#my dream is that someone keeps track of all the ones we hear about

[pucksandpower]

Let the World Burn

Charles Leclerc x Ferrari driver!Reader

Summary: a brake failure sends Charles’ world spinning out of control

Warnings: crash, partial paralysis, brain injury, and plenty of angst (with a happy ending because I’m still me)

Based on this request

The paddock thrums with energy as you make your way to your car, adrenaline already coursing through your veins. Charles falls into step beside you, his presence as familiar and comforting as the roar of engines.

“Ready to show them how it’s done, mon amour?” His voice is a low rumble, eyes alight with competitive fire.

You grin, leaning in to press a swift kiss to his lips. “Always. You’ll be the one watching my rear wing this time.”

Charles laughs, the sound rich and warm. “We’ll see about that.” He squeezes your hand, calloused fingers intertwining with yours. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” The words carry the weight of a thousand unspoken promises, a vow as binding as the wedding bands you can’t yet wear.

All too soon, you’re parting ways, disappearing into the organized chaos of the garage. You slide into the snug confines of the cockpit, the car’s familiar lines an extension of your own body. A flurry of final checks, the high-pitched whine of the engine firing up, and then you’re rolling onto the grid, the tension crackling like static electricity.

The lights go out, and the world narrows to the scream of tires on tarmac, the high-pitched howl of the engine, and the razor-sharp focus that has carried you this far. You and Charles trade positions with every corner, locked in an exhilarating duel that has the crowd on its feet.

And then, without warning, your world fractures.

The pedal goes soft underfoot, your instincts screaming even before the telltale high-pitched whine cuts through the roar of the engine. You slam on the brakes, but the response is sickening— a bare fraction of the deceleration you need.

“Ricky?” Your voice is tight, the adrenaline surging as the implications crash over you in waves. “I’ve got a brake issue here. A big one.”

“Copy that.” Ricky’s tone is clipped, professional, even as your heart rabbits in your chest. “Okay, let’s try cycling the systems-”

You follow his instructions with mechanical precision, but the results are the same: negligible braking force, the car still hurtling forward at murderous speeds. A hairpin looms ahead, the barriers terrifyingly close, and you fight the wheel with everything you have, desperate to keep the bucking machine on track.

“Ricky, is this being broadcast?” The words tumble out in a breathless rush as the Turn looms closer, closer.

“Affirmative.” There’s a pause, the faintest tremor in Ricky’s voice. “It’s going out live.”

You exhale, a shuddering breath that shakes your entire frame. There’s only one person you need to reach now.

“Charles.” His name catches in your throat, thick with emotion. “If you’re listening to this-”

The tears come then, hot and blinding as you wrestle with the uncontrollable car. This can’t be how it ends, not like this, not when you’d imagined decades more by his side.

“In some other life, maybe we would have grown old together.” The words are torn from the depths of your soul, raw and wrenched free by the stark reality bearing down on you. “I wish I could have given you babies and watched our children grow up and lived a long life by your side like we always dreamed.”

Your vision blurs, the turn now a void of unforgiving concrete rushing up to meet you. You fight the wheel with everything you have, but there’s no stopping the inevitable now.

“You deserve every happiness, my love. If … if I don’t make it, please … please find someone else to love and cherish. Don't grieve forever. Be happy.” The brake pedal is useless under your foot, the barriers skimming past in a blur of terror. “Because you deserve all the love in this world and so much more.”

“I hope you’ll hear this,” you force out in a cracked whisper. "And I need you to know, my heart, that even if things end here … even if I don’t get to grow old with you … you have been the brightest light in my life these past five years. You made me happier than I ever dreamed. And I will never, ever stop loving you, Charles. Not in this life or the next. You are everything-”

The impact is a cosmic force, obliterating breath and thought and everything else in a blinding flare of darkness. But still, you cling to awareness, to the phantom thread of love that binds you to the one person who matters most.

“I’ll always-” The anguished vow catches, cut brutally short as oblivion rises to claim you. In those final heartbeats, a fleeting kaleidoscope of memories sparks behind your eyes: unmistakable laughter, stolen kisses, quiet moments wrapped in each other’s arms.

Five years of loving Charles, of being loved by him in a way you’d never dared dream possible.

It wasn’t enough. It could never be enough.

But it was everything.

“I love-”

Then, nothing.

***

The world fragments around Charles as his gaze locks onto the shattered remains of the familiar red car. One heartbeat — an endless, merciless instant suspended in time — and then his instincts take over with the force of a tidal wave.

“No … no, no, no!” The anguished words rip from his throat as he wrenches the steering wheel, the shriek of tires on tarmac drowned out by the roar of his own pulse thundering in his ears.

The race, the championship, every ambition and dream that has driven him to this point — it all fades into insignificance as he tears down the pitlane, desperation clawing at his throat. “Y/N! Hold on!”

Flames lick hungrily at the twisted wreckage as he sprints towards the mangled chassis, heedless of the searing heat or the choking smoke that burns his lungs. There’s only one thought, one driving need that propels him forward: reach you, get you out, pull you back from the precipice that has opened up beneath his feet.

“Y/N!”

Your name rips from his lips, a hoarse plea swallowed up by the crackle of fire. He skids to a halt beside the wreckage, fingers scrabbling uselessly at the warped metal that has become your cage, your tomb. “Talk to me, mon cœur! I’m here!”

Coherent thought fractures, replaced by blind panic and the soul-deep terror of losing the one light that guides him through this life.

Your eyes are closed, features lax and far too still against the vivid crimson that stains your skin. Charles’ breath catches in his throat, a raw, animal sound clawing its way free as his trembling hands reach for you, desperate to find a flutter of life, a spark of the brilliant fire he knows blazes within you.

“No, no, no … please, stay with me!” He cups your cheek, fingers smearing crimson as they search in vain for a pulse. “I can’t … I can’t lose you!”

Hands grasp at him then, voices raised in shouts he can’t comprehend. He wrestles against the restraints, a feral need to reach you overriding all reason. “Get off me! She needs help!”

But the marshals are insistent, pushing him back with grim determination until he can only watch, helpless, as they douse the ravenous flames.

It feels like an eternity, each gasping breath torn from a soul being flayed apart piece by torturous piece. And then, finally, they move in, the screech of metal and the hiss of hydraulics barely registering over the roar in Charles’ ears.

You’re so still as they work, pale and frighteningly fragile amidst the tangle of debris. A thin rivulet of red trails from the corner of your lips, each sluggish drip a struck match against the powder keg of Charles’ sanity. He takes a shuddering step forward, then another, his world narrowing to the trembling rise and fall of your chest.

“Please … please, stay with me,” he rasps, fingers closing around the rigid lines of the barrier as if it’s the only tether holding him to reality.

A marshal’s hand on his chest, forceful but lacking the strength to halt the unstoppable forward momentum of a man staring into the abyss. “Back off! Let them work!”

But how can he stand back? How can he simply watch as your life’s flame gutters and fades before his eyes? The words climb his throat, tangling into desperate pleas and vows that he’ll burn the world to keep you here, to keep you safe.

Except, no words come. There’s only the taste of ashes on his tongue and the sight of you, broken and bloodied on the unforgiving grass.

The medics arrive in a whirlwind of crisp efficiency, barking terse orders and assessments that slice into Charles with each clipped syllable. He’s dimly aware of the confirmation that you still live, that there’s a chance — but it’s a flicker, fleeting in the face of the reality unfolding before him.

“What are her chances?” The question rasps out, little more than a graveled whisper as he strains against the restraining hands.

You need an airlift, treatment beyond what can be rendered here on this blood-stained stage. Charles knows it, can see the franticness in the medics’ eyes as they work, but the knowledge brings no comfort.

Only an agonizing cycle of seconds hand-cranked like a Medieval torture device, each one stripping another layer of sanity as he watches you slip away.

“Just hang on, mon amour. I’m here … I’m right here.” His voice cracks, breaking on a devastated keen as they load you onto the backboard.

The whine of rotor blades cuts through the static in his head, a cold metallic slice that raises the hairs on the back of his neck. He sucks in a breath, lungs burning with the effort as the helicopter circles in a raucous descent.

“Please, let me go with her!” He wrenches against the hands with renewed desperation.

They’re taking you away.

He tries to follow, legs turned to lead weights, only to be held back once more by the wall of marshals. There’s shouting, words and pleas and anguished vows all tangled into an incomprehensible madness. “No! Y/N!”

And then, you’re gone.

Lifted skyward in a cloud of downdraft, growing smaller and more indistinct until the sleek lines of the helicopter grow razor-thin before disappearing completely.

“No … no, no, no!” Charles’ legs buckle, sending him crashing to his knees in the scorched swath of earth where you were just lying. His hands fist in the grass, heedless of the crimson that stains his fingers, his palms, every inch of shredded skin and broken soul.

The world has ended. His universe has imploded.

And all he can do is kneel in the ashes and scream your name into the uncaring void.

***

The deafening roar of engines fades to a dull thrum as Charles staggers away from the wreckage, his world reduced to a kaleidoscope of fractured images and white noise. He doesn’t register the shouts, the hands grasping at his shoulders as he stumbles blindly towards the track’s perimeter.

Racing. Championships. It all feels like a cruel cosmic joke in the face of what he’s just witnessed.

A chain-link fence looms ahead, the flimsy barrier doing nothing to impede his forward momentum. Figures materialize on the other side — fans, their faces twisted in shock and concern—and then hands are reaching through, steadying him as he clambers over the top with a desperation bordering on madness.

He has to get to you. Nothing else matters.

The parking lot stretches out before him, a maze of gleaming supercars and sleek team transporters. His feet move without conscious thought, propelled by a single-minded determination to reach his haven, his sole remaining tether in this swiftly unraveling realm.

Except, when he arrives at his Ferrari, chest heaving with exertion and the first tendrils of panic starting to set in, the awful truth crashes over him like a tsunami.

No keys.

A choking sound tears from his throat, part sob and part anguished growl of frustration. He can’t break down here, not now, not when every fiber of his being screams at him to keep moving, to fight, to-

“Charles!”

The familiar voice cuts through the din, offering a lifeline just as the darkness threatens to swell and consume him utterly. Andrea skids to a halt beside him, chest heaving and face flushed from his own desperate sprint across the paddock.

In his outstretched hand, the keys dangle and glint in the harsh sunlight.

“I had a feeling,” the trainer pants, thrusting the keys towards Charles with a knowing look.

No other words are needed. Charles snatches them with a terse nod, every agonizing second weighing like an eternity as the engine roars to life beneath his expert touch.

His knuckles whiten on the steering wheel as he wrenches the car into gear, jaw clenched to keep the scream of agony caged behind his teeth. Andrea hardly has time to slam the door before they’re peeling out of the lot in a spray of gravel and burnt rubber.

Except, the awful truth rears its head once more as the speedometer climbs past ludicrous speeds, the blur of the Italian countryside offering no reprieve from the maelstrom tearing him apart from the inside.

“Shit!” Charles’ palm cracks against the steering wheel, knuckles screaming in protest. “Where did they take her?”

Of course Andrea knows what he’s asking. The performance coach doesn’t even hesitate, already dialing his phone with the same razor-sharp focus that has guided Charles through so many battles over the years. “Fred? It’s Andrea. Where did they take Y/N?”

The next few seconds stretch into an eternity, each rattling breath searing Charles’ lungs. The line must still be ringing because Charles can’t make out any other voice, just the muffled hum of the connection and Andrea’s terse breathing. He casts a sidelong glance, jaw clenched so tightly he can feel the tendons straining beneath his skin.

Then, a response — clipped and authoritative even through the tinny speakerphone crackle. “They’ve airlifted her to the trauma center in Milan. She’s still en route.”

No other words are needed. The Ferrari leaps forward with a howl, devouring the asphalt as Charles whites out every other thought, every scrap of sense and reason. All that exists is the burning need to reach you before the unthinkable becomes reality.

Highway signs whip by in a blur, red taillights and shrill horns little more than background noise as he tears down the roads, uncaring of speed limits or lane markers or any of the trifling rules governing the everyday world he’s left behind. Just an animalistic need propelling him forward, the destination the only thing that matters.

Get to her. Don’t be too late. Please, god, don’t let me be too late ...

And then, finally, the looming skyline of Milan rears into view.

Tires squeal in protest as Charles wrenches the steering wheel, the Ferrari fishtailing wildly before rocketing down the street towards the distinctive profile of the hospital. He doesn’t even bother looking for a proper spot, swinging the car up over the curb and leaving it stranded halfway on the sidewalk in a blatant obstruction.

But he doesn’t care. Can’t care about anything beyond reaching you.

The chaos of the emergency room hits them in a crashing wave of noise and activity, but Charles forges ahead undeterred. Shouts and rebuffs part around him like a river around a boulder, falling away as staff recognize the wild-eyed visage barreling towards them.

It’s Italy. It’s the Grand Prix. Of course they know his face, the name that every tifoso here would sell their soul to claim as a native son. A path opens before them, whispers and pointing fingers trailing in their wake.

“Leclerc!”

“Did you hear what happened?”

“Code Red from the Autodromo ..”

The words slice at Charles, both too loud and too indistinct to comprehend beyond the implication that you’re here, somewhere through these endless, claustrophobic hallways. A nurse in seafoam scrubs appears at his side, ushering them with brisk efficiency. He follows without a word, legs fueled by pure desperation as they weave deeper into the sprawling facility.

At last, they’re led into a waiting room, the nurse pivoting to face them with a carefully composed expression. “The patient was brought in approximately thirty minutes ago with severe trauma from the crash. She’s currently in surgery, but there are no further updates I can provide right now.”

Surgery.

The weight of that single word hits like a sledgehammer, sending Charles reeling until his back slams against the nearest wall. He sucks in a ragged gasp, fingers tangling in his sweat-damp curls as the magnitude of what’s unfolding threatens to drag him under completely.

There are voices, murmurs of concern as figures materialize from the edges of his frayed vision. Hands grasp at him, trying in vain to offer comfort or reassurance or something, anything to tether him to this reality that has become his waking nightmare.

But there is no solace to be found.

With a shudder that wracks his entire frame, Charles slides down the wall, knees tucking up in a pitiful facsimile of the bright-eyed young man who had stood on that sunbaked grid only hours ago. His head drops into his upraised palms, fingers tightening in his hair until the pain is the only thing anchoring him against the relentless maelstrom of grief and terror threatening to sweep him away.

The rest of the world falls away until all that remains is the hollow ache in his chest and the silent pleas to someone — anyone — tumbling through his mind on an endless refrain.

A hand rests on his shoulder, grounding him, and he registers Andrea’s presence beside him, the other man’s face drawn in anguish. Tears track down the trainer’s cheeks, glittering in the harsh fluorescent light.

For a long moment, there is only the sound of their mingled breaths, of a silent understanding too profound for words.

Neither speaks. There are no more words to be said, no prayers to voice beyond the torrent of desperate pleas echoing through their fractured psyches.

All that remains is to wait, and steel themselves against the soul-shattering eventuality awaiting them no matter which way the scales of existence tip.

So they wait. And Charles breaks.

***

The fluorescent lights hum a discordant drone, casting stark shadows that seem to leach the warmth from every surface. Charles stares unseeing at the scuffed linoleum tiles inches from his boots, the clinical smell of disinfectant burning his nostrils with each shallow breath.

Beside him, Andrea’s presence is a fixed point amidst the whirling currents of nurses, orderlies, and grim-faced family members that swirl through the waiting room. A bottle of water is pressed into Charles’ hand at some point, the plastic slick with condensation against his palm.

He doesn’t drink. Doesn’t move or speak or show any reaction to the flickering passage of time.

The flow of bodies ebbs and swells like the tide, more familiar faces appearing in scuttling clusters. First the Ferrari personnel, then other teams’ crew, and finally the drivers themselves, one by one. Gasps and muffled curses drift past as the scope of the situation sinks in. Whispers, a bitten-off sob from somewhere across the room.

Charles hears none of it.

He’s adrift in a sea of his own spiraling thoughts, each cresting wave dragging him deeper into the all-consuming torment. Memories mingle with fragments of overheard updates, snippets of frantic phone conversations from those trying to unravel the events of the race.

Blood, so much blood staining the grass, her lips, matting her hair in crimson streaks as she lay unmoving, unbreathing.

Internal bleeding, fractures, neural trauma.

Laughter muffled by the sheets, lazy mornings spent tangled in each other as the world continued its inexorable spin beyond their bedroom walls.

Code Red from the Autodromo ...

The last words she’d tried to force out, little more than a whispered breath over the roar of the racetrack: “I love-”

The purgatory crawls on, each sluggish second carved raw against his tattered nerves. Charles is vaguely aware of the others filtering in and out in shifts, some speaking to him in murmurs too soft to understand, others simply sitting in silence as the minutes bled together into hours.

Some indeterminable span of time later, a ripple works its way through the room, crystallizing into a gathered hush as figures in pale green scrubs appear. One steps forward — a man with graying hair and a craggy face lined by decades of triaging human lives.

The hush deepens to an utter stillness as every eye turns towards him, a held breath drawn taut to the breaking point. Charles lifts his head, forces his gaze to focus on the man’s lips as they part, the moment elongating like a length of rubber pulled to the edge of its tensile strength.

“The patient-” A pause as the surgeon’s eyes flick across the sea of apprehension before settling on Charles with deliberate weight. “-has been stabilized after undergoing extensive surgery to address the trauma sustained in the crash.”

A soft exhalation moves through the room, instinctive reactions barely bridled by the undercurrent of anxiety that keeps them taut, waiting.

“She suffered a severe brain bleed which resulted in significant swelling. In order to alleviate the pressure on her brain, we were forced to put her into a medically-induced coma.”

The words lance through Charles like jagged shards of ice, locking the breath in his lungs. Unconscious, unresponsive. Alive, but without any way of reaching out to reassure himself that the spark still flickers in those endlessly warm eyes. He swallows hard, the room swimming in and out of focus as the surgeon continues in a measured cadence.

“We’ve also had to repair multiple internal injuries and fractures, including her spine. The next forty-eight hours will be critical for monitoring her condition and responses.”

And there it is, the crux they’ve all been tensed in agonizing anticipation to receive. In two days, they’ll know if the fight — your fight — is over before it’s truly begun. The flip of a cosmic coin will determine whether Charles’ entire universe continues to spin … or falls into the black void opening up beneath his feet.

Peripherally, he’s aware of the questions starting, the anguished pleas for more details and reassurances as the others process the impassive surgeon’s words through their own lenses of experience. But Charles hears none of it, only the deafening rush of his own pulse echoing in his ears as the grains of sand in fate’s diabolical hourglass begin their insidious trek.

A blink, and the surgeon is gone, the rest of the somber scrub-clad figures dispersing back towards the swinging doors of the surgical ward. Just like that, they’re alone again, adrift in the limbo of both desperation and dread.

Charles sags, his tenuous grip on composure fracturing like a dam rupturing beneath the crushing weight of reality. A broken whimper rasps from deep within his chest, guttural and visceral and utterly devoid of anything resembling hope.

A hand finds his shoulder, grounding him enough to keep him tethered to the earth as the universe he knows compresses into the torturous rhythm of a mechanized ventilator breathing life into your battered form.

He can see you so clearly, even with his eyes screwed shut against the harsh fluorescents bleaching every surface to the same antiseptic pallor. Fragile, fighting, hooked up to the cold indifference of technology while it works to preserve what he knows to be the brightest, most brilliant soul ever breathed into existence.

The thought of those sparkling eyes, your eyes clouded with unresponsive stillness … it rips the last tattered shred of restraint from his unraveling core. A desolate wail tears free, strangled and raw and utterly devoid of resignation or peace.

He’s loved you for years, months, days, lifetimes — and still it will never be enough to prepare him for a world in which you don’t exist. A breath where he is forced to simply survive without the steady radiance of your presence illuminating every step along his path. Without living.

Andrea’s arms encircle him, a brotherly embrace that does little to quell the flood of anguish now pouring from him in heaving torrents. The others retreat with quiet steps, allowing themselves to fade into the shadows, mere ghosts slipping from the devastation of a man confronting the whispered dread that inhabits every driver’s subconscious.

A love and a life, both hanging suspended by whatever cosmic forces govern their fleeting existences.

You are his gravity, his sun, his guiding starlight.

If you burn out, his universe will go forever dark.

***

The antiseptic haze of the ICU feels like a vice around Charles’ chest as he follows the nurse down the sterile hallway. Each shuffling step is leaden, tinged with an unreality that weighs heavier with every closed door they pass.

Part of him doesn’t want to go through with this. Doesn’t want to face the reality that awaits on the other side of that threshold and shatter the tenuous equilibrium he’s managed to cling to since the moment everything disintegrated on the racetrack.

“She’s just through here.”

The nurse’s words are a wrench, jerking Charles from his reverie with a sobering lurch. Ahead, a nondescript door with a window barely cracked — the entrance to a realm he’s not sure his soul can withstand traversing.

“I’ll give you a few minutes.” Her voice has taken on that too-gentle lilt, the one that says she’s borne witness to too many lives fractured.

Charles nods automatically, not meeting her gaze as she retreats on soft-soled steps. Then it’s just him, alone in the dimly lit hallway with only the muffled noise of machines and murmured voices beyond the door to keep him tethered.

With a fortifying breath that does little to settle the jackhammer pounding in his chest, he grasps the handle and pushes through into your room.

And then … there you are.

Pale and hauntingly still against the sterile sheets, a sickly garden of tubes and wires cocooning your form. There’s barely a rise and fall of your chest, just the robotic ebb and flow of life being pumped through the mask clamped across your face. Dark crescents of bruising mar the fragile skin beneath your eyes, blossoming in vivid shades of yellow and violet across your cheekbones.

You’re so devastatingly still. As if all your vibrant essence has retreated inward, abandoning your corporeal shell in favor of waging an unseen war to simply continue existing.

Charles sucks in a shuddering breath, fingers spasming against his thigh as the first hairline fractures split through the dam he’s erected around his emotions. Part of him wants to flee, to escape back into the blissful naivete of the world before this became his reality. Another part is rooted to the spot with magnetic inevitability, drawn in helpless orbit around your pale, unmoving form.

Slowly, one foot drags in front of the other, carrying him across the room to hover beside your bedside. The blanket of tubes and wires prevents him from seeing much beyond your face and the barest suggestion of a shoulder through the loose neckline of the hospital gown. He reaches out, fingertips trembling as he ghosts them over the exposed skin just above the jutting notch of your collarbone.

You’re so still. And so, so cold.

That’s what breaks him.

His knees hit the tile with a dull thud, unheeded tears already streaking down his cheeks by the time he presses his forehead to the mattress edge. One hand finds yours, enveloping it in a desperate grasp as his entire being crumbles inward like a spent force of nature.

“No, no, no ...” The words are a mantra intermingled with broken gasps as the dam ruptures completely and the anguish pours free in ragged waves. “This can’t … you can’t ...”

Coherent thought deserts him, spiraling into the endless dark of a life without you at his side. These last few days have been a mere fleeting taste of that desolate actuality, uncomprehending glimpses into a reality too obliterating to fully process.

A universe without your light? Your radiance and warmth suffusing his world with color and texture and meaning? It feels like a black hole has opened its maw inside of his chest, hungry to devour everything until nothing remains.

“Please ...”

The plea rasps out in a guttural whisper, little more than carbon scoring the back of his throat. Head bowed, he crushes his brow to your knuckles, each etchings of bone an anchor weight lashing him to this merciless reality.

“Come back to me ...”

The words splinter apart, shredded into woeful gasps as the dam of his fragile composure ruptures. Great, racking sobs claw their way free, tearing through him from the center of his hollow core.

“Take everything else.” The words fracture anew, dissolving into heaving sobs as another piece of his soul splinters away. “Take every trophy, every podium, every championship I will ever win ...”

His voice cracks, seizing in his throat as he drags in a ragged breath, leaning his brow harder against the bedside to ground himself in some last anchor of solidity. Anything to keep from shattering into a million irretrievable pieces as he pours out the final offering, the ultimate sacrifice any driver or athlete can make against the cruel cosmic joke of mortality.

“Take my career, my records ... everything racing has ever meant to me ...” His fingers spasm around yours, clinging on with everything he has left as the darkness closes in. “Just ... please, let her wake up. Let me have more than just these memories of her smile and her laugh and the way she makes everything brighter just by existing.”

The sobs come harder now, racking his frame with deep shudders as his voice dissolves into jagged keening. Tears scald rivulets down his cheeks and drip from his chin to patter against the utilitarian sheets in glimmering droplets. He cries for the unfairness of it all, for the loss that is so brutally imminent it’s already written into his very bones, for the gaping hole that is soon to hollow out his very existence.

Eventually, the racking sobs subside into muted whimpers, the storm ebbing into a quieter desolation as he clings to the thin lifeline of your hand still cradled in his own. A bitter laugh claws its way up his throat, raw and devoid of any trace of humor.

“You’d probably kick my ass if you could see me making deals with the devil like this.”

The silence is deafening, broken only by the measured hiss-pause-exhale of the machines mercilessly keeping that precious flicker of life from extinguishing completely. Another laugh escapes, rough and graveled with the weight of a million shattered pieces of himself littering the floor around him.

“You’ve always been the stronger one between us, haven’t you?”

He angles his head, pressing his lips to your knuckles in a lingering kiss as a fresh deluge of tears gather in his eyes. “So wake up, mon cœur. Wake up and show me how to keep going ...”

The whisper hangs in the air, suspended in the limbo of waiting and dread as the machines continue their indifferent monotony. Charles lingers there, forehead pressed to your palm as the minutes drag onward and the final flickers of day fade from the window.

He’s here. He’ll always be right here.

No matter how many nights and days and eternities that ceaseless tide must crash over him until your eyes open once more.

The quiet is shattered by a stifled gasp at the threshold, a swell of fresh emotion that causes Charles to lift his head, scrubbing futilely at his eyes with the back of his free hand. Two figures have appeared in the doorway, silhouetted by the dimmer light of the hallway beyond.

Footsteps, two sets. Familiar yet not, like ghosts drifting through the periphery of a dream. He knows instinctively who has stepped into the claustrophobic bubble of vigil, but cannot summon the energy to turn, to confront them.

There’s only you. Only you, and this carcass of shattered promises and devastation that he’s been reduced to by the simple fact of your absence.

Until …

Motions in the corner of his vision, the slide of fabric and muted footfalls amidst the monotonous cadence of technology. Then, a pair of weathered hands — hands he recognizes like the veins pulsing with life beneath his own skin — come into view, cupping his bowed head in a cradle of reassurance and shared infinitudes of anguish.

Your parents’ voices carry in the wake of their touch, whispers ragged with the same bone-deep desolation bleeding from Charles’ shattered core. Indistinct murmurs of comfort, of empathy, of that level of understanding that only those poised on the precipice can ever understand.

He doesn’t resist as they draw him into the circle of their arms, enveloping him until their shared warmth banishes some of the chill snaking through his soul. Hot tears streak down his cheeks again, but these aren’t solitary, bitter shed of a man abandoned in the void of loss.

Their mingled anguish binds them together on this fevered plane of suffering, a communion of the damned begging with whatever beneficent forces might hear their pleas.

Please.

Please give them back the spark of light they all crave with every fiber of their beings.

Please, because this ...

This is no life. Not without you.

***

The fluorescent lights seem to dim with every passing hour, the edges of reality blurring together into an indistinct smear. Time has lost all meaning amidst the monotonous cycle of machines and muffled hospital ambiance swirling through your room.

Charles is adrift in a wakeful dream state, his world compressed into the miniscule shifts across your features. The steady beep of the heart monitor, the almost imperceptible rise and fall of your chest, the flutter of your eyelids as your mind navigates whatever ethereal paths separate you from him.

He hasn’t left your bedside. Not for food or rest or even the most basic of human needs. It’s all he can do to simply exist in this liminal space with you, unwilling to surrender a single breath or blink to the cruelty of a reality in which your presence doesn’t illuminate every crevice.

His thumb traces idle circles over your knuckles, the motion as robotic as the whoosh of the ventilator forcing air in and out of your lungs. Voices drift through from the hallway, clinical and detached. More tests and updates being murmured without context or depth of feeling.

None of it matters. The only metric capable of penetrating the fog enshrouding Charles is the ghost of sensation where his calloused fingers brush your skin.

He’s acutely attuned to the details of your condition at any given moment, no matter how inconsequential it may seem to the professionals at their stations monitoring labs and scans. A slight spike in temperature or blood pressure, the faintest twitching muscle or brow-furrow. All of it feels magnified a thousandfold as he clings to every indication, every little shift that might signal a turn for the better.

Or … for the worse

The thought skitters away the instant it surfaces, instinctively repressed by the force of Charles’ sheer desperation. He’s been here, motionless and steadfast, as the forty-eight hour milestone stretched into seventy-two, ninety-six, a hundred and twenty. With each passing day, the doctors grew more optimistic, more positive in their assessments as the swelling in your brain gradually abated.

Until this morning. The preliminary preparations to rouse you from the protective shroud of the medically induced coma began. Rounds of testing, consults from specialists, hushed asides between the scrub-clad personnel that Charles couldn’t parse beyond the undercurrent of anticipation that rippled through the ward.

Now they wait. He and the contingent of nurses and doctors hovering at stations like sentries guarding the gateway to the only world that matters. Watching, observing, as your eyelids begin to stir and the heart monitor’s pattern shifts just slightly from its metronomic rhythm.

Charles holds his breath, fingers tightening around yours as his gaze fixes on your face, the first pinpricks of awareness flickering there. Your eyelids flutter, brow furrowing as if straining against unseen barriers holding you back. Flashes of animation, of unvoiced struggle, play out in rapid succession and his world constricts into that singular point of reality unwinding.

Your fingers twitch, a spasmodic shudder, before settling into a steady movement in his grasp. The change in pressure is minute, featherweight, but it’s enough to electrify every nerve in Charles’ body. His head whips toward the observation window, breath sawing from his lungs.

“She’s waking up!”

It’s little more than a raw exhalation, the spark that ignites the room into urgent, yet controlled, flurries of activity. A nurse slips inside, tapping briskly at monitors and checking lines with an instinctive flow of motion. Charles barely registers her presence, his world distilled down to that singular point of lifeline linking him to you as the fog of unconsciousness finally begins to lift.

Your first inhale tugs at something primal within him, hauls the breath from his lungs even as unfettered joy spills through his chest. There’s movement beneath the fluttering of your eyelids, the rustle of lashes and tiny furrows creasing the delicate skin around your eyes. The seconds stretch out like an eternity until finally ...

They open.

Slitted and hazy, but undeniably open and aware. For an endless heartbeat, Charles is frozen, hands still wrapped around your fingers as afraid to move as a cave explorer plunged into impermeable black.

Then the world rushes in with all the chaos and color he’s been robbed of for far too long. A desperate sound tears itself free of his throat, as his body releases the suspended tension flooding from every pore. He sways forward, bracing his other hand on the mattress edge to keep from utterly crumpling at your very first flutter of life.

“Oh god ...” The fractured keen catches with a gasping sob. “Dieu merci, I thought I-”

But the words fracture, tumble away into lost coherence as you shift, throat bobbing with visible effort before the slurred shape of words escapes past chapped lips.

“C-can’t … f-feel ...”

Charles freezes, the world contracting back into stark lines and hyper-focused clarity. You’re struggling, the effort of speech clear across features still slack with the vestiges of your ordeal.

Panic claws its way up his throat, instinct sounding the call to seek help, to rally every force of medicine at their disposal toward solving this new, horrifying complication. He turns, mouth already open in a shout toward the observation window-

Only to find the room already flooding with personnel, summoned by some unseen alert the moment you stirred. Voices begin filtering through the dissonance clogging his senses — clipped, professional directives lancing through the feedback loop skipping inside his skull.

“Keep her calm-”

“... signs of paralysis ...”

“... damage to the motor cortex ...”

The final phrase lands like a weighted punch, sending Charles reeling back a half-step as the implications unspool into his consciousness. Your face twists in distress, breath sawing as the tube mask fogs with each panicked exhalation.

“I … n-no ...” You try to move, to shift position, but whatever spinal injury incurred in the wreck limits you to feeble twitches and whimpers.

Charles is at your side in an instant, features etched in silent agony as he brushes back the hair feathering across your forehead. His other hand finds yours, solid and grounding as he wills every iota of strength into the contact.

“Shhh, it’s alright. It’ll be alright, just stay calm.”

A cursory glance over his shoulder confirms a flurry of activity unfolding behind the glass as neurologists and specialists filter in. Tests will be run, evaluations and diagnostics to chart out whatever neural trauma has wrought such devastating effects upon your mobility.

In this moment, none of it matters beyond the trembling whimpers parting your lips and the glimmer of tears streaking your cheeks to dampen the pillow beneath your head. Charles wants nothing more than to gather you into his arms, to shield you from this fresh cruelty that has robbed you of yet another piece of your spirit.

Instead, he leans in close, cradling your face in his palm as you struggle to latch onto his presence amidst the waves of fear and distress no doubt crashing through your psyche.

“F-feel my … can’t ....” The disjointed words catch in racking sobs, your eyes squeezing shut against a torrent of emotion he recognizes all too well.

“I know, I know ...” The platitudes feel hollow, meaningless verbal gestures against the enormity of the situation closing its grip around them. But Charles speaks them regardless, murmuring soft reassurances against your anguish.

“Just focus on me, mon cœur. Only me.” His thumb swipes the moisture from your cheekbones, smearing tear tracks through the pallor there as his voice drops to a soft rasp. “You’re still here, still fighting ...”

Your eyes open at that, lashes spiked and heavy with more saline that slips free to streak down your temples. Those depths are oceans of heartache, roiling with a tempest of emotion that momentarily banishes every scrap of reason or logic from Charles’ mind.

All that matters is easing your suffering. Doing anything to lift the veil of anguish smothering the radiant light that marked your essence, that wondrous spark responsible for thawing every one of his defenses and opening a pathway to the heart he’d resigned himself to never sharing.

“I’m here and I’m not leaving. Not ever.” The words scorch themselves into his very soul as he presses his brow to yours. The antiseptic smells of your surroundings fade, the two of you cocooned in the intimate embrace of making your entire world his, if only for these fleeting seconds.

“We’ll get through this together,” he murmurs against your hairline, drinking in the simple euphoria of your closeness, of being able to impart even an inkling of comfort through his presence alone. “I promise.”

The words hang there for a suspended eternity, no response beyond the quiet hiccup of your breathing evening out the tiniest bit. A sliver of solace in the storm to cling to, no matter how tenuous.

Then the retinue of doctors and nurses sweeps in, their voices raised in directives and instructions. It shatters the moment, the outside world crashing back into their reality with all its cold indifference and clinical calculation.

Charles is ushered back, stumbling on legs turned to rubber as he watches you drag your reddened gaze from his, focusing inward as the onslaught of testing begins. He wants to refuse, to dig in his heels and remain steadfastly at your side through whatever fresh torments this throws your way.

But that defiance dies before it can form, snuffed out by the fragility written in the slump of your shoulders and the dull, haunted glaze muting your formerly vibrant spirit. All of his instincts scream at him to protect you, to rally against any external forces bent on inflicting more cruelty upon your already overburdened existence.

Instead, with a leaden heart and bile burning the back of his throat, Charles can only slip from the room and let the white coats encircle you with their machines and sterile indifference.

It’s a wait that lasts an eternity condensed into seconds, the rubber soles of his sneakers tracing grooves into the linoleum as he paces the hallway with increasing franticness. Snatches of conversation drift out from behind the closed door — clinical assessments devoid of context or feeling.

Then, as abruptly as it began, the door sweeps open and a group of personnel file out, scribbling notations and conversing in terse murmurs. One of them, a woman with cropped silver hair and piercing eyes, breaks off to approach Charles. Her expression is carefully neutral, devoid of any emotional tells.

“Mr. Leclerc.” It’s not a question, but an acknowledgment of who he is … and what is owed to him. “Your … partner has suffered extensive trauma to her spinal cord and central nervous system in the crash. The amount of nerve damage we’re detecting suggests paralysis of both lower extremities.”

The words shatter into coherent syllables and empty static all at once. Charles nods numbly, awaiting the verdict he can feel looming above them all.

“We can’t say with any certainty whether this condition is temporary or … permanent.” There’s a pause, the ghost of empathy flickering across her hawkish features before the professional mask reasserts itself. “Only time will tell if there’s any chance of full recovery once the other injuries have mended and treatment can begin in earnest.”

The finality hangs in the air for a stretched tautness of heartbeats, crystalline and utterly devoid of warmth. Charles forces himself to meet her gaze, to hold her clinical detachment within his own eyes as the world drifts further and further away.

“Okay.” It’s little more than a whisper, but it feels like tearing out his own throat to give voice to the thing that shatters his heart for you. “Can I … see her?”

A dip of the woman’s chin, a wordless assent as she steps aside to allow Charles to pass. He manages only a few weighted strides before halting, hand braced against the doorframe as he ghosts his gaze over your prostrate form.

You’re crying, quiet and bereft as the blankets rise and fall in time with your shuddering breaths. Something animal and feral keens low in Charles’ chest at the sight, every scrap of resolve threatening to unravel in the wake of your desolation.

Before he can think of second-guess the impulse, he crosses the space in two strides and drops to his knees beside the mattress. You startle at the sudden motion, eyelids fluttering in shock before recognition blazes through the emptiness shrouding your features. It’s Charles’ undoing.

“No, no … no tears.” His voice cracks like splintered glass, adrift on waves of his own withheld emotion. “You’re still here. You’re still with me, mon amour.”

He finds your hand with his own, fingers dwarfed in his calloused grip as he brings them to his brow. Outside, the doctors and specialists confer in low murmurs, their indifference too jagged to apply to the wounds here in this sanctuary where only you exist.

“You’ll be okay.” The promise burns itself into the verse he’s scribed on his heart, a vow etched in trails of moisture searing his cheeks. “No matter what it takes.”

His lips find your forehead, brushing against the clammy skin there as you sag towards him, drawn together by the gravity of an understanding too profound for the empty hallways and clinical trappings circling them. For this stolen breath, it’s simply you and him in all your wounded radiance.

“I almost lost you.” The confession rattles free, sent skyward on exhaled plumes that stir the fine baby hairs framing your brow. “And I’ll fight like hell to keep you beside me for as long as this life will allow.”

Your eyes find his, fractured mirrors reflecting all the heartache and dashed hopes ricocheting between you. But there’s something else there too.

Hope. Defiance. That unquenchable spark that first lured Charles toward you like a moth begging for the flame’s obliterating caress.

He’ll cling to that inner fire. Pour every ounce of his being into nurturing the smoldering coals until they flare again, banishing the darkness fate has chosen to drape them in at every turn. They’ll get through this, finding whatever reserves the cruelest pockets of despair have yet to strip away to sustain them.

Paralysis, brain damage, unthinkable trauma ...

None of it matters.

Not as long as you’re still drawing those precious, rasping breaths beside him.

Not as long as that beautifully battered heart beats on, refusing to surrender to the abyss.

“Je t’aime.” The oath clings to his lips, pressed against your temple as he holds you close. “Always and forever. No matter what.”

***

The sleek, modern lines of the therapy center bisect the Monegasque sky, all glass and steel rising toward the blue expanse. Charles pauses a moment as he strides across the courtyard, drawing in a steadying breath of the crisp early-winter air before continuing on toward the entrance.

The motion-triggered doors sweep open with a whisper, ushering him into the pristine lobby adorned with the fixtures of understated elegance. Sunlight streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting everything in muted ambers and golds that warm the precision-engineered decor.

Charles crosses the space with economical purpose, gaze sweeping the sitting areas arranged with studied nonchalance until he pinpoints the familiar silhouette awaiting him. You’re positioned with your back angled toward him, the faint shudder of your shoulders visible as you shift position in the high-backed wheelchair.

For a heartbeat, the sight freezes him in place, the old swell of emotions threatening to spiral into rampant chaos until he can taste the acrid tang of panic curdling on his tongue.

Then the moment passes, brought up short by the instinctive reflex to compartmentalize that’s carried him through so many darknesses since the day his entire universe fragmented beyond repair. He shakes it off, squaring his shoulders as he resumes his trajectory, clearing the distance between you in a handful of strides.

You must sense his presence behind you because a tremor shivers across your frame a half-second before you begin to crane your neck towards the source of the approaching footfalls. Charles times his approach to intercept the motion, stepping neatly into your peripheral line of sight with a warm smile ghosting across his features.

“Mon amour.”

The endearment falls from his lips like silk across skin, the richly-textured syllables suffusing the air between you until it feels thick with emotion and the grounding sense of home. Of course, you react to the sound, lips already parting in anticipation of reply that has yet to fully manifest.

The struggle is still so pronounced, hewn into the furrows creasing your brow and the deliberate concentration sharpening the elegant lines of your profile as you wrestle with the disconnect between neural synapses and musculature. Each time Charles bears witness to these trials, it rekindles the enduring fury and heartache enough to steal the air from his lungs.

How cruel could fate be to hurt the brightest soul he’s ever known?

The questions circle endlessly, gnawing their way across his subconscious in a constant cycle of what-ifs and unvoiced anguish. So he clings to patience as your sole solace, willing every ounce of unspoken encouragement into the sliver of contact where his calloused fingers sit atop your knuckles.

“It’s-” The fragmented sound tugs his focus back to your profile in time to catch the flickering hint of frustration tightening the muscles along your jaw as the words elude their trajectory once more. He watches your chest rise and fall with the effort of measured breathing, sees the war being waged behind blown pupils as your nerves strive to reestablish an equilibrium so brutally ruptured by trauma.

And then … a breakthrough.

“I ...” Barely more than an exhale, shaped on the barest puff of air passing your lips. But the simple vowel ignites something beneath Charles’ breastbone, a frisson of hope and pride and a thousand other tangled emotions combining into unadulterated exhilaration.

“L-love ...” Another pause, infinitesimal in the grand cosmic span yet stretched endless as the consonants parse themselves into recognizable sounds. Your eyes find his, glimmering pinpricks of desperate adoration blazing through the sullen cloud of anguish that’s settled in their depths.

The final whisper crystallizes into the air with the reverent weight of an answered prayer, “... you.”

Charles is across the space in an instant, crashing to his knees before you with a breathless sound that parts his lips on a broken rasp. Trembling hands map along the delicate slopes of your cheeks, cradling your face as a single tear spills free to chart a glistening trail down his cheek.

“Oh god ...” The prayer shivers past his lips, half sob and half keening breath as he presses his brow to yours, drowning in your presence and surrounding himself with the singularity of your existence. “You did it. You said it ...”

He trails off, lost to the beautifully battered rhythm of your exhales gusting across his features. This close, you’re all he sees, all he needs to survive this moment of solace among the anguished trials you’ve endured to forge this path back toward him. With painstaking care, he leans in to dust trembling kisses across your brow, your temples, the feathered crescents of your eyelashes as they flutter shut beneath the reverent onslaught.

Until finally, his lips find yours in a searing confession of worship — no urgency or fire, just two souls colliding into the singularity that first kindled their union. Charles slants his mouth across your own, breathing you in deeply until his senses are awash in the familiar scent of your skin and the dizzying tranquility of becoming something so much more than the sum of fragmented parts.

It both is and isn’t a kiss, just the barest brush of sensitive flesh and shared breath. Yet all of Charles’ fortitude strains against the tidal surge of emotion crashing through his bones … devotion and heartache, fervent pride and the nauseating chaser of reality.

Because even as you persevere, rising like a phoenix from each trial along this endless road toward recovery, he knows the path ahead remains strewn with obstacles and shadowed pockets into which the darkness always lurks.

When he finally tears himself away, it’s with another shuddering breath and two crystalline trails of moisture etched into the hollows beneath his eyes. He drinks in your features with the starving desperation of one lost to the merciless desert of life, maps every nuanced shift of line and breath and expression to catalog the miracles unfolding before him.

“You incredible, impossible thing ...” The endearment slips free on a choked laugh, more for his sake than any lack of comprehension on your part. Even after everything, Charles knows you understand the timbre and shape of his words as deeply as if they were your own thoughts.

But before he can bask in the fleeting warmth of this tiny victory, you’re drawing him back in. Delicate fingertips brushing the moisture from his cheekbones as you struggle to translate thought into sound once more.

“This … isn’t ...” A pregnant pause, brow furrowing with the strain before the rest comes in a tumbling rush. “What you wanted. For us.”

The words land like craters against Charles’ ribs, disjointed bombs stripping away the last threads of cheerfulness with each syllable. He stills, mouth parting on a protest that never materializes as you forge onward in the wake of his stunned silence.

“Y-you gave up ...” Another tiny hesitation, your chest rising and falling as you suck in a fortifying breath, “... everything.”

A fresh sheen of moisture wells in your eyes, slick with too many fractured hopes and dreams to ever assemble into coherent utterances. Still, Charles recognizes each shred of meaning, every whispered subtext behind the fragments you offer up as if stilling him for the inevitable strike to come.

Except this time, the blow he expects never arrives. Instead, you lean in, fingertips trailing lightly across the sharp angles of his jaw as the rest of the thought emerges with painstaking care.

“It’s … okay. To find someone ...” Your voice cracks, throat bobbing against the torrent of naked vulnerability suffusing each word. “... new.”

For an endless instant, the world spins on its axis, that single, shattered confession shearing through all of Charles’ deeply-ingrained instincts and defenses. This is the thing he’s dreaded since the first moment fate’s vicious hand tore the very fabric of your radiance into parts — the inevitability of you shouldering the blame for what has unfolded.

Unacceptable.

Unthinkable.

His hands are on you again before he consciously wills them to move, palms cradling your face like he’s the one in constant danger of crumbling into a billion undone pieces. It’s both anchor and lifeline as he pulls you flush against him, mouth trembling for purchase against the rush of sentiment crashing through his veins.

“Never.” The oath has never felt so feather-light yet absolute all at once. He rasps it out like a scrap of prayer, the shape of the sound rippling through the air between them.

“This life? You are everything I want.” The words feel torn from some primal place he had thought cauterized in the aftermath of all that has transpired between them. But still, Charles lays himself bare in their wake, baring every shred of anguish and love and reverence bleeding from his heart.

“Not the career or the glory or any other pursuit I might have thrown myself toward ...” He drags in a ragged inhale, feeling your quivering breaths ghosting across his lips like a light breeze stoked from embers. “Just you, mon cœur. All of you — from your brilliant mind to your determined spirit.”

His thumb traces the supple curve of your cheekbone, rough calluses snagging lightly against satin-smooth skin as his voice skips toward a halting rasp.

“I don’t know what the future holds.” This final mortal truth lingers in the thrall of hushed vulnerability shrouding them. “But I’m not leaving this existence without you by my side through every second of it. Not willingly.”

In the suspended heartbeats that follow, Charles watches the onslaught of emotion crest through the otherworldly depths of your eyes. He swallows hard, aching to fend off whatever final resistance lingers behind those storm-tossed features. Except his throat has grown too thick, too clogged with unshed tears to give voice to the hundreds upon thousands of fractured promises unspooling toward each other.

So he kisses you instead — harder this time, with the desperate exhilaration of a drowning man breaking surface to taste the first gasps of oxygen-rich air. He pours himself into the connection, igniting the spark that first smoldered between you years and lifetimes ago until his entire being resonates with the radiant warmth.

When at last he drags himself back, it’s with a swipe of his thumb to brush away the shimmering track of tears he’s unwittingly drawn to your cheek. “I love you,” he rumbles, the sound resonating from the depths of his core to embed in the very foundations of his soul. “Nothing else matters.”

And as if summoned by nothing more than the simmering weight of his epiphanies, you offer up one final exhalation shimmering with promise and budding hope.

“Race.” A broken sound, little more than a whispered caress against the tide of all that has gone unsaid. “Win for … f-for us.”

Charles’ lips part, trembling with too many half-born replies in that stretched moment of realization.

You’re right. Of course you’re right, focused as always upon rekindling the vibrant sparks threatening to gutter beneath his gaze. It’s yet more proof of why he resolved to kneel before you and bind his existence to your own — from now until the last glimmers of twilight.

He curls a hand behind your neck, prizing this beautiful connection above all the momentary triumphs and thrills his boyhood dreams ever convinced him to pursue. Red-painted carbon and shrieking downshifts, roars of acclaim and champagne spilled as if raining down from the heavens … none of it could ever hope to fill the sacred spaces you’ve already occupied with your quiet strength and luminous resilience.

“For you,” he murmurs against the shell of your ear, leaving goosebumps in its wake along the exposed column of your throat. “And only for you, mon ange. I’ll make the world itself hold its breath if that’s what you need.”

He seals the promise with a final brush of his mouth, lingering until every ounce of the sacred vow sears itself into your skin and memory alike.

By the time he draws back to drink in your features one more time, there’s a spark flickering through the storm clouds rimming your gaze. A dazzling flicker in the instant before it flares into something inextinguishable, something potent enough to blind out every shadow threatening to swallow him whole.

It sears through him like a lightning strike, melting every ounce of resolve into something more precious than any trophy or accolade his profession could ever bestow.

A vow you return with a simple promise. “I’ll be your ...” Your voice falters. But your eyes blaze with the words, with that same inevitable fire that forged those first fateful sparks between your souls, “... biggest fan.”

***

The grand hall seems to hum with the collective intake of a thousand bated breaths as Charles turns to face the gathering. Sunlight streams through towering windows in cascading sheets of amber warmth, gilding everything in honeyed refractions that lend an ethereal glow to the floral arrangements and pristine altar dominating the space.

He sucks in a steadying breath of his own, rolling his shoulders beneath the crisp lines of his tailored tuxedo. Anticipation thrums through every fiber of his being, vibrating in synchrony with the symphony of tremulous breaths rippling through their assembled friends and loved ones.

This moment has been too long in manifesting, too brutally tested by the cruelties of fate to be anything but utterly perfect in execution.

Behind him, the faint rustle of his groomsmen shifting into place provides the barest murmur of ambient sound. Joris, Andrea, Pierre, Arthur, and Lorenzo — all united by the gravity of this singular instance reshaping the trajectory of Charles’ existence. He chances the briefest glance over his shoulder, meeting their steadying nods of encouragement with a fleeting ghost of a smile.

It anchors him, draws together those final errant threads of composure in time for the first swell of the processional to filter through the sprawling chamber. The gentle symphony of strings and woven harmonies crashes over Charles in a physical caress, setting his nerves alight with anticipation as every eye tracks toward the grand archway dominating the far end of the hall.

He doesn’t immediately register the diminutive figure emerging in a sweep of ivory chiffon and pale lace. Only after the sharp inhalation of breath fluttering through the assembled does his gaze lock onto your silhouette, resplendent even through the sheer flutter of the veil haloing your shoulders.

He expects the wheelchair, the familiar sleek metallic lines and measured rolls ushering you towards him. Expects the sight that’s become so achingly you, even as it never fails to tighten every muscle in his body with the urge to shelter you in his arms from every cruelty the merciless universe has seen fit to inflict.

Except … there is no chair.

The shuddering breath that leaves his lips might as well have been torn from the depths of his very essence in that suspended heartbeat of dawning realization.

You’re walking.

With slow, tiny strides, flanked on either side by bridesmaids in burnished golds — but not supported or aided in any functional sense of the movements.

No, these halting footfalls are all your own. A monumental effort of sheer force of will and gritty determination honed across months of exhaustive perseverance through some of the darkest shadows ever spanning your shared existences.

Each trembling step, every inch traveled across that endless-seeming expanse of polished marble floor, is both defiant proof of your resilience and a blazing triumph over pain and hardship and loss echoed ten thousandfold.

Charles cannot breathe. Can barely remain upright as his entire world both manifests and dissolves around this singular progression unfolding before him in strangled increments. Others have begun to weep in earnest, muffled sobs billowing through the gathered assembly like ripples across a pond’s placid surface.

He’s vaguely aware of his groomsmen shifting behind him, of shocked gasps ghosting across their stunned features as they grasp the significance of what’s unfolding before their eyes. Andrea’s palm finds the small of Charles’ back, steadying his frame against the sudden influx of vertigo and exhilaration threatening to collapse his consciousness.

Because all that exists in this shuddering span of fractured instants is you. Nothing more, nothing less than the endless radiance of your soul as you stride toward him.

Toward your destiny.

Toward the culmination of all the strength and beauty and determination he’s revered with every ounce of his being since the first time he met you.

He’s crying in earnest now, can feel the streaking trails of moisture searing molten paths down his cheeks to dampen the crisp cotton stretched across his chest. Yet the tears hardly register as anything more than a bodily necessity to expel the rising tsunami of l elation cresting inside his core.

You’re within arm’s reach now, only a handful of quavering paces separating your joined paths. Charles’ hands tremble where they hang at his sides, fingers spasming around the desperation to move, to reach, to hold you against him and pour every ounce of adoration into you.

Willpower alone is what roots him in place, keeps him tethered until every shift and flex of muscle is committed to memory. Until your forward momentum carries you into his gravitational embrace in a sweeping collision of souls reunited.

He feels your hands first, slightly clammy where they land against his shoulders and chest in search of purchase. Then the subtlest hint of perfume, that floral-tinged elixir unique only to the slope of your neck and the crown of your hair when he dips to brush his lips across your brow in reverence.

The dam breaks and Charles crumples inward, folding himself around your form with only the vaguest cognition of the groomsmen forming a sheltering web around you both as he sinks to his knees in a thunderous impact of boneless limbs.

Words either fail him or escape articulation as the only sounds to pass his lips become a stream of fevered, jumbled endearments and throaty praises poured directly against the fevered warmth of your skin. His hands map every trembling plane in frantic sweeps, nails skirting intricate embroidery and dewy satin as each heated exhale shudders harsh against your neck, your cheeks, your brow ...

“Mon cœur ...” The title is prayer and confession, ground out from the friction of his entire belief system being forged anew around you. “You incredible thing ... dieu, look at you ...”

He silences the reflexive protests before they can rise by slanting his mouth across yours. There’s nothing carnal or profane in the gesture, simply the coming together of two souls.

You taste of elation and salt, of budding promise and fond tenacity. Of incandescent joy and the shredded velvet of nights spent paralleling the loneliest infinities as your fingers clutched each other like dual magnets anchored across the universe’s expanse.

“So strong … my warrior … perfect ...” The muted words ghost over your trembling form. Somewhere distant, a chorus of cheers and applause has erupted beyond the bubble forming around you.

But none of it truly registers, not when compared to this shattering merging of everything either of you has struggled and strained and wept to reach.

Nothing else matters in the sweeping catharsis cascading around you both. Not the hoarse prayers still shuddering past his lips, or the moisture from your own lashes streaking down his cheeks in silence.

It’s only when the dizzying euphoria begins to ebb that Charles slowly drags his gaze upwards to find yours — those beautiful depths drowning in reverence and bliss mirroring his own. The spark flickering there banishes all shadows in an instant, forging incandescence enough for a lifetime no matter what fresh trials fate might see fit to test your devotion.

He drinks you in, committing the flawless canvas of your features to permanence before reaching up to brush trembling fingertips across the sheer lace obscuring your radiance. The sweep of fabric pools around your shoulders and Charles finds himself very nearly undone again by the sight of your unveiled beauty.

“So ...” He swallows hard, fingers tracing the delicate curve of your jaw as words fail him for a what feels like an eternity. “... beautiful. Like the first dawn cutting through the blackest oblivion.”

A tremulous smile sweeps across your lips, the ghost of a promise he absorbs with every pore as you lean into the reverent sweep of his touch. He could stay like this forever, knees grinding against the ornate tile. Anything to capture how eternal he feels right here with you.

Charles drags in a rallying breath, forcing his widened gaze from yours just long enough to call his groomsmen to attention with a look. They rally behind him, steadying him as he rises on legs turned bowstring-taut with adrenaline.

And then, with every eye once more centered upon you two, Charles bends at the waist and sweeps you into his embrace, cradling your trembling frame against his chest with the paradoxical delicacy and unyielding reverence that lives so unbridled within his very bones. Your breath catches audibly, a soft hitch of sound that adorns the sacred silence as he turns away from the guests.

The officiant’s features are flushed and lined, rimed with moisture that glistens unabashedly as he gathers himself to proceed.

“Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc and Y/N Y/M/N Y/L/N,” he begins. “You have been called here as an acknowledgment of the next chapter in your lives together ...”

The ceremony begins, the words spilling forth as you tuck your cheek against Charles’ thundering pulse, fingers curling into the lapel of his tuxedo in a white-knuckled embrace. He lives in the rise and fall of your mingling breaths, in the warmth of your form pressed seamlessly against the shelter of his body as you bear witness to the eternal scripture neither of you could have fathomed even existing upon first crossing paths.

Then, the officiant turns his attention towards Charles, chin dipped in grave deference. “You may recite your vows.”

The command punches through him, sawing the breath from his lungs in a ragged exhalation that shivers across your crown. He swallows hard, blinks back the fresh deluge of tears that threatens to escape his faltering restraint. But when he opens his mouth, the words spill out like they were always meant to.

“I have dreamed of you since before the first moments of my existence.” The syllables echo across the hall, spiraling forth to caress every rapt attendee in their wake. “Of a love conceived in the heart of a collapsing star and given breath in our adjoined forms to shine forth into the darkness.”

His lips brush your hairline, absorbing the scent of your fragrance and feeling the thrumming rhythm of life radiating from your temples. Here, cocooned in the intimate heart of their unity, the world holds its breath along with the gathered witnesses.

“Nothing could have prepared my soul to be scoured by your brilliance, your resilience … let alone knitted together from the fraying remnants when our path shattered across the cruel stones of fate.” A tremulous inhale, steadying as his gaze flicks across the faces assembled before you — a sweep encompassing every expression of empathy and shared joy piercing back at him.

“Yet here we stand, mon amour ...” The endearment spills forth like rich velvet, textured and avowed as his mouth finds the top of your head once more, the taste of reverence sweet on his tongue. “United into something sacred, something woven from those endless nights clinging to each other across the desolate chasm that could so easily have swallowed us whole.”

He savors the simple elation of your response, of knowing his words resonate through every quivering fiber with the promise of finally reaching what you’ve been steadily ascending to all along.

So he breathes you in once more, chasing the familiar scent of your skin until his very lungs burn with the delight of your proximity. The depths of his gaze find yours again, irises rimmed in the faintest remnants dampness as one final promise takes shape.

“I will love you to the final molecule ...” Quieter now, a molten rasp uttered into the hollow between your brows as fingertips sift through the intricate sweeps of your tresses. “I will walk beside you through each breath and season, every triumph and shadow that marks this existence as uniquely ours. With all that I am, all that lingers when the inconsequential has stripped from my shell — I am yours. Until the last spark is extinguished from this universe and beyond.”

The promise hangs in the reverent stillness as he takes his first full breath after, filling his lungs with the ozone and wildflowers commingling from your respective scents until his senses reel. Only then does he draw back enough to drink in the sight before him — the ethereal swaths of your veil now skirting the contours of your features, the downy lashes beaded with moisture, the trembling swell of your lips as the first stuttered shapes of sound begin forming upon them.

Your reciprocation is a hushed, halting stream of sounds that carry all the solemn gravity of prayers finally granted voice. Each syllable pitches forward, low and overflowing with the fevered weight of their reverence until they resonate through Charles’ bei by like physical sensations trailing electricity along his nerves.

“In the beginning, there was nothing,” you breathe, fingers flexing restlessly against the solid plate of his chest as you struggle to channel the turbulent swell of emotion cascading through every aspect of your existence. “An endless and lightless oblivion that should have terrified me ...”

A faint smile blooms across Charles’ features as he watches the story of a lifetime together play out in miniature across your expression.

“Yet it didn’t.” The syllables part on a whisper of revelation, a new wave of tears flickering in the gleam of your eyes as you find his gaze. “Because I knew you even then.”

[zhounauts]

͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏──── ☆ AIN'T MY BOYFRIEND ! L.HS x FMR ᵂᶜ ⁵¹³

☰♪ TRACK NO.1 OF THE REWIND! ͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏☆ ͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏SERIES MASTERLIST

HEESEUNG CAN FEEL SOMETHING IS OFF BEFORE HE EVEN SEES YOU.

the house party buzzes with the sound of laughter, music, and people's bodies that crowd all throughout. yet, even in all the chaos, heeseung's mind was only set on one thing, his ears tuned into one sound — you.

heeseung thinks he could pick up on your distinct laughter even from miles away, and so it isn't hard to find you: hair tossled, lips glossy, the sweet smell of vanilla wafting from you; but most importantly you're with another guy.

the drink he holds crumples under his fist, irritation growing in his chest at the sight.

he had no right to be jealous. he knew that well. you never failed to remind him at times like these, that the two of you were, in fact, nothing. and so, he pulls his gaze away back to jake in front of him, ignoring the only sound he could hear in this dim-lit house: your voice.

"HEESEUNG?" he whips around at his name, only to see ryujin, along with an incredibly drunk version of you slumped on her back. she grimaces, "could you take her home?"

there's not a even a beat of hesitation as he hands his drink to someone', wrapping your arm around him and keeping his sturdy ones firm around you.

as soon as the cold, night air hits the two of you, you seemingly wake up huffing and grunting. heeseung lets you gently shove him off you. not resisting. "I can take care of myself, you know" you say.

"yeah, and you're not weaving with every step you take," heeseung grumbles back.

"you've got no right to be worried,"

"I'm someone who's been assigned to take you home, you're my responsibility right now," he shoots back, frustration rising, "and who was that you were with earlier?"

"oh please," you roll your eyes, "seriously, grow up heeseung. you're not my boyfriend,"

a harsh laugh echoes form his throat. "right. I'm not your boyfriend, but we spend every other night together, and now I'm supposed to act like I don't care when you're with some other guy?" you stop. heeseung comes to a stop as well, keeping a hovering arm out for you as you sway to look at him.

"you don't get to be jealous heeseung. not when you can't even admit what the hell we are,"

"fine, then what are we?" he demands, "you say i'm not your boyfriend, and you're not my girlfriend, that we're so complicated, but at the end of the day you're the only one i think about. i don't want a smile unless it's from you. i lose my mind when it comes to you," it goes silent between the two of you.

". . .if you were my boyfriend, i probably wouldn't see anybody else," you say, breaking the silence, "but i can't guarantee that just by myself,"

there's another beat of silence as your words settle in heeseung's mind.

"we can guarantee that together then," he says, hush, "no more almosts, no more pretending,"

two hearts beat.

"be my girl,"

TAGLIST @jakesimfromstatefarm @t0asterexe @aubaee @rairaiblog @soobincantswim

@a-dream-bookmark @psgyu @enhastolemyheart @flwrior @fgumi TAGLIST IS OPEN! PLEASE FILL OUT THIS FORM HERE TO BE ADDED

( 2024, ZHOUNAUTS )

[syoddeye]

unedited soap x reader thing, through simon’s POV. based off an image in my inspiration folder.

cw: abduction, imprisonment, more medical inaccuracies we breeze right through. cages. italics.

simon drives slow through the backroads. he takes the time to avoid potholes and cracks in the neglected asphalt.

he whistles low when it transitions to gravel, eyes flicking up to the mirror to check his cargo. gaz does his best with an arm slung over the goods to try and keep it still. tries to not whack his head as the ride jostles him about the bed.

price’s big blocky hand painted letters on the signs let simon know they’re close. turn back and private property and no exit. proper warnings. generous, really, to the right people. more than simon would give any lost souls wandering all the way out here.

the property comes into view through the trees, and simon sees johnny at the woodpile. wide shoulders and back slicked with sweat and dirt, heaving the axe up and bringing it down hard. adding to a pile of split wood. he doesn’t need to. they all stocked up while he was out, but it gives him something to do. an outlet.

johnny came back after the bullet. mostly. but even with all the doctors and specialists supplied by two different governments, something was left behind in the tunnels. he wakes up ranting and raving, talks about a wife. a whole life he lived while he was out—comatose, that is.

johnny told them how he was medically discharged and moved house. how he met a bird who lived a floor above him, chatted her up, and managed to get it in. how he dated this girl, popped the question, and married. they were trying for their first mactavish, when he woke up. he came to in the hospital, delirious and sick, and quickly spiraled when he realized none of it was real. he nearly bludgeoned himself to death with a steel meal tray, hoping to go back down, to find her. it took him and gaz to pin him until someone could sedate him.

since then it’s been a group effort. a new mission. they got the first bit done easy. medical discharge. no one fought them on it. their johnny’s got a hole in his head and can’t go ten minutes alone when he’s conscious. the next step was more of a challenge. difficult to execute without tipping johnny off, putting him on a scent.

simon parks the truck beside price’s, and tells gaz to hang back. he finds his captain overseeing johnny from the porch.

it’s ‘ere. in one piece, primed and ready.

paperwork?

done. squared and filed.

i’ll bring him around.

simon waits with gaz. they hear johnny before they see him, swearing up a storm. clearly irritated, in one of his moods. poor thing, simon thinks.

price guides johnny to the front with a hand on his shoulder, pushing him forward when the scot stops in his tracks.

steamin’ jesus.

ya like ‘er? she’s all yours.

she’s—

from the clinic. we thought you’d like someone familiar.

simon watches johnny stagger forward. him and gaz come away from the open tailgate, giving the shark-eyed man a wide berth. price chuckles quietly when johnny’s fingers lace around the thin bars of the kennel. when he grins at the crude sign gaz wrote and reads it aloud: just married.

feels like a dream, johnny whispers, reaching in to stroke the temple of the terrified, bound and gagged woman in the cage.

for all their sakes, simon hopes it’s a good one.

[imaginesbymonika]

LOML- loss of my life | Prologue

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x fem!Reader

Plot: You knew him at a time when he didn't, and now he is looking for you...

Warnings: depiction of violence, angst, mentions of (perhaps) death, angst, fluff at the end (maybe), takes place after TFATWS

Bucky didn't like to think back to the years when he was working for Hydra. No matter how many times people named him a victim, an instrument - it didn't change the fact that he was operating for them. Going on those missions- slaughtering hundreds of people. Innocent fucking civilians. He couldn't possibly look past that. His therapist informed him that this kind of mindset is what's keeping him from fully recovering.

Maybe she was right about that.

Perhaps that was the root of his never-ending nightmares. The ones where he can still smell the blood whenever he wakes up in a cold sweat. Where he stares down at his hands, and for a split second he can catch a glimpse of their blood. Or maybe it is his blood. He lost track of that a long time ago.

A couple of months ago he had read a psychology book where someone argued that memories are primarily silent. And he couldn’t have thrown that book any faster against the closest wall. Because fuck whoever wrote that piece of crap. He’d be happy if for once he couldn’t hear the screaming of his victims, their begging and crying…followed by his metal arm making this eerie sound whenever it crushed someone’s spine into little pieces.

Bucky takes a deep breath. God, how he yearned and wished for silence. But then again, God has abandoned him a while ago.

His dreams only consist of flashbacks. Please, I have children waiting for me at home! Stop, stop, that hurts! Your work is fundamental for mankind! Oh my god, please stop! Make this stop, please! My oldest is 7! Please, don’t forget that you’re still human underneath it all. Bucky’s eyes open and when he sits up he can not stop gasping for air. Please, don’t forget you’re still human underneath it all.

He inspects his worn out features in the mirror. When had he started to dream of her? When did she manage to tiptoe her way into this hellfire of memories? What was her name again?

You slightly flinched when Pierce's hand made contact with The Winter Soldier’s cheek. The sound echoed through the empty corridors of the facility. And her gaze quickly drops to her clipboard. Everybody around her was silent, staring at either the long-haired man or the one in the suit. Pierce looked beyond furious before his eyes fell on you and he cleared his throat:” What are you writing down.”

Fuck. You took a deep breath, and quickly improved your posture:” I am just documenting the bruising, Sir.” The older man hummed and furrowed his eyebrows:” Let me see.” Out of nowhere, he snatched the clipboard out of your hands. You slightly groan at the burning sensation the plastic left on your skin. The entire time, you were able to feel The Winter Soldier's eyes on you. How you loathed this job. But you needed to remind yourself that you didn’t have much of a choice, whether or not you wanted to be there. For almost three years, you were one of the top physicians at NYC’s best hospital. Then one evening, while you were walking back to your car, you got kidnapped. You-

“Bucky?”, Sam’s voice brings him back into the present: “Are you still with me?” There is a playfulness to his voice. One that quickly disappears, once Sam notices the look on his friend’s face. And for a few seconds, the two men just look at one another, before Bucky shakes his head:” Yeah no. I’m fine.”

“You’re gone a lot these days.”

Bucky tilts his head and blinks in perplexity:” What’s that supposed to mean? We have been working on this case together since last week, we-.”

“Mentally, Bucky.”, Sam cuts him off and brings his cup of coffee up to his lips. And he can detect an emotion in Bucky’s eyes that tells him he struck a nerve. There is a heavy silence filling the kitchen before Sam speaks up again, his voice gentle and understanding:” Where are you going?”

[smoooothoperator]

What Was I Made For?

03: Look What You Made Me Do

Charles Leclerc x driver!OC (Dafne Morelli)

childhood enemies, forced proximity, accidental pregnancy, enemies to lovers

Warnings: the day after, some misogyny:)

a/n: Hello hello!! This time is short one, I think... But is a very important one :) I had a rellay rough weekend because I'm sick and I still had to do some rehearsals (believe me, is not funny having a cold and singing at the same time) I hope you enjoy this chapter!!!!

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Every way of feedback is very welcomed

Something heavy was wrapping my waist. And the duvet is not that heavy.

And it feels warm… So warm… My whole body feels warm.

I groaned, opening my eyes slowly and groaning when the daylight blinded me.

“Fuck…” I groan, feeling an instant headache, probably the hangover from last night.

I looked down at that arm. Those rings… I know those rings. White and blue crystals. And a bracelet.

It can't be.

“What the fuck?!” I scream, turning around and finding him laying next to me. “Get out of my bed!”

“Fuck, Melanie… What the hell…”

Melanie?

I jumped out of bed and immediately noticed I was naked. Just like him.

“No…. No, no, no, no” I mumble, grabbing the first thing I found to cover my body. “Get out of here!”

He groaned, turning around and finally opening his eyes. The shock in his face probably was higher than the hangover, making him fall from the bed to the floor. He was naked. Completely naked. No shirt, no pants. No boxers. Nothing. Bare, completely bare.

“Get out of my fucking room” I said seriously, my blood boiling slowly. 

“You are in my room” he frowned, covering his dick with his hand. “Get out. Where is Melanie?”

“Are you stupid?! This is my room! My things are here, look!”

He frowned, rubbing his eyes with his free hand and looking around. My suitcase was there. My backpack, my makeup bag, my book. 

“Fuck” he whispered.

I clenched my jaw and looked at him. There's no way… There's no way we did it. Why? Why the hell did he come here after what he did last night?

“Get out” I groan. “Did you use a condom at least?”

“I would rather be dead than fuck with you, keep dreaming” he scoffed, grabbing his clothes and getting dressed immediately. “I'm not one of those you can fuck”

“Fucking asshole” I groan. “You know what? You were right! I fucked with Mick! Go on, go tell everyone I did! Oh no, wait. You already did last night”

“See? You don't deserve the seat” he scoffed. “You do exactly what people thought women would do to get in this sport. Fuck your way into a seat. You are a…”

I frown looking at him and then at the shoe that was on the floor next to me. I clenched my jaw and grabbed it, pointing at him with it, threatening him.

“Come on, say it if you dare to. I am a what?” I scoffed. “Get out of here before I call the security of the hotel. Get the fuck out of here before I kill you!”

“You won’t do that” he laughed, collecting his clothes. “You are too soft, you even apologize when you take someone off track. See? You shouldn’t be he-”

The heel of my hand flew to the other side of the bed, hitting him right on the chest. He looked at me with a mix of surprise and anger, rubbing the spot where the heel hit him.

“The next one goes to your eye, you hear me?” I groaned, grabbing the other heel. 

“You are crazy!” he groaned, grabbing all his clothes and running out of the room before I did what I promised.

“You don’t know a shit about me” I groaned right when he slammed the door.

When he closed the door I was still standing in the middle of the room, feeling shivers all over my body, making me run to the bathroom and throw up.

I feel gross, so gross. I barely remember what happened last night, only that he humiliated me in front of all the people that attended the party, then someone dragged me out of the club and brought me to my room. Then hard knocks… And his lips pressed on mine.

Why didn't I stop him? What the hell is wrong with me? Why did I let him do whatever he wanted?

“You are better than this” I said, looking at myself through the mirror, pointing at the reflection. “This is just a bump in the way, a small obstacle to avoid. He won’t get on your nerves, you are better than him. Yesterday you showed it. It is time to show him who you are”

I took a deep breath and smiled at the reflection, nodding. I am better than him.

I grabbed clean clothes and headed to the shower, taking a long time to get ready and relax, washing my body over and over again, needing to erase every mark of his fingerprints on my skin, needing to erase every bit of him.

He will regret every word or thing he did to me. Not only what he said yesterday. I’ll make him regret everything he did to me.

Driving out of the hotel was as tedious as I thought it was going to be. Maybe even more.

My family probably left to go home early this morning, so I was now on my own, with sunglasses to hide the dark circles under my eyes, music to entertain me, and a long way to my home.My phone was burning with messages and notifications, but since my manager was the one that took care of my social media, I just ignored it.

Until I received a call. 

Fred.

Fuck.

“Hey, Fred… Everything okay?” I sighed, answering the call.

“Is it possible for you to come to the factory? It's important”

“Eh… Sure, I guess?” I frown.

“Good. It's urgent, so make sure to arrive as soon as possible”

“Alright” I sighed as he ended the call.

Urgent? What can be urgent to not wait some days to let us rest after the race? They normally let us have a free day before doing meetings and interviews.

Now the joy of winning a race is slowly slipping through my fingers, afraid of receiving a warning because I didn't work as a team. 

But why would they give me a warning? I did everything they asked for, I obeyed and listened to my engineer. I was respectful with them and even with the cars around me, trying to make a perfect race without mistakes. 

Before I knew it I was already driving through the Marinello streets, watching their people waving at me and walking towards my car as I approached the entry of the factory.

There was no one there, not as always. And somehow, that surprised me. They knew our cars, they were always waiting for one of us. But the entry was empty.

I parked my car and frowned when Charles' car wasn't there, and somehow that turned on the alarm in my brain.

They are not happy because I won? That's it?

“Hey, Fred” I smile nervously, closing the door of his office behind me. “So… I'm here. What was that important thing you wanted to talk about?”

“I heard that yesterday, during the party, things happened” he said. “That Charles started it”

“Oh… Yeah, that” I sighed, sitting on the chair after he pointed at it with his hand. “It's okay, I want to forget it. He was clearly drunk”

“We are aware of that” he nodded. “You’ll see… We are aware that being a woman in this sport is hard, that the way here wasn't as smooth as a man can have. And we are so proud to have you in the team…”

“But?” I sighed. “There's a but there, right?”

“But…” he nodded, smiling weakly. “Well, I want to know that whatever he said is not true”

“What?” I frowned. Is he really asking that? 

“It's for your own good” he said quickly, raising his hands. “We want the best for the team, and we want to have a good image of our drivers…”

“You want me to tell you that I didn't get my success because I sucked someone's dick” I scoffed. “Right. Well, let me ask you something? You've got this position because you bribed the owner?”

“That's out of context” he frowned.

“No it's not. It's exactly the same” I frowned, standing up. “I succeeded because I never gave up, no matter how many people thought the same as you about me. I gave nothing but blood, sweat and tears for this dream. None of you have an idea of what it is to be a woman in this sport. So please, don't you ever assume I sucked someone's dick to have a seat because it's never and will never be true”

I saw his jaw clenching a few times, looking at me with serious eyes. My breathing was heavy, somehow altered with all the anger I have been feeling for the last hours. 

“I'll make Charles apologize in public” he said. 

“And one last thing” I said, swallowing thickly. “Never make me record things or be in the same room as him to act like friends. What happened last night was enough to test my limits, and he clearly didn't respect them at all. He never did, anyway. Don't make me be friendly with him ever again”

“Sure” he nodded. “He will be punished for his behavior”

“Thank you” I sighed, taking a deep breath and walking out of the office.

What the fuck is wrong with this world?

Going home was a thing I wanted more than anything. I wanted to lay on my couch, watch my favorite series and cuddle my cat.

“Hey Athena” I smiled, looking at the blue eyed Ragdoll that came towards me, purring and rubbing her head against my legs.

I left my suitcase and bags in my room, throwing myself into my bead and groaning. My cat came, purring and rubbing her head against my cheek, laying next to my head.

“Oh, Thena…” I sighed, kissing her little head. “Men are so stupid… We don't need them, right? They think they can be better than us, stronger than us… But a world only dominated by men would end like something similar to the Wall-E movie. Or even in another war. Uhg… Stupid men”

Athena blinked slowly, purring loudly and licking my cheek softly, making me smile and sigh. 

Life is better when you have a cat. Fuck men.

I sigh and sit on the bed, picking up the white and brown cat in my arms, smiling when she climbed up to my shoulder to sit there. I smiled, rubbing her head softly, and walking towards the kitchen.

“Oh, Nina came to feed you, hm?” I smiled softly. “You were a good girl so she gave you wet food, huh?”

I smile, feeling ber head bumping against mine as I talked with her softly.

My home is my safe space. I can be myself, free of hate and the competition. Free of people that want more and more of me. Here I'm only Dafne, nothing else.

“See? Even fictional characters are idiots sometimes” I sighed, looking at the TV and pointing at Sebastian Stan while rubbing Athena's head. “Look at him, he acts nice at the start and then he ends being in the mafia”

Athena looked up at me, purring and somehow killing me with her eyes.

“Right, we love Sebastian Stan” I nodded, chuckling when I heard my cat's soft meow. 

When the movie ended I sighed, grabbing the plate of my lunch and putting it in the dishwasher. 

I should plan things for this week, choosing outfits for the interviews and events, reserve hotel rooms near the events. I have to do so many things…

The ringtone of my phone made me flinch, sighing softly when I saw Fred's name on the screen.

“Hey” I sighed. “L-look, what I said earlier..”

“Charles refuses to apologize” he interrupted me. 

“As I imagined” I scoffed. “And that punishment? He won't race in the next race? Will you fire him?”

“We will put the updates on your car on the next race” he said. “And we'll prioritize you over him”

“What?” I frown. “Are you for real? Only that?”

“There's anything else we can do, Dafne…” he sighed.

“There is! Is not fair, Fred! He questioned my whole career!” I exclaimed, madly. 

“And we will have a heavy talk with him about this” be frowned. “Is the middle of the season, I can't fire him”

“Right” I scoffed. “Well, I guess this is something that needs a lawyer”

“Dafne, don't do anything stupid” he said. 

“Stupid? Stupid is what you call a punishment! He refuses to apologize? No worries! I'm sure a demand will make him change his mind” I scoffed.

“L-look… If you want I can give you a free week… so you can calm down and disconnect-”

“Calm down?! Oh, believe me, Vasseur. I'm really calm right now” I frown. “I thought that we were on a year where the equality was something real, but I guess that's only for the publicity and to have more followers, right?”

“You are taking this too far, Dafne…” he sighed.

“No I'm not” I said. “You talk about women in this sport but none of you respect us! What do I have to do to gain everyone's respect? Put a warning too? Because it seems that winning a race is not enough”

“No” he sighed. “No, I'm sorry, okay? I'll make everything to make sure he understands that what he said is wrong”

“Don't worry. I'll do that my way” I said. “I think it's about damn time for him to know that I'm not one of those girls he can play with”

“Just…” he sighed, taking some deep breaths before talking again. “Don't fight. Not physically, not verbally. Things are already messy”

“Sure” I sighed, ending the call and clenching my jaw.

Athena walked towards me, jumping on top of the table and looking at me with her big blue eyes. Of course she knows something is wrong.

“It's time to show him what he have done, Thena” I said, rubbing her head. “He said I am a bitch? Then I'll be a bitch. A really bad one”

taglist

@racinggirl @elisysd @alltoomaples @ssprayberrythings @rach3164 @yvonne-dump @deliciousfestsalad @janeh22 @hc-dutch @ninifee1802 @kakorrhaphiphobia @ssararuffoni @itsjustkhaos @scaramou @tapedeck-hearts @apollosfavkiddo @sltwins @glitterquadricorn @ladystardust05 @theseerbetweenus @vizzzashley @auawdo

[2danesand1cat]

The themes of regret, grief, and guilt have been in my mind lately, particularly regarding my sweet angel child-Damian.

It’s a pretty consistent theme in the comics that Damian believes he is not good enough, he’s a monster, that he’s not like his father or siblings, and that he’s full of uncontrollable anger, malice, and spite.

And while of course each batkid (and especially Bruce) have their own unique experiences with guilt and regret, I can’t help but imagine what all of that must feel like to a kid so young, who is incredibly skilled and highly intelligent, yet also very naive in a way that a child is about the world and their place in it.

Damian is frustrated when people don’t understand his harshness and his intense motivations, as it creates a barrier in the way he relates to his family. Additionally, he is barely able to step out of his own perspective as a child, preteen, and even young teenager to understand other people’s ways and motivations. This would certainly be incredibly isolating, having this drive and intensity you were tortured to develop and that you are now being told is wrong even though that’s all you know. But more than anything, he just wants to please someone, and it feels like they just keep misunderstanding him. This, of course, is not to say they didn’t try. Dick, Alfred and Bruce are his heroes for a damn good reason, but it took a great deal of time and constant redirection.

Even now, as an early teen, he’s still struggling with maintaining all the work he’s done on himself to reframe his self image and control his emotions. YOU KNOW HOW DIFFICULT IT IS FOR A 14/15 YEAR OLD TO CONTROL THEIR EMOTIONS?!?!

Do you know how much guilt and regret that must take, to keep him on track?

His desire to please is so strong because each small bit of praise that he earns reinforces this very feeble idea that, maybe, just maybe, he is good, and is doing something right. Each time he hears these things, it slowly erodes that constant weight on his tiny little shoulders of the guilt he carries everyday.

I can’t help but think of all the times he pleaded with himself and some high figure or something to “please, make me good like Richard. Help me be better. Help me be like Father. Please, please please” as silent sobs gripped his tiny frame and tears poured down onto his pillow.

Or all the times where he is sketching or training or just trying to exist and is hit with a wave of guilt as he has a flashback about his time in the league or even his early days in Gotham. Those are the days when his sketches get crumped because “it’s not worth it to even try to create something beautiful” in those moments. And how he refuses to wrap his hands as he hits the punching bag over and over again, feeling a small bit of relief at every spilt knuckle because “I deserve this pain” is all he can think.

Still til this day, as nightmares come and go, he lies there in bed and repeats to himself that “yes, that was me, i did kill, i did slaughter”, and even though what he just experienced in his dream wasn’t real, it was all at one time very, very real.

There were times when he wouldn’t eat breakfast after he lay up all night, coming to terms with his past self, reasoning that breakfast is for people that deserve it. He must instead punish his body for the its sins. Seeking comfort to placate his conscious was weakness as well. He did his best to hide his guilt and suffering from Dick and Alfred and Bruce, as it was not their cross to bear.

What he forgets, and still often forgets, is that he is and was just a child. And what he is trying to learn is that everyone has regrets, but we are not our past, we are our efforts to create a better future self. It gets a little better each day. He is trying.

At least now, he has given himself the permission to seek out the love and comfort he so desperately craves. When he silently pads into Bruce’s room at night, Bruce understands. They don’t speak, not then at least, but Damian no longer constantly denies himself the goodness that he is learning he deserves.

[nevadancitizen]

-> (I'VE BEEN) DREAMING OF YOU

synopsis: könig comes into your reality.

word count: 1.2k

characters: könig, player! reader

trigger warnings: mention of canon-typical violence, maybe slightly obsessive könig oops lol

notes: self-aware cod au belongs to @puff0o0 , inspired by @simp4konig // i moved for college lol hopefully i'll be able to upload(?) more often + salf-aware aus are really my thing huh. my jam if you will

It had been a week since König figured out he wasn’t real. 

At least, that’s what he approximated it to be. Time was tricky if he actually tried to count the seconds and minutes and hours. 

But when he stepped off the helicopter and trudged back into base, he knew he would at least have some sense of relief. Some sense of… realness, even though he knew he only existed through the wires of ethernet cables, or maybe even something as primitive as a CD.

König knew his boots tracked in mud and blood and maybe even guts, but he didn’t care. Everything would be wiped clean and be put on a new plate tomorrow for… he guessed they would be called the players, to eat. 

He shut the door to his quarters behind him and leaned against it, closing his eyes and sighing. He desperately wished he could tell someone, anyone, about what he had witnessed – what he knew to be true. 

He felt crazy. He felt blessed. He felt like a conspiracy theorist that was just re-inventing the idea that the whole world is a simulation – because it is! People re-invented ideas all the time, but there was nothing shameful in it. But if the rest of humanity (and for all he knew, humanity could only be KorTac and Specgru) oohed and aahed and said, “God, we live in a simulation? I’ve never heard that one before!” just to make him feel good, nothing would ever get done. But it still stung to know such a heavenly being existed and to keep such a huge secret. 

Of course he was talking about you, thinking about you. When did he not think of you, actually?

He felt almost hollow without you. Like you had given him warmth with your control – a raging bonfire he could only observe from a distance, but still felt the full heat of: as in, an actual heat in his chest whenever he felt his control slipping away, replaced with the security that came with being in your presence. And König didn’t hate it. Not at all. 

He didn’t even bother to shrug off his work equipment before he threw himself onto his bed. He turned over and swaddled himself with his blanket to try and emulate your warmth. It did nothing. 

It was a while before he fell asleep. And he had the strangest dream…

He was in your room. He had only caught glances of it, but here he was, tangled in your blankets and in your bed. 

And there you were. Sitting at your desk, typing away at your laptop. Your back was to him, but he could tell it was you. Even at this distance, you were so warm. 

You were wearing the big, chunky headphones you always wore when you played. He could hear quiet thumping bass coming from them. It was the only sound he could hear aside from your quick keystrokes. 

König slowly untangled himself from your blankets – he still had his boots on, the ones that had mud and blood and maybe even guts. Then he realized he had all of his work equipment on. 

He stood and surveyed his surroundings. Everything in your room was so… you. (Obviously. It was your room.)

His eyes snapped back to you when you took off your headphones. You pressed a button on the side to pause your music and then set them down. You stretched your arms above your head and let out a quiet groan as you leaned back. 

You looked so soft. So cute. Nothing like what König had seen through the screen. You had been slightly bitcrushed and pixelated, but now…

The warmth that blossomed in his chest was like no other. It spread out into his limbs, almost making him weak in the knees. His eyelids fluttered, but he forced them open to look at you, take in more of you. 

He tried to say your name softly, as to not startle you, but it came out choked and loud and awkward. His voice even cracked. 

You were so scared you nearly punched a hole through your monitor. You stood and turned, immediately grabbing a pair of scissors that were on your desk. 

Your hand shook as you pointed the pair of scissors at König. “T… take off the hood!”

König kept his feet planted firmly on the ground, even bending at the knee a little to be less threatening. He puts up his hands in a surrendering manner. “Schatz, no, it’s me. It’s König.”

“Shut up!” you barked. “I’m not – no way am I being killed or robbed or whatever by someone in cosplay!” Your eyes flit over his body, spotting a knife on his utility belt. “And give me your knife. Try anything and I’m – I’ll…” you glanced down at the pair of scissors (which you can’t really stab him with). “I’ll snip your dick off!” 

It honestly takes a bit of effort on König’s part not to laugh. Still, he slowly, carefully took the knife out of its holster and offered it to you, the blade pointed towards his chest. “Please, be careful.”

“I know how to handle knives,” you snapped. You put the pair of scissors back on your desk and took to pointing König’s knife at him. You took a tentative step closer, your jaw set. You reached a shaking hand out towards König’s face. “Don’t… move.”

"Mein Leibling.” König breathed out the words. “What are you doing?”

“The mask,” you said. “I’m taking it off. Then I’m calling the police.”

König just looked at you with wide eyes, his blue-grey eyes stark against his eyeblack. His eyebrows creased as he looked down at you, but said nothing. 

And then, König felt a blossoming warmth as his face was exposed for the first time in what felt like forever. 

His eyes fluttered shut as he felt your eyes rove over his face. Under the hood wasn’t a face: nothing except for his eyes, eyebrows, and a little bit of the surrounding skin. The rest of it was unloaded textures, a checkerboard of black and bright purple. 

“Schatz…” 

“König…”

König’s eyes opened as you said his name. You didn’t notice before, but his eyes were detailed, told a story. This wasn’t the king of the battlefield – this was König. Here, he wasn’t a killer, wasn’t someone who saws someone’s head off with a dull plastic knife and doesn’t even blink when the blood spurts out. He wasn’t the long-shot-drop-pop one-bullet-wonder. He was a man. 

König gently reached up and took your wrist and pulled your hand away from his hood. It fell back into place, covering up his checkerboard face. 

He looked down at you, his eyebrows still furrowed. He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. 

“You’re…” you sighed – not disappointedly, but more surprised. “You’re actually him. You’re König.”

“I am,” König said simply. 

“Schatz,” you said. “What does that mean?”

König smiled down at you, even though he didn’t have a mouth. His eyes crinkled at the outsides. “Treasure.”

He gently let go of your wrist, his hand traveling up your arm until it came to your shoulder. His fingers brushed against your jaw, the rough texture of his gloves making you tense just the slightest bit. 

He whispers softly, like he’s afraid of you hearing his voice. “My treasured player.”

[elisysd]

20. Your new girl is my clone

Masterlist - Previously - Next

Chapter soundtrack: Is it Over Now? - Taylor Swift

Same hairstyle. Same eye color. Same height. Same frame. Same freckles displayed on the nose. She looked so much like you that it was confusing and for a moment your mind wondered if Stan hadn’t done it on purpose. But he wouldn’t go this far, would he? The thought still made the bile rise in your throat. 

“Y/N? You look pale. Is there something wrong?” you could hear the mocking in his voice, which made you feel uneasy. 

“No. All good. I’ve got to go. I would say that it was nice meeting you but that would be a lie,” you politely replied trying to keep your composure. You wouldn’t give him the pleasure to see you break. You nodded in his direction and in Roxanne’s before walking towards the gate. You needed to go back to the hotel, take a shower, relax and pretend everything was okay when Charles would be back. 

Charles was tired. So tired. And the weekend had not even properly started. He wanted nothing more than to go back to you, take you in his arms and cuddle for the next hours. He wasn’t sure if you had already left and he was the only one to blame, having forgotten to charge his phone and now the battery was dead. He was hoping you had made it home safe and sound. 

He hadn’t managed to see anyone from either his team or his friends, to focus on what he had to do the next day. He had dreamed of Vegas, of that track and he knew it was something that suited him and he wanted nothing more than to give the last two races his all. For you, who had been by his side for a few months now, for Ferrari who had gone through hell but still was in position to finish the year on a high, for his friends and family who believed in him no matter what. He wanted to win this race so badly. 

He thought, at first, that the red jacket with his name on it moving through the crowd, was a product of his imagination. But when he took a few seconds to focus, he smiled, recognising the way you had tied up your hair today. You had waited for him, even if it was so late. He sighed, relieved. Suddenly everything felt better, the air in his lungs seemed to come back and his shoulders relaxed. He sped up, eager to hug you and lead you towards the gate and to the car. He called your name, once, twice but to no avail. Though, he was sure you had momentarily stopped as if you were waiting for him to catch up. He apologized to the people we was pushing a little, trying to go back to you as fast as possible, and when you took an unexpected sharp turn toward between the main hospitality where countless of VIP were drinking and laughing and where the little Elvis chapel had been built for couple who wanted to marry, it took him slightly aback. What games were you playing? 

He was about to call your name one last time when you suddenly started to run towards someone. It took him a few seconds to recognise the man’s embrace you were in. But when he did, all the air that had miraculously come back in his lungs a few minutes prior, was now knocked over. Stan. Fucking Stan. And if he thought the blow was hard to take, nothing could have prepared him for what came next and for his whole world to shake. Stan bent over, his face close to yours before his lips found yours. Charles hoped and prayed of seeing you pushing him away but when your arms found his neck and you let yourself go in his embrace, he felt his world flipped upside down and a hole piercing through his heart. He couldn’t turn away, it was like he was attracted to the scene before him, unable to move. And the final blow came in the form of Stan shooting him a glance, a smirk playing on his face and an arrogant wink thrown in his direction before he finally moved, your head buried in his chest, towards a sponsored hospitality. 

He didn’t know how long he stayed there, completely frozen, until a hand on his shoulder finally brought him back to the moment. Mick was looking at him, distraught and worried. 

“Charles? Man… Damn, what happened? You’re crying? What is going on? You’re pale, do you need me to fetch the medical services? Or Y/N? Where is she?”

“Out with a guy I thought she wasn’t talking to anymore. Probably making out with him. Fuck… How could have I been this stupid? How?”

“Y/N? Our Y/N? The girl who looks at you as if you were holding out the moon, the sun and the stars in your bare hands? That Y/N? Making out with someone who isn’t you? Come one, man, you’re either joking or you’re so tired you’re hallucinating.” 

“I know what I’ve seen, Mick!” Charles finally lost his temper, the events finally sinking in. “And what I’ve seen is the love of my life, kissing a man who isn’t me. While wearing my name on her jacket,” he felt a tear falling on his hand before he brought it to his face, wiping away the tears running down on his cheeks, in an angry gesture. 

“But… It doesn’t make any sense… she gave up her job for you, she moved in with you, she is your number one supporter… Why would she cheat?”

“Maybe she never really gave up on being a journalist. Maybe all this time, she acted undercover, gaining my trust, being part of my life, trying to get a sensational story to boost her career. I don’t know.”

“Do you really believe she would go this far? It is not her…” 

“I didn’t think she would cheat me, Mick and here we are. Maybe we both don’t know her as well as we thought. Maybe she played us both.”

“You need to talk to her, maybe there is an explanation… A good one. I refuse to believe she is vicious like that.” 

Charles took his time to come back to the hotel. He wasn’t feeling tired anymore, but he was dreading seeing you. He didn’t know what he would say. He was feeling so hurt, so angry, so betrayed. He had never been the luckiest when it came to love, he was often blind. He was a deep romantic at heart, believing true love was still out there somewhere, and was still waiting for him. And he truly thought he had found it with you. 

When he finally entered the room, you were sitting on the armchair, back turned towards the giant window, looking at the light illuminating the city and defining the track you could see from afar. When you finally turned to him, a smile on your face, he could have sworn you were innocent. But he knew what he had seen and he would not let himself be distracted. 

“I was worried, you weren’t answering your phone…” you broke off the silence, feeling the tension in him as you walked closer. 

“Stop playing whatever games you are playing, right now. Please,” he harshly said, making you jump and looking at him with disbelief. 

“Games?” you repeated. “What are you talking about?” 

“I’ve seen you. With Stan. Kissing,” he slowly replied, each word tasting like poison on his tongue. 

You opened your mouth and closed it almost as fast, processing what he was saying, before shaking your head, taking a step back. 

“Charles… no… I swear to you, I didn’t…”

“Don’t act stupid with me. I know what I’ve seen. I saw you spending almost an hour braiding your hair like that, I was the one giving you my jacket with my fucking name on it because you were cold. I don’t understand… why?”

“Charles, I swear it wasn’t me…”

“Look at me and tell me you didn’t know Stan was there.”

“I… I knew. I crossed his path while I was heading out and he has a girlfriend. It’s them you saw, not me.”

He laughed, humorless. 

“And what is next? You’re going to say she looks exactly like you? That you have a doppelganger?”

“Yes! Her name is Roxanne, and I know it’s tough to believe, but she looks like me. And it was so disturbing that I…”

“How convenient! Cut the crap. Don’t waste my time more than you already have. Just tell me why? Why? Why did I do to deserve this?”

He was crying now and you were too. You slowly approached him, hands in front of you as if you didn’t want to scare him.

“Charles, please look at me. Do you sincerely believe I could do something like that to you? After all we’ve been through? Damn, I sacrificed my job for you, I told you about Luc and you know how hard it was for me, you’ve met my parents…”

“Maybe it was just part of your plan so I could trust you and let my guard down. After all you hated me just a few months ago, why would you have changed your mind so easily?”

“And for what? Getting some sort of stupid revenge for Luc’s death? Getting famous? Come on, Charles, it’s stupid. Do you think I’m capable of doing that? For real.”

“You tell me,” he spitted. 

“If so, then you don’t know me at all… I thought, you out of all people, would be the one who would always stand by my side and…”

“Don’t play the victim now! I was the one who’s been cheated on. I was the one who thought I had met the love of my life. I was the one who was already planning how I would get down on one knee to propose.”

“And I’m the one who is wrongly accused! Charles, please… I would never do something so cruel to you. Or to anyone.”

“I just can’t believe you… I can’t. Even if I wanted to. Stan being there, a girl who looks exactly like you as his girlfriend. Is there at least someone who could confirm when you left the paddock?” When you shook your head, eyes glued to the ground, his last hope shattered. “I want you gone tomorrow. I’ll make the arrangements so you have a flight back home. You can stay in the apartment until early december. The team is running some tests after Abu Dhabi, I won’t be back in Monaco until then. It should give you the time to find something somewhere,” he mumbled, unable to look you in the eye. 

“So… this is it then? You are breaking up with me? After all we’ve been through?”

“You broke my trust.”

“Or maybe you’ve never fully trusted me.”

Charles spent his weekend in autopilot mode. He had asked his team to not mention you and from his tone, everybody had understood that it was better to not mess with him. He had put all his rage and heartbreak into his driving, managing an amazing pole position and today, with the race, nothing else mattered. He wouldn’t focus on anything else than on his car. And then he would push in Abu Dhabi until the very last corner. Ferrari could still snatch the P2 of the constructors from Mercedes and it was now Charles’ only goal. Push and push and push. Again and again and again. And if he had to break down, it would only be when the camera would be turned down and when he would be at home. 

The race had almost been perfect with a perfect start. If Max had not played nasty, Charles was confident he could have kept the lead and increased the gap between him and the Red Bull. But a messed up strategy had forced him to push to the limits until the final lap and the battle with Perez and that final overtake. The celebrations went by in a blur and despite his team wanting nothing more than to take the celebrations in the nearest casino, Charles needed to be alone. So he packed his bag and made his way out. 

“How does it feel to have the love of your life being taken away from you?” a voice he could recognise from miles around made him stop in his tracks. 

There he was. Stan. Alone and leaning against a wall. 

“Fuck off. I’m not in the mood to hear you brag. You got what you wanted, get out of my life, now. And don’t feel like you need to come back.” 

“I told you Leclerc that I wasn’t done with you. You've taken her away from me once, it was only fair that I would return you the favor. That being said, I have one more surprise in store for you.”

“I’m not going to let you play mind games with me.”

“But I’m sure you will absolutely love it.” he moved away from the wall, as he let his arm hang behind him as if he was motioning to someone to come around. “Baby, can you come here for a minute, I would like to introduce you to an old friend,” he smirked, and when the woman came out from behind him, Charles felt like his world was shattering for the second time of the weekend. “Roxanne, here’s Charles. Leclerc, please meet my gorgeous girlfriend, Roxanne.”

Charles’ mouth went dry because as unbelievable as it sounded, Roxanne was looking exactly like you. And he had screwed up. Big time. And he didn’t know if there was a way for him to redeem himself after having hurt you that bad. But still, he was determined to win you back, even if it would be the last thing he had to do in his life.

Author's note: This chapter was a pain in the ass to write but here it is. It absolutely broke my heart in every ways possible but I'm glad it is yours now! Still one chapter before the end of the story and then it will be the epilogue.

Don't hesitate to leave a comment or an ask, as well as reblogging and leaving a like. Besides the fact that I absolutely love to read you, it helps a lot for the story to find its audience. I also have a taglist for this story, so if you want to be added so you never miss a chapter, let me know.

If you wanna be part of the taglist, let me know.

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[m-jelly]

your latest mindreading story is so cute! love it!! 🥹🥹♡♡♡

can i request a fluff with role reversed (mindreader reader x levi) on their first date? ♡

Adorable thoughts

First dates are always hard because feelings are out and you're testing the waters to see if you want to be around someone a lot, to be intimate with them and possibly have a future together. It was a moment where you'd get a bit more vulnerable with someone and you knew it was a big deal to Levi because he didn't date much.

The two of you had been friends for a few weeks and it was starting to become noticeable that there were feelings between the two of you, it helped that you could read his mind and hear how he felt about you. So, you decided to ask him on a date and he accepted quickly before getting flustered at his eagerness.

You thought you arrived early to the date, but when you gave your name to the front desk the lady said your date had already arrived. As you got closer to Levi you decided to tap into his head just to see what he was thinking.

'Fuck, I'm so nervous. Do you think she'll like me more than a friend? Do I even look good? I tried on six different outfits and they were all stupid, they weren't good enough for her. Hopefully, this is the best and she thinks I'm handsome. I wonder if she'll show up? Of course, she's not the type to stand someone up. God, I really like her so much. She's someone I want to spend my life with. We'll have such adorable kids. No, stop thinking that, we haven't even had our first date yet! Just breathe, Levi, breathe. Mum said you're a lovely person, just follow her advice about this date and you should be good.'

You walked closer and saw he finally clocked you and went bright red.

'Holy shit, she's a walking goddess? How did I manage to get a date with her? She's just stunning in every way. She's so beautiful and cute. I just want to grab her, kiss her and hold her tightly. She's a dream. Fuck, stand up your idiot. Be nice, smile at her. Read her body language, I would love a hug, but a handshake is okay.'

You walked up to him and thanked the hostess before smiling at Levi. "Hi. You look so handsome!"

'Yes! She thinks I'm handsome!'

He cleared his throat. "Thank you. You...you look...incredible."

You giggled. "Thank you." You wrapped your arms around him and gave him a little cuddle. "We both got here early, huh?"

"Y-Yes, well I wanted to make sure I got here on time."

'That hug was amazing. She smelt like perfection, I just want to hold her again.'

The two of you talked for ages and enjoyed a meal together, Levi's head was rather quiet because he was incredibly invested in you and the things you had to say. Levi smiled so much on the date as you both talked and lost track of time. You did hear him thinking about holding your hand, so you did and he was just incredibly happy.

The two of you walked hand in hand together around the town and decided to go to a diner for some drinks and dessert. The two of you really didn't want the date to end, you just adored each other so much.

As you sat together in a booth gazing at each other as you chatted and had milkshakes, you could see Levi was looking at your lips a lot, so you thought you'd listen in again.

'She has such pretty lips. I really want to kiss her. Should I kiss her? I don't know if she'll let me. I don't want to scare her. I don't want to fuck this up. Do I just go for it? No, that could upset her. What do I do?'

You lightly caressed Levi's cheek with the back of your fingers before leaning forward and kissing him. The kiss was so sweet, so delicate, so wonderful that it sent your heart soaring in pure happiness. It felt like the two of you were soulmates finally becoming one and Levi agreed.

'I can't believe it! We're kissing! It's perfect, so perfect. I want to keep kissing her. Her lips are so soft. She's a dream come true.'

You kissed his cheek after and giggled. "You're wonderful, Levi. You really are. I like you so much."

He went bright red. "Me too! I like you so much. I-I would l-like another date."

"Me too. I would like many."

He nodded and kissed you. "Yes."

@ladycheesington @levisbrat25 @nyxiieluna @li-anne @galactict3a

@youre-ackermine @thebobaprincess @2moth-anon2 @cypidity @nbinairyn

@bts-spnlvr12 @darkstarlight82 @emilyyyy-08 @levistealeaf @pelicanpizza

@hideandgopeep @notgoodforlife @demonic-bird @searriously

[lynzishell]

The Past 💛 Atlas

I feel Asher’s hand slide to the back of my head, lightly gripping my hair and holding me close as I kiss down his neck. His touch, his smell, and the sound of his breath in my ear, consumes my senses.

Without realizing it, I find myself clinging to him, “I’ve missed you so much.” The words come from a place so deep inside me that it takes a moment before I register that they came out of my mouth.

My heart jumps as though someone has snuck up on us, invading our moment. I pull away, tempted to look around for the offending stranger but knowing somehow, it’s me, “I’m sorry. I- I don’t know why I said that.” My mind scrambles to come up with something, anything that would make sense. “I think I’ve had a little too much to drink,” I force out a laugh that is so unconvincing I wish I could take it back, erase it from existence, but instead it echoes in a loop in my head, taunting me. “I think I should go.”

Ash reaches for my hand, gently cradling it in his in a way that’s oddly comforting, “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just need to get home. It’s getting pretty late.”

“Alright. Can we talk tomorrow?”

“Sure. I’ll call you.”

“’Kay,” he gives me one last kiss, and I hold on to it as long as I can before he steps away, almost forgetting to let go of my hand, “G’night Atlas.”

“Night.”

My mind is racing as I start walking toward my apartment. Against my better judgement, I look back over my shoulder to see Ash walking in the other direction. Like me, his arms are folded across his chest, suddenly cold without the heat of our bodies together to keep warm. With each step, the distance between us grows, and along with it, a searing pain in my chest like I’m being ripped in two. Part of me wants to run after him, the other part wants to run home, and yet, deep down they feel like one and the same.

When I finally make it through the front door, I head to the kitchen, fill up a glass of water and drink it down quickly.

Suddenly feeling exhausted, I allow myself to sink to the floor and lean back against the cabinets. I should probably go to bed, but if I’m honest, I’m worried my nightmare will return if I do, so I stay, staring at the wood floors and analyzing every line and flaw, looking for patterns that don’t exist.

My heavy eyelids have just started to close when I hear a soft, “Hey.”

I look over to see Dawn’s bare feet appear around the island. She’s wearing her favorite pajama pants, the ones she refuses to get rid of even though they’re starting to fray at the edges around her ankles, and her toes are freshly painted. Only a clear coat, which means she’s probably been stressed or anxious, using the quiet ritual of giving herself a manicure and pedicure as a way to relax her mind more so than for beauty or fashion.

“Sorry if I woke you,” I say to her feet.

“Are you just getting home?”

I finally lift my head to look at her, “Yeah. Went out for a drink after work and lost track of time.”

“Did you have fun?”

“I did.”

“Good,” she walks over and sits next to me, rubbing my shoulder on her way down, “so what’s with the face then?”

I let out a sigh, always equal parts grateful and annoyed that she can read me so well, “Just have a lot on my mind.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

I look over at her, debating for a moment before asking, “Do you ever have recurring dreams?”

“Sometimes. When we were at Foxbury, I used to have this dream all the time where we’d be packing to leave home, but I could never finish. I kept getting interrupted or distracted. No matter how hard I tried I could never pack a single bag. It was so frustrating.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’ve been having this nightmare. The same one every few nights. It’s really starting to get to me.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s always in this strange place, it’s like a maze or something. And there’s this guy there, and I’m following him, but he keeps disappearing around corners. The whole time I feel like I have to get to him, but when I finally reach him…”

“What?”

“He dies. Every time. No matter what I do, it ends the same. I’m holding him in my arms and I’m screaming. And sometimes there’s these moments where I feel like I’m being electrocuted. It’s so strange. But I wake up feeling sad and scared and I just, I hate it.”

“That sounds awful.”

I take a deep breath. It feels good having said it out loud. I wish I’d told her about it sooner. When we were kids, we used to talk about our dreams all the time and analyze them. Back then we weren’t allowed access to the internet outside of schoolwork, nor were there dream analysis books in our library, so we just made stuff up and pretended like we knew what we were talking about, and pretended to believe each other. “What do you think it means?” I ask her.

“I don’t know. Should we consult the oracle?” Of course, we have unlimited internet access now, so she holds out her hand and I place my phone in her palm. “Okay, let’s start with color. Are there any colors that stand out?”

“Um, blue? Oh wait, no, I think it’s teal.”

She scrolls for a few seconds before settling on a definition she likes, “So this says, ‘The color teal can represent emotional healing. It can be a sign that you need to take time to process your emotions and to heal from past traumas. It can also be a sign that you need to be more open to receiving love and support from those around you.’ Interesting.”

“Hm. I don’t know. Seems pretty intense for a color.”

“Okay. Let’s see what it says about the maze.” I wait patiently as she scrolls once again. “Ah, so this one says, ‘A maze suggests you may feel overwhelmed by conflicting feelings. It is an objective representation of issues you are not recognizing.’”

“None of these are very helpful.”

“Well, is there anything else you remember?”

“Um, yeah, skeletons. There are always skeletons around.”

“Ew. Okay, skeletons. ‘Skeletons represent the fragility of life and the inevitability of death.’”

“Right. The guy dying in my arms could’ve told me that.”

She sets the phone down and looks over at me, “Do you think it’s like when Aunt Joy used to say she’d dream of people right before they died?”

“Oh god, don’t say that.”

“Why? Who is the guy in your dream? Do you know him?”

I hesitate. I hadn’t planned on telling her that part, but maybe I should. “It’s Asher.”

“Asher? The guy at work you’ve been crushing on?”

“Mhm.”

“How long have you been dreaming about him?”

“Since the night before we met.”

“Before you met?”

I nod, letting the full weight of it all finally sink in.

“Spooky.”  

I nearly tell her about everything else, like remembering things that have never happened, and what I said to him tonight, but I stop myself. One thing at a time.

“I think we’re focusing on the wrong parts then. How do you feel during the dream? Like, you said you wake up feeling sad and scared, but how do you feel when you’re in it?”

“Confused, at first. I can’t figure out where he’s going or what he’s doing or why he won’t talk to me.”

“He’s ignoring you?”

I nod, “And then when I reach him, he just falls to the ground. I don’t even know how or why, but I feel like it’s my fault, like I could’ve prevented it or maybe I even caused it.” I stop, realizing that might be it, but hating the possibility. “What if it means I’m supposed to stay away from him? What if I’m the reason something happens to him?”

Prev // Next

[celestiamour]

‧₊˚✧ ❛[ silly block game ]❜

ft. lucy pevensie, edmund pevensie, susan pevensie, peter pevensie (seperate) x gn! reader — the chronicles of narnia

╰₊✧ playing minecraft with the pevensie siblings┊1.5k words

setting: modern au, no mentions of narnia contains: fluff & crack, modern alternate universe, they are children in the image but ages are unspecified (so it could be romantic or platonic), mentions of in-game player & pet deaths,

➤ author's note: i had a dream that peter died in my arms while we were playing minecraft and decided to write cute headcanons when i woke up like a loser

━━━ .°˖✧ lucy pevensie ˚₊ ⊹

╰₊✧ favorite biome - cherry grove, favorite mob - frogs, favorite flower - lily of the valley, favorite wood - birch, favorite block - moss

╰₊✧ she takes her time when it comes to completing the game and may take forever to get to the end dimension, prefering to play on peaceful mode so that she can focus on exploring and creating with keep inventory on since she doesn’t want to stress out about playing, enjoying everything it has to offer and will continuously pause on making progress to admire the scenery (but sometimes she turns it on easy mode to give her a little challenge when caving). oddly enough, even if the difficulty was on hard mode, she never seems to encounter any hostile mobs and they all decide to attack you instead while mining. it’s not an uncommon occurrence for her to tell you that she found her eighth patch of diamonds only for you to scream in response because you found a zombie spawner. she’ll manage to make it out of a pillager outpost without losing so much as half a heart while you’re looking like a pincushion, how does she do it?

╰₊✧ more of a farmer player who is mesmerized by all the different types of flowers and will have a goal of harvesting all of them to make colorful fields that stretch on for longer than your render distance will allow you to see. she’s most excited about updates that have new plants, wood types, and animals, keeping pets of all kinds even if they aren’t meant to be domesticated! her base is practically a zoo and is always full of life just like she is, yet it still naturally blends in with the area so well that it seems naturally generated at first glance. on a creepier note, the more hidden areas might have a skull or two placed to fit an overgrown and abandoned aesthetic, but at least it’s pretty with all of the spore blossoms!

╰₊✧ lucy hates villager trading farms with a passion, finding them too inhumane despite the fact that the villagers are npcs without sentience of any sort. it breaks her heart to see them in such cramped living conditions whose only purpose is for trade, so she’ll work on freeing them while you’re offline. she’ll spend hours upon hours gathering materials in secret to build a nicer village than the one they formally resided in before dismantling your system, with a good amount of iron golems to protect them from hostile mobs since she didn’t want to restrict them by building a fence or walls. (don’t worry, all of them are named and she’s kept a book on all of their trades so that you can keep track! the hard part is only tracking them down, but the big village is a thousand times better than the ugly trading hall you had before).

━━━ .°˖✧ edmund pevensie ˚₊ ⊹

╰₊✧ favorite biome - ice spikes, favorite mob - horses, favorite flower - torchflower, favorite wood - dark oak, favorite block - prismarine

╰₊✧ he enjoys speedrunning, the only thing standing between him and being on the leaderboard is minor slip-ups that cost the entire game. he tends to get too cocky, especially once he’s gathered all he needed from the nether fortress and prematurely celebrates before a blaze knocks him off the edge, so you bet that you’re going to hear him come up with the most creative insults you would ever hear over the discord call (not including swears because he will be scolded for his language by someone in his house). his best record of beating the game is around forty minutes, nothing to gawk at, but something that he’s very proud of after all of his practice.

╰₊✧ if it’s not a world dedicated to that, where he doesn’t need to build a base, then he’ll place down all of the essentials and call it a day without a roof over his head. it’s not like he can actually get wet from the rain or sunburn from the sun, so he doesn’t bother and just lives like that until you persuade him to at least dig out a hole in a mountain to keep away from night-time mobs and expand whenever needed. his scattered chests are a mess, by the way, you can’t find anything while he just spam clicks and glazes over the screen to find something in his strange little system. he insists that he knows where everything is and that organization isn’t needed.

╰₊✧ also a total prankster, but will never blow up builds or destroy anything of yours because he knows how much time you put into it for a minute of amusement. he likes watching where you log out and trapping you in that spot with obsidian, something that you can easily get out of with a pick but is still annoying enough for him to get a kick out of it. once he wasn’t sure where the exact spot was, so he spent an entire real-life night meticulously encasing the area in glass and then flooding every block of air with water. he wondered multiple times if the effort was worth it in the process, but he cried tears of laughter when you couldn’t get out at all since you drowned before you could break the glass and then swim out. it was an endless cycle of “died by drowning” until you offered him a chest of iron blocks for your freedom.

━━━ .°˖✧ susan pevensie ˚₊ ⊹

╰₊✧ favorite biome - mountains, favorite mob - foxes, favorite flower - rose bushes, favorite wood - mangrove, favorite block - quartz

╰₊✧ has mixed feelings on redstone, something that makes so much yet so little sense. it’s something that she likes to think that she mastered quickly, but you can always hear her muttering under her breath about how an entire contraption broke because of something dumb like the repeater being a tick off. she always covers up these machines with big, elaborate builds in a unique gothic style that you’ve only seen from her— although most of these builds are hollow since she doesn’t know how to design the interior, leaving entire towns empty until she lets you fill them up with various shops and villagers to make it feel more lived-in.

╰₊✧ refuses to throw anything away and maybe has a bit of a hoarding tendency, you cannot convince her to toss so much as a rotten potato into the lava because she “might need it in the future” even though it’s the most worthless item in the game. her storage system is immense and conscientiously organized with item frames and color signs while practically overflowing, but she has copious amounts of everything and is very generous when it comes to sharing as long as you ask beforehand! (as a result, her least favorite mobs are creepers because she needs to sort out the damaged chests before everything disappears, a complete nightmare)

╰₊✧ has god-like accuracy with any projectiles and has mending on her bow because she hates how expensive it is to get a new one with maxed-out enchantments and argues about how it’s so much better than infinity once she made the switch. you need an inventory slot with at least one arrow anyway, so why can’t you just have the full stack when you can always pick up more by killing skeletons? it may be a bit pretentious of her, but she might mock you that you just have a skill issue when she sees you being a bad shot before giving you some tips on how to improve.

━━━ .°˖✧ peter pevensie ˚₊ ⊹

╰₊✧ favorite biome - fields, favorite mob - dogs/wolves, favorite flower - oxeye daisy, favorite wood - spruce, favorite block - diamond ore

╰₊✧ from “the sky’s the limit” to “whatever floats your goat,” the game isn’t done until he’s gotten all of the achievements no matter how stupid they may be! he’s pretty serious about completing, but once he’s finished, you can see him start goofing off and being more ridiculous. unlike his brother who plays the pranks, he tends to be the victim of them and can’t get revenge at all because his traps are a bit obvious (lucy always helps him out in that department). on the other hand, he’s great at pvp and fighting mobs, best with a sword, and likes to start raids to fight for fun with the “hero of the village” effect being a massive ego boost as well.

╰₊✧ his builds are pretty boring and cramped since he never upgrades it as needed, his house is really just a box made out of planks from the surrounding area. he didn’t think that you could create anything pleasing to the eye in a game where everything is made from cubes, so you’ll need to open his eyes to the fact that he can construct whatever he wants and how the only limit is his creativity. he won’t advance any further than using two different types of woods and including cobblestone, it simply isn’t his strong suit and he would much rather spend his time exploring and slaying his enemies instead.

╰₊✧ he has so many dogs, it’s not even funny, you need to turn down the volume for passive mobs whenever you’re at his base because they are barking nonstop. it’s not intentional either, he just somehow constantly forgets that feeding them makes them breed and can’t ever resist not giving them some steak when they tilt their heads at him. he gave up on naming all of them since he didn’t have enough tags and dying all of their collars after building a separate home for them, but the original ones that he tamed in the wild remain in his bedroom. despite the number of dogs, he refuses to take any of them on adventures with them because he will cry when unnamed number two hundred-something dies after sniffing lava and holds a funeral with a proper burial place.

[twisted-wonderland-shenanigans]

Tiny bit of Monster AU Brainrot-

Malleus calling human Yuu Child of Humans instead of Chile of Men

Human Yuu singing Human by Rag'nBone Man (I have had this idea for way too long)

Human Yuu just minding their business in gym class running laps, and sees Vargas running at them full speed in his monster form for the first time, scaring them so bad that they start haul assing to the woods near the field

Human Yuu starts gushing to Malleus about how cool he is, saying things like, "Your horns are so awesome and beautiful!" and "Your wings look so big! And your tail look so shiny and smooth too! I bet Vil could only dream about having a tail like yours!" (I just wanna shower him with my own endearing praise~)

I’d actually been debating for a while how Malleus would refer to Yuu as the last known human, though “Child of Humans” does sound fitting. /)Ò^Ô I think I'll keep it that way!

As for the song “Human” by Rag’n’Bone Man, I honestly hadn’t heard that song until now and it gives me some interesting ideas on how some monsters may have believed in the past that—according to mythology—most humans were the bad ones and “put the blame on” them for certain things happening the way they did. For the researchers to be looking towards Yuu for answers to things that happened centuries ago, or for those who grew up hating human mythology in general and blaming Yuu for these things…I can imagine it would cause a lot of stress and anxiety even for the calmest and most collected person. Ó^Ò

This could also segway into how the monsters would discover the human penchant to express their emotions in a way that also sends a message, and if someone were to catch wind of Yuu singing this song (or happen to stumble upon it like the Light Music Club did)? Things would likely start taking on a different tone as the monsters realize that Yuu is just as much an innocent who knows nothing of what happened in the past: only that they were alone in the world, and that—like the monsters themselves—humans can make mistakes too.

Of course, being able to share songs that hold a special meaning to Yuu is going to be a magical bonding experience! ÓvÒ/)

Omg, Yuu’s very first day in gym class would have been chaotic 🤣 Let’s see how that first day went down…>3>

Under a read more due to length!

///

FWEET!!!

“Alright, everyone, line up! You have one minute to stretch before we begin doing laps around the track.”

Yuu felt small compared to the much larger monster students around them, realizing that some towered nearly nine feet tall. ‘I’m going to get trampled,’ they thought nervously. ‘I’m in a strange world, forced to attend school, and I’m literally going to get trampled by giant humanoid monsters doing PE.’

“Hey, Yuu!” a familiar voice called, snapping them out of their thoughts as they turned to see Ace waving them over. “What are you doing in the middle?”

“Huh? I’m…running…I think?” Yuu replied, feeling self-conscious about the multiple sets of eyes now on them. Glancing at the multiple pairs of hooves and claws, they muttered, “And trying not to get trampled over…”

“Don’t worry, you won’t get trampled underfoot,” came Coach Vargas’ response as he appeared in front of them, gesturing with a large claw to the inner track ring. “Smaller students will start out on the inside and will work their way towards the middle with everyone else. Though seeing as you lack any tail or strong legs like the others, this will be a test for me to see how fast and strong you are as a human. Just keep running, and you’ll do fine. And if you fall behind, I’ll help you keep a good pace!”

Nearby Yuu could hear a couple of students snicker and whisper, “Humans must fall flat on their face all the time without a tail. Just look at those weird legs!”

Whether they meant for Yuu to hear them or not wasn’t clear, but before they could think of a retort, they jumped when the coach blew the whistle again. “Stretches are over—get into position!” he bellowed, Yuu immediately scurrying over to join the other smaller students. “On your mark…get set…GO!!”

FWEEEET!!

In an instant, most of the monster students took off, most galloping on all fours while others somehow kept pace on two legs before the rest of the students followed suit. Yuu did okay at first, keeping pace behind a large eared faun with violet hair easily enough. But by the time they came close to finishing the first lap they’d fallen far behind, forced to stick as close to the edge of the track as possible even as a literal stampede of students charged past them.

‘Just keep running,’ they thought, feeling their cheeks burn with embarrassment as the students that mocked them earlier ran past with cackles of amusement. ‘I just gotta keep running…’

Rrrrrrr….

‘Just keep running, just keep running, running, running,’ Yuu chanted in their mind, keeping their eyes on the student in front of them as a pacer as they finished their second lap. ‘What do we do? We run, run, ru-’

“Gah! Not again!” someone yelped, running past them like a scared rabbit. A moment later the student they were following glanced over his shoulder, his eyes growing wide in pure fear and panic as he too ran faster. What was going on…?

“Rrrrrr…rrrAAAWOOOH!”

Hearing the bellowing roar and the shredding of fabric behind them, Yuu’s head whipped around to see Coach Vargas’ frame grow larger, fur covering every inch of his body as his face pushed out to form a distinctly canine-like snout while his arms grew into massive, long clawed paws. They’d wondered what sort of bear-like monster the coach was, but now they realized that—like Professor Crewel and Professor Trein—he was a werebeast…a werebear.

Charging straight FOR THEM!?!?!

“Oh, Sugar Honey Iced Tea!!!!” Yuu screamed, flat out bolting the moment the transformed coach began to charge after them. They couldn’t let him bite them—they didn’t want to be a werebear!! “Shit shit shit shit SHIT!!! AAAAAAAA-!!!!”

Students that had passed by them before now squawked as Yuu passed them, Yuu’s shoes pounding against the compact rubber ground while their heart hammered in their chest. Blood thundering in their ears, they didn’t hear the others calling their name as they bolted off the track, running full speed into the forest. All they could hear was the earth-shaking steps of the massive werebear charging after them, his growls and roars urging them to run faster and faster until—

/Sometime later/

“Can someone please explain to me why the human is stuck in a tree?” Professor Trein asked, Lucius giving a low growl to match his master’s scowl.

“They climbed up the tree on their own! Honestly, I’ve never seen any student run or climb so fast during PE.”

Tilting his head back to look up into the tree, Crowley heaved a tired sigh as he spotted Yuu’s terrified face barely peeking over the large branch they’d wrapped themselves around. They hadn’t moved an inch since he arrived, their eyes locked onto the coach with a ‘thousand-yard stare’ and knuckles turning white. “Did you even warn them of your particular training style?” the headmaster asked, though he had a feeling he knew the answer.

“I told them that if they fell behind, I would help them keep their pace,” came the response. “They’ve exceeded my initial expectations and even surpassed a few of their fellow runners!”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure it was an impressive sight to see, and I admire your dedication to ensuring students get the most out of their exercise. That, however, doesn’t explain how we’re supposed to get what is quite literally the last living fragile human down from the tree before they get hurt.”

“Ah…right. Don’t worry, I’ll get them down! It’s been a while since I last pulled a tree out by the roots. Maybe I can shake them out?”

“Fragile, Ashton! Fragile!” Crewel growled out.

In the end, the staff somehow managed to get Yuu safely down on the ground. It took Crewel’s reassurances that—no—Coach Vargas doesn’t bite the students during his “encouragement runs” and that—no—it is highly unlikely that Yuu would even become a werebeast if they had been bitten by accident. Needless to say, Yuu was given a pass from Vargas running behind them in his werebear form, and he made a bit more of an effort to keep pace with them in his normal humanoid form to encourage them.

Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean that the rest of the students were safe if he caught them falling behind!

///

Pfft…yeah, it went about as well as you’d expect when being chased by a bear. 😂 At least now they know that they can outrun him, and the other monster students got to witness the magic of human adrenaline in action! 0v0

Malleus interacting with Yuu…I can imagine that—as a dragon monster—he would sympathize with Yuu’s situation as much as Vil in how few both their species were. Perhaps that’s what first drew him to interact with them the first night he realized that Ramshackle was no longer an empty tomb—but rather, a sanctuary to protect something precious.

And precious they were, as with each interaction he had with them, the more he grew fond of Yuu’s strange human ways. Their admiration for him was tempered by pure, innocent curiosity as they speak. Each question they ask, he obliges with an amused smile or allows them a chance to touch his wings and horns. Each praise they sang to him filled him with warmth, freely allowing their hands to glide over the feathers of his wings or brush against the scales of his tail.

His mirth and amusement grew when they began to compare his beauty with Vil’s own, seeing their eyes light up with each new discovery or flicker of power he showed them. He may have grown used to hearing Sebek’s praise, though there was something endearing hearing a fabled human compliment him as though he were the only dragon fae monster in the world…and perhaps he was.

At least in that regard, he would be content to share this companionship with his Child of Humans.

[catoslvt]

Gally (TMR) x Reader

you were from Aris' maze, and the people who saved Gally saved you as well.

because Aris is like the male equivalent to Teresa, Gally is the male equivalent to you.

everyone sleeps in the same room in sleeping bags and stuff apart from people who may need checkups during the night (like Gally and you🥰)

Also there's still apples and shit cos idk

he has a nightmare about Chuck cos I'm sad.

I was meant to be sleeping over two hours ago, but I'm restless, my mind going over 100mph, I need to get up and walk about, try to tire myself out and maybe go get a drink.

I slowly stand up from my bed, trying to listen for footsteps, if the people who usually check on me during the night realise I'm wandering out of bed during the middle of the night without letting one of them know i'll probably be in a lot of trouble, but I need a drink so I really don't care.

As I slip out of my room/hospital room, I hear quiet cries coming from the door next to mine, Gallys room.

My heart stops for a split seconds, and I stop in my tracks, peeking my head into Gallys room. I realise he's sleeping, his eyes shut tight, and his face screwed up as though he's about to cry, and without second thought, I creep into his room, trying to keep my footsteps as light as possible.

I watch Gally for a few seconds before he starts mumbling, his voice breaking with every word and his sentences hardly making sense.

'Maze'

'Chuck'

'Stay'

"Gally." I say quietly, moving closer to his bed, but he remains asleep, his face tensing and twisting as the mumbling continues getting louder, I need to wake him up before Donnie or someone else comes to see what's wrong.

"Gally." I say, getting slightly louder, and as I touch his arm, His face stops twisting and making horrible expressions, and he mumbles one last word.

'Chuck'

"Gally." I say, my volume now getting increasingly close to my normal speaking volume, and I give him one last final shake, and his eyes slowly begin to open.

"What the fu -" He goes to say very loudly, and I press my finger to his lips.

"It's only me. Everyone's still asleep. You need to be quiet, I'm sorry for waking you up, but I think you were having a nightmare." I tell him and gally sits up and moves so his back is against the wall, and he pats the spot next to him for me to sit down beside him.

We've both been here for probably close to a year, we've both changed a lot since we first arrived both physically and mentally, adapting to life outside the maze where everything isn't given to us in a box and things aren't in perfect harmony, but we've made it work, we're close, which makes sense because in Gallys maze he was the male equivalent to me, or vice versa, I don't think it really matters though.

"It was just a stupid dream." He states, turning away from me.

"About Chuck?" I ask even though I already know the answer.

"Yeah, It felt so real, like I was back there killing him all over again." He sighs, and I gently grab his arm.

"But it wasn't you. You didn't do it. You had been stung by a griever, and it wasn't even him you were trying to kill." I remind him, trying my best to comfort him.

"Do you get dreams about Rachel?" Gally asks as he turns to look at me, his eyes instantly falling on mine, and I feel myself blushing slightly.

"Yeah, but they're just dreams, I've come to terms with the fact I'm not at fault for her death. WICKD is." I answer and he just nods before shrugging.

"Wanna go a walk? I'm hungry." Gally then asks as he turns to look at me, and I quickly stand up nodding rapidly.

"I'm so thirsty, that's why I got out of bed to get a drink, but then I heard you mumbling, so i came to make sure everything was alright." I tell him, and he lets out a joking 'mhm'

"Are you sure you didn't just want to watch me sleep?" He teases as he stands up and stretches before walking over to the doorway of the room, which hasn't had a door in god knows how long.

"In your dreams." I scoff as I follow him.

"Unfortunately, my dreams aren't that good." He continues as he leads the way to the places makeshift kitchen, my breathing stopping when we walk past one of the enterances to the sleeping room.

Once we reach the kitchen, I instantly find a bottle of water, Ripping the cap off and chugging half of the bottle as Gally finds two apples, keeping one in his hand and stuffing the other in his pocket.

"Can we go to our car?" I ask and Gally smiles widely with a nod.

our car is one one of the old banged up cars our group keeps in one of their garages. It's a good hiding spot because all the windows are blacked out, and somehow, every door is still intact.

"We can't stay for too long. Everyone will be waking up in a few hours, and god knows when someone will wake up to check on us." He says as he grabs my hand and leads the way.

"Do you think the car still works?" I ask as we climb in the back of the car we have claimed as our own private hang out spot.

"I'm not sure, wouldn't be much help to us anyway." Gally answers as he begins eating the first apple, offering me the second but I shake my head no.

"Well, we could always just drive away, maybe make our way back to the mazes, see if the grievers are gone, and if they are, then we could just live happily in the maze." I say, being completely sarcastic and Gally just laughs.

"You always have to find the positives in everything, don't you?" He asks with a smile and I shrug.

"I guess that's one of our biggest differences, eh?" He continues with a gentle shove to my side.

"I like that you're almost always negative." I tell him as i turn to face him, and he just smiles.

"and I like that you're almost always positive." He states, and I feel myself turning red as I look away and smile.

"We've known each other for like a year, and im closer to you than I was with any of the girls in my maze, and I was with them for like three years." I tell Gally as I slowly turn to look at him again, and as I'm speaking, I could've sworn I saw his eyes drop to my lips for a few seconds.

"I hated everyone in my Glade, so it's not hard to be closer to you than I was them." He remarks, and I scoff and look away.

"No, I didn't mean it like that -" Gally quickly says, and I try to hide my smile by looking hurt.

"No y/n, I didn't mean it like that." Gally says as he gently grabs my face and makes me look at him, and his eyes fall to my lips again, and before I even had time to register what I was doing, my lips were on his.

"Shit." I gasp as I pull away from Gally, instantly pushing myself against the door on my side, trying to get away from him but also still wanting to be in the same space as him.

"Why did you pull away?" Gally asks, pulling me away from the door and almost pulling me onto his lap as his lips meet mine in a gentle but quick paced kiss.

It seems like we spend hours in the car kissing, but it probably wasn't even half an hour before we're clambering out of the car, trying not to laugh.

"I really hope we haven't had checks." Gally whispers to me as we begin walking back to our rooms.

"I don't even care if we did, I'm too happy to care." I tell him as I stare up at him, now standing at the thin strip of wall between our rooms.

"I'll see you at breakfast?" He asks looking down at me.

"Save me a seat." I say with a smile, and he leans down and kisses me to the lips before pulling away and walking into his room, and I do the same walking into my room with the largest smile on my face.

[bluenoo42]

How I do my job and accommodate my disabilities.

So, I have the best job in the world. I'm a fossil tour guide and basically walk around the beach with people talking incessantly about my special interest and they are actually interested and pay (extremely good) money for it. I'm living the dream guys!

As awesome as my job is, there are a few challenges due to my disabilities. Luckily, I have found ways to accommodate myself so both me and the customers all have a great time. I've decided to split this list up by disability rather than by different aspects of the job so if you have one of the disabilities that I mention you can just look at the bit that is relavent to you to see if any of the things that are helpful to me are helpful to you. If you have any other suggestions of different things to try, please put it in the comments!

Autism:

To be honest, the palaeontology field is full of autistic people so I really don't stand out. When people book a fossil tour, they expect the tour guide to be a little quirky, so I do have a bit of leeway for seeming socially awkward without too much judgement.

I don't really pick up the hint that someone isn't having fun any more, so when the weather is bad I make sure to tell people at the beginning of the tour "I know it's really (insert unpleasant weather situation here) today, so if at any time this stops being fun for you, we can always head back early, just please directly tell me 'I'm not having fun any more, can we go?' because I'm not great at picking up hints." If the family are from the UK, I sometimes make a joke about them not being my hostages, but I avoid this with foreign families because that kind of humour doesn't always land well with other cultures.

I have visual materials to help keep my talks on track and to better explain the points that I'm trying to make. I also keep my initial talk pretty similar every time so I don't have to think of the words off the top of my head every time.

I make sure I give clear factual answers to questions that give both the technical terms and a simplification to all age groups e.g."That is a fossil echinoid which is the scientific name for a sea urchin." This avoids having to guess the person's level of prior knowledge and avoids me being overly technical or coming across patronising.

I try to limit my work to around 3 hours per day to avoid getting overstimulated.

Deafness:

I always make sure to tell people about my deafness right at the start of the tour and tell them how to accommodate me. I try to make it lighthearted I'll say it like "Just so you know I'm Deaf which means I can't hear well. If I look like I'm ignoring you, I'm not, I just can't hear you. Please tap me or wave at me to get my attention and make sure to look at me when you're speaking so I can understand you." Some people just ignore the instructions, but at least then they know what they're supposed to be doing, and it normally works out okay.

I have a cochlear implant which helps me a lot, but is vulnerable to wet and windy weather. I use EarGear covers on my processor to block out the wind noise and to protect it from moisture. It works pretty well, but isn't perfect.

I probably would benefit from an interpreter, however my work schedule is pretty flexible and often there are last minute bookings, also there aren't many interpreters near where I live so it would be virtually impossible to find one, so I make do without and it seems to be working okay for me.

Balance and Mobility (HSD and balance disorder):

Luckily my hypermobility is pretty mild so I'm able to weight bear fully on both legs and climb stairs etc.

If I'm going to be walking/standing for over 1 hour, I use knee supports to help prevent knee pain. I use the ones that are thin and elasticated tubes (kind of like a sock) rather than the velcro ones because they look more sleek and I find them more comfortable, also I only need fairly light support. I recommend using the lightest support that is reasonable for you to avoid weakening your joints. If you're not sure, speak to a professional.

I use an ergonomic backpack with padded straps and try and keep my kit as light as possible. I always make sure to carry it over both shoulders to avoid an uneven load on my body. I used to just use any old backpack and cram it full of examples of every single fossil you could ever find. Don't do that. You're not on SAS who dares wins.

Trekking poles. (In my opinion) The most underrated mobility/balance aid out there. Does it make me look like I think I'm scaling Everest? Yes. Does that fact make me feel ridiculous? Yes. Am I very grateful for them when I lose my footing on a pebble bank? Also yes. Most of the time I use one pole just for balance so I can keep a hand free, but I do have two, just in case. It also allows me to point at things without bending down so much which helps with my vertigo issues. If you are considering whether you could benefit from a mobility aid for your balance, especially if you're often on uneven surfaces, I would urge you to try trekking poles. You can use two at a time for extra support, they're gentler on your wrists than a crutch or cane and they come with the option of rubber or metal tips depending on the surface you're on.

Here is my relatively comprehensive guide to how I do my awesome job. If you have any questions or you would like to suggest something that you've found helpful, please leave a comment.

[flemingsgirl]

We got this pt. 3

Masterlist

As the month flew by, Viv takes big steps in her recovery and forward her being able to play again. With you along the hard and long way, she found strength to keep going, staying positive. Always keeping her occupied, she visits your games, or you stay with her on the straps as Arsenal was playing. Marking the month after her surgery, you guys went on several dates, in restaurants, museums, or casual strolls around parks. You two decide to take the next step and decide to level your relationship to girlfriends.

"I’m heading to an appointment, but afterwards I’m all yours.”

"What kind of?"

"Nothing bad, just with the manager."

"Okay, liefje. See you soon. Any wishes for lunch?”

"Anything you make tastes delicious, surprise me.”

"All right, doing my best."

"You are the best,” you click your tongue.

"Such a charmer.”

"I’ve got so much more. Maybe I’ll show you later but now I gotta go see you. "

"I keep my eyes open.” You can hear her smile through the phone, how she squeezes her eyes shut and her lips turning up, so her dimples are visible.

Beth and Katie came over for some company they’re looking forward to see you 😊

Over the months Beth was a true friend to Vivianne as she understood her in every situation and could help with emotions different to how you could help her, saying sweet nothings and motivational, showing her the bright side, the positive, keep her going. Katie being Viv’s biggest fan and number one supporter, she was there every step as well cheering as the next milestone was reached.

You ring the bell, and second after, you were greeted by a brunette woman, “Y/N’s here!” Katie shouts back into the house.

"You expecting someone else?” You step next to Viv at the kitchen island where she sits on the bar stool and sling an arm around her back, kissing her cheek, “your other girlfriend?”

"No, no, the girl ordered us food.”

"I’m not even getting your delicious food?” You turn towards the guests. “Thank you guys.”

"Cry me a river,” Katie smirks.

"So what happened at your appointment?”

"Thank you Viv great question,” you face Beth. “Didn’t know I’d only get you in a trio.”

“They asked where you were I told them,” a laughter escape her lips and you shake your head chuckling, pecking her lips. Beth and Katie made vomiting sounds in union.

"Not a big deal, just some adjustments on my contract, my vision for the future.”

"Your big dreams,” Viv remarks, bringing her arms around your waist and pulling you closer, kissing your neck.

It was difficult to get into the building of Arsenal without any of her teammates noticing. You had everything planned. Todays the day Viv has her first training on the field, another big step in her recovery. Changing into your kit, you rub your palms on your shorts, taking a shaky breath. You step out of the room. As you arrive at the pitch, the team is standing in a big circle, chatting about their last days, laughing and enjoying. Your girlfriend soon sets her feet on the grass as well, all cheering her up as she begins to run her tracks. Taking further steps to the group, Katie is the first to catch you, and she runs off to you. “Y/N!” throwing her arms around you and jumping against you. You caught the Irish woman and your stability before falling over.

"Wouldn’t believe you’d be this excited to see me,” you laugh against her shoulder.

A hand rests on your shoulder and Katie gets down on the ground again. “What are you doing here?” she observes you from head to toe. “In Arsenal clothes that aren’t mine?”

"Surprise,” you open your arms, shaking your hands. “If you don’t wanna, I can leave.”

"No, it is indeed a surprise but wonderful,” she lays her arms around your neck and pulls you closer.

"We probably should get going.”

"I understand,” she huffs.

"We’ll cuddle after training gorgeous,” you wink at her before leaving for your first session.

It’s the 22th of October you made it in the staring line on the right wing, it was an intense game with two scored bangers from Katie McCabe. You made important sprints and crosses helped the defense and had a few chances yourself, but they were blocked in any way.

You groaned on your latest chance in the additional minute, but the resentment was out of your body as you’ve made your way back in your half and saw Viv stand at the sideline. In the short sequence, you could lay an eye on her she struggled with tears, her lips pressed together, one dimple showing. She was subbed in, and on the next attack, she was involved. Getting a cross from you, the goalkeeper stopped her shoot. You made my way over to her, and you two high fived. “Good idea, keeper sucks.”

"The cross was amazing, do another.” You hold her your thumb up and jog back into position.

The final whistle blows, and you run towards Vivianne, jumping on her back and sling your arms around her neck. Your head rests on hers. She piggybacks you around the pitch as she hugs the other plays. Then she lets you down, “now give me a proper celebration.” You take her face in your hands and pull her closer, connecting your lips. She drapes her hands on your waist, and after you pull apart, you embrace her as tight as you possible could.

“I’m so proud of you.” Your girlfriend doesn’t move an inch. Her mouth fell apart, and her eyes wide open. “You're not happy you're back?” You snip your fingers in front of her face. “Vivianne? Are you okay?” A hand on each side of her upper arms, you slightly shake her. “Youre scaring me.”

"You just kissed me.

"I mean you're my girlfriend.

"But.. but were still in the stadium,” she stutters, and your eyes widen as well.

"Shit.. shit.. I'm sorry if you didn’t .. that wasn’t what we wanted,” you clap your hands over your mouth.

"It's all right, liefje. It's fine.” She kisses you again.

[tavolgisvist]

Temporary Secretary (September 1980)

Not a lot of people today know or remember who Alfred Marks was, but there used to be agencies around London called Alfred Marks Bureaus – not to be confused with Alfred Marks the old-time comedian, of course. The bureaus would be advertised in newspapers and various directories. And I thought, ‘Well, I’ll just address it to Mr Marks.’ People often say, ‘Oh, you work so hard,’ and I say, ‘We don’t work; we play.’ I try to keep that in the front of my brain when things are getting tiresome. ‘Jesus, we’ve worked too hard. No, we’ve played too hard.’ The idea of needing a secretary, but only a temporary one, just made me smile. … A good thing with this song, though, is that there’s nothing overtly sexual; it’s just very tongue-in-cheek. Any inference that the protagonist is keeping the secretary late at night to do other things would be in the mind of the listener.

(Paul McCartney, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, 2021)

I did have temporary secretaries. After I left Apple I still had business stuff coming up, so in trying to figure out how I could cope with that there were a couple of times I just grabbed someone to just put my letters in order and help. But that track isn’t about a specific person. What it’s about is, there was a guy called Alfred Marks, he had the Alfred Marks Bureau – he had the same name as a comedian on the radio when I was growing up. So it was just the funny paradox of seeing adverts for the Alfred Marks Bureau, the idea of some comedian having a bureau was just funny. It said ‘Temporary Secretary’, and I thought, that’s a kind of funky thought. Then there was the secretary thing: take a letter Miss Smith, sit on my lap… all that kind of stuff.

(Paul McCartney, The Quietus, 2011)

It was Alfred Marks Secretarial Bureau. And he was a comedian. When I was growing up, he was a famous comedian. But he sort of gave it up and got into this business. It was always a fun thing. When I thought of Alfred Marks Bureau, it was a bit like having the Ken Dodd Office Bureau, you know, just like, mildly amusing.

(Paul McCartney, interview with Adam Buxton, 2020)

RM: Do you use a computer? PM: Pencil and paper. I’m not a typist. Funnily enough, John became a red-hot typist towards the end of his life. He had always had this “Arts Correspondent in Kowloon” kind of dream. But for me it’s pencil and paper by the bed . . . those moments between falling asleep and just before waking are good. I’ve got this little book that Stelly [his daughter, Stella] gave me and it’s full of scribbles and drawings.

(Paul McCartney, interview with Roger McGough, March 10th, 2001)

JOHN: He makes a lot up, like a novelist, you know. SHEFF: Uh— JOHN: You hear lots of McCartney-influenced songs going on, now on the radio. These stories about boring people doing – being postmen, and secretaries, and writing old – I – you know. I’m not interested in writing third[-person], but I like to write about me. ‘Cause I know about me. I don’t know anything about secretaries, and postmen, and – [laughs] whatever.

(John Lennon, August, 1980, interview with David Sheff)

And, of course, the b-side of Temporary Secretary was Secret Friend:

Here we are Where are we Cast adrift on some uncharted sea I know we'll find our way I know we'll reach the end If you will say you'll be my secret friend I need ya

For our joy The Beatles and Ken Dodd (the one Paul was thinking about while writing Temporary Secretary)