Mingyu swears you were describing him.

Going into your room when you were out of the house also lets him know more about you. All of your interests and hobbies are there for him to learn and master. It also made it easier for him to get you gifts.

And finally, constantly borrowing your laptop to find out what type of porn you liked. It was all good stuff, things that he knew he was good at. Obviously, you liked to be degraded a little, but also worshipped. Mingyu licks his lips as he thinks about all the things he’s going to recreate with you. His cock throbs inside your warm pussy just thinking about it.

Everything is perfect, and Mingyu will do anything to keep it this way. He’ll continue to drive away any threats from your life because he’s the only one who can have you.

And if a day ever comes when you no longer want him, he’ll make sure no one else can have you either.

[k0mmari]

SYSTEM! SHEN YUAN PT.3

Too tired to do my obligations, but too stressed out to sleep, so here we find ourselves again.

This, once again, got horribly long- so long, in fact, I think this is the longest post in this 'trilogy'-, so I apologize in advance (╥ᆺ╥;) I also apologize for the lack of doodles, but dont worry! Im preparing a special one for later <33

After that night where SY offered Binghe an umbrella, things have certainly… changed. Unlike before, where SY spent most of his time mapping away at the ridiculously complex castle hallways and carefully marking away which times it was most likely for SY to be able to get close to Xin Mo, alongside doing his ‘servant’ duties of gathering dirty laundry and cleaning a room here and there, his routine had been suddenly adjusted; now, while he still needed to do everything he was doing before, his servant duties consisted of accompanying the chosen Wife Of The Day.

Or, well, that’s how one of the higher ranking staff had put it, that he was to attend to whatever wife Lord Luo decided to entertain for the day, but honestly, SY was starting to suspect that that had been a convoluted way for Binghe to have SY around whenever he wanted, which…. Was frankly quite worrying! To have the golden protagonist keep his eyes glued on his back almost every second they were in the same room, which - if SY looked back- usually led to Binghe looking away in a (bad) attempt to pretend he wasn’t glaring daggers at SY was more than enough for SY to think the Emperor was probably plotting his demise.

What else could it be? Specially with the way Binghe’s hand seemed to always be lightly tugging at the tassel on his hair every time SY caught him looking, he suspects Binghe had caught onto SY not actually being a servant, and instead that weird guy he saw before he fell into hell that one time. What if Binghe thought SY was somehow involved into the Abyss Incident?? Lord Luo, please have mercy on this servant!

Though, maybe the strangest part of it all, was that sometimes Binghe and SY would just… talk. Usually when the Wife Of The Day was doing something else (e.g. playing music for her husband, or practicing archery, or doing anything that didn’t involve LBH 100% at her side), Binghe would just start musing out loud about the strangest things. It started with questions that were all fair to ask, like ‘How come this servant is a human in the demon realm’, or ‘How come this servant has such short hair’ (SY bullshitted something about being a former slave) but eventually it shifted to questions that were a bit more… random. Or, well, not even questions, musings that Binghe muttered out loud but clearly wanted SY’s input.

It started with minimal things, like Binghe wondering about some type of monster he wanted to fight but he forgot how to do it without damaging the fur too much, which, after a minute of silence and a not-so-subtle look at SY, led to SY nerding out and saying not only the monsters weakness, but what could be done with every important part of the body. Though, the day after that SY realized how strange it was that Binghe was wondering that out loud, since he only fought that monster well into his time as an Emperor, and he swore he remembered one of the wives gushing about her new bracelet that was made from the rare bones of that creature just a few days ago…

Anyways, it continued with questions of similar nature: musings on how to kill a monster Binghe would have no problem killing, to what he should eat for dinner, to what gift should he get for Wife Of The Day. Of course, SY answered all the ‘questions’, and sometimes they even made it to having an actual conversation! Sure, it was a little stilted, SY could not figure out for the life of him why the great Lord Luo was interacting with a random servant, but one day it all finally clicked to him. Binghe had been in the middle of ‘musing’ about hair oils(??), when SY couldn’t help but interrupt him:

“Ah…. Apologies if this lowly servant is overstepping, My Lord, but does My Lord just want someone to talk to?”

A few emotions flashed through Binghe's face quickly enough for SY to not be able to decifer any of them, but eventually landing on a sheepish smile. "This Lord has been found out."

Oh, how cute! And how sad! SY had noticed when SQH was just showing him his shitty story how sad that LBH, even after getting the world to bow at his feet, never really had friendships. Sure, he still had all the love he could want, but sometimes people need friends to talk to, not lovers!

While he knew that he shouldn't interact with characters in world overlooked by the System unless they were transmigrators, SY couldn't help but feel that the situation was dire enough that LBH would turn to a no-name servant in this time of desperation. And it would be a great opportunity to study Xin Mo more closely as well! If SY showed LBH the wonders of friendship, maybe he could pass by his supervisor that he only had to do what was necessary for this world to not implode on itself.

Besides, who could even say no to such a handsome man such as LBH? Is as the old saying goes: what the protagonist wants, he shall have.

*

SY's friendship plan has been going great! After figuring out Binghe's intentions, it seems all of the protagonists reservations flew out the window, and SY was now responsible for being Binghe's personal retainer. Not that that meant too much, since Binghe liked to bend the rules to his liking, and some tasks that should be SY's responsability sometimes were pushed to another servant or Binghe himself made them (which, ???)

Mostly, SY stood at Binghe's side, served tea, was used so Binghe could bounce ideas off of someone, and tended to finer details. All of that very much manageable, if not for the weird mood swings LBH would have sometimes. Yuan, as he has told Binghe was his name after being too scared of the repercutions of using 'Shen', was to accompany him all the time, but sometimes not all the time, or else LBH would get moody; Yuan was to listen to LBH's ideas and plans, and should always comment back or else Binghe would feel neglected, but not too much or else, as LBH had put it, could 'bring back bad memories'; Yuan was to tend to LBH's night routine, even as far as to brush his hair, and if he refused LBH (again) get all moody, but he couldn't brush too much, and he had to do at least one braid but NEVER touch the old, frizzy braid that still had that damn tassle-

Honestly, it was a careful game of balance, which reminded SY more often than not of a child that got mad when their older sibling didn't quite understand the redundant rules they made for a make-believe. Any other person would get fed up, and probably scared of Binghe's constant mood swings, but SY had him all figured out, and his resilience proved to be useful time and time again, since most of the time after his sour mood passed, Binghe would come crawling back with the most pitiful face ever, and what was SY to do? As LBH's friend, it was his duty to hug him and pat his head! (And no one could judge him for that, since if he didn't pat Binghe's head, his mood would plummet all over again.)

Though... SY did feel kind of bad. He wouldn't be able to stay with Binghe forever, and would even need to potentially steal his all-powerful sword for a little bit so everything wouldn't get corrupted. Honestly, the only thing keeping SY from worrying about being labled as a traitor and potentially getting killed was that he would just go back to the System's office and go on with his life.

*

LBH, eventually, caught onto SY's plan on leaving - really, it was only a matter of time. After that fateful encounter with that other SQQ, LBH had found himself in rather pitiful state, questioning everything he knew until that moment and wondering why he couldn't achieve that happiness, and desperately trying to search for a SQQ of his own. He had contemplated going back to that first world, but what would it even matter? Even if he took SQQ by force, his heart would still be with that other LBH, and Binghe couldn't bear the thought that he wouldn't be everything in SQQ's world, as he had become for LBH.

Specially after Meng Mo had one day interupted his carefully crafted dream of an idelic world and pointed out some curious memories he'd almost forgotten about. That day, when back in his childhood, when he'd been beaten up by a buch of older kids and hallucinated a man in strange clothes before passing out and waking up protected from the rain. Or when he thought he'd lost his jade pendant forever, only to magically appear in the cabin later.

Or the strange man in the Immortal Alliance Conference.

After SQQ- SJ , that good-for-nothing scum- pushed him to the Abyss, he tried his best to never think about that day again, too scared by how weak he'd been, pleading to man that would sell his soul for one more night at that brothel of his if he could, but now... Now that he could mold his dreamscape any way he wanted, he could look back with a clear mind, which eventually led to the conclusion: It must have been the same person. The same strangely dressed man that helped him in his childhood somehow appeared at the Immortal Alliance again, and even had left provisions right next to where Binghe had fallen.

He'd convinced himself, after many, many years of wishing for a miracle, that he's simply imagined the man, one last thread to keep himself from going insane, but after meeting the other SQQ...

And then Yuan came in. A new servant that seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

It took some observation, and a lot preparing himself to face dissapointment that maybe he was just projecting, putting the image of someone else onto a random man, but that day, when LBH was wondering if he was just wasting time, that that beautiful dream of having his version of SQQ would not happen any time in this world, that maybe he really should just go look at other worlds; after all, if it happened once, it had to happen again, right? Not that it mattered in the end, since while he spireled, much to Xin Mo's pleasure, an umbrella was put over his head, and all his doubts had washed away.

Yuan had to be his version of SQQ, it had to be. And after all his effort of getting close to him, after going so far to keep Yuan at his side, even if he still battled with that his perception of SJ and the other SQQ sometimes overlapping with Yuan's image, even if he still wasn't ready to let go of that one braid, he was becoming more and more sure in his assumption that his SQQ had come to him. Everything was going as planned, and LBH was in track to finally begin to properly court him, and yet-

He was sure Yuan wanted to leave. He wasn't sure why, not how he would do that, maybe just dissapear like he had all those years ago and either only appear again 5, 10, 100 years in the future or go back to wherever he came from in the first place. But LBH knew Yuan wanted to leave, that he needed to complete whatever mission he had (after LBH managed to pry that out of his dreams, which where another source of confusion, with how absurdly difficult they were to even get a grasp of), and that, under any circumstances, he could let Yuan escape his sight.

Not again. Never again.

Binghe had become even stickier in the last few weeks. Not that SY minded, it was very cute to see such a different side from the cool, badass Lord Luo, but SY was running out of time. Since Binghe became stickier, his mood swings had worsened even more, now not wanting SY to be anywhere that Binghe wasn't, and Xin Mo seemed to be thriving off of whatever was making Binghe extra protective, though it was becoming a genuine problem now, since Binghe suddenly refused to see any of his wive's to deal with the Xin Mo problem, and he seemed to be on the verge of qi deviation at all times.

In fact, the only reason Binghe hadn't already qi deviated was because SY was abusing his Personal System and chipping away at the qi deviation in Binghe's night routine, since it was the only time where he was physically very close to Binghe and could spend long periods of time manually coding away at the System screen without it looking suspicious.

But, as if that wasn't enough of a problem, since Xin Mo was having the time of it's life recently, the virus clinging to the sword was also getting stronger, leaving even more residuals all along the castle and bordering on infecting Binghe himself.

His Scissors where thankfully, repaired, and his sweet, sweet manager was even kind enough to send him some extra energy supplies, but at the rate the virus was spreading, he was worrying that he would have to deal with the source as soon as possible or else it would become to strong to deal with it in a non-destructive way.

He... Didn't want to leave Binghe just yet, specially since he wanted SY's attention more than ever recently, but...

No, he needed to do this; their time together was never supposed to be eternal anyways, and if he let the virus spread, he would only be putting LBH's life in danger, and he couldn't continue living with himself after that. He decided he would fix the virus at night, while Binghe slept, and by the next morning he would be gone - he would have, after all, just enough energy to go back to the office.

He just hoped Binghe would be able to forgive him later.

When night came, and SY got to doing the usual night preparations, it just felt like an extra needle being stabbed in his heart when, while brushing Binghe's hair, Binghe looks back uncharacteristicly anxious, and asks if SY can undo the braid and remake it. SY does, and if Binghe notices SY takes extra long to pamper him that night, he says nothing.

When SY is sure Binghe is asleep, he sneaks out of his room and heads to back to Binghe's. Yeah, maybe he stalls a bit with snipping off every piece of the residual virus he came across, but one could argue he was just being extra thorough with his job.

The excuse, unfortunately, didn't last long and eventually he found himself in front of Binghe's room, staring at the door as if he was about to be sentenced to death. After a few minutes of reminding himself that he needed to do this, he took a deep breath and slowly opened the doors. Binghe usually slept with the sword perched right beside his bed, so SY would probably have to use the System and put Binghe in an extra deep sleep if he wanted to make sure the other didn't wake-

The moment he places a foot inside, though, he realizes something is wrong; the room is empty, Binghe is not asleep in his bed and Xin Mo is not besides the bed. Oh, oh no, had Binghe-

"A-Yuan." Binghe says, and SY nearly jumps as he turns around. There LBH stands in the middle of the hallway, not even in his sleeping robes, with a hand clutched tightly on Xin Mo's handle. His eyes are watery but no tears spill.

SY tries to speak but finds he doesn't even know what to say, he can't even try to deny that he's up to something, since his gigantic Scissors are just out an about. Still, he tries to make Binghe understand, say that he needs to do this, and after this Binghe won't have to worry about anything anymore. Though it barely seems like Binghe is listening, and eventually just cuts in when SY starts to say anything in his panic.

"This is what A-Yuan wants, right?" He asks, extending one arm and presenting the glitched out Xin Mo. SY doesn't even have the chance to find an excuse, as Binghe immediately continues. "Than take it."

"Wh- Huh?" "Take it."

He's so shocked he almost drops his Scissors. What does he mean 'take it'??? Binghe has to know everything that's at stake here! He doesn't even know what SY wants to do with it! He tries to say that, how Binghe shouldn't just hand the sword to anyone like that, but a sudden burst of energy set his priorities straight. Shit- The virus! It's growing by the second, at this point SY will have to cut Xin Mo-

"...Binghe, I-" "I don't care what A-Yuan wants with Xin Mo! Take it, use it, break it if you want, I don't care! But if A-Yuan takes it, than he will have to stay." "Binghe, that's not..." "Why not?! That's your goal, right? Do whatever it is that you want to do with Xin Mo? Than here you go, A-Yuan can do it, but I won't let you leave me again."

SY can't even mask when his eyes dart towards the tassle on Binghe's new braid. Binghe just clenched his jaw, but it feels like confirmation enough.

He adjusts his grip on the Scissors, and, as he has nothing else to hide, dispels the System's illusion, his simple clothes glitching out to reveal the System's uniform. Binghe's eyes fill even more with tears, but none fall."

"I... I'll have to go back, Binghe." "No." "Binghe, listen to me, I-" "No. No! A-Yuan will get Xin Mo, and then he will stay." "I-" "You will stay! I can't-" Binghe can't even finish his sentence before he has to choke out a sob.

The virus starts warping the air around it, and slowly crawling up Binghe's arm. SY's decision has practically been made for him. He lifts the Scissors. Binghe pushes Xin Mo forward.

"...I'll come back." "A-Yuan-" "I'll come back, Binghe." One single tear falls and his arm jerks, not knowing if he trusts SY's words or not. He still his arm as the Scissor blades encircle Xin Mo.

"A-Yuan..." "I'll come back, I promise." "..." "I promise."

"......Okay."

Shen Yuan cuts Xin Mo.

[ashkabbom]

Temporary stresses - Mouthwashing

A/n: I disappeared but I'm back. I finished school and I'm officially on vacation 😋. I had another idea initially, but then I gave up writing to Curly with that one.🎀 Tell me if I wrote something wrong, English is not my first language and I use a translator a lot.

I wanted a story with a happy ending, although it wasn't supposed to end 100% like that 😭

Versão em português no wattpad: Livro de One Shots - Mouthwashing (Conta: ashkabbom)

•Captain Curly x Fem!Reader

Summary/Synopsis: You hate being emotionally raw and your husband has been acting strange lately.

Notes: I wrote this with a happy ending, but in situations like this stress can actually be very dangerous, so be careful if you are going to do this to someone or if you are the person to receive this one day.

You were uncomfortable, to say the least.

It had been seconds, minutes, HOURS, since he had answered you, he avoided you whenever he could! The worst part is that you don't know the reason for all this, even though you told him to tell you when something was bothering him.

He's been acting kind of strange since yesterday. It seemed like you were the only one who was out of touch with all that nervousness and discomfort.

You had been a bit paranoid for some time now, because of these attitudes you didn't know if you had done something and it was eating you alive.

Searching through all your memories and finding nothing you realize you did wrong. Maybe he just got tired?

"I did everything like I always did..." You were rambling on to yourself. Maybe you said something wrong? You know very well that words, no matter how simple they are sometimes, can hurt.

This was all giving you a huge headache and leaving you a mess of emotions. You were just too exhausted.

You were out of the house now, on your lunch break from work, messing around on your phone for a few minutes, more specifically texting your husband, hoping he would answer you like he always did.

He didn't answer you properly, the messages were short and seemed more direct than ever, your husband didn't write and talk to you like that. God, you just wanted to go home.

"You've got that look on your face again." You hear your co-worker, Linda, say and let out a sigh. "What happened now?"

"This is the fourth time we've seen you with that sad, sullen puppy face in the space of 15 minutes," her other friend, Charlotte, says..

"Do you think I'm old?" You ask suddenly.

"What happened to 'Hi friend, I missed you too'? It doesn't exist anymore?" The first woman says.

"Exactly, calm down. You're not old, you're perfect for your age. And old age comes to everyone! It's inevitable." The second friend explains with a raised eyebrow.

"But now it's so different... When we met I was different, my hair, my body... My age..."

"Girl, seriously, what happened? You haven't had these low self-esteem spikes in months, you were so happy" Charlotte says with a sad tone, sitting down next to you.

"That's the problem, I don't know what happened... Since yesterday Curly has been acting a bit strange, avoiding me and being vague at times, but at the same time he's been very short and direct." You think about what your morning had been like that day.

"Oh my, don't be like that, men are a mess all by themselves. I'm not going to put ideas in your head, but let us know if you need help with that." Linda says, running her hand over your back.

"You're still as beautiful as the day you met, so don't worry. If he's going blind and can't see it, take the trash out of your house before it starts stinking up the whole house" Charlotte says, making it clear what she originally meant.

"I just don't know if something happened and he didn't tell me, if I did something and he was uncomfortable..." You love your husband with all your heart, otherwise you wouldn't have married him.

"Girl, put your cards on the table and that man against the wall, if something is going on he will tell you, he is not a lying man" Charlotte advises you in a lighter way now.

"She's right, you have to talk to him, but really talk to him. Just starting a conversation with him won't make him tell you anything... Ask what's going on and if everything is okay." Linda hugs you affectionately. Honestly, maybe this stress is just in your head? You don't know.

"Okay okay, but I'll do it after work, there's still a few more hours until it's time to leave." Grumbling you and your friends get up, heading towards the door while talking about anything now.

You don't know what you would do without them.

Hours had passed since that conversation, it was already getting dark and you were driving home almost completely peacefully.

Being with your friends relieved you a lot, but you still had a little bit of a nagging feeling, not to mention that you also knew that life is not a strawberry and anything can happen.

You were together for 11 years, dating for 4 years and married for 7 years. There was no reason for it all to go down the drain. At least you told yourself that.

You had texted him earlier, saying you were going home now... He hadn't even seen the message, but that's okay! Sometimes he's just busy with... Anything, you think.

Parking the car, you sigh, You hated feeling as tired as you had been feeling lately, you wish you could enjoy some of your time at home instead of just passing out in bed. On the bright side, you were on vacation from your job in 2 days. Just two more days.

Today you would confront him! You would know what was going on with him lately and everything would be okay! Everything has to be okay.

You open the door to the living room and notice the loud silence, seeping through your entire house. You didn't have a good feeling about this..

"Curly? Love?" You call out as you walk through the door and into the room, feeling a little anxious.

You turn to the kitchen and then–

"SURPRISE!" Some voices say/scream at the same time, scaring you at first, but then you notice the cake on the table, balloons, birthday hats, coxinha and other things on the table.

A wave of relief washes over you.

It was your birthday today.

"Happy birthday my love, you don't know how much- Wow, hey, hey! What happened? Why are you crying?" Your husband's cheerful tone soon fades, quickly replaced by a tone of concern.

You hadn't even realized that the wave of relief had brought you to tears, you were crying.

Did something happen? Is she okay?" Anya, Curly's work friend and maid of honor at your wedding a few years ago, asks worriedly, approaching.

"Honey, is something hurting?! Do you need anything? Anything at all? Do you need to go to the hospital?" He was quick to come closer, putting his arms around you as he checked your body with his tender and concerned gaze. God, this was all you wanted.

You try to explain, through your tears, that you're okay, that everything is okay now.

"I thought-" You stop to sniff a few times "I thought you were mad at me. Acting different and distant."

"I told you you sounded thick, but it's amazing how your head doesn't work sometimes." You hear Swansea's voice and let out a laugh through your tears.

"I'm so happy that everything is okay and that you're not mad at me." You explain as you wipe away your tears, soon feeling Curly's hand on your cheek while the other rests on your waist.

"I'm sorry my love, I would never be mad or upset with you, a thousand apologies darling" He says as he peppers your face with kisses, apologizing several times. "Please, I'm so sorry"

"We told him to hide it and not tell you or give you any hints about your surprise party and such, since last time he ended up telling you... But I think asking him to disguise himself wasn't... the best idea" Daisuke says as he analyzes the situation with a disappointed face.

You laugh a little and soon they join you, then a small silence arises, but it is quickly broken.

"So?" Swansea begins

""Is everything okay in there?" Anya asks, looking at you calmly and with a little concern. "Are you feeling any pain?"

"How are you and she?" Daisuke asks in the most direct way.

You sniff one last time and look down, running your hand over your belly.

"I will never make you cry like that again." He finishes with a peck on the lips and runs his hand over your belly. "I will never worry the two girls in my life again. I promise"

You look at him fondly. "We're fine, we just went through a hurricane today and yesterday." You laugh lightly. "Now let's eat this cake, I'm hungry for two."

The others laugh at your answer and soon everyone gathers around the table to celebrate your birthday.

You really hope you never have to go through that worry again, not even Curly would do it again.

You have the most caring husband and your daughter would have the best dad.

[theminecraftbee]

hello second. this week's wildcard got a friend to start reading hgcz and now because of that im back In The Trenches. d. do you have any thoughts. on soup group

Gem thumps her head against the bar and groans. Outside, the 'open' sign is not lit. It is 10 AM, and it is time for neither customers nor villainy. If it were time for customers, Gem would probably be in the secret base in the former-Speakeasy basement (she is, apparently, not suited for customer service). If it were time for villainy, well, Gem would either be there or on the streets, causing the kinds of problems only she and her gun can cause.

No, it is time for none of those things. Instead, it is time for something far worse: paperwork.

"I don't need health insurance!" Gem says. "Or life insurance! Or insurance-insurance! I'm pretty sure I'm like, uninsurable? On account of technically only sort of being a real person? It's not like I can go back to the Farm and go 'oh by the way, I need my birth certificate' now, it's defunct!"

"Everyone needs health insurance," Impulse says gravely.

"No, I don't! We see Doctor Zombie! You know, the black market doctor? The one who half the villains and vigilantes in the city see? I pay her in like, secrets and cadavers, not--"

"Don't admit that, the cops'll get you," Pearl says, throwing a dart at the bar's dartboard.

"You think that's what they're going to arrest me for? Giving dead bodies to the doctor? Because like, man, they're choosing the weirdest crime to finally get me for if so" Gem asks.

"I mean, maybe!" Pearl says.

"None of us are cops and you're getting health insurance. Now choose your most airtight fake ID," Impulse says, and then, seemingly thinking twice about getting trying to get Gem to choose which of her four currently-unburnt fake identities to go with, grabs her wallet and starts going through it himself. She lifts her head from the bar, accepting she's lost this argument.

"My SSN is six," Gem says to him dryly. He rolls his eyes and continues meticulously filling out paperwork. She sighs and turns to Pearl. "Really, can you believe this man? Health insurance! You know, at this rate I'm going to be told I'm a necessary budget cut a second time. And if the identity he chooses gets burnt, you know that'll just lead one of the people hunting us down right back to this bar. Knowing our luck, it'll be Hotguy or Cuteguy. Ugh, imagine."

She expects Pearl to joke back. Instead she's met with Pearl's face, tired and sad and fond all at once.

"Is it really so much to think he just wants to take care of you?" Pearl asks.

Gem listens as, for a moment, the scratch of Impulse's pen against the paper stops. He sighs. A low roll of fog spreads out across the bar. He resumes writing.

"I don't like, need taken care of," Gem says.

Pearl's expression gets a little more exhausted.

"Have you considered that I also want to take care of you? To do something I know--a little impact, while we can? For someone who it won't hurt to give that help to?"

Gem goes silent.

"Think of it as weapons maintenance," Impulse rumbles, and it makes it make sense but before Gem can say so, Pearl stabs one of the darts into the dartboard so hard it rips.

"Stop saying it like that," she says.

"Sorry," Impulse and Gem say at the same time.

"I don't know what I'm going to do with you two," Pearl says. "I'm going to go get the backup. That college group that's real bad at darts normally comes in today."

She stalks to the back of the bar. Gem looks over at Impulse. Impulse looks back. She suspects their expressions are equally apologetic. They're also equally fond, and equally, well...

"You know, sometimes I wonder if she's going to be okay," Impulse says.

"Yeah," Gem says.

"I do actually need an SSN for... Aries Eva?"

"I'll get that for you. It's just--it's not actually the insurance I mind. You sure you want me legally tied to your small business?" Gem asks.

"Why wouldn't I? It's not like she's wrong," Impulse says, and Gem breathes out herself, doesn't comment on the growing fog, and writes down a number. She resolves not to use the health insurance. It's too much of a risk that someone will track it back to these people who think she's worth taking care of.

Still. She supposes it's not that bad to have.

[voidingintotheshout]

I was thinking about this a couple of days ago. So the general expectation is, there’s this ladder to success, and you might be able to only get up one or two rungs: in your lifetime you move from a crummy neighborhood to a decent one; or you go from a family with no history of college to having a white-collar job. That’s it. If you’re lucky, your kid will take up where you left off and move a couple more steps up the ladder, that is if they don’t end up majoring in the humanities.

However, every once in a while, there’s someone because of either luck or talent, ends up being what I call a ladder jumper. They have like an inexplicable 10 foot vertical leap, and just get to the top and they stand with all of their established cronies and do the work of the establishment claiming that it’s absolutely possible to succeed and that they did it. They became a huge success so clearly it’s possible. They end up reinforcing this idea that if you’re not succeeding, you just don’t have that magical it factor that they clearly do. There are so many athletes and musicians that end up becoming conservative Who are ladder jumpers. They manage to go from the bottom of the ladder all the way to the top in only 20 years and if they can do it, what’s your problem? Some of them are very nice and some of them aren’t but a lot of them that have achieved massive amounts of success, they just don’t really identify with people at the bottom anymore. Worse yet, they don’t feel any responsibility for all the people with broken legs at the bottom of that ladder, who tried to jump to the top like they did, and all they got was prison, brokenness, or feeling like a failure. The world is littered with people who sacrificed a potentially good education at the possibility of being a ladder jumper in the world of music or sports. People that got in jail or in the ground messing around with selling drugs or crime, to try to jump to the top of that ladder like the people they idolize. 

Like, take Beyoncé. I would never be callous enough to say that she’s not a good person, but whenever I’m in a conversation with her fans, and they talk about her giving back to her community, I say the same thing “if she actually wanted to give back to the black community, she would open up a bank with her millions of dollars and provides small loans for people in the black community to buy houses and businesses. That will be a lot better than starting some stupid charity.” Maybe it’s just because they don’t wanna disagree with me but I think it’s because all of them would rather these ladder jumpers would just open up a bank to provide loans to the communities that they grew up in, but they don’t want to. Deep down, they like their place at the top, and they don’t want to risk losing that messing around with a bunch of poor/undeserving people. 

[silversurfersx]

pleaseeeeee give us a part 2 of filns of anger PLEASEEEEEEJSJDHNDE IM BEGGING

Christmas pressnt to us maybe?!? 🙏🙏🙏🙏😔😔😔😔

It’s the first of December, close enough, haha

Had the beginning of this actually in my notes since I posted the first part, but I hadn’t really finshed it, but I saw a few people now ask for a part two so here it goes.

I don’t really know how to feel about this, but anyway

Happy December, guys 🎄

Films of Anger | pt. 2

Part one

sebastian vettel x schumacher!reader

summary: basically brocedes 2.0 (with a happier ending), childhood friends turned rivals turned back into friends in a sappy way

warning: a bit of angst and fluff, swearing

It's been weeks, almost months, since you last spoke to Sebastian and it started to get to you. You weren't used to this kind of cold distance.

Distance as such was never much of a problem, seeing as both of you were busy in different places around the world. But this was not like those times.

You saw Sebastian almost all the time, he was always there like your own shadow, but just like it, he didn't speak a word to you. He didn't even dare to look at you (at least not when you were). He only ever did look when he knew you weren't.

There was a heavy feeling building up in his chest when he noticed you around and wanted to talk to you, hang out with you, just like you always did, but something stopped him.

You felt similar. You wanted your best friend back. The one who would always play video games with you after training. The one you would sneak out with to eat stuff you weren't supposed to. You wanted your other half back. The one that was so close yet so far out of reach. It pained you to look at him and there were times, especially after a bad race, when all you wanted to do was run to him for comfort. But you couldn't. Or at least you felt like you shouldn't.

Michael watched the whole situation from the outside. He saw the longing looks the both of you threw at each other. His own heart felt heavy at the thought of your friendship ending. Corinna and him witnessed the joy brought to your face whenever his name was called. Though now there wasn't anything like it, quite the opposite actually. And it was painful to witness for both him and his wife, knowing that the tight bond knitting the two of you together was broken over something like that. They wanted to do something to stop it from breaking any further, but both felt like only you could do that.

Your brother and sister alike noticed the lack of Sebastian around. Mick and you were playing a game of one on one, something you had done since he was very young. Both inspired by your fathers own love for football.

"Why don't you hang out with Seb anymore?" He asked shooting the ball towards your goal, but you blocked.

You didn't want to tell Mick what truly had happened between the two of you, because you weren't really sure either. Dribbling past him, you used the distraction as a way to hold off your answer. Needing a moment to think anyway.

Of course you had an accident, which you still didn't think was on you, but that wasn't new. The two of you had a few crashes over the years, sometimes caused by either one of you, but you always reconciled. But not this time. Something was different. Or maybe it was just you. Maybe the two of you had just drifted apart over the years, at minimum speed, that it only took one moment of anger from the both of you to cut the string that held you close.

"I don't really know Micky. We had a fight and need some time to calm down, I guess." You answered your brother, who knocked the ball away from you.

"Hey!" You shouted watching him kick the ball inside the net of your goal.

Mick grinned at the goal, before turning back to you. "But you are still friends, right?"

You didn't answer, not sure yourself. It still felt like you were friends, even if neither of you spoke. You reckoned that that would never change. But you didn't know how he felt, so you just answered for yourself. "Yes."

"Good. You too sappy without him." Mick nodded, taking the ball, you had just talked out of the net with your feet, away from you and once again dribbling it away from you, once again scoring. You laughed shaink your head at his cheekiness.

"There was a time when I used to beat you all the time."

"Yeah, when I was five." Mick chuckled, preparing to once again take control of the ball.

"Ey, be quiet." You gently pushed your brother. The blonde laughed while you tried not to be hurt being beat by a 12 year old.

The next race weekend approached quicker than you'd hoped and over was the small break you had at home. You and your father both packed your bags and got ready to race once again.

"Fernando!" You called out to the Spaniard, running down pit lane, nodding at him when he turned around.

The both of your wearing the familiar Ferrari red, marking you teammates.

"Good morning, y/n." He greeted you stopping for you to catch up and walk down the pit lane together.

"Morning, Nando. How was your time off, done anything fun?" You started the conversation, holding your hand up to cover your eyes from the bright sun.

You had to admit you missed what Fernando was saying, as you just passed the RedBull Garage and you unintentionally made eye contact with a very familiar RedBull driver. You held eye contact, neither of you ready to break it.

The usual distance you recently felt coming from him wasn't there. It was as if the short break betwene the races kind of reduced the anger, or whatever it was, from his mind.

You had turned your head away from him, back to Fernando, but you could have sworn you saw him frown sadly as you broke eye contact.

It wasn't a big change in behaviour, but it still felt weird in your mind, not used to him being so nice once again. Or at least civil. And to even acknowledge you properly.

You hoped that it wasn't just some kind of mind play, from him, but you knew that that wasn't his thing. At least it hadn't been with you.

It was during the qualifying session that you were in a somewhat fight with Sebastian. It wasn't much of a fight as you knew that this was just quali and not the race, yet.

So neither of you intentionally raced the other, but you did aim to beat his time. And it appeared he did too, as your time kept getting beaten by him.

Everytime your engineer told you your time, you requested to know Sebastian's as well, which he did give you, even if he was a bit unsure if he should. But as long as it encouraged you to drive faster, it wouldn't hurt. He thought.

Meanwhile you relived moments of your childhood. Back when your father and spent your evenings after school at the karting track. When no one else was present and it was only the two of you. His voice, soft but stern, was sounding in your head over the sound of the engine.

You remembered the moment you finished your lap, and took one of the corner as late as you dared to do. It took your breath away, but in the end you set your new personal lap record.

"That corner, yeah," Your father started. "If you take every corner, like you did that one, you'd beat them all."

You always followed his advice of course, but there was also always the possibly to do more. To go further. So you did.

And you went too far. Breaking too late, added with a strong wind in the wrong moment, suddely sent you into the wall.

Weirdly enough, the first thing you thought of when the car stopped was how horrible the media would react to yet another crash. The first one with Sebastian, was on you, according to them. The other times, after the initial crash, when you started to get a bit more aggressive with each other, was because of your hormones.

The times when you made just the tiniest mistake, was picked up by the media instantly. It was as if they were only waiting for you to slip up, to throw insults and doubts at you. To question whether you truly belonged in the world of formula one or if it was just there because of your family name.

Sebastian used to talk it all good. He mocked the media's stupidity to make you feel better. But of course, that didn't happen recently, which is why you felt even worse about all the comments being made, which only led to you doubting yourself more, with lead to you making even more mistakes. It was an endless circle.

Maybe adding onto your odd thoughts was your pounding head. Hopefully not a concussion. You tried to act tough, hiding your sick feelings, and aching body, quickly replying to your race engineer and pushing yourself out of the car.

You took a moment, after climbing out, to calm down. Sitting down on the body of the car, pretending liked you did that because you had to wait for the safety car and not because your body gave you a hard time.

'No weakness. Show no weakness.'

The voice in your head repeated. You kept your helmet on, even if you wished to just take it off to breathe better.

Marshall's surrounded you, made sure you were alright and then lead you towards the arriving safety car, while taking care of the crashed car.

___

"I don't know why I keep messing up so bad, Papa." You told him as you left the medical centre. The impact you had sustained was hard, 30G. But you tried to push through the aftermath. Michael came over to the medical centre right after qualifying and interviews (which you gladly didn't have to attend), to walk you back to the hospitality and then to the hotel. He wanted to make sure that you rest.

"Don't be too hard on yourself," Your father started. "that is what makes you mess up. You lose confidence and get scared."

Michael wasn't known for talking around the point when it came to racing. He felt that if there were words that can help you get better, they should be said, no matter how hurtful they may be. You knew that, it was always something you appreciated.

"I'm not scared." You replied honestly.

There may be some fear in your body when you drove, but that only fueled you to go further, to press for more. It wasn't the kind of fear that led you to be scared, but to go even harder than you thought would be possible. You loved the adrenaline, when you did something dangerous. It gave you an extra boost. "I think I just can't concentrate. I feel so... I don't know.

Michael watched you for a moment, halting in his words, as he let it sink in. Deep down he had his suspicions what might cause your loss in concentration.

"You need to talk to Sebastian." He announced. You bit your lip, but didn't say anything.

Michael was right, of course. He was most of the time. But you didn't know if you dared to speak to Sebastian, yet. You weren't scared of driving your car dangerously, but to talk to Sebastian. You were not that brave. Not yet at least.

Your father didn't really mention anything regarding Sebastian after that. He took you back to the hotel and insisted that you'd spent the rest of the day in bed, just as the medical team had ordered you to do. You didn't resist that order as you felt your body ache from every movement. You head was feeling liked it would explode. It was difficult for you to move your neck and raise your arms as the G-force hit you straight on.

After your father left, it wasn't difficult for you to fall asleep. And you stayed that way until you were awaken by a knock on your door in the late evening hours.

You didn't realise who stood in front of you for the first few moments, still too drunk on sleep.

"Sebastian?"

"Hey." He whispered, almost unsure if he should be there. "Uhm, your father gave me your hotel and uh room number, I just wanted to-"

You didn't know why you did what you did, but it just felt right to hug him right then and there. You felt Sebastian suck in a breath, before carefully hugging back, his grip so light in fear of putting a hand wrong and pushing you away from him.

Slowly you let go of him, frowning over your own actions. "Sorry, I don't know why I just did that."

Sebastian shook his head, smiling softly. "No, it's alright."

"I saw the crash today. It looked bad, I just wanted to make sure your were alright. I know we, uhm-" he looked for a word to describe your current relationship. "We haven't really talked in a bit, and I know that's kind of my fault, but I just felt so helpless, not being able to visit you after a crash like that because I felt like I'd lost every right to do so."

"You would never lose the right." You interrupted his rant, watching his hands nervously knit each other, while he watched them too scared to look at you. You remembered your fight with him and th way the words had stung. You were so angry with him whenever you remembered them, but now that he stood here, in front of you, looking like a sad puppy, you couldn't help but want to forget all of it.

"Well, after the shit that happened between us-" Sebastian argued.

"I know." You felt the same way, like you'd lost your right to care about anything regarding him. "I think we're just idiots."

Sebastian chuckled, nodding agreeing. "Yeah, we are. You more than me."

"Oh?" You replied teasingly, a tone which he didn’t quite pick up on. He looked up eyes wide, his mouth opening as apologies spilled out, in fear that he had pushed it too far once again.

"Hey, hey. It's alright, I was only joking. Probably not the best time to do that." You quickly replied to calm the poor guy down.

"No, you're fine." Sebastian stated. "I just… I want to fix what went wrong between us. I miss you. It was stupid to let such a thing do all of this. I was so wrong for doing this to you.“

You noticed how you still stood in the doorway, which probably wasn't the best place to have that type of discussion.

"Do you maybe want to come inside?" You stepped aside and held the door open for him.

"Oh." He whispered, also realising where exactly he was standing. "Yes, of course."

Sebastian stepped inside, and you closed the door. You turned back to look at him. He looked more than unsure of himself. Nervously fiddling with his fingers, wipping on his feet as he let his eyes move around the room, taking it all in.

“Listen, y/n. I know I messed up badly, I said things that were so incredibly shit. It was wrong for me to say all those things, to throw the same shit at you that the press does. I know that you didn’t get into f1 just because of your name, I should know that better than anyone else. I don’t know why I said that. I hate that I said those things and I regretted the words right after I said them.”

“Why didn’t you say anything then?” You asked, watching him patiently. Sebastian gulped before shaking his head. “I don’t know, I think I felt too ashamed and embarrassed.”

“That was really messed up, Seb.” You crossed your arms, frowning at him. Your chest felt heavy.

“I know. I know how you hate to be reduced to only your name, but I was just so angry at everything in that moment, that I let it out on you. It was so wrong and I am so incredibly sorry, y/n.”

You nodded, your own head filled with the moments he referred to.

Sebastian hesitated, his eye taking you in, analysing the way you feel. He knew you inside out, every little habit you had, he knew the meaning of. So he saw the hesitation inside you. How the voices in your head argued over whether to forgive or to fight him further.

"Please forgive me." He whispered, trying to aid the side of you wanting to forgive him.

Internally, that decision had been made some time ago. You knew Sebastian just as well as he knew you. You knew how he ticked and how he sometimes struggled with idioticy. Talking before really thinking, especially after being pumped on adrenaline.

He never truly means the words he spoke in anger. Sebastian was never the type to insult people, especially you. You could only think about the regret he had been carrying around these past weeks, almost overshadowing your own anger at him. Almost.

A part of you didn't want to forgive him just yet. It wanted prove that he really meant it, ignoring all the times he had already proven it. The times he cheered you up, speaking words of affirmation after the press made some ridiculous statement and spoke highly of you afterwards to everyone who'd listen, just to make them forget any bad word ever uttered.

And the more you thought about where or not to forgive him, you realised that you had already forgiven him. But you weren't able to fully admit that, yet.

"I'm really glad that you came." You answered instead, breaking the silence that started to build up.

"Yeah?" Sebastian asked, looking hopefully at you. His big blue eyes held a distant fear much like the one you felt when you thought it might be over. Which was now overshadowed by the light of hope for a rekindling.

"Yeah." You agreed honestly. "And I missed you too."

"Good." Sebastian smiled. "Then I don't feel sappy on my own."

"No."

"How are you, then?" Sebastian continued, looking you over. "I haven't heard much about the crash, only that it was like 30G. I've been worried."

You smiled at his words, the care in his voice brought a familiar warmth, one you had missed over the last few weeks. You went over to sit down on your bed, gesturing for Sebastian to join you. "I’m feeling better than earlier today, but still a bit weak. My head is pounding and I'm having a hard time with my neck and shoulders. But other than that I'm surprisingly fine."

"Are you cleared to drive tomorrow?" Sebastian asked while sitting down beside you.

"Yeah." Nodding you ran a hand through your hair. "They still want to do a check in the morning, but they said that I should be alright."

"So, you're gonna race?" He continued a bit worried, but he knew that even if he tried he wouldn’t be able to change your mind.

"What, scared I'll beat you?" You chuckled looking at his soft expression. Sebastian chuckled as well, shaking his head. "Always. No, but I was really worried. It looked a lot worse than how it ended up being. I though you might get seriously injured. And I know that that's part of the sport, but all I could think about was that I never apologised. That you might always believe that I couldn't stand you."

"Seb-" You halted in your words, before throwing your arms around your best friend. Pulling him towards you, his own arms pulling you closer. "I didn't think that you couldn't stand me, at least I hoped."

"But still. I wouldn't have known, that you didn't think that." He muttered against your shirt.

"You know now, and that is what counts." You reminded him, rubbing a hand up and down his back.

"Could we talk things through, get on common ground and get this over with. I really don't want something like this to happen again." Sebastian asked now with more confidence. " I don't want to lose you again over silly things."

"I don't want to lose you either over silly things, Sebby." You agreed using the nickname you hadn't used since you were kids. His groan of annoyance at fueled your laughter.

And for an moment then, it was like back when you were just kids, fueled by nothing but passion, friendship and capri-sun.

___

a/n: I feel like I should have added more drama, like a bit more beef between the two before they rekindled, but I didn’t have any ideas for more dialogue, lol.

[omnipresentlemon]

Do you have more Zaundads with Vi headcannons? I'm obsessed!!

Oh don’t worry I unfortunately think about them all the time and thus have plenty of headcanons! Enjoy!

- About a year after Felicia and Connol died, a horrible sickness swept through the Lanes and Vi caught it. She spent 4 days in bed, delirious from fever, crying for her parents. Silco spent every second by her bedside while Vander took care of the other kids, trying to keep her comfortable. She would only calm when lying on top of Silco, the steady beat of his heart soothing her to sleep.

- Even as an adult, Vi is super whiny when sick. She can handle physical pain no problem, but the second she’s sniffling? Oh, the misery. Caitlyn refuses to deal with it and sends her to Vander and Silco at the first sign of a cough.

- Vi hates being babied because she never wants to be seen as weak, but also deeply craves comfort and safety from her loved ones. The solution? Guerrilla Affection, as lovingly dubbed by Vander.

- Guerrilla Affection takes many forms. Vander pressing a quick kiss to her knuckles after bandaging them post-fight. Silco helping her trim her hair when it gets too long, fingers running a soothing pattern through the strands. Holding her just a smidge too tight in an embrace, only letting go when she pulls away. Always being a safe place to come home to.

- Silco actually approved of Caitlyn when Vi told her fathers they started dating. Her mother had always been an ally of Zaun and he knew Caitlyn had a good head on her shoulders and would keep his girl out of trouble.

- Vander however sulked for a week, not because he disapproved of Caitlyn, but because he didn’t want ANY of his kids dating. Dating meant forming a new life with someone and moving away and eventually forgetting all about your dear old dad. Silco repeatedly found him cuddled up with Powder, making the girl swear to Janna she’d live with them forever, which Powder gleefully agreed to. Silco would roll his eyes, fish their youngest of the greedy paws of his husband, and tell Vander to stop being such a child and to go man the bar.

- Alone time is hard to come by with four kids. Vander and Silco found that is they asked Vi “if she was responsible enough to keep everyone else entertained while they did super important, secret work in their room”, they could usually sneak away for an hour or two while Vi kept everyone else in line.

So many thoughts percolating, maybe it’s time to actually plan a fic for all of this…

[gamerwoo]

Bang Chan: The Girl Who Didn't Cry Wolf (Part Six)

Characters: Bang Chan x fem reader

Genre/warnings: werewolf au, fantasy, enemies-to-lovers-ish??, slowburn, werewolf/alpha!chan, (werewolf)hunter!reader, angst, fluff at the end, hurt/comfort (literally), knives, cutting open wounds, mentions of blood and puss and scars [dialogue in bold is meant to be korean]

Word count: 6,085

Summary: You've learned to do whatever you can to protect yourself after an incident almost a decade ago had your father and brother dragging you to a new country to start all over even though they blamed you for what happened. After finding yourself stuck in a house of werewolves, you're forced to come to terms with your feelings over what happened back home when the alpha imprints on you and his pack claims they're keeping you prisoner. You know exactly how this will end if you give in, and yet you can't seem to get yourself to leave the sweet and charming werewolf who's willing to do anything to make you comfortable. You're just hoping that maybe there'll be a good end this time.

Previous | Next | TGWDCW Masterlist

You waited another day to see if your side would get any better but it still hurt, and it was still shiny and red. It was even hot to the touch which you knew wasn’t good. You decided it most likely was infected, and you would take care of it once everyone went to bed that night. The problem was waiting that long because it hurt more than it did the last few days, so even just sitting the wrong way made you almost whimper in pain.

“Do you wanna go for a walk?” Chan asked as he walked into the den.

You looked up from your book, laying across one of the couches so it would cause less strain on your side, “No thank you.”

He frowned, “Why? You always like leaving the house, you said it’s boring staying inside.”

“Yeah, but…” you paused for a moment to think of a good excuse, “this one part is getting really good.”

Chan squinted at your book before giving you a look like he knew you were lying, “The Ultimate Guide to Gardening?”

“...I finally got to string beans.”

He sighed and took the book from between your hands, “_____, what’s wrong? Ever since Minho said...that to you, you haven’t wanted to do anything. Are you…depressed maybe?”

You knew Chan would go insane if he found out you were actually depressed being with him and living in his house. You weren’t, but if he ever thought you were, he’d surely go berserk trying to figure out what to do and how to fix it.

“If anything were going to make me depressed, it would be whatever’s goin’ on up here,” you pointed to your head, signifying your conflicting thoughts that hadn’t stopped since you first laid eyes on Chan, “rather than whatever comes out of Minho’s stupid mouth. I swear, I’m fine.”

“Did someone else say something?” he wondered.

“No.”

“Is it something physically bothering you?”

“No.”

“You know you can tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

Chan was frustrated, he made it clear when he groaned and ran his fingers through his hair, tugging on the strands, “Can you please just tell me so I can help you? It’s not healthy being cooped up inside all the time. You haven’t been outside in over 24 hours.”

“You’re the one who imprinted on a werewolf hunter,” you reminded him. “Stubborness is a given.”

“That’s still not my fault, it was out of my control,” he explained for the umpteenth time, “and stop trying to change the subject.”

Something else that was different after your talk with Chan was that you two hadn’t been that close again since. You went back to sleeping alone in your room, and the most contact the two of you had was his hand on your shoulder or back. It wasn’t that you told him to stop, but you didn’t necessarily make any moves to be closer to him. Your body did crave that contact again – more than just those touches, actually – but your mind would implode. You were still fighting with yourself and needed to be away from him, otherwise you knew you’d just turn into putty in his hands.

And then probably cry again. Which you were still embarrassed about.

“I’m tired, okay?” you lied easily. “I don’t sleep that well.”

He didn’t seem shocked by this. You knew he knew that you were hardly sleeping, so technically you weren’t lying to him. It just wasn’t the real reason you didn’t feel like moving lately.

“_____…” he sighed and knelt on the floor beside you. You twitched to sit up until you remembered you’d probably wince and give yourself away. “What can I do to help you sleep better? Have you tried Felix’s bed, maybe? It might be warmer.”

“It’s not that,” you shook your head. “The thoughts keep me up at night.”

Again, another not-lie.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he offered.

Your eyes narrowed slightly in an accusatory way, “You just want to stay with me again.”

“No, I–” he paused and then shrugged. “Well, yeah. But no.”

You rolled your eyes, shaking your head, “Give me one more night and if I don’t get a good night's sleep, you can…y’know.”

His eyes brightened but his mouth fell into a frown. You knew he was excited, but he was afraid you felt pressured to say that, “Are you sure? You don’t have to.”

“I know, but the only time I slept well was when I…stayed with you…”

He sighed softly, patting your hand that rested on the couch close to his shoulder, “Alright, _____. If that’s what you want.”

You scoffed and smiled, “Don’t act like you weren’t waiting for me to give in.”

“I just want you to finally get some sleep, ba-” he cut himself off, something you noticed he did a lot. You assumed he was about to call you pet names and realized he shouldn’t in case it made you uncomfortable. “I want things to get better for you.”

“Me too.”

-

You waited for about an hour after Chan left the bedroom after saying goodnight to get up and go to the bathroom. It wasn’t abnormal for you to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom so you hoped he wouldn’t assume anything of this. Maybe he was already asleep anyway – you did your best to keep your heartbeat and breathing even so he’d think you were safe and sound asleep.

Quietly closing the door, you locked it and flipped the light on before lifting up your shirt and peeling the bandage off. The ugly red and sheen were still there. You took a deep breath, going through the cupboards to get the leftover medicine that Chan had originally cleaned the wound out with, as well as the ointment you put over it to help it heal, and a pair of scissors that they kept with the medical supplies. With everything ready, you took the scissors in your hand and tried to steady your breathing.

You can do this, you told yourself, Just do it quick like back home.

Before you could do anything, though, there was a loud knock on the door, causing you to drop the scissors with a clatter that seemed somehow too loud.

“_____?” it was Felix’s voice that was talking to you. “Your heartbeat is really fast. Are you okay?”

Why is he awake? you asked yourself in a panic because you were pretty sure everyone was asleep like, y’know, normal people.

Obviously, your panicked silence mixed with the weird clang of metal made the wolf think you were definitely not okay. He had no problem forcing the door open and seeing your makeshift surgery setup on the counter of the bathroom sink. Then his golden eyes zeroed in on the inflamed wound on your side, sucking in a breath.

“That doesn’t look good…” he commented with a quiet tone, walking forward to examine it better. “How long has it been like this?”

“Few days,” you mumbled, embarrassed that you’d gotten caught.

Felix sighed, his warm fingertips brushing the wound every so slightly, but still enough for you to wince, “Yeah, this isn’t going to get better on its own. We’ll have to clean it out again. Although...it seems like that’s what you were trying to do.”

He glanced up at you through his lashes with a pointed look.

You frowned and stared anywhere but at the wolf, your face warming up, “I just didn’t want Chan knowing, okay? If I fixed it myself, he wouldn’t have anything to worry about or anyone to fight with it about.”

Felix straightened and cocked his head to the side slightly, “None of us can heal this for you without him knowing. I mean, maybe we could sneak you out to Josh, but we wouldn’t get back until morning…”

“No,” you hissed. “Chris absolutely cannot find out. If he knows this is infected, he’s gonna scream at Seungmin.”

It was no secret that Seungmin and Minho were on thin ice with the alpha. After Minho’s latest remark to you and how poorly he was treating you when he ran into you, and the two of them assaulting you twice, this would be the final nail in the coffin for sure.

Felix seemed to mull over your condition as he bit his lip as stared at the claw marks. He definitely had to do something about this, but how was he going to heal this himself and keep this from your mate? Chan knew everything that went on when it came to you. Hell, he probably could sense something was wrong while he slept right now. But Felix couldn’t just let you walk around with it infected or let you try to fix it yourself.

“Fine,” he finally sighed, staring at the tiled floor, “but I’ll need help from some of the others. Probably Changbin and Jisung.”

You nodded, “Anyone but Chan.”

-

You were laying down on the desk in Changbin’s room, looking up at the ceiling as several wolves ‘prepped you for surgery’ as Jisung put it. You still weren’t very comfortable with having any of the wolves touch you, but you refused to use Chan as a security blanket right now. If he found out that the wound Seungmin gave you was infected, he’d not only kill Seungmin, but he’d never leave your side for the rest of your life.

So you just stared at the ceiling and kept your thoughts to yourself, waiting for the wolves to be ready to cut you open or whatever their plan was. Minho seemed way too casual about it as he watched with arms folded, while the other three seemed kind of stressed about the whole ordeal. You didn’t really blame them since he had to keep this from their alpha, but why was Minho humming to himself and acting perfectly fine? Why was he even here other than the fact he had woken up because him and Jisung still had to share a bed?

Then again, he was also the one who hated you and was probably hoping you would bleed out or something. If you died and Chan managed to live through the heartbreak, he’d just find a new mate. Seemed like a win/win for Minho so he'd probably want to witness it.

You hated that you had that thought because it just made you feel worse, so you tried not to think about it.

“Okay,” Changbin sighed, stepping over to you with a sharp pocket knife in one hand, and a glass jar in the other, “let’s get this over with. Jisung?”

“Y-yeah,” Jisung’s eyes snapped to Changbin, the younger wolf clearly on-edge. “I’m ready.”

“We’re gonna start now,” Felix told you.

“You know the best option is to just tell Chan, right?” Minho asked, looking between the three wolves. “He’s the only thing that can take the pain away unless we bring her to one of the healers.”

“She had a point when she said he’ll reem Seungmin for this,” Changbin pointed out, looking back at Minho. “Do you want to break up a fight at midnight?”

When Minho just rolled his eyes and conceded, Changbin put the two objects on the desk beside you before opening up the jar. He spread the contents over your wound, numbing it so you wouldn’t feel as much of the pain as normal. Then Felix held up a t-shirt that he’d rolled up the long way.

You eyed him warily, “What’s that for?”

He frowned, “Just…put it in your mouth; trust me...”

You obediently opened your mouth and let the wolf place the cloth between your teeth. Then you realized it was to muffle your cries of pain – you hoped this would quiet most of the noise so Chan wouldn’t wake up. You hoped he was too sound asleep to hear you, but just in case, you’d have to try to be as quiet as possible.

“Ready?” Changbin asked, but the question was aimed at you now.

You nodded, not saying anything with the towel in your mouth.

Changbin looked over to the younger wolf, “Do you want to clean the wound or help hold her down?”

Jisung’s eyes widened in horror, while Minho’s widened for a different reason.

“Hold her down?” Minho repeated, sounding almost…excited.

“I don’t know if I can handle…all of that…” Jisung admitted, eyeing your wound.

“You make all of the medicine but can’t handle what it’s for?” Changbin asked.

“I’ll hold her down,” Minho immediately volunteered without any prompt to do so.

Changbin shot Minho a dirty look before he sighed, “Just help Minho hold her. Felix, try to comfort her, okay?”

Felix nodded, “Got it.”

The three wolves shifted around, Jisung and Minho standing on either side of you with their hands braced on your shoulders. Felix stood between them and looked down at you with his classic bright smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes like it usually did.

You saw Changbin pick something up out of the corner of your eye, and then you felt something sharp poke your side, but it was bearable. It wasn’t until Changbin dragged the blade of the knife down one of the scratches that you felt white hot pain in your side that made you arch off the table and groan into the shirt while your eyes screwed shut.

“It’s okay,” Felix shushed you as one of Minho’s hands moved down to your hip to force your body back down, “it’ll be over soon.”

“If she moves, I’ll accidentally cut where I’m not supposed to,” Changbin warned, his golden eyes staying trained on the wounds the whole time.

You bit down on the fabric as hard as you could, trying not to make any noise. You were sure your jaw was going to snap from how hard you were clenching on the shirt, and you couldn’t stop the tears pricking at the corners of your eyes, slipping out and down your temples to your hair. Felix tried to wipe most of them away while Jisung and Minho pressed you down into the wooden desk.

Changbin began cutting open the second one, sucking in a sharp breath when he saw just how much blood and puss there was. He was so sure they had cleaned the wound out, so he wondered if maybe somehow stress was affecting the healing process. Or maybe Chan just didn’t do the best job of cleaning it despite how thorough he was with wounds. Or maybe it was some third thing they didn’t know about. He wasn’t sure.

The whine you let out was bordering a scream, the third one hurting more than the others, and all three wolves by your head tried to calm you this time. Changbin paused and leaned his head toward the door like he was listening, before the door opened and a very-tired-looking Seungmin came in with a half-asleep Jeongin and a slightly-terrified Hyunjin behind him, taking in the scene before them: you laying on the desk desk, three of his brothers holding you down, Changbin cutting your side open, and all the blood and fluid coming out of you and onto the towels Changbin had laid out.

“What the fuck are you–?!”

Before Jeongin could even finish his question, Minho was in front of him, gripping the back of his head with one hand and firmly placing the other hand over his mouth, “If you wake up her mate, we’ll do this to you too. Got it?”

“We’re just draining her wound,” Changbin explained, not looking away from his work. “It’s infected pretty badly.”

Seungmin quickly gathered everything he needed to know, and realized this meant his ass was on the line, “You better know how to fix that before Chan wakes up.”

“A ‘thank you’ might be better than a threat,” Changbin sneered.

Jeongin, however, had decided he didn’t want any part in the ordeal, yawning, “You never saw me in here,” before he left the room.

“Channie is gonna be so mad,” Hyunjin panicked, looking around the room for at least one sane person.

“Then go back to bed so it’s one less person to be mad at,” Changbin said gruffly. “I’m busy.”

But instead, he closed the door and went to stand by Felix. Changbin called Minho back over to help with you, and Seungmin followed behind him and stood at the foot of the desk, taking everything in. You were squirming and crying, and Changbin couldn’t do anything when you were moving around so much.

“I know, _____,” Changbin sighed as Minho stood on the other side of him and put his hands firmly on your abdomen, “I’m sorry. I’m…almost done.”

This time when the door opened, you knew it could only be one person – unless Jeongin randomly decided he did want to be involved. But your eyes were so filled with tears that it became too blurry to see, and you couldn’t even keep your eyes open because of the pain.

Despite that, the voice you heard shook you to your very core, and actually sent pure fear straight through you. You’d never heard Chan sound this angry – not since the first night.

“What are you doing to her?!” Chan roared right before you felt his large, familiar hands cupping your face.

You didn’t dare open your eyes to meet his that you already knew were red with rage. But you weren’t going to let him get angry at his brothers who were only trying to help you. But you still had a shirt in your mouth being held there by your jaw that wouldn’t unclench because of the pain, therefore, you couldn’t do much to back up the wolves.

“Chan, the wound is infected,” Changbin told him, his voice trying to calm the alpha. “Look.”

When you heard him suck in a sharp breath, you knew he saw all the blood and puss that was in the wound. But then you heard the growl of Seungmin’s name leave his mouth, and you blindly tried to find your mate. Your hands flailed and searched, but Chan was already backing Seungmin into a corner.

“Um, a little help might be nice,” Minho spoke up. “Considering she’s, y’know, in severe pain.”

He paused and his head whipped around. Then he was rushing over to your side and crouching down beside you, his eyes full of hurt as he let out soft whimpers.

“_____,” Chan’s voice was much softer than it was previously, and the shirt was removed from your mouth, “I’m so sorry I let this happen.”

You opened your eyes now that the tears had cleared out more, and the pain of Changbin opening the first three scratches had become a dull, burning ache – you almost wanted to thank him for stopping before he went on to the final scratch. Chan’s eyes were still red, but they were soft when they looked at your paling face. You placed a hand on his cheek and felt somewhat better when Chan leaned into your touch.

“Please don’t get mad at Seungmin,” you croaked, stroking his cheek with your thumb. “Or any of them; they’re only trying to help.”

“You wouldn’t have to be in this mess if Seungmin hadn’t–”

“Seungmin didn’t know,” you cut him off with a whine, knowing it would be difficult defending the younger wolf from his alpha’s anger. “Nobody thought anyone would imprint on...the idiot hunter that broke in. He just wanted to protect his brothers.”

“Chan? Help?” Changbin prompted again, breaking the two of you out of your conversation. “I still have to get this last one open before she loses too much blood and I need you to help.”

Chan moved away from you, and your hand dropped back off the desk. Changbin moved slightly to the side to make room for him as Chan placed his large, warm hands on either side of your wound.

“I wish you asked me to do this originally,” he grumbled as his hands started to feel warmer and warmer, and the pain in your side faded more and more. Chan sucked in a sharp breath as he winced. “Can’t believe you let her be in this much pain.”

“Don’t worry, it gets worse,” Changbin told him before he placed the tip of his bloodied knife at the last mark. “Ready?”

He nodded, bracing himself for the worst of it.

Meanwhile, your body slowly untensed, relaxing onto the table. You didn’t feel anything. You wondered if Changbin was waiting for you to completely relax before he started again, but you just breathed heavily and enjoyed not feeling the sharp, hot pain of the knife. You actually didn’t even feel the sting of the other wounds Changbin had cut into your side. You felt a little warm there, but that was it. It was nice. You almost fell asleep like that.

Chan, however, felt everything. He twitched in the opposite direction of the side he felt the intense pain. He bit down on his lip, trying to keep his sounds of pain to himself but letting out grunts as his eyes squeezed shut. Seungmin could see from where he was standing that three claw marks had already been scarred into his side, matching the ones on yours. And as Changbin dragged the knife, the fourth one was carved into his skin.

These scars were bigger than most of the others that littered his skin. He had a few on his neck, and only a couple on his face. But the rest of his body – mostly his torso and arms – were covered. And yours were now his newest addition.

“Are you okay, _____?” Felix’s deep voice pulled you up from the waves of grogginess that were washing over you.

“”M okay,” you mumbled, your eyes closed. You were too tired and still felt the ghost of the pain you had felt before Chan’s hands were on you.

“How do you feel?”

“Warm…”

Felix looked to Chan, who was catching his breath after Changbin finally brought the knife away and began cleaning at the wound. This hurt less, but was still painful nonetheless and made him wince with every pass of the clean cloth and cotton balls that Changbin used.

“She’s tough, I’ll give her that,” Minho mumbled as he looked down at your face.

Your breathing was even through your lips and the pack could tell you’d fallen asleep. It was probably for the best anyway. 

“You alright, Channie?” Changbin asked quietly once he was done cleaning you up, looking down at the alpha that had removed his hands from your side and sat back on the floor, laying back on the floor.

His skin was covered in a sheen of sweat, so the cool hardwood felt nice on his back.

“I don’t know how she stood that,” he breathed, one arm laying across his forehead as he laid there with his eyes closed.

“Masochist,” Minho suggested, trying to lighten the mood.

Seungmin stayed silent, still standing in the corner where Chan had backed him into. His eyes stayed on your unmoving body, but his expression was unreadable.

-

The only thing keeping Chan from ripping Seungmin’s head off was making sure you were safe and would wake up. He stayed beside you as Changbin and Jisung worked to drain your wound properly and patch it back up, and he stayed beside you after he tucked you into his bed in a large t-shirt of his. 

Now, Chan was sitting on the hardwood floor, his hand reaching up to stroke your hair and cheek as he studied your face. He wanted to hold you closer but if you woke up with him like that, it might freak you out.

“Hey, Chris?” Felix spoke up as he entered the room. The alpha didn’t look at him, but hummed in acknowledgement. “I don’t think you should be so hard on Seungmin.”

“It’s his fault for scratching her in the first place,” Chan stated harshly. “He deserves whatever comes to him.”

“She told you not to be angry with him,” Felix reminded him, “and I know you can’t ignore that. She’ll be upset with you if she finds out you did anything to him.”

“Not that it’s any of my business,” Jeongin began as he wandered in through the open door, “but I couldn’t sleep because of all the noise, and from what I heard, I can’t help but think she didn’t want you to worry about her. Hyunjin said she told everyone not to tell you what they were doing.”

At that, Chan turned his head, “Why would she not want me to worry?”

“Because she does care about you, idiot,” the youngest wolf sighed. “She’s said it before – we’ve heard all the breakdowns.”

“It’s conflicting, we know, but she can’t help how she feels, either,” Felix said with a shrug. “Emotions are hard. We all know that.”

“Why would she care if I’m upset with Seungmin or not, though?” the alpha quizzed.

“I think that’s her way of caring about you and your relationship with us. You know how Minho and Seungmin are sometimes? I think that’s just her all the time.”

Chan turned back to you, watching your sleeping form. He wondered if you’d wake up soon so he could just ask you himself. He didn’t care how long it took, he’d coax the answer out of you even if it took days. He wanted to know if you really did truly care for him enough that you’d go through all this trouble so he wouldn’t worry about it. He thought it was stupid of you but it still was sweet if it was true.

Like you were connected enough to hear his silent plea, you shifted a bit and your eyes fluttered open. The three wolves studied your movements carefully as you pushed yourself to sit up, wincing and hissing in pain. Chan helped you up the rest of the way, doing most of the work until you were sitting up against the headboard.

“How do you feel, _____?” Felix wondered quietly, keeping his voice low so as to not scare you. “Are you still dizzy?”

“No,” you shook your head as you rubbed your eyes that still stung from crying, “my side is just sore.”

“Which is normal,” the freckled boy shrugged. “Changbin said if it’s still looking rough in a couple of days, we’ll drain it again. Otherwise, keep applying the ointments. Jisung mixed up a new one that should help with keeping infection away.”

“I think it’s time to head back to bed,” Jeongin decided, putting a hand on Felix’s shoulder and nodding toward the door.

“Right,” he nodded like he just realized Chan probably wanted to talk to you privately – or, at least as privately as he could in a house full of werewolves that heard everything. “Have a good night, guys. Channie, please remember what we said, okay?”

Once the two boys made it out the door and Felix turned around to close it, Chan’s eyes looked at you. They were still their warm gold, but his expression was unreadable.

“That your power?”

His eyebrows furrowed at your question, not expecting the first thing out of your mouth to be that, “What?”

“I didn’t feel anything,” you mumbled, your eyes looking down to scan his exposed torso, “and you have those marks on your side where mine are. Those weren’t there before.”

He nodded a little, “I can take away others’ pain. The only catch is I feel it instead, and I get their scar, so…”

He held out his arms for you to see, rolling them over to examine all of the scars that littered his skin. It was silent, and then he let his arms rest on the bed beside you, both of you waiting for the other to say something.

“Are you mad at them?” you asked him quietly, finally breaking the silence. “Or me? …Or both?”

“Dunno,” he murmured as his eyes looked back at the blood-stained bandage covering your side. “Trying really hard to not be mad at all, but it’s hard.”

“I did this to me, not them,” you insisted, immediately going into defense mode. “I made Felix and Changbin and everyone promise not to tell you; I was basically holding the knife myself!”

His eyes darkened. You noted it was definitely a bad choice of words.

“_____, why did you keep this from me? You should’ve told me.”

You cast your eyes down to your bare lap, toying with your hands nervously. “Well...I thought it was getting infected and I wanted to fix it.”

“That doesn’t explain why you intentionally kept it from me. You made my entire pack swear to secrecy for what?” he pressed, sounding like a father scolding you.

“Because you’d get worried and get mad at Seungmin…” you admitted softly, still not making eye contact. It felt embarrassing to admit all of this to him. Was it because you were basically indirectly telling him that you do care and then it would set that in stone instead of it being kind of ambiguous by your actions? “I didn’t want to make you angry at anybody, and I didn’t want you to have to waste time worrying about me.”

“Listen to me,” he demanded softly, holding your chin gently and forcing you to look at him. His eyes were now sad as they bore into yours. “Worrying about you is not a waste of time. You’re constantly in my head; I think about you all the time. You’re never a waste of my time, _____. I love you and you know that.”

“But why do you love me when-”

“So this does have to do with Minho, too!”

Hot tears pricked your eyes, getting frustrated because you were making him angry at more person than one, when your goal was zero. “No, this is different!”

You hated yourself for being a frustrated cryer.

But having you cry, especially because of him, was the last thing Chan wanted. In a swift movement, he was sitting on the bed and had pulled you into his lap, cradling your head against his chest as he softly rocked you and shushed you, “I’m sorry. I’m not thinking right. I just...I’m angry at myself for not being able to help you or stop you from doing this. I hated seeing you like that. I think I almost died.”

You were going to make a, ‘no, I almost died’ joke just to lighten the mood but you knew it would upset Chan, so you just hid your face in his chest. This time, you would let yourself just rest there in his hold.

He held you closer, rubbing your back soothingly. He purred softly in approval at the amount of contact, and you were just as happy, albeit a little confused because of your heart battling your instincts. But were you making any movement to leave his hold anytime soon? Absolutely not.

“Please don’t be mad at them,” you mumbled, your words getting muffled by his chest. “Any of them. Not Seungmin or Changbin or Felix...even Minho.”

He sighed, trying to see it from your point of view. He felt he had to take it out on someone or something or he’d just make himself more miserable for not being there for you. He felt like a bad mate. 

“If you promise to always tell me when something’s wrong…” he began slowly before taking a deep breath to calm himself, “I won’t be angry with any of them. Although I do have some strong words for Minho for the things he said to you.”

You forgot Chan had been ignoring him ever since he found out the things he said about you being his mate. You pulled back a little to look up into his eyes. “I can’t tell you all the time.”

“You can try,” he smiled softly. “Promise me you’ll try?”

You nodded, “Promise.”

He cleared away any stray tears but continued to hold you in his arms, his back against the wall. 

“I know it’s late but...I don’t want to move,” he admitted with a warm laugh.

“My head is still screaming to run,” you laughed softly, your head resting against his shoulder.

“What about your heart?”

“God, Chris, that’s so cheesy,” you whined.

“Come on,” he laughed, carding his fingers through your hair, “just tell me.”

You sighed and closed your eyes, “I guess…I think it’s kinda nice.”

“It’s just a matter of getting that pretty little werewolf-hunting head of yours to agree.”

“How did you just...give in to it?”

He hummed softly as he thought it over, wanting to give an answer that might actually help you, “Well...I think part of it is that the feeling is much stronger for us. But I think it helped that I started to trust you being around my brothers. I knew they would still be safe with you here, so I didn’t have to hold myself back anymore. I had to be near you and make you happy.”

“So...I should just ignore my head?” you asked slowly, repeating what you’d gathered from his speech.

“I know it’s easier said than done,” he chuckled, moving his head to look down at you, “but it’s worth a shot. Just start small.”

Start small, huh? What’s something small you could do? Your eyes wandered around a bit before settling on his hand on your thigh. You carefully took it off your thigh and put your hand on his like you were measuring who had bigger hands – you noted that Chan’s were a bit larger. Then you laced your fingers through his, giving his hand a gentle squeeze that had his inner wolf grumbling with joy.

“Is this...okay?” you asked, still unable to make eye contact with him – especially now.

So you didn’t see his wide grin as he nodded, “This is perfect.”

-

It didn’t take long for you to fall asleep in his lap. You were exhausted, too exhausted to move, so you ended up knocking out while he hummed softly and told you stories of his brothers and the pack.

When he noticed you were asleep, he carefully shifted you onto the bed, laying you down and tucking you in before he got up, deciding to go sleep on the couch again. He thought you’d want it to yourself as he said you should take small steps, and he didn’t want to just assume he could sleep in the same room as you, even if it was in Felix’s bed. Although you’d slept in the same bed together before, that was when you said you wanted to. Now, he wasn’t sure, and it was better safe than sorry.

He laid down on the couch that was a little shorter and thinner than his bed, and tried to get as comfortable as he could. He laid in the dark, staring at the ceiling, and trying to listen to every move and sound you made in your sleep. That’s why it didn’t take him long to get to you about an hour later.

“No!” your tired voice gasped, and he jolted out of bed and ran up the stairs, taking them three at a time. Upon flinging the door open, he saw you were still sound asleep, the moonlight shining in onto your sleeping face. “No…”

Your brows were creased slightly, a small frown etched onto your face. You kept softly repeating ‘no’, so Chan took a cautious step in, wanting to wake you up in case you were having a bad dream.

“Finley…”

He paused. You’d mentioned Nolan, who was your brother. But…who was Finley?

He heard a bedroom door open a split second before he heard, “She’s already talking about other men?”

The voice made him jump and he quickly but silently closed your bedroom door. He whipped around to see Minho standing in the doorway, smirking playfully at the alpha, but it was clear he had woken up from the hour or so of sleep he’d gotten between then and everyone cleaning up after the incident.

But Chan just looked at him expressionlessly before turning and going back downstairs to the couch.

Minho’s expression fell as he watched his brother go.

»»————-　　————-««

[join the tag list here!!!]

series tag list: @bluehoodiewoozi @starlight-night0 @lukeys-giggle @peachy-hoon @sky-is-boo

@peachescherryheart @candyquokka

skz tag list: @svintsandghosts @allie-mcginn @blossominghunnie @rylea08 @arabelleum

@birthday-prinxess @bakedlilgoonie @vensweety @luvlino23 @mzmusic92

@helloliaaaa @spk93 @channiesfavitem @yeetfellx @vampkennedy

@bookswillfindyouaway @cocofia143 @namzi-matenge @backseat-serenade-dizzyhurricane @thesarcasmqueen-22

@queen-thiccness @de-uns-tempos-pra-ca

permanent tag list: @brattybunfornct @avyskai @meowmeowminnie @dessianna1 @minluvly

@yeetmehome @katsukis1wife @gyuminusone @princelingperfect @sehunnies-hunnie96

@chocolate-scoups

[dear-ao3]

vegas part 2: still december 1st. still at it. yes i know its late. i do not care. lets fucking go

and so. what we’ve all been waiting for. the race. self described as james hinchcliffe as having “cold temperatures, [a] dirty race track, low downforce configurations and walls everywhere.” 

franco was cleared to race. though there was some controversy over it because there was an article that came out with a quote from franco about the crash where he claimed to have a concussion. however, i would like to point out that the article in question is translated from spanish and things Could have gotten Lost in Translation (also to my knowledge it wasn't a very reliable news source).  

in any case. people were annoyed about the fact that franco Could have been racing with a concussion and yeah williams has been a little bonkers this year but driver safety is something that Should be taken seriously. 

this wouldnt be the first time that a driver raced with a concussion either. in 2021 after silverstone max had a 50g crash with lewis and admitted much after the fact to having vision problems at the next race because of it. though that was not caught because he didn't tell anyone about it. so. to my understanding. the concussion protocols that are in place only really can do anything if the driver tells someone about it. 

regardless he was there to race. as was george, who showed up in a pinstripe three piece suit

and so they lined up

russell

sainz

gasly

leclerc

verstappen

norris

tsunoda 

piastri

hulkenberg

hamilton 

ocon 

magnussen 

zhou

lawson

perez

alonso

albon

stroll

bottas

and colapinto started from the pitlane

“its very simple for max,” crofty reminded us as the lights started to go out. he just needs to finish above lando and in the points and basically “hes world champion again”

and charles (cause remember, he is max’s pawn according to lando) must have known this because on lap fucking one he managed to fully launch himself from fourth to second, somehow getting past both pierre and carlos.

meanwhile, liam lawson continued his tirade against old men by fighting now kevin magnussen. and nearly hit the wall doing so. “great man putting moves on him,” one of the announcers said. “we know how feisty he can be”

kevin though was not pleased with the move. “lawson was moving in a straight line when i was slipstreaming!” he said

and so you know. there were something insane like over 90 overtakes at last years vegas race. this year was expected to be about the same. 

so after lap 1, heres what we were working with:

russell

leclerc

sainz

gasly

verstappen

norris

tsunoda

piastri

hulkenberg

hamilton

ocon

zhou

lawson

alonso

magnussen

perez

albon

stroll

bottas

colapinto

george took the fastest lap on lap 3. which was good cause charles was only .4 behind him. and then charles took the fastest lap from george.

this was because while the mercedes was faster in the corners, the ferraris were faster on the straights. the mclarens were fast no where. and max was pootling along with his diy wing, managing to pass pierre for 4th on lap 4.

meanwhile oscar got noted for a false start.

george and charles had been battling ferociously for first but charles had to pull back to save his tires. so george was now 1.8 seconds in the lead, and he might have a plastic bag stuck on his car. 

charles pulled back so much that he got passed by his own teammate and was now down in third. he was not happy about that. he was actually told that carlos was going to try not to pass him, that was not the plan. but before he did (and i really think this radio was here? im not sure it might have been later) he told his team to “maybe try in spanish” telling carlos not to pass him.

then he got passed by max, which he really was not happy about. 

this was what he got for damaging his tires. unfortunately it was too early to bring him in, so he had to stay out and suffer.

lewis meanwhile had figured out that his car was Not Shit for once and slammed his foot on the accelerator. he managed to get all the way up past oscar. 

lando, still chasing his title dreams, passed pierre and was now fifth, though he was now back behind charles (max’s pawn) (max’s extremely angry pawn)

or at least he was until charles was called to pit on lap 10, as was lando

lewis passed yuki, he was now up to 7th

“as it stands, max verstappen will be champion at the end of the grand prix,” crofty told everyone, as max was currently sitting in third.

and it really wasn't looking good for mclaren as oscar got a 5 second penalty for a false start. 

and with all the pit stoppage that was happening around him, lewis had managed to work his way up to fourth.

and then max and carlos both pitted and he ended up in second, right behind george on lap 12

max came out of the pits in 12th, but crucially he was in front of both ferraris and lando

lando saw this and stepped on the accelerator, putting in a fastest lap. 

and george pitted, leaving lewis out in the lead. (george had been 15 seconds clear of lewis, so when he came back out he was in second)

“we’re in for a while heap of overtakes tonight,” crofty said excitedly as the race really started to take shape.

it was at this point that the shenanigans began ensuing. esteban was called in to pit, but absolutely no one was ready for him so he had to go back out and do a whole nother lap before coming back into the pits Again, which was bad news for his track position and also bad news for alpine cause that was a massive screw up.

and lance’s tires were also not ready when he came into the pits. at first this looked like an aston fuck up, but then after the race it was revealed that he had absolutely no radio for the entire race, so he was just kind of raw dogging it. as in, he had no one telling him at all when to come in to pit, so he made the calls himself. hence why he had no tires ready at all. so his pit was delayed.

and yuki drove over the speed limit sign at the end of the pit lane. 

lewis was called to pit on lap 14, and he came out 9th, behind lando. lewis was not happy about this. “what the hell man?” he said over the radio. “how many places have i just lost?” 

“we wouldve lost another five places if we hand hung it out any longer,” his engineer, bono, said. 

fortunately though, lewis was in a fast car. and he had fought to the front from 10th already once this race, he could certainly do it again. 

lap 15 saw pierre gasly screaming over his radio for more power

“low on power,” he said, normally.

“everything is looking okay to us,” came the pit wall response, entirely unbothered. 

“WAIT I HAVE NO POWER!” pierre screamed.

and then his car started smoking. 

fortunately he was close enough to the pits where he was able to pull in without triggering a safety car, but he was pissed. 

“oh man,” he said forlornly over the radio as he pulled in.

and then the cameras panned to a giant hole in the side of his car.

which he later posted on his instagram story

“you gotta feel for gasly,” the announcers said. “qualified third and didn't finish the race.” 

meanwhile, checo, who had somehow ended up second when no one was looking, let max though and now he was in second. then carlos passed checo.

and on lap 17 lewis passed lando, also taking the fastest lap.

and then charles passed checo, lewis passed checo, and lando passed checo, who was now way down in 7th. 

“the mercedes is flying,” martin brundle said. 

by lap 19 we had 

russell

verstappen

sainz

leclerc

hamilton

norris

tsunoda

piastri

albon

alonso

hulkenberg

zhou

lawson

perez

ocon

stroll

colapinto

magnussen 

and bottas

and no, your eyes do not decieve you! that is the williams of alex albon up into 9th! and the sauber of zhou guanyu in 12th! it was looking good for them!

and then ferrari began their return to their roots.

what roots are those? you might be asking. 

well lets take a look

“let me know asap if its going to go to plan c cause that changes everything,” carlos said over the radio on lap 19

“let me get back to you,” came the response from the pit wall. which was a classic ferrari “we are checking” moment (as crofty happily pointed out)

“norris is 4 placed behind max,” martin said. “he needs to be in front to keep the championship alive.” 

“that mclaren doesnt have the pace,” crofty said. and he was right. there was also some speculation that that could have something to do with the fact that they couldn't use their revoked rear wing with the special mini drs flap on it that had been declared illegal a few rounds ago. 

they called to the mclaren pit wall to ask zak brown his thoughts. and he said that they don't really have the pace at all. 

“you must be cheering for mercedes to take the big points away from ferrari,” martin said, because remember, ferrari are trying to take the constructors championship title from mclaren 

zak agreed that they were cheering for mercedes, and even went as far as to say “go lewis go!” 

but back to the race. 

carlos was told that ferrari were targeting plan a on lap 22 (which was speculated to be a one stop), george was 10 seconds ahead of max and mclaren was still suffering.

“the front right looks like its about to go any lap” lando said. and oscar could not get close to yuki to pass him.

“man these guys are fast on the straight,” lewis said about ferrari. martin pointed out that he was only three races away from being one of “those guys” and wondered if he was cheering for that in his cockpit. because remember he had expressed interest to quit mercedes early after the shit show that had been the brazilian gp. 

and, kind of insanely. toto had insinuated recently that he would have gotten rid of lewis even if lewis had not gone to ferrari because he had a “shelf life” that was coming to an end. but that comment seemed to have only motivated lewis more. 

he was certainly doing better than alex albon, who apparently had an overheating problem now. “can we just have one race without problems?” he said angrily over the radio.

“ted!” crofty said excitedly over the radio. “its almost time for your favorite part of a modern f1 grand prix! when sergio perez gets close to liam lawson!” 

and it indeed was. checo was in 12 and liam was in 13.

also in an exciting position was zhou guanyu, who was in 11th and only one spot behind alex albon. stake could get a point! their first point! and it was looking like an even better position to be in because alex albon’s engineer came over the radio on lap 26 to tell him:

“alex, weve got a terminal problem here, we need to retire the car.” 

and so the bad luck continued for williams. 

oscar pitted on lap 26.

carlos also wanted to pit on lap 26. “lets get off these tires,” he said over the radio, once again trying to be his own race engineer. 

but he did not pit. max pitted. 

“box me guys, box me,” carlos said again on lap 27. 

“carlos is trying to continue [his method of making his] his ferrari tacticians to do what he wants but they’re not” crofty said.

meanwhile max’s pit stop was called off, perhaps it was to trick another team into pitting. 

and still, carlos was not boxed. he was instead told to swap positions with charles, who had come up behind him. which was interesting because lewis was quite literally half a second behind charles. but they still swapped. and managed to keep lewis behind. 

carlos started to come into the pit lane. but then he backed out. not before he had already crossed the white line though, which usually means an instant penalty. 

lewis pitted. and max pitted. max also complained about carlos crossing the white line on the pit entry. 

crofty reported that there had been a very late call to “stay out stay out” from ferrari, in true ferrari fashion. 

“what happened?” carlos asked over the radio. 

“we were not ready,” said his engineer. 

“wake up you guys! c’mon!” carlos yelled back. he pitted on the next lap

“so where does this all shake out?” martin asked. 

well. we had one mercedes that was doing very, very well (george) and another that was putting pressure on max (lewis) 

george had apparently “even admitted he had an afternoon siesta” and he was leading by 15 seconds. 

and on lap 30 we had 

russell

leclerc

norris

verstappen

hamilton

sainz

hulkenberg

tsunoda

perez

zhou

ocon

lawson

piastri

alonso

magnussen 

bottas

colapinto

stroll

and, if you were wondering, lando was only ahead of max cause max had pitted.

esteban and liam apparently boinked eachother on lap 31, with esteban coming on the radio to say that he got hit.

and lando pitted as lewis took another fastest lap.

“lewis hoans in on the back of max, his arch rival,” martin said pretty dramatically. “anyone still angry about that? 2021?” im sure that across the world many people said yes (2021 of course was the year that max won the championship on the last few laps after a bs safety car call and effectively robbed lewis of his 8th world title).

matin said that he asks that question to fans all the time and fans always say theyre still mad about it. 

lewis then slammed the accelerator again and passed max on lap 32 for third, then got up to second as charles went into pit. 

you might be wondering why carlos hadnt gotten a penalty yet for crossing the white line on the pit lane. well out trusty commentators were wondering too. “ill be very surprised if we don't hear anything,” martin said. 

george pitted. it was a free pit stop because he had been 33 seconds ahead of lewis, so he still came out in first. 

“theyve got this race in the bag as it stands,” crofty said about mercedes. “but its a street track and theres several bags flying around. danger around every corner.” 

zhou meanwhile was barely holding onto 10th (and a point!) in front of esteban ocon

by lap 34 we had george still leading, followed by

hamilton

verstappen

sainz

leclerc

norris

hulkenberg

piastri

zhou

ocon

lawson

tsunoda

alonso

magnussen

perez

colapinto

bottas

stroll

“what a driver from lewis hamilton,” martin said. and it was. hed come up from 10th now twice.

“are we going to get a finish like spa?” crofty asked. then quickly amended that to be “as in lewis hunting down george” at the end, not george getting disqualified for being too light. 

there were 15 laps to go. lewis put in another fastest lap. and his gap to george was 9.1 seconds. 

and if rb could hold onto their current track position, they would be ahead of haas in the constructors championship, which was roughly 10 million dollars

lewis took fastest lap on lap 37. but then charles, who was also on a rampage, took it from him.

“give it 10 laps and he’ll be right on the gearbox of russell,” martin said. 

and there was still nothing in terms of penalties for carlos. 

“i don't know how ferrari have managed to argue this,” the announcers said. and karun even came on from race control to read the rulebook out loud, the exact section that said under which circumstances penalties should be given for crossing the white line of the pit box extry. 

and then checo pulled a move of all moves. crofty even branded it as “vintage sergio perez” as he managed to go right smack between liam lason and kevin magnussen, into a corner, and not a single one of them ended up in the wall as he did his double overtake on lap 39

lewis took the fastest lap again. and again it was taken by charles.

max was under pressure from carlos (who was 1.2 behind) and had no grip.

“you want me to try and keep them behind or what?” max asked his engineer, gp. cause remember, all max has to do is finish in front of lando and he wins the championship, something that he was currently doing. and even if both ferraris passed him, he would still be in front of lando.

“i think you should, yeah,” gp said passively and very confidently for someone who has, if you remember, a diy’d rear wing.

meanwhile checo passed ocon for 11th and lewis was now 7 seconds behind george. 

carlos passed max on lap 42. he was now in third.

martin wondered if carlos was going to try and keep max in his drs, like he did with lando in singapore 2023, to try and protect himself from charles, who was definitely faster than him. 

crofty said that carlos’s bosses wouldnt be pleased about that, especially since ferrari are actively trying to win the constructors championship, but his bosses were only his bosses for a few more races. 

charles was still trying to pass max on lap 45. he was still failing. 

then a little graphic popped up. if carlos had pitted earlier, when he had wanted to, simulation said that he could have finished second. martin found this very hard to believe. i guess we will never know for sure.

finally charles managed to pass max on lap 47. he was 1.5 seconds behind carlos.

and max was right in front of lando.

lando though was a ways back and boxed for softs to get a fastest lap. 

george was still leading. if he continued to lead and won, we would have 7 different multi race winners. which has never happened before. 

and if max stayed where he was he would win th championship. in vegas. like nelson piquet and keke rosberg in the 80s, who both also won their championship sby finishing in 5th.

and george won. 

and max came in fifth. 

so you know what that means. 

“FOUR TIME CHAMPION OF THE WORLD, MAX VERSTAPPEN!!!!”

“his driving and his ability has manhandled him to the win,” crofty said about max. cause remember, max didn't have the fastest car this year, it was not a dominating season like the last two gave been for him, he won with a diy rear wing for fucks sake!

THREE TIME RACE WINNER GEORGE RUSSELL

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Team George Russell (@teamgeorgerussell)

george won, lewis came second. followed by carlos, charles, max, lando, oscar, nico, yuki, checo, fernando, kevin, guanyu, franco, lance, liam, esteban and valtteri.

george t posed on top of his car, then was so excited he jumped directly on top of the marshal holding the scale. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐨𝐬 𝐒𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐳 & 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨 𝐍𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐚𝐧𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞❤️‍🔥 (@carlandocontent)

and then, because vegas is Quirky and Cool and Different, the drivers don't do the podium and the interviews right where they pull up at the end of the race. no they do on a different part of the track, by the fountains. 

so. how do they get there?

why, in a rolls royce of course!

and so lewis, george and carlos all hopped in one, and max and gp hopped in the other. 

gp was very, very proud of max

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing)

max was more interested in exploring the rolls that they were in. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1)

over in the other rolls, george had somehow wound up in the middle seat despite being 6’3, lewis was fixing his appearance in the mirror, and carlos was wearing a beanie

but they finally made it around, to the fountain where they were met with jenson button, who was absolutely slutting it up in a brown velvet blazer with a black turtleneck

and oh? what is this? “oh! jenson’s found a friend!” crofty said. 

and he had! jenson was joined by terry crews 

and unfortunately this is the part of my notes that i took entirely in the dark. so bear with me here. 

first, i was incredibly confused why terry was there, and then it became very obvious that he was just a massive fangirl trying to hold himself together, which was incredibly funny to watch.

still

george was incredibly happy with his race. “i cant even describe this [feeling?], dominant weekend.” and later he said he was waiting for something bad to happen, like a tree hitting the track, but it never happened. also later jenson called george’s race “perfect” he said he was cancelling his flight and going out drinking. which he did do. though he didn't have any other clothes with him so he had to go out in the pin stripe three piece suit that he showed up to the paddock

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Team George Russell (@teamgeorgerussell)

 lewis was next and he started by congratulating max (which he had also done in the pit lane with the red bull crew) and then said that he “had fun coming from the back…best the car has ever felt!” and then speculated that maybe that was because it was cold. he definitely proved toto’s shelf life comments wrong (and damon hill agreed ) and even apparently out performed mercedes simulations of the race.  

(jenson later on comically slid over to try to talk to lewis like a dude in a romance movie. he and lewis were called "slagclaren" when they were both mclaren teammates there and theyre never beating the allegations) 

and carlos said that he had been “hoping vegas had something to offer me after last year.” with the man hole. he said he had actually been looking for every manhole cover while he was racing so he could avoid them  

and max. who they interviewed as a special treat because he had just become a 4x world champion. “its been a long season, but as a team we kept it together. to stand here as a four time world champion us something i never thought possible….this season taught me a lot of lessons that i am very proud of.” 

with this championship win, max becomes the second person to win his first four titles consecutively (the first was sebastian vettel, who also did it with red bull), though max did break sebs record of fewest days between first and fourth win by one day exactly, and only the sixth driver to ever win four or more world titles, joining the ranks of sebastian vettel, alain prost, juan manuel fangio, michael schumacher, lewis hamilton (the last two also both also won 4 consecutively, but not their first) 

and then he said that his fans got a bit spoiled last year with all the wins, and had to wait awhile this year. 

the podium was fun and filled with champagne and george doing his comical little hop hop and lewis and george holding the trophy like it was their newborn child for some reason.

and then soaking eachother in champagne

toto wolff even had good things to say about george and lewis, saying that george’s driving was from “another planet” and praised lewis for being able to get to p2 from p10.

lewis also gave some advice to younger drivers during the press conference that was very heart felt. the question posed to him was: Does your advice to young drivers about not being weighed down by the adverse criticism probably come from your feeling that you have been adversely criticized this year?

“It's not about this year. We're talking about youngsters, we're talking about eighteen year olds. And I remember when I was twenty two and you're thrown in the deep-end, you've been given training as a young driver through the younger series but you're not, most of them, probably don't have a PR person. The team will have a PR person but they're not looking out for you, they're looking out for the team. So, you're thrown in the deep-end and you're trying to be nice and people take advantage of you. So, my guidance, like, if I had a young driver and I was looking after him, I would put a lot of support around him so that people couldn't get to him. You know, the socials and media and stuff would not be able to affect that young individual's mindset. And I think that protecting that is really important 'cause then, you know, I think it's really about firstly them getting the opportunity and not knocking 'em down when they make mistakes. Which one of you or anyone here at eighteen years old-nineteen years old has not made mistakes? And when you do it in the spotlight it's really, really tough. And so we should be lifting these people up and giving them not just one chance, two chances, just continue to support them and just not slating them 'cause that's, it's just not nice.”

he also gave some advice for the rookies next year:

“...that I don't know! Don't do absolutely everything everyone tells you to do. Ask lots of questions. Take your time. Don't let the negativity get to you because people are so negative nowadays, judging you non-stop. So, stay off social media and keep your family and your closest friends close to you 'cause they are the only ones that are your true friends and know they are gonna be there for you when the going gets tough.”

also the vibes of this press conference were kinda funny. lewis had changed and was slaying, george was back in his puff jacket but over his race suit and carlos was still in his beanie

and when asked why george was in his puff jacket again, he said that no, he had not jumped into the fountain, he was just cold from getting soaked in champagne. and last year at vegas he said that he got pneumonia and had pneumonia from november to february and was not keen on getting a repeat of that.

but pretty much everyone had good things to say about max verstappen. including lando, who if you will remember, dragged max through the mud at the beginning of the weekend and was vaguely battling him in the championship for p1. he went up to him in the media pen and congratulated max on his win right away

and max was thankful for this, but he also told lando  : “I told you, many times, there will be a day. You’ll be world champion.”

lando then said “Let’s celebrate in Abu Dhabi.”

and max said “will do”

lando also called him a motherfucker in his congratuations comment on instagram

in his interviews, lando said that he was proud of how he has improved this season and has realized how much more pressure there is when you're driving to battle for the championship. he also said that he was trying to give himself grace for not winning. he also said that he would have changed the whole car this weekend, it was that bad. though he did say that it had pretty much nothing to do with the rear wing that they couldn't use anymore

other drivers also had good things to say about max. 

like franco: "its incredible what he has achieved, all the championships and races he's won. he's an incredible driver, in my opinion currently the best one in f1. he also did it with a car that wasn't the fastest…hopefully at some point we'll be able to beat him!"

and charles: "You know that he's not going to let any hundreths go and that whatever he can do to maximize the car he will do, I think like every other drivers but he's really on it every laps & you cannot really relax. But I like this challenge we've raced each other since a long time and I liked it."

george: "Max has done an amazing job and you know when he didn't have the car, he always got the best results possible & the guys he was fighting didn't. That's what makes him the champion!"

and esteban: “this year he has been the strongest out there and its been nice to watch”

max himself though was definitely enjoying his fourth championship. he said during his interview that he was “very thirsty” and then progressively started to get drunk. while in the paddock still. he started with the beer and said it was beer (after an interviewer asked if he was drinking dutch chocolate milk)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Manon & Maia 🏁 F1 content creators (@maniaonboard)

at one point he was even double fisting gin and tonics

and i cant find my link but! he also made red bull vodkas for i think the sky sports team? which was unhinged of him. 

and also possibly explains several of his highly unhinged (but very welcome) comments. including but not limited to:

max bragging that he would have won the championship in other cars as well: "Would I have become champion in the McLaren? Yes! And much earlier too. In 2021 l would have also won the title in a different car [Mercedes]. In 2022 that would have been more difficult, because Ferrari was perhaps a bit too fragile then. And last year? Well, that would have been a bit more difficult."

max absolutely flaming the hell out of zak brown TO HIS FACE over the fact that zak said that max could only win in the fastest car: “Like you said, you know, before I can only win in the fastest car, this year has been a little bit different?”

and then several interviews and several drinks later he was asked if it was true that he had “run into zak brown and tell him you can become world champion not just in the fastest car?”

“yes! and i ABSOLUTELY told him that!” max said, while drinking gin and tonic “live on sky sports.” 

the red bull team were being pretty much equally as silly

i managed to lose the link somehow but one of the mechanics commented on a post about max being a 4x wdc that he knew they “didn't need that rear wing.”

and also, they did manage to remember to pack the max 4x wdc merch, but not the right rear wing

he also got very sappy about his childhood and what he would tell his younger self: 

"I wouldn't tell small Max anything because small Max was not worried about anything. Small Max was just loving life: driving quadbikes, go-karts, motocross bikes, having fun with his friends, not enjoying school. Honestly? That's the beautiful part of it. You shouldn't tell him anything and just let him live his life. I wish I could see myself with small Max. It was a good time."

he also got absolutely SOAKED with champagne

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by F1 Sumin (@f1_sumin)

and went and did an interview for a spanish news outlet saying that charles was going to be the next world champion.  

oh. speaking of charles. 

he was not having nearly as good a time as max was. or even george was. 

he was actually getting nearly possessed by american psycho.

and in case you cant hear him , this boils down to basically this:

bryan (race engineer) : "pick up please"

charles: "yes whatever you want. as always."

bryan: "you did your job"

charles: "yeah, yeah, I did my job, but being nice fucks me over all the fucking time, all the fucking time. it's not even being nice, it's just being respectful."

fred (team principal): "Charles. CHARLES." charles: "i know I need to shut up, but at one point it's always the same. oh my fucking god"

bryan: "ok but anyway you did the right thing for the team"

bryan: "and pick up please" charles "yeah yeah fucking pick up what the fuck you want"

charles: "the radio is on. sorry"

(and team red line, max’s e racing team, really tried their damndest to get charles his community service date with max for this with one of their members tweeting “community service coming for you after that teamradio”)

but what did happen here? 

well. this is not the first season that charles has done what ferrari tells him to do and then still manages to get screwed over. so this seemed to come from a place of frustration at the team more than anything else. he did have some other radios during the race that were angry, including “FUCKING STUPID” which i think was when carlos crossed the pit lane entry (which ne never did get a penalty for) and saying “NICE. AMAZING.” after being told they would swap cars (so charles would be ahead.)

he said in his post race interview that “But it's just frustrating when it's like this and it's been frustrating for me, but i can understand that nobody understands that.”

he also though said that "I am not happy about Carlos, but I won't go into details. Why? Because we talk about these things before the race, and I'm always the only one who respects those agreements. From now on I will be thinking about myself only. It's a shame that i couldn't get more points on lando."

carlos also had some, albeit not as intense things to say about it. 

first he spoke about the pit stop fuck up, saying that

“I don't want to look for who's at fault. It's not the moment to talk or analyze. We need to look [at what happened.] I was already asking to pit 2 laps earlier because I knew Charles was faster and I wanted to let him by, but I wanted to get out of the way. Hamilton was coming behind him and I knew chaos was coming there. I asked to be pitted because there was a lot of graining and we couldn't do anything there. We didn't pit and I stayed out for 2 laps. Even on the lap where I wanted to pit, we made a mess at the pit entry and things didn't go well, but they didn't go well for me, they didn't go well for Charles. I also lost a lot of race time there. It wasn't a nice situation and it wasn't easy to manage. It went like this and that's why I prefer to analyze later and not speak in front of a mic.”

he did acknowledge that charles probably wasn't happy with him during the press conference, saying that "i guess he [charles] isn't happy but i'm also not happy with the way things were handled at the time,i think no one's happy today the in the team because we all expected a bit more [...]."

but he also repeated that “I agreed not to talk to the media because we always talk here, we always make a mess. I agreed with him not to say anything to the media.” and “It's stuff between me and him. I never open the radio, I never talk to the media because I don't like it. It's not a nice thing to do. It's not necessary.”

and planet f1 released a whole article that effectively backed carlos up.

still, charles was effectively still in time out because this was the statement that got released. usually these are with the drivers and done over video. charles just released a written statement:

“I finished the race where I started it today, so it wasn't that exciting, but if you look at the details it was quite an eventful one. Unfortunately, we degraded the fronts on the first stint on Mediums, then we were able to come back on the Hards which were working better. Big congratulations to Max (Verstappen). He deserves this championship title, he has had an [amazing season and always maximised his results which has paid off for him. It gives us motivation to be even stronger next year and hopefully we can put him under some more pressure then. We will push hard in the last two races to try to finish the season ahead of McLaren”

he also posted an instagram post that tagged max (but did not follow him back cause remember that whole stupid thing?) and in this poto fump there was not a single photo of carlos, but there was one with lewis which was relieving, save the caption: 

“First of all, a huge congrats to @maxverstappen for his 4th title, fully deserved. Now only 2 races to go, got to maximise everything on my side to try and take that P2 in the drivers championship and the constructors title. Let's goooo”

he also posted a picture of lewis and tagged him in it.

but during the interviews in vegas, he was so caught up in the ferrari team drama that he forgot max won the championship. 

"It was a track where we had to be pretty fast, the Mercedes were untouchable, we got the best possible result. Verstappen champion? Oh yes that's right &, I forgot, well done to him, he had an exceptional season, he deserves it."

though maybe that was all the weed that was still in the paddock.

charles wasn't the only one pissed over his radio. for example kevin saying “that's not a good thing. that's not a good thing” when his engineer praised him for doing a one stop. 

and also zhou said “See you fucking later, Colapinto” as he passed him.

someone who was not angry though was one nico rosberg, who did not commentate this weekend but he was there, networking for one of his many side projects, finally not wearing beige, and busting out his only dance move in a club, the elbows

so the drivers championship is squared away. constructors is next. we will see how this one shakes out in qatar. only two more to go. see you then.

the 2024 formula 1 silly season and drama master post, part 2 (part 1 here)

Hello and welcome to ah fucking fuck auto caps fuck fuck fuck how do i turn off auto caps AHA there we go okay. take 2

hello and welcome to the great and very insane formula 1 2024 season drama post, part 2. if you are new here or are just looking for part one (which contains the previous 16 (?) races, the off season, pre season testing and everything else, that can be found HERE. (a word to the wise: open it in a browser, not the app, and preferably on a computer to avoid crashing. its fucking long). 

what the hell is formula 1? car go fast. fastest cars in the world zoom around tracks at top speeds of over 300kph, piloted by the top 20 drivers in the world. it might not sound dramatic, but oh man. you will Not be disappointed. this post focuses on the drama, the insanity, the sheer what the hell how is this a serious sport. no legitimately. we've just about seen it all this year. grindr, dogs, watersports, ice cream brands, its all here.

the point of this post? to educate, to catalog the insane drama, and to just have a good time. people like to gatekeep this sport, there is also a lot happening. i try to make it easy to understand. again, probably best to start at the beginning of the post because it does a pretty good job of explaining things, which i began way back in january, and can be found HERE (again, shes long, be careful)

and, as usual, if you do not want to see this post EVER AGAIN, block the tag #saph explains silly season 2024

and a second caution, i assume this post will be getting long as well. including this one we have minimum 9 updates left!

anyway, those of you who have been following along the whole time, welcome back! i know we got a little delayed. and i know we’re on a new post, so lets just briefly take a second for me to explain what the fuck happened. first i had an anatomy test, second i work 2 jobs with fuck ass hours, third tumblr decided to stop letting me look at any of my drafts, fourth tumblr support ghosted me about the drafts issue and the post was half saving half not so i just decided fuck it, were going with post 2, electric boogaloo, and fifth, i decided to start typing this instead in a google docs so. many changes. if you're new here i am usually more on top of this.

but here we are. were back on street circuits. we’re in baku, azerbaijan, for the start of the last third of the season. 8 races remain, world championship titles are still within grasp of multiple people. the drama is dramaing. and today is september 22, 2024 and lets fucking go. 

first and foremost, on account of the fact that this post is late (again, see above), were going to have to do a bit of a speed run. if you're new here, i promise that this is not representative of my normal dedication to the update post. and for those asking, yeah, ill probably compile it somewhere better than a tumblr post after its all said and done, but we don't have time for that now. 

what we do have time for is the Off Week (and like some of the media stuff). and it was filled with silliness: 

george russell decided to wear what can only be described as slightly ugly yellow short shorts with his taylor swift shirt that he got at the eras tour. this was baffling for several reasons, the main reason being that i don't think the internet knew that he was capable of wearing a graphic t shirt

fernando alonso got his aston martin valkyrie finally. in case you are unfamiliar, a valkyrie i think is the worlds fastest street legal car. he posted tweets about this that made it seem like he wanted to fuck the car. hilariously, the car broke down an hour later.

we also had the very thrilling conclusion to grill the grid. oscar won and he somehow managed to look more pleased about his grill the grid win than his first race victory. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1)

nico rosberg went to the green awards and he wore a fantastically insane teal blue suit. yes i know hes not a current driver. but you all like hearing about him so ask and you shall receive. unfornunately i cant find a picture of it though

and also not a current driver is mick schumacher, but my roommate asked me to include that he was seen on his girlfriends instagram being bad at golf. like. exceptionally bad at golf. like he hit a tree 20 feet in front of him.

also playing golf was lando norris. except he managed to look like try bolton from high school musical 2.

he also talked about the world driver championship with his friend max fewtrell while they were playing golf. unfortunately i lost this link in the sea of technical difficulties, but the gist of it was that he was saying that there is still hope for him to beat max in the championship (hes about 60 points behind right now). lando doesnt usually talk about the championship because he doesnt want news outlets to paint him as “desperate” so this was interesting

charles leclerc had an insane off week. first he rear ended someone in monaco. then he spoke at a yacht conference. he was not scheduled to speak at said yacht conference, he was there doing something else and they were like hey you're cool people know you, heres a microphone. he alsp ended up on a weather channel while promoting a karting event he was doing for the jules bianchi foundation (his god father, the one who died during the f1 race in japan 2014). he also changed his instagram pop and re centered it because some random tiktoker told him it matched his aesthetic better.

oscar piastri posted a photo of himself sitting in the cockpit of a plane and then promptly deleted it. because he posted it on 9/11. for anyone who doesnt know what that is, that was when some terrorists hijacked commercial planes and few them into the world trade centers in nyc and the pentagon in washington dc

max verstappen also posted a plane pic with himself and lando norris, but he did not delete it.

we also had the return of daniel ricciardo’s jpg instagram account, which is kinda like a finsta for photos that hes taken. i think lando started this a few years ago. 

heading into the race week we certainly got a weird ass batch of pr. including but not limited to:

lewis hamilton was back on top and slaying in the fit game. as was yuki. 

lewis hamilton also exposed george russell as listening to katy perry pre race. katy perry and taylor swift (this was after he claimed that he liked listening to old school rap music.) though, lewis then started singing wrecking ball???? confusing vibes all around

george was not off the hook yet tho because some intern definitely make him say skidibidi toilet or whatever the thing is idk, i might be gen z but im not insufferable, okay? actually george in baku was just all kinds of unhinged

george and alex also got up to something, what it is no one knows but it is clearly something

max pulled up to the paddock de aged about 10 years. picture one is of him in baku in 2015 (i believe he was 17) and picture 2 is this year. no i am not kidding. 

and franco walked into the paddock telling everyone about argentinian mate (which is a drink, not a friend)

and max shoved a microphone out of the way so everyone could gossip

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Scuderia Ferrari HP (@scuderiaferrari)

then of course, we had some slightly more relevant drama

haas announced that ollie would be replacing kevin at baku. in case you forgot, kevin magnussen received a total of 12 penalty points over the season so far, which means he gets one race ban. how did he get the points? well he was mostly wreaking havoc on everyone else so that his teammate, nico hulkenberg, could drag his car into the points. lets all remember the time in saudi arabia where he managed to get 20 seconds of penalties by basically driving like a mad man just to make sure that nico could keep his position after he pit stopped. anyway, nico was kind of pissed about the race ban situation and said “maybe the guidelines for F1 penalties need to be reviewed as the stewards ‘want to get involved’ no matter the contact.”

in any case though, k mags was out. and ollie was in. we’ve seen ollie before. notably he subbed in for carlos sainz at the saudi arabia gp when carlos had appendicitis. he managed to get points as well. since then, he has been announced as a haas driver for 2025 and is now subbing in for k mags (haas, later in the week called him a super sub. clearly no gen z person read that over.) he can do this because ferrari has a haas engine so they share reserve drivers.

adrian newey finally got employed. i know! i can hardly believe it either! but he did! and youll never guess where! 

ferrari? no that would be too obvious. 

mercedes? nah

williams? no too much of a shit show

aston martin? ding ding ding! just the right amount of shit show! 

that is right. newey is going to aston for 2025. 

apparently he was offered a “good package” according to himself, which i assume means pay and also the fact that lawrence stroll made him a shareholder? stakeholder? whatever its called. in the team itself. basically he has a lot of power. 

he said that he always wanted to work with fernando and lewis. and he couldn't do both. and aston had a better package than ferrari. 

fernando looked positively evil during all the announcement pictures. and called the team "definitely the team of the future" and for those of you who don't know, fernando is positively evil. hes just been stuck in a shit box and we havent seen very much of him, but man does he know how to evilly slut it up. so that will be fun to see.

by contrast, people said that lance was not excited enough. and well. lance 1. has resting bitch face and 2. never really looks excited about anything. also he lives in a world where take your child to work day somehow became his job. (his dad owns the team).

lewis hamilton was asked what he thought about adrian not going to ferrari, and here's what he had to say:

"i feel like, while I have mentioned before that it would be an honor to work with adrian, i have been privileged to work with two championship winning teams that didnt have adrian."

mclaren announced pato o ward would do FP1 in mexico. who is pato o ward? hes one of mclaren’s indycar drivers and one of the f1 reserve drivers. he is incredibly charming and definitely runs his own social media as seen here:

mclaren Also claim they figured out who their number 2 driver is and they claim its oscar. i say they claim because the statements were a lot more complex than that. essentially, according to andrea stella, the priority is to the team first, then lando and then oscar. so they didn't outright say that oscar is the number 2 driver and i am willing to bet real money that this is because mr mark webber, oscars manager, has something in oscars contract that prevents him from being a number 2 driver. this is of course because mark webber was one of the most infamous number 2 drivers in f1 history to none other than menace war criminal sebastian vettel, who in their time as teammates, managed to win 4 back to back world champions. or, top to bottom if you're mrs darbus from high school musical. 

lando was asked about this and he said that yes, the team does support him. though he would not expect oscar to give up a win for him and that it is more complex behind the scenes. i suppose we will see if there are any papaya rules coming out this weekend….

and oscar said "i think the main point is its not purely just going to be me pulling over for lando every single race, because thats how none of us, including lando, wont want to go racing, if we feel that someone has done a much better job on a weekend, whichever way it is, we want that person to be rewarded."

max verstappen commented on the mclaren situation as well. which was funny mostly because red bull has one of the most defined number 1 and number 2 drivers of any team. he said "you look at it form oscar's perspective, he is closer to lando than lando to me. they have to deal with that."

and allow me to put on a tin foil hat as we are about to talk about the future of the red bull seat. because all i have to offer here is a baseball hat and a red bull can. 

a long time ago we talked about the red bull cans. the ones that red bull makes to promote f1. at the end of last season red bull put max and checo on the red bull can. this season at the start it was just max on the red bull can. well. now checo has reappeared on the cans too. and i will tell you what i think this means. it means that checo is not getting swapped this season, which was a possibility for awhile. 

but! there is more! 

daniel ricciardo made an instagram post this week. and it was very interesting. but most interestingly he was wearing a red bull hat.

which he does occasionally, no big deal really. he did race for the for several years, he technically does currently. BUT then he showed up TO THE PADDOCK wearing the red bull hat.

which is Big Interesting. usually you show up in a statement outfit or wearing the team kit. and daniel is not a red bull racing driver. he is a visa cashapp racing bulls driver. they might be owned by red bull but they are Not the same team. so why the red bull hat. in the paddock. well, the rumor is that hes taking checos seat for 2025. and the rumor is that this will be announced before mexico. so checo can have a proper send off. 

and with that. the baku lore. 

theres a lot that has happened at baku. as i said its a street circuit. and i think its the fastest street circuit. but over the years theres been some notable events. 

such as the great kimi raikkonen radio for gloves and steering wheel:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1)

they gave mini kimi this week gloves and steering wheel in honor of that

the max and daniel crash in 2018 when they were running p1 and p2 respectfully

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1)

and of course. how could we forget. charles’s infamous “i am stupid” radio.

speaking of charles, he crashed again in fp1. not quite in the same spot, but nearly. he took a picture with the marshalls. 

then in fp2 he rage quit, basically saying that the car sucks. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1)

but he was back and better than ever in practice three because he managed to top the time charts. welcome back fuck ass ferrari.

some other teams definitely experienced the lows but not really the highs of baku during practice. like lance stroll who came on the radio to say “this is not a car” (good thing they have adrian newey now, right? 

franco colapinto also cut his ear before practice on the neck strengthener stretcher thing that they all use and the team wanted to give him stitches but he was like no no no i need to be in the car in about 5 minutes im not doing that. so he jammed on his helmet and jumped in the car. he also crashed and when he went to the medical center he took off his helmet and there was blood everywhere and they were like no no no you cannot race! and he was like no! this is not from the crash! and then explained it and they let him do qualifying. 

also im pretty sure? ollie bearman crashed? in practice? but frankly i don't have time to google it so whos to say. 

but alas. qualifying. 

i know i know this is kind of a shitty update. i promise ill go all out in singapore. i PROMISE. 

so as i said. its a street circuit. high speed. 90 degree corners. and also windy as hell. we also had the dynamic duo of karun and harry in the commentary box. 

max led the first practice, george led the second and i think charles led the third. or some order like that. 

slipstream here is almost essential (slipstream: going behind another car to reduce the wind drag so you can go faster) 

charles has the last three pole positions (first in qualifying) here in baku, but he has never won. by comparison, red bull have never had pole here but they have won. 

and franco has never been to baku before. 

i think that's all the exposition that we need here. 

q1 started with max complaining about his car. “the car is jumping around like crazy on the rear axle” he said. despite this he was sitting in p3. 

the mid field battle though….the mid field battle was heating the hell up. mostly because none other than franco colapinto, who if you will remember, has never been to baku before, had split the two ferraris. he was in third for the moment, .109 seconds behind carlos sainz and .159 seconds ahead of charles leclerc. we still had a lot of qualifying left to go, so this was probably not going to stay, but it was still insane. he was pushing insanely hard, nearly kissing the walls. clearly he had learned from his crash in practice. 

the two mclarens waited until the very end of q1 to do their final flying push lap, and oscar made it through, but tragedy struck for lando. 

lando was in the middle of his last flying lap, time was ticking down, and there was a Very Brief yellow flag on the track. now, according to rules, you cannot complete your flying lap if there is a yellow flag. so lando pitted and was stuck down in 17th and out of qualifying. this would be the first time that he was out in q1 since vegas last year (which if i remember correctly was also not his fault) 

now though, of course nothing is ever that cut and dry. people thought that there had been a mis showing of a flag. yellow flag means that a car is stopped on track, white flag means that a car is going slowly on the track. and people thought that there had been a yellow flag shown when it was actually supposed to be a white flag (if there had been a white flag then lando would have been able to keep doing his flying lap) lando himself said that he had no idea what people were talking about because there is a light on the steering wheel that lights up when flags are called and he had a big yellow light. so it was clearly a yellow flag. 

if you're concerned about lando being able to pull it out of the bag, id like to point you in the direction of the mexican gp last year where lando qualified 17th and finished 5th. on a track that was hard to overtake on. he can be absolutely insane when he wants to be. worry not gentle reader. 

in any case. also out in q1 was daniel ricciardo, valtteri bottas, zhou guanyu and esteban ocon.

and notably, williams, who was on fucking fire this weekend as we already saw, finished q1 with alex albon in second (ahead of oscar) and franco colapinto in 8th. pierre gasly had somehow managed to also get into 4th. and nico hulkenberg was in 7th with ollie bearman in 13th. i told you the mid field battle was heating the hell up. 

q2. everyone zoomed straight out of the gate. they didn't want to get lando norris’d. but, speaking of that, if lando managed to get no points in the race and charles managed to win, charles would overtake lando in the drivers championship. mark webber himself told this to charles, who was absolutely baffled. 

in any case, charles was kinda suffering right now and that was because he was not getting slipstream from carlos to make his lap faster. meanwhile, carlos seemed to be actively trying to give charles the slipstream because he came on radio to say “he keeps missing the tow” 

and amazingly, franco colapinto was 4 tenths AHEAD of alex albon. alex albon who had not been unqualified by his teammate once since the start of 2023. ex red bull driver alex albon. that alex albon. 

max topped the times in q2, followed immediately by charles. insanely, fernando alonso managed to drag the aston martin to fifth. and franco was right behind him in 6th. by comparison alex albon was in 10th. 

and from q2 we lost ollie bearman, yuki tsunoda (who has never qualified lower than 8th in baku), pierre gasly, nico hulkenberg and lance stroll. so yes, ollie bearman managed to outqualify nico hulkenberg. this is ollies second ever f1 race. 

steaming on forward to q3. 

we had, for review, in q3 the following: 

both ferraris, both red bulls, both mercedes, both WILLIAMS (has not happened since vegas 2023), plus fernando alonso and oscar piastri. 

right out the gate it was wild. 

“red bull! theyve re found their mojo! or have they!” karun said. red bull were in 5th and 6th and not entirely sucking for the moment. 

everyone did one flyer and then came out at the end for a second flyer. 

here were the standings: 

charles, carlos, oscar, george, checo, max, lewis, alex, franco, fernando

and everyone was making it to the line and all was going smooth until-

wait a second what is that

could it be! alex albon! with the air box fan still on his car! surely not!!!

oh but it was! and harry and karun were like oh wow so unfortunate for williams tisk tisk

meanwhile ted jumped on the radio to Loudly announce to everyone that this was insane and if i have time here i will put the rant he ranted cause it was Fantastic.

and what do you know i have time

so we had 3 minutes left qualifying and everyone was pulling out of the pits for their last flyer when oscar hopped on the radio to say

"the williams still has the air box fan in"

"oh what an error! disaster for williams!" karun and harry said. they speculated if the marshalls could get it or if the session needed to be red flagged. but alex threw the fan off the car.

and then they asked "ted have you ever seen that before?" and ted did not hold back:

"ITS A MASSIVE YELLOW FAN HOW COULD YOU MISS IT???!!! HOW COULD THE MECHANICS MISS IT???? I CANT BELIVE THEY WOULD MAKE SUCH A MISTAKE DOWN AT WILLIAMS! SUCH AN EXPERIENCED BUNCH OF GUYS AND GIRLS! WHAT IS GOING ON AT WILLIAMS OPERATIONALLY? HOW COULD YOU SEND A CAR OUT LIKE THAT?"

alex, obviously, got fined for an unsafe release 5k euros. he also had to throw the fan off to the side and got slightly covered in dry ice. he did not get to the a second flying lap. 

franco did tho!

and here were out qualifying results: 

p1: charles p2: oscar p3: carlos p4: checo p5: george p6: max p7: lewis p8: fernando p9: franco p10: alex  p11: ollie p12: yuki p13: pierre p14: nico p15: lance p16: daniel  p17: lando p18: valtteri p19: zhou p20: esteban 

oh ho ho but we werent done yet. because pierre gasly got disqualified from qualifying. for failing fuel flow regulations. and lewis was going to have to start from the pit lane for changing his power unit. 

everyone, and by everyone i mean oscar max and checo, pretty much said that charles was going to get pole no matter what, they knew this coming in and the best they were trying for was second

onto the race. 

notably, this is considered a checo track. this was one of the three races that max did not win last year. because checo won it. its a track that he does well on, evidenced by the fact that he qualified above max in qualifying. so people were expecting big things from him.

and so, we head into lap 1.

charles managed to hang onto the lead. checo passed carlos straight out of the gate for third and max managed to pass george to take fifth. lando had managed to get ahead of nico and up into 13th. notably, franco held onto 8th and ollie was able to hold onto tenth. 

someone who was not doing well was lance stroll, who came on the radio saying that he had a puncture. this was from contact with yuki. lance had to pit for fresh tires and was pretty immediately thrown to the back of the grid. 

by lap 2 lando had managed to get past daniel and was in 12th, he was trying to get past yuki next, which he managed by lap 3. yuki also lost a  spot to nico. 

also slaying in the mclaren was oscar, who took fastest lap. then charles took fastest lap.

and lewis hamilton, who had started from the pit lane, was up to 16th. already. somehow. though he was displeased with the tires, sayig that “this tire is pretty bad” over the radio. 

yuki meanwhile was clearly having a problem because he had started going very very slowly. thought the pit wall said that he had no problems. this would later turn out to be false but we will indulge them for the time being. 

franco was STILL ahead of alex albon on lap 6. STILL. 

lando on lap 8 managed to push his way into points positions, overtaking ollie bearman for 10th. though this was where things were about to slow down for him because in front of him were alex, franco and fernando, who were all very close together and would be hard to get past. 

george was back in bad luck hell as a plastic bag entered his airbox. will he ever catch a break. 

on lap 11 nico hulkenberg finally caught up with ollie bearman and passed him for 11th. 

and max’s car was not working. to potentially no one’s surprise. “i have zero bite in the car” he said. and this was probably true because checo was a whole 6.5 seconds ahead of him. insane gap. 

several pit stops later that i will not detail out because we simply do not have the time, alex albon ended up in 4th and lando ended up in fifth. and oscar was about to get undercut by checo. 

“mojo seems to be back for checo perez” harry said, correctly. 

mojo was back for him indeed. and now he was right behind lando. 

and if you will recall, according to mclaren themselves, priority at mclaren is the team first, then oscar, then lando. but oscar was ahead of lando. so what did mclaren do? 

they asked lando do hold up perez, but not compromise his own race. 

remever a long time ago when i said mclaren wouldn't have any internal drama this season? man how i was wrong.

lando managed to hold up perez for around a lap or two before he got past. this was crucial because this was during when oscar was in the pits. 

thanks to lando and the power of the papaya rules teamwork, oscar ended up coming out in 4th, only .706s ahead of checo. 

mclaren are working together everyone! mclaren are working together!

meanwhile, turns out that yuki did indeed have problems because he retired on lap 17 with a hole in his sidepod from the contact with lance on lap 1. this was now two races in a row where he had had to retire for reasons out of his control. 

several more people pitted. and eventually charles was back out in front, oscar was in p2. until he wasn't. no, he didn't dnf. he overtook charles! he was in p1! he popped out of nowhere! nowhere being 2 car lengths back and just flooring it to spring around charles like a little silly slinky! karun called it a “good, fair and robust defense,” which sounds like its descibing notes in wine. but this was not wine. this was the baku gp. and we were only half done. 

ollie bearman was defending against lewis hamilton, holding on tightly to 14th place. 

charles was still behind oscar and he could not get past, despite the fact that he was still very much in spitting distance. “they are pushing like crazy or they have more grip than us” he said. 

carlos got past both lando and alex albon and was up into 4th

this brought max up behind lando. max was on 11 lap old tires and lando was on 24 lap old tires. but lando still defended like hell and managed to hold onto sixth. max was 0.632 seconds behind lando on lap 25 when he said that “my brakes are not working.” this was hardly a surprise. max has hated the car since china.

also experiencing technical difficulties was sir lewis hamilton. he was stuck down in 14th and was first told to do “everything you can do to get the surface temp down” of the tires. he said “im trying” then several laps later on lap 29 he came on the radio to say “are you seeing how i have to drive this thing?” “yes,” bono, his engineer said. “quite effective though.” 

max was still half a second behind lando. mclaren faked a pit stop call over the radio to get max to pit. he did not. 

but, george russell did manage to pass him. which was “not good for max’s world champion aspirations.”

this was also when ted very bafflingly said that “if i had a sofa in the pit lane i would be jumping up and down on it” im not sure what that was in response to. 

meanwhile, ollie was still holding off sir lewis hamilton. and charles was trying to get oscar to pit again by lying over the radio. it was not working. 

lando did a pit stop finally and came out a whole 15 second behind max. he was hoping to catch max by the end of the race. but it might be tight. lets go last lap lando. 

“lando, imagine andrea on your shoulder saying ‘zero wheel spin’ in every exit,” lando’s race engineer said. if you're confused, everyone else was too. 

10 laps to go and here were the order of affairs:

oscar

+.449s charles +1.865s checo +2.989s carlos +16.530s george  +1.909s max +11.535s lando +9.715s fernando +2.589s alex +2.451s nico +4.667s franco +1.590s lewis +1.261s ollie +1.791s pierre +9.205s daniel +23.919s esteban  +.789s lance +3.862s valtteri +3.631s guanyu 

lando was determined. he took fastest lap on lap 43 and was 8.8s behind max

at this point, the leaders were starting to lap the cars in the back. “the back markers are starting to come up,” checo’s engineer said to him. “its going to get messy.”

“hold onto your hats and if you don't have one go get one and hold onto it” harry said. harry would turn out to be correct. 

we had the top 3 all running very close to eachother, that was oscar, charles and checo and “welcome to the party carlos sainz!” who was now 1.2 seconds behind checo in the four way battle for the lead.

definitely not leading was lance stroll, who retired on lap 47 with a brake problem. 

oscar managed to pull ahead of charles by 1.5 seconds, finally knocking him out of DRS range. so now it was a three way battle for second. and charles had “no rear tires. no rear tires at all.” 

and, just like i said he would, lando managed to pass max on lap 49. he was closing the gap slowly in the championship. 

“verstappen’s day goes from bad to worse,” harry said. because lando still had fastest lap, so he would score 3 more points than max. which is important if lando wants to beat max in the championship (though i think hes still like 60 points behind)

meanwhile! franco managed to pass nico hulkenberg for 10th! he was in the points!!!! at his second race!!! 

but this was short lived because there was a crash! a big smackeroo! between carlos and checo!! checo was mad, carlos didn't know what happened. 

what happened was that carlos was trying to pass checo but checo did not move over. it was deemed an equal fault accident. both of them were utterly confused at what happened and apparently spent 20 minutes in the medical center being utterly lost and aparently saying that sometimes this sport sucks. and! contrary to what several people said! checo did not bang on carlos’s helmet after the crash. 

the crash actually caused chef's dad to have a heart attack. he is stable now.

and well. this clip of george from the post qualifying interviews definitely didnt age well:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mahir (@f1trollguy)

but! since we were a matter of a few laps from the end, this meant that the rest of the race was finished under a virtual safety car. 

which meant 

OSCAR PIASTRI WINS THE AZERBAIJAN GP

and george inherited p3! 

and on his own merit too! no safety cars, no team orders, no weird shit! 

“yes!” he whispered over the radio. 

he almost fell getting out of the car, then gave us all the “one moment” hand gesture before properly celebrating. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1)

he also got driver of the day! 

(this was marginally better than george russell, who said over the radio “i cant get any rubber (to pick up on his tires) all im getting is leaves”)

gunther steiner also hosted the post race interviews. which was interesting. 

george said that the most difficult part of the race was “driving full gas into a wall of carbon fiber on the penultimate lap…the vsc should have come out sooner” 

charles bashed ferrari because they didn't do any high fuel runs in practice. 

oscar was entirely pleased. “i managed to overtake and hold onto it for the next 35 laps..one of the better races of my career.” and honestly, oscar winning a race straight after mclaren basically announcing that he was their number 2 driver is nothing short of hilarious.

and! mclaren was now leading the constructors championship by 20 points! for the first time in ten years!!!!

the top three had a moment outside of the car that was filled with baffled: 

and oscar's engineer tom got to stand on the podium with him. he usually takes a selfie with oscar after each race he podiums at, but he was too excited to so george took this picture for them

(george also aparently demomished oscar in a game of uno on the plane, immediately humbling him)

george also shielded himself from the champagne on the podium

the cooldown room reacted to the crash in a very straight forward manner:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1)

and very quickly cause its midnight and the singapore gp starts in 8 hours, the post race, speed ran: 

-mark webber told off laura winter for thinking that oscar didn't have good tire management

-alex albon was “super happy, that's a lot of points for us” (williams finished in 7th and 8th). he cut his own interview short when ollie bearman arrived, saying “I can go, im happy to go” and then waving comically. 

-williams was so pleased with this result they blasted everyone with champagne. and they overtook alpine in the constructors championship! this was also their best race finish all season

-(and a quick note, if youre going to really blame logan for being that shit of a driver here, please remember that the car he was driving was several rounds of upgrades behind alex's pretty much the entire time he was driving it)

-ollie became the first driver to ever score points in his first two races for two different constructors because the double dnf pushed him up to 10th place. he said that there was not much difference between the haas and the ferrari, the ferrari was just red

-franco continued to charm everyone and flirt with the reporters. 

-they interviewed george and lewis and the camera had to be adjusted for george's height. it was comical and resulted in my favorite edit so far of the season (sound on)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 𝖠𝗅𝗅 𝖦𝗈𝗈𝖽. 𝖠𝗅𝗅 𝖶𝖺𝗒𝗌. (@f1foryou1)

-lando looked pleased and happy for once. he said about holding off checo that “i didn't hold him up i just had to cool my tires a little.” he was delighted to be leading the constructors for the first time in ten years and he defended alex albon saying “i struggled to get past alex for a while, which is common, alex doesnt make mistakes.” he also ratted on max for going to fast during the VSC and said “i didn't complain, facts were stated.” and to sum it all up he said that “im executing things well, i’m very quick…i’m not going to be the happiest guy, but i am never the happiest guy….car is performing well everywhere…some red cars behind us seem to be our biggest competitors right now” 

-by comparison george insulted all of pirelli. the tire people. “pretty infuriating that it (the pace) changes this so much….its black magic, people who make the tires don't understand the tires…..for 20 laps we had a car not worthy of points and for 20 laps we had a car fighting for victory and the only difference is the tires.” 

-lewis was notably upset after the race and walked through the paddock with his helmet on, not wanting to talk to anyone. but he did talk to franco and ollie and congratulate them on a job well done defending against him and racing against him. franco even fangirled over this on his instagram. 

-charles was clearly upset with ferrari. he was so upset he posted a thirst trap.

-and oscar. oscar was very happy this afternoon. and his mom was there! she doesnt usually come cause it scares her, but nicole was there today! 

-mclaren celebrated with a hell of a lot of champagne. both oscar’s wina and lando’s insane recovery, and the fact that they were leading the championship. red bull have been dethroned, at least for now. 

-there was so much champagne that lando took off his socks to spray it. all seems well at mclaren. 

-at least one thing is for sure, oscar had a better time here this weekend than last year when he got food poisoning and only ate four pieces of toast

and with that. we head into singapore. quite literally as it is starting in a few hours. again, i apologixe about this post. its a little sad, but the next one will be better. pinkly promise. 

see you all soon!!!

[astra-ryuusei]

"Awakening the Sleeping Giant" p2

people seemed to like the first post so have a little more :)

might put it on ao3 later or something

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

The language barrier is a problem, Ulchtar finally decides once they touch down, and his new friend seems to agree.

He’d hit a snag in trying to describe where to go when he realized the Giant had been asleep for longer than English had existed as a language. Thankfully, gestures seemed to be more-or-less universal, so he was able to get across the idea of where to go eventually. They’re currently nestled in a cave somewhere in the Scandinavian mountains. It’s a remote place, especially after the alien attacks in the area a few years back. But he knows that this isn’t a permanent solution.

They need to learn to communicate before the inability to do so gets them both killed.

Which is why they’re now taking turns scratching out a massive diagram on the cave floor with sticks…Well, a stick and a small tree. They’d been trading words back and forth for a good two hours now. As best as he could tell, the Giant’s language was actually quite simple—consisting mainly of nouns, verbs, descriptors, and modifiers to those two things. It wasn’t particularly elegant, but it was versatile enough.

They’d started with things that were easily drawn-out or mimed: things like “person,” “me,” “you.” There was sort of a pronoun system, and the Giant…seemed to be a “he,” or an equivalent. Then they’d tried to build from there—he’d figured out some of the verbs, and how to phrase things as a question, and from there the two of them had hit it off. Now he was trying to get the guy up to speed, because everything would be a whole lot easier if they knew what was going on.

“So…[me-category-] human.” He points to the crude little figure of a human he’s drawn, and the Giant nods along.

How to explain the war…? “Humans [-planet-creation-positive-] Earth.” He points to the rough map of the world they’ve drawn out, then to the Giant’s rather detailed drawing of a kaiju. “[Planet-creation-negative-] Earth.”

They lean down a little closer to the drawing. “Quintesson,” he says with what sounds like outright distaste. Ulchtar’s a little taken aback by that.

“[Question.] Quintesson [-them. Name?]”

“[Name-positive.] Quintessons [negative-negative-negative.]” They confirm. Okay, triple negatives, so this guy hated the damned things just as much as anyone else. Maybe it wasn’t just Earth under siege…?

“Quintessons [motion-inside] Earth…[creation-negative] humans.” He’s painfully aware of his limited vocabulary, hoping it’s enough to get the point across. The Giant seems to pick up on the intent, tensing up just a little.

He continues. “Humans…[Eyes-positive-you. Humans-creation-negative, desire-negative.] So... [negative-brain-do-positive-you. Creations-do-similar.]” We found you. We didn’t want to die. We studied you. Tried to make things like you.

The Giant whirls towards him at that, picking him up to hold him at eye level. The grip is just tight enough to hurt, just enough to feel like a threat. “[You…complete-negative-me?]”

Ulchtar waves his hands in front of his face frantically, mortified. Oh, he’s really fucked up this time. He didn’t realize the Giant remembered getting taken apart like that. “[M-me-do-negative! Complete-positive-repeat!]” He sputtered. I put you back together!

It wasn’t technically a lie. He hadn’t exactly done it out of the kindness of his heart, but it wasn’t a lie.

The glare softens just a bit, the grip relaxing. He's not in immediate risk of death anymore.

They keep talking for a few hours, until it gets too dark to really see what he's doing anymore.

He hmms, trying to think of the right words…

“Uh…” He points up at the sliver of sky above them. “[Sky. Light-negative. Me-vision-negative.]”

“[…Recharge-you? Eyes-positive-me.]” He was offering to keep watch while Ulchtar slept, he mentally translated.

He nodded, fumbling mentally to figure out how to respond to that. “[…Gratitude-positive.]”

Then, another thought occurred to him. “[You. Name. Question?]”

The Giant paused for a second at that, wings drooping just a little bit. “[…name-knowledge-negative. Memory-negative-negative.]”

…oh.

Ulchtar can’t help but feel a little bad for asking now. He tries to shift the topic a bit, pointing to himself. “[Me. Name.] Ulchtar.”

That gets a tilt of the head. “[You. Name. Sound-similar…Star-sound-positive-positive-pitch-positive?]” In this language, the name and the phrase do sound kind of alike, actually. He laughs at that.  

“Star…scream? [Desire-name. Name-sound-positive-positive-positive.]” He adds three positives for emphasis, because it does sound way more badass than “Ulchtar.”

The ground shakes just slightly, and he realizes the Giant is laughing.

Don't get too attached, he reminds himself. They could betray you any second. He's just as dangerous as these Quintessons if he wants to be.

“Oh, knock it off…” He curls up on a relatively comfy-looking patch of cave moss, bundling himself up in some extra clothes in lieu of anything warmer. The cave’s warmer than outside, but still a bit chilly even with the ambient heat from the Giant’s engines heating it up.

It doesn’t stop him from eventually slipping into sleep.

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

The mech with no name shifts his weight just a little, trying to get comfortable in his hiding spot among the mountains. It’s not much—just a little nook in the rocks where it’s tough to spot him—but it’s better than being out in the open, as badly as he wants to stretch out his wings and fly again.

He doesn’t want to put the human—Starscream—Ulchtar—in danger.

Ulchtar’s the only companion he has in this world right now, after all.

So he’s probably going to stick with him for a bit—in no small part because he really doesn’t know where else he’d go. Most of his memory is long since corrupted, throwing him all kinds of errors whenever he tries to think back to before.

He knows, in broad strokes, what he is. He knows he’s a mechanical lifeform. He knows he’s a shapeshifter of some sort. He knows he can fly, and is probably designed to explore space. He knows what the parts inside of him are—what a spark is and that he needs to drink energon to survive. He knows the Quintessons want him dead.

But he doesn’t know who he is. His name. Where he came from. What his own species is called…

Does he have a species?

This whole world was filled with organic life, and nothing else—it was clear that the other machines he’d seen in that laboratory weren’t alive, but rather artificial constructs. They resembled him, but only superficially. He can’t feel their sparks, let alone any sort of EM field—something even the organics of this world have, albeit very faint ones.

Which leaves him with a very frightening question.

Am I alone?

His internal clock is telling him he’s been on this planet for six million years, trapped in stasis.

Surely someone must’ve looked for him, right? One of his kind, maybe? Surely six million years would’ve been long enough for a search party to find him.

If nobody had ever come looking for him, then…then either there was nobody left to send, or he’d mattered so little that nobody had ever bothered to remember him.

He wasn’t sure which hurt more: being alone, or being nobody.

Something wet drips onto his face.

Terrible time for rain, he thinks to himself.

But when he looks up, there’s not a cloud in the sky.

How odd…

He brushes it away, trying not to think about the question hanging over his head.

The night after that is largely uneventful, up until he notices a strange blue-green light on the horizon.

He pokes his head through the entrance. Was dawn supposed to come this early? Was it usually that color?

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

When he’s exhausted, Ulchtar is a pretty heavy sleeper.

That said, the fact that the Giant doesn’t wake him up when he moves away is still damned impressive. No, he only wakes up when it starts getting cold again. Still groggy, it takes him a few seconds to realize his vanished from his spot—something that makes him snap awake instantly in a panic.

He looked up towards the surface. Had he been abandoned? Was the Giant going back to—

Oh.

He sees his companion’s winged silhouette just beyond the mouth of the cave, illuminated in blue and green and violet.

He’s staring at something.

Ulchtar creeps closer, and quickly understands why. There’s an aurora snaking across the sky in full force above the mountains, and the Giant watches in wonder.

His wings twitch when Ulchtar draws near, as if sensing him somehow. “Starscream [recharge-positive?]” He asks. It seems like the nickname is sticking.

“[Recharge-positive],” he agrees. It’s another half-truth; he was sleeping fine until he got cold.

The Giant points up at the aurora, looking very confused. “[Occurrence. Name. Question?]”

“Aurora borealis.”

“[Common-positive? Threat-positive? Question?]”

“[Common-negative. Threat-negative.]” Ulchtar assures him.

He seems to relax a bit at that. “[Eye-similar…sky-heat-positive-light-positive.]”

“Yeah, kinda…” He really does not have the vocabulary to explain how the hell an aurora works. "The sky set itself on fire" is as good an explanation as any.

They nod along. “[Vision…positive-positive-positive.]”

That’s a lot of words to say “it’s pretty,” Ulchtar thinks to himself with a little smile, but jolts when his friend’s wings suddenly flatten against his back, an expression of…something like recognition on his face.

“[Name. Me. Memory-negative-now-positive. Sky-heat-positive-light-positive!]” He puts his hands together and looks to Ulchtar almost expectantly, as if he wants him to try translating this name too.

"...Skyfire," he decides after a few seconds.

The look "Skyfire" gives him at that...He's trying his best not to get attached, to do his best impression of a chessmaster moving his pawns around, but by God, if push came to shove he would kill for that smile.

[soulfulazrael]

Haven't watched Mastermind episode (and wont), but will talk about stuff I saw from it and heard about it

So... I as you who follow my ramblings here probably know (all 2 of you probably). I do not watch this show anymore because I don't care about it's story. Apparently this new episode is BEST OF THE SEASON, but since rest of the season at best gave me a feeling of pure apathy and at worst INCREDIBLE disdain and lack of faith in humanity I say good middle ground is talking about pieces I saw because at this point I don't think I can stand watching this show for longer than 5 minutes at a time.

I make my own story for HB/HH so I will make some comparisons to my own story and plans... Maybe one day I will do bigger post about how my versions of Sins and other things look. No arts though... no talent on my part. Eh... Or maybe... Eh we will see. Probably not, but... Maybe... I dunno.

Comparisons will be mostly about Sins. And the thing I reference is a fic called Song for the Quiet Bird that for now is center of my AU where I make things of Hellaverse in my own way.

So first off. Stella moment. Probably the first thing I saw from it when I heard about it. When I saw that scene I was like: Wow. Actually proper moment where Stella shows more of a character and maybe nuance aAAAAAAaaaand the smirk...

You are amazing at failing every expectation aren't you HB? YOU KNOW SHE LE EVIL!? YOU KNOW SHE BAD!? YOU KNOW STOLAS GOOD!?

Yes I do. I am deaf from the amount of SCREAMING you are throwing at me about this every other minute. Thank you. I am not a 5 year old. She evil. What you do with it? Also apparently NOW she has a brain compared all other times besides season 1 where she had more of a peanut there? What is it? Also incest with her brother? Great... Keep on going with this. I am sure at some point even completely blind AND deaf people will understand how evil she and Andy Magic are. I sadly missed the part where I am supposed to find them interesting. But HEY at least it gives such a great explanation of why Octavia sees Stella as better parent than Stolas which is clearly shown in some of that promotional material... entire one scene... that is not a minute long even and has no dialogue between them. No chemistry or anything... Let's be honest though. For most fans that's probably enough. Just slap one or two scenes later of Andy Magic and Stella saying how bad Stolas is and you are golden... Fuck my life as it is not even a joke. Jesus.

Okay. Besides that... tragedy? I dunno. There is also SINS! Leviathan and Belphegor...

Well... that's just amazingly underwhelming. You know there is a problem when I cannot tell if a character is even meant to be someone special. Because what the Hell (get it? HELL!) is this? They look like about nothing Demons. They are barely more interesting visually than any other shmuck we saw in this world. Ozzie keeps being the best design out of all of them with most distinct and accurate one and I am starting to feel like it is only because Viv took years in making it before hastily making ones for everyone else. Seriously, would you even be able to tell they are meant to be important characters? Because they look like everyone else in this world.

Now funnily enough I have my own concepts for those in my AU. Not exactly more interesting visually as again... not an artist and it is still more concept thing as I keep figuring things out, but this is the current form I want to get them across. I think they do the job on some level in terms of what they are meant to be. One is Leviathan. It is... interesting to portray it with 2 heads... a reason for that kind of eludes, but who am I to judge? But I know in my version it will just honestly a large beast swimming across endless waters of Envy. A giant sea monster that keeps itself in a giant form among domes of Envy where cities are with immeasurable wealth and power, a creature meant to be envied. But also a creature that envies deeper than any other over the loss of their partner at the hand of God, not being able to be close with anyone or even be understood. A creature who's deep resentment and pain created entire Ring around them.

If I made a scene like that with 'sins' meeting I think it would be with a High Demon that serves as a high priest/priestess of the Leviathan faith. As all very high rank demons like Sins, certain Goetia Kings and other VERY important figures have their own religion that Hellborn MUST adhere to, in a way choose their deity and in this case it would be a Demon from said church of Leviathan that interprets them... cluelessly.

While Belphegor would not be much different as a creature that also is a larger than life being. But this one being like a giant, anthropomorphic crocodile like being similar to SCP 682, but more... static. Basically giant center point of a garbage heap that is Sloth in my AU. In some ways beautiful, but also incredibly toxic and dangerous to everything wasteland. Very bottom of Hell. Horrible place where you can be killed by some horrifying monsters with no real mind that prey on the helpless. As Belphegor itself (dunno if it even has gender) exudes aura of sloth where most Demons that come to sloth will be at some point forced to lay down and stay in place. "Bask under non existent sun" which is a term used in that version of Hell a bit to call someone lazy and it comes from that which can spell someone's horrid death.

Those are my ideas for those. But next one is the big boy himself. The Big S. Adversary. Satan.

He looks alright. Nothing you would not imagine a Satan to be. He looks dragon like, buff (even if he skipped leg day) and has funny horns of Imps. Also he has little therapist... which is funny because in my fic I also have a trial with the main judge there (in that case Lucifugus or Lucifuge Rofocale) who also has his own little therapist thing (alongside some other annoyances... and far more misery). It is funny how I guess both me and Viv kind of agree people in high political power in Hell would have their own therapist. In my version though he keeps them deep within the tower he resides in. But either way. Can't say his design or personality is something I did not see coming.

As for my version I will go with... yeah it will be quite different. Better or not. Your choice. A centaur like being that has 4 big arms, molten lava in his veins and skull on top of his body looking like a goat or dragon like being (still thinking on that). A demented monstrosity who's head went awry due to their perpetual rage who can now think of nothing, but drowning everything in so much blood that he will one day swim on that tide of gore to the Pearly Gates and smash them open in ultimate showing of their superiority over all of creation. Something his kin the Imps for the most part also believe and praise. A promise of sea of gore and glorious war. Not the kind of creature that would hold a trial. In that world it's more of a Lucifuge thing... or Lucifer if he is mood for jokes and tormenting some poor souls for their amusement.

Also I hear Stolas lost all his wealth and power over... NOT the shitty things that he did, just that he was forced to lie for the sake of I.M.P.... Eh... The avoidance of responsibility continues. Even when characters face consequences it can NEVER be over their own actions. It has to be something that can be proven wrong and goddamn will that probably be true with Via as well. Because let me tell you they are most likely going to make her be in the wrong for hating poor little Stolas baby and I hate it already. I know making assumptions is not good, but by GOD were they good at making those expectations of nuance low so far...

Actually what expectations? I don't watch this show anymore. But I am passionate about it's ideas... and that hurts me. A lot. I made this entire post because of those... and make a fic that has now few HUNDRED THOUSAND words. Damn. No idea if my version is better or worse... but it is one I prefer. It is different definitely. Even though in certain ways it's weirdly similar.

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

in the sugar and spice universe, the boys know that she cams and i assume that she’s aware that her roommates watch, but does she know about ransom watching?

a/n: i. am. gnawing. at. my. cage.

∼ gentle reminder that feedback, but especially reblogs are the way you support writers on here ∽

sugar & spice au masterlist | 101, intro to the au

masterlist | join my taglist

we’ve already established that his discovery of your little hobby was what ended your relationship. i imagine that he fell over your stream while just browsing for something to jerk off to and then BOOM, there you were. 

in true asshole fashion, he of course confronted you about it in a big ol fight:

“choose. come on. me or that.”

“ransom,” you sighed as he kept on pushing.

“come on,” he roared, “just pick goddamn it!”

“that!” you blurted as he kept on yelling, “i wanna keep camming!” though that statement hadn’t been what he’d predicted, “it makes me happy and you–…”

“…i don’t?”

“not lately…”

“well how else would you think i’d react to finding out my girl has secretly been whoring herself out to anyone with an internet connection?”

the slap you then crack against his cheek echoed throughout the whole room, “fuck you,” you spat, “don’t ever talk to me, don’t even look at me, ever again.”

and then you tried to stay as far away from him as possible even though i think he would have kept trying to worm his way back into your good graces (because he obviously fucked up)

you also moved in with steve, bucky and curtis after the breakup and i imagine they began to act as your bodyguards when it came to your ex. keeping an eye out and helping you avoid him at all costs. 

but the thing is, from the moment that he first discovered your stream, and honestly also as a way to lick his wounds post-breakup, he kept going back to it, kept opening up the website till it was permanently open on his phone, always ready for when you went live or posted something (a pic or vid or just flirty message)

it was like an addiction and he couldn’t stop

he wasn’t even ashamed about it because to him it was a way to keep your faded relationship alive, keep you with him and for a generous tip (which he could more than afford as the trust fund kid he was) you’d still do as he wished, still follow his sinful commands.

turn around, let me see that ass

be a good girl and turn up the speed

send me those panties after you’ve soaked them with your cream, i’ll pay double your usual rate for the underwear you sell.

did you know that TittyCokeKingXXX, one of your most loyal followers and top tippers, was your ex? hell no.

how would you finally discover his true identity? maybe it would be at a party you’re both at, a celebration after the football team’s latest victory (of which both your roomies steve and bucky are on, but unfortunately so is ransom) 

he probably gets too drunk and then the truth starts slipping out

maybe he thinks he still has a shot, but just as you turn him down, he gets petty and accidentally blurts out, “well you didn’t seem to have a problem with me last night when you were calling me sir and making yourself squirt in the shower.” 

the image of you crumbled on the tile floor, shower head blasting in your hand as you ripped it away from your overstimulated clit was still seared into his brain. tits all soapy, yet he could still make out the faint letters of the possessive scrawling he'd paid you to scribble with marker the week before reading daddy’s girl

“…how do you know that?” you uttered and he suddenly realised that he’d actually said those words out loud and not just thought them as usual, “ransom, how the fuck do you know that?”

© 2024 thyme-in-a-bubble 

[fractal--cat]

let's start to take beldaruit seriously!

wha fandom pls share this post, my blog is finally not shadowbanned and i really want more people to see this. thank you

(also no beta read but who cares. feel free to correct me)

this is a beldaruit analysis written after ch.81. spoilers: he's absolutely not just a silly old man on a chair, but actually one of the most well-written characters in wha i think

1. IS HE ACTUALLY THAT OLD?

yeah im really meticulous, but i want to start from this and want you to read it. being old is not bad at all, but i think y'all guys exaggerate beldaruit's actual age.

please just go search some pics of real people in their sixties, seventies. go compare his face with other actually old char's faces. he's not that old :)

beldaruit's smoke figures of himself look younger than his real body, that's true. but here's the comparison of his true appearance to others' who are really about 60-70 i guess

+ beldaruit's lifestyle is not healthy at all. his physical state is bad, he has not many ways to do physical activities, he spends most of his time being in his room. all the more so, he smokes. knowing this, i think he looks even older than he actually is and he's mostly like 45-48.

to be short, he's mostly like your dad, not your grandpa :DD

2. IS HE ACTUALLY THAT SILLY?

yeah he's the silliest. but it's a bit more complicated.

observing, i've came to the conclusion that beldaruit acts silly, too energetic and entertaining only with kids or with ones he remembers since they were kids (e.g. qifrey, olruggio)

there's a simple obvious reason for it, beldaruit says it himself:

yes, he genuinely loves magic and to teach magic. his emotions are true, but a bit overplayed to affect on younger witches and to make them as in love with magic as he is.

one more remark. beldaruit's behavior with riliphin is not as with most kids. i think it's because beldaruit creates a unique approach to each of little witches. beldaruit is able to control and tune his emotional bombing depending on the situation. he is also able to feel well what's going on in others's hearts and minds and he builds his own behavior based on this.

the silver eve arc lets us know more obviously that beldaruit can be serious, responsible, communicating calmly and constructively when it's required. he obviously can modulate his overplaying and emotions when he must do so, there's no problem for him! he is also abnormally loyal to witches' world laws and values, literally more loyal than the most of witches (but we'll talk about it a bit later)

beldaruit is broad-minded, he often manages his own personality qualities to match others', he can entertain others while at the same time taking a huge responsibility (he's the one of three sages after all)

3. IS HIS DISABILITY ADDED JUST FOR REPRESENTATION?

thoughts below are just my hypotheses and personal opinion, keep it in mind

beldaruit's disability is a really important part of him that affects the plot and i think it can help us to understand his outlook and values better.

these engendale's words is kind of synopsis of my take on it:

on the one hand ofc that's not true that beldaruit sees himself better and more important than others! but on the other hand these words are not just a misconception and i'll prove it

as i said, beldaruit is like abnormally and even compulsively loyal to witches' world laws and values. he is also strictly against the forbidden magic. yes he is kind of flexible in this question, but still strictly against the direct violation of the law. that's because he thinks that lack of devotion to the law and to the image of an ideal good witch is a sign of weakness and egoism.

but why does he connect these dots? i think that he cultivates his own fortitude in not using forbidden magic for healing himself, not getting magic and medicine together. beldaruit is the wise in teachings, "stands at the pinnacle of society", maybe the person who knows about magic more than anyone else, at least he's a really thoughtful and smart person. so he'd easily find a way to heal himself using magic with minimal losses of reputation and quality of his life. but he rigorously rejects this idea.

the fact of following this strict inner moral code is a kind of ego supply for beldaruit. despite of his own thoughts about altruism and global equality - how ironic - this is kind of self-affirmation for him, through overcoming himself and a bit demonstrative self sacrifice to the law and greater values.

⬆️ and that's why beldaruit is so aggressive with deanreldy, who wants to mix medicine with magic and talks too light-headedly about it. yes, beldaruit remembers the day of pact and that's really a strong reason already to act so, but i think there are more personal reasons too

⬆️ even more obvious reference on beldaruit's health state in his own thoughts on forbidden magic (it was out of topic, him and coco weren't talking especially about healing)

⬆️ there (and not only there.. like.. in general) is a hint on parallel/contrast between beldaruit and qifrey. qifrey is ready to consider the option of using forbidden magic to bring his eye back. beldaruit sees it as simply giving in to temptation. that's the thing that makes them different

in ch.81 beldaruit shows almost protruding humility and resignation to the fact that his hand is broken. and he has the same mindset about his disability in general. and that's not because he doesn't care about it. his behavior patterns are similar to self harm, that toxically much he is affected by ideas of altruism, self disregarding and not showing signs of weakness.

and he is attach so much to his own image of being disabled. not in a pitiful way, but in a way that makes him motivated to show and push his mental strength to others. i think beldaruit is kind of floating between self-devaluation (that makes him show that much humility) and self-exaltation above others who are "egoistic and weak" and break the law and/or use forbidden magic (of what engendale was saying about)

WHAT'S THE CONCLUSION?

beldaruit is so amazing ahahdhahagha😭

he is so complex and so versatile and so underrated. his personality has so many forms and shapes, you can find both wonderful and displeasing parts there and that's literally a sign of a well-written character. his lore is very subtle and implicit, but so interesting for trying to understand.

beldaruit needs a patpat .

[yourloveaton]

Continuing

Secondly, Gaster and his relationship with Trickster. We know that Gaster knows Sans is Trickster from the very beginning. But I'm curious about something. You said that at some point Trickster became some kind of symbol of hope in the underground? How did that happen, like I personally don't believe that this happened ONLY because of his jokes and riddles that gave him this title. You often draw Trickster fighting, does this mean that Sans somehow manages to find himself superhero-type problems in this closed underground? Or is he just helping the monsters in some way? Does Gaster worry about Sans's Trickster activity at least a little? If not because of the fights and maybe sometimes risky tricks, then because of the title of "Hope" for the people of the underground. Or is he happy, because the monsters lack something like that in their lives, and if it so happened that this symbol turned out to be Trickster, then oh well 🤷‍♂️. Maybe Dadster is even a little proud of Sans for this? Would he say it out loud to him if that's the case?

I’ve been working on Trickster’s lore with that same question imprinted into my head HAHAHA Like how did this guy somehow managed to become the symbol of hope in the underground when all he does is tricks and cause trouble and more..

So far, I’d like to think that Trickster started out as mischievous cryptic being that messed around once in a while (playing pranks, pissing the folk out, playing with them, putting on a show etc.) which made him known among the underground community (Many monsters had different opinions about him, rumors and discussions had spread all around)

As time went on, Trickster’s antics grew on them as well as how Trickster helped the people out in need, whether small or not and many other traits that he’s displayed. I think there would a turning point for Trickster’s career where he suddenly became the symbol of hope, someone to count on at darkest times for the underground. Because he’ll be there for you no matter what and maybe, just maybe he’d be able to get everyone out of here. His actions and what he’s done would have inspired many monsters and with everyone’s desire to cling to somewhere to hold on (how monsters want to come up to the surface and be free rather than be trapped underground) Trickster happened to be there, holding their hopes and dreams for them.

That’s what I think Trickster’s character would be like, how he became the symbol of hope for the underground even if he was a very annoying prank-pulling entertaining jester.

I actually tried portraying the whole thing with this drawing too !!! I had been thinking about Trickster’s character and tried to convey that feeling through this art piece hahahaha

He’ll guide you, the glimmer of hope!

Waiting for the sunlight to bestow onto the underground

Hopefully one day…

Something charming, something inspirational, something beautiful to admire and feel hope !!! I think that’s what I aimed for this drawing hahahha ahhahahahaha

For dadster, I’m thinking he didn’t care much on what sans did as long as it didn’t hinder their work. Though he MIGHT BE one of the first monsters that MIGHT HAVE held hope for Trickster or his SON in general :) His best student and bright son like a shining star, his bundle of light and hope…………… though he never says anything ab it to Sans so LOL And Dadster might even be a little proud of Sans and there could be times when he’s worried about him too hehehhe hehehe But no words are ever uttered…

I hope I was be able to answer the question properly and understandable!! I hope it makes sense 🥲🥲🥲💖💖💖

[alto-is-a-cloud]

I used to work somewhere similar.

Not a single week without a new problem being created and piling on top of the others, unsolved problems. Said unsolved problems include a few of my best anecdotes now that i left, but living through them definitely wasn't a fun time. I still shudder when i think of what the Hallway became every february...

When my friends, very concerned by what i told them, told me to quit, i found that, despite my enthusiasm when talking to them, i just couldnt submit my resignation. Every morning i'd hype myself up on the way, but every floor i went up, i'd feel more and more guilty for leaving my coworkers to deal with the shit show going on, or i'd suddenly think that it was actually very bearable and i had just been exaggerating to my friends.

Well, there was this spider that occupied all of the third floor, and i worked on the seventh, so every day i'd have to go through the webs (because of course that was the only floor with only stairs and no elevator) at least twice, often more because my stupid boss Frank kept asking me to get something or another in the lower floors. Dickhead. And the webs kept getting stuck in my hair and my clothes, just, yuck, disgusting stuff (at least i never had a run in with Donna, Linda had her arms stuck to her chest for, like, two weeks i think ? "Very unefficient when typing", Frank wrote in her review that month. Dickhead.).

I talked about that to one of my friends, who thought they'd heard something similar once and started looking it up. Turns out, it was all on purpose. The people working on the floors four and up had a very specific profile, highly sensitive to a drug that was secreted by Donna's webs that they used to isolate us and keep us here, on a laughable pay and horrendous work conditions. Always knew Frank was a cheapskate but that one was truly unexpected. Though maybe i should have been more suspicious when they asked for a blood sample at my interview. Maybe that should have been a red flag for an office job.

Once i found out, i had my friend submit my resignation via mail for me and started working with a lawyer that specializes in those cases because as it turns out, multidimensional offices often have a terrible retention rate and love to use very unethical ways to solve that problem.

Sorry, i guess i ended up venting a bit, but i just wanted to say that if nothing holds you back you definitely should leave. Your skillset WILL find another use somewhere, and if you find yourself unable to leave, contact a specialist and find out why as THIS IS NOT A NORMAL THING THAT JUST HAPPENS. I cannot stress this enough, i kept trying to talk to my ex coworkers but they were working here for so long they just shrugged it off and started telling me about the dark lord that invaded the left wing ???

The first step anyway is to make sure you have a support system outside of the office. I was starting to grow more and more distant when i finally managed to leave, and i know if I had been on my own I'd still be stuck there. So reach out, and take care of yourself !

working in a multidimensional office is absolute hell. and no I'm not talking about the gate to Hell on the sixth floor, I'm talking about how the bottomless pit in the break room hasn't been filled in or even covered over for three months. not even a plank of wood across it! it's just fucking sitting there in the break room, i had to get caution tape to rope it off after Jason nearly fell in (and lost us a whole box of blueberry muffins) and nobody's done anything about it? i accidentally dropped my lunch into the pit yesterday and fully considering diving in i literally hate it here