#my god awful update schedule

[dubioushonour]

Swirling like half a dozen thoughts around in my brain with a giant spoon because proper articulation has failed me so I am simply left to stew about it

[levenxa]

The Eccentric Blues from DSST :) 🔹

Missed them a bit! DSST is my least favorite ds! au that i’ve made, but they’re too iconic to forget so i caved teehee

[linkvcr]

Sighs. Ughhh i rlly hope I can post soon

[goldfades]

★ ALWAYS AN ANGEL, NEVER A GOD ─── CC²² (part 2/2)

❪ requested -> "Can you write something about cc and reader being enemies and hating eachother. but they are on two different teams so they play against eachother and something happens during one of their games and they take their hate out on eachother with smut?" ❫ part one!

─ warnings | nsfw under the cut, read at your own discretion. lots of shit talking, just rivals shit yk how it is. fingering but it's kinda soft (like the actual fucking part), lots of praise and a sprinkle of degradation (if u can even call it that) cause u know me.

⇨ missing out on updates? check out my wcbb masterlist!

EVER SINCE THE GAME AGAINST Iowa, you were determined to keep up the keep up the momentum and prove that your victory was no fluke.

In the weeks that followed, you poured your heart and soul into every practice, honing your skills with a relentless intensity that left your teammates in awe. Every drill, every scrimmage, every mere second on the court was a chance to improve, to get one step closer to your ultimate goal (you weren't sure what it was at this point, to prove yourself to Caitlin or the world).

But it wasn't just about proving yourself on the court. Caitlin's words lingered in your mind, a constant reminder of the unresolved tension between you. The memory of that heated encounter in the hotel hallway replayed in your thoughts, the desire and frustration mixing into a potent cocktail that fueled your determination.

You found yourself replaying the moments of that game over and over in your head ─ the way you intercepted Caitlin's pass, the exhilaration of your dunk, and the look of pure rage in her eyes (and of course, the kiss that followed). You thrived on those memories, using them as motivation to push yourself beyond your limits.

"Good job, Y/N!" Hailey called out during one particularly grueling scrimmage, her admiration evident in her voice. "What, did you have an energy drink before or what?"

You gave her a playful shove as you shrugged, wiping the sweat from your brow as you walked toward your water bottle. "Just trying to stay ahead,"

Hailey shot you a knowing look, a smirk playing at the corners of her lips. "This isn't just about staying ahead, is it?" she teased. "It's about Caitlin."

"You can't say her name out loud like that," you joked as Hailey laughed. You didn't bother denying it, the truth too obvious to ignore. "Maybe," you admitted, a hint of a smile tugging at your lips.

As the season progressed, your hard work began to pay off. You dominated the court with a newfound confidence, your skills shining brighter than ever before. The media took notice, your name becoming synonymous with excellence, just like Caitlin's.

But even as you basked in the glory of your success, you couldn't shake the lingering thoughts of Caitlin. You wondered how she was doing, whether she was training just as hard, whether she thought about you as often as you thought about her.

You kept repeating the moment in your mind, over and over again, feeling some kind of weird excitement at her words.

"I'm not fucking you until we win," she replied, her voice low and husky, the words a mere whisper against the charged silence that enveloped you both. "Until I get the trophy, until your team loses."

However, you knew that pushing her buttons would make the hook-up a whole lot more satisfying. You thought about that particular part a lot more than you should have, the challenge in her voice igniting a fire within you that you couldn't ignore.

Then, one day, the schedule for the next season was released, and there it was ─ the match against Iowa, the game that would determine once and for all who would come out on top. The date was set, and you felt a surge of excitement and nerves at the prospect of facing Caitlin again.

The weeks leading up to the game were a whirlwind of preparation and anticipation. Your coach pushed you harder than ever, knowing how much was riding on this matchup. And through it all, Caitlin's words continued to echo in your mind, a constant source of "motivation", if you could even call it that.

Finally, the day arrived. The arena was packed, the energy palpable as fans from both sides filled the stands. As you stepped onto the court, your heart pounded with adrenaline, and your eyes scanned the crowd until they landed on Caitlin.

She stood across from you, her dark gaze intense and unwavering. You could feel the heat of her stare, a silent promise of the battle to come. As the referee signaled the start of the game, you took a deep breath, centering yourself for what was about to unfold.

From the very first whistle, the game was a fierce clash of skill and determination. You and Caitlin matched each other move for move, your rivalry playing out in a series of fast breaks, sharp passes, and contested shots. The tension was palpable, the crowd hanging on every moment as the score remained neck and neck.

As the clock wound down, the score was tied, and the pressure mounted. You found yourself with the ball, Caitlin guarding you closely, her eyes locked onto yours with a mix of challenge and desire. With a quick move, you faked left, then darted right, driving towards the basket with all the speed and agility you could muster.

As you drove towards the basket, Caitlin moved to intercept your path. With a swift motion, she blocked your shot, sending the ball ricocheting off the backboard. The force of her block knocked you off balance, and you stumbled, falling hard onto the court.

You hit the ground with a thud, the impact jolting through your body as you landed awkwardly on the hardwood floor. Pain shot through your limbs, but it was nothing compared to the sting of defeat that washed over you in that moment.

Caitlin stood over you, her dark gaze intense and unyielding as she glared down at you with satisfaction and you hated it. There was a silent challenge in her eyes, a reminder of the relentless rivalry that defined your relationship both on and off the court ─ you could practically read her mind, "I'm getting the trophy."

As the referee blew the whistle to signal a turnover, Caitlin offered you a hand, a smirk playing at the corners of her lips. "Good try, Y/N," she taunted, her voice laced with a hint of amusement. "Maybe you should uh, stick to defense."

As Caitlin extended her hand towards you, a smirk dancing on her lips, something inside you snapped. Maybe it was the sting of defeat or the frustration and anger that had been building within you throughout the game, and you couldn't hold it any longer.

With a scowl, you swatted Caitlin's hand away, ignoring the lingering pain in your limbs as you rose to your feet on your own. "Shut up, Caitlin," you spat, your voice dripping with venom as you glared up at her. "You're just a self entitled bitch who thinks she owns the court,"

"I do," Caitlin stepped so she was directly in front of you. You looked up at the brunette, suddenly feeling small under the weight of her imposing presence. Despite the anger that simmered beneath the surface, you couldn't deny the intensity of the moment as Caitlin's dark eyes bore into yours.

"You don't get to talk to me like that," she continued, her voice low and dangerous, a warning laced with barely contained fury. "And didn't I tell you to cut the fucking attitude?"

You just scoffed, however some sick part of you liked this, the way she was talking to you. As much as you wanted to deny it, there was a certain allure in the challenge she presented, the promise of tonight making the whole thing a lot harder to resist.

Caitlin's proximity was overwhelming, her presence towering over you. You felt a surge of defiance rising within you, fueled by the adrenaline coursing through your veins.

"And what if I don't?" you shot back, your voice laced with defiance as you met her intense gaze head-on. "What are you gonna do about it, Caitlin?"

Caitlin's jaw clenched, a flicker of anger flashing in her eyes before she regained her composure. "You wanna find out?" she retorted, her tone sharp and cutting as she leaned in closer, her breath hot against your skin.

You felt a rush of heat flood your cheeks, a mixture of fear and excitement swirling in the pit of your stomach. Despite the tension between you, there was an undeniable thrill in the air, a palpable energy that crackled between you like electricity.

But before anything could escalate, Hailey's arm yanked you away, breaking the charged moment between you and Caitlin. The sudden interruption jolted you back to reality, the adrenaline still coursing through your veins as you were pulled back into the flow of the game.

With a sharp exhale, you forced yourself to focus, pushing aside the whirlwind of emotions that threatened to overwhelm you. The game had resumed as quickly as it had been interrupted, the intensity of the match returning with renewed vigor.

But despite your best efforts, Iowa proved to be a formidable opponent, their skill and determination matching your own at every turn. As the final seconds ticked away, the score remained neck and neck, the outcome of the game hanging in the balance.

And then, with a final buzzer, it was over ─ Iowa emerged as the winners, the thrill of victory evident on their faces as they celebrated their hard-fought win. As the reality of defeat sank in, you couldn't help but feel a pang of disappointment, the bitter taste of loss lingering on your tongue.

"God fucking damn it," you muttered under your breath as you glared toward them.

As if on cue, Caitlin turned around and met your gaze. Her expression was satisfaction, a silent acknowledgment of the victory she had secured over you and your team. You felt a surge of frustration rise within you, the bitterness of defeat stinging like a fresh wound.

──

"Y/N?" The reporter's voice pulled you back into reality as you shook your head, opening your eyes with a very forced smile.

You nodded your head. "Yeah, sorry. Zoned out, uh... can you repeat the question?"

The reporter gave you a sympathetic smile before repeating the question. "I was just asking for your thoughts on the game and the performance of both teams, particularly Caitlin Clark. She had a standout performance tonight."

Yeah, of course she fucking did, you wanted to shout but you just nodded. "Yeah, she played a great game," you replied, your voice steady despite the turmoil brewing beneath the surface. "She's a talented player. Iowa put up a tough fight, and they deserved the win tonight."

The interview was slow and it felt every answer you were giving was fake but you were livid. As soon as it was over, you practically ran out of there. You needed to blow off some steam, and you had no idea how–

Oh.

"I'm not fucking you until we win," she replied, her voice low and husky, the words a mere whisper against the charged silence that enveloped you both. "Until I get the trophy, until your team loses."

You had forgotten about the entire thing until that moment and despite all the anger, your stomach twisted in excitement. However, it was a year ago and you weren't even sure if Caitlin meant what she said, she was probably just really angry because of how the game ended, much like how you were feeling right now.

As you mulled over the memory, a sense of longing washed over you, mingling with the lingering anger and frustration that still simmered beneath the surface. Despite everything, despite the rivalry and the animosity, there was an undeniable attraction between you and Caitlin, a magnetic pull that defied your comprehension.

Then, your phone buzzed inside your pocket.

Cait: got the trophy 🥇 Cait: did you think i forgot?

You had forgotten you even had her number, it was from so long ago. The text made your stomach drop (in a very, very good way) as a rush of emotions flooded through you. Surprise, excitement, and a hint of apprehension all mingled together as you read Caitlin's messages.

It was as if the past year had been condensed into those few simple words, reigniting the unresolved tension between you with startling clarity. However, you couldn't shake the nagging doubt that lingered in the back of your mind ─ was this just another game to her? Another way to assert her dominance and superiority over you?

Cait: where u at?

And that was all it took for her to win you over. You knew you were letting your heart do all the talking but right now, you just wanted to feel good. Was that so bad?

──

The knock on the door shouldn't have startled you as much as it did, especially since you had been waiting for it. But still, when the knock echoed through the room, a shiver of anticipation raced down your spine.

You took a moment to steady yourself, to quell the fluttering nerves that threatened to overwhelm you, before crossing the room to answer the door.

As you swung it open, Caitlin stood before you, her presence commanding and intoxicating all at once. She was wearing a black hoodie and sweats, the hood was up and she looked too good. Your eyes scanned her body and you saw her lips quirk up into a smirk.

You felt your stomach leap out of your body at the sight, and you felt like you were gonna go insane, were you ovulating?

"Hey," she greeted, her voice husky with desire as she stepped closer, closing the distance between you with deliberate intent.

"Hey," you replied, your voice barely above a whisper as you met her gaze head-on. Despite the tension that lingered in the air, there was an undeniable pull between you, a magnetic force that drew you together like moths to a flame.

And as Caitlin's lips crashed against yours in a searing kiss, all doubts and fears melted away. In that moment, nothing else mattered ─ not the rivalry, and certainly not the consequences, nothing except the intoxicating desire that pulsed between you and Caitlin.

Caitlin's hands gripped your hips as she closed the hotel door with her leg, effortlessly. Her lips stayed on yours as her hands roamed your body, exploring every curve and contour with a hunger that sent shivers down your spine. The heat of her touch seared through you, igniting a fire that blazed hotter with each passing moment.

Lost in the heat of the moment, you pressed closer to her, your body molding to hers. With a low growl, Caitlin lifted you effortlessly, your legs wrapping around her waist as she carried you further into the room. Every touch, every kiss, only fueled the pure need that raged between you, driving you both to the brink of ecstasy.

And as you surrendered yourself to her, you knew that this was just the beginning ─ the beginning of something that would consume you fully despite resisting it for so long.

She dropped you onto the bed and broke the kiss, her eyes dark as she gazed at you. You were both breathing heavily as you tried your best to maintain eye contact, despite the pressure that was building your lower stomach.

"Didn't think you'd answer," Caitlin finally spoke, her voice breathless as she began climbing on top of you.

"Why?" You asked as she latched her lips to your neck, sucking harshly as you gripped the sheets beneath you.

"Because you're stubborn," Caitlin murmured against your skin, her breath hot and heavy as she trailed kisses along your jawline. "But I knew eventually, you'd realize that there's no point in all that whining,"

You let out a shaky breath, her words igniting a fierce hunger within you as you arched into her touch, craving more of her intoxicating presence.

"I knew all you wanted was for me to show you why I'm better," Caitlin teased as she began stroking your sides.

You wanted to counter, to say anything back to her but you couldn't ─ she already had consumed you and you couldn't of any reason why you'd want to resist her any longer.

Caitlin pulled your lips into another harsh kiss, pulling a moan out of your lips. That seemed to encourage her because next thing you know, she's pulling your shorts off. Her hands eventually found your neck, pushing you into the mattress as you both moaned into the kiss.

Caitlin pulled away for a second, pulling her hoodie over her head and gazed at you, expectantly. You mirrored her actions and you were left only in your bra and underwear, you felt embarrassed under her gaze until she pulled you into a deeper kiss.

Her hands gripped your face and pulled you from the kiss, earning a disappointed whimper from you. "Look at me,"

You met her gaze, the intensity of her dark eyes holding you captive.

"You're fucking beautiful," Caitlin murmured, her fingers tracing the outline of your jaw.

Her words sent a shiver down your spine, the sincerity in her voice disarming you completely. You nodded, swallowing hard as you tried to steady your breathing.

Caitlin's hands moved to the clasp of your bra, her touch gentle yet deliberate as she unhooked it, letting it fall away. She leaned in, her lips brushing against your ear as she whispered, "I'm gonna make you feel so good, you're gonna forget how much you hate me."

A soft moan escaped your lips as her hands roamed over your body, exploring every inch of your skin with a tenderness that contrasted sharply with the intensity of her gaze. You arched into her touch, your body responding to her every move with an urgency that left you breathless.

As she trailed kisses down your neck and across your collarbone, you felt the last of your doubts melt away, leaving you completely vulnerable and exposed.

Her hands found your thighs and squeezed them, her fingers slowly drawing closer to the place you'd wanted her all night. Caitlin's finger slowly began stroking your clothed pussy, her eyes watching your every movement.

You let out a broken whimper, your head falling back on to the mattress before her other hand gripped your face, guiding your gaze back to hers.

"What did I fucking say? Look at me," Caitlin spat, her voice a mix of authority and desire. You forced your eyes open, meeting her intense stare, the heat between you building with every passing second.

"So fucking wet, all for me," she murmured, as continued stroking your clothed heat; she could feel it pulsing all because of her and it made her ego skyrocket even more.

Caitlin's finger moved and before you could voice your disapproval, she slowly slid your underwear off. You were completely naked now, you could feel her eyes rake over you fondly. She spread your legs again, further this time ─ each leg was placed at her sides, leaving you completely exposed and vulnerable under her gaze. Caitlin's eyes darkened with desire as she took in the sight of you, her breath hitching slightly.

"So pretty," she murmured, almost to herself, as she trailed her fingers lightly up your inner thigh, sending shivers of anticipation through your body.

You squirmed beneath her touch, a mix of excitement and impatience coursing through you. "Cait," you breathed out, your voice barely above a whisper, filled with need.

She looked up at you, her eyes locking onto yours with an intensity that made your heart race. "I want you to remember this," she said, her voice low. "Every time you think you can challenge me, every time you think you can beat me, I want you to remember how I make you feel right now."

With that, she leaned down, her lips finding yours in a deep, hungry kiss that almost knocked the breath out of you. Her hands continued their exploration, moving with a confidence that left you trembling with anticipation.

"Do you still think I'm a bitch?" she murmured against your lips, a teasing edge to her voice.

You could barely form a coherent thought, let alone a response, but managed to shake your head, a breathless, "No," escaping your lips.

"Good," Caitlin replied, her lips curving into a satisfied smile. "Because I want you to know exactly who's in control here."

And with that, her finger slid into you perfectly. You let out a surprised moan, your back arching against the mattress. "Oh, fu-fuck."

Her finger began thrusting in and out of you, swiftly. You were so soaked, her finger was moving easily in and out of you. Caitlin's hand gripped your hip, pulling you closer into her.

She slowed down her movements and you let out an disapproving huff, her gaze intense as she looked down at you. "Why did you hate me? Were you jealous?"

Did: as in, past tense.

Her tone sounded almost amused but there was an edge of seriousness to it. "What?"

"I thought that's what it was," her finger slowly began moving again, causing your breath to hitch. "I don't think that's what it was now," she continued, her voice contemplative. "I think it was something else."

You could barely focus, your mind clouded with the sensation of her touch, but her words cut through the haze, making you confront something you'd been avoiding. "I don't hate you," you admitted, your voice barely more than a whisper. "I never hated you."

Caitlin's smirk grew, she knew exactly what she was doing. Her finger continuing their slow, torturous rhythm. "Then what was it, Y/N? Why all the anger?"

"Because," you gasped, struggling to form coherent thoughts under her relentless pace. "Because you always got to me. You always made me feel... things I didn't want to feel."

Her movements stilled for a moment, her eyes searching yours. "And now?"

"Now," you swallowed hard, your breath coming in ragged gasps. "Now, I can't stop thinking about you."

A slow, satisfied smile spread across Caitlin's face, her fingers resuming their movement. "Good," she murmured, leaning down to capture your lips in a searing kiss. "Because I don't plan on letting you forget this anytime soon."

Her touch became more quick, driving you closer and closer to the edge once again. The intensity of the moment was almost overwhelming, the culmination of all the pent-up anger and unresolved tension between you. She added another finger slowly, causing you to let out another breathless moan as your back arched.

"Take it, come on. I know you can," Caitlin's fingers never faltered as she gazed down at you. "Fuck, who's the princess now, huh?" she spat as she finger-fucked you, your legs beginning to shake.

As the pleasure built to a fever pitch, you felt yourself letting go of everything ─ the rivalry, the anger, the fear ─ and surrendering completely to the sensation.

"Cait," you moaned, your hands gripping her shoulders as you reached the brink, your body trembling with anticipation.

"That's it, fuck," she whispered against your lips, her breath hot and ragged. "Let go for me."

And with a final, shattering wave of pleasure, you did, your body convulsing in her arms as you cried out her name. Her finger rode you through it, your chest heaving as you slowly came down from your high.

"Can't believe I did that with just my fingers, baby." The pet-name left her lips effortlessly as she broke you out of your reverie. You couldn't believe it, either.

Her fingers slid out of you and she pushed your lips open, forcing them into your mouth. You sucked them clean as she looked down at you, her shitfaced smirk was back.

You rolled your eyes as she removed her finger with a pop. "Yeah, well, don't get too cocky," you shot back, trying to regain some semblance of control even though your body was still trembling.

She laughed, the sound was unfamiliar but genuine; it made your heart flip. "How can I not? I mean, Jesus, I had you literally tell me you never hated me while I was knuckles deep inside you. It was one finger too-"

You groaned loudly, cutting her off as her laughter slowly died down. "I just wanted to cum,"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," you countered, finally meeting her gaze. She had the same cocky ass expression, the one you've always hated ─ but now felt different, somehow.

"Thought I told you to cut the attitude, Y/N," she teased, her fingers trailing along your arm, sending shivers down your spine. Her eyes bore into yours, the intensity of her gaze sending a shiver down your spine.

You felt a surge of defiance rise within you, refusing to back down. "And what if I don't?" you challenged, your voice steady despite the fluttering in your chest.

Caitlin's smirk widened, a glint of amusement and something deeper flickering in her eyes. "Then I'll just have to remind you why you shouldn't,"

She leaned in and pressed her lips against lips in another heated kiss, her hands roaming your body with a renewed sense of purpose. The teasing edge in her touch drove you wild, a tantalizing reminder of the power she held over you.

"You're impossible," you muttered against her lips.

"And you love it," she shot back, her breath hot against your skin as she moved to kiss along your jawline, her hands exploring every inch of you. The sensation was intoxicating, every touch sending waves of pleasure through your body.

As she continued her relentless assault on your jaw, you couldn't help but surrender to the moment, letting go of all the anger and frustration that had once defined your relationship. In that instant, all that mattered was the connection between you, the raw, unfiltered desire that pulsed through your veins.

"Do you regret it?" Caitlin's voice was softer now, almost vulnerable, as she paused to look into your eyes.

You shook your head, a small smile playing at your lips. "No," you admitted, your voice barely above a whisper. "No, I don't."

Caitlin's eyes softened, her expression shifting from playful to something more tender. "Good," she murmured, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. "Cause neither do I."

↳ make sure to check out my navigation or masterlist if you enjoyed! any interaction is greatly appreciated !

↳ thank you for reading all the way through, as always ♡

[leclsrc]

more than anyone ✴︎ cl16

genre: childhood friends to enemies to lovers (a mouthful), smut, humor, Fluffff!!!!, angst

word count: 13.7k  

You moved out of Monaco at fourteen with an unrepaired friendship hanging by a thread. Ten years and a whole lifetime later, you’re forced to work with him confront it all over again.

auds here… hi hi hi!!!! HAPPY 4k to us guys!!!!! i am so insanely thankful for all of u and i will make this a longer note when i wake up tomorrow because i have so much to say but have this for now. i hope u like it,i love love love u guys forever also i changed the banner because i wanted to

nsfw warnings under the cut!

18+ because... penetrative sex, semi public sex, praise central, size kink (pretty tame smut in auds world)

You know it’s bad when your assistant-and-friend-aka-friendsistant (her vernacular) Rachel walks in with a free coffee without a quip about how dependent you are on this exact order of coffee (she’s a millennial, so caffeine and lack thereof are in her arsenal of Funny Jokes). You fear you didn’t correctly anticipate just how bad it was going to be when she stays instead of leaving to work on your schedule, combing a few fingers through her fringe and sitting herself on your couch stiffly. Maybe you’re intuitive, maybe you spend too much time with Rachel and you can spot the way she scratches at her eye, maybe both—but it’s bad.

You don’t take a sip from the Starbucks that sits idly on the coaster, opting to watch the latte sweat instead. You do stare, though, at Rachel’s stagnant posture, scrutinizing her every movement. She takes a few deep breaths and drops the bomb.

“David sent me to tell you he has good news. But there is, um. Bad news.” Dread writhes through you at the mention of your manager with bad news, and you clear your throat to compose yourself.

“What’s going on?”

She purses her lips. “He’s on his way over here. Just…” She cocks her head sharply to the glass door of your home office, expression antsy. “Sorry. Wait for him. I can’t tell you anything yet.”

You take a swig from the pity coffee. “Am I getting blacklisted?”

“God, you dumbass, no—” She makes an incredulous noise, but before she can open her mouth to elaborate, your manager walks in with an excited expression on his face, pocketing his Juul to take a seat by your table. His smile is the radiant one of a man over forty with a comical amount of Botox.

“Rachel told me you had”—you stifle the adjective—“news.”

“That I do, yes.” He hums, tracing the edge of your table. “Did you enjoy Paris Fashion Week?”

Beside the brash Frenchmen, God-awful timezone differences and consequent calls at half past three, hungover show attendances, posing for pictures until your ankles blistered, and a temporary diet of black coffee, cigarettes, and stale croissants—sure, it was fun. It was your job to attend anyway, your obligation to shake hands with important people and be photographed in designer clothing and benefit from the PR, but how often could people call work fun? 

“Sure.” You take another gulp off your coffee. “It was… fun.”

“Well, since your movie’s doing well,” David pauses and hums, “how do you feel about another few weeks of fun?” 

“Like Paris Fashion Week—weeks… this month?” You frown, eyebrows knitting together. Is this a new Vogue thing? You’re not sure how many updates they give the schedule, but you wouldn’t mind too much if you could travel again for a little bit. “So soon after spring? Did Anna want this?”

“Iiiit’s, er, Vogue’s new project. Capsule shows in Europe, coastal and summery. She wanted an exclusive guest list. She asked for you by name,” David says smugly. “Well, she called my office, granted. But to ask for you—”

“Are you fucking serious?” You stand up, and if you hadn’t had some fix of coffee you would’ve gotten dizzy. “David, tell me you’re serious.” Time seems to have suspended itself as you await his answer—which, if affirmative, would be a pretty big deal to you. 

“Yeah, I am.” He plays off a grin. “She loved your movie with Greta, and would love to send you to Europe to do PR on a few shows and pair up with some guests on a couple features. Exclusive stuff.”

You sit back down, mouth slack. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe it.” Your eyes dart to Rachel, who’s caught between a smile and an awkward purse of her lips. “Fuck! This is huge, David.”

“Yeah—okay, yeah, it is.” David shifts in his seat and crosses, then uncrosses, his legs, then his arms. He stutters for a second. “Good and bad news, remember?”

You blink a few times. You’d nearly totally forgotten the fact that this good news—and it is overwhelmingly good—comes with a bout of bad news, so bad apparently that it’s noteworthy enough to state alongside this massive deal. But it’s. Fine. It’s whatever. Worst case scenario, you’re going to need to fucking swim to Europe sans oxygen canister.

“So… the shows? Events, and shit?” He watches, waiting for you to signal that you follow. When you nod, he continues, averting his gaze to the face of his Patek. “They’re all in Monaco.”

Wrong.

“Monaco.” You repeat, deadpanning your delivery. It’s not out of the ordinary, the glitz and coast of the city being a perfect venue for high fashion. But Monaco is different for you, vastly different, and you tend to avoid the place to the best of your abilities. “Monaco. Are—you’re sure?”

“Mmm,” he hums in affirmation. “I know, I know you’re not exactly privy to Monaco because, bleh, childhood shit, whatever. But this—like you said, this is huge! And I don’t think we should jeopardize that.” He pulls a piece of paper from the folders tucked in his arm and waves it around.

“Well—yeah, I suppose. I’ll deal with it.”

“Yeah.” He sucks his teeth, eyes gliding over the scenery of L.A. that your window offers. “Okay, that’s it, so. Byeandhaveagoodlunch.” He slams the paper onto your desk, jostling you a little, but as he makes his exeunt, Rachel raises her arm to stop him.

“Is that it, David?” She asks, an edge to her voice.

You pick up the paper as they make hushed, stifled conversation, and find that it’s a call sheet of sorts, listing all the collaborators traveling to Monaco and what or who they’re in charge of, or paired up with, there. Models, athletes, celebrities, influencers—all making TikToks, or appearances, or brand deals, or interviews, or YouTube videos, the whole shebang.

“Yeah,” says David dismissively—nervously? “That’s it.”

You search for your name. “Okay. Um, hey.” Rachel turns to you, trying to catch your eye, which is busy scanning the sheet. “Did, um—did David mention you’re paired up with Charles Leclerc for a feature? Because you are. Paired up with Charles Leclerc for a feature, I mean.”

David sucks his teeth. “Thank you very much for graciously reminding me of that, Rachel.” 

Still half-distracted and growing increasingly worried with the exchange happening in front of you, you make haste in your search—eventually, you find your name, printed in plain letters beside one you’ve wished to never read over ever again.

“Wait, my Charles?” You pause and look up, suppressing a yell as your eyes widen, and you blunder over a pathetic self-correction. “I mean—no, sorry—Charles, as in Charles Leclerc? I can’t work with him, you know this!” 

“Wh—well, Vogue apparently wanted a really good Monaco-born pair and they seriously lucked out on you two. Also,” Rachel says, adamantly defending herself, “you’re always saying you can work ‘with anyone’!” She raises two comically vigorous air quotes to further her (moot) point.

“I didn’t ev—I never say that,” you lie straight through your teeth, mouth dry. You definitely do. You can place all the exact moments. “I would’ve known if I did. Rach—David—I cannot, absolutely cannot work with Leclerc. He’s my… we…” You shut your eyes and sneak two fingers upward to massage your temple, slowly caving into defeat.

David makes an oh well face and shrugs passively. “Fine. Then it’s either Anna Wintour’s special job that will help the Academy campaign or not meeting the ex-bo—”

“—friend.” You look up to cut him off, eyes narrowed. “Ex-friend.”

“Alright, kid. Suuuure.” David leans against the back wall of your office as Rachel comes to comfort you, her eyes already sympathetic and droopy. It shouldn’t be so bad, right? She asks sweetly, nudging the latte closer to your catatonic figure. You have seen him since, anyway.

With a despondent gaze, you just remain silent, refusing to state the negative aloud, opting to stare at the latte. At your disagreeable silence, Rachel continues, tone anxious: You have seen him since. Right?

You moved out of Monaco at fourteen, right after the school year finished and your father had gotten the opportunity to transfer out. The whole thing would’ve—should’ve, even—been a sentimental affair, full of tears and dramatic caresses of your bedroom wall, whispering thank yous to the city air in French and Italian, but it wasn’t. Months prior, you’d been preparing yourself for this kind of goodbye; but when it came to it, you merely kissed your extended family goodbye and slept en route to the airport, silk sleeping mask pulled taut over your shut eyelids. The only thing you left in the city was a letter written only to Gi and Cha about how much you’d miss them, with your email address scribbled at the bottom for an added touch, in case they felt like sending you longer messages.

“Do you two at least get along?” David asks, noting how genuinely aghast you appear.

“It’s not that simple.” You tap a nail against your desk a few times. “But I think it’ll be fine. I hope, at least. We used to be… good friends? As teenagers.”

You feel like an alien hearing yourself talk about it, talk about him and the whole circumstance a decade later. Your friendship with Charles was the only thing that mattered to your adolescent self, all lemonade stands and long car rides and stealthy conversations about your futures (racing and acting, respectively). It was happiness, in what you consider to be its truest form, it was lovely and real. And it ended abruptly, no goodbyes, no nothing.

“So it’s a no.”

“I’m just saying it’s impossible for me to work with him, and in Monaco no less?!” Your eyes are wild with frustration and anxiety at the prospect of your past whipping you in the face, full-fledged. “I don’t even talk about the guy or the city, how can I spend time with him there?”

“Are you seriously going to junk this amazing fucking opportunity just because of some petty childhood fight?” David’s tone is comparable to that of a dad’s, scolding and horrified, almost. “Look. If you don’t take this, career-wise, it doesn’t mean much. You get paid a shit ton, you’ll survive—you’ll do well. But emotions-wise? Maturity-wise? Be the bigger person and do it—I mean it.”

You stare back at him because you know he’s right. “Maybe it won’t be a big, long feature?” Rachel offers as some advice, some comfort. “If you reject it, his team will know, and so will he.”

And yes, you were fourteen, and yes it was petty and unexplainable even for fourteen—but there was a catalyst to all of this, a reason why the move became easy and forgetting childhood memories became second nature. A reason why you’re selective with who you make contact with from home. A reason why Giada and Charlotte are selective with topics they choose to bring up with you.

So, fuck it, really. That’s how you end up in Monaco, booked for the next three weeks, sharing a studio and public appearances and a 24-hour shoot with the last person you’d ever want to be in a room with. Ten years later—the person still is, and no doubt will always be, Charles Leclerc.

—

“MAMAN!” Charles’ voice was loud, loud, and so incredibly loud. You followed not far behind, legs running at full speed to try and leap onto his lanky figure and wrap an arm around his head to quiet him. It’d been futile: he ended up at the dining table facing his family with a victorious smile on his pink face. He breathed heavy, waiting for everyone to turn their attention to him.

“Charles,” you chimed in warningly, breathing even harder with the effort you had exerted to chase him from the sidewalk to here. “Don’t.”

“Guess who got the lead spot in the recital.” He slowly turned to point at to your angry face, and then bent, rifling through his already messy, grubby knapsack for something that he raised with glee: a headress that read…

“But-ter-cup.” Hervé sounded amused when he looked at your fuming expression. “You?”

“Yes, Papa! Maybe, just maybe,” he sing-songed, using the term wrong yet again, “she got the titular role!” He walked over to you and placed the headress square on your head, beaming. 

“There is no titular role in a school recital,” you seethed, burning with embarrassment. Your stellar academic record had apparently granted you incentive to be centre stage during the routine year-end recital, where years were lumped into twos or threes (in your and Charles’ cases, Years 8 and 9) and the student body would dance or sing a variety of teacher-selected music.

In your case, it was Build Me Up, Buttercup, complete with choreography you’d be practicing over the next month and a half. Charles laughed at your pouting expression, didn’t stop laughing even when you’d both sat down and twirled through forkfuls of spaghetti, didn’t stop chuckling even when Lorenzo got the turn to speak and he started talking about how Bringing Up Baby was his movie of the month.

You allowed him to laugh—even laughed yourself at some point—because all day, you’d been absently wondering how you’d break the news about your moving away to him.

—

Charles is not okay. He’d gotten off a red-eye from a short vacation stint, and now he’s back in Monaco, sleepy and a bit jetlagged, being briefed on brand deals and press junkets he has to accomplish by three p.m. today. “On the dot, sharp,” said his assistant, like the two didn’t just mean the same fucking thing. He’s patient, though, smiling through the exhaustion, through the dressing room, the tape around his waist and legs to measure clothes for this fashion… thing.

“A meeting for Ferrari, two TikToks, a vlog for your personal YouTube channel, three stories by noon… oh, and in the next few weeks, you’re going to film a Vogue-sponsored 24 Hours With… with—”

“D’accord, thank you,” he cuts in, already exhausted from the spiel alone. He’s a professional; no matter what people believed or what gossip rags liked to say about him, he maintains a well-kept reputation of being polite and kind to people he works with. Maybe it’s the jetlag, maybe it’s the lack of sleep, maybe it’s the heat outside, but today he just wants to close his eyes and sleep for days.

But the assistant follows, clipboard and Excel sheet and all, still spouting all his media obligations lest he forget (and mark his words, he definitely will). “Sorry,” he says. He’s new, probably assigned as a part of the Vogue team, lanky and tall and nervous looking. “I’m new. I’m Greg.”

Briefly, Charles is left alone to stare at his tired reflection while the assistants reconvene and connect. There’s several of them, each assigned or already committed to a different celebrity. Charles should know more details, but there’s only so much reading of a call sheet he can do before he’s conked out on Ambien; he trusts he’ll be around people much more famous than he is, probably American or English, actors and athletes alike. He’ll figure it out.

Yeah, she’s almost ready. Is Charles here? One of the assistants says, a bright-eyed American. They need to be introduced before 11. Her voice is quiet, quick and hushed, and Charles has to focus to hear what she’s saying. Greg chips in with something he can’t decipher; in response, the American whispers, Yeah, I’ll get her to sign it for you. Bring Charles out in five.

In five, he is indeed being brought out to the lobby of this hotel; the outdoor area is decked out with models, cocktail tables, Vogue signage and a carpet for pictures. It’s even busier inside, wait staff and event coordinators conversing in angry, aggressive French—table settings, mineral water, extra forks are needed. Greg keeps a steady pace transporting Charles through the indoor throng, and at 10:59, Charles is outside, by the pool.

“Um, right, yeah. Okay, uh—wait here. Your partner—not really partner, but like, mate? Fuck, definitely not. Um, partner. She’s on her way heeere…” He checks his phone. “Okay. You caught her name, right?” Charles nods to fend him off. “Okay. So, wait here.”

There are cameras taking pictures of him when Greg departs, some microphones waved his way; in the distance he spots fans waving crazily, sporting Ferrari merch. Charles is doing what he’s told (waiting, maybe posing a bit) when an even bigger crowd appears, surrounding one person; with their arrival, ameras click even faster, and an uproar follows. Greg waves him over, pointing at the person frantically, so Charles smiles, extends a hand, and when the crowd parts—

There you are, in all your glory. Pink dress, hair clipped into a bun, a tanline on your exposed skin, lithe hand coming up to shake his. Your eyes are flat but the lack of expression doesn’t inoculate them from beauty; they remain sparkling and pretty all the same. Cameras snap the interaction, seemingly innocent, seemingly the first.

He fights, he really does, to keep his hands shaking yours. He forces himself not to hug you, press a kiss to your cheek even if that might look friendly, caress a hand across your cheekbone, brush the tendrils of hair out of your eyes. It’s a valiant effort.

A valiant effort that pays off because, as soon as you’re ushered into a room by yourselves, your smile turns into a scoff; your hands are kept to yourself, slipping a pair of sunglasses on, and; underneath them, your eyes begin to roll. “I need a drink,” you huff, not even looking at him. 

You’re on two couches opposite each other, in what he assumes to be a foyer to a hotel room that’s much bigger than the one he was in earlier. A-list fame and that. The girl he’d seen earlier scurries off, mumbling something about a martini. Greg, beside him, goes: “Do you need a drink, too?” But he shakes his head.

“Are you voluntarily working for this guy, Greg?” You refer to his assistant by name, offering a sarastic, honeyed smile. You adjust the strap of your dress and he blinks his gaze away.

“Oh, no. I mean—yeah. Kind of. I was assigned to him.”

“It’s okay, I don’t expect you to do it of your own will,” you joke, crossing your legs.

Charles laughs dryly. “Who asked?”

“So he speaks…” You ping off his retort without missing a beat, a sardonic smile playing at your lips. 

“In the two minutes we’ve been around each other, you’ve insulted me and my assistant. I’d prefer silence, your highness.”

“Aww, did my joke and asking Greg a question piss you off?” You suck your teeth. “You must be fun at parties.”

“Do you two, um. I don’t want to, like, overstep, but do you know each other?” Charles notices that Greg’s forearm is signed by you and realizes he has no allies here, with an inward grimace. “Or if you don’t, like, are you two just… not in good moods or something?”

The girl comes in then, saying here’s the martini and catering you a sweaty glass with a smile. You offer up the empty space beside you, patting the white leather for her to sit down on. Your eyes meet his again briefly, catty and a bit challenging, before you turn back to the girl. “Sit.”

Maybe Charles spends too much time with Max, because he’s starting to become more and more inclined to getting the last word in lately. “Bossing people around, eh? Fame really does change you.” He offers a smile of his own.

“She’s my assistant, Rachel,” you say sweetly, but your smile is gritty. “We need to check my schedule.”

He wants to slap himself. “Too busy to open your calendar?” Nevermind, he’s a god.

Your sarcastic smile drops. “And what’s on yours? P6 this week, P7 next, DNF after?”

Fuck. The tension is so thick at this point, it’s almost steaming hot. Both the assistants stare at you, waiting for Charles to wedge something in, but he bites himself back. Thankfully, right as the silence just begins to settle like oil on water, the door swings open and one of the coordinators steps in, noisily rattling off the week’s plans and proclaiming you’re both free for the remainder of the day before things pick back up—Schiaparelli show at noon, both of you, front row—tomorrow.

The four of you filter out of the room, and you make a quip about your autograph on Greg’s arm, which grants your assistant some face time with Charles. She turns to him, combing a hand through her hair and furrowing her thick eyebrows. “Hey, I’m Rachel, by the way.”

“Charles.”

“I know,” she says sheepishly. “Listen. I know you two have history, she—we—she’s, um, told me about it before. I don’t know the whole story, and I’m not… like, I’m not saying I do, so I respect it, whatever it is. But I hope you can find it in you to work with her properly. It’s a huge gig for you both. So—yeah, uh. Great job, and good luck.”

She smiles with a nod before exiting the room, leaving Charles alone and stirring with thoughts and memories woken from wild unrest.

—

“Alors,” Charles had said, not turning from his position in front of your vanity mirror. He’d been picking at his face, stopping only when you tsked at him not to. “What is the problem?” His eyes flicked over to you, your lying figure on the bed exhaling little puffs of frustrated air to the ceiling. “Are you missing the recital?”

“Quoi? Non.” You gnawed at your lip, accepting your defeat. You couldn’t lie for much longer, not when you’d been keeping this under wraps for two months. “Listen. Charles.” He nodded, clearly preoccupied with something. “Charles.”

“Hmm?”

“Can you ple—look at me.” Your voice hardened.

He’d noticed it then, the curt cutoff of your voice, the absent look in your eyes. He knows you even through a mirror, even in the low light of your room. “Desolé. This pimple won’t go away.”

“Charles,” you said, groaning but allowing yourself to laugh. “Listen.”

“Okay.” He turned to face you, a spot on his chin red from how long he’d been scratching at it.

You shrugged then, suddenly scared to deal with the realness of it all. You didn’t understand why you felt so torn. “It’s something to do with me,” you said.

“Yeah.”

“I’m moving.” You rubbed at your nose, the cold draft coming in through the window causing you to sniffle. “Out of Monaco.”

A beat. “What?”

You closed your fingers around your necklace, scratching absently at the divots of the pendant. One, two, three little dips in the gold locket, tiny but comforting. “Yeah. In a few months, like, after school. It’s Papa—his job. It’s a whole thing.”

“Europe?” You shook your head. America.

“What… well, what does that mean, then?” His expression didn’t waver but if anything did, it was his eyes—desperate, seeking more answers, wanting them with a guttural, belly-deep desire. You’re his best friend, so if he has to let you go in this life, he at least needs to know everything about the move. 

“We’ll keep in touch,” you reassured, kicking your leg to further your point. “You were bound to get busy with karting anyway, so it’s like. Ça revient au même.”

“It isn’t the same,” he said, his voice thin and cracking. 

“You’ll be fine.”

“You have a very misguided idea of who I am.”

“Shut up. Come off it,” you laughed, sitting up straighter. “We’ll call everyday, and I’ll meet all the famous people who’ll get me a real acting job, and I’ll come for the holidays or summer or something. Things won’t change. Not that much, at least.”

“Maybe, just maybe.” He pauses. “Will you be here for my birthday, at least?” He’d made a big deal all year of his turning sixteen on the sixteenth.

“Charles,” you sighed. 

“No, yeah. I get it.” He looked down, rubbing his thumbs together, like he’s just been hit across the face. He will tell you one day it felt infinitely more painful than that. But at the time he shook his head and looked up at you, reached his pinky to yours, a thin slip of paper around the finger that matched your interlocked one, and didn’t say anything else.

Just: “We’ll be okay.”

—

You could pin a lot of adjectives on Monaco: picturesque, without a doubt; warm, glamorous, but you’d sooner die than pin the word home over it. The city is sprawling even with the little surface area it possesses, and only few things seem familiar. Your lodging is a hotel in Monte-Carlo, a penthouse suite that requires you to travel very little. It feels like a vacation.

And you embody the role of a vacationer very well—the first five, six days of your stay in Monaco went great, mainly appearances that lasted a few hours at most and several junkets to promote Vogue and your latest film, before you were free to do whatever you wished. You’d gone the touristy route already: shopping more times than you could count, trying your immense luck at the casinos, and eating at Michelin-starred restaurants; eventually all the fun blurred into each other and you found solace in naps instead.

Your troubles are not far behind, however, and they finally come after you on Day 7. The event coordinators had informed Rachel, who in turn informed you, that the first of next week’s agenda would be a photographed tour of the Musée Océanographique de Monaco, a grand seaside building right at the edge of the water. Today is, apparently, a day for you to “fraternize with” Charles, which meant you would once again need to put a façade over your less-than-kind appearance toward him.

Those are the concluding words of David’s very firm text, encouraging (read: coercing) you to settle things with Charles into some approximation of civility. You resolve things by calling him to skip over the awkwardness that comes with texting. It takes you all of twenty minutes and twice your body weight in courage to press the green telephone button.

“B’jour,” he goes, his voice quick. French people (he will hate that you called him French, even if it was just in your head; you relish in this) always talk rapidly. After some silence, he clears his throat: “Hello?”

Butterflies—some form of them, whatever—flutter in your stomach. “It’s me.”

He drops formalities and adopts a disinterested voice. “Huh. What do you want?” The butterflies have rotted to death.

“I need to talk to you.”

“To insult me again?” He sounds a little amused even over the phone, a breath of laughter landing in your ear. “Bah, I get it. We are enemies. You have no interest in reconnecting, et cetera. C’est tout ce que tu as à dire? I gotta go.”

Your face warms at his accusatory tone. “Wow, leave it to a guy to be charming, huh?”

“Why should I be charming with you?”

“At least be polite,” you taunt, but your voice lacks its usual edge. On the other line, Charles lets his own defiant tone ebb downward.

At least be polite. It’s the least he can owe you after ten years of forgetting. It wasn’t as if you two had a mutual agreement then, in 2013 when you moved away, to stop becoming friends. For months before you moved out, he completely stopped talking to you, like he’d forgotten you two were even connected, were even friends. What little words you two shared became petty and abrasive, and suddenly Monaco lost its color. The closeness you had with him, which for so long you’d convinced yourself was once-in-a-lifetime, was ripped from you, robbed from you—by him, no less, which hurt all the more. You’d given up on finding out why at some point. You waited for him to reach out. Maybe, you told yourself, just maybe, it would take a few months, a year.

Ten years of radio silence. He owes you that: politeness.

“It doesn’t matter,” you say to nobody in particular, in an effort to segue into the topic of your choosing. “Look, we’re supposed to be friends. In… on camera, at least. It’s disastrous if we look like we, you know, hate each other. We need to be professional.”

“For the cameras,” he says back, solemn.

“Yeah.” You wind a finger through your hair. “Just… for the sake of civility.”

You hear his little hums of consideration. “D’accord,” he says after a few minutes. “Truce, then.”

“Sure.” You smile a little. “I have to go.”

—

You were halfway through your mess of clothes when your mum peeked through your door, her hair held back by a headband. “Call you yet, poppet?” 

“Non,” you said, decimating your voice to a monotonous murmur. You looked up from the dress you’d been folding and offer a half-hearted, sardonic smile. “Je t’ai dit qu’il ne le ferait pas.” You were right: he wouldn’t call. What difference did a month make, anyway? This time, though, the usual victory of being right settled into an ugly disappointment in the pit of your stomach.

You wanted so badly to be wrong. To clamber to the telephone, to your Skype, to your cellphone, any of the three, and see his name flashed across the helm or his voice in your ear. Maybe he was dialing your number now, to ask if you wanted to grab dinner after the year-end recital, or to update you on karting, or to tell you Pascale wanted lunch.

She could tell, as all mothers can, that you’d been upset. The knit in your brows that didn’t go away, the bottom lip being chewed, the tight clutch of your fingers over the already-folded dress. She sighed. “I’m sorry, baby.” 

“It’s fine.” Your voice came out sharper than you intended and you have to roll it back, recede it, to sound more relaxed, more at ease. “It’s… fine. I’m fine.” She knew better than to pry, closing the door softly to continue packing up the living room.

You heaved a dry sigh to express the nausea that came with his absence. It began a month ago, two days after you first told him about it and poked at the zit on his chin. He’d buried his head in your shoulder until tears seeped into the cotton sleeve of your shirt, and you let him. You felt guilty, after all, for keeping it a secret for so long. You would leave in September, you told him. We have time.

Two days later he walked you home as always, on the “dangerous” side of the street, lanky legs skipping to the tree in front of your house. You pointed at the beginnings of clementines on its dewy branches, smiling, inviting him in, but he remained leaning against the trunk, playing with his mop of hair that covered his forehead.

“Bah, trop dramatique,” you said, poking fun. Lorenzo had showed you both some art house films he studied in class, and with the bout of French cinema, you and Charles had grown obsessed with making fun of overdramatic stills that often included the classic leaning-against-a-surface. “Come on, Mum made bouillabasse, I smell it.”

“We need to talk,” he eked out awkwardly. “I have something important to tell you.”

You dropped your knapsack, leather scratching against the concrete of the steps to the front door as you walked over to him. “Ouais?”

“I…” His lips moved, wobbled, but nothing left, so he shut them and his eyes, like he was considering something. His breathing slowed into one rhythm you find yourself unconsciously matching, just two kids looking at each other in the dusky breeze of Monaco, the orange sun casting shadows over the clementine tree. You closed your hand over his, a tight clamp over his knobby wrist with certainty. “I…”

“Say it.”

“I want to.” His eyes were shut. Exhale. Inhale, open. “I… I’m going… going home.”

You breathed out apprehensively and relaxed. “Oh.” You blinked. “That’s it?”

“Ye—ouais. Yeah. I gotta.” Already he was climbing to the gate, waving a half-hearted goodbye. “Save some for me, oui? Bye.”

“Charles,” you warned after him, voice tinged with concern. “That’s it, promise?” Your hand flexed around air.

“Cross my heart!” The last thing he ever said with any bit of something genuine.

—

You reunite with Charles at a meeting; under the guise of your truce, he makes the barely-necessary small talk. The rest of the staff file out of the restaurant in due time, but you both stay. You ask about Lorenzo and Arthur, leaving out questions you’d rather not listen to him answer, and he tells you they’re both alright. That his mum asks about you sometimes. That makes you smile. He asks if you’re still dating the guy you’d most recently been partnered with in Us Weekly.

“God, no. We never even dated, the… um, tabloids always make shit up.” You purse your lips. “Anyway. Is Lorenzo still in film?” You ask, turning your head a little. You don’t think you’ll ever forget his affinity for cinema.

“Not professionally, but I still sit through hours-long… you know, reviews, and stuff.” He laughs when he sees you laugh, eyes half-closed and meeting the ceiling.

“He introduced me to some of my favorite movies, especially when I got into acting and I was kind of… like, I wanted some inspiration, acting-wise. But not my actual favorite movie.”

“Which is?” He segues into a more personal topic. “Is it still Bambi?”

“Oh, it was, for the longest time!” You almost squeal with excitement. “Not anymore, though. It’s been dethroned, ha ha. I think it’s… I’d say it’s maybe Casablanca now.”

“How American.”

“Shut up.” Your face warms. “It’s so romantic. When he says—when he goes, um. We’ll always have Paris. And then, God—when Ilsa goes, I said I would never leave you—and Rick goes, And you never will… isn’t it so classic? Romance movies nowadays are—I, I, I… I get scripts sent to me that are just so bad, and they’re either too idealistic or too pessimistic, or too indie or too commercial, and.” You sigh. “It’s like nobody gets love right anymore.”

“Us Weekly disagrees,” he says weakly, after a period of silence.

“Stop,” you laugh warningly. “And don’t act like you’re not being paired up with different girls, too.”

For a minute you sit with the realization that you’ve both been keeping tabs on each other all these years, even just a little bit. It’s a bit jarring, it’s a bit warm, it’s a lot confusing. You make a move to ask for the bill but Charles is quicker, opens his mouth to implore your presence.

“Come see me tonight.” He says it like he didn’t mean to, like it escaped him on a whim, a blurted out confession born out of your memories and conversation. His voice is dreamy, faraway. “Earth to…?”

“Wh—sorry. Fuck.” You clear your throat and deduce your next words. “Where?”

“I’ll text you. A club, near your hotel.”

“Yeah… yeah, sure.” You hum an affirming noise. 

—

Your name is on the list, though you’re sure it doesn’t matter whether or not it was. No ID is needed, and paps catch a bouncer being dispatched to guide you through the nightclub toward the elevated area with significantly less people. It’s low-lit, smoky, vaguely blue and purple, smelling of flows of alcohol and fresh ice. An Azealia Banks song is playing, pounding through your head.

Tabloids don’t care about nightclubs. They care if you come out drunk or with a smidge of snow under your nose, neither of which have happened to you; entering is fair game, a fun affair, especially in a district like Monte-Carlo. You don’t have any explaining to do, not even to questions like are you clubbing with your professional Vogue collaborator, Charles Leclerc?

The collaborator in question is the first to greet you, getting up and approaching you with a smile so obviously tense. The picture in front of him is like if he’d conjured up a forlorn fantasy of his to life—your hair fell loosely over black lace, a hand pinched around the hem of your dress. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

“So.” He realizes he’s in charge of the socializing, and turns to properly introduce you. “Um, guys, this is my—friend—you already know”—he fusses over your name, which everyone in the world knows, anyway—“and these are my friends. Pierre, Alex, George, Lando, Daniel… you know Joris.” He points to each guy's face as he goes, eliciting a beam every time he gestures.

You wave with a polite smile before you station yourself beside the only one you know: Joris, with whom Charles shares a longtime friendship. He greets you first, with a side hug. “Long time.”

“Yeah, it’s been.” You watch him turn toward the low table, and back around with two shots, offering them to you with haste.

You thank the Lord that he makes quick, dextrous work of it, and before long you’ve downed a glass or three of some strawberry four seasons thing, socializing with the different people around the table. One of them, Lando, talks about your latest film for five whole minutes (“I rated it five stars on Letterboxd. I left a review, if you wanna see”) before he leans close and asks: “Are you his girlfriend?” His is obviously referencing Charles, and you pull back from the proximity to shake your head.

“No,” you holler to emphasize it. “We used to know each other. I grew up here.”

“Oh shit! Native!” He whoops, offering you another glass. This must be your fifth, maybe, fifth G&T or Cosmo or something or other of the night. You take it, drinking as you walk, planning to collect your bag to take with you to the bathroom—another hand takes yours, though, dragging you down the steps. Halfway through, you realize it’s Charles.

“How’s the drink?” He asks, brows straight.

“That’s all you wanted to ask?” You raise your voice above the bass. “Someone needs to teach you fucking… proper small talk.” A laugh involuntarily bubbles past your lips, eyes crinkling. 

He laughs, too, despite himself. “Non, I was—I was just asking. We should—I brought you over here to—so we could…” He realizes he’s been talking too fast without getting to the point and pauses, resetting himself with a pinched sigh. “Dance.”

Your heart pulses. Dance? You hear yourself ask. For wh…Why?

“For the sake of the truce.” His voice is light. “We should try being closer.”

“We were close once,” you say, loose. “Did you forget?”

He’s looking right at you, and you’re warm all over. “How could I?”

It feels too real. Not the words—yes the words—but the alcohol, the alcohol is what you’re referring to, and all those shots and drinks suddenly seem not as harmless as they’d seemed earlier. You scan the periphery for the WC sign and try your best not to look deranged on your way there, offering the same pretty smile to recognizing passersby. Behind you, Charles calls out; but you wave him off, heaving dryly.

The restroom is clean because the nightclub is outrageously expensive; you push yourself into the available stall that’s in your direct path and crumple above it. You heave. Heave some more. Nothing comes. The nausea rises and recedes, so you decide to wait it out.

The bathroom door hauls open, bringing with it a few seconds of noise before it swings heavily onto the frame again, sealing the sterile silence. The momentary return of the bass from the dance floor sends your head spinning all over again and you freeze, willing yourself not to wind up hurling your guts into the toilet. It’s a futile effort, though, because you’re feeling nauseated beyond your limit again, and you need water and maybe a salve or something.

“This stall is open,” somebody says, a chipper American voice that grows in volume as it nears you. A gasp follows, and then: “Oh, my God. Are you okay?”

You turn, your face flushed and lips parted. “I’m so sorry. I just—I’ve been nauseous all night.”

“I have water,” she answers, reaching her arm outward, as if seeking it. “Carmen, the water!” A bottle of Evian is thrust into her hand by another girl (Carmen, you presume), and she doesn’t hesitate to bend next to you to feed it into your mouth. She stares for a second, then goes: “On the off chance I’m lucky, and you’re the famous actress, by the way, I just want to say I’m a huge fan of your work.”

Eyes wide, you lock eyes with her and pull away from the water. “Oh, God. Yeah, that’s me. I’m so sorry—this is so humiliating.”

“It’s not—it’s normal,” she assures, nodding. “We’ve all… y’know, puked into a club toilet before.” From the stall doorframe, Carmen nods. “What’d you drink?”

“Fruity stuff,” you recall, eyebrows knitting at the memory. “And shots.”

They both grimace at the same time, knowing the exact feeling, the exact taste, it seems. “Are you heartbroken or something?” Carmen asks; Lily shoots her a look that can only really mean don’t ask the world-famous actress if she’s heartbroken. But you laugh it off, shaking your head.

“No. There’s a guy, though, and he’s… we’re… it’s a lot. I think I thought alcohol would absorb all of it, but… clearly, it did not.” Your lips simmer into a straight line and you’re quiet for a few moments before remembering you’re on a dingy club floor being supported by two nice girls who are strangers. “Anyway! Sorry. I’m clearly, um, delirious.” You get up on semi-wobbly feet, swallowing the nausea as you go. 

You walk to the sink, and behind your back, the girl and Carmen share a telepathic exchange (should we ask her to elaborate? Yes! Should we really? Fuck, no.) You rinse your mouth out, washing your hands and focusing on your reflection—your tired eyes, your smudged lip gloss, your fussed-up hair. You turn after rinsing, offering a small smile. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing,” says the first girl, offering her hand and a tube of lip gloss. “I’m Lily, by the way. And just so you know—I’m so sure that guy has nothing on you.” Carmen, beside her, nods in solidarity, and your heart blooms.

Your smile grows as your hand shakes hers, accepting the lip gloss. “You’re too kind. Thank y—” 

“Lil? Baby, are you puking?” Comes a disembodied male voice from the door, ajar ever so slightly. Lily visibly cringes and walks over to the door, pulling it open further. On the other side—the detective of sorts—happens to be Alex, who you’d been introduced to a few hours ago. At the sight of you, his eyes widen with recognition. 

“We’re fine. Leave us alone,” replies Lily in a conspiratorial whisper. “Carmen and I have a new friend.” She doesn’t even need to drop your name; your face alone is enough to make people recognize who you are.

Alex, however, refuses to admit defeat. “Try harder next time.” He pumps his eyebrows. “We were introduced earlier.” He looks up and waves to demonstrate his truth; when you smile back, Lily’s jaw drops as she turns to her boyfriend again, aghast.

“What the hell? How?” A pause. “No offense. It’s like. Two levels of fame, right there.”

He makes a pinched face. “She’s Charles’… friend? I don’t—coworker? Something, something. They were both vague about it. Actually, George and I were talking about it, and we both think something is up. With them.”

“Wait—you might be right.” Her eyes are hyperfocused, and her voice drops to a whisper for a second. “Let’s talk about it at the hotel.”

You and Carmen watch their hushed exchange, and eventually Alex leaves you three alone again with a loud goodbye, which allows Lily to rejoin your conversation. “Sorry,” she says with a smile. “That was my boyfriend, Alex. I didn’t know you two were introduced! He told me you knew Charles?”

“Oh.” Your shoulders relax. “Yeah, um. We knew each other as kids, but I moved away and we kind of—we drifted apart, so. I’m here on a business trip, and he’s just welcoming me.” You try to reduce the decade-long mess into a sentence.

“So you’re friends?”

“Yeah.” You feel like vomiting all over again. 

—

The sky’s a searing blue at noon, silver clouds lining the horizon. Charles has to press a finger to the high point of his cheek to test if he’s sunburned from the heat, and the cameras catch it; he doesn’t doubt the fans will spin that into something cute later. You’re somewhere else on the property, this big, massive thing of a museum that’s crashed into by the waves.

He remembers Andrea first telling him about this whole arrangement. He and the team had deliberately left out any mention of you, like they could predict the immediate veto. He wonders if you knew, or if you, too, had been surprised when seeing him, a ghost of your past looking into your eyes. He wonders if you, too, are now in this endless emotional turmoil. Inside there’s a photoshoot ongoing, with you but also with some models in varying aquatic-related poses to convey the intent of the building; he’s done his share of pictures already, just needs to sit down with you for an interview. 

“And a B-roll of you guys, um, like, walking, like—around?” Greg’s voice invades his head again, the nervous man beside him running through a to-do list like this is boot camp.

You’d left him hanging at the club—he couldn’t blame you though. A truce hardly called for the bringing forth of memories you two are now supposed to have buried beneath you. Memories he buried first. But alcohol had loosened him, and maybe you had, too, your eyes in the vaguely bluish light and your smile.

He wishes to apologize. He makes up some excuse and finds you nursing an Evian by a faraway corner, against a screen of stingrays. Your eyes widen when you see him, in recognition. He waves and then, with a thumb, gestures to the catering outside.

You end up by the water eating one of the caterer’s churros, a recommendation he deems “very special.” (“Have you worked with these caterers before?” “No.”) It’s also his excuse to cheat on his diet and eat a churro or three—chocolate dip included, always. You rave over the taste, smile, enjoy the view. Charles realizes this looks deceivingly like a date, and at the same time realizes he would not stop to correct someone if they assumed so.

“Our truce seems to be working.” You say in-between chews, voice flat but eyes bright.

“It seems so. I owe that to my personality.”

You really laugh at that. “I didn’t know you had one. It’s very fit for someone as unapproachable as I am.”

“Who said that?”

“No, noth—nobody.” You comb a lock of hair behind your ear. “Aw, putain. I’m ruining my lipstick. Pat’s going to kill me. I look awful.” There are no reflective surfaces around you to affirm your statement, but you sound so sure of yourself.

He smiles. He enjoys the illusion, the mask that you two seem to wear, albeit involuntarily. The chocolate syrup he squeezes on your little paper box of churros. The muttered back merci when he’s finished. Your flushed face, eyes darting from the delicacy to the ocean, eyelashes fluttering, lips smiling, curving into a laugh at some random realization. Briefly he imagines what he might tell somebody if they stopped to ask if you were dating.

Some old woman, French accent and short in stature. You two are so cute. Si mignon! And she would ask how you two met. Charles would tell her the story. But that is imagination. He blinks out of it and focuses on the beauty in front of him, so very real.

“No. You are very pretty, you know.” He says then, and it’s taken him all his nerves and then some just to wrangle it out of his mouth and past his lips. Anticipatory, he watches you, waits for your response.

You comb the hair out of your face messily, licking over the cinnamon sugar on your lips; then you smile up at him, turning your head in question. “Sorry,” you laugh, and his heart’s frozen because it’s the prettiest sound he’s ever heard. “What did you say?”

The wind roars in his ears, so Charles barely hears himself when he says, stuttering, “What? Nothing, I said nothing.”

You make a face—confused, suspicious—but all your allegations quell once you bite into another churro, stepping yourself a path along the area. Having blocked off the building, production staff and models are all that populate your surroundings, big headphones and even bigger cameras, rolling around racks of monochrome and Hermés, Birkins to match Loro Pianas. It’s easy to get lost in a crowd—in a city—where everyone looks the same, and knows the other’s name. Perhaps that’s also why, even at fourteen, you were excited to leave, he thinks.

“The coast was always my favorite part about the city.”

He notices. The way your eyes have softened, become more fond than when you’re in the centre of it all, in the bustle. Here it’s busy, but less busy; the distinction, perhaps, matters. Your gaze is not one of distaste, of disdain. It’s nostalgic, homesick, yearning. He supposes he describes this gaze so well because it’s the way he catches himself looking at you over the week. 

“I wanted to…” He trails off. “I wanted to talk to you because, ah. I’m sorry. It was foolish of me to put you on the spot last night. I should’ve been more… yeah. I’m sorry. I hope you’re okay.”

You stare at the sea and nod quietly. Instead of responding, you launch a story: “I always…” You’re clearly lost in a different sphere of thought, and you have to fall quiet while finding the right words to say. “I remember, um. In Year 3, we—I came here with my mum. And I was super mad, because I got, like, three mistakes on my Maths paper?” You laugh and he does, too, but more because your storytelling is so effortlessly enthralling and funny and he needs to shut himself up.

“Anyway.” You pace around again, and he follows. “So, I’m mad, and she’s trying to cheer me up, buys me glace and everything, but no. So I go sit myself on a random bench. It must’ve been around here, I think.” You look around and point at an empty area. “There. But it’s—they must’ve ripped it out. Whatever. So yeah, I’m sitting there, and moping, and all of a sudden All You Need is Love by The Beatles comes blaring into the entire area.”

Charles’ eyebrows knit confusedly. “What, the bench area?”

“No—the whole pier, I guess? Like, it was loud, I almost jumped. And then this guy comes in holding this huge—this, um, board? Sign? Poster? And he’s got half the pier in on his whole thing, and I’m totally… it was just… yeah.” You smile. It’s the biggest smile he’s seen on you since you got here and the fact that he’s even around to see it gets him all warm.

“So what happened?”

“It was a flash mob. You know those—yeah, they’re usually insufferable, but that one was a little calmer. Nobody was, you know, dancing and yelling. It was just a bunch of people cheering and all, and the guy was actually proposing to his girlfriend. It was so cute.” You sigh a little, a brief exhale of air, and it turns into a smile. “I’d love that.”

He raises his eyebrows and, despite himself, laughs. “Vraiment?” 

You turn to him, ready to defend yourself, mid-laugh. “Heeey. Everyone says they find big, romantic gestures cheesy, but I think deep down, if you trust the person enough, you’ll like it. Maybe not a proposal, though—can you imagine the pressure?” You pause. “But I don’t know. There’s something so nice about just knowing that person loves you so much they think it’s worth it to share it to everyone around you. So even if it’s cheesy, I wouldn’t mind much. You?”

“It’s cheesy for me,” he disagrees, shrugging. “But I see your point.” Truth be told, he didn’t see you as a romantic type—but all he’s ever seen you do lately is work, and even back in childhood, all you ever did was study. He likes learning these little facts, ones you wouldn’t share in interviews—likes knowing you feel comfortable enough to share with him. “Dancing is a bit overboard.”

“Oh, definitely.” You throw your head back to laugh, eyes half-shut and crinkled and reflecting the sun. Would you look the same if he was dancing to The Beatles, proclaiming all the words he hasn’t had the courage to say?

—

Next question is who your first love was—we’re rolling in three…

“First love?” You laughed a little, facing the camera to continue your Screen Test interview with W. The questions had been candid and lovely, but they were about your career, which you answered with familiar ease. First love is different—uncharted, private territory. But you’d realized all this too late, and the director called go, and you let words spill out of you like a bag popped open.

“I want to be funny and witty and say acting, but that would be a lie. Um, my first love was a childhood friend. We lived near each other, our parents were friends, and I… I really did, I liked him a lot. But these—there were so many factors at tension with each other, like me moving away in 2013—that’s, what, six years ago now? And us being young and not really knowing how to communicate. When you’re a teenager, you’re kind of just like, oh, no worries, um, that’ll sort itself out, and then you grow up and look back and realize, these things never do. But I miss him a, a, a… a lot, and I think of him always.” Your smile didn’t reach your eyes when you looked at the camera again. “We learn a lot from childhood loves.”

Cut. Lovely. Just lovely.

“Thank you, Lynn,” you said with a small smile. A pause as silence creeps up onto the room, and then, quieter: “Could we omit that? I—sorry. I could answer anything else. First kiss, or something? I’m sorry, I just. Sorry.” For the first time in five years, you realize, you’ve conjured his memory again.

—

“Okay. What else do you remember?”

“I… do you remember the recital song?”

“Of course I do! The dance is… that’s a different story.” You’d been at Charles’ hotel room earlier to go over some video shoot regulations for a 24 Hours With video you’re doing in a few days. You stayed because—that’s beyond you at this point, and you’d rather not delve into the rationality of it all. You’re content with thinking about how nice this conversation is, a trip down memory lane.

“The dance, mon dieu, the dance.” He smothers a hand over his face, smiles fondly. “You were at the center!”

“Stop. Stop,” you protest, letting laughter settle into quiet. “It’s crazy, you know? How we… like, we share a life. Not—but like, we had a whole childhood together.” 

“And nobody knows.” It’s not something you keep a secret on purpose—it’s just that neither of you feel like name-dropping the other. Some stories have surfaced, but none of you have fully commented. Somehow, that’s a good thing for you.

“Do people ask?”

“People ask, yes.” His accent is a reminder of your past—you’d once had the same thick wraparound, the loose reign over English you’ve now grown to master. Now your accent is a lot thinner, to the point where it’s barely perceptible, and if it is, your coworkers and fans call it cute, chic, use it as a jumping off point to ask where you grew up. But in this hotel room, legs folded underneath you and glass of wine in hand, you have no coworkers or fans, it feels like; no one to perceive you but Charles. Charles and his accent, nostalgic and so very his, which you wouldn’t describe as anything but home.

“What do you tell them, then?” Quickly, you add: “The truth, or…?”

“That we knew each other as kids,” he says, smiling absently. “That is the truth, no?”

You cover a smile with the rim of your wine glass, nodding. There’s no revisionist history in that statement, but it hides a lot of the truth, the nitty gritty of it. You know it, he knows it, you both know it. “What would you want me to say?” His voice is soft and thin and imploring, so different from the boisterous voice he uses in public, from the slurred voice you heard in the club. This sounds real. This sounds like a conversation you would’ve had years ago in your childhood bedroom before everything went—

“Nothing, that’s fine.” You cut your own reverie off, clearing your throat. You even laugh, to alleviate the tension, but he sees right through you so many years later. “Unless you’re privy to telling people how we didn’t talk for months before I left.”

He blinks, smothers a palm over his face again, and sighs, eyes meeting yours. “I’m sorry. I don’t—I… I’ve wanted to bring it up.”

“I’m not mad.” It’s a half-lie. “Okay, no—I am, a bit. It just—it would’ve been nice to hear it two weeks ago.”

“I know.” He doesn’t even need to say it, but him saying it sends a low thrum of reassurance in you. Charles has found, in the two weeks of being in your company, that he accomplishes a sense of self—a sense of quiet, a sense of privacy—when he’s alone with you. Perhaps it’s your natural ability to bring out the best in people, to talk and loosen tongues and make everyone around you feel safe. Or, and this is on a likely front, maybe he misses being one of those people. 

He pretends he’s back to last week after another club rendezvous left you tipsier than the first time, dropping you off at your hotel room with two hands taut at your shoulders, one pinching a keycard. You’d been muttering something under your breath, stumbling as you went—you weren’t tripping too much, really; he didn’t need to hold you, but he told himself he had to—and leaning against the doorframe of your room, staring at him blankly. When he met your eyes, you said: maybe, just maybe. Just those three words. If he tries to remember right, you’d been smiling, but he was sufficiently tipsy, too, so he could just as well be wrong.

He does remember a few things right. The eyeliner smudged across your lower eye, lipstick smacked to a point where it looked like you wore none, beads of salt by your lip, your hand wrapped around your necklace. 

The silence is anything but awkward; still, he resolves to break it. “When you were drunk last week.” He looks up. “You said—you kept saying, maybe, just maybe.”

A laugh escapes you, stilted and a bit nervous. “Oh. That was—yeah, okay.”

“What’s it mean?”

“You seriously don’t remember?” You’re laughing for real now, your hair bobbing with it, eyebrows furrowed to emphasize your confusion. “Oh, my God. Charles, it’s all you ever said in Year… what, 7? I don’t… anyway. But when we were maybe twelve, I…”

Momentarily, you’re stunned by the memories of him—you’d forgotten they were even there. You press a few fingers to your lips and clear your throat. “Sorry. Yeah, I, um—I think you heard it in a movie or read it somewhere, and for ages it was your favorite saying. Maybe, just maybe.”

“I don’t underst—”

“—You were always just saying it,” you cut in, laughing, your voices layering as you discuss the origin of his former favorite term. “No, you really—”

“I don’t—I do not ever remember say—”

“—Well,” you say,  “I remember.” He stays silent for a few seconds, the intensity of your stare and the little smile on your face and everything beating down on him. For a split second he thinks of opening his mouth and getting on his knees and telling you everything, all the apologies, all the things unsaid in the months and years you became strangers. He seriously does. The pressure is almost physical, beyond overwhelming.

“I have to go.” You swallow the lump in your throat, disentangle your legs and clamber off the couch, setting the empty glass on his coffee table. “Good?”

“Yeah,” he says, blinking. “Yeah. Take care. Should I drive you?”

“God, no.” You laugh breathily. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

He closes the door after you leave, stares at it, as if that will conjure you back to him. It occurs to him, jolts him almost, that he’d almost let slip a quiet utterance of love you as you slipped out. His stomach boils. With thankfulness over not having said it, he wonders—or with regret?

—

“Best friends now, are you?” Lily, Carmen, and Rachel look up to the sound of your voice, their serious faces breaking out into smiles. If you could chart the time you spent here, there are definitely people you’ve spent the most time with—these three are at the top of the list. You hang your coat and drop your Chanel bag on the entryway seat, already picking up on the British noises of Love Island UK from the telly.

“Wait, so she’s hooking up with him?” Lily asks, confused; her train of thought is cut off by your flopping onto the bed. “Hiiii. Where’ve you been?”

Muffled by the bedspread: Charles’ place.

Silence. The television switches off and you hear the precarious preparation of three girls readying themselves for a debrief-or-sobfest of a lifetime, a noise you’ve heard and partaken in countless times over your life. You suddenly feel too watched, too spectated; you break the quiet by looking up, displaying your tear-streaked face.

“Talk to us,” Rachel encourages, her voice raspy with unuse (Love Island will keep one occupied and quiet for hours on end). Three of them are touching you in some way or other, reassuring grips on your hair or shoulders. “Did you two fight?”

And, oh Christ, fight? It’s not like you’re dating. You aren’t even halfway to that (not that you want to be, but that’s a discussion for another time). The idea of a fight with him is so terribly juvenile, so horribly reminiscent of secondary school and Monaco and being together and being friends. You can’t fight with a guy who’s not your boyfriend. You can’t fight with a guy you’re not close to, for Chrissake. You squeeze your tears out of your eyes and breathe hiccups out.

“Do you want gelato?” No, no.

“Love Island?” In a minute.

The truth is, you want both, but you really just want to sort everything out with Charles. It was no use—hating each other was futile, but pretending everything was fine in some pathetic attempt at a “truce” seemed even worse. You just want to talk everything out, even if it excavates feelings you’d once been able to suppress.

“What kind of crush doesn’t disappear after ten years?” You ask through tears. It’s almost funny, but the question comes straight from the heart. “I’ve dated guys, lived across the world, started a whole new life pretending he never—pretending we were—fuck. Pretending he didn’t exist. It was—I’m not lying, it was easy, pretending. But one glimpse—I see him one time and suddenly it feels like all of it was in vain. It’s the same crush I had before, coming back, like it’s never going to leave me alone.”

“Maybe it’s not a crush,” says Lily, slowly.

“So what is it then?” You ask, hopelessly. What is this—this revival of memories? This little feeling, this sense that no matter where he is or what he’s doing, you’ll be just as in tune when you reunite even if it takes a decade? A decade spurred by months of being given the cold shoulder? What kind of magic is that?

She doesn’t answer, because you already know.

—

“Hey Vogue—I’m here with Charles Leclerc, and we’re here to take you along with us on all our little adventures here in Monaco.” Your smile is rehearsed, the perfectly-orchestrated blend of fun and serious, and when the cameraman calls cut, it falls into a more natural resting face. It’s the one Charles turns to and observes for any signs of a grudge.

The day is busy, which is precisely why it was chosen as the film day: three shows in the morning, press junkets for your movie and Charles’ season in the afternoon, and then a gala in the evening, hosted and attended by Anna Wintour herself.

The day’s business is only trumped by its tension, which reaches its crescendo in the janitor’s closet of the fourth floor of your hotel. It’d begun with a fight over the color palette, then a fight over last conversation you shared, then a fight over him fucking up the color palette, and then kissing against the door. Ironically enough, this floor houses a fair number of honeymoon suites.

It’s ironic beause hardly anything about this is or should be romantic—it’s a temporary fix, a pause from the turmoil, his hand squeezing your thigh. He’s gentle but you feel his possessiveness, lingering longer, higher and higher up until he’s playing with the high hem of your skirt. You knot your fingers in his hair, smell the shampoo and hairspray and cologne in the wispy curls there.

He kisses your jaw, then downward, until he’s licking, nipping at your throat. Charles.

“Yeah?” His voice is rough against your pulse point.

“Make it—we gotta—quicker.” Your hands tremble, heart hammering loud and bold in your chest. His voice is sure, gravelly, quiet, and you have to focus on something—so you centre on his hands, up your thighs and slipping under the lace of your skirt, bunching the fabric up around your hips. His hands, big and calloused, fingers resting on your hipbones, on your ass.

He’s hard against your thigh, straining against his jeans. You could cry. “I want more.”

“I know, baby. I know.” The pet name, so new but so natural, sends you into a dopamine rush.

You squirm when he doesn’t let up on his touches, over every inch of your body, groping you. He wants to take his time—he hates that he can’t—and counts on the possibility of a next time. You pull him in for a spit-slick kiss, needy and whimpering, sloppy and tongues knotted. It feels good—fuck, it feels like this was all you were ever made for, his touch. 

You buck your hips into the air desperately. “We really—fuck. We don’t have time.” Cameras, a shoot, a video; reminders ring in your head like alarm bells. He nods, goes I know, and you pick up the strain in his voice as he tugs his jeans down just enough to rub his clothed cock under your entrance, hard and drooling through the fabric.

You moan softly. “Please, I can take it,” you breathe. You’ve never been this wet, this worked up, this teased. You need to feel him, be full of him; he presses you flush against the door with a hand at the small of your back to keep it from aching too much, and drops forward as he pushes into you. Your noses brush and he goes deeper, air thick and muffled with little moans and whimpers.

His mouth is against your jaw, thrusting slowly to get you used to the size of him. The angle gets you dizzy, draws a burst of wetness out and gets you clenching around him. You’re flushed and sweaty, moaning. Feels s’good. So good, Charles, so, so good. He fucks harder, the door rattling, dirty talk cooed from his lips to your ear: Yeah? Feels real good? You’re so good for me, baby, come on.

Your needy voice, needier movements, are driving him crazy, getting him to fuck you harder, licking over his lips as he watches you fall apart on his dick. Relax, he slurs. You squeeze around him and moan, wretched and raw. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. You’re so big. You’re getting his dick wetter and wetter with every thrust, shiny and drooling with cum.

Yeah? He says it so well, the best kind of reassurance. Come on, we don’t have time, baby. Let me feel you cum.

I know— you whine. I’m cumming—it feels too good—

You cum first, thighs shaky around him and lip curling into your teeth. You lean forward, mouth to his shoulder, and bite at the cotton. Fuck, he grunts, and releases then, a groan spilled into your hair. You watch, laughing breathlessly, and feel the world click into something different. 

You two will do anything, apparently, but talk this all through.

—

The gala is big and extravagant and you’re seated not with Charles this time, but with a roster of celebrities straight out of an LAX red-eye. Anna is at the table adjacent, andy you were able to talk to her about the experience, though not without leaving out bits with Charles in them.

You’re beside Florence and she’s talking about something, about a new movie she’s working on, and you chip in with jokes and laughs but your smile doesn’t really reach your eyes. You’re still caught in a web of fragile confusion. “I need to excuse myself for a moment,” you say after a while, after you’ve done nothing but smile and push broccoli puree around on your plate.

Consolation comes with isolation, at least tonight, at least right now. You find an empty balcony on the third floor, stare into the black sea. You try and try to remember what life was like three weeks ago, but it’s irrevocable now, the change that’s come since then. You tap the glass of your beer bottle against the marble banister, solid and probably expensive—a match for the rest of the hotel, you realize. It’s starkingly clean and smooth, and white, the kind of things you’d only say about a marble banister when you’re trying to avoid an adult introspection.

Behind you: “Are you okay?” 

In response, you say, “We shouldn’t have had sex.”

Charles settles himself into a spot near you, not totally beside but not too far—he, too, holds onto a bottle of beer. There are fancier drinks around, but somehow the dry taste of ale is all that brings you comfort right now. Your gears turn and, without prompt or question, you spill yourself forth.

“It was hard, when you didn’t… when we didn’t talk, and you didn’t ever tell me why, so I didn’t know anything. I keep remembering it, even now, what—ten years later, ha ha, even after… I don’t know, after the fact. We’re supposed to have moved on from shit that happened to us when we were fifteen but I’m finding it to be the hardest thing in the world. It was so… like, I had no trouble saying goodbye to anything else but you. And I’m famous now, my life is a whole thing, a—this whole party, and I’m supposed to… fuck.” You shut your eyes, and you can feel, through the thick fog of embarrassment and delirium, the tears that stain your cheeks. “It’s like. You know when you’re a teenager and you see all of it in movies and TV, this, like, moment where you’re staring at someone from across a room, and you’re smiling and talking to other people and you’re happy because you know in a few hours, you’ll be with that person anyway? At home, rearranging furniture, feeding the dog, eating leftovers? That… I always thought you’d be that person for me. Maybe because you were the only—you know—the only love I ever knew, and now, what. Four? Boyfriends and ten years later, you might expect me to feel differently—hell I expect myself to feel differently, but, unfortunately for you and me, I don’t. Sorry. I’m not—I’m not drunk, or anything.”

He stares at you, his expression soft and unreadable. It feels like it’s just the two of you in the world today, twenty-somethings, ten years later, unearthing all you left buried. “I…” he says, before pausing. “I’m sorry for leaving.”

You nod in response. 

“I always thought you would forgive me.” His face is sullen and handsome and your heart seizes. “I wanted to be your person.”

“How could I forgive you without an apology?” Your voice comes out fragile. “I leave in three days. You’ve fu—you’ve… you’ve kissed me, had sex with me, flirted with me. You’ve done everything but that.”

“I did apologize. I don’t think it was enough, but—”

“But you didn’t,” you reply, a jagged response. “You never said anything.”

“I wrote you.” His eyebrows knit. “I wrote you.” 

“You wrote me.” You repeat, deadpan. Your head spins with it. “What, a letter?”

“An e-mail. Before your first film came out—2014? A year after you… yeah.” He’s quiet and timid and nervous. “I forced Gi to tell me your address.”

“I didn’t… I wasn’t using that e-mail anymore. I haven’t in years.” You pinch your nose and let the silence settle like fine dust onto the room, an unspoken bomb that explodes over the both of you, raining regret and unsaid words. “I have to go.” You push yourself off the banister, turning already to the doors of the balcony. He stops you before you can step any further, a hand closed over your wrist, rough and warm.

“If you find the message,” he says, “will you read it?”

“I don’t plan to,” you lie. “Goodnight.”

—

From: Charles Perceval Leclerc <cmhpleclerc@gmail.com>

Date: 14 October 2014

To: You

Subject: Urgent!

hey buttercup, I asked Giada for this email address. my bday in 2 days. Will you be home for Xmas this year btw? ill show you some new places that open ed + we can bike around. mum misses u a lot too. parfois je souhaite que tu ne partes pas… not sometimes but always. i think i need to edit this a little let me try ag

From: Charles Perceval Leclerc <cmhpleclerc@gmail.com>

Date: 14 October 2014

To: You

Subject: Buttercup

j’appellerais mais je ne pense pas que tu veuilles répondre. it’s been more than a year since you moved out, in two days i’ll be celebrating my second birthday w/o you. i’ve been karting a lot, things are looking up, just like we always said they would :) just want to say i miss you a lot, and i hope you’re doing good. i would say i hate radio silence but i know it’s my fault all this happened in the first place. i’m sorry i stopped talking to you last year when you were moving away. i was being childish, but the truth is it was the only way i could handle it - by pretending we werent friends at all… i don’t want to make you pity me or anything (ne pense pas que je suis) but yeah you’re my best friend and you always will be. i’m sorry for being a knot head.

i was always scared to tell you but it’s been there since forever: i love you. i should’ve enjoyed your months here instead of leaving you in the air. i know i ignored you but it’s the 1 thing i regret. should’ve done a lot more, i know.. but i didn’t. we have a lot of promises i broke because i was being selfish. i kept the paper ring to remind me. remember that? we had a “playground wedding” when we were 5/6?

tu ne me dois rien - i just want you to give me a chance to make you happy, even if it’s just in the way we’ve always been (as friends). if you write me back i’ll try and fly there. mum is always asking me if we’ve talked yet. if not, that’s ok. i love you all the same and i will love you as you reach your dreams. this will never change. 

charles

p.s: est-ce que je te manque?

p.p.s: call me if you can and wish me a happy birthday?

—

“Rachel, I would sooner die than wait another two hours for the tarmac to clear again.” You try to up the firmness in your voice but it fails, only serving to make you sound less angry and more agitated. When all you get in response is a muffled I’m coming! you grumble and hang up the phone. Your plane was delayed all of three times, and the instant it arrives and is scheduled to take off on time, your friendsistant is nowhere to be found.

Lily and Carmen had thrown you a goodbye party the night prior, with sprinklers and music and cocktails, and promised to be on the next flight to L.A. Vogue and David had emailed you for a job done spectacularly, and to watch out for the videos and interviews’ release dates. Twitter is raving about your movie. Everything should be good, and yet, it’s not.

You check your inbox. IM COMJNG LILTIERALLY IM RUNNING THRU AJRPPRT!!!!!! You scoff again, hoping the plane doesn’t somehow take off for the fourth time, and take a seat on the VIP waiting area sofa again, shaking your now-empty chai latte. The room, sectioned off from economy and business, is fairly full.

A woman paces over to you, a bright grin on her face. “Hi. I’m a huge fan.”

“Thank you,” you smile, despite your tiredness.

“This is so embarrassing—but do you happen to have the time?”

“Sure”—you tap your phone open—“half past four.”

“Great,” she says. “Thanks, Buttercup.”

You’re opening your mouth to say you’re welcome, but it catches like cotton in your throat. You watch her depart like nothing happened, a strange feeling settling in your chest. You have barely any time to answer it, because a flight attendant is tapping you on the shoulder, addressing you by name, thankfully. She maintains a tone of professionalism all throughout her announcement that the aircraft under your name will have to evacuate the runway in ten minutes or less.

“I know, I know—I’m just, um. I’m waiting for somebody. She should be near now, though.”

“Tremendous. Merci, Buttercup.”

“Wh—” You stutter, blinking and watching her leave. “What?”

She doesn’t turn, walking to the kiosk to exchange information with her coworkers. You look around the airport, for a camera hidden somewhere maybe. Perhaps you’ve been unknowingly listed in some Impractical Jokers skit.

Rach hurry you text instead, leaning back and hoping you’re in some grandiose delusion. Your phone dings. Omw promise! It reads. Then: Look up buttercup

Your head snaps upward faster than you can register what you’ve just read, matching the opening notes of a song you’ve grown all too familiar with in your lifetime. The opening beat to Build Me Up, Buttercup flows like honey through the room’s intercom and floods it with life.

Mouth agape, you watch as the staff and guests perform the routine you’d learned at fourteen, complete with hops and turns you were too embarrassed to do even then. They’re smiling and whooping themselves and each other as they go, finishing the entire first verse before turning collectively to the entrance of the room. There, in all his glory: Charles, wearing an entirely too-small headdress that reads Buttercup, worn dusty from years of being stored away.

He’s dancing, too, closer to you. You refuse to budge for the express purpose that he dance some more, which he complies with, though not without an eyeroll and an exasperated sigh. Your heart beats with something irregular and warm. You’d told him about this before. He’d listened.

The music settles for a little and the dancers do, too, so he takes the time to raise his sign. Will you forgive me? It reads. No pressure. Except kind of. You laugh, throwing your head back at the gesture, at this entire affair that must have taken some amount of effort to prepare. As the lyric comes on, so does his sign: I need you… more than anyone, darling.

He drops the sign when you approach him, arms crossed over your torso. He removed the headdress and places it gingerly on yours. “I believe that belongs to you.”

And, hyperaware of all the eyes and yet the complete lack of cameras—you’re grateful for it—you finally, finally, finally pull him in for a kiss. You’ve kissed before, done your worst, but still means volumes to the both of you.

In-between kisses and cheers (from voices belonging to Lorenzo, Rachel, Lily—so many familiar ones), he says it again: “I’m sorry. I’ll make it all up to you.”

“You better,” you tease into his lips, smiling. “I know. I love you.” Ten years later—your person still is, and no doubt will always be, Charles Leclerc.

[harrywavycurly]

Ok but I’m going to need Harry calling Niall to tell him about his date/first kiss with miss Southern girlie 👀

Hiii lovey!!! Oh for sureeee we need the deets on how Niall thinks the date went 😂 I hope you enjoy💖

-find all things Southern Comfort here✨

A/N: Harry figures he might as well talk to someone on his walk home so of course that someone is going to be Niall✨

“Decided you needed to see my face during these early morning chats huh?…why you grinning like that mate? You’re freaking me out.” “It’s not even midnight Niall so it’s not early morning and…well I’m walking home from my date-” “oh fuck that’s right your date!….well going on your grin I’d say it went well? Unless you decided to just go full obsessive and kidnapped her and she’s actually in your basement or something?” “You’re truly a disturbed person…yes it went well you twat…she even let me kiss her goodnight.” “Did you ask first? Like a proper gentleman and all that?” “Yes…and honestly I thought she was walking up to her door but she was just trying to be the same height as me so I wouldn’t strain my neck.” “She sounds too good for you mate…honestly what’ve you done to trick her into agreeing to date your lanky ass?” “I haven’t tricked her you into anything you ass.” “Whatever…so what did you end up bringing her instead of flowers?” “I uhm made her…a mix cd…she liked it a lot and was very surprised I went through the effort to do that for her.” “A mix cd? Jesus H that’s like…proper boyfriend shit…what even songs did you put on it? Don’t tell me you just loaded it up with yourself…” “I mean it has the band on there…and yes you annoying little hobbit I’m on there but so are just some random artists I think she’d like.” “Okay so you made her a cd…then what did you do?” “I took her to dinner at a nice little Italian spot and then we went to this new wine bar that just opened and…after we just walked around downtown.” “You two and your bloody walks I swear…always fucking walking.” “We enjoy a good stroll okay? Just because you have wonky knees doesn’t mean the rest of us do…” “oh piss off you know you like taking walks with her because she lets you hold her hand.” “Oh…she let me touch the top of her thigh at the wine bar.” “What?” “Yeah she was sitting next to me in the booth and I reached over and placed my hand there to…test the waters ya know?” “Yeah…and?” “She didn’t slap it away….she even put her hand on top of it…” “I’d say that with the kiss goodnight is some serious progress…I’m happy for you Harry.” “Thanks….I really…really…like her.” “I know ya do…when do I get to meet her? Only seems fitting that she meets your absolute bestfriend on the entire planet now that you’ve got the first date out the way.” “Oh she’s meeting Jeff next week…he invited us to lunch.” “Oh fuck right off Harry you know damn well I’m above Jeffery on the friends hierarchy okay? Who is it you call about her every fucking time you have an update? Me…not him…me so get your head outta your ass and set up a time for me to meet her you wanker.” “You can’t have that kind of potty mouth around her Niall.” “I know how to behave myself around new people don’t worry.” “Oh I’m worried…you worry me.” “Yeah? Same goes for you… but at least I know the difference between salt and sugar.” “Why do you say such rude things to me when I’m on such a high?” “Sorry…but really I want to meet her…and I’m happy for you man…you deserve this.” “I’ll see when she’s free and get back to you…thanks Niall that means a lot.” “Now I gotta go…but keep me posted on how things are going…and please for the love of god Harry stop calling or FaceTiming me late at night you’re starting to fuck with my sleep schedule.” “I’ll keep you posted…sorry it’s just I like to call you while it’s all fresh in my brain that’s all…but I’ll do my best…now go get some sleep you look bloody awful.” “Love you too ya wank.”

[willalove75]

ANNOUNCEMENT / UPDATE!!

Hello friends!!

I know I've been MIA for like, over a month lol and I'm so sorry!

Lots of things (good and exciting things!) have been happening that I can finally share with all of you!

As many of you know I had to take a bit of a break from writing because I was pretty sick for a while, but I can finally talk about what's been going on!

I'M PREGNANT!!!

AND ITS A BOY!!

A little manthing!!! Heheh

So the reason I was so sick was because of morning sickness (which is just a fucking lie of a term bc that shit lasted all day every day. In my case I was fine in the mornings but got more sick as the day went on. By 6pm I was so fucking sick. Thank god I never threw up but fuck was I close a few times. It was awful).

But I am officially 14 weeks and due June 1!! This is mine and my husbands first child and we're both so excited.

Now that I'm finally feeling better I promise to get back into a normal writing schedule. It may take a second to get back into the swing of things but my goal is to get back to updating my series fics regularly and finally getting back to catching up with the damn near 100 asks in my inbox😅

I will probably be taking some kind of "maternity leave" from here for a bit around the time the nugget is due, but I have absolutely 0 plans of abandoning my fics or you guys! It won't be for a while and of course I'll keep you all updated whenever that's happening.

But for now I'm gonna get back to fic writing and responding to the amazing asks you guys have sent me!!

Love you all so, so much. Thank you all for your continued support💕💕💕

[idolomantises]

Hello there! It's great to see your askbox open again because I cannot stress enough how much I adore your art style and storytelling.

I've got two questions, if that's alright.

1: How do you keep a consistent upload schedule of your comics? As someone working on a series myself, it's hella difficult due to real life stuff and trying to find the time to actually sit down and start illustrating and writing stuff.

And 2. Will we ever see The Seven Deadly Sins in MnG? I remember your Asmodeus design which was absolutely brilliant looking and am curious to know if you're gonna end up doing more with that really cool idea!

As always, keep up the great work, seeing your comics and art in my notifications is always a treat. Have a great night!

I actually don't want to explain this because my work schedule is far from healthy, and I'm only able to produce so much art thanks to my incredibly talented assistants. And even still, I don't have much free time! I'll just say, take a hiatus and start developing back ups ahead of time.

Yes absolutely, I actually planned to introduce Asmodeous WAY earlier, hence dropping her (she's female now) design so soon but decided to hold back, and fine tune her a bit more (she's actually getting and outfit update because I dont really like what she wears). I like the idea of portraying the deadly sins as Gods to these demons, so you very rarely see them and are only mentioned in passing. I prefer showing the demon descendants because it allows me to humanize them more while representing their sin. i dont want to portray the deadly sins as irredeemably evil (they'll still be. awful lmao trust me, none of these sins are good people), but I want to flesh them out a bit, without putting too much focus on them. so it'll be fun to see how people react.

[studentbyday]

{ 30.10.24 } · { 50 days of routine } · { day 1 }

actually got out of bed at 7:30 though i woke up at least half an hour before... but i slept at midnight last night (need to schedule proper wind-down time), so i was very sleepy and felt awful all around

*struggling through immunology discussion post due today*

i napped later in the morning for an hour and that's when my two mushrooms died bc I didn't wanna be tempted to use my phone when i intended to nap but the other timer i set to wake me up (in case the forest ding didn't wake me up) went off slightly before the forest timer was up and...well, they're dead now. it was a good nap tho and it gave me the energy i needed to go on with the rest of my day

worked on pathology group asst (not scheduled for today but...i did it anyway bc i felt compelled to, not sure if that was a good idea in hindsight...)

sort of reviewed for the microbio quiz but it was half-assed bc i was impatient and then i just did the quiz anyway...it was more stressful than it needed to be bc of my poor memory and i felt bad about that... we'll see if i actually was able to find the right answers in the end when the answers are released...

continued struggling through that immunology discussion post but we made it in the end (i mean, we had to)

walk and read (maybe 30 mins? started reading about cbt and working through the workbook and i like how it seems to be almost exactly like physio appts but for my brain...sometimes i try to work through my issues on my own through word-vomit journaling, but increasingly it's getting difficult to even know where to begin and how to move forward when it both really matters and i'm so tired and clueless and don't wanna give up, so having someone help you make a sane roadmap that aligns with your own goals is nice 👍🏻 there were some reflection activities in the workbook which i filled out too...)

might actually end a little later tn (goodbye proper wind-down time that i was supposed to have, but hopefully making significant progress on my schoolwork + the journaling i did as part of the cbt workbook will have helped satisfy the part of me that usually resists going to sleep immediately) because i have to finish (or get as close to finishing) a microbiology assignment due tmr morning (not first thing, thank God...i don't even remember how i got to be so late with this...gah so many things happening and the non-urgent stuff gets pushed later and later until woops the deadline is tmr!!! 😣😮‍💨) (update: i'm maybe halfway??? luckily it's just a first draft we need to be sending but omfg do i have my work cut out for me tmr morning 😭 icandothisicandothisihaveto)

[tomatoswup]

Maybe... ☼ 3

summary: a meeting with the priest reveals a bit more information about a certain individual that has you distraught. Vash plushie here to defend!

warnings/tags: reader and wolfwood sibling dynamic, mischevious plushie (biTE HIS ANKLES BESTIE!!!),, wolfwood is giving concussions with the way he rides a motorcycle.

A/N: ....hi? :'D sorry for the late updates hehehe,, i usually write late nights but i've been late night gaming with friends these last few weeks hehe,,, i'VE COME TO DELIVER ANOTHER PLUSH FIC THO☝️☝️

p.s yes this was a scheduled post :p

<previous

Encounters with the priest were those you weren't really that big a fan of.

Although he bullied you like a close sibling, he often got on your nerves with the slick remarks he would shoot at you. But how long has it been? Two years?

Has it really been that long?

It just felt like yesterday when you told him that his grey button up looked like shit and you two wrestled in the sand dunes.

Lovely memories!

"Woah! Look at this!" The Vash plushie gasped out in awe as he ran circles around the modified motorcycle, peeking at the shiny surface of the hot metal.

"Hey be careful!" You called out to the plush as you took slow steps towards Wolfwood as he pushed himself off the ground and brushed the sand off his clothes. Oh look! He changed the grey to white!

...hehehe...

"Well aren't I glad to see you! How long had it been since we last saw each other? Two years now?"

You couldn't help but chuckle, crossing your arms around your chest "Now why is it always whenever we meet you're stranded in the desert? Seems like a memory."

"You know God's timing is sadly always right haha!"

Yikes! You heard the tinge of pain in that one!

"I was making my way to town just a few ways from here. Need help from an old friend of ours." He smirked, putting those shades of his up from his nose and to the top of his head as you gave him a hard stare.

"Alright now enough with the bluffing.." You sighed, putting a hand on your hip.

"Bluffing? What makes you think I'm bluffing?"

...

...

...

"Okay yeah maybe I lied to you the last time about not being a part of the Gung-ho guns but it wasn't that bad-"

"Maybe?! Leaving a PRETTY important piece of information out there buddy! Why should I even still be talking to you, ya know what!-"

"Maybe if you listen to me, you bet your ass you're gonna wanna hear this." You watched as Wolfwood straightened his back and looked out into the desert plains.

"I heard from a few townsfolk around that a certain someones in town."

No.

"You're playing with me Wolfwood, there's no way-"

"He's alive." He breathed out, scratching the side of his neck "The idiot's just hiding."

Hiding.

He's...Hiding?"

HIDING!?! AFTER THINKING HE WAS DEAD FOR THE PAST TWO YEARS!?

You really were gonna kick his ass when you saw him.

You scoffed, putting a hand up to your forehead "Hiding? Got any evidence?"

"HEY!" The squeak of the plush rang out from behind Wolfwood, making the both of you turn your attention to him.

And with that, you met with the sight of the small plushie trying to lift the pistol above his head, fumbling as the gun was clearly too heavy for him "LOOK!" The little nibs of his feet stumbling around the bike seat.

It was Vash's pistol.

Your mouth fell agape "Y-you-"

"This is the only evidence I could give ya' right now." Wolfwood said from behind you as you marched over to the bike past him, softly padding the top of the plushie's head before grabbing the gun.

"Thanks lil' guy..."

You couldn't help but just observe the weapon he always held. Moving it around in your grasp as the sun shined down on it, you saw the dents and cuts of the metal on the surface of the gun. Not too much damage and in honesty, it was in pretty good condition.

The dirt, and sand it had been dusted with had given it a rusted look sure, but with some cleaning, it'll look good as new. Tilting it to the side, you caught sight of the bullets still in the gun's barrel.

Seriously...

Your mouth felt dry and as if they were shut with glue as you tried to push back the growing pressure in your throat. No need to cry now, you can't cry here.

The gun felt hot in your hands, each waking moment you held it felt as if it held the world, and maybe his own.

"Hey you!" Wolfwood's eyebrow rose in wonder as he turned his head to the little thing of a plushie on the seat of his motorcycle, giving him a stern eye and an angry hop. "Don't make them cry!"

Aw he was trying to protect you! Such a cutie~

Wolfwood held back the urge to laugh out loud lol "Now this thing was gonna be my next question!"

He leaned down towards the seat and grabbed the plushie by the hoodie of his poncho, the discontent on the plushie's furrowed brows made the scene more funnier.

"Looks like you've come a long way! I'm surprised you don't have a loose stitch if you're traveling with sunshine over there!" He pointed a thumb in your direction and just maybe you said an unflattering word back.

maybe~

"No offense!"

"All taken!"

"Well! It's nice to meet you! I'm Vash!" The plushie chirped out, swinging his little legs forwards to hug Wolfwood's forearm, before sliding down his arm and up his chest to reach his shoulders.

"Woah there! He's a happy one alright!"

Putting Vash's gun away in your bag for safe-keeping, you watched on as the plush messed around with the priest. Ultimately climbing and just standing on top of his head, he gave you a cute ":P" before jumping up and down.

Pft...

"But who would make plushies of him?" Wolfwood snapped his head towards you with a raised eyebrow "Was it yo-"

"No!"

You leaned on his bike, staring at the plush's shenanigans "I found him while I was traveling. Apparently someones' making them and he was the only one that was um..alive per say."

The plushie now hung off Wolfwood's necklace as you saw the practical 'irk' mark of annoyance on his forehead "Well if god decided to send a little angel down, I'll say you're lucky to have a good companion!"

He shot you a soft smile, one you really rarely saw besides of his usual smirk "You needed one, didn't you?"

You didn't respond, and just watched on as the plushie hung off his ear.

"Ow ow ow-"

Maybe you did...

Time passed and before you knew it, the priest offered you a ride to town on the bike, to save time and as a "team-up" in his own words.

And who were you to decline?

Bag secured on the back of the bike alongside Wolfwood's cross that you had gracefully booted out of the seat, you sat in the little sidecar holding down your cowboy hat with your hand.

"Could you drive any faster!?" You shouted over the sound of the engine roaring, your hair messily getting blown back.

"YOU WANNA DRIVE? BE MY GUEST!" Wolfwood retorted, keeping his eyes forward and his hands on the handles.

Resting your back into the seat, you kept your free hand cupped over the plushie that was sitting on your lap.

"This is so fun!!!" He wiggled around excitedly, having used a scrap of cloth he found as a small scarf that flowed backwards with the wind.

"Careful! I don't want you flying out!" You cried as the two of you almost jumped out of your seats as Wolfwood ran over a large rock.

God please let the both of you live and get to town in one piece, okay maybe you'll have a few scratches here and there but you still had a tall blonde to beat half to death!

You exhaled at the thought. You didn't know how you'd react if you saw him. Mad? Relieved that your lover was still alive? Maybe you'll pop a vein and faint.

Who knows?

Only time could tell...

[udretlnea]

The Interesting Inazumans

Prompt: Inspired by this post

A/N: I love writing shenanigans. Also, happy birthday to me AND I’m quite excited to play Honkai Star Rail; I meant to have this up earlier, but I lost motivation 75% of the way through and that was quite annoying to deal with. Furthermore, this is more or less set-up for what I have planned next. Nothing too exciting I’m afraid, but think of it this way: if I kept writing exciting action scenes, then it would slowly lose its charm. Thus, it’s better to space things apart to keep things interesting. (By the time of writing this, my birthday will have passed.)

Words: 1386

Part two to, “An Idealized Image”.

Tags: @iruiji , @kamiyadidi

Kamisato Ayaka stood on the sidelines watching Yoimiya and Itto with confusion and interest; Kuki Shinobu merely looked down in shame, a hand covering her eyes. Heizou was standing on the side as well, looking at the beetle battle with interest and a hint of amusement. Gorou and Kirara were barking and hissing at each other, respectively; Kokomi tried to calm him down to little effect. 

The scene was pure chaos. Truly, this was an embarrassment to your pride as the Divine Overseer; nothing could make you feel worse.

Two weeks since your arrival

It hasn’t even been a month, yet you are beginning to get accustomed to your new life as “Divine Overseer”. You were resting on your bed, recovering from your sword training with Ei.

Let’s recap: After waking up in Chinju Forest and observing your appearance, you walked all the way to Inazuma City; when your stomach growled, you grabbed the first edible thing you saw which just so happened to look like raspberry, but yellow. Nobody paid attention to you when you arrived; the ones that did notice usually stared for a little and then went about their day. That suited you just fine since you couldn’t come up with a backstory to save your life.

You wandered around the city, eventually making your way to the Statue of the Omnipresent God. You felt drawn towards it, like something was calling to you something deep inside of you.

Then, Kujou Sara appeared behind you before you could get a chance to examine it further. With how much you suspiciously resembled a divine being you were brought into Tenshukaku. After answering some rather fascinating questions thank goodness they spoke something similar to English because you were dead if they spoke Japanese about a being called the Primordial One and passing a blood test you still remember the awe you felt when you bled silver instead of dark red you automatically were given a room in Tenshukaku.

The news spread like wildfire until even those from Watatsumi came to profess their faith and wishes. At first you felt unworthy of such a title, and who could blame you? You were some no-name nobody who appeared out of nowhere; not that you weren’t ungrateful for this cover, but still, if they ever found out the truth they’d probably have your head. Best to keep it to yourself for now. 

According to your individual research, this “divine overseer” was charged with making preperations for the return of some being called the Primordial One; they sounded quite important from the title alone. You weren’t terribly worried, not when you had an entire nation to assist you in this endeavor.

You adjusted to this sudden schedule rather quickly, in no small part thanks to Kujou Kamaji being assigned to help ease you into this…fascinating position. You were given a routine to follow: Calligraphy in the morning, bow training with Sara in the afternoon, and learning how to wield a sword with Ei at night. You didn’t know why you had to wield a weapon, let alone know how to fight with one, but any knowledge is useful and who wouldn’t want to know how to wield two weapons?

Your eyes began to feel heavy, and before long you drifted off to sleep.

Okay, the domain’s ready. Dropping it in 3…2…1…now.

Hey, update. Apparently Honkai Star Rail’s releasing later today. We’re not gonna finish in time.

…Okay. That’s bad, but we do have a protocol for that.

Understood. I’ll execute it now.

/////

The next afternoon, you found yourself sipping tea with Ei. Normally, you would be practicing shooting a bow with Sara, but the entirety of the Shogunate seems to have been gaslit by the sudden appearance of a new domain. It just appeared near Tatarasuna in Kannazuka Island. With it being so close to Kujou Encampment, Sara was the first to be informed and quickly led an investigation of the area.

All of this, Ei told you as she poured another cup for you, was because all of Narukami had dreamt the same thing last night: A dream involving you.

“Oh…I see. Did they say if they remembered any details?” You press gently, but Ei shook her head.

“Nothing clear. However, Kujou Kamaji has stated that the only consistent thing each person remembers is of a person whom they recall has hair as white as snow and yellow pupils…”

“I see…” You finish your tea rather quickly, earning a mean look from Ei. You set your cup down and cross your arms. “Then…I suppose there’s only one thing left to do.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Which is?”

“To take control of the situation, gather members for an exploration team, and then plan for the exploration itself,” you casually stated. You stood up from the mat and walked towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Ei asked. You heard a mixture of concern and confusion in her voice, despite her attempt at hiding it. You turned your head to address her.

“Huh? I thought my plan would have informed you? I’m going to go find some willing volunteers to explore the domain.”

/////

It took an additional amount of time than you would’ve liked because Ei argued it, “wasn’t the Overseer’s duty to attend to such trivial matters when she could get a servant to do it”. Some back-and-forth banter later and a compromise was reached: gather some of Inazuma’s Vision holders plus some adventurers from the Guild to create an exploration team with.

A couple days later, the meeting was held inside Tenshukaku in the main room where the Shogun usually resided; Ei went to the Grand Narukami Shrine to speak with Miko, but she reassured you she wouldn’t take long.

Something you kept telling yourself even as Arataki “Numero Uno” Itto gave a come-at-me gesture to Naganohara Yoimiya; the two engaged in an Onikabuto battle then and there to decide who would accompany you, which begged the question why did they have Onikabuto with them?

Meanwhile, Kamisato Ayaka stood on the sidelines watching in confusion and interest; Kuki Shinobu merely looked down in shame, a hand covering her eyes. Heizou was standing some way off, looking at the beetle battle with interest and a hint of amusement. Gorou and Kirara were barking and hissing at each other, respectively; Kokomi tried to calm him down to little effect. 

The scene was pure chaos. Truly, this was an embarrassment to your pride as the Divine Overseer; nothing could make you feel more ashamed.

And then the doors opened. Almost comically, everybody paused to see who had arrived. They were basked in the light so only their silhouettes showed; then they casually strode forth, revealing a blonde female with a flower in her hair and a white haired…fairy(?).

“Uhh, Paimon’s confused. What’s going on here?” asked the white-haired fairy. She looked at each and every Vision holder. “Why are you all acting so out of character?”

“If you ask me, this bonehead over here is acting like himself.” Shinobu crossed her arms and glared at the oni. 

“Oh! Lu-Lumine! What an unexpected surprise!” Kamisato Ayaka put a hand on her chest. “It’s been so long since we’ve last seen each other…”

Lumine? You mean the same Lumine that managed to defeat a dragon, help stop a god that could command the ocean, and abolish the Vision Hunt Decree? You think to yourself with a growing sense of horror. Oh great, they’re definitely gonna judge me harshly. Somebody kill me now.

“Hello Ayaka. It’s nice to see you too,” she said plainly yet with a friendly tone. Then she put a hand to her chin. “But Paimon’s right. What happened here?”

“Well…you see, we all arrived here when the Divine Overseer put out a request to help with this Domain…” Yoimiya began.

By the time Yoimiya finished the explanation, everyone had cleaned up their act and was now kneeling on the tatami mats; they faced you with a neutral expression as if they hadn’t engaged in shenanigans earlier. The firework girl took a spot next to Kamisato Ayaka. Lumine stood in the back, and Paimon floated beside her. 

At last, you can get to building a team. You pray that nothing bad would happen.

Excellent. I think we can let it go here. Come on. It’s starting soon.

[brazenskald]

In my first year of university, I was going through a very tumultuous time. There was all the many new things that come from leaving home, some good, some bad. There were the difficulties of a demanding if rewarding job, and I first became acquainted with the not-so-fondly-remembered and not yet fully un-internalized “student lifestyle.” Terrible food, awful sleep schedule, and this omnipresent sense of impending doom that was, at least in my case in Fall 2019, surprisingly prescient. Throughout all of this, I was not prepared to be struck by the warmth and depth and resonant Truth that cut through the noise and spoke to me with a certain book I picked up, by happenstance, because of its pretty cover. That book was A Conspiracy of Truths by @ariaste. You may have heard of them. https://www.alexandrarowland.net/a-conspiracy-of-truths

Now, needless to say I devoured aCoT, and subsequently its excellent sequel A Choir of Lies. I was sorrowfully disappointed to find out after finishing the absolute rollercoaster of Choir that there was in fact, no further reading yet to do. And so, profoundly affected as I was by this (for now) duology, which I will doubtless craft a dedicated and appropriately lengthy treatise at some point in the future, I set the books in a prime place upon my shelf and turned to face the rest of the year buoyed in my hopes for the brightness of Spring and the long lusty laughter of Summer. Alas, they were all of them deceived for another global epidemic was to begin. One (or two) life-altering years in a pandemic later… I returned to university, fully prepared to enjoy the hell out of an actual honest-to-gods academic institution that didn’t begin and end with a computer screen. It hit like a truck. Same awful student lifestyle, more bad habits piling up, and a rapidly growing sense of my own undiagnosed issue rearing its ugly head. I made one decision that saved me, probably. I kept buying and reading phenomenal books. I kept looking for stories to motivate, enervate, and inspire. Somewhere deep in my subconscious, I remembered that fateful message spoken by a Chant on a page three years past. To loosely paraphrase, “Stories [are] people, and the way people are.” I chose to focus on resilience, made it my motto, and sure I still had lots of work to do, but it helped. It gave me the push I needed to keep going.

That last long Winter that seemed so dark that the sun was never going to come back? I went a-wandering, and lo, a new instalment from @ariaste ‘s Mithalgeard universe! Not a Chant sequel as such, but I couldn’t get my hands on it fast enough. It was an oasis. A respite from the grind and dreary routines. It was also gay as… well as gay as a rainbow covered in gold, let’s say. And I cannot recommend A Taste of Gold and Iron fiercely enough, because although in many ways I managed to end my degree on a high note, that book drew me out of the darkness of the coldest part of the year. It gave me the sense to smell the flowers, to bask in the green and golden glow of a soon-to-be-attained victory, long overdue.

Alex had by this point also published several shorter works, (and a whole library’s worth of content on AO3, naturally) which I leapt to read whenever they crossed my radar. It helped that I joined their discord community which was leaps and bounds more reliable in terms of getting updates and also just having the chance to share in mutual fandom gushing. If you’re even remotely interested in learning more about what I’ve talked about here, you should join in! https://discord.gg/XHJ9Uy5gef Everybody there is absolutely lovely. So why do I bring all this up? To summarize a preamble that is, to put it mildly, not short, Alex’s writing sings to my soul. I love it more deeply than my non-existent children, and their body of work continues to evolve and grow and deliver on the themes and core messages that hooked me with that first book.

But wait, there’s more! Life carries on, and with it comes new stories! Specifically, Running Close to the Wind! It’s Our Flag Means Death meets Mithalgeard, which if I haven’t convinced you to go and read those other instalments, well just trust me when I say that is a potent and persuasive pairing! It’s also going to be dropping at an important time for me, what with convocation, another big move in my life, and a whole whack of uncertainty. Much like Avra, Teveri, and Julian though, I’ll just have to brave the rocky waters and hold on to those nearest to me, and that’s what I’d like to focus on at the end of this post. A Conspiracy of Truth taught me that stories are people, A Choir of Lies showed how stories can change people, and A Taste of Gold and Iron drove home that stories we tell ourselves are the hardest to rewrite, but also the most rewarding when we take ownership of them. I anticipate that with Running Close to the Wind, Alex will likely show us (with ample amounts of pomp and queer circumstances) how the story of ourselves can only ever be written by interweaving the tales of those closest to us. Perhaps, we’ll even discover how to navigate the often stormy seas of uncertainty that seem omnipresent these days, whenever we deign to pull our noses out from whichever books we’re currently nestled within. I know that’s certainly something I’ll be looking out for, come this June, and now hopefully you will be too! (This last link does go to the webpage for Running Close to the Wind, Tumblr’s just being weird I guess.)

[bassguitarinablackt-shirt]

asher my love here is your character description for the ask game (tbh i’m not updated on your pronouns so. if i got anything wrong just like stab me in the chest). this is very unpolished… i can do better i swear… but i wanted to get this done 😔😔

Some glorious dandelion mess of curls sat atop his head, and their eyes were brown in a way that shone when the sunlight cut just so, glinting gold. Cats curled at their feet, now granted a suburban ruler of household felines, an unmade bed as his throne of choosing; in his hand a battered book, held as loftily as a sceptre. The witching hour — a time that exceeds, usually, the capacities of a normal human sleep schedule — was where they seemed to thrive, power siphoned by the cool glow of a computer. I could only conclude, then, that he was some feline fae of suburban America, banished to a household of narrow-minded spectres, wishing one day to be free.

i write too much fantasy i think. this is probably in the point of view of a highly superstitious victorian man transported to modern day america who may be involved in occult

OH MY GODS THIS IS ABSOLUTELY PERFECT "feline fae of suburban america" SJSOJSKSKSJSOSJ all of this is absolutely wonderful (love how you called me out at a few points too 😔) and as always i am in awe of your writing style

[buggyboba]

Hi! I just wanted to tell you that your writing is amazing! Absolutelty no idea why there are so little likes and reposts. But please keep going! I'm a huge fan ❤

Especially I'm looking forward to your kinktober series with 10/14 Doctor and particulary this thing:

✦ October 27th | Honeymoon

● The Fourteenth Doctor x Reader

↳ ○ more domestic bliss, He takes you to a beautiful resort planet, and the night is perfect.

And more 10/14 Doctor in general! I'll be waiting for anything with him, you're just amazing!

Hi! Hello! Oh my god thank you so much <3! I dunno why the engagement isn't as large as I thought it would be. Some of the ones I wrote I was like "This is going to feed the girlies, gonna do those bigboy numbers," and they sure did not. Don’t get me wrong I am ecstatic any time anyone likes or reblogs anything of mine, because to me they liked it so much they wanted to share it with their friends, and that makes me so happy. I know everyone says write for yourself, and I do for the most part, but I also like seeing that other people like it too, I want to yap and scream and yell about what's happening, what people liked, what they want more of.  I do have a few theories on why, the main one is I am just a relatively new writer in the fandom scene (Like I think I released the first chapter of Surrender Your Mind in April or May, and up until very recently (the beginning of October) I have been focused on one main pairing, which was Missy x Reader, and from what I gather that’s not as big as Master x Reader, or Doctor x Reader, or canon pairings, and that’s okay. I actually was joking with my roommate who is a big Doctor Who fan, that I didn’t want to write strictly Missy x Reader for Kinktober, and wouldn’t it be funny if since I’ve been writing for the Master wouldn’t it be a fun little thing to write The Doctor too? He is the one that suggested River x Doctor and my little gremlin brain was like “But also Thoschei”  Turns out The 10/14 ones are the ones who have been doing the numbers, and even got me shouted out on a rec blog which was so thrilling for me. It's so wild to me in the best possible way, I love that everyone likes them so much! The actual thrill I get when I wake up to 10+ notes is so good, it starts my mornings right. It makes me do a little happy dance, I love comments too, at the beginning I wasn’t good at replying because I didn’t know fanfiction etiquette, still not sure about it, but I’ve started to talk back! I forget sometimes because I have a wild sleep schedule, and will wake up for like ten minutes, see I have notifications, and be like “Aw fuck yeah, I’ll reply later.” Spoiler alert I have ADHD so I know I mean well by saying that, but my brain says ‘out of sight out of mind’ and I am very sorry about that in general.  For Kinktober I also branched out to do some other canon characters, the Kate girlies showed up, and The Master (Simm & Dhawan!Master) lovers showed up and I love that so much! I’ve also been getting engagement with requests, which makes me so happy that people like my writing so much that they trust me with their ideas and concepts, to see my take on it.  I think doing kinktober, while it has been stressful because oh boy I was not actually ready to take on such a challenge, it’s been so good because I’ve had a lot of growth, found some new characters I really like, and have garnered a bigger reach, which means more people will get to see what wild things I write, and I can share more with people. Which at the end of the day, it’s just me, my laptop, my stories, and everyone who reads them. I want to continue sharing, and I will. I’m going to end up bleeding over some because trying to sit down and write is so hard for me sometimes. I will finish the majority of the ‘update’ list, the two trick-or-treat ones, and then all the requests I have (Shameless plug, they are still open, but I’m only going to take about 2 more), and then take a short break. I still have a Missy x Master x Reader one that I have been trying to write since last month. Surrender Your Mind is going to be 3 more chapters, so it’s 6 chapters altogether, but I want to go back and now that I’ve found my ground, I want to edit and redo some things.  But yeah, sorry for derailing there, I had a lot to say apparently. In conclusion, Thank you to you, and everyone else who enjoys my stuff, it is encouraging to get messages like this, comments, likes, and reblogs, because it tells me there are many more people out there who like what I do, and makes me want to keep doing it.  <3

[the-case-book-of-fanfiction]

The Case-Book {Masterlist}

Hey, I'm Case! My blog was getting a little crowded, so here's a masterlist for the stuff I write.

And here's an {Updates Page} for when I finally make myself a schedule I think I can stick to in terms of posting & to "announce" upcoming work.

Some of this will be a liiiiiittle empty until I edit my work and decide to post it.

Organized by fandom!

Your Favorite's Here {Masterlist} — Eddie Munson Eddie and his band bask in their success over a drink at a restaurant he's never been to before. But Eddie gets far more than he bargained for when he stepped through the front door.

1989 — Eddie Munson Returning to Hawkins after years of helping Eddie through English class (and specifically poetry assignments), you make Eddie watch a new film with you called Dead Poets Society.

Not Quite Dead — Eddie Munson You find yourself alone in Hawkins, a town ripped to shambles despite the sacrifices made to save it. Is it better or worse that Eddie doesn't live to see it? He'll tell you himself.

Like Another Tattoo — Eddie Munson Eddie learns to appreciate the scars he's covered in, one comment and show at a time. His friends also manage to make him cry.

A Kiss Kiss — Eddie Munson The Hellfire Club is one member short, but Eddie refuses to let the campaign slow down. That's where you come in, Eddie's "tutor" turned into his muse.

The Graduation Lineup — Steve Harrington Billy Hargrove comes between you and Steve at graduation—but only by last name. Additionally, you finally find out Steve's middle name (among other things).

Rain-Soaked Kisses — Steve Harrington Steve hates storms but loves the rain—just another oxymoron of his life, like the secret the kids are trying so very hard to dig up.

Bob Seger — Steve Harrington Is there a handbook for what to do when your crush walks into your store to buy a gift for his girlfriend? There should be!

Eddie's Girl — Steve Harrington Steve finds himself pining over the one girl he can't have, and he has no idea how to handle it. It's a good thing you notice before Eddie does, and, by God, is Steve's timing perfect.

The Only Tally Mark — Steve Harrington The 'You Suck' tallies are getting pretty high, but there's a girl in Scoops Ahoy who knows Robin in wrong. If she can just get the courage to open her mouth, Steve's luck is about to change.

steve harrington hcs (pt. 1) corroded coffin setlist detective harrington au idea

(more coming soon...)

Burns Like Rum — Astarion (Baldur's Gate 3) Astarion's hunger worsens every day and you don't have any blood to spare—but that doesn't stop you from inadvertently tempting him at every turn. Luckily for both of you, you've both got the same idea to cure him of his hunger.

Sweet Like Wine — Astarion (Baldur's Gate 3) Your monthly bleed is over—just in time for you and Astarion to find yourselves with a bit of alone time. You might not be able to feed your vampire as easily, but there's another hunger for the two of you to satiate.

Crawl Home to Her — Astarion (Baldur’s Gate 3) As awful the feeling of blood on the skin is, sometimes it can be helpful, you have to admit. At least, when it comes to Astarion, blood is always helpful. You'll have to take his word for it—and that's oh so easy bathing with him.

Love Bites {Masterlist} — Astarion (Baldur's Gate 3) With your memory spotty, you gravitate toward the first person you see—an old friend from a very old past. But Astarion is keeping plenty of secrets...and he's never been the best liar. How long will it take before his deceptions unravel? And what will you do when you realize just how much damage he's done?

When Gods Listen — Astarion (Baldur's Gate 3) Astarion is hit by a memory spell mid-combat. You fear what will happen to him, but Astarion only knows he woke with the answer to his prayers looking down at him.

astarion ancunin hcs (pt. 1)

(more coming soon...)

A Job Unfinished — Santiago "Pope" Garcia It's been days since you last saw Santiago, days after he promised he'd be back. One last (very illegal) mission in Colombia, and then he'd be yours forever. But Santiago is five days late.

(more coming soon...)

Hmm... It's a ghost town in here.

(there's a multi-chaptered Poe Dameron fic currently sitting in drafts)

Operatives One-O-Three — Barty Crouch Jr. Knowledge is a curse, and we know all. Lord Voldemort's regime grows stronger on the daily, and it's up to a ragtag group of teenagers and an undercover operation to stop him: Operatives 103, otherwise known as Operatives One-O-Three (one-oh-three in the official Ministry log books). But there's more trouble than Voldemort for the undercover spies, and the root of it starts in the home. (available on A03 or Wattpad)

(more coming soon...)

Looks like this part of the museum isn't open yet...

(yes that's a hint at my current marvel wips)

Well, uh, I think we'll be in purgatory for a bit, folks.

These are probably hidden in a locked desk in Ketterdam.

I, uh, hate all the old ones I wrote, so I won't be linking those, and I'm gonna sit in my mind palace for a few hours until I can come up with some better ones.

No, no, don't panic! They're in here somewhere. I just have to remember which room...

I need a section for my random stuff! This is it.

(Baldur's Gate 3 content is now under its own label, underneath Stranger Things. Go back up!)

I'm bound to write the strangest one of these at some point, so might as well be prepared.

It's a bit empty in here, isn't it?

REQUESTS ARE OPEN as of May 7!

Check out the... ☟

Have something you'd like to ask me to write? Don't hesitate! Here's what to do.

DM me to make your request and include the fandom & charcter(s) you'd like me to write for, as well as the general "premise" of the fic (such as a prompt). Answer any clarifying questions I send to you and wait for your fic to arrive! I won't be able to get to every request, of course, so please be patient with me! If I can't think of what to write or have no inspiration, I will let you know. Sometimes, the fic just doesn't come to me.

Additionally, chances are I can probably write for more fandoms than are currently on this list. There's a Miscellaneous section for a reason. If you're not sure, it doesn't hurt to ask!

If requests go over well, I'll start making some prompts to make requesting easier for you guys.

Happy reading & requesting!

[gt-ambi]

Greater and More Terrible

On a quest to slay a malevolent witch, a knight of the realm goes missing. Fearful of what fate may have befallen the knight, his squire, Elliott, sets off into the witch's domain in search of his master. The young man soon comes face to face with the witch herself and falls victim to a powerful curse. Reduced to less than half a foot tall and imprisoned in the witch's cabin, can Elliott find a way to break the curse and escape? Or will he meet his end and disappear without a trace in the shadowed depths of the forest the witch calls home?

Masterpost

Preface

Hello all! This is my first foray into the Tumblr g/t community, though I've been lurking here for a few years. I'm excited (although a bit nervous) to finally be posting something. I have a few other story ideas that I'm working on here and there, and I can't promise any kind of consistent update schedule, but regardless, my number one goal is to tell a decent story, so I hope you enjoy! I welcome any feedback, comments, criticisms, etc.

Chapter One: Alone

In which Elliott makes one brave, somewhat questionable decision and a few less brave, definitely questionable decisions. Running blindly through the forest is probably a fine thing to do, right? And what's that saying - always trust strangers? I think that's how it goes, anyway. *Note* - there's no g/t in the story yet, but there will be! I just gotta cook a little, first.

CW: General Fear, Pain, Embarrassment, Poor Survival Skills, and a Squirrel-Related Inciting Incident

Next Chapter: Coming Soon...

Word Count: 3,479

The food would last another day – maybe two, if Elliott was careful with it. After that, he would be in trouble. He wasn’t any kind of outdoorsman, and he was sure that a novice trying to hunt or forage in the witch’s woods might as well be asking to meet the gods of death. As the name suggested, a witch of great power and ill repute had supposedly claimed the forest as her territory, and Elliott didn’t want to risk drawing her attention.

If it came down to it, he supposed there was always the food set aside for Sir Geoffrey. On the other hand, if the knight came back and found that his squire had stolen from his pack… Elliott shuddered at the thought. That wasn’t an option.

He is going to come back, isn’t he?

It wasn’t the first time he’d had the thought since Sir Geoffrey left him here four days ago, in the clearing where they had set up their camp. The first day had been almost nice, aside from the general anxiety of being alone in a supposedly cursed (or haunted, depending on who you asked) forest. Days apart from Sir Geoffrey were a rare gift—a break from the insults and the so-called training that left Elliott with bruises more than anything else.

The second day, the peace of solitude gave way to the unease of isolation, but Elliott hadn’t been worried about Sir Geoffrey. It only made sense that finding the witch’s lair and slaying her would take more than a day, even after leaving behind the “dead weight”, as Sir Geoffrey had so kindly phrased it.

On the third day, as morning settled into afternoon with no sign of the night, the thought tickled the back of Elliott’s mind for the first time. Is Sir Geoffrey all right? He tried to push it down, to tell himself it was an irrational question. Of course, Sir Geoffrey was all right—he was a knight of the realm, a champion of the people, a vanquisher of evil! And yet, despite his efforts, the worry wormed its way deep into Elliott’s thoughts, repeating again and again through the rest of the day, until he dozed off into fitful sleep that night.

This morning, Elliott had been torn from slumber by horrible, shrill chittering. He woke with a start, sure that some awful beast of the haunted (or cursed) forest was descending to take his life. In his tired haze, he groped for his nearby walking stick—the closest thing he had to a weapon. Armed as well as he could be, he sprang to his feet, ready to fight for his life.

There was no monster to slay, no magical creature to fend off. The raucous noise came from a half-dozen squirrels fighting over, around, and in Elliott’s pack. He stared at them, almost disappointed, until one of them popped up over the lip of the pack with a chunk of bread. Then, in a horrible flash, Elliott realized they had been fighting over his food. He charged at the rodents, screaming and waving his stick wildly.

The squirrels scattered, but the damage had already been done. The rations that were supposed to last him another week had been ravaged. Elliott salvaged everything he could, but what hadn’t been eaten outright was largely inedible, trampled in the dirt or torn to shreds and covered in fur.

Elliott’s chewed on his lower lip as he considered the predicament. His leg bounced nervously. He already wasn’t thrilled about being in the witch’s forest, but he had taken some solace in the assurance of the camp—if nothing else, he had a tent to sleep in, and food to eat. But now, the camp didn’t seem like such a haven.

Elliott was once again keenly aware that the forest penned him in on all sides. The ancient trees loomed at the edge of the clearing like giants standing at attention. Their broad branches hung heavy with leaves and cast dark shadows on the forest floor. Elliott’s view of the autumn sky was reduced to a blue circle high above him and whatever flecks he could spy through the shifting red-and-gold canopy. Any other direction he looked, all he could see was the forest.

Surrounded by the sea of trees, low on food, and with no sign of Sir Geoffrey, Elliott suddenly felt very small. That was hardly new – even at eighteen years old, he stood only five-foot-four, and he had a young face. When combined with his baggy tunic, which he’d owned since he was fifteen and still thought he would grow into it, Elliott appeared younger and smaller than he was, and people often treated him as less than significant. But where people were might be rude, or even malicious, the forest felt hungry. Elliott didn’t feel denigrated or offended—he felt hunted.

“Okay,” he said aloud, as if breaking the silence would ease the panic rising in his throat. “What options do I have?” He would make a list, that’s what he’d do. Lists were good. Lists made order out of chaos. Lists let you look objectively at a situation. A list would help him find the right course of action.

“Option one: starve to death.”

No! Idiot! He shook his head. Not an option. Try again.

“Option one: stay here and keep waiting. It’s not like I have no food left. Maybe I can stick it out for a while longer. I mean, Sir Geoffrey could be on his way back right now, for all I know.”

Assuming he’s coming back at all, his brain added helpfully. He tried to ignore it, but it had a point. If Elliott waited, and Sir Geoffrey didn’t come back, then he’d be in a worse situation than before.

“Option two,” he continued. “Try to get out of the forest. There’s that village we passed before—if I can make it there, then I can resupply and…” He trailed off. And what? He asked himself. Come back and wait some more? That wouldn’t solve anything. Besides, if Sir Geoffrey was coming back, it would probably be soon. If he wasn’t coming back, then he was either in serious trouble, or he was dead—and the more time passed, the more likely it was to be the second possibility. So that wasn’t an option either, which only left…

“Option three.” Elliott’s fists clenched and unclenched at his sides. He didn’t want to say it. If he said it, it was real. If it was real, he’d have to do it. He really wished he didn’t have to do it.

“Option three,” he repeated. “Go looking for Sir Geoffrey myself.” It was a horrible idea. Elliott wouldn’t stand a chance against anything that Sir Geoffrey couldn’t handle. What’s more, if the knight returned to camp while he was away, Elliott wasn’t certain that Sir Geoffrey would wait for him to return. Even so, Elliott had a responsibility to uphold. If Sir Geoffrey might be in trouble, Elliott was honor-bound to at least try to help him.

Elliott groaned loudly and started to gather his things. Sure, he was probably walking straight into certain death, but he might as well be prepared in case he wasn’t. He couldn’t carry everything, though. He’d have to make some choices. The food would come with him, of course, both his own and Sir Geoffrey’s. The tent would have to stay, and so would one of the bedrolls—trying to strap both to his pack threw off his balance. His walking stick was invaluable, as it would at least give him a chance to try and protect himself. The cookware was too heavy and took up too much space, so it had to stay as well. The rest of the space in his pack was claimed by the tinderbox, an extra water skin, and the emergency supplies—bandages and such.

When he was done, Elliott slung the heavy, wood-framed bag onto his shoulders and picked up his stick. He stood at the edge of camp and looked out into the forest, at the gap in the trees where he had last seen Sir Geoffrey.

Is this really a good idea? Elliott thought. Part of him wanted nothing more than to turn around, go back to the tent, and pretend like nothing was happening. No, he decided, this is definitely not a good idea. But I don’t have a choice. He gritted his teeth. He could do this. He had to do this. He took a deep breath and, on shaking legs, strode away from the camp, into the depths of the forest.

~~~

A few hours later, Elliott found himself deeply regretting his choice. The gnarled, twisting branches of ancient trees reached toward him from every angle. They caught and tugged at his clothing and pack as though trying to pull them into their embrace. Though Elliott knew the sun must be nearing its zenith, the shadows seemed darker than ever, and heavy as pitch where they settled in the brush. The undergrowth hissed with the passage of dozens—no, hundreds, or even thousands!—of unseen creatures. In Elliott’s mind’s eye, each rustle marked a monster fouler than the last.

His breath hitched painfully in his chest. His aching eyes begged him to blink. His knees threatened to give out from beneath him. He couldn’t stop himself from trembling. Even so, he kept moving.

This is what a knight must do, he thought. A knight must not quail in the face of their fears. He repeated it over and over, clinging to the thought like flotsam after a shipwreck. It bobbed and tipped in the sea of Elliott’s fear. If it sank, there would be nothing keeping Elliott apart from the great, dark terror below—the truth he was doing his best to ignore. The truth that however awful the forest was, the witch, greater and more terrible than anything in her dread domain, was waiting at the end of Elliott’s quest.

He stopped briefly, giving into some of his body’s demands. He leaned heavily on his walking stick, blinked the tears from his eyes and shifted his pack to sit more comfortably on his shoulders. When he was ready to move again, he looked up.

Something looked back at him.

A pair of predatory eyes, pale green tinged with yellow, gleamed dimly from within the brush. Elliott’s instinct took over; almost before he knew what was happening, he was running. The branches which had tugged at him before now struck him as he rushed past, carving bright, hot lines across his face. He threw his free arm up to take the worst of it. It cost him his vision, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t care where he was going as long as he escaped whatever lurked the darkness.

Fate, it seemed, had other plans for Elliott that day. At that moment, his foot landed wrong. Caught in the thicket at full speed, he pitched forward with a crack. Blinding pain shot through his lower leg. His shoulder slammed into the trunk of a tree and he caromed off it, crashing to the ground and rolling through the brush. It almost slowed his momentum enough to keep him from going over the edge. Almost.

The half-second of freefall nearly stopped Elliott’s heart. He landed hard on sloped ground, finding no reprieve from his agony as he continued to roll, now careening down the side of the steep hill. The stones and vegetation littering the hill did little to slow him. Every bump sent waves of pain through his body, radiating out from his leg. It was less painful when he rolled over top of his pack, but only just. The objects inside rattled and the wooden frame creaked ominously. His walking stick caught fast on something and was torn from his hand.

Elliott tucked his head to his chest. It was all he could do. Tears streamed down his face. He was dimly aware that he was screaming. Gods, please, he thought desperately. Please save me. Please let it stop.

As if in answer to his prayers, the base of the hill appeared beneath Elliott. The slope flattened, suddenly and jarringly, to level ground, and Elliott came to a shuddering stop on his side.

His head spun. His ears rang. His eyes and throat burned. His leg throbbed with pain as bad as he had ever felt. Every inch of his body hurt. His breathing was ragged, and his heart pounded as though it were trying to break through his ribs.

The outside world was lost to Elliott—his body’s misery commanded his attention. Time was likewise a mystery. He didn’t know how long he lay on the forest floor, wracked with pain. It might have been mere moments. It felt like hours.

After some time, the pain began to subside. Elliott’s breath steadied. It wasn’t so bad anymore. Even the stabbing agony in his leg had dulled to a sharp ache.

“Are you all right?”

Elliott flinched at the unfamiliar voice. He hadn’t realized he was no longer alone. Who were they? How long had they been there? Elliott stiffly uncurled and raised his head.

A woman crouched at Elliott’s side, brows deeply furrowed over amber eyes filled with concern. One hand rested on Elliott’s knee. The woman appeared to be around thirty, though life had apparently spared her the common ravages of disease and injury, as her smooth, olive skin bore no scars that Elliott could see, pox or otherwise. Her thick, dark hair was swept to one side and curled past her shoulders. The sleeves of her simple, cream-colored blouse were pushed up to her elbows, and mud stained her deep green skirt at the knees.

“Are you all right?” The woman asked again. She spoke softly, but her voice was steady and strong, and it flowed like warm honey. It might just have been the relief of seeing another person for the first time in days, but Elliott found something about her voice reassuring.

“Ah, y-yes,” Elliott stammered. He scrambled to his feet, wincing as he put weight on his injured leg, and looked himself over. A few cuts here and there, a few bruises, and of course, his leg still hurt, but aside from that (and his fresh coating of dirt and leaves), he was basically intact. “I’m all right, I think. Mostly. That is, I’m more or less all right. Still in one piece, anyway.” He mentally kicked himself. Stop rambling! “Thank you for asking,” he finished lamely.

The woman stood as well. To Elliott’s surprise, she was a few inches shorter than him. He didn’t often meet many people who were. “I’m glad to hear it,” the woman said with a smile. “That was a nasty fall.”

Elliott’s face flushed, and the tips of his ears burned. “Oh. You… you saw that?” It was one embarrassment after another.

“I heard it from the trail,” she said, and pointed away from the hill. Beyond the trees, a narrow path of worn dirt wound through the forest. A lidded wicker handbasket sat on the side of the path. “It was a bit of a shock at first,” the woman continued. Her smile grew slightly mischievous. “I was worried there was a banshee haunting the woods. Of course, banshees don’t make so much noise outside of the screaming, so I realized that couldn’t be it and came to take a look.”

Elliott’s flush deepened at the joke. Gods above, she must think I’m an absolute idiot. “It seemed worse in the moment,” he said by way of an explanation. “Really, I’m just grateful I didn’t get more badly injured.”

“Small blessings,” the woman said. Her eyes sparkled like she was holding back laughter.

What was funny about that? Elliott wondered. The thought was quickly pushed aside by a sudden realization. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’ve been so rude! I haven’t introduced myself yet.” He brushed the front of his clothes as best as he could and gave the woman a small bow. “Elliott Weathersby, at your service, ma’am.”

The woman shook her head. “If you’ve been rude, then so have I. Please, call me Laurel. No need for the ‘ma’am’, either. I’m no more a lady than I am a king. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Elliott.

“The pleasure is mine, m—” Elliott caught himself. “Laurel,” he corrected, somewhat sheepishly.

This time, Laurel did laugh. Elliott could tell it wasn’t mean-spirited, but his meager pride felt the blow anyway. He felt foolish a lot of the time, but right now, he may as well have been a court jester.

“Well,” Laurel said, “now that we’ve officially met each other, I have to ask—how did you end up in a heap at the bottom of a hill this deep in the forest, anyway?” She looked bemused. “I don’t usually see anyone out here at all, let alone in the…” She tilted her head and waved a hand vaguely in his direction. “…state you seem to have found yourself in.

Elliott scratched the back of his head and glanced away. “It’s a bit of a long story,” he said, determined to not appear more foolish than he already did. “To put it briefly, I’m looking for my traveling companion. He went off on his own a few days ago, and I haven’t seen him since.”

Laurel frowned. “Rather inconsiderate of him to wander off like that. What does he look like? It’s possible we’ve crossed paths.”

“You would probably know if you had seen him. He’s a knight, after all.”

If Elliott had been more alert, less weary, or less distracted by his lingering aches and pains, he might have noticed the momentary pause before Laurel responded. He might have heard the slight change in the tone of her voice as she asked, “A knight?” He might have remembered Sir Geoffrey’s warnings to be wary while in the woods.

But he wasn’t. And he didn’t.

“Right,” he nodded. “Armor, sword, steed, all of it. The very image of chivalry.”

Laurel folded her arms. “Except for the part where he left you alone in the woods.”

“No, no, that’s different!” Elliott assured her. “He has a very important job to do. I’m just a squire, and a poor one at that. I would have just been in the way, so it was for the best.”

“Hm.” Laurel didn’t seem particularly assuaged by the explanation. “In any case, I haven’t seen any knights. That being said, I did find a horse wandering in the forest yesterday. Could it be your errant knight’s?”

Elliott’s stomach dropped. He tried to stay calm. Maybe it was just a coincidence. “Was it a white mare?” he asked. “Did the saddle pad have crests of roosters on either side?”

“It was a white mare, yes, but she didn’t have any kind of tack on when I found her.”

Elliott’s concern grew. “None at all? No saddle, no reins, no bit or bridle?” He could feel his worries rising, like a pot about to boil over. “Did she have any distinctive markings, or a brand, or anything like that?

“I’m not sure…” Laurel tapped her chin and thought for a moment. She snapped her fingers. “How about this? My home isn’t far from here. Why don’t you just come with me and see her for yourself.”

Elliott nodded. “I would appreciate that very much, thank you.” The sense of relief that had been growing over the course of the conversation had all but shattered. His mind raced, conjuring up all the most horrible, gruesome things that might have happened. The only thing keeping his anxiety from becoming panic was the possibility that it was a different horse.

“Then let’s not waste any more time,” Laurel said. She walked back toward the path. “Follow me.”

At the side of the path, Laurel stooped to pick up her basket. “I can carry that,” Elliott blurted. Laurel looked at him quizzically. “Not that you need me to,” he added hastily. “Just that—well, my mother always told me that one good turn deserves another, and you’re helping me, so I—I should help you, if I can.” “I suppose I won’t say no, if you’re so eager to offer,” Laurel said with a shrug. She raised a warning finger. “But let me know if your leg hurts too much, and I’ll take it back. There’s no need for you to overtax yourself."

“I will,” Elliott agreed. She held out the basket, and he took it. The damp, earthy scent of mushrooms rose from within.

“All right, then.” Laurel turned and set off down the trail. Slinging the basket over his arm and into the crook of his elbow, Elliott followed.