#slowly working my way through the series.........

[pitlanepeach]

Radio Silence | Chapter Thirty-Six

Lando Norris x Amelia Brown (OFC)

Series Masterlist

Summary — Order is everything. Her habits aren’t quirks, they’re survival techniques. And only three people in the world have permission to touch her: Mom, Dad, Fernando.

Then Lando Norris happens.

One moment. One line crossed. No going back.

Warnings — Autistic!OFC, pregnancy, emetophobia warning, domestic fluff, birthdays + Christmas, some emotional instabillity.

Notes — I hope you guys love this one. It's so full of sweetness. A bit of frustration too, but mostly sweetness.

December 2023

The lights in the MTC's build bay always felt too bright. Amelia squinted up at them in annoyance, then turned her gaze back to the car.

Her car.

Not hers in any legal or possessive way — it belonged to the team, to the season, to the wind tunnel and CFD modellers.

But the final profile of the MCL38-AN was a shape that had lived in her brain before it ever existed in carbon fibre form. It had existed exclusively within spreadsheets and flow charts and headaches. Whiteboard scrawls at two in the morning. Phone calls to her dad. Arguments with aero. Hours of simulations. Hours of starting over.

And now it was real. Sitting right in front of her.

Orange and black, sleek and hungry, its chassis caught the overhead lights and glowing.

Amelia didn't move. She needed minute. She just stood beside the rear wing, arms crossed tight over her chest, soaking in the project that had consumed every spare hour of the past two years of her life.

She had half a muffin in her bag from breakfast four hours ago. She'd forgotten to eat it.

The name on the spec sheet was just technical: MCL38-AN. The suffix had started as a quiet claim — her way of signing something no one could take from her. Years ago, her father had passed off one of her ideas as his own. "AN" for Amelia Norris, scribbled on a draft after too much coffee, felt like insurance. But the department kept using it. Zak hadn't stopped them. And now it was printed on the official build list, black ink and daring her to believe it was really hers.

Her name. On a car.

"Staring at it won't make it disappear," came a voice from the other end of the garage.

Amelia didn't look over. "I'm aware," she replied flatly.

Anthony, one of the build engineers, chuckled and walked closer, wiping grease off his hands with a rag. "Just never seen you stand still this long before. Thought maybe you'd short-circuited."

"Internally," she replied. "I'm experiencing the Blue Screen of Emotion."

He laughed again. "Hell of a machine you designed."

She didn't correct him.

Instead, she stepped forward and laid one hand on the side-pod. The material was cold and smooth under her fingers. She could feel the vibration of the building, the faint hum of tools and voices and fluorescent life, echoing back through the structure.

"This was all in my head once," she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. "And now it's... this."

Anthony, thankfully, didn't say anything saccharine. Just gave a nod and let her stand there.

Amelia walked slowly around to the front of the car, fingers trailing against the bodywork. Her brain was already scanning for imperfections — minor details to flag, alignment to double-check, tolerances to run again. But beneath that, buried under years of ruthless professional calibration, was something quieter.

Pride.

Not loud or dramatic or showy. Just a quiet click of recognition.

This was good work. And it was hers.

"Can we run power systems later today?" She asked.

Anthony nodded. "Soon as Oscar finishes his lunch."

"Tell him I said no mayo on the telemetry."

"I don't even know what that means."

Amelia didn't clarify. She just smiled faintly to herself and stepped back, surveying the car one more time.

MCL38-AN.

Not bad for a girl who used to line up her Hot Wheels in exact weight-to-downforce order as a kid and got sent home from school for correcting her teacher's physics formulas.

She pulled out her phone, snapped a picture of the car, just for herself, then typed out a message to Lando.

iMessage — 14:33pm

Amelia (Wifey 4 lifey)

Almost ready for testing. I'm so proud it's making me nauseous.

A second later, another text.

Amelia (Wifey 4 lifey)

Or maybe that's just the pregnancy.

—

Amelia sat cross-legged across from Lando, hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands despite the lingering warmth in the air. Lando was barefoot, legs stretched out, half a grin on his face as he finished the last bite of cake she'd awkwardly cut with a plastic knife.

They were on Max's boat, rocking gently in the Monaco harbour. They'd stolen it for the day.

"Bit late," he teased, licking frosting off his thumb. "Birthday was like... three weeks ago."

"You were busy," she said simply. "So was I. And also I needed time."

"Time?"

"To figure out what to give you." She said. Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a small, square box; plain brown kraft paper, tied neatly with black ribbon. No card. Of course there was no card. She hated cards — never knew what to write in them.

Lando raised an eyebrow as he took it. "Not socks?"

"No."

He peeled the ribbon open and lifted the lid.

Inside was a tiny frame. Minimalist. Neutral. Inside it, a single page torn from a notebook — lined paper, slightly smudged pencil. On it: a series of racing lines drawn from memory. His best qualifying lap from Silverstone. Annotated in her handwriting with tiny notes. Brake here. Open throttle earlier. Turn-in felt cleaner than expected.

He stared at it for a long moment before speaking. "This is..."

"You told me you wanted to frame that lap. I had the data sheet, but I wanted to draw it from memory," she said, eyes on the water instead of him. "That way it's both yours and mine. More special."

Lando didn't speak. Not right away. Just set the frame down carefully and crawled across the cushions to kiss her — soft, deliberate. One hand cupped her jaw; the other rested over her heart like it was helping him breathe. When he pulled back, his eyes were suspiciously glassy. "I think that might be one of the best birthday presents I've ever received," he said. "And I love it."

She gave a tiny shrug. "Good. You're really hard to shop for. You buy everything you want as soon as you decide that you want it."

He laughed, pulling her into his chest.

The boat rocked gently, and the sun sank lower, and for once there was nothing they needed to do, nowhere they needed to be. Just a belated birthday, and a perfect lap, and the girl who knew every corner of it better than anyone ever would.

—

The ultrasound room was dim, lit mostly by the soft blue glow of the monitor and the faint flicker of winter sun bleeding through the frosted windowpanes. The air smelled faintly sterile, like clean cotton and antiseptic.

Amelia lay back on the table, her t-shirt folded up over her stomach, the thin paper drape rustling every time she shifted. One hand was clenched tightly in Lando's — not out of nerves, exactly, but out of that taut, quiet focus she always wore when she didn't have full control of a situation.

She eyed the plastic bottle in the technician's hand with thinly veiled suspicion.

"What is that?" She asked flatly.

"Just ultrasound gel," the technician said, chipper and entirely unprepared.

Amelia narrowed her eyes. "What are the ingredients?"

The woman faltered, eyes darting to Lando and then back to Amelia. "Um..."

Lando looked at his wife.

Amelia didn't look at him. "I just feel like if we're going to lather something all over my body, I should know whether it contains...you know, petrochemicals or carcinogens or hormone disruptors."

The technician blinked. "It's... mostly water-based," she said finally. "And glycerin. No dyes. No perfumes."

Amelia stared a second longer, then gave a short, diplomatic nod. "Fine."

Lando leaned over and whispered, "You sure?"

"Yes," she muttered.

The technician, clearly deciding she'd earned the right to proceed, gently pressed the probe to Amelia's stomach. She flinched, not from pain, but from the cold smear of the gel, and made a disgruntled little noise in the back of her throat.

Lando squeezed her hand once, smiling.

And then the screen flickered. A faint, grainy image bloomed into view, shadow and static and light, and the whole room seemed to still.

"Ah, a very easy one. There we are," the technician said softly, her voice shifting into something gentle. "One very small someone."

Amelia blinked at the monitor. "That blob is a baby?"

The tech chuckled. "That blob is your baby."

Lando's breath caught in his throat. He shifted closer to her side, eyes locked on the flickering movement onscreen — a heartbeat, tiny and fast and impossibly loud once the audio kicked in. It sounded like wings. Like something about to take off.

Amelia didn't speak for a long time. Just stared. Her mouth parted, eyes wide. She looked stunned, like her body had already figured it out, but her brain hadn't quite caught up.

"Is that..." she finally whispered. "That flicker, is that... the heartbeat?"

The technician nodded.

Amelia's mouth wobbled. Her fingers clenched tighter around Lando's. "It's going so... fast."

"Perfectly normal at this stage."

Lando, who had been quiet until now, suddenly straightened and leaned in closer, eyes glued to the screen. "Wait—how fast? Like, beats per minute?"

The technician glanced at the monitor, tapping a few keys. "Right now, it's about 170. A bit faster than an adult's, but that's exactly what we expect this early on."

Lando's eyes widened. "One seventy? That's incredible. Is that—like—normal?"

"Yeah, perfectly normal. It usually starts slower around five weeks and then speeds up."

Amelia's voice was quiet, but steady. "How many weeks are we exactly?"

"About seven weeks from the last menstrual period," the technician replied, smiling gently.

Lando glanced at Amelia, then back to the screen. "So... when's the due date? When can we expect... I mean, when—?"

The technician switched the screen to a small calendar. "Based on measurements, your due date should fall somewhere around August 14th."

Amelia exhaled slowly, eyes still on the grainy image of that tiny flickering heartbeat. "August 14th," she repeated. "Between Spa and Zandvoort, then."

Lando grinned and squeezed her hand. "That's... just over six months away. Feels proper real now."

Amelia's lips twitched in a tired smile. "Yeah, it's a bit overwhelming."

Lando's voice softened. "Overwhelming in a good way?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I think so."

He looked at her with such tenderness that it made her throat tighten.

She leaned her head against his shoulder.

"Maybe," Lando said softly, "instead of letting this make us feel out of control, we need to learn how to trust that our little person is just... doing its own thing."

Amelia closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, the flickering heartbeat was still there — small but unmistakably alive. "Okay," she said quietly, "yeah. Okay."

The technician smiled again, dimming the monitor as she packed up. "You're doing wonderfully. We'll schedule your next scan in three to four weeks time, but for now, just try to enjoy this moment."

Lando squeezed Amelia's hand.

—

The Norris house was full of noise — crumpled wrapping paper on every surface, half-eaten mince pies on plates, Christmas music playing softly in the background, and the fire crackling with the kind of persistent warmth only a real log burner could offer.

Amelia sat on the arm of the couch, a mug of peppermint hot chocolate in her hands (the only thing that didn't make her nauseous that week), watching Lando and his siblings messily construct some kind of Christmas LEGO set on the floor.

It was chaos. The good kind. Lando was wearing a Santa hat and trying to boss everyone around. Cisca was curled up in the other armchair watching them fondly, and even Adam was getting involved, despite pretending he was "too old for LEGO" about twenty minutes earlier.

Amelia felt warm. Not just from the fire, or the hot chocolate. But that kind of rooted, grounded warmth she hadn't felt since childhood.

Lando glanced up at her from the rug. His cheeks were flushed, curls a little wild, still in pyjamas. He grinned that stupidly wide grin of his; the one she could never not return.

"Okay," he said suddenly, clapping his hands together. "We've got one last gift."

His siblings groaned dramatically. "You're just trying to win Christmas," Flo said, already suspicious.

"No," Lando said, glancing up at Amelia. "This one's from both of us."

He got up and walked to the tree, pulling out a small box, about the size of a mug, wrapped in deep green paper and a lopsided gold bow. He handed it to Flo, gesturing for her to open it.

She peeled it back, frowned... and then blinked.

Inside was a tiny McLaren onesie, size newborn, folded neatly next to a photo printout of the ultrasound. On the front of the onesie was a little stitched helmet — and underneath it, "Team Norris. Arriving August 2024."

There was a beat of silence.

Flo stared.

"Shut. Up."

Adam whipped around, eyes wide. "Oh my god."

"No way," Flo said, already scrambling up from the floor.

Cisca covered her mouth, eyes wide and glassy. "Are you—? Are you serious?"

Amelia nodded, quietly overwhelmed by the whole thing, but smiling anyway, caught in the centre of a hug from Lando's siblings as they collapsed into her, cheering and yelling and somehow knocking her mug over (Lando caught it just in time).

Flo kept staring at the ultrasound photo like it was a sacred relic. "I am going to be the best auntie."

Adam walked over to Lando and gave him a tight hug, a forehead kiss, and a pat on the back.

Cisca hugged Amelia gently, brushing her hair back. "I had a feeling," she whispered. "You've had that glow."

Amelia laughed. "The glow is just sweat from the constant nausea. But thanks."

Lando wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, chin on her shoulder, warm and soft and safe."Merry Christmas," he murmured.

She leaned her head back against his. "Merry Christmas."

—

January 2024

The new apartment smelled like fresh paint.

It was bigger, with big windows and tiled floors and way more space than their old place. But in that exact moment, it mostly looked like a war zone. A mess of cardboard, bubble wrap, and various limbs sticking out from behind furniture.

"Why does your wife own so many pairs of shoes?" Max asked, squinting as he pulled box after box labelled Amelia: Shoes from the back of the moving van.

"She likes having options, Max," Lando replied from inside the apartment. "You wouldn't get it."

"I've already seen three pairs of the same sneaker!"

"Sometimes she wants them to look newer, sometimes she wants them to look worn!"

Amelia stood frozen in the middle of the living room, arms wrapped tightly around a single lamp. Not because it was heavy, it was from IKEA, but because she'd very quickly reached her max input for the day.

People talking, laughing, doors slamming, someone (probably Charles) putting a Spotify playlist on the TV at full volume, Celeste asking where the boxes marked kitchen - fragile had gone (answer: behind the miscellaneous - Lando's gamer shit), and her mom trying to organise snacks that everyone had insisted they didn't need but everyone was happily eating.

It was chaos. Warm, well-meaning chaos. But chaos all the same.

"Breathe, baby," came Lando's voice, suddenly right behind her. His hand gently closed over hers, guiding the lamp to the floor. "Let go."

"I'm fine," she said quickly.

"You're vibrating."

"I'm self-regulating."

"You're about to pop like a champagne bottle on the podium."

She blinked at him. "Lando."

"It's fine," he whispered, kissing her cheek. "Go sit. I'll turn down Charles' shit music."

She nodded once and retreated to the kitchen, or, well, what would be the kitchen, once all the boxes weren't stacked like a cardboard skyline.

Her dad followed her a moment later, holding a garbage bag full of what looked like packing peanuts. "Need anything, sweetheart?"

Amelia, dazed, looked up at her dad. "A new brain."

"I meant, like, a juice box."

"Oh. Do we have any?"

"I'll ask your mom." He laughed and kissed the top of her head before disappearing to the balcony.

Celeste popped in with a stack of throw pillows and collapsed beside her. "Remind me never offer to help anyone move again."

Charles, sliding by with a box labeled guest bathroom, raised his hand. "You're all weak."

"You hired movers," Max called from the hallway.

"Because I am smart," Charles countered.

Eventually, they made enough of a dent in the chaos to pause; boxes stacked in corners, the couch unwrapped, the kitchen sort of navigable. Everyone collapsed onto furniture, floor cushions, or each other.

Lando dropped next to Amelia with a thud. "Jesus," he said. "I'm never standing up again."

Tracey passed around bottles of water.

And then, without thinking, because she was tired, overwhelmed, and slightly frantic, Amelia looked at the empty room across the hall and said aloud. "Oh, cool. I'll be able to start putting the nursery together."

The silence was instant.

Zak froze mid-sip. Tracey turned so fast she almost knocked over Celeste. Charles blinked once, then again. Celeste slowly tilted her head like a confused golden retriever.

Only Max continued scrolling on his phone. Lando looked suspiciously casual, but his eyes had gone wide.

"Sorry," Charles said slowly. "Did she just say nursery?"

"She did," said Tracey, standing like she was ready to break into dance or faint, unclear which.

Amelia, blank as ever, looked up. "Oh. Yeah. Sorry."

"You're pregnant?" Celeste screeched, immediately launching across the couch.

"About eight weeks," Amelia said matter-of-factly.

"Oh my gosh—"

Lando, grinning now, tugged Amelia into his side. "We were gonna wait a while. But she's obviously forgotten the whole secrecy part."

"Not forgot," Amelia said. "Just... didn't filter."

Tracey shrieked. Charles stood and clapped. Celeste immediately demanded to know every detail. Her dad was just staring at them, his jaw slightly ajar.

Max looked at Lando and deadpanned, "Told you she'd blurt it eventually."

"You knew?" Tracey barked.

"Of course I did." Max said.

Celeste swatted him. "I can't believe you didn't tell me!"

Amelia rolled her eyes, but she was smiling, buried in a couch cushion, legs tucked under her, chaos all around her, but warm. Safe.

Loved.

"I'm going to have to help you build nursery furniture, aren't I?" Charles asked.

"Yes," said Lando.

—

Amelia sat on one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter, wearing her comfort pyjamas and cupping a warm mug in both hands. Her mom was rifling through a drawer looking for teaspoons and her dad was standing far too close for someone who'd said "I'm not gonna hover."

"You're hovering," Amelia said without looking up.

"I'm not," Zak replied, absolutely hovering.

Tracey gave him a look as she passed. "Sit down, Zak."

Amelia smirked faintly.

Zak pulled a stool out beside her but didn't sit. He just sort of... rested one hand on the counter and stared at her in that way dads do. "You keeping anything down?" He asked.

"I'm eating a lot of toast," Amelia said. "And drinking ginger tea."

He looked vaguely panicked. "Should we be calling someone? We have dietitian's, or—?"

"Dad."

"What?"

"I'm pregnant. Nausea is normal."

Zak muttered something about "precautionary measures" and "just checking" and "your iron levels, you never know," and finally Tracey grabbed his sleeve and tugged him to the other side of the kitchen.

"Let her breathe," she said, soft but firm.

He sighed but relented, pouring himself a cup of tea and stealing a look at Amelia like he still couldn't believe it. Like some part of him was seeing her as a baby again in his arms; not a woman, not a race engineer, not someone capable of growing a human. Just his daughter.

"I'm going to be a granddad," he said eventually, more to himself than anyone else. He blinked a few times, then smiled like he'd just realised it wasn't a prank.

Amelia raised her eyebrows, lips twitching. "Has he only just realised that?"

Tracey chuckled. "Oh no, honey. He's already ordered some books on newborn safety."

Zak tried to look insulted. "One of us has to be prepared."

Tracey ignored him and turned her attention back to Amelia, warm eyes softening. "You know," she said gently, "that first night at dinner, when you got all worked up about Lando... I just knew."

"Knew what?"

"That this was going to be something magic," she said. "You had that look on your face. Not the 'I'm in love' one, not yet. But that one you get when you've found something you'd fight for. And I thought, ah. There it is."

Amelia blinked, caught off guard. Her mouth opened, then closed again, unsure how to respond.

Tracey smiled knowingly. "You've always been complicated. Precise. A little special in a systemised way. But with him? You were safe. Not smaller, not quieter; just... steadier."

Zak, finally sitting, looked from his wife to his daughter, then back again.

Tracey walked over and touched Amelia's hair, smoothing it back without thinking. The kind of motherly gesture that was muscle memory. "We're very proud of you," she said softly. "Not just for the baby. For the life you're building. For letting yourself build it."

Amelia didn't answer right away. Just looked down into her tea and let that sit in her chest like a warm ache. "Thanks," she said finally, quiet.

Tracey smiled. "Now come sit with us in the living room and let your dad lecture you about your fiber intake."

"Oh no."

"I made a PowerPoint," Zak added helpfully.

Amelia stared at him. "I—I eat enough fibre. I swear. I promise. Don't make me sit through one of your terribly constructed PowerPoints."

—

Five hours later, the apartment was finally quiet.

The kind of quiet that only came after the storm; post-laughter, post-chaos, post-Max dropping a full pizza box face-down on the kitchen floor and Charles chasing Celeste with bubble wrap around his head like a helmet.

Everyone was gone now.

Some boxes still weren't unpacked, the dining table was holding an array of loose screws and takeout containers, and there was one singular sock hanging off the new lighting fixture that neither of them remembered installing.

But it was quiet. And theirs.

Lando lay stretched across the couch in sweats and a hoodie, one leg propped up on a box labeled BED LINENS???. Amelia was curled on top of him like a blanket folded in half, her cheek resting against his chest, arms wrapped around his middle.

She was half-asleep, her body finally relaxing after hours of overstimulation and problem-solving and people asking where things were that she did not know. "Is it weird I don't feel like this is real yet?" She murmured.

Lando looked down at her. "The apartment?"

"All of it. The space. The nursery. The fact I told everyone because I accidentally emotionally short-circuited. I mean, who announces a pregnancy like that?"

"You," he said, brushing his fingers through her hair.

She huffed a breath that was half-laugh, half-groan. "My brain was tired. My mouth just... decided."

"Hey." He tugged gently on a loose strand of her hair until she looked up at him. "It was perfect. So you. I mean, Tracey looked like she was about to cry and throw you a baby shower in the same breath."

Amelia groaned and buried her face back into his hoodie. "She's going to buy so many pastel things. I'm not emotionally equipped for pastel."

Lando laughed. "We'll make a blacklist. No tulle. No gingham. No text that says 'Born to race' or anything cringe like that."

Amelia was quiet for a moment. "Do you think it's okay we're doing this now?"

He didn't ask what this meant. He knew.

The baby. The life. The shift. The permanence of it all.

"I think it's us," he said simply. "And I think whatever that ends up looking like is okay."

She let out a breath. "I don't know how to do any of it. Not even the parts people think I'm supposed to be good at. I couldn't find the dish towels today."

"That's what the box labels are for."

"And you?"

"I'm just here to kiss you when your brain melts and tell you you're brilliant anyway."

She finally looked up at him again. Her eyes were tired — not with sadness, just the fatigue of too much change all at once. But they were also soft. "You're annoying," she said.

"What, being emotionally intelligent and devastatingly handsome is annoying now?" He teased.

"You're a good human weighted blanket, so I won't argue with that."

He smiled and kissed her forehead. "It's a privilege, honestly."

They lay there for a while, the hum of Monaco outside their windows, the buzz of city life just distant enough to feel like background music. Inside, it was soft. Warm. Familiar.

Eventually, Amelia whispered, "We really live here now."

Lando tightened his arms around her. "Yeah, we do."

"And we're gonna have a baby here."

"Mmhm."

"I have to start nesting. Like... soon."

"Tell me what you want built. I'll blackmail Charles and make him do it."

She laughed quietly against his chest, a sound full of exhaustion and affection.

Then, softer, almost to herself, "I think I'm happy."

Lando didn't say anything right away. He just turned his head and kissed her temple again, slow and sure, before whispering into her skin, "I know."

—

The morning had not been kind.

Amelia had thrown up twice before she even made it out of bed, once more in the sink when the smell of coffee drifted through the apartment. Her stomach had settled into that weird, hovering nausea, not quite sick, but never okay, and everything around her felt a little too much.

Too bright.

Too loud.

Too far from stillness.

The apartment was still full of half-unpacked boxes. One of them had exploded into a mess of packing peanuts by the bookshelf because Lando had tripped over it while trying to carry a lamp. That had made her laugh, for a moment. But now even that memory felt distant and staticky.

She hadn't eaten anything. Her body felt too heavy and too floaty at the same time.

So she wandered into the room off the living room and stood in the doorway, barefoot and still in one of Lando's shirts, staring at the swing.

The sensory swing hung from a reinforced hook in the ceiling, an enclosed hammock-style cocoon of soft dark grey fabric.

She hadn't used it yet.

But now... now she needed to be held by something.

Amelia walked over slowly, pulled the soft stretch of the fabric down, and climbed inside like she was folding herself into a shell. It wrapped around her shoulders, her hips, her knees. A full-body compression hug.

She let herself swing gently, letting the quiet motion do what words and plans and spreadsheets couldn't. The light filtered through the gauzy curtain. The outside world muffled. The only sound was her breathing.

Her eyes fluttered shut.

Her muscles finally, finally relaxed.

And then, maybe because the relief was so sharp in contrast to how awful she'd felt all morning, or maybe because everything just hit all at once, Amelia cried.

Just soft tears slipping down the sides of her face into the swing's fabric as her body unclenched. She didn't even try to stop them. Didn't need to understand them. Her hands cradled the soft swell of her lower belly as she rocked gently in the cocoon, the comfort so complete it almost hurt.

The motion, the weightlessness, the compression; it was like someone had pressed a reset button on her nervous system.

"I love you very much," she whispered, hand on her stomach, words falling into the soft dark of the swing. "Even if you are already making me throw up five times a day." She gave a little wet laugh. Then sniffled. Then rocked some more.

Eventually, Lando peeked his head around the doorframe.

He didn't say anything. He saw her there, bundled up like a sleepy moth, puffy-eyed and peaceful, and his whole expression softened.

"You good, baby?" He asked gently.

She nodded, still sniffling, half-smiling. "It works."

He smiled back. "Good" He walked over and pressed a kiss to the fabric where her shoulder must've been, still swaying. "Want toast when you come out?"

"Only if it's with the nice jam. The apricot one we got from the market last weekend."

"Anything you want. We're celebrating the swings debut, after all."

"Dramatic." She said.

"I know," he grinned.

And then he left her to swing, warm, wrapped up, and for the first time all day — completely okay.

February 2024

Amelia woke to the smell of espresso and something sweet (cinnamon, maybe) and the distinct sound of someone failing, very quietly, not to clatter around in the kitchen.

She blinked, groggy, and rolled over to find Lando's side of the bed empty. A sliver of warm morning light streamed in through the curtains. The apartment smelled like flowers and coffee and... possibly burning toast.

By the time she made it out of bed, hair a mess, t-shirt halfway sliding off one shoulder, she found him standing in front of the kitchen island, proudly staring at a tray of slightly overdone croissants, a half-burnt omelet, and a mug that said engineers do it with precision.

He turned the second he heard her. "Don't say anything," he warned, waving a spatula at her. "This is a labour of love."

"I can see that," she said, amused. "How's the toast?"

"Charcoal adjacent."

She padded over and leaned into his side, arms looping gently around his middle. "Morning."

Lando pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Happy birthday, baby."

He guided her over to the table, where a small stack of wrapped gifts sat beside her laptop — one of them unmistakably from Oscar if the cartoon scribble on the tag was anything to go by. Another looked suspiciously like it had been wrapped by Max's girlfriend Celeste, given the glittery ribbon and note that just said DO NOT OPEN NEAR ZAK.

"Did you do all this this morning?" Amelia asked, eyeing the slightly lopsided croissants.

"Well," he said, handing her the mug, "I tried to sneak out of bed early. But then you curled up in the blankets and made that sleepy sound you make and I lost, like, twenty minutes just watching you sleep."

Amelia sipped the coffee. Ugh. Decaf. "Weirdo."

"Your weirdo."

They sat together, eating what they could salvage of the breakfast. Lando gave her a small, leather-bound notebook for scribbling car notes (with custom embossing: A. Norris, Race Strategist / Best Mummy Ever). She rolled her eyes, but she didn't stop smiling.

Later, while she was cleaning up plates, he appeared behind her with one last gift, this one small and velvet. Her breath hitched when he opened it. A pendant: a tiny silver disk with a barely-there engraving.

A heartbeat. The one they'd seen on the ultrasound.

"I wanted you to have something that was just... for you," he said quietly.

She touched the charm gently, thumb brushing the engraving. "I love it," she said, voice slightly wobbly.

He kissed her temple again, arms wrapping around her. "I love you."

The rest of the day was full of small joys; visits from friends, a video call with her mom, cupcakes delivered from a café Oscar insisted was life-changing. Max and Celeste swung by with a gift bag full of baby-safe skincare and a framed photo of the four of them.

At one point, her dad had messaged her.

Happy birthday, kiddo. Love you so much. See you soon.

To which Amelia replied.

Love you too.

That night, after the guests had left and the candles had flickered low, Amelia found herself curled up in her sensory swing by the window, legs folded up under her, pendant resting in the middle of her collarbones. Lando lay on the sofa nearby, watching her with quiet contentment.

"I think this was one of my best birthdays," she said softly.

He smiled. "Even with the burnt toast?"

She nodded. "Especially with the burnt toast." And then, after a pause, "Next year, we'll have someone else around to help us celebrate."

Lando's eyes softened. "Next year," he echoed.

—

WhatsApp Groupchat — 2024 F1 Grid

George R.

Welcome to the 2024 rookies!

Oh wait.

LOL.

Nevermind

Lando N.

Someone get this man a rookie asap

Charles L.

Bro we are all still here 💀

Alex A.

Just the same 20 people trying not to crash into each other

Esteban O.

Consistency is key 😂

Oscar P.

George is out here welcoming imaginary friends

Carlos S.

Rookie of the year is the Ferrari catering team

Lewis H.

I vote my physio as rookie of the year tbh

Yuki T.

I still feel like a rookie emotionally 😮‍💨

Fernando A.

I feel younger every season 😎

George R.

Ok ok I made one mistake

I was being polite

What if someone snuck in overnight. Like a stealth rookie

Pierre G.

Bro this isn't among us

Max V.

Let him live he tried ✋

Lando N.

He tried and failed. Spectacularly

George R.

Blocked. All of you. I'm blocking all of you.

—

The main presentation hall at the MTC was cold, the hush of anticipation a physical thing. Staff, engineers, drivers, media teams, and execs milled around in soft clumps, all eyes drawn to the shrouded figure on the platform. Silver satin draped across carbon fibre; sleek, taut, and humming with promise.

Amelia stood off to one side, arms crossed over her chest, one foot tucked behind the other like she was bracing herself against something invisible.

It was familiar, this room. She'd stood in it a dozen times. But this time was different.

This was her car.

She heard footsteps and didn't have to look to know it was Lando. He came to stand beside her, hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers, gaze fixed on the covered car like it might move if he blinked.

"It looks like a spaceship," he murmured.

"It's as complex as one," she said simply.

He grinned. "I'm gonna drive a spaceship."

"You're going to win in it."

Her dad walked out onto the stage, some carefully crafted speech on hand, but Amelia barely registered it. Her ears rang with something heavier; a low, surging pressure that sat in her chest and refused to settle.

She heard her name, heard Zak referencing her as lead technical design engineer on the project, and the soft ripple of polite applause. She didn't move. Didn't blink.

When the cover was pulled back and the MCL38-AN was finally exposed under the lights. Lean, mean, shimmering with graphite and papaya — the room went reverently silent.

It was beautiful. Sharp and elegant and mean in all the right places.

And hers.

Her hands trembled slightly where they were folded. Lando noticed. He reached down, laced his fingers through hers without saying anything. She didn't look at him, but she held on.

Oscar appeared at her other side, chewing a protein bar. "It looks fast," he said through his mouthful.

"It is fast," Amelia replied, deadpan.

He nodded. "Good. I hate slow cars. Bad for my numbers."

Lando snorted. "Your numbers are fine."

"I want more numbers."

Amelia ignored them both. Her eyes were fixed on the low spoiler, the curve of the side-pod, the subtle detailing near the rear suspension she'd fought tooth and nail to implement — backed up by three sleepless weeks of CFD simulations and one argument with the floor design team that she'd very nearly won with sheer stubbornness alone.

"Do you want to go look at it up close?" Lando asked, gentle.

Amelia shook her head. "Not yet."

He didn't press. Just stayed beside her as people filtered forward. Cameras clicked. Flashbulbs strobed. Somewhere, someone asked Oscar to smile more. Zak was already doing a walk-around with Sky Sports.

But Amelia stayed back, hand in Lando's, watching as her car, her beautiful, terrifying, finely-tuned monster, greeted the world for the first time.

Finally, Lando leaned in, voice low against her ear. "I'm so proud of you."

Her mouth twitched, just a little. "I know," she said.

Then, after a beat, "I'm proud of me too."

—

There were two weeks until they were due to fly out to Bahrain for testing.

The smell of carbon composite and metal dust still clung to the air. Most of the lights had been dimmed in the engineering wing of the McLaren Technology Centre, but not in Bay 2. Bay 2 was lit up like a crime scene — bright, clinical, unrelenting.

And Amelia was pacing.

"You changed the front wing flow guide without flagging it to me." Her voice was flat, but her tone cut sharp enough to peel paint. "It's not a minor tweak. It alters the pressure delta across the entire front third of the car."

Across the table, three senior aero engineers; experienced, respected, and visibly nervous, stood their ground, albeit quietly. One of them, Benji, cleared his throat.

"We didn't go behind your back," he said carefully. "It was discussed at the Friday meeting—"

"I wasn't at the Friday meeting," she snapped. "I was with Oscar for simulator calibration. You knew that."

"We had to lock a version in for pre-season aero scanning," said another engineer, trying to be the reasonable one. "You were behind schedule finalising the nose cone parameters—"

"I was behind schedule," Amelia repeated, eyebrows arching dangerously, "because I was rewriting your cooling duct schema so it wouldn't explode in Bahrain."

Silence.

Lando stood quietly just inside the doorway, arms crossed, watching. He wasn't saying anything — yet. But his eyes never left Amelia.

"You've added drag," she said after a beat. "I ran the updated airflow map through CFD myself after I saw the render. It introduces wake turbulence at high yaw, and we already struggle with straight-line pace. You've made us slower on the straights to gain — what? Four points of front downforce?"

"Four points could help balance in the high-speed corners," Benji offered.

"At the expense of the entire overtaking window!" Amelia barked. "You want Lando and Oscar to defend for twenty laps in DRS zones with a car that drags like a parachute because you like the numbers it spits out on paper?"

Someone muttered something; too low to catch. Amelia's head snapped around like a hawk.

"Say it louder," she said. "You clearly thought it was clever enough the first time."

The engineer paled slightly. "I just said... maybe you're too attached to this design."

Lando stepped in before Amelia could respond.

"No, see, here's the thing," he said, tone deceptively easy. "You don't get to say that. Because her attachment? That's why this car is visibly better than last year's. She is the reason why we had the third-fastest chassis on average post-Zandvoort last year. Because she gives a shit. And if Amelia says it's wrong? Then it's wrong."

The room froze. One of the engineers swallowed hard.

Amelia, though, didn't say anything for a full five seconds. She just stood there, arms folded, staring down the table like she was willing the numbers to change.

Then, calmly, "You're reverting to the previous design."

"We can't. Not until—"

"I'll update the approval file myself," she continued. "I want the renders sent back through me. If you're going to make changes to a car with my name on it, you'll run it by me first. Not the group chat. Not Zak. Not the test team. Me."

Stillness.

Eventually, Benji nodded, his jaw tight. "Alright."

She left the bay without another word, her footfalls even, deliberate. Lando followed a few paces behind, catching up only once they hit the corridor.

"You didn't have to jump in," she muttered.

"I know," he said. "But I wanted to."

They reached the elevator. Amelia punched the call button too hard.

"They're not wrong," she said quietly, not looking at him. "I am too attached."

Lando nodded. "Yeah. And that's why you're the only one I trust with it."

—

The hum of the wind tunnel was a low, constant growl behind the soundproof glass. Screens lined the wall of the operations room, flooded with live data — airflow vectors, pressure maps, drag coefficients, temperatures.

Amelia sat perfectly still in the front row, staring at the monitor.

The numbers were wrong.

Not wildly, not catastrophically. Just... wrong enough.

Behind her, the aero lead, one of the few who hadn't been at the shouting match in the engineering bay days before, was going over test notes in a too-cheerful voice. "And that's run twelve with the revised front-wing guide and standard rear beam. A bit of turbulence in the crosswind scenario, but nothing unmanageable."

Amelia's fingers twitched against the armrest of her chair.

Zak stepped in beside her. "They've already locked the transport containers for Bahrain," he said in a low voice. "The old spec wouldn't make it through the scans in time."

"I know," Amelia said without looking at him.

"We'll revert before Melbourne," Zak added. "That's the plan."

"I know."

She said it again, like repetition might dull the edge.

Zak hesitated. "I get it. I do. But it's one race."

"It's the first race," Amelia said quietly. "It sets the baseline. The whole development curve starts from that data. Every upgrade, every refinement — it's all going to skew unless we compensate."

Zak didn't argue. He didn't need to. They both knew she was right.

But it didn't matter.

Because the parts were packed, the plane was leaving in 48 hours, and the wrong spec was going to touch asphalt in Bahrain.

She stood abruptly. The chair creaked as it slid back.

"Amelia," Zak said. "I know this is hard for you."

She turned, her voice clipped but steady. "It's not hard. It's inefficient."

And she left the room.

—

The lights were low. Her desk lamp cast a soft amber glow across a table full of design sheets and scribbled notes, crossed-out margins, red-circled flaws, annotations that no one else in the department could read but her.

Her iPad was open to the Bahrain track layout. She wasn't crying — not even close. But her jaw was clenched hard enough to ache. Her hands flexed, restless, unable to do anything.

She hated that feeling.

A soft knock came at the door.

"Go away," she said without looking.

It opened anyway.

Lando leaned in, holding two takeaway drinks. "I come bearing peace offering. Decaf vanilla chai for my beautiful, smart wife."

She didn't move.

"I know," he said gently. "It sucks."

"I'm not angry anymore," she said.

He gave her a look. "Don't lie to me, baby."

She finally looked up, and he crossed the room to set the drink beside her keyboard.

"I spent a year making it perfect," she murmured.

Lando touched her shoulder. "And it still will be."

Amelia looked back at her notes. "I hate being forced to let something go when I know I'm right," she said. "Just because I'm one person versus an entire team — and I know that it's not fair to expect them to just blindly trust everything I say, but it makes me so mad.'

"Okay," he whispered. "Time to go home, I think."

—

"Do you need six pairs of sunglasses?" Amelia asked, holding Lando's McLaren duffel open.

Lando didn't even look up from where he was rolling socks. "Yes."

"You only have two eyes."

"It's called fashion, baby."

She rolled her eyes and shoved the sunglasses back in, making sure the soft case separated the orange-tinted pair from the purple ones, because God forbid they get scratched.

Their bedroom looked like a tornado had touched down; open suitcases, half-folded clothes, a stack of electronics chargers that Amelia had labeled with colour-coded cable ties two seasons ago and still didn't trust Lando to keep organised.

Her own packing was... slower. More deliberate. She sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her own suitcase, a checklist open on her iPad and a faint, lingering wave of nausea rising every few minutes like a passive-aggressive tide.

"Are you sure you're okay to fly?" Lando asked for the third time that afternoon.

Amelia clicked her Apple Pencil against her teeth. "I'm pregnant, not ill."

"Still."

"I have packed ginger chews and compression socks."

He looked up. "You hate ginger chews."

"I also hate throwing up at 30,000 feet. Sometimes compromise is necessary."

He grinned. "That's very mature of you."

Amelia waved vaguely in the direction of the ensuite. "Can you grab the skincare bag? Not the one with my regular stuff — the one with the unscented moisturiser that doesn't make me gag."

"Yes, your highness."

She threw a sock at his head.

The packing process stalled every few minutes for various reasons: Amelia needed a snack; Lando forgot where he'd put his phone; Amelia remembered she hadn't downloaded the Bahrain telemetry files onto her personal iPad; Lando insisted on reorganising his racing gloves by colour.

Eventually, Amelia sat back with a soft groan, rubbing a hand over her belly. Not that there was much to feel yet, no bump, just the persistent hum of her body shifting quietly into something new.

She felt... heavy. But not in a bad way. Just full of lists, of responsibilities, of life. Literally.

"Hey," Lando said gently, crouching in front of her. "You okay?"

She nodded, slow. "Yeah. Just... tired. Everything feels like it takes twenty-percent more effort."

"You want to skip testing?"

Amelia narrowed her eyes. "Lando."

"I'm just saying—"

"No. Don't even suggest that. I need to be there for Oscar and I want to be there for the cars first proper run. I have to see how it holds up."

He smiled softly. "Just checking. That's my job now, remember? Worrying about you."

Amelia's expression softened. "I'm fine. I'm just slower than usual. I'll sit. I'll drink plenty of water."

Lando stood and offered her a hand, helping her up off the floor with the ease of long practice. They zipped the last suitcase together, and she stared at the organised chaos around them with a long, contemplative sigh.

"Think this baby is gonna like Bahrain?" She murmured.

He shrugged. "Hot. Loud. Feels like it's already genetically predisposed that baby is not going to have a good time."

She laughed, quietly, the sound curling in her throat.

They were flying out in the morning. Testing started two days after that. And in a few more weeks, the  2024 season would roar to life; full throttle, no mercy, no brakes.

But for now, there were just bags and chargers and familiar, cluttered rhythms. And them.

Just them.

For now.

[reclusive-raven]

Favorite color: I love blue, doesn't matter what shade

Currently reading: I've started the wings of fire series and I just finished book 5, I still need to get the rest of the series. Along with many Rottmnt fics,

Last song: Odysseus from Epic the musical, I've been listening the musical on repeat for months.

Last film: I don't watch movies that often but I think the last thing I watched Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie

Last series: TMNT 2012, I've been slowly working my way through the series with a friend

Sweet/salty/savory: Savory

Tea or coffee: This one is a hard choice, both are good in different ways, but I do drink coffee more

Working on: So many drawing and writing wips. I've been redesigning my sona and been working on a long Rottmnt fic. I wanna prewrite it before I post, but I keep changing the plot as I get better at writing.

I haven't done one of these before, so I hope you don't mind being tagged, sorry if you were already tagged by someone else @cursedcatchild @shaotie @melok-be @mizaryrottmnt @leonmyeon @cove-seeker @pickledcarrotsandradish @chil-aglia @bootyshakerrr9000

Nine People I Wish I Knew Better

i've never gotten tagged in these before, it's kinda exciting :D -> and so a very special thanks to: @rose-margaritas n @robyngoesrogue

Favorite Colour: green!!! or grey, or sage

Currently Reading: Like We're Gonna Die Young (Again) by RoseGanymede95 [go read it, it's amazing >:3c]

Last Song: E.T. by Katie Perry

Last Film: i don't really watch movies that often, so i couldn't say ^óWo^ |u u |__

Last Series: last one i watched all the way through was Étoile, and i'm currently debating watching Red, White, and Royal Blue :3

Sweet//Salty//Savory: i prefer more savory things, but my drinks are sweet enough to give ya cavities hehe

Tea or Coffee?: my sociology teacher told me that if i replaced all the coffee i drank with hard drugs i'd have a serious addiction problem

Working On: ooh... so much actually.. so so much. i've got a post-canon Étoile fic i've gotten like- halfway through [featuring jayenne AND gabias] a pokemon Étoile au [bc i love pokemon] a stobotnik fic i'm struggling with, two wbk fics, a link click fic i'm stuck on, QUITE a few polychampions fics, annnd a few more in the beginning stages of fleshing ;3

Tagging [i hope it's not a bother]: @sun-shine-lolli-pops @noteofjoy @technically-human @justcallmeemily @littlepocketuniverse @zephie-zee @candy-coated-eyes @notthemonthbutmarch @starguardianniom

[pranabefall]

⠀⠀THE BIRD HUNTER'S SONG.⠀jing yuan.

chapter one , is it in fear ( 11K ) . you move into a new house, a new place, a new home. but the old occupant and his sleepy eyed hunger, rattles you more than you'd care to admit.

tags. jing yuan x reader, slight yandere elements, hybrids au, lion hybrid jing yuan x bird hybrid reader, reader is very scrappy and has a history of biting, dehumanization and past mistreatment of hybrids, reader preens / plucks from anxiety, self destructive behaviour, references to predation and prey, depictions of violence, jy is lowkey an ass gg XD, violence and breakdowns, the reader is not daijobu ( again ). minors dni. this work has been marked mature.

notes. okay wow okay first chapter in XD and on my birthday no less. a huge HUGE thanks to @sleepynoons and @silentmoths for beta reading this chapter and adding their insight in ( and to you, moth, for the bird facts and sitting through my agony and near obsessive rambling bahahaha ). updates for this work will be slow to say the least and chapters may take time to draft out due to me being a full time college student. so please be patient! // series masterlist. ao3.

FEAR noun . uk  /fɪər/ us  /fɪr/ an unpleasant emotion or thought that you have when you are frightened or worried by something dangerous, painful, or bad that is happening or might happen. ( cambridge dictionary )

The human who takes you from the local shelter is a strange one.

Her diminutive stature is the first thing you notice about her. She flips past the documents and the faces staring back, a pair of young boys with rabbit ears turning away when she passes by with a hurried bounce to a walk. Her meticulousness is the second thing you notice, right down to the careful tuck of her hair and her well manicured nails.

Still, she doesn't feel small. Not with that determined set to her jaw and the scathing edges to her intonation. She doesn't feel small at all.

It takes a single look. A curt once over as you stand before her with awkwardly clasped hands, fumbling a little when the keeper beckons you forth impatiently and lets you hunch toe to toe with her. Your feathers bristle beneath the weighted gold in her gaze and she seemed to mark off every detail she could scrutinise out of you. It's suffocating, almost, the way it settles down so fast on your back.

"A bird." She notes your wings. "She's been clipped?"

"When she first arrived, yes." The keeper replies. "My old colleagues told me she had a habit of escaping often. It was a precaution, for the most part."

The woman's face warps for a fraction of a second.

"This one, then. What's your name, girl. I don't have time to dawdle."

You blurt it out as she sits you down on the ratty old couch ( under the spattered posters on the walls behind you — little words of encouragement and empty torn edges. What a waste of paper. ) and introduced herself as Fu Xuan.

"I have my reasons to take you in." She tells you as you shakily sign through the paperwork. There's the weight of a thousand eyes bearing down hard and prickling against the back of your neck. "But it's mostly for company — " She passes you a vacant look. " — not me of course. It's another hybrid under my care."

You still. "What kind?" You ask. Your mouth is dry — the question doesn't matter in the end. Fu Xuan was the first to take interest in you in months, and you can't push aside the hungry desperation in your gut. You don't want to keep smelling the stink of neglect ( it's looming closer and closer ).

She studies you again. "A lion." She replies slowly. A twisted, cold feeling claws at your throat. Your lips pressed together to block out the whimper. Now is not the time for it, you reason.

"Is…" ( …he dangerous? Will he hurt you? There's a reflexive moment, a glimpse of wild, unconfined imagery that jars — one where you witness your neck being snapped in half. )

"He's harmless." She assures you quickly. "The lazy bum sleeps most of the day. His reasons for staying are mostly to keep any unwanted guests out, and he's good at caring for himself at least…" the corner of her mouth twitches. For once, the neat veneer chips and flakes away, exasperation burrowing at her forehead.

Fu Xuan suddenly looks a little more human, and you suddenly look less out of place. Some part of you does quietly nod kindly, knowing that kind of settling sort of tire. You can vaguely hear another set of footsteps shuffle through.

"Now he's pestering me over feeling lonely." She finishes. The pen in her hand clicks when you hand it to her. It keeps clicking as her thumb jams against the button with a feverish fervour. "I suppose I owe him that much though."

Click click click click click.

You feel stripped down, under dressed, used in a way. You should have learned to live with it, that blunt dismissal and the sting it brings in with its bone deep sear. You're fluttery, fluttery and nervous and your fingers keep flexing and tapping against the meat of your arm.

Click click click click click.

"T-that's all?" You whisper. "Just…keep him company?"

"Just keep him company. You don't have to approach him really. In fact, stay away from him." She passes you a withering stare. You don't think it's you she's nauseated by. "He'll hack away at your sanity with that incorrigible attitude of his."

Click click click click click.

You start. something feels wrong. "I don't know if it will stay that way though — " you try to reason, picking it apart, choosing your words carefully. "I'm sorry…what I mean to say is — "

"He'll just spend a few moments staring at you. Maybe ruffle a few feathers." Fu Xuan's nose wrinkles as she sweeps her hand over her pencil skirt. She makes it look like a delicate matter, very poised and all. Then her gait straightens, waiting, watching.

You kick at your feet a bit, reading over the papers again. The words knit together into blotchy, incomprehensible nonsense. Bitterness weighs into your mouth, like mercury dripping down the film of your throat. It sears it down to parched acridity, and you try swallowing that lump back lest it starts to hurt. "And you only expect this from me? Nothing else?"

( It's not uncommon for some people to take in another hybrid. Loneliness can sag into one's teeth and eat you alive on the inside, wasting away at bones and marrow and feasting on a carcass. Sometimes that peters into intimacy. You know that's well out of your control.

But a lion. You don't like cats. Not really, beneath the leering hunger and claw tipped grasps. )

Fu Xuan shrugs. "You have a good track record. I do not see the harm." You start, the corner of your eye twitching against the flooding disbelief. That was a lie. That was a fucking lie.

( You glance over at the door. There's a shadow shifting from the cracks underneath, listening in — spectre-like and greedy. You guess there's a little more value in the money you'd bring in with Fu Xuan taking you in. It means getting rid of many, many things. )

You stare down at the papers. The ink of your signature has smudged a bit at the end, blotting to the edge and staining the side of your thumb. Your lips purse.

"It sounds good." You relent, passing her the papers. You could practically hear the nervous buzz breaking into your eardrums. It feels a little too easy, the whole affair and that seed of doubt digs fast into your guts. "I don't have much to argue against anyway."

Fu Xuan leans back. "Good." She sighs. "That's one problem solved."

You're handed the few belongings you had. A bag, a change of clothes and a couple of books — the last is a ratty stuffed toy ( a lamb with cream coloured wool and a soft pink nose. ). You'd had it since you were a child, well worn and well loved till patches of fur were missing and an eye had come a little loose.

( It's still yours though. It fills you up with that kind of buttery warmth you'd nearly forgotten through the years — worn into the days bleeding by and the aches that come with it. You love this, old, threadbare thing more than your chest and hollowed bones could handle.

It's yours in the most simple way of putting things; that breath of air, the lightness against your fingertips.

Yours alone. )

Fu Xuan doesn't say much when you enter her car and press up to the corner of her backseat. You count the pages in one of your notebooks and look over the scrappy doodles and your smudged writing against the corners. A few minutes into the drive, she peers at you through the rear view mirror.

"He always liked birds."

It's soft enough for it to fly past your head. But you hear it all the same, hunching your shoulders till you're half folded up against the backrest. The clipped edges of your wings chafing against the rough fabric of the seat.

It's a long drive. Long and plastered beneath the reflected heat from the windows and a swathe of silence that you or Fu Xuan don't bother filling the cracks of. There's sweat beading at your forehead and the persistent hum muttering behind you, somewhere in your ears. You nearly say something to pull any attention away from it but think otherwise, fatigue creeping into your muscles and etching into their fibres.

Your shoes are tucked away into a little rack when you arrive at Fu Xuan's house ( it's such a nice little place — whitewashed walls and well trimmed gardens — yet almost surgically bare at the same time ). She lets you patter around the entryway as she sifts through her purse, then gestures to one of the cupboards.

"There's a spare set of slippers in there." she points out.

"O-okay."

You do check. They're either a size too small where it painfully pinches at your toes or several sizes too big for you. A measure for each tenant ( none for you ) right down to the specifics. You grasp at the edge of the little closet, sweaty palms nearly slipping over the smoothed wood as you poke your head in a little deeper. Finally, you straighten with a white slipper in hand almost engulfing your wrist.

One for each tenant. The thought plays out. You swallow. You don't want to meet the other hybrid. That terrified part of you is kicking against the rattling bars, protesting a flurry of expletives at the suggestion, till its parched throat cracks and the metal shudders through the impact.

You'll make do though, comes the assurance with its insistent little whisper down the side of your neck. It leaves a trail of prickling coldness — an uncomfortable, lingering sort. You tell yourself to leave it be, and you repeat it with a tightness slowly building inside your gut.

Better this than there. Better this than there.

The larger pair is what you elect on, awkwardly shuffling behind Fu Xuan after you wear them ( you pray the shoes stay on and not, say, slip off and careen into the furniture. You don't think you could handle feeling the weight of stupidity paired with the nervous buzz in your blood ). Fu Xuan takes notice but says nothing. There's an amused angling to her chin, a show subtle enough to warm your cheeks to a blistering flush.

"I hope you don't mind." you try to say. It spills into a messy squeak. You shut yourself up before the squeak amasses into a messier flurry of nonsense.

Fu Xuan hums. "It's fine." she shrugs. "We have plenty to go around…"

A nod, another quick look around you. White walls, wood floors, all of it bare of dust or the clamminess in the shelters — and something else — a scent hangs in the air here, heavy and soft. Shampoo that doesn't quite smell like Fu Xuan and the faintest wisps of danger, danger, danger coming alight at the ends of your nerves.

"Jing Yuan?" she calls into the empty halls. A brief echo wafts through, stilling the air when its vestiges gently fade out against the wall. She waits a moment then clicks her tongue as the silence persists. You clench at your fists, waiting for the shift, for the dust to lift up, for heavy footfalls. "He's probably asleep." She huffs.

"Will you look for him?"

"I wouldn't bother." She grouses. "Finding him is hardly an issue…but the work put into waking him up? I will not put myself through that nonsense again. He'll only fall right back to sleep."

You're dizzy from nodding affirmations over and over, letting yourself ease into the cool draft the kitchen let in. "Can I have some water?" You ask.

"Yes."

You pour yourself a glass, nursing the rim with a pinch to your brow. Your bag is set down on the floor and you hear Fu Xuan's keypad type away furiously. It's something to break the monotony at least. You take a sip, then another and you're suddenly pouring yourself another glass and drinking that too.

You can't quite put your finger on it, the rush. The speckling of many blotchy feelings bruising your heart blue and red. They dig into it with a persistent grip, marking out planes of skin with their nails and fingertips. Perhaps you shouldn't have come here. The scent is getting a little more overwhelming with the passing time and —

— oh but you're hungry too. And you curse yourself for being this foolish, cowardly thing, for coveting that sliver of hope. You could be treated well here, right? You could be allowed a little more than a pittance before being shoved into the cold once more. It's a baited taunt and it dangles in front of your starved hands enough to scatter immediate thoughts of doubt and reasoning.

( It growls, it agrees, burying down in a dishevelled state of feathers and claws, cooing into the earth and tasting. )

You do not hear him enter the kitchen in the midst of your mulling. Not till silvery white tickles your cheek and you catch a flash of gold on the glass' surface. The scream is torn out before you could shove it back and you cant your body back against the counter, into disorientation, into stinging pain and —

A hand catches the falling glass and pulls you away. You're blinking up at him, dazed ( and a little achy ), watching the smile on his face broaden timed with the inquisitive arch of his brow. Then you grab at him, digging at his fingers and painfully prying each one free from the meat of your arm. A poisonous hiss squeezes through your head; you soften your actions, pull at his wrist.

The man narrows his eyes and thankfully, lets you go. You retreat to Fu Xuan's side, feathers stiffened and pinching into your neck.

The man does not stop smiling. He holds one hand up, sets the glass down and considers you, just as Fu Xuan did, molten gold searing into the making of your bones. Then you catch the ears, the tail, white like the fluff of his hair ( his hair, you want his hair. No, you shouldn't want his hair — shut up ). Your heart slowly picks back up, thrumming one moment and hammering against your ribs the next, scraping into an ugly, cold hollowness that grows.

"Fu Xuan, you never told me we had a guest."

Fu Xuan remains bemused, one hand resting on her hip while a finger prods straight at his stomach. "So you were awake? You certainly took your own sweet time." She snips, an accusatory weight layering in thick sheets and an undertone of bitter malt. Jing Yuan laughs, a chest deep, throaty thing that seeps into skin and bone and rattles you within.

If you were a little younger, you'd have considered him an unfairly pretty face. The type that leads you into the comforts of daydreams, where silly girlish crushes are indulged and you would giggle over your foolishness and fluster unobstructed.

You're older now, plucked clean of most of that sentiment — devoured essentially by wear and tear and the rising and falling of motions. Old instinct boils to a tipping point, deep, deep down where your lifeblood pumps and the crevices of some ancient whisper urges you to run.bits what had kept you alive a long time. It's the most trusted part of you, undoubtedly.

And yet, you do not run.

"There's no need to rush into things. Besides…" He pauses, flashing you his grin, keenly fringing his mouth and curling away to let his canines peek through. They're sharp, as you expected. "If I'd known we'd be entertaining new company then I would have made a better first impression."

It's the way he handles Fu Xuan with blase amusement that throws you off ( much like a cat toying with a ball of yarn ). Most humans liked the obedient types, hybrids who didn't complain or push buttons or pull away at the hems of people's patience like insistent little children. She must have far more tolerance to bullshit than you'd given her credit for; or at the very least, stranger tastes.

"Well you haven't bothered introducing yourself."

"That's true."

He sidles up close, bending just a smidge to take a proper look at your face. Your expression morphs to terror as easy as melting butter, scuttling back another step. His hand hovers right in front of you, right there as he politely tilts his head to meet your stare and the writhing, coiling panic you want him to see nothing of.

"Hello." He says, unbothered by the initial stake of fear. There's a set to his jaw, a light in his eyes that delights in it — leering behind a simple gentleness like every other predator stalking the grass. You feel sick. "It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Jing Yuan."

"…hi." You whisper, spouting your name out after a painful hitch burns at your throat. You feel like an idiot again but it's hard, under all this scrutiny, to act normal and turn away the cold in your body. The next couple of words are strained against the force you utter them with. "It's…it's nice to meet you too."

( You do not shake his hand. Jing Yuan smiles a little wider at that.

this — you realise, in all it's stubborn pride, was the first mistake you'd made. )

"She's staying with us." Fu Xuan is back on her phone, looking between the two of you a second too long. She weighs over something you can't read off of her. "Don't torment her too much, Jing Yuan. She's meant to keep you company given my usual absence."

"Oh please. I'm not a cruel man." He squints. "Though I'm quite certain I was joking about that whole ordeal…" You snap your head up at him just as he stands a little taller. "Ah, never mind that though. How about I help you settle in? Fu Xuan tends to be rather dismissive for the most part and I'm sure you'll need some help — no bullying involved of course." He adds when he notices Fu Xuan wrinkles her nose beside you. "No bullying at all."

You collect your bag and tuck it under an arm. "I'd uh…I'd appreciate that." You swallow.

His hand rests just above your wings, the edge of his palm just brushing against your feathers with a gentle press to it. You feel the ghosting of his claws through your shirt, the heat of his breath, the faint pound of his heart. That wailing, sinking weight in your chest tugs down further and further till your knees nearly give out and you're nearly split open.

Make do. Make do. You suck a breath in, letting Jing Yuan lead you down the hall. Make do, because you're a greedy, selfish thing and anything is better than the streets at night or the stink in the shelters. There's precious little kindness there and if you could feast on these scraps and the manufactured smell of paint and safety, you will feast on it.

What else, really, was left to feed on anyway?

( Jing Yuan's satisfaction is palpable in how he pats your head. )

Fu Xuan didn't lie about the birds. They flock to him as much as he calls for them, preening into the fluff of his hair and poking at the apples of his cheek. Jing Yuan obviously adored the birds in turn, letting them do as they please while his laughter wanes against the rustling of the curtains.

Two, three, four — you count five flocking in and about him stirring up a cacophony till they disperse after a warning shout at the other end of the house ( perhaps Fu Xuan doesn't like animals inside…you wonder what that would mean for you ). One of them focuses its wet, beady little eyes on you, then hops off of his shoulder to nestle over yours.

You hold little ire for it, especially the ones as small as this one. It stays on its perch, pressed into the warmth of your neck and the occasional gentle bat against your jaw. You're left listening to its soft little chirps through its process of preening its feathers, then yours. "Easy now," you whistle. "It's a lot of work. I can manage the rest."

Another chirp, chastising your seeming lack of care. "Sorry." you mutter. "You can come and visit me later."

The bird seems as pleased as a bird could get. It flutters back onto Jing Yuan's waiting palm, flapping its wings over his cheek as he holds it up to his face. You're falling taut, nearly surging over to grab it away, almost envisioning the crunch of bones and blood and remnants of feathers. He does not eat the bird. Not yet. It hisses. Not yet.

"They like you. All of them do." he lets it shift around his mouth and melt over his tongue.

"They think I'm like them." you reply, halting between a few utterances. "At least I think so."

"Are you?"

You purse your lips. "Of course not. Hybrids aren't animals." Jing Yuan doesn't interject and you wallow in what you'd just said. There's a special kind of torture when rationality is paired with instinct and unbidden emotion. You feel the consequence of it now, scratching at your skull and your eyes and mouth. You want to bite, break, work away at the world around you till cloth crumbles and wood indents between your teeth and no no no.

( There are times where the insistent nip sways past coherence. It's a sordid beast, and people never let it into their houses lest things break and shatter and your tongue is red-slicked and tastes of iron. )

"Of course," he whispers. "Of course we're not."

The weight in the air bears down even more. You roll your shoulders, his shadow falling over you when another window is passed. You can see the street outside, the neighbourhood in question. A couple lived across with a pair of children, barely above the age of six. "Come on now." Jing Yuan urges. "You can lounge about all you want after we're done with this, yeah?"

You bristle a little. "Okay." you repeat, sounding a little like a broken record. You haven't said much of anything to him. He doesn't seem to mind this either, his touch leading you along.

There is a glimpse of where the loneliness first took root and flowered. Jing Yuan navigates that negative space between the furniture easily enough, his larger frame hunching over while he keeps his tail curled close to him. You try not to step on it either. Cats hate that, hybrids or not.

But even with him filling out the gaps and masking the light filtering through the glass, you can't wipe away the emptiness of it all. Flat, like concrete, tasteless like cardboard. Fu Xuan had mentioned it. There's business to attend to, the bustle of a metropolis and the chatter in offices amongst countless other important human things. And Fu Xuan's home feels half there with her absences.

"Do you have any spare clothes?" he asks.

"I do…in here."

He pauses, boring sharp at your ratty bag. He's unconvinced.

"Do you have good clothes?"

"I can still use mine." you insist stubbornly. The most you really need is food and a place to stay. You'll sing your songs and look pretty if the need be — the kind of eye candy some eccentrics like putting up on their shelves or flaunting in little gatherings with wine flutes. But the generosity picked apart and handed out by most handlers never came without a price. There's always the expectation of something belied beneath good nature. Always.

Jing Yuan smiles, patient, expectant. For some reason that pisses you off even more. "We'll buy you some then." He reasons, finality cutting into his remark. "She won't let you walk about in hand me downs. Ha, she wouldn't let me walk about in any, either."

You grit your teeth, tear into your lips till the tip of your tongue tastes tang and iron. "I'll be okay." you mumbles, scuttling up to keep pace with his strides. "Seriously speaking, I don't need much — and I have most of what I need, see?" The bag is flashed again, right into his field of vision. Jing Yuan seems to be holding back a snort.

"And that's a lie." He hits back lighthearted. "But oh, if you insist. We can settle that for another date, hm?"

You don't have the will to argue any further. The fatigue from the car ride is slipping back in as the adrenaline wears off and your anxiety saps away as it always has. It pulls down at you. You want to take a nap now, curl up in some warm corner and rest out the day and worry little about lions and humans and new places.

Jing Yuan shows you what needs to be shown — the way round the place, the back garden and the tree-shade and all the other important details. There are a couple of spots that hold its personal touch, breaks away from the disconcerting absence of life. A few trinkets, a chess board in the cupboard, a couple of coffee mugs, the downy pillows pushed against a window.

( "For sunbathing." Jing Yuan had sighed with a rather matter of fact way of speaking. "Fu Xuan, unfortunately, is a bit of a spoilsport and keeps telling me to clear it out."

"Oh." you deliver with all the sympathy you could muster.

Jing Yuan's eyes gleam. "They key though, is putting all that work off. She lets it be after a few months of persistence and it's quite the convenience in my opinion." he laughs a little. "I make it up to her with her favourite tea when she is around. So step carefully if you plan on pulling a stunt like that, hm?"

You distinctly recall Fu Xuan's annoyance and the near constant migraine that plagued her. The source of it all shuts his eyes and grins, the shining, golden image of lethargic innocence. )

It matches what fleeting glimpses you see of his room when he shuts the door to it proper. "You can always visit." He offers.

That doesn't sit well with you either. It's that fear of a kind of devouring, of that delicate consideration piercing into your neck. Maybe you are being a little uptight. Maybe Jing Yuan is being polite and charming and sweet voiced to ease you into a new situation with genuine concern. Maybe you're too fundamentally beaten to really see an ounce of kindness for what it was, even as your gut gnaws and smarts for it.

( It's still possible for a fire to burn you, if you lay your frostbitten fingers too close. The kind of hurt that is wilfully ignored in favour of scouring the bowl clean. )

"…And your room." He continues, the white noise letting up. He pats at the door. "Settle in now. I'll get dinner ready for you and Fu Xuan. You must be hungry."

"Thank you."

He watches you from the doorway as you scope the space out, hiding your little treasures beneath the pillow and gathering the rest into the closet. You make sure it looks put together, feeling the fabric out with a shaky sigh till Jing Yuan snaps you out of your thoughts.

"Your sheep is cute." he begins. "They've been pulled out, right? I don't see them on the market anymore."

Your eyes snap to the pillow. Its ratty leg was sticking out. "What about it?" You question, stiffening when that heat drifts up your spine. He'd crossed the room at some point, leaning against the wall beside you. You hadn't even noticed. You don't see why he'd seem so interested in it though. Loved as it may be, the poor toy was barely held together by discoloured thread and your shaky sewing.

"How long have you had it?"

You grunt, your shoulders coming to rise and fall. "A long time." You don't know why you're entertaining him, but there's a conversational air in the way he speaks, tugging and tugging and tugging away at any inhibitions sealing tight what you keep close to your chest. It puts you off, how easily it spills out as the creak from the cupboard door grates at your ears and you lean against it after turning to face him slowly. "I was still young when I had it."

"Were you on the streets before this?" There's that look, that almost-smile curved at the corners of his lips. Your back presses into the hardwood and your heart beats a little too fast.

"Yes." You nod. You grip the steel handle behind you hard. He's just being friendly. Just being friendly. "I mean for a while…I've lived in a few places before…but…" You lick your lips. He might tell Fu Xuan, if she hadn't read your history already. A long list of scribbles and blotted ink, all of it a barely legible mess to consider yet all of it detailing a scathing review of…everything. The caretakers had made you read through every enunciated word till you'd nearly plucked your feathers clean off.

Jing Yuan jerks his head into a semblance of some affirmatory gesture. "I see." he says in a way that is a bit too aware for someone so large, sleepy and unassuming ( a pair of glowing dots in the dark, the throbbing in its chest, a heartbeat and the shift of the earth and dust as it pounces ). "Is this room to your liking?"

You don't have to think much over this one. "Yes." It is. The bed looks soft. So soft. And you could see the road outside with the gardens between. There's plenty of sunlight to let in and you could breathe a little easier and not have to gag at the sweat-ridden sheets and the unchanged blankets. This is good, and you know to be grateful. "Thank you."

"Tell that to Fu Xuan then." He chuckles. "I didn't quite expect her to indulge in my caterwauling. But I trust you'll be well cared for here. Just follow the rules, the important ones…she'll list them out after you rest. There's nothing you haven't heard already, I'm sure — stay on your best behaviour, make yourself useful. The usual demands"

You start. "I…I can do that…" you supply.

"Good. She's the type who likes a bit of productivity. Nothing too extreme, but do your share of the chores and she'll be fine. Heaven's forbid you try to make her take a break…" he says that last part aloud, half joking with that dismissive wave of his. "But she has given you a home to stay in, little one. I hope you know the weight of that, and the gratitude it comes with."

"Of course!" you sputter out, nodding vigorously up at him. "I won't do anything…I won't act up either!" You look to either side of you, letting the handle go. "Anything else?"

"That's all I can recall." Jing Yuan muses after thinking over it for a second. Another pat on the head, another half there smile. He holds himself a certain way, in on a joke he doesn't give away to the rest. You catch the shrinking presence of sandalwood scented into his sweater, his wrists. "I'll tell you anything else I do remember later."

"Thank you again."

His tail curls at the end. You assume the conversation is done and dusted. You want to lay down now, sleep off the tire and the heaviness before you drop down where you stand. You start towards the bed. Jing Yuan shuffles to the door, stops just as he turns the knob and hums.

"And another thing. Your wings."

You jump, tracing against the feathers you could reach. "Yes?"

"Nothing. They're quite pretty, that's all."

Your cheeks warm up. "Oh." Then. "…thank you…?"

Jing Yuan purrs, rumbling at his ribs, right to the eaves of his shoulders you'd assume. Then, he ducks out of the room, trailing into the somewheres with silent footsteps ( despite the stature he holds himself with ). You look back down and absently wonder why, of all things, he'd say that. You are wearing his slippers after all ( there's plenty of other things to notice about you ).

Said slippers were kicked aside. You're on the bed, curled into the mattress and smelling detergent in the sheets. Jasmine scented, subtle in its presenting statement. Your mind is a heavy, heavy weight and your hands work into stray feathers with fever till the odd ends don't stick out as much. You drift, thoughts sinking to splotchy colour and a screeching bird cry.

In your dreams, there are things that rip your feathers out. Long-fingered and claw tipped, biting your flesh and scooping through your insides. They make you count your viscera and the bloodied organs, one by one till it coalesces and clots and you start feeling faint ( your lungs and nose are clogged with red red red. You see it, taste it, cough it out, drown in it ). 

And with that final gasping breath in — you wake up, sweat drenched against your scalp and back and across your forehead. Your gums throb, and you nearly take the soft bits of your palm and the ends of your nails, dizzy, dizzy, dizzy. 

You're staring down at your blanket, heaving at your chest. The blue pattern is what you shift your focus on, threaded cotton sewn to shape little blooming flowers. It's something you'd picked out from the cupboards because it was cute, perhaps a nod to Fu Xuan’s soft spot for handmade articles and the like ( she collects them from time to time, hides them away in her cupboards with thrifted memorabilia that you aren’t to see or touch ). You trace at it, shove whatever parts of you that could still think down, like some grounding post till the light headed terror seeps out and the chilling dryness in your throat is swallowed back.

Your fingers sift at your feathers. It's a mechanical shift, lining back the bent corners and messy ends till you look a little groomed. You ache a bit, missing another touch. The gentle pressure, your mother's faint song, the coolness of metal to your cheek.

( It brings to the surface, a thing you don't want to see. You choke on your wail and wipe your eyes until it's gone. Your voice is strained now, your teeth worrying into skin and the tip of your tongue. The taste of iron and the searing pain wakes you a second time.

You need a brush. One of your prior handlers had one. A brush would be nice. )

It's morning now. A bit too early but you spare yourself the expense of going back to bed. After that, staying awake seems a little more merciful. You bunch your legs up and peer through the window, pressing your hands against the sill till your knees edge against lurching numbness. Then you pad to the bathroom.

It's been a few days — hardly a week. You are…okay. Okay is the closest you could describe it. Okay is good, in your standards. Okay means you're getting by and things are fine and you don't have to worry about eating into yourself with that growing pit in your stomach. Okay meant a lie, a well dressed one and you can accept that meager offer and turn everything else off in the face of that upheaval.

The water trickles. You dunk your head till your hands and face are wet, till the ends of your hair are damp and dripping. The tap is turned. You watch the last of it drain out with a noisy, scraping sound that hurts your ears a little and shudders through meat and bones. That feeling hasn't subsided yet — that shrill part of you that wants to break and break and break. Even the spout, all clean and shiny metal only sought some unspeakable ire.

( The stirring scares you. You don’t like where it’s going. You don’t like how it’s waves rock against your hull and shunt you to disequilibrium. )

You twitch, biting into your cheek. The sting has you jump a bit, press your fingertips into the cool surface of the sink and focus on your dazed expression in the mirror. You peer back, watered down of everything with the nerves lingering under your skin ( parasitic, crawling ). A splotch of phantom pain persists, an emptiness from the sight of your guts torn apart. You feel sick.

Deep breath in. Out. In. Out.

The restlessness is purged. You step back. You're okay, you tell yourself. The obsessive tugging against your plumage leaves a smarting wake.

Fu Xuan is usually the first to rise in your household. 

You follow suit a few minutes after, shuffling over the cold tiles and manning the stove. She sits herself down at the table and peers at her newspaper, a pen tapping at the sudoku with a wrinkled nose. Sometime after, Jing Yuan would come join the two of you and set to prepare breakfast — sleepy eyed and sly mouthed while he makes his usual small talk and pushes her buttons over your tense silence.

For now, you make her tea as the quiet in the kitchen remains empty static and the muffled noise out back. Jing Yuan had told you how she liked it on your second morning here amidst his bustle, half asleep ( you weren’t opposed to learning the ropes. Maybe the chores assured you an extent of control, a chance to tweak at the finer details, a footing you could set yourself on, a part of anything you could use to stay a little longer for once ). 

Fu Xuan is busy, busy, busy and in what Jing Yuan calls ‘an unnecessary rush’. It’s the meetings the clipping of her footsteps takes her to, clients to see, cases to parse over and loopholes to push at. There's something about standing in place, surrounded by the chatter of people at their worst. You’re not surprised she comes home at the end of the day ; half dead against the couch, with the feel of her head cracked open and the matter inside crushed in.

“I need to start early today.” She speaks up. “Let Jing Yuan know that I’ll be passing over breakfast.”

“I don’t think he’ll approve.” you start, as the water starts to boil.

Fu Xuan looks over at the clock. Her back bows in urgency, impatient pattering bouncing off of the wood table top. “He won’t.” She agrees slowly, the newspaper crumpling over the edge of the table. She massages her forehead. “But I’m afraid this one’s an urgent case. He can drop lunch over at my office if he insists on it.” 

You sift through the blends and pick out her favorite ( ginger, you had clocked in back then as Jing Yuan had handed you some of the jars to smell. The kind good for migraines ). She likes her drinks sweet, sweetened to a point where it’s more syrup than spice. You’d made the mistake at sneaking a taste in and reeling away from the unpleasant settling in your mouth. Too much, you’d decide, even for you and some part questions the health risks that come with an intake this saturated.

“Is it ready?” Fu Xuan pipes up.

You shake your head. “It still needs to steep.” 

“Alright.”

She’s going to be diabetic at this point, you fret a little. If she isn’t already. Your indignation must have shown when you were stirring all that sugar in — she almost smiled over at you. “Is there anything you’ve been wanting to do? Any hobbies?”

“Not really.” you admit, playing with your sleeves. Hobbies…hm hobbies. You try to think of a few, your memories uneven in how childish abstracts wedge together under squiggly, crayoned lines and colours. “It’s been a long time since I tried anything, if…ah — ” part of the water sizzles against the side. You jerk your hand back before a spurt burns you. “ — I am being honest.”

Fu Xuan makes a sound. She doesn’t believe you. “It’s a big house.” she asserts curtly. “You can’t stare at a wall all day.” 

“I’ll just do the chores.” you hastily add in, your grin tight at the corners. She raises a brow, taking a sip. You fight the urge to hurl, envisioning that syrupy consistency running down your throat. “I…I’m not bad at it.” Fu Xuan likes productivity. It’s in her rules. She won’t find fault here.

“Chores.” She echoes. “If I'd heard that out of Jing Yuan's mouth…” She utters an afterthought. You don’t catch it in its entirety while her cup is drained and set aside. 

“Will you be heading out?”

“Yes.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s only your…fifth? Day here. Try to get some tea ready for the two of you. He will still make breakfast if you’re hungry.” Your stomach rumbles. “Don’t bother lying to him.” She cuts in before you could deny that fact. “If he cared for any matter of opinion, he’d have been a far more agreeable housemate, I think.”

You blink. “I…I hope I’m not overstepping but…why keep him around then.”

Fu Xuan thinks it over and shakes her head, disgruntled. “Cats will be cats. I don’t hate him so I don’t see why. He’ll probably die if I do, given his laziness.” And that is that. You hover and fret by the doorway, watching her car back away from the garage and roll down the driveway. A part of you jolts at the sight of the open gate, a voice singing into a muddled choir, urging your legs to run.

Your hands slip from the wood frame. You take a deep breath in. You smell the grass and flowers and a lilting note almost beckoning you…

“Good morning.” Jing Yuan pipes up behind you. His smile is fanged, deliberately schooled. You want to shrink in, disappear into the drumming of your heart and the rasp of your breath. He seems to scrutinize you, gaze flicking between your feet and the door and the gate beyond, a calculative step set forth. You scramble back, instinct drowning, compelling you under some masochistic spell to yank at your feathers.

You are cornered. 

The shadow blocks the sun out. His scent settles fast and heavy and you wheeze, open mouthed, ready to sputter out an apology just as the door creaks shut. The pleasant butteriness melts into his smile when he pulls away, the feeling nearly smeeing manufactured after that initial glacial run in ( it was the makings of an electric storm. The prickle of static against your lungs and the sinking heat ). “Sorry about that. Can’t keep the door open…extra precautions and all.”

He says it so easily. You nod, your lip starting to wobble. 

“Hungry?” he offers. 

“Yeah…” you strain. “Yeah, I am…” Jing Yuan is pleased. I wasn’t going to run — it doesn’t make sense, anyway. You try to tell him, perhaps afraid of any mounting acrimony ( that’s a fire you need to put out now, now, now ). Your throat closes up and you’re left to follow behind him. 

“Fu Xuan left?”

Your thoughts flatine. “Huh?”

Jing Yuan blinks, drawing the silence out. You shift on your feet, face growing hot. “Fu Xuan.” he repeats, rather genially all things considered, pausing to lean against the counter. “Has she left?”

“Yes.”

He sighs and turns his back to you. “Foolish girl hasn’t eaten, has she?”

“She had tea.”

“Just tea?”

You guiltily stare at your feet. “Just tea.” You echo your affirmation. The throbbing in your chest starts, growing worse and worse and worse, twisting into a cold gutting thing that crawls into your stomach. It’s such a childish need, this urge to slip away and hide. You wish you’d grown out of it. “She said you could drop lunch off at her office later.”

Jing Yuan hums. “I’ll do that then.” There’s the grazing of metal against ceramic. You wince at the high ring in your ears. “Would you like to help?”

“I can.” You nod. Your last few handlers were from different places and the first few, who had bothered to teach you a thing or two, liked spice in their food. There was an older lady who had taken you in after you were separated from your mother, who’d gently guided your little hands over the counter top. She’d talk about her children — they had grown and left the nest when she’d brought you home. 

You know how to cook. It’s the barebones and you hardly remember the recipes taught to you between the different households and kitchens and vessels you’d come to navigate. It’s scratched away from the annals of your mind, like waterlogged tape or whitened out bits of film. It's a part of you that kept being erased and redone over and over.

Jing Yun left you with the batter after walking you through the steps. You manage just fine with those, handing him the bowl when you’re done folding everything in. He lets out a pleased sound, a rather disarming grin flashing just at the corner of your sight. Your face burns again. 

“Have you eaten pancakes before?” he asks after a while.

“Once.” you reply, racking your memory. “It was for a reward. One of my handlers had a kid a few years younger than me. He’d scored well in his tests.” You pass him a wobbly sort of smile. “So they had a nice breakfast the morning after and treated him to this…it tasted good.”

Jing Yuan laughs. “Fu Xuan was the one who introduced me to the recipe when I first moved in.” He admits, flipping one over as he speaks. You find a softer shine in his gaze. The sharpness and gilded disconnect seem an implausible memory in a moment like this ( you almost fall into it, lean just a little closer. The writhing thing that they call instinct throws itself at the bars and draws you away with the iron’s rattle. ). “I think you’ll like these…granted she made her’s a bit too sweet for my liking.” Another laugh. There’s a divot at the corner of his mouth. “I take it you’re the same, then. So no sugar…there’s fruit in the fridge if you’d like some though.”

“Right.” You scramble. Sandalwood fades out, then back in as you scuttle back, handing him the frozen blueberries you salvaged from the back. Your fingertips are wet against the thinner layers of frost coagulating at the edges and sides and you set it down quickly when your hand starts to numb. The end of his tail curls. You can taste his approval at the back of your mouth.

You still don’t know what to talk about. Jing Yuan still scares you at times, when the weight of his gaze suffocates you. He still scares you when the walls are suffused with sandalwood and balm ( he’s lived here a while. Of course it would ). He still scares you, because he could rip you apart with little struggle, tear your throat open, snap a bone in half. There’s pleasure to be felt in indulgence, in blood. It sparks that itch in your teeth, a persistent urge to gnaw, gnaw, gnaw. 

You turn away to pad and press at your molars. They’re brittle, hard. The ache starts. Your shoulders hunch. The nausea churns for the second time today. 

Fuck this. Your eyes start to water. You don’t feel all that hungry anymore.

You eat breakfast anyway. It was hard, forcing it down into the empty space of your stomach. Jing yuan watches, contemplative, and you struggle to bear it. You can’t handle more staring, or the ghost of pity submerged deep down somewhere. “I’m going to the garden.” you tell him, leaving little time for questions to follow.

The garden out back is a well kept space, a little bare bones and mostly surviving off of potted plants. The flowerbeds are bare land and dry earth. You wonder if a shrub or two would do it good while you watch a bird swoop by overhead once, twice, thrice. You shift a bit, quite unsure of what to make of it as another joins it, then another and another and a flock comes to form paired with raucous chirping.

“Please just leave me alone.” you snap.

They do not. One by one they flutter after you as you navigate the grass and your tongue kisses your teeth. Your mind feels jumbled, your thoughts melting past your eyeballs. You turn. The birds scatter, then converge once more. “Leave.” you assert rather sullenly. “I’ll feed you later if that's what you want.” 

There’s no response. “You don’t want food?” you ask.

It’s a flurry of wingbeats, of feathers. You’re seized with a murky sort of ugliness. It roves at your insides, it slathers on the floor. Envy is a green eyed thing, a little malicious, a little pathetic in its leering. Still, you can’t just grab at the birds, or break their wings ( it makes you feel unseeable, monstrous, wrong ), and you tell yourself it is what it is.

You sit yourself down on the grass. The earth smells fresh. You can feel the dew against your palms. Your fingers slide over your flight feathers, over the missing rows and the scarred tissue outlining an unclean cut. Your wings twitch. It still prickles there, the feel ebbing out as you let it be and focus on the rest. Your nightmare induced sleep tussled a few bits you still couldn’t reach, nothing that couldn’t be fixed. 

The birds start to chatter. A few swoop past, to the footsteps on the patio. Jing Yuan silences the boisterous gathering with a short sigh and a throaty chuckle. It’s a deep, languid thing and he holds a finger out for one, letting it land blithely and pull at his turtleneck sleeve. “Good morning. Have you been treating our new friend well?” he asks. One lets out a disgruntled chirp. You could just make out the tattling edge to it and roll your eyes. Jing Yuan simply lets out a serene, “Ah, I see, I see.”

The footsteps grow closer. You flinch.

“Preening?” he enquires, attention drawn to the bird on his wrist for a moment. It settles back on you post wrestling his hem from its beak.

“Yes.”

He watches you rather intently. 

“Do you need help?”

The thought of someone touching your wings dries your throat. You shake your head. “No thanks.” Jing Yuan, thankfully, does not push any further. You nudge your wings, letting them flap weakly against the earth; it barely stirs up a notable drought. The grass doesn’t even move that much. The birds that stayed circle you, alighting on your shoulder to peer with with their black-dew eyes, tweet and peer a little longer.

You tend to your other wing. Jing Yuan does not move, and his presence starts to grate at the underbelly more and more. “Do you need something?” you ask. 

“The garden.” he nods. “I’ll need to tend to it soon. Could you help with the watering?”

You consider it. “I guess.” You huff, if it means sending him off sooner. “I’ve not done much tending before.”

Jing Yuan’s lips quirk. “It can be taught,” he says, a half tease edging the end of that sentence. “As long as you’re an eager student.”

He doesn’t move. You turn a little and survey him. He’s seated on the verandah, birds at his feet. Traitors, a part of you hisses. You dig into your feathers a bit too hard and the distressed chirping on your shoulder snaps you out of it. “Don’t judge me.” you mutter. “I don’t see why you’re so fond of him when he can just eat you.”

“That’s just offensive.” he laughs. “They’re too small to be that good of a meal anyway.”

“So you’ll eat the bigger ones then?”

He chuffs. “Maybe.”

You shouldn’t think too much of it. He’s poking away at you, maybe making a joke or two ( and a few unnecessary rags ) to fill in the silence that normally slides and settles. It’s natural, it’s to be expected. This is what normal people do and say and talk about. You need him to look anywhere else but here though; and that thought drives itself deep while you smoothen the pads of your thumb over your coverts, working away primary to medial, just as you were taught. 

You really need a brush. Maybe some conditioner to make the cleaning easier. Your hands can barely work away so much out of it. 

Jing Yuan’s eyes haven’t metered off to another source of interest in the garden. Even the feathered bodies tweeting for his attention can’t tear it away. Your nape burns beneath it. You might just melt and sift into the earth and settle over bedrock. He possibly doesn’t understand the reason for discomfort, or the breaching of something horrifically private all in all. Preening is normal to see in passing but under a level of scrutiny like this?

( You don’t know how to tell him it’s violating. )

Creep. You think, just as that voracity starts to uncover instinctive terror. It’s the easiest thing to think about, to focus on. It’s better than opening your damn mouth. Creep, creep, creep.

“You could get the supplies in.” you call out. “I’m almost done.”

Jing Yuan stands. The birds scatter. “Are you?” he mumbles. “Alright. Don’t run off.”

Don’t run off. You tense, you stay rooted. You let your wing go, shakily standing back up and dusting the grass off of your clothes. A proper bath was in order after this. A proper bath, a proper preening out of sight. Jing Yuan returns, hands you a watering can — “The tap is just past those bushes.” he advises while he pulls his gloves on and stifles a yawn. 

You water while he weeds, stepping in time after him. Not too much for some, just a little more for others. Jing Yuan is a good teacher there, motioning to the sunned out plots. “It’s warmer out these days. Most of the water over there might evaporate so give those parts a bit more.”

“Right.” you nod, chewing the inside of your cheek. “And these ones?”

“These ones are hardier. The pothos on the patio won’t need much either. There isn’t a lot that could bother a plant like that — I've gone a few days without watering it to be fair.” You turn to the overhanging mass of vines. It seems as happy as a plant could be. “Still tense?” he jokes. The shine in his eyes seemed brighter. It’s light out, it’s probably just that — the sun in his irises, trapped and squirming. 

You swallow. “I…I guess.”

Jing Yuan squints. “I won’t eat you, if that’s what you’re afraid of.” he ends it with a short laugh. You don’t find it funny. 

“I know.” you mumble, tipping the can forward. Some of the water drips at the edge of your sandals. You still, moving your grasp against the handle till you have a proper hold of it. Jing Yuan doesn’t say much. You wish it stays that way. You know it won’t. His tail is curling, and you guess he’s picking his next few sentences.

The earth upturns a bit. He nurses a small shoot back in place, gloves staining brown at the indents of his nails. “Is your room to your liking?”.

“It is.”

“That’s good.”

Is that all? You’re a little puzzled; the sudden shift in conversation isn’t unwelcome but Jing Yuan stays with his heavy silence. The earth upturns, the weeds come loose. You commend the efficiency ( he seems to have spent a long, long time doing this ). 

“I noticed the other day…” there’s a lull to his voice, deep, thoughtful, sparse in its flourishing or humour. “Your wings are clipped, correct? A bit too deep, I’d guess, given the look of it.” Gold flits past your eyes, your cheek, the column of your neck and the curve of your shoulder. It’s on your wings now, tucked up close against your back.

You open your mouth. A single, strangled sound escapes. You close it.

“It is.” you swallow. You don’t think you want to pry his head open, to reach into his thoughts. You don’t want to see them. 

Jing Yuan’s lips ease into a straight, solemn line. “I’ve seen a few with clipped wings before. Usually it’s from doting handlers. The ones who are afraid of a runaway bird and take a measure or two that border on questionable.” It’s punctuated with an exhale. You grapple at the ambience immersing itself over the line of your backs. Jing Yuan suddenly feels bigger than you’d like; a looming face, a swinging warning, the loose axe on a wall. You’re imagining it, you whisper. It comes off as a scream in your mind. It’s a desperate, quaking, teary eyed thing.

“Others tend to be a little more intentional. There’s none of that panic that induces a cut too deep — just impatience and built frustration one could say. Maybe even an inherent cruelty.” he finishes. Your knuckles ache into the vice-like clutch you have the can in. “Do you have a penchant for running away, little one?”

You square your shoulders. “It’s none of your business.”

“I’m simply relaying the report.” Jing Yuan shrugs, the humour returning just a smidge. You still don’t think it’s funny. He knows. Fu Xuan knows. You were a little stupid to believe otherwise, and in a way, you should have expected it. They know, they know, they know. It’s fine. There’s nothing to it. You’re not falling apart on the inside. You’re not struck down and doubling into yourself like a scared, helpless idiot. You will tell yourself this lie over and over if you must.. “According to Fu Xuan, there was a bit of history there.”

You won’t run now. You won’t.

( You can’t. )

“History.” you repeat wearily and in ways it tugs at your bones. You can’t equate this to friendly conversation. You have an urge to rearrange your guts, to tear your feathers out. You have an urge to see the bare skin and crescents of blood underneath — it gnaws and shudders and bites and scathes and grazes and breathes at your hands. Your forehead is damp. 

“Why are you asking me this?” you ask, swallowing back that lump growing at the back of your mouth. An acrid taste settles down, rotting at the insides, at your core. Jing Yuan casts a cursory glance your way and smiles. It’s sympathy dripping at the seams. It’s molasses and syrup and the too sweet things that make your insides churn.

“Are you scared?” he reworks that question again. You’re caught and pinned down by that stare, sweaty palmed and breathless. He clicks his tongue. “It’s just been the both of us — Fu Xuan and I. Trouble in this house…ah it’s an unnecessary bit of distraction I’d want to avoid. There’s plenty of other things I'd rather alleviate my boredom with…”

You’re stretched taut. “I won’t run.” you warble. “You…you can trust me on that. I won’t run away. Not again.”

You think it's a fruitless attempt. Your memories shutter — Fu Xuan's departure comes to mind, and the lulling call that followed. Fu Xuan's departure comes to mind ( and you realise you're alone with him. All alone. ).

He pulls his gloves free. They sit in with the rest of the weeds while he dust his hands down. “You won’t?” he challenges, he must be challenging you. Your heart jumps as the sting in your eyes starts to hurt. “You have a habit of taking off at odd hours, at least according to your old handlers.” 

You don’t know half of it. That ugly part of you hisses as that urge to spring back, to scramble away and bury yourself into some dark crevice starts to grow louder and louder. You do not leave. You plant your feet down, stock still and stiff as a board ( and you feel pathetic when your throat tightens as he smiles in amusement — a burning inlaid with something so childishly angry ). You feign your indifference; it’s a messy mask cobbled together with see through seams and a chipped facade. You’re not fooling anyone with that. 

“I didn’t want to.” You mumble. “I tried but — ” It’s easier to run, you think. It’s easier to run and hide and squirrel away last bits of hope you had left when that suffocating anger in their eyes pile and pile and pile. 

Your lips sting under the dig of your teeth. The can tips. You think about drowning the plant, setting the water loose, tearing his garden apart to spite him in some way and let him seethe and hurt. You do none of that ( it’s not the welcome kind of anger, the acceptable kind ). “I’ve tried.” you echo, every syllable weighing down and clinging to the skin of your tongue. It’s a miserable, pathetic attempt at saving anything.

“I don’t deny that.” Jing Yuan tilts his head. “But I’m sure you know that hybrids with a streak of bad behaviour usually end up dead.” he relays gently. You are not placated. “We live in a world where your perspective of it all hardly matters in the face of it."

"I'm not stupid." you bare your teeth. You've rum, yes, but that was all to it. You'd run, you'd be caught, you'd be brought back cowed and broken and the cycle would continue as the faces changed and the houses changed. You would run and run and run, but never hurt. You've never hurt someone. Even when the tugging turned insistent and the hands were less kind.

( You'd stayed in a few. You'd stayed for them, when you'd linger on for a bit more fondness and affection. You were starved for it. )

You tell him so. It's half spat, just as that tumult starts to swell and blister and churn at your chest with cold, cold discomfort. He hardly flinches against it. You aren’t much of a threat to him. You know it. So does he.

The amusement in his stance is a palpable thing. Jing Yuan seems to have plenty to say, but it stiffens to a serious drawl, just as he hikes a knee up and languidly rests his arm across it. "I don't doubt that." He agrees. "However, Fu Xuan only just saved you from being put down. Perhaps you’re lucky that the man at the shelter cared more for a full wallet than protocol.”

You flinch. There’s a part of you that fractures at the surface. A deep cut in your mouth. the stern set to his jaw softens. You only hear one thing. “I was going to die?” you ask. Your voice is soft, a cut off whisper. You were going to die. You were going to die. You were sitting there in that line up waiting for it to take your breath and weaken your muscles. 

“You were.” Jing Yuan nods. 

“Oh.” you choke. It caves in. 

( None of the birds come close to you. )

You hold your can hard enough for the metal to dig and hurt. Jing Yuan’s head bows a bit when the blood starts to show and you sniffle. “I wasn’t going to run” you insist and it’s this strained, desperate creature pulling your teeth and lungs. “I wasn’t.” And you can’t have him say anything about it ( the instance at the doorway starts to haunt you ). It was a glimpse outside, a momentary lapse. But you can’t screw this up. Not with the knife at your throat. 

He nods. “Alright.” he assures you, and it weighs down. His smile feels wrong. You shake your head, cleaved in half, numbed at your fingertips.

“I wasn’t.” you repeat, feverishly. The can slips. You want to cave into yourself, to disappear elsewhere. You want to rip into your chest and give until your bones and flesh rot. Your breaths are laboured, painful. There’s a paced interval, a pain in your wings, the scatter of feathers. You want to cleanse yourself, to tear the nausea out.

You’re tugged to the house, struggling to keep pace as the tears come so easy. His scent, you had feverishly taken in, not all there with your thoughts. The place is steeped in it, layered and layered with newer rubbings that can never wash off. Jing Yuan had lived here a long time and ingrained himself down into the very plaster, the foundations, Fu Xuan herself. You jerk away from it. He steadies you, the world spinning as you’re turned. 

Jing Yuan sits you down on the sofa. You curl, curl in smaller and smaller and wail. He does not touch you, lowering his voice to a soothing pitch. You scream. You almost claw your eyes out as they burn against the tears. You almost ruptured through the cavity of your trunk to silence the deafening drum of your heartbeat. You don’t think you'd have tasted something so violent, rooting itself through the sickened spread of mycelium pressed under stink and rot. You didn’t think you had it settled inside at all to begin with. 

"Calm down." there was a weight over your head, his whisper, something pulling over your shoulders. It smells of detergent, of a fresh wash and you bury yourself into the cotton-wool sheet. "You poor thing. Deep breathes in now." 

It shakes you more than you want to admit with the coming of new weariness, that you were a bit too far gone for this sort of care at all. And he bears it, his arm mangled below the wrist and you let go, horror seeping in as the light makes its slow paced return.

He smiles at you. There’s patience there, warm at the corners, still so hungry. ( But you’re too tired to struggle out of the maw. You stay inside and hope he won’t bite. )

It hurts you more than it should.

TAGLIST ノ join the taglist. — @silentmoths @meimeimeirin @sleepynoons @endursent.

@jessamine-rose @ofoceansandtombsanew @thatkawaiidesubitch @afterdarkwithkaeya.

@pomegranate-eater @mihyas-dieehefrau @minnnuuuuu @koipudding

@koiukiy-o

[buckybarnesluvr]

✝️Part II: Confession

Part 1

A Matt Murdock smut series where his only salvation is you

//Pairing// Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader

//Summary// Matt goes to “repent” for what he did to you in the basement.

//Word Count// ~1.6k

//Warnings// confession kink, fingering, religious guilt, light edging, whispered dirty talk, power imbalance (consensual), priest kink implications, extreme Catholic guilt vibes

The Church was empty.

You sat quietly in the last pew, watching the candlelight flicker along the walls, waiting for him to show. You’d felt it earlier—something dark vibrating beneath his skin after what happened in the basement. He left without a word.

Now it was after midnight. And he was here.

You didn’t see him enter, but you felt him. The silence shifted. The air thickened. Your breath caught when the curtain to the confessional booth rustled.

He slipped in. Red suit. Mask still on. Bruised and burning.

You waited only a beat before rising and slipping into the other side of the booth.

“I shouldn't be here,” he said, voice low, wrecked. “Not like this.”

“You came anyway.”

Silence.

“I came to confess.”

You swallowed, pulse spiking. “Go on.”

“I sinned,” he rasped. “With you. In His house. And I liked it.”

You bit your lip, heart pounding.

He continued, slower. “I fucked you like you were mine. I filled you. Marked you. I wanted to leave something inside you that couldn’t be washed away even by holy water.”

You were already wet—sitting in a sacred place, his voice doing things to your body that no prayer could undo.

“Matt—”

He cut you off. “Don’t say my name. Not here.”

You exhaled shakily. “Then what do I call you?”

His gloved hand slipped through the partition between you, fingers brushing your knee.

“Say Father.”

Your hips bucked at the word.

You leaned into the wood. “Forgive me, Father. For wanting it all over again.”

He groaned.

“You shouldn’t,” he whispered, fingers tracing up your thigh under your dress. “But you do. You want to be used right here. Right now.”

“Do it.”

The click of his glove being removed made your breath hitch. And then his bare fingers were between your legs, sliding under your panties, already soaked.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “You came into His house like this? Dripping? Waiting for me?”

You whimpered as one finger slid inside you, slow and deep.

“Tell me your sins,” he said, thrusting gently.

“I touch myself when you’re gone,” you confessed, eyes fluttering shut. “I think about your mouth. Your hands. The way you sound when you break inside me.”

He added a second finger. The stretch made you cry out softly, head thudding against the panel.

“What else?”

“I dream of you—above me, inside me—mask on. Telling me I’m yours.”

“You are,” he growled, curling his fingers. “Every part of you.”

You moaned, hips bucking as he fucked you with slow, deliberate strokes. His thumb found your clit, circling cruelly soft.

“You close already?” he asked, breath hot through the wood. “You gonna fall apart just from my fingers?”

“Yes,” you gasped.

He stopped.

You nearly cried.

“Why—why’d you stop?”

“You don’t get to come until you repent,” he whispered.

“I did.”

“Not enough.”

He leaned closer through the divider, voice like a blade.

“Beg for it.”

You whimpered. “Please. Please, Father—make me come. I’ll be good. I’ll confess everything.”

“Say what you are.”

“I’m yours,” you choked. “Your fucktoy. Your sinner. Your girl.”

That was all it took.

His fingers slammed back into you, hard, fast, filthy. Your orgasm ripped through you like a storm—biting your fist, back arching, body shaking as he worked you through every wave.

When you collapsed back against the wood, gasping, trembling, he pulled his fingers out slowly.

“Say thank you,” he murmured.

“Thank you, Father.”

You heard the faintest sound of his breath hitch.

Then he was gone.

Just like that.

You sat alone in the booth, heart racing, your legs sticky with proof that some kinds of salvation come only through sin.

[goodnighttheysaid]

penetralia.

title: penetralia

rating: T

pairing: frank langdon/you, frank langdon/reader

words: 1404

warnings: reference to and discussion of addiction, angst

notes: inspired by this line — ‘Your absence has gone through me, like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color.’— from this poem. (full prompt list here.)

you might notice i've lumped these langdon oneshots into a series; I'm working somewhat chronologically, starting at the discovery, and ending I'm not sure where. part one is here, and two here.

⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱⊰⊱

The house was empty, and silent, and empty.

Usually, yours was a house that buzzed, so quietness didn’t suit it. And that was a fact you were discovering more and more with each passing minute, hour, and impossibly long day.

Before, the symphony of a day would go like this — 

In the cool blue dark, an alarm would chime; Frank’s, not yours. He’d rush to turn it off, sleepy hands releasing you and reaching blindly in the way of the bedside table. Then, he’d sigh, scrub his stubble-shadowed face, and stretch gently in his place beside you. 

He’d press a kiss to your hair before slipping from between the sheets, soft and warm, and then he’d disappear into the honeyed light of the bathroom, a baptism of steam and too-hot water to ready him for his shift and the coming day. 

You’d hear footsteps creeping, and stairs creaking. You’d hear the stove, crowned with the coffeepot, and if the door to the bedroom was left open, you’d hear the tinkle of cereal into porcelain or the jumping springs of the toaster, too. 

Then, he’d leave out the front door, thrilled to be going to work, just like always. 

The next sound would come just before he walked though the mouth of the hospital — a message to you, sent always, arriving across the screen of your phone like clockwork every morning at just the right moment.

Without fail, he’d send it to arrive at the time between you waking and getting up, your body still wrapped up in covers that smelled of him but with your eyes awake, tracing the gentle to-and-fro of the trees outside your bedroom window. 

The rush of the leaves sounds more like waves than the truth, and you’d told him that the first time you woke up together in this room. He’d laughed, the deep, buttery sound of it bouncing off the bare walls, and then he’d kissed you, and you’d drunk down what was left of his soft chuckles like the greedy soul you were when it came to all things him — Frank. 

In the before, your morning would be taken up with emails and typing, the gentle clatter of the keyboard ricocheting around the room, brushing up against the tick-tock of the clock, the water heater clicking in the wall, the rush of traffic outside, and the occasional ping of another message from him. 

I dare you to look away from the screen while you eat lunch

Also don’t forget to eat lunch

Salmon for dinner?

I might be a little late

Do you know where I left my tens machine?

The time between one and four ceased to make sense, the hours stretching too-long and then disappearing both at once. And then, by the time the sun had set and the river of traffic outside had tapered to a trickle, the door would open, the sound of the world outside rushing in around the tired body that was him crowding through the entryway. 

He’d kiss you, and then not stop talking until there was food in his mouth. 

On good days, he’d sing in the shower, the sound of it floating down the stairs. And on less-good days, you’d hear the water run just that bit too long, the peace and relief of being home seeping into his bones slowly but surely, the warmth of the sluicing torrent down his back loosening the muscles that never quite did let go. 

The house was filled on nights like those with the low hum of music, or the television on but turned down to a chattering whisper. It was filled with him, talking, and you, laughing. It was filled with love, and it was safe. Or, that’s what it had felt like, anyway.

With the shadowy curtain of the night would come a new kind of noise, all whispers and low hums. There was the dripping tap in the bathroom, the patter of rain against windows, the rustling of the curtain fluttering against the rush of the heater. And amongst it all, there was skin-on-skin, soft sighs, and smacking lips. 

Now, though — here, and now — there was none of that. No morning kisses, no waiting coffee, no sweet messages, no coming home. No music, no chatter, no nothing. Now, it was just you. Because Frank was far away, and you couldn’t reach him, anymore — couldn’t call, or send word. And it was for the best, this you knew. But the absence of him was still a bloody, stinging, great big wrenching hole in the life that was supposed to be yours and his, together. And without him, not much that was left, made sense. 

It is the absence of him that is the starkest thing, you find. You don’t remember the last time you went so long without seeing him, hearing him, feeling him right there next to you in space. And even when the world was ending the time before this — when the stresses of all that he wanted so much were still new — he’d FaceTime you in faraway rooms, from behind masks and shields, and you’d fall asleep then with his voice petering in your ear, the gentle murmur of his concern for you sweet in the face of what was real. 

You can see him soon, that’s what Robby keeps telling you, and Yolanda, too. He’s doing fine, they say. Taking to sobriety like he does everything else — with a stubborn single-mindedness, and a determination to be good. But that’s still not enough — not with the echo of his last words, another string in an endless line of sorries, still tolling in your head.

So, in the absence of choice — or normalcy, or familiarity, or him — you decide to start writing him letters, on paper with pen, every day — sometimes several times a day — just so he knows that you’ve been thinking of him all the while he’s been gone, and loving him, still. 

You write on the backs of envelopes meant for bills, and scraps of paper filed through the printer unneeded. You write on postcards you pick up at an overpriced gift store, and on palm cards left over from the days of study, an eternity ago. 

You write to let him know that the owl who roosted in the tree last fall is back, and you write about your disappointing breakfast. You write that you haven’t once yet forgotten to eat lunch in his absence, and about all the ways you miss him between waking and restless sleep. 

You write about the nosey neighbour, and Yolanda staying normal in the face of nothing like it. You write about the nervous boy in the mismatched scrubs who tried in earnest not to stare at you the afternoon you went to see Dana for lunch. You write about the bed being cold without him, and how much you’re looking forward to waking to the soft, sure presence of him beside you, again. 

You write about the weird fact that you hate the way lipstick looks on your face, and that you find it strange you’ve rarely before been so tired but somehow, you still look just fine. And you don’t feel fine. 

You write that you’ve started copying out all of your mother’s recipes by hand into a journal, and that you’ve never hated yourself so much for such a simple choice, before. You’ve taken to wrapping tissues around the grips of pens, you tell him, because, it turns out, you have an iron grip. Your thumb has been bruised for three days, you say. Why hasn’t he ever mentioned that to you, before?

You write that you’re this close to counting down the seconds until you can see him again, and that you’ve realised while he’s been gone that you don’t think there is anyone else in the world you could love but for him. 

You tell him that you’re mad still; upset and sorry, still. But you write, too, that you can’t imagine a life of yours that doesn’t have him in it. And so, you say, everything will be just fine. Because even if it’s not, it still will be. Because, you remind him, you’re just as stubborn as he is — maybe even more so. And Frank is who you want, you write — I want you, forever. Just like I promised — and you want him anyway he comes, so long as it’s true. 

[godmerlin]

Colin Morgan as Merlin

1x06 A Remedy To Cure All Ills

[galedekarios]

"I am perhaps just one hard day away from being without any troubles at all. This may be my last night a l i v e. I wanted it to be under a canopy of beauty and wonder. And with company to match."

[diekerel]

[seiwas]

just a lil bit of a share ! i’ve been feeling really down lately about not writing that much 🥲 and keeping up with posting more frequently/updating a few of my series more regularly 🥲 but i looked at my masterlists and noticed almost 60% of my fics are actually from this year and we’re only half-way in 🥺

anyway ! the point of this is, if you’re being too hard on yourself today, i hope you’re reminded that you’re doing much better than you think 🥺

[thewanderingmask]

obligatory scott and scar posting

[baeshijima]

my brain is cooking for the transmigration-into-500-years-before-genshin-main-story-and-dumped-into-khaenri'ah fic and ohhhh.... i have many many thoughts... too many to be contained.... the angst and hurt/comfort and growth and self-actualisation and fostering relationships and acceptance and ourghghg

it also reminds me that i am yet to update my other genshin transmigration fic and its been a year or two🧍‍♀️ oops 🧍‍♀️

[inquisitor-apologist]

Honestly I think the Kenobi show should’ve just. Been about Reva. She was the strongest part of the show, and I think that the narrative would’ve been a lot better if we got her full back story and perspective. Obi-Wan could’ve still been there, but Reva really should’ve been the main character

[hwanghyunjinenthusiast]

size matters • l.c.

Pairing: lee chan x afab!reader Genres: major smut (minors PLS dni!), losers + idiots + besties to lovers Warnings: *deep breath* MONSTER COCK CHAN, swearing, love me some switch action, reader does not use specified pronouns but refers to their pussy as "she", reader also wears a skirt, pet names, alcohol and goofy drunk antics, bad humor, use of "whore/slut", tons of dirty talk, they're kinda pervs, mentions of toys, masturbation (fem), hints to past sexual partners, mentions of oral (male), actual oral (fem. receiving), car sex (kind of), condoms, fingering (fem. receiving), WAP lmao and squirting, bantering, degradation, wee bit praise, unprotected/protected MESSY sex, underwear play (??? lmao), precum play (??), edging, face-riding, groping/manhandling, objectification, reverse cowgirl position, bulge kink, slapping/spanking, possession, almost choking, biting, tears and crying, a bit of overstim and if i missed smth lmk sdfjkajdf WC: 8.3k A/N: this started out purely self-indulgent as usual and reads like a bad pornhwa but it's also nana month so a happy early birthday to @bitchlessdino because i will be asleep when the clock actually strikes 12 tomorrow! and bc i will dedicate all chan content to the loml! this is like my 3rd longest fic on this blog and 4th longest fic ever and it's just utter filth and smut... hate it here. i always get into a crazy headspace when i write for this man. i hope y'all enjoy my delusions before i retire out of shame 😬

"I'm worried my dick's too big."

Laughter bubbles in your chest at the same time the beer you'd just taken a swig of swishes around in your mouth. It's so like your best friend to say something stupid. Especially when your mouth is full.

He frowns in mild annoyance as you rock back and forth with mirth, struggling not to spit out your drink and make a mess. But also trying to refrain from choking. Because if you die, you sure as hell will find a way to make sure everyone knows that a dumbo and his terrible concern over having a big cock drove you to your demise in such an unfortunate manner.

And no one wants that.

"I dunno what's so funny," the man in question irritably gripes, "but for god's sake, calm down and swallow."

Though it ends up that Chan is the one gulping first. Ears burning and eyes widening when you wiggle your brows deviously and do as he says. Sticking your tongue out for good measure — just for proof that yes, you did swallow —  but he's quickly whipping his gaze away. Head turning to the side as if that does anything to hide the embarrassing look overtaking his expression. 

He thinks you'll back off, hoping the nervous twiddling of his fingers will deter further teasing. But he should really know better. The telltale signs are littered across the table in front of him and even overpower your usual sweet scent when you lean close into his personal space.

"So, you like it when someone swallows versus spits for you, Channie?"

"You're drunk."

"So are you." 

Because that's what happens every movie night. The two of you enjoy too many beers after a feel-good show and start talking nonsense.

"Yeah, and we're having a very serious conversation right now. A drunk one. But still, serious."

You purse your lips. "You're bluffing. No way you're complaining about the hugeness of your dick. 'Cause no one does that."

"It's not like I'm trying to boast or even insecure, I'm just worried."

"Worried about what?" you snort and push at his shoulder. "There'd be no reason to worry if you know how to use it. In the end, size doesn't matter at all."

Chan quirks an eyebrow, side-eyeing you. "At all?" 

"If your technique is good, it shouldn't matter as long as everyone feels satisfied. You know, you just gotta hit that one spot…" 

You start doing hand motions to demonstrate your point that seem wildly inappropriate and are honestly so drunkenly uncoordinated to the point that Chan not only feels compelled to stop you but doubts anyone would feel good from that. Then again, he's never really managed to partake in sloppy sex, so who knows? 

He grabs your hands to still them and though you no longer move, you protest. "What? You'll have 'em seeing and feeling stars! To be honest… you prolly will too if ya try your best."

"You know, I do know how to pleasure someone. It's not really an issue once I'm inside, it's just getting there that's kind of a problem."

"Channie, are you secretly a virgin?" You lay your head on his shoulder, hand running down his forearm and weaving your fingers between his. "Issokay if you are."

"You know I'm not!"

"Well, yeah I guess you're a bit of a whore. Still love you no matter what."

Chan chokes out your name in frustration. "All I'm saying is that I have a huge cock and I'm sad about it!"

"And you keep saying I'm drunk. Look, you're valid in being… upset about having a fat dick even if I don't understand. Just telling you that sometimes a ton of prep is helpful and even a decent amount of lube. No shame in that. Not everyone's built to take a large-ass, whopping cock." And then you mumble extremely quietly, "If it's even that big."

Unfortunately, he hears you and scoffs. Popping his shoulder up to gently shove you off him. Though that only causes you to grasp for his sweatpant-clad thigh and hold onto it for dear support in your half-drunken stupor. The perverted part of both your brains flash to your hand squeezing tightly around something else; the unmistakable heat of said something else radiating towards the closest part of your hand and causing a hot rush to flare across your entire body.

Or maybe that's just the alcohol.

Doesn't stop you from shamelessly ogling what you can only presume to be his bulge, gray fabric stretched over his groin and straining against muscular thighs. 

"Are you flaccid right now?"

"What's it to you?"

"Just curious. Thinking about my different dildo sizes."

He balks at that. "Pl-please don't."

"Yeah, not sure I wanna compare what your dick would realistically feel inside me," you admit even if you find it difficult to tear your hungry eyes away to take in Chan's mortified expression. 

"Can we stop talking about my personal parts now?" he squeaks out and you shoot him a dubious side-eye even though you do easily acquiesce.

"With pleasure. Speaking of which…"

Chan's hushed groan of "Oh dear" goes ignored even after you drape an arm on the back of the couch behind his head, lay the other across his chest, and splay your legs over his lap. Your lips end up leaving a sticky residue on his cheek, neck, and ear as you graciously whisper your own sex secret — the spontaneous topic of tonight — to him. 

"Only my bullet vibe has the ability to make me squirt. None of the others, not even the thirteen-inch one with suction ridges. So yeah, hm… size doesn't matter, does it Channie?"

"I dunno a single dick attached to a human body that can vibrate or has suctioning functions."

"Then you should try harder."

He apologizes for having such blatant ignorance about the matter and then eventually you end up falling asleep together. 

Limbs tangled and wrapped around one another just like every other night you doze off with the comfort of the other's body warmth. And like usual, you and Chan peer at each other with eyelids heavy from sleep and goofy but comforting smiles — merely inches apart when the sun's rays sneak a peek through the blinds to shine onto your faces. Because everything's normal and just right between the two of you. 

Like always.

Except it's not.

All you can think about is your best friend's dumb, gargantuan cock and his weird embarrassment about it. If you didn't know Chan as well as you do, you might think he was just using that as an excuse to get into your pants but you know better. He's genuinely perturbed over his too-big dick! 

You let out a sigh. Warm breath fans the tip of your ear while large hands lay on your hips, ringed fingers teasing the bare skin revealed by the daring crop top you decided to wear tonight.

"Am I boring you, baby?"

"Kind of," you admit, displeased that you weren't enjoying the usual thrill of grinding on the dancefloor with a hot man. Turning around to face said man, you purse your lips. "How would you feel if you had a big dick, Cheol?"

He raises an eyebrow in the self-assured way only the Choi Seungcheol can. "Shouldn't you be asking what it's like possessing the largest dick of the century?"

"Not helping, I'm not talking about big dick energy."

"That's not what you said when it was shoved halfway down your throat."

"Can't say much if I'm sucking someone off, you dolt. And I said you made my jaw hurt 'cause you're a guy that likes it rough, not 'cause I thought your dick was overly huge."

"Brat," Seungcheol says rather affectionately, "so whose humongous cock are you taking tonight?"

Your eyes wander over his shoulder to the bar, the same place he noticed your gaze strayed towards all night. A glee-filled smirk is on your face when you meet his eyes again though you only casually state with a shrug, "An absolute loser's."

"Wasn't aware it was self-pleasure night, sweetheart," he jokingly snorts, nudging you in that direction before you can get too mad at him. But not without delivering a playful slap on your ass as a 'good luck to charm' to send you on your way. "Go get 'em, Tiger!"

The cocky bastard must think you're after Soonyoung tonight, who greets you by placing a polite kiss on the cheek and a casual side hug. Though he looks hella fine tonight with slicked-back hair and donning the signature head-turning 'leather jacket, silver jewelry' fit that Seungcheol is sporting, he's not who you have in mind.

You squeeze him back though, always ready to return the affection you receive. "Rare to not see you dancing, tough crowd tonight?"

"Nah, I just have my priorities set." He angles his head toward the bartender who sneaks subtle glances at the two of you as if to distinguish what intentions you had approaching such a striking man. 

That they just so happen to have their eyes on. Luckily Soonyoung does too.

"Ah, well, so do I!" 

Never one to want to get stuck between two people and cause a potential misunderstanding, you pat him on the arm, wink encouragingly at the bartender, and skip away to find the person who's been occupying your mind for the past few days in a very different way like crazy.

Chan hasn't moved from where you last caught sight of him — in the corner of the bar nursing the same glass of bourbon for far too long. There's distinctly more water in it from the rapidly melting ice ball than alcohol but you still ease it out of his grasp. Taking a sip only to wrinkle your nose in disgust.

Your best friend observes your expression with a bemused one of his own after you hand it back, lip gloss staining the rim. A far cry from the darkened, sultry stare that followed as you moved from one gyrating body to the next. You wonder how you've never noticed it before. But then again, you yourself have never thought about him in that kind of way until now. 

While momentarily lost in your thoughts, Chan's working on getting the attention of Soonyoung's flirt target to order your favorite drink. But you place a hand on his arm, squeezing the firm muscle beneath your fingertips. 

"I wanna go home."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, just feel like leaving."

He shakes his head. "You looked like you were having a good time."

"Ooh… are you jealous?"

"Hah, jealous? No. Concerned that someone did something you didn't like? Yeah."

"There will be," you tug him by the open collar of the flannel he's wearing so you're nose-to-nose, "if he doesn't take me back to his place right now."

His eyebrows raise, eyes widening as they drop down to the pouty curve of your lips. You swear he even peers at your cleavage with the tiniest of squints before finishing what little bit of liquor is left, standing, and pulling you along with him outside.

Walking to his car parked by the sidewalk is truly a breath of fresh air, the chill of the evening breeze and city noises rushing by helps bring Chan back down to earth. No longer on the crazy high fueled by the hypnotic, seductive thrall of the nightclub's booming bass that adds to him being wholly entranced by your teasing allure. 

Now it's just you and him. Simple as usual, getting ready to drive around.

"You want to go to my place?"

"Yeah."

He starts the engine, checking the side mirror to estimate when there will be an available opening to pull out. "Whaddya wanna do, stop somewhere for snacks?"

"Sure. Maybe condoms too."

"I'm sorry, what?" It's a good thing the car's still in park when his foot stomps on the gas pedal out of shock, revving the engine and making you both jump. "Why?"

Chan even goes as far as to steal a glance over his shoulder at the backseat. As if you had miraculously snuck in someone from the club that you were planning to fuck and he didn't know about it. 

There's no one there, of course.

"Why… are we picking up… condoms?" he repeats. "I um, I have a bunch of unopened boxes i-if you need them."

"You do? Good."

"Uh, can you at least let me know how many are used so I don't suddenly run out?"

Your eyebrows raise though he doesn't even dare look at you. "Do you think you'll cum that much?"

"Pardon?! N-no, I only have a surplus because I bought them in bulk!"

"I thought you weren't having sex a lot because you have such a big cock. One that rarely goes inside anyone."

His hands cover his face. "I'm saying it's fine if you want to use them!"

"Gee, thanks. You want me to make condom balloon animals or something?"

One brown eye glares at you between fingers. "… If you're into that."

"I bet extra large ones would make brilliant animal balloons but that's a sad waste when they could go around a dick instead. I mean it can't be easy for you to find ones that don't break. Whatever, at least you have a ton. And as you know I'm on the pill."

He has to know. He has to ask. "Are you confused or is it just me?"

"Clearly, because I don't know why you think I'd be into filling condoms with air and not cock."

"Forgive me if I'm wrong, but — I mean like there's no way — but are you implying that you want to… you know, with me…?"

"Whaddya mean 'no way'? Fuck yeah, I wanna fuck you! Sorry, was that not clear?" 

Chan chokes on his saliva and has a brief hacking fit. "No?!" 

"Damn, uh… my bad. Sorry, I thought it was super obvious. Simply put, I can't get the thought of you out of my mind or my pussy, so yeah. We should totally bang. Have sex and all that. Only if you want to obviously. No hard feelings if not."

Oh god, yes he does. Since he now knows that you can squirt, let alone with something as small as a little bullet vibrator, all he can think about is what would happen if he teased your cunt with the thick head of his cock. It's been driving him absolutely feral and fueled a rather ugly feeling when he saw Seungcheol all over you earlier. 

But now that he knows you want him? Maybe just as much as he wants you? Explicitly? 

He starts driving in an attempt to help collect himself. You're at ease, able to read him well and know he'll need some time to process and organize his thoughts. So, you wait in silence while he does just that, and when he speaks again his voice is low, laced with utter desire.

"You've been thinking about me?"

"Uh-huh."

"Your pussy has too?"

"Mhm, Channie… she's been crying for you like crazy."

"Fuck," he mutters and grips the steering wheel tightly to avoid swerving into the berm. He rasps out in a desperate beg, "C-can you touch yourself for me? Let me hear how loud she is?"

And you sweetly oblige with a hushed, "Of course," and can't lift your miniskirt up faster than you do now, pushing the drenched thong underneath to the side. Your clit's been buzzing nonstop ever since he whined about his big cock and you got to glimpse the outline of it. And with him now sitting beside you as your thumb rubs at the tiny nub, pointer fingers dipping in and out of your clenching hole, you both let out groans — you at the thrilling sensation and him at the insanely filthy sounds.

Chan steals a moment to take in the sight when he switches lanes, loving the way your tongue lolls past glossy lips that part to release little whimpers of pleasure. It's unlikely you'll squirt right now. But there's still a slick sheen of arousal glistening on your thighs so he holds onto the sick twist of hope that a trace will be left behind. He's pleased and licks his lips but has to swiftly pay attention to the road again, especially when your head rolls to the side, eyelashes pleadingly fluttering at him.

He needs to get home fast. Now.

The car fills with the sloppy noises of you playing with your cunt which grows wetter and wetter by the second. The air is heavy and oozes sex, the compact space growing more humid as you work and rile up your pussy, yourself, and the man beside you. You keep easing up to that delicious edge but never fully dipping over it, making sure to continue growing needier and more wanton until the blurry scenery rushing past the windows half-registers as familiar in your already fucked-out state of mind.

"Wanna get a feel of your cock," you whine out with no shame at how pitiful it sounds. "Gotta know how many fingers to stuff inside to stretch myself out for the real thing."

The way he spits out your name like a curse word makes your gummy walls contract tightly, emitting a moist suctioning sound when you pull your fingers out and bully them back in. 

"No. You have to wait."

"Don't wanna! Been waiting long enough."

"So fuckin' needy," he taunts as if he's not panting heavily with his fingers drumming against the steering wheel. "I don't think they'll come even close to opening up that tiny hole of yours effectively for my dick. But size doesn't matter, so whatever. Right, sweetheart?"

You cuss him out jokingly while working knuckle-deep inside your cunt. Humping against your palm and pulling at your nipples with the other hand underneath your top when he rolls to a stop at an empty four-way in the neighborhood. 

He swats your arm out and away, curiously sweeping his own fingers across your damp folds that flinch at the sudden contact but still mourn the devastating loss of being filled before he slaps at them. Chan grins like a total heathen at the way your hips jolt upon impact, growing more and more delirious at the way droplets of your arousal splash out at the action.

"If you cum by rubbing yourself on that seat — no hands — before I pull in the driveway, I'll let you touch me to mentally prep yourself before we get inside. Before I get inside you." His words are enunciated with a smirk that drops after bringing soaked fingers to his lips — eyelids fluttering with a grunt at your taste eagerly licked clean with his tongue. "God, do you know how delicious you are? Need you to sit on my face at some point, wanna drown in that sloppy pussy."

His dirty talk could be enough to finish you off, you belatedly realize. The earlier command to rut your aching clit against the scratchy fabric to soothe it makes you thrillingly feel like a depraved whore. 

"You're a fuckin' perv, Chan," you growl out as if you aren't doing exactly what he asked on instinct and loving how he's talking to you. How good he is at making you feel divine.

"Yeah? But I want something to remember this by."

"Sick," you snarl through gritted teeth like the knowledge of him thinking about this moment every time he gets in his car and looks at the passenger seat isn't getting you off even more. Bonus points if he jerks off to it. You act like it's not the catalyst to you coming undone, blaming it fully on the bump of the asphalt connecting to the concrete driveway hitting your hard nub just right — absolutely defiling his poor car with your arousal. "Sick in the head."

Neither one of you care. 

In fact, Chan's so pleased he ignores the words you both know you don't mean. Grabbing the hand you buried deep within your hole, but then chose to use it to grip at the console while following his command, and guides it to his mouth. Happily repeating the same thing he did to his own, maintaining eye contact as he tongues at your fingertips. Pupils dilating with how addicted he's become to your taste. Growing more and more eager to have it straight from the source in the very near future. 

Then he places your spit-coated fingers where his cock strains against dark jeans. A darker, damp spot on the denim signifies how much precum the tip is leaking, begging to be released. He squeezes the hand sandwiched between his and the hardening length, shallowly thrusting up into your palm so you can completely grope at its mouth-watering, jaw-aching girth. 

"Feel that?" he goads, "that's gonna have to fit inside your tight cunt."

Your eyes nearly cross at the realization. And of course, your pussy forlornly clenches around nothing, dripping out more arousal to add to the already soiled mess beneath you. 

Oh, you cannot wait.

He wasn't lying, positive every single finger stuffing your hole couldn't compare to the size you just felt beneath those very appendages. Tears collect at your lash line, already anticipating the sheer amount of pleasure you know you'll be feeling with a very warm and real dick. And he's not even anywhere inside of you yet!

Chan coos and wipes the tear that escapes to your cheek. Then he gets out of the car and comes around to the other side to help you walk since your legs are weak and shaking — for more than one reason. That's fine because it gives him almost a weird sense of pride and an excuse to grind and grope at you as he pleases while unlocking the front door. Surprisingly, both of you are giggling together as if you're naughty teens again, always up to no good. It feels strangely wholesome, a light sense of relief blooming and filling your entire body.

Until you're on the other side of the door and those feelings morph back into something carnal. More primal. And Chan must feel it too because you swear he growls when pinning you against the wall. 

"You'll let me eat you out, right? 'Course you will." 

Now it's your turn to feel perverse satisfaction, watching as his lip trembles at the very thought of getting denied such a treat. Feeling the man's absolute desperation through the fingertips that dig into your hips and slightly hike up the already ridiculously short skirt you're wearing.

"C'mon bestie, please."

"… You did not bestie-zone me right now."

"I — " Chan hesitates and you fear the reality of the situation has hit him. That he'll back out and leave you a yearning mess like this. But then he leans in close to whisper hotly against your ear, "What, you want me to call you something like baby?"

Your hum of consideration encourages him to continue, palms sliding down the sides of your bare thighs and lowering himself at a pace that matches the syllables of each word leaving his mouth. Keeping eye contact with you the whole time as a mischievous smirk lights up his stupidly handsome face. 

"Darling? Babe? Lovely sweetheart? Or…" His voice gets thicker, more gravelly until he's finally on his knees and peering up at you. "A vixen? Seductress? Little whore? My slut?"

His hands sneak upwards again, pausing when they're hidden under the pleat of your skirt. 

"Still, you'll always be my dear best friend." He acknowledges and for some reason, it fills you with a comforting sense of reassurance.

And then he waits, hoping — praying — to get your permission.

The coy way you lift up the skirt in no way matches the cute grin you flash at him. Biting your pointer finger as you reveal your pretty pussy for Chan, its puffy lips spread by the continually soaked thong stuck between them. His eyes flick almost nervously away from yours to get a look, letting out a strangled moan at the sight. 

Automatically drawn like a bee to honey. His heart thumps anxiously when your fingers bury in his bangs to yank at them, halting him just short of being able to stick his tongue out for a taste that he already misses. He whines, fully surrounded by the heady scent of your arousal and unable to feast. But you have something to tell him first.

"You can't make me cum."

"What? Why? Need to stretch — "

"No. I already spent hours practicing with my thirteen-inch, so it'll be fine. We're doing this so you know what the telltale signs are when I'm about to cum when this," you briefly release his hair so manicured nails can pet the outside of your glistening wet cunt, "is wrapped around your dick." You smile when he moans quietly at the revelation and you tug lightly again at silky strands, eager to hear more before you absolutely break him. "And don't you want to see me squirt?"

"God, yes."

You shove his face between your inner thighs. "Then this'll help, baby boy. So, don't you dare let me cum unless it's on your cock."

Chan really can't protest against what you call him and honestly wouldn't want to because that would mean leaving the delectable meal he's finally being allowed to dine on. Though your thong remains in the way, he uses it to his advantage. Sucking all the wetness out of it with a hearty groan of appreciation, pushing it back between your folds, and running his tongue that put it there in zig-zag motions along the sorry excuse for fabric. Then repeating the same motions on either side of the bare supple pussy lips that clench at every nibble, suck, and brush on them.

It isn't very long until he gets frustrated by its restrictions though, feeling outrageous at how jealous he's getting of a piece of cloth that gets to wrap around your cunt all the time. Like you can read his mind, you pull him off with breathless laughter at his inevitable moan of sadness and mumble words of reassurance that you're doing it for his benefit.

He can't really hear with the rush of adrenaline roaring in his ears but he surely sees how you rip the offending thong away. It tears easily, falling apart at its most sodden point. And finally, your pussy is truly bare all for him and he rushes to dive back in. Slurping and sucking at your drenched hole like a dehydrated man finding an oasis in the desert.

Again, Chan's intentions were to leave you weak with the magic his mouth and tongue could work but you don't really allow him. His neck's cranked at an awkward angle as you continue to grip at his hair and smother his lips and tongue with your cunt, sloppy ruts back and forth causing your clit to catch and bump against his nose. He doesn't mind even if he's ninety-nine percent positive this is how you'd get off on one of your toys — no, he definitely has not imagined that — but he's not complaining.

There's something in the way that you're utterly using him like he's nothing but an object for your ultimate pleasure. It has the blood rushing down to swell up his cock even more. And maybe he's willingly happy to do so. Offering his body for your pleasure, making sure to stiffen his tongue so it will hit part of your clit as you move and grind all over his face. 

It's kinda hot. He also might be enjoying this a little too much.

And just as his eyes roll up for the umpteenth time out of delicious, delirious dizziness, he feels it. 

The buildup must have been when you started humping his chin shamelessly, slamming down harshly enough that he's sure he'll have bruises to show off. Settling more and more of your weight forward to arch your back, breasts heavy as they follow gravity, and your nipples visibly poke through the crop top's thin material. 

Your hips jerk up and away a few times, the subtle wiggle in them certainly has your ass jiggling cutely. He also notes how your "ah" moans turn to "mhms", positive you're biting your lip with closed eyes and a pleased grin. By now the hands tangling in his hair have made their way to the back of his head and Chan knows one thing for sure.

You're on the brink of climaxing.

And as much as he wants you to make more of a mess on his face, he's a little afraid of what you might do — or might not do — so he obediently, but regretfully backs away and sinks down to sit on his heels. Pathetic, the way he has to simply watch like a good boy as your slit flutters above him and you release the death grip hold you had on his poor hair.

Once all of your weight is supported by the wall again, you slide down it to plop on the floor. A sheepish grin on your face as you praise him for doing such a great job, reveling in what a sexy, fucked-out look he's wearing — mussed-up hair, swollen lips, and a shiny mix of sweat and arousal decorating his face as his eyes struggle to refocus while he catches his breath.

He embarrassingly thinks you might kiss him when you lean in. Only to jolt with surprise at your hand slipping into his back pocket and he flinches after you squeeze at his well-shaped ass with a naughty giggle. 

"A souvenir," you murmur in his ear and he feels the spongy ball of your torn thong when he stands like it's a gold coin weighing down his jeans.

"Can't believe you ripped those yourself."

"Can't believe you didn't rip them."

"Didn't wanna ruin them," he admits because he'd honestly feel bad. Though you shoot him a funny look that he doesn't quite understand as he assists your wobbling frame on the walk to the bedroom.

"Dude, you've already ruined so many, what's one more pair?"

"Huh?"

It's amazing how serious you are when you ask, "Don't you remember how wet I've been getting thinking about your dumb cock? Almost ran out of panties to wear."

With that admission, Chan is immediately rushing you down the hallway and has you on his bed at record speed. It's so comical that you have no choice but to once again fall into that giggly headspace like earlier as you help one another strip each other's clothes off.

"God, why are you like this? Such a fucking little tease."

"You love it."

"Hm, yeah," he looks at you with such tenderness, "guess I do."

You verbally agree even as you grab at his wrist before he can throw his boxers to the ground. "Hand 'em over. It's only fair if you have mine," you point out when he raises an eyebrow.

"Someone's full of surprises."

"Well, somebody's loved all of them so I'm sure he'll like this one too."

Though he falls onto his back easily when you push him down, he can't help but raise concern. "I get that you… practiced, but wouldn't a better position be with me on top? You'll like — "

"And I get that you liked being used like a dildo, baby boy." 

You miss the chagrined look that rapidly spreads across Chan's pretty face at the callout. But that's okay because you turn around to throw a leg over and straddle his prone body, staring at your prize of the night — the fattest dick you've been fantasizing about in the flesh.

"Thanks for these, by the way." You send a wink at him over your shoulder, waving the boxers that dangle off your pointer finger. "Need something to bite onto," you add and moan when you deliberately let your tongue meet the salty patch of precum smeared on them before clamping the black cloth between your teeth.

His heavy cock jerks up, already overwhelmed by everything you're doing. His hips follow suit, also lifting once the feeling of your dripping cunt soaks his abs as you sit and press him back against the bed and reach a hand out. He groans, clutching at the blanket when your palm rubs at the sensitive skin. You marvel at how your decently sized fingers fail to fully wrap around the entire girth.

It already weighs a ton laying against the hand you're using and struggling to prop it up. Shining in all its glory from the excess that's leaked and coated it thoroughly. You seem happy to add to it and Chan's eyes widen at the couple of clear globs of arousal that drip out of your cunt, aided by two free fingers spreading your pussy lips and contracting your inner walls to squeeze them out. And then you sink a little lower, kissing the tip of his cock with your clit before rubbing the thick head between your folds.

"You're… you're so w-wet, mhm, fuck!" He's already on the brink of tears and this is just the beginning. And the gasping man might've just let out a sob at the sight of both of your hands shaking, clasped around his dick as you position it at the right angle and slowly ease the tip inside. "God, 'n so soft," he fucking gargles out due to how much he's drooling.

You're no better off. The saliva that's pooling in your mouth at the delightful ache and burn has completely saturated his boxers. They do nothing to muffle your moans that only grow higher in pitch with the few additional inches you attempt to take, a little more each time. But at least you won't grind your teeth together, plus you're buried in the taste and scent of Chan's essence. Even more so as you topple forward, nails digging into his shins.

It's almost humiliating. How you've ended up face-planting into the mattress and your hips take on a mind of their own, humping up and down midair yet still on the top of his cock. Circling and gyrating as they attempt to both run away and plop firmly up and down onto the hard, thick length begging to fully bury into your tight cunt that's slowly widening to accommodate. 

Luckily, it's not like Chan can make fun of or even blame you, focusing everything he can on not thrusting up into your wet heat on his own accord right now out of consideration. The man understands it's a stretch, a painful one at that.

He doesn't mind staying mildly distracted. There's so much to take in. Ogling the way your ass bounces and jiggles, pornographic sound effects of his cock absolutely bullying your pussy as it squelches in and out. Filling the room with nasty noises audio porn wishes it could truly replicate amid both of your pants, moans, groans, and whines.

It feels like forever until his length has finally made its home within your squishy walls that welcome it inside with a multitude of affectionate squeezes. But honestly, that barely lasts because your hips refuse to let up and once the stretch no longer burns as much and instead melts into mind-numbing pleasure, all you can do is ride him into delirium. And Chan fucking loves it, continuing to watch how your ass reverberates with each downward slam accompanied by the sting of ass cheeks slapping against his stomach over and over again.

"S-so slutty f'me, b-best friend actin' like a whore on my dick."

"Ah, mm… cock… your cock! It's makin' me act slutty!"

"Yeah? You like being my slutty best friend, baby?"

You lug your head onto the leg you'd been riddling with love bites and salivating all over after spitting out his ruined boxers, looking tearfully in his direction. Cross-eyed with a goofy smile on your face at how fucked-out you've become as your clit grinds against his squishy balls that tighten, firm, and fill up with each thud of your hips. 

"Mhm… yeah."

"You gonna be my slutty baby from now on?"

"Ohhh, touch me Channie… please!"

"Since y-you asked so nicely." He squeezes at your ass cheek though it's quickly wrenched out of his grasp because you can't stop moving. "But I… I asked you a question." And then his palm flies out, skin meeting skin in a loud crack against your other cheek. As if it's actually a punishment. "My pretty whore's too fucked out to answer, h-huh?"

"Mhmph! More… more!"

A gasp leaves your mouth and impossibly, your hips only speed up before they suddenly halt. Practically screaming at this point with how good your best friend's cock is buried so deeply and fully seated inside as you somehow manage to sit up with inhuman strength. 

Oh, but your darling Channie knows why.

He lazily grins, empty mind now playing all the signs through his head along to the same moments happening in real-time. You have a death grip on his thighs, certain he'd really impale you in a morbid way if you lose your hold as you bounce haphazardly. How nice, he decides to aid you — giving into the urges to thrust up into your suffocating little cunt whenever you rise up so you constantly remain stuffed full every single time.

Your back does its arch thing and he runs a hand down the curve, pushing down ever so gently as he takes over. It's his turn for a slapping assault, his balls returning the favor on your tender clit that pokes and rubs at them, egging on the brutal pace you started in the first place.

"Gonna squeeze the life outta me," and you clench even tighter around him so that even the air in his lungs is sucked out by the squeeze of your cunt. "You wanna murder me with that sweet pussy of yours? Choke the life outta me, sweetheart? Like the well-behaved little whore that you are?"

Chants of "yes, yes, yes" fall in between salacious moans of "mhms" and "fuck Channie, so good" and it fuels Chan into true unleashed feral mode. The addition of the white ring forming at the base of his cock in no way, shape, or form is helping to reign him in at all. He presses appreciative bruises into the skin of your hips, aiding your sore and tired legs with the powerful strength of his arms.

"A creamer too… oh my god, what can't your cunt do baby, fuck — so freakin' perfect."

"All… all for you!"

Chan laughs and it's mean, a petulant frown causing your lips to jut out at his mocking tone. "For me? You gonna be a-all mine from now on? Let me be the only one t-to stretch this sweet hole out?"

Ongoing cries of "yes" mixes and slurs with "yours" but it's enough for him, especially when you manage to moan out with a promise that you're definitely his slutty whore and will only be his forever.

That pleases him, an elated grumble rumbling in his chest. "Gonna fill 'er up real good and you'll swallow me whole baby. Feel me for days, drippin' outta — ah, shit!" 

His voice cracks, the hands assisting your movements haul your hips up and then down, anchoring them firmly against his pelvis. You peer over your shoulder at him in utter dismay at suddenly being empty. His missed cock trembling without your warmth, flopping hot and hard against your stomach. Granting a helpful outside visual of how deep it can drill up into your cunt. But that's kind of useless when you already experienced it first-hand, so all you can do is send Chan a weepy glare.

"S-sorry babe, we just, I should probably… " His eyes dart to the unopened drawer of his nightstand. "Gonna throw a condom on."

You let out a scoff of disbelief and discontent, surly brat behavior poking through. "Doesn't matter, wanna feel you fill me up. 'N then squirt it all out, won't matter anyways."

"That's not how it works."

Chan's grateful the usual post-nut clarity somehow hit before. It's still awful timing and might have been a complete mood killer but you're both so worked up — you in particular — it doesn't seem to matter. Even as he nudges you off while reaching for a package, you back up and try to grind against his cock to change his mind. But you reluctantly give up, especially when he ends up reacting with a harsher hiss more from rolling the latex down the sensitive length than your plump ass rubbing it. 

You're honestly a little offended. 

He hushes and tries to soothe you. Fumbling with the slick mess around your gaping hole and dipping inside occasionally with one hand as he works on the condom. But you know for a fact you've been ruined because you barely feel a thing after your cunt's been stretched out for and filled specifically with his huge cock. 

Now you just wish he'd ultimately finish the job of ruining you. Oh, and maybe continue some more after. And a lot. 

You grimace because you're able to think too much. And then Chan's finally all ready to go and your cheek is suddenly pressed into the rumpled sheets, nipples brushing deliciously against them. You're pushed onto your forearms and he helps widen your knees at a spread angle so your pussy is fully presentable and gapingly accessible. 

"Good thing I'm flexible." 

"Yeah," Chan licks his lips, "just as I'd expect from my sweet slut." 

"You gonna fill this slut up then, Channie or — " 

You're cute off by the squeal at his cock ramming back inside of where it belongs. Meanwhile, he chuckles darkly, running a hand through sweaty bangs as he tries to distribute weight solidly with how he's risen to his knees. Finding little support from the mattress to support the onslaught of powerful thrusts in and out of your pussy and discovers a better method with a tight hold of your hips where his hands instinctively fall. 

"Best way to shut a whore up is to fuck them." He clicks his tongue in disapproval because you're nuzzling face-first into the bed, muffling the sounds that drive him crazy. "Doesn't mean I don't wanna hear you moan f'me, baby."

What he doesn't know is you're trying to find something to bite into that won't end up being your poor tongue. 

To manhandle you as he sees fit, Chan's fingers slip down to splay around where your vocal cords lie. Thumb digging beneath your jawline into the soft fleshy skin of your neck. Teasing you with a not-quite-there chokehold that causes you to pulsate around the cock sliding in and out with little resistance thanks to the help of the slick that pools endlessly out of your core. 

Then he's turning your head to the side to watch your eyelids flutter rapidly. Noticing how your jaw is clenched, teeth practically gnashing at each push into you that now relentlessly strokes that bundle of nerves. Taking pity, he lends a finger. Prying open your mouth and not caring when you bite down on it with a ferocity that could break skin — that's what he offered it for anyways — though it will definitely leave behind bruising indents that'll take days to heal. 

But he wouldn't care if you ended up breaking his bones too. With the way he's driving his dick over and over into you like a madman, he possibly could break something by that alone. The new position benefits the both of you greatly, granting him a better angle to reach deep and you find comfort in the way his body lays against yours. Pressing you down further into the bed, the weight comforting.

Even through the latex, he can feel the little bump of nerves his tip brushes against that's just rough enough to make him shiver. He purposefully aims his pelvis to be able to hit it each time. The lone arm at your hip wraps around your abdomen and he moans at how he can feel the bulge of skin pressed against his forearm from the size of the monster dick within you. 

It drives him feral, punctuating each sharp thrust with a praising hiss of, "Best. fuckin'. pussy. ever!"

And then it's happening. You can literally see the tightly-wound knot unraveling. Can feel as it loosens while your cunt suctions around his cock in a hard, vice-like grip. You cling around him, refusing to let him leave your warmth for a second. Not even daring to let him slide even a bit out. Though he wouldn't even think of it. As the mental ties come undone in your brain, so does your body — plummeting over and free-falling off the cliff of pleasure.

White flashes across your vision as your body writhes and shakes beneath Chan. Overcome by how fucking amazing it feels to be so full with the devastatingly huge dick of the person you care about the most tearing apart your insides. You're sobbing, tears drenching your face and where it lays. 

Chan's praising you through it all, complimenting how good you are for him, how perfect everything about you is, and how only you — his bestest, sluttiest, sweetest friend — could take him so well.

"Fuckin' knew you would be the one," he confesses and presses a kiss against your neck. It's so tender, full of love and gentleness despite how his hips cruelly still haven't let up, and it makes you wail even louder. "Ever since you smiled at me. Now, c'mon sweetheart 'n give it all to me. Show's only just gettin' started."

He's guiding you through the most intense orgasm you've ever had as it spirals from a crashing wave into a soon-to-be gushing waterfall. Yes, you've squirted before. But never with such a delightful buildup like this. And he knows you can take it, knows it's what you want as he coaches himself to hold off from his own finale. You let out a hearty moan, shaking at the overstimulation and feeling him twitch repeatedly inside. Almost as if his dick itself is begging for your release so it can do the same.

Your body listens and obeys, utterly charmed by your best friend's cock. Not like that would change the impending fate bound to happen anyway. Your cunt expels him out with a spray that splashes against his abs and drips down his thighs. Chan swears and grabs his length that bobs in the air upon being freed, fingers holding the condom tightly at the base like a makeshift cock ring. 

Furiously jerking off just a little bit to reach completion and then he's emptying what feels like a life's worth into the poor condom that can barely contain it. Unlike your pussy that would take it all if given the chance. It inflates, ballooning out and filling up with so much cum it's threatening to pop. As if it wasn't working overtime, straining around the sheer size of his cock.

It's so full and heavy, gravity weighing it down to flop against your folds that squirt out a tiny bit more upon contact that has your legs seizing. Your lower body — now growing numb — was somehow still sustained by Chan's insane one-arm strength until he flops onto you. Bringing you both down onto the wet mess on the bed.

"Get off, you're heavy," you grouch though a dumb smile lights up your blissed-out face.

He laughs breathlessly and rolls onto his side, bringing you into his arms and looking at you with stars in his eyes. You nuzzle into his neck, inhaling his comforting scent you never want to be without now that you've been fully encompassed by it in such an intimate manner. So you wait, feeling the way your hearts both beat rapidly and he takes a deep breath. Chest expanding as his lungs fill with much-needed air after so much exertion. 

Anticipation brims from the crown of your head to the tip of your toes when Chan finally asks, "Hey, do you still think size doesn't matter?"

You blink. Once. Twice. Thrice. Definitely not the question you were expecting.

There's a lively spark still dancing in his tired eyes and you match it with a playful smile. "I'm not really sure, I think you'll have to prove it to me a few more times."

"Suppose there's still a lot of condoms we can't let go to waste."

"Aw, you don't want me to make you some balloon animals?"

"That offer is tempting but…" Sneaky hands tickle the swell below your breasts and you giggle, half-heartedly batting him away. "Not as much as you are."

"And you know… there's still a lot of chances to confirm some things while we test out whose theory is right."

"Confirm what, my dear? 'Cause I'm pretty sure I've already staked my claim on what's mine." It's embarrassing how easily Chan can read you, a know-it-all smirk on his face as he cups your warm cheek oh-so-lovingly. "My slutty bestie's the only one who can take my cock like a champ, there's no way I'm letting you go now."

It's even more embarrassing that your heart and sore hole flutter at crude words that totally shouldn't make you feel like a silly fool in love. But because you are, it only makes you fall harder.

"So, you're mine now too?"

"If that's okay with you."

And of course, it's okay with you, you verbally affirm. Feeling his smile against your own when he leans in to kiss you. You'll confirm later that size really doesn't matter.  After all, you just happen to be lucky that your bestie-now-turned-boyfriend has a huge cock to complement the equally huge amount of love he has stored for you in his heart.

onlyseokmins: June 2023 ©

[petalbcrnes]

oh, i’ve been gone for a few days, but !!! i have a little something for you guys <3 changing up my post’s styles a bit. i’d like to focus on headcanons and small imagines from now on. (dw my series won’t disappear). i just want to try something new! 🌷

a/n: not proofread, this work is sfw. have fun reading. MASTERLIST HERE !!

✹ ꕀ 𝐉𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐎𝐃𝐃 : ‘ 𝖺𝗌 𝖺 𝖻𝗈𝗒𝖿𝗋𝗂𝖾𝗇𝖽? ’ ( ✦ )

( ✦ ) In a few words, to describe a relationship with Jason Todd would be a fever dream, a reverie you didn't even know you were in until those sea-green eyes hit you like waves; you find yourself wanting to lose yourself in this dream.

Despite being a man with a reputation of a rather not-so-savory kind, he unexpectedly shows the most softness and tenderness for his partner out of all the Bat-boys.

೯⠀⁺ ⠀ 𖥻 ⠀. ᰋ .. 🪻

JASON TODD loves quietly. He's subtle with his affections. The fact he loves you will be shown in the small details that collect over time. You don't even notice it at first. He's not used to expressing his feelings in a way that's obvious to the fleeting eye. Only someone who pays attention would see how utterly devoted your boyfriend is to you.

It's the way Jason always has a hand on the surface of your back or waist, guiding you through crowds or holding you while cooking in the kitchen. The touch serves as a safety net for you and a chain that connects the two of you. He needs you close to him. Your presence in the early morning or even in the busy streets of Gotham City has him feeling even calmer.

Jason devotes himself to learning everything about you. He silently watches you when you talk about the things you enjoy. It's a soothing sound to his ears. He makes sure to keep any important detail you mentioned tucked away in his mind.

The specific drink you like at that coffee place you've grown attached to, that book you've been reading (he's picked it up too, he wants to talk about it with you), what temperature you enjoy your tea, the route you take during your day—do you want that pretty ceramic cup he saw at the shop? He thinks you would. He's getting it for you, because when you're happy—he is too.

🗨️: Sorry, I talk too much.

J: But I want to hear you.

There are moments in your relationship when the confidence Jason tried to show you slowly crumbles around you. He doesn't realize that it's the walls he has built around himself finally disappearing when he's with you.

It's shown in the way he sleeps soundly next to you. The way your touch doesn't send spikes through his skin. The way he's more open talking with you. It comes to him naturally—talking with you all night, words slipping past his lips that he wouldn't trust anyone else with.

Acts of service is an important part of a relationship with Jason. He's up before you are. The hot cup of your favorite drink sits steaming on the counter. He's already fussing around the kitchen, trying to cook up a meal for you. (Keyword, trying. I don't have much faith in his cooking, and neither does he.) He's the first to go out for groceries. His hands are always full of the bags you carry. No matter how many times you reassure him you're okay on your own, he shakes his head. He's doing this because he wants to.

🗨️: It's okay. I can carry them.

J: No, no. It's okay. While we're at it, give me that bag you're holding in your left hand, looks heavy.

🗨️: You literally have five bags already!

He has a habit of resting his head on your shoulder or placing his chin on top of your head when he’s tired. He’ll murmur something like “Five more minutes, babe” if you try to move.

I already mentioned in a previous post that you two are not only lovers. Friends to lovers is the romance I see Jason being in. You're his best friend, and he's yours. You're the first one he looks for in a room because you're the only one who really knows him—in and out. He's Jason Todd to the rest of the world, but to you, he's your Jay. The Jay you met and slowly became friends with. The Jay you spent hours huddled away in a library with. You two discuss books non-stop in hushed whispers. Those whispers slowly turned into something even bigger, something that settled deep in your bones.

Jason adores physical touch, but only from you. He’s the kind of guy who acts grumpy about PDA but will still pull you into his lap when you least expect it. Forehead kisses, temple kisses, pulling you closer by the waist when someone walks too close to you—those are his specialties.

Dates include, you guessed it, library dates, that cozy restaurant you two found, the park during the evening, the homey feel of your shared apartment at midnight while a cheesy romance movie plays in the background, late-night walks around the busy streets while the kaleidoscopic colors of the city dance across your figures. It's all very saccharine sweet and simply soft.

The pet names I see Jason using are: a classic babe, pipsqueak (a more teasing one), a shortened version of your name, and pretty.

Jason isn’t a fan of social media, but he keeps a private account just to follow you. He never posts, never likes anything, but he’s always watching. If you post a picture of yourself, he’ll send a text: “You’re beautiful, you know that?”

Might be surprising to some, but he's a big gossiper. He's talking about everyone and everything with you. It's a monthly talk you guys have. Basically, gossip buddies.

Arguments are rare with Jason. I've already mentioned that love with him is a process of boundaries and promises to take things slow. I think the two of you don't cross any lines.

Even if something happens, he cannot bear to get mad at you. You're his person, his other half. It ends with apologies, and he needs to be in your presence for the next few days (like a cat with separation anxiety, following you from room to room).

God forbid someone threatens you in any way. Which in itself is rare, because of the automatic scary boyfriend privileges you have. Though, if someone is foolish enough to try, all you need is to give Jason permission, and the person is getting into big trouble.

He likes to write little notes for you. Slipping them into your book, sticking them on the bathroom mirror, or tucking them into your pocket. They range from “Don’t forget to eat” to “You looked so pretty this morning, I almost forgot how to breathe.”

He walks you to class. Shyly, he takes your hand in his and has a small celebration in his mind that he managed to do it. Off you two go, strolling through the campus as if it's your own world.

I think Jason would playfully tease you too. He's your best friend and now boyfriend. It's a requirement now. That's where the pipsqueak pet name comes from. He enjoys your reactions, the little huffs of exasperation or the way you try (and fail) to glare at him.

If he ever catches you crying, Jason immediately goes into comfort mode. He might not always have the right words, but his arms are strong, his voice is gentle, and he’ll hold you as long as you need.

🗨️: You don’t have to stay with me. I’ll be okay.

J: I know you will. But I want to be here.

Jason is so in love with you, it’s ridiculous.

But at the end of the day, despite all the teasing, all the quiet acts of love, all the soft whispers and quiet mornings, Jason Todd is just a man who loves you with everything he has. And he always will.

♥︎ . .. ♥︎ .. 🌷 ♥︎

© petalbcrnes | all rights reserved. even when credited, these works are not allowed to be reposted, translated, or modified.

[galedekarios]

What do you think of their decision to make Gale a teacher in his good ending? Earlier in the game, he says his attempted students’ ineptitudes irked him. Do you think he’s made enough of a change to make a good professor?

thank you for your message, anon! 🖤

i'm of two minds about it:

i am going to be transparent here and say that i am a teacher myself. i studied, i did my teacher training, and i have been teaching for a good bit now - and some people are meant to be teachers, and some are not. it's one of those professions that you have to be born for, imo. it requires an immense amount of patience and perseverance, a certain intuition when it comes to your students, among many other things.

i have said before that i can see gale as a professor, but less so in a teaching position and more in a sort of research role.

so looking at this, i think what larian is trying to convey is that gale has settled into this new life he leads, that he's found his place in life. that he's finally worked to salvage that life instead of reaching for the stars.

he's content now, more than he's ever been before. he has returned to the home he missed so very much. he's spending his time surrounded with the people he loves. tara, morena, the player, his friends. and he's dedicated himself to the study of magic.

that feeling of being content, happiness and security and love, as well as the journey he's been on, too, may have quelled the things that caused him to feel so irked by his students prior to his journey, perhaps it has given him a new perspective on things, the low lows and high highs he experienced.

but i also think that larian does listen to community feedback - imo too much at times - and this was a intensely popular headcanon for gale.

i have taken a look for you at the files for the epilogue and the notes in it seem to echo my thoughts overall:

His default state is that he returned to Waterdeep and became a professor of Illusory magic at his former school, Blackstaff Academy. General vibe here is that this a Gale who's found peace with himself - he's a great teacher, one his students are mostly in awe of.

[madamechrissy]

Just Friends!?

-Art in the banner from nek0zuu_ on X-

Pairings- Former Nerd! Gojo and popular F! reader

Summary - Satoru Gojo was the biggest nerd EVER in high school with you, next door neighbors, study buddies, you were the best friends in the world. Never having the courage to ask you -the 'popular girl' out- you never knew he felt for you. He ended up leaving town, moving to the big city of LA- getting famous with a modeling career, and lost touch with everyone from his old life. While you're working the family pub to help out your parents, years later, he finally comes back to visit, just to have you making his drink. Everything about him is different, aside from those pretty blue eyes and the sweet grin. You feel he's so accomplished now, and you're just a small town girl, but little do you know, you've never left his mind.

Warnings - Will be explicit and smutty (it's me!?) Nerdjo turned famous and cocky, but he's still just a Nerdjo deep down hehe- sexual tension, lots of angst tbh, Gojo finding himself again, but being an ass of a man. Reader has a hard situation (dad has an illness) but nothing too rough! SO MANY feelings, repressed things, pining, longing, say Hi to Nerdjo AGAIN- longer chap this time! (This is a mini series, so expect two more parts maybe hree it's me lol)

Based on the 2005 Rom com Just Friends - part of my amazingg moot @indiewritesxoxo's Friday night flicks! 🌙

<<<Part Two - Masterlist - Part Four>>

Part Three

“Why do I need to do an interview!? And where are you going!” Samantha demands the next morning, pouting as he is about to drop her off with an ‘interviewer’ aka Satoru paid someone to keep her busy so he can meet you.

He wasn’t with Samantha, but she was psychotically obsessed, the few times he’d let her fuck him had been truly terrifying, she’d licked his entire face last time so he’s firmly avoided her. As pretty as she is, psycho is psycho, and it wasn’t even the kind that made her better in bed, it was the kind where you wondered if you’d make it through the night.

He already set it up with an old acquaintance who just happened to be a fan of hers anyway, now they’re setting up for her and she’s refusing to budge, instead reaching up to grab him around the neck, pouting full lips at him. “Satoru, why do you have to go!?”

“Family things, I know, I know I will miss you too.” He pouts all cute,  and she finally sighs, dejectedly letting him leave, Satoru runs out in the cold, hurrying to his still warm little car, beginning to drive the way to your place.

How could he forget it, the endless afternoons once you all had gotten home from school, the way you’d run up your stairs and watch the cartoons that came out - Digimon was his favorite, Sailor Moon was yours. In fact your room had been covered with Sailor moon merchandise, he wonders if it still is. He wonders so much about your life.

The heat warms him as he drives through distant but familiar roads, he had ridden them on his bike so, so many times, quiet streets in a town that hasn’t grown very much. He certainly sees new places and a few more cars than before, but compared to LA it was the middle of nowhere. Winding streets, until he pulls up to your parents’ home.

The nostalgia hits when he steps out of his car, leaving it running so it would be warm enough for you, slowly walking up through the snow crunched grass to your wide front porch. Your house hasn’t changed a bit, the same old brick style, smaller than his but still beautiful in its vintage way, unchanged even amongst the newer styles of homes built.

He knocks hesitantly on the burgundy door, faded paint with time, how many times had he done just this? Being a little kid, being a teen and almost an adult, he’s not sure he really was an adult at eighteen really. Satoru pauses and smirks when you open the door, then falters as he sees your mom, who instead of warmly welcoming him like he expects, pauses just a bit.

“Hey there, been a long time.” He greets her, and she smiles then, sighing and opening the door wider.

“It has been too long, Satoru.” You smile gently at your mom, she remembers even years later the heartbreak of losing him, god no breakup could compare to losing your best friend that night. But you also know she loved him like one of her own, just like Satoru’s mom with you.

“I’m gonna grab some gloves and a hat real quick.” You are so pretty he thinks, in this red sweater and what looks like soft to the touch black pants, boots up to your calves, a jean jacket that looks just like the one he remembers you wearing all the time, and your face is bare aside from a little lip gloss, tempting him to no end.

You’re effortlessly beautiful, but then, you’ve always been.

Satoru feels himself flustered, only you do this, unable to answer you more than a nod. You smile a bit, nervously, running to put on your hat and gloves, listening to your mom as she hugs Satoru tightly. He’s in a dress shirt worth more than your car likely, a black overcoat that could have been pulled from a runway. You suddenly feel hopelessly underdressed, but try to shake it off.

“You’re visiting home?” Your mom asks, and Satoru clears his throat, stepping back and rubbing the back of his neck.

“I had a show here, but I figured I’d try to catch up with her a bit. I saw her at the family bar, still running that huh?”

“We are, she’s been a big help for us.” You smile at your mother’s sweet words, you never expected to move back home, even if it’s temporary, but to know you’re helping them too is a huge relief. “We aren’t even paying her to work at the bar, she gets tips of course but… even those she helps with bills which we need, since her dad is still recovering.”

Satoru pauses now, looking at you, seeing the emotion hit your face. “He’s sick, what’s wrong?”

“He had um…” You trail off, and your mom blinks a bit. “We can talk about it on the way, you must be so cold.”

“Yeah, I’m not used to this weather, the car is warm though.” You kiss your mom’s cheek, and follow Satoru out to the fancy sports car, so out of place in the working town you live in. He opens your door, surprising you for a moment, and you murmur a thank you, sliding in now.

Warm and cozy, you try to rest your insanely beating heart, it was just coffee with an old friend, it wasn’t more, you can’t sit there and think suddenly you’ll both be close again. You don’t even know who Satoru is, he feels so foreign to you, sliding in and grinning at you now, so handsome with his straight white teeth, for a moment you remember the colored rectangles that used to align them fondly.

“You look really great, I feel a little underdressed.” Your words should stroke his ego, but he blinks a bit, frowning.

“What, you look hot.” You’re flushed now, looking down nervously.

“You’re just really dressed up.”

“I am everywhere, though baby, gotta maintain a good image.” He’s leaned back, arm over your back seat as he looks back to pull out of your driveway, putting the two of you impossibly close in the little confines of the car.

“Well you definitely dress well. Where is that … your girl?”

“She’s not my girl.” He rolls his eyes as he then reaches for his dark shades, throwing them on to drive through the blinding snow.

“She seems great.” He bursts into laughter then, it’s so warming for a moment you feel transfixed, until it eases and he sighs a bit.

“She’s horrible. Beautiful yeah but jesus that girl. Many screws loose.”

“Yeah she seemed interesting.”

“I hooked up with her yeah but-” He pauses now, you’re just fiddling with your sweater nervously. “Anyway, let’s not talk about her.”

“What do you wanna talk about?”

“Your dad, what’s up with that? He got the flu or something?” Satoru turns on the blinker as the two of you stop at the light, and you take a hesitant breath.

“He had cancer.”

Satoru’s heart sinks, hearing the sadness in your voice, even as you cover it up, clearing your throat, and his gaze goes to you, eyes wide. “What!? He’s so young and healthy?”

“He hasn’t been healthy, he got sick after you left. Um, your mom knew, she came over a lot, I thought you’d… know?” Satoru hadn’t asked a word about you, and any time his mom brought you or anything up, he brushed her off. “You didn’t know?”

“If I knew, I’d have…” What would he have done?

It’s quiet as the green light goes, and the snow gently dusts the windshield, as you realize he likely didn’t know. Why did you assume that perhaps Satoru would have kept tabs like you did, that’s just foolish. But you figured as close as you two were, you certainly thought somewhere he wondered, but as you see the shock on his face, it settles a bit.

The truth.

He never even asked about you.

You feel horrible when Satoru was picked on, but you tried everything to make sure it was not that way. You thought he knew how special he was to you, but now it starts sinking in, he truly did leave it all behind. You’re not sure how that feels, you aren’t so conceited that you thought he still - well, ever - felt what he wrote in your yearbook, but you assumed he cared.

“Shit is he going to be okay?” Zoned out for a moment, you’re brought back to the present.

“He is, he’s cancer free officially. But he’s still weak, the chemo…”

“Fuck. I’m so sorry.” He puts a hand on your thigh then, eyes falling to yours when you all slow down on the road. “I’m glad he’s gonna be okay.”

“Thank you, Satoru, so am I.” You gently touch his hand with your own, both gloved, but it feels good and comforting, it feels like something you’ve missed. “Don’t feel bad you didn’t know. I thought maybe your mom would have told you?”

“I… she probably tried.” He looks back at the road then, and his words hurt you more than they should. “I wasn’t interested in what was going on back here aside from her. So I likely cut her off.”

“Oh.” You blink back hot emotion, Satoru feels it, how tense the air is in the car, feels your thigh tense under his touch even, as he focuses on driving.

“You’re helping them because he’s not feeling good yet.”

“Yes, but also, I needed to come back, we got lay offs where I was, and as a new teacher I had no tenuity.”

Fuck you’ve had it rough, even if you don’t perceive it that way, the guilt eats him alive, no matter what he would have liked to think he’d be there for you during that, something happening to your father. He was close to him as well growing up, and he sees the effects it has, but you hearing his dismissal of you probably made it worse.

He couldn’t care about you anymore, not when you were so deeply embedded in his heart and soul, not when he was in love with you since you were both just kids, the only way to not feel you anymore was to shove you deep down. And make you just a small flicker of memories, while he busied himself with fame, parties, events, anything to feel alive, and not the emptiness.

“I asked about you.” Your voice drags him down further, his hand is still resting on your thigh, squeezing just a bit.

This isn’t how he thought it would go.

He thought he’d bust out a few lines of how sexy you are, give you a charming grin and a brush on your cheek, and you’d melt, all women melt for him. But you’re tense, unsure and hurt, and he can’t help but feel it’s all due to him, as badly as he wants to explain it away.

“I know. Mom told me.”

It’s quiet again.

The two friends that teased and laughed and shared everything were just strangers now.

You’re holding it back, the endless questions in your head swirling, wanting to know why you were left behind, you get everyone else, but why you, Shoko, Suguru? Why couldn’t he have made a little exception for his true friends. Was it too painful, the memories?

“We’re here.” He says softly, and you both step out then, awkward in your shuffle towards the door, which he opens, the little bells jingling as warmth filters out of the cozy place.

Soon you’re both seated across from each other, and a familiar waitress bounces over. “Oh it’s little Satoru! Oh goodness, what a treat!”

Satoru sighs, shoving up his shades, he was hoping less people would recognize him, not understanding how much he stood out as a six foot four man with shocking white hair. Well, it’s lavender a bit in places, isn’t it? Or is it silver? You never could figure out its color, nor the exact shade of blue that made up the eyes still hiding behind the dark glass.

“Yeah, just for a couple days.”

“And with her! Oh you two were always the cutest, I thought you’d be together, it was the talk of the cafe.” She’s giggling as she watches your reaction. “She has been coming here once a week when she’s in town, gets your special order.”

“Maisie!” You’re trying to shush her, but Satoru’s already heard, as she covers her mouth. “I just enjoy those pancakes.”

You order his order?

He’s staring at you across from him, taking your jean jacket off, now he’s sure it’s from high school. He sees the little pin he’d gotten you still on it, a little Sailor Mars pin, faded and worn. You smile nervously as he just stares at you then, putting the pieces together slowly.

You still come here.

You wear his pin.

You ask about him.

You fucking cared for him, didn’t you? He thought it was some pity, a sweetheart of a girl who’s stupidly popular, but always made sure to include him. He didn’t think it was more than that, pity or convenience, but now he’s questioning it, the girl he left behind in his small town, the one he forced himself to never think of, when you seemingly kept thinking of him.

“Are you good with that?” He blinks a bit, looking at your lips, ones he’d die to feel for once, struggling to hear what you said.

“Huh?”

“The usual, Satoru, those fluffy pancakes that look like kittens! And a strawberry milkshake, right?” Maisie asks, eyes all hopeful, but Satoru laughs a bit, shaking his head now.

“Yeah no, I can’t have that many carbs. Just an Americano please.” Maisie blinks a bit now, and you shift in your seat. “I have a body to maintain.”

“I’ll have pancakes.” You say then, making Maisie smile. “And a milkshake.”

“On the way!” You sigh as you look at Satoru across the table, leaning back in the bright red booth.

“She was excited to see you, couldn’t you just split some with me?”

“Do you know how much sugar is in a pancake?”

“What happened to the boy who loved sweets? You’ve always been thin, what’s the harm?” Satoru scoffs, shaking his head.

“You wouldn’t get it.”

“Oh, I guess not.” It’s tense again, as Maisie comes back out, and Satoru looks over at the pancake with two kittens made of whipped cream and berries, two forks and a milkshake with two straws.

“In case you change your mind.” She hands him his coffee with a gentle touch of your shoulder, and Satoru sips it, as you sip your milkshake, leaning forward just so, wrapping your lips around the straw, he nearly chokes on his coffee when you lick your lower lip.

“Yummy.” You say it with a smirk, as if to tempt him into the sugar.

“I bet.”

“I am sure girls you’re used to don’t eat, and don’t get me wrong, I try to be healthy, but a little indulgence doesn’t hurt.” You take a nibble now, sighing and shutting your eyes, doing erratic things to his brain. “We have a lot of memories here.”

“Yeah. I guess we did.” He’s transfixed then, memories making the atmosphere shift, of him giggling, sitting next to you, while you fed him bites, sipping each other’s drinks, Satoru remembers panicking, thinking how it was an indirect kiss. “I was a loser then.”

“What!?” You glare now, fork falling as he sips the hot, dark coffee again.

“I was, what? Gonna act like I wasn’t?”

“You were certainly not. You were smart, sweet, funny…” You feel it now, the hot anger you try to keep buried, as a teacher you’re sweet and patient, you try to see the sides of everything. But you’re so furious at him at that moment, for talking shit about your best friend - him.

“And you’re still sweet.” His words are soft, a quirk of his plump lips now. “Too nice some would say.”

“Well Satoru, I don’t care what people say, and I never have.” You take another bite now, still glaring. “And I won’t let you talk shit about the best friend I had.”

He pauses, snowy lashes lowering, while you chew the bite now, his knees brush yours under the table, spread wide as yours sit between them, brushing just the smallest bit. “The best friend you had?”

“Wasn’t I to you?” Satoru’s eyes lift, the lilting conversations in the room fade away, he sees the tiniest bit of whipped cream on the corner of your mouth then, leaning forward and brushing it away with his thumb. Touching your cheek does more in that moment than the endless nights with women, tilting everything on its axis.

You gasp just a bit, he is pulling it back now, lapping the cream off his thumb, the action making you heat up, pressing your thighs together, heart racing. “It is yummy.”

Jesus christ.

It’s been a long time since you’ve done anything, but there’s no excuse for just what that did to your body, seeing him so casually touch you and lick his finger like that, mind running to things it shouldn’t. You shake that off, feeling the tension weigh even heavier, as you sip on the milkshake again slowly, swallowing before you finally get the courage to ask it.

“Why did you never talk to me again?”

The question hits him hard, what did he think? You'd be so blinded by his good looks, money and fame, that you’d fall? No, you were the girl he remembered, the girl who those things never mattered to, the one yelling at him for being mean to himself, or who he used to be. He leans back a bit, thighs brushing yours once more, hearing the edge to your voice as you study him.

“I didn’t talk to anyone but mom, it wasn’t just-”

“Why me though? I thought we were so close, I…” You’re blinking tears, but you fail, and Satoru’s heart which he thought was good, until this, until the pretty tear glinting off the light ahead. “You were my everything. I… need a moment, I’m sorry.” You go to stand but he grabs your hand then, placing his over yours.

“Don’t go.” His voice belies some of his emotions finally. “I… I had to leave you all behind, that night was a cruel joke in my head, playing over and over.”

You sit back down, swiping at your tears. “I needed just some time to get them out, there were so many of them.”

“But the thing is, they were your people, everyone loved you, and I thought… that I was a ‘pity friend’.”

“A what!?”

“Something cute to tote around, like some fucking… kitten or puppy. Like these stupid kittens.”

“They’re cute, first off. Second off, you were much more. God everything I told you, everything we went through, and you never asked about me?” Satoru’s lips part, you keep your voice low, as others laugh and converse around you all, as the bustling little place that hasn’t changed a bit goes in motion, you’re at a standstill.

“I couldn’t look back.” Satoru’s words are hard for you to handle, he swipes a hand through those locks then, leaning forward. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves at this moment.”

“What?” His hand brushes back your hair, and he smiles a bit, sure he’s charming, but you can’t even believe him.

“Why look on it, I’m here now. I want to catch up.”

“Do you, why when you never did?”

“Because I’m here now, and…”

“Miss me suddenly only when you saw me? Was it because Sukuna asked me out?” He glares right at you now, before relaxing clenched hands, raising a brow.

“Why should that matter? He can’t compete with me.”

“Compete, there’s no competition. You know, Satoru… I liked - no - loved who you were. I loved watching anime with you and going to the arcade, I loved how sweet and free you felt with me.” You’re sniffling, barely able to hold back things you’d hoped you could let go, but the lingering is in your heart. “I loved everything about the boy you were.”

“I…” He’s sputtering, unable to know what to do now. “I’m not him anymore. He was just a-”

“A sweetheart. A good person. There was nothing wrong with him. And I will not let you keep downing him, when I loved who he was.” You’re throwing on your jacket now, Satoru can’t believe the words out of your mouth, words he could never dream would fall, but he knows it too well.

“Loved as a friend?” You laugh without humor, tossing your hair back and pulling it out from under the collar of the denim.

“You never let us find out if there was more.” The words pulsate through him, as panic sets in, but you shake your head, sighing. “I get why you ran, I do, but fuck like you forgot me. It hurt more than any shitty breakup, it meant more than some guy I thought I had puppy love for. We were so close, I…”

He murmurs your name softly, a nickname only he had called you, long ago. “Can you just give me a day with you?”

“I see no reason to keep talking.”

Satoru’s jaw clenches. “Gotta see Sukuna?”

“Yes. I made plans. And since you’re not eating, and I’ve lost my appetite…” He frowns down at the pancakes, swallows the memories, shutting his eyes.

“Yeah, okay, I won’t keep you.” His harsh words and cold gaze make it all shift, and soon you’re back in the car, but this time even the tentative pretense to be friendly was gone. His hand isn’t on your leg, no one is talking at all, and when he pulls up to your home, you pause, as he busies himself looking at his phone.

“Okay…” Your soft words make him pause just a bit. “Satoru I am sorry I unloaded those emotions. I should have just been friendly, I didn’t plan it to go that way.” He eyes you now, sending the text, sighing when your eyes swim once more with shimmering tears.

He wants to hold you.

He wants to hug you.

To bury you against his chest, a longing so real and tangible it’s hard for him to breathe, to not do that. “It’s fine, I shouldn’t have asked you to come out.”

The pain sets in, of his casual words. “Oh?”

“You didn’t want to, and you had plans later.” He’s back poking at his phone again. “You need me to walk you?”

Wow.

You say nothing, glaring now, stomping out of the car into the snow and slamming his fancy fucking door, he feels tears form in his own eyes, cursing himself then. He rests his head on the steering wheel, before he sees your gloves, sighing and grabbing them, walking out of the car and shouting your name.

You turn as he runs up, breath foggy, standing now at your step, for once you’re at face level, as he is several steps down from you, your breath quickening when he holds your gloves out. Your chilled fingers touch his as you grab it carefully, looking down at where they’re joined.

“Thanks.” You manage, trying to understand where sweet Satoru was, and why he’s in the body of a jerk model. “Have a good trip.”

Satoru knows he’s fucked it all up as you just turn away, and he watches you walk to your door. You look at him, and he can’t say anything, nothing at all to the girl he still feels in his fucking heart, his soul, a girl who clearly he’s hurt beyond what he knew, and you were still giving him a chance, but he’s fucking it up. He tries to pull it together, stepping up again, until he’s towering over you, an arm on one side of your door, as you press against it.

“Can we just start over?” He asks then, you shift, his presence is too much, the feelings and pressure overwhelming, to where you can’t think of anything but how badly you want to hug him, be held by him, even now.

Was he there anymore?

“I was rude, I know that. I’ll be here a few days, maybe… we can see like a movie, or just you can come over? Anything.” Finally, you feel it, some of who he was, his genuine voice breaking for just a moment.

“Will Samantha be there? She scares me.” He laughs then, his real fucking laugh, so cute as he rests his head lower, cupping your face, thumb brushing on an overheated cheek. “Satoru…”

“You still wear the same body spray.” You get more heated, he feels it, so warm and inviting, is all of you?

“Not everything needs to change.” He sighs now, knowing the double meaning behind it. “Wait, you remember my body spray?”

Fuck yes he did.

It was so sweet and you.

Any time he inhaled something similar, he’d look around wildly, thinking the sweet teacher was in LA - Satoru always knew you’d be one. He should tell you he’s proud you became one, that he’s proud you help your family. That he missed you, he truly did, even when he’s denied it, hidden it. That he’s sorry.

But the words fail, when he’s this close to you, breath tickling your lips, your eyes dart up, as he bends down now, and dies to think of kissing them, of devouring them, kiss every inch of you. But even if he could get with you, where did it lead? Was it selfish to think this way?

He is selfish.

“I’ll come over tomorrow night, we can do dinner and movies.”

“Shit, really?”

“With your mom.”

Fuck.

He sighs as you press him gently back. “Sound good?”

“Sounds good.” He takes a breath as you walk inside, looking back at him now. “I’ll see you then. Have a horrible fucking date.”

“Really now?” He just sets his jaw.

“Yep really. Hope it sucks.” 

You scoff now. “You’re a dick, I swear maybe-”

“No, no shit. Sorry, have a…” Horrible date. 

“Can’t even bullshit a fake nice answer?” You ask, stepping inside now, and Satoru chuckles.

“I guess not. Pick you up at six?”

“I can drive.” With that you shut the door, and he palms it for a moment, cursing silently to himself.

God he fucked it up.

Samantha is pouty and all over him as he picks her up, going on and on, when they get ready to hit their actual press junket, but she didn’t need to ever know that. She’s dramatically going on, as Satoru looks at the time, thinking you must be with Sukuna now, the thought making him grip the wheel far, far too tightly.

“Samantha, can you take a xanax dear god.” She gasps now.

“You’re such a dick!”

“Yeah, I heard that.”

*****

As Samantha and Satoru drive and bicker to the press junket, you’re waiting on Sukuna for lunch, peering at the time when he walks into the diner, big grin on his handsome face as he looks at you. You stand up, nervous now, after the emotional strain of Satoru’s date, you’re afraid of what lies ahead for this one.

“Ordered us something, is that cool? I waited a bit.” He puts his hands on your shoulder, leaning down and kissing your cheek then.

“Sorry I’m late, shit, I had a meeting and the guy wouldn’t shut up.” He’s rolling ruby eyes, you laugh a bit, softly.

“I get it. No worries!”

“Sit, sit.” You do just that, across from the tall, broad shouldered man, who is so huge he looks comical in the seat. “Fuck you look pretty.”

“Oh, um… thanks.” You tuck your hair behind your ear, and he chuckles.

“Cute.”

“Am I now?” He nods, leaning his chin on his fist, casually assessing you.

“Very.”

The food comes and the conversation flows, he seems actually interested in your life, asking all sorts of things, shit somehow he heard about your dad now, the town is small and talks a lot. He’s genuine in his concern, in his interest, to the point you start opening up more, laughing with him, asking about his life.

He’s not holding back like Satoru, he’s genuine about the past. “I was a fucking ass to you.”

“Yeah you were.”

“Shit, to everyone.”

“You were such an ass.”

“You could stop me, say I wasn’t so bad.” He leans close over the table, you just laugh then, shaking your head. “Shit, you’re right though. Have I said how good you look?”

“Three times.” You shove playfully at his shoulder, and he takes your hand in his then, making you pause, feeling the rough calluses from years of football, on your tender skin.

“I want to apologize.”

“Tell me this isn’t some death apology tour!”

“No. Just hoped to see you, and I did and… wanted to say I was a dumb little shit. Had you and fucked it up.”

“You needed those college girls.” He sighs, releasing your hand and sipping on his drink then.

“Nothing was like you.”

It’s quiet then, feelings have been going fucking insane all day, to have your ex and your ex best friend suddenly in your life, one avoiding, one apologizing, was difficult to process. Sukuna seems genuine, sweet even despite still being cocky and arrogant, fuck he was… enjoyable. You’re having fun.

“How’d coffee go?” He asks suddenly, as the waiter is grabbing your check.

“God, horrible. Um… I guess I was still upset that he left. But, you had a big part in that, you know.” Your glare makes him fidget a bit, running a hand through pink locks, frowning.

“I know. I was a bully to everyone.”

“If people were nicer, he wouldn’t have left me.” You realize then what you’ve said, looking away and shaking your head. “I’m sorry. That’s mean. I’m being a whole bitch today.”

“You are the furthest thing from a bitch. You should be mad at me, and mad he left you like that, shit you all were stupidly close.”

“Yeah. But still, we were young, so young. I don’t resent you.” Your hand comes over his now, thumb hitting the cool metal of his watch, his breath catches a bit. “I appreciate your apology.”

"Oh thank god.” He’s exhaling in relief, as you giggle.

“Sukuna is scared of something?”

“Saying sorry is like puking, yuck.” You laugh louder then, covering your face just a bit, as he grins at you. “I’m trying, okay?”

“You are.”

“I’d apologize to Satoru if he wasn’t such a punchable asshole.”

“Oh! You made him that way.”

“Apology tour unconcluded.” His grumble just brings you more joy, and he smirks as he studies you, a hand touching your knee under the table, making you heat up a bit. “Can I see you again before I leave?”

You nod then, smiling. “I’d like that.”

*****

Satoru got rid of Samantha, for a bit at least.

The next afternoon he and her had just come back from one of the first walks, he was exhausted and thirsty, pricks in his skin from outfits being pinned up in places, his lips fucking hurt from that look he always had to pull. Satoru had his own ‘blue steel’ that always made the women in the audience wet, and probably everyone horny if he was being completely honest.

But, it takes a toll.

Samantha is especially whiny after they get to Satoru’s mom’s home, and he is trying to think of ways to get her away, since you’re coming over in an hour. He wants real time with you. He wants to show he’s not this… who is he, really? The attention didn’t hit what it usually did, fuck nothing hit well when your teary eyes were burned in his brain.

“My feet hurt! It’s cold. I’m tired!” Samantha is whining and whining that night, when Satoru finally gets a notification.

A hotel room.

He grins now.

Fuck yes.

“Samantha, look baby, a suite!” He cooes to her, and she lights up when she sees it.

“Oh it actually looks nice, especially after this town.”

“It’s perfect, I’ll take you tonight.”

“But, aren’t you staying?” She’s frowning, touching his chest, then lower, until she grips his dick, and his eyes damn near bug out. “Little Gojo, tell him!”

“Dear god, ow.” She’s got a hell of a grip, he struggles to disentangle his cock from her brutal grip, wincing. “I have to spend a little time here, with my mom-”

“Bullshit, it’s the townie with the nice ass.” She glares, pushing him onto his bed then, and he rolls his eyes, shaking his head. “We can bring her in, threesome time. Purr.”

“Stop purring, fuck. No.” He grabs her hips now, yanking her off him, curious how to play this so she will listen, cupping her face now, putting on that smile. “You need beauty rest, you’re just not getting it here.”

“Ugh, true.”

“And there’s a spa there.”

“A spa!?”

“Mmhmm, I’ll pick you up for the next show in the morning, mmkay?” She giggles, kissing up his face until she tries to shove her tongue in his mouth, fuck he supposes he used to not mind, but he hates it, shoving her back. “We’ll miss the suite if we don’t go now!”

Thank god he got rid of her.

His mother also seems relieved, though she’s too sweet to say it out loud, already putting in orders. “Pizza for you two, right? And the cinnamon sticks, it’s what I always ordered. Pepperoni, extra icing-”

“Mom, so many…” He pauses then, remembering how you all were.

Happy.

Carefree.

Nibbling on those cinnamon sticks, you’d dab icing on his nose and giggle so fucking cute, god he would die to see you smile again.

“That sounds good, thank you mom. Any… shit, advice?” His mom starts tearing up now, and Satoru frowns. “Mom?”

“My baby wants advice!” He ends up hugging her, sighing now, god he missed being home, he thought he would hate it, but he doesn’t really. He misses you and her. So much.

Last night had been spent going through it over and over, every single way he’d fucked up, then thoughts of you and Sukuna. Was it a good date? Would your feelings come back? Would he have a chance? And the biggest question, could there be any type of future if you actually did let him have it? What was that like for you two?

He doesn’t know where it will go, but he knows one thing, he never wants to make you cry again, and he has to try anything. “Advice for what, my love?” His mom’s words are soft and sweet, Satoru rubs the back of his neck now, sighing.

“How to be… myself again.” His mom is full sobs now, he has to hold her narrow, shaky form, feeling awful then. “I’m still a model. I’m rich. I’m… famous.”

“You are, and I’m so proud. But I’ve never been prouder than now.”

“Mom, shh. I just wanna try to be who she remembers, a little. Is he still here?” She holds a hand to his chest, nodding.

“He’s here. And all over your room. Find some special things, maybe your favorite movie, a favorite song? Your sweater.”

Satoru scoffs. “That ugly thing!”

“Mmm, it’s a thought. It’s almost six, so get ready.”

Shit.

Satoru runs up the stairs, to his room trapped in time, fingers running across the ugly ass nerdy sweater, folded right over one of his polos. He frowns, staring in the mirror, still in his dress shirt loosely unbuttoned and black slacks, then back at the sweater you got him.

“Fuck it.” He goes to the old cd player now, hitting track number one, your favorite song, the one he was singing the night everything changed, the night he practiced in the mirror kissing. He was a loser then, even if you won’t admit it, but if you want it? He’d do anything.

Just for a chance to make you happy. After being horrible, selfish, cold, he lay in bed all night tossing and turning, thinking of your words.

If you just gave me time.

Time, he didn’t give you time.

Satoru slips on the ugly polo and argyle sweater, before he leans over, picking up the old glasses, then putting them down. He takes out his contacts now, sighing as he puts them on, looking in the mirror, shaking his head. The sweater is small against his buffer frame, the glasses look ridiculous on his chiseled frame, then glares at his retainer.

He still wears one a few nights a week, but…

The Lucemon, huh?

“Gonna go full nerd mode.” He laughs at himself, shaking his head and slicking his hair up, like it was then, with pomade. He cleans the shit out of the retainer then, leaning over the bathroom mirror and snapping it in. “God.”

He looks…

“Satoru!” Your voice makes him pause, as he runs out, and you see him then, pausing at the doorway, plates of pizza in one hand, a bottle of wine tucked in your arm. Your mouth drops, eyes blinking rapidly. “Satoru?”

“I know.” He grumbles, and you hear it then, one of your favorite songs, eyeing his room, realizing it hasn’t changed a bit. “Here.”

You let him gently take the bottle from your arm, setting it on his side table, then taking the pizza gently, as your lip trembles, and you look at him, fuck you stare at him. Is it him!? Is he… is Satoru here? Is it some ruse to make fun of himself, or is it something real, tangible?

He pulls you against him, hugging you so tightly, and you cling to him then, his soft sweater against your cheek now, while he rocks gently side to side, letting you cry, just holding you. Like he used to. He feels so good you sink into him, crying more, his mom walks up, seeing you two, Satoru looks at her behind his glasses, as she sets down the cinnamon sticks and the movie.

She smiles, teary eyed, shutting the door then, making you jump a bit, looking behind you. “Oh god you must think I’m a mess!”

“I don’t.” His hoarse voice, so raspy and deep, sends trembles through you when he eyes you, magnified blue eyes behind thick lenses, and your hand slips up that soft sweater. “I was a dick.”

“Oh, Satoru…”

“I was. And you should be mad, you shouldn’t even come see me. But that’s what I love about you, how kind you always were.” He wants to say more, but for now just that has him overwhelmed. “I got into nerd mode.”

You’re laughing as you swipe your tears, and he can’t help but smile. “Nerd mode!”

“Nerd mode activated. Look.” He opens his mouth, earning further giggles.

“Oh my god! Satoru, it’s the retainer!”

“Mmhmm. I guess I still look hot, huh?” He winks now, and you nod eagerly, grinning now.

“Hot. So hot now.” He rolls his eyes, hugging you once more, leaning back, his lips a breath from yours, and your eyes drift to them, as your heart pounds. “All this for me?”

“The least I can do after…” He still can’t say it.

He was wrong to have left you.

“Your room oh my god, the memories!” You leave his embrace, running up to look at all of his photos, touching your chest then, feeling the warmth in your heart, as Satoru stands behind you, hard body warm behind you. “It’s all me and you.”

“That’s all I needed.” He touches one gently, a hand on your waist as he studies the photo, it was your eighteenth birthday, right before he’d left.

“We look so fucking happy.” Your words almost break him then, when you look back up at him, hair brushing against his soft sweater, he can inhale that shampoo, your vanilla scent, mixing with the cinnamon and pizza in his childhood room.

Every memory is back.

They’re all of you.

“Thank you for coming tonight. I promise, I’m fine being a friend, even though I was so shitty for so long.” You shake your head then, and his proximity makes you question everything.

“You were just… traumatized. I never was angry, just hurt.”

“That’s worse.” Satoru cups your chin, and both of you know, friendship is different than whatever tingles and shocks run through your bodies in that moment, as he watches you behind those frames. “The next couple days, I’d love to try to… get to know you.”

“And get to know yourself?” He nods, when you turn your head back to your photos, and lean back, so that you’re fully against him. He gulps back the hot desire, a hand splaying your tummy, feeling your frame in his arms, dying to never let go.

He shouldn’t have left you.

God he was a fool.

Even after it all, he feels it, your affection, your care, while you delicately touch another polaroid of you two, this one right before graduation. The sadness fills you both slowly. “Um, where’s…”

“She’s got a suite.”

“Oh.”

“Did your lunch date suck?”

“You’re still a dick.” He’s laughing softly, and you bounce off him now, rushing to the dvd, grinning as his eyes light up.

“Not the Holy Grail!”

“Always the Holy Grail. God, I can still recite it all.” You rush now, seeing his playstation and smiling. “This still work?”

“Dusty but yes.” He slides it open, when you both lean down to blow, and he smacks into your head. “Shit!”

“Ow!” He touches a growing bump on yours tenderly, cool thumb feeling relieving. “Sorry.”

“No, I got clumsy, the nerd gear.” He’s smiling watching you laugh again, leaning back over to gently blow, so goddamn beautiful he can’t stand it, especially with your pretty grin.

“The date was good.”

“Date, hmm.” He frowns now, jealousy eating at him. “Did you…”

“Kiss? Would you care?” You ask softly, not meeting his eyes, as you place the disc inside, and grant he remote, turning on his thin black tv, while he curses just a bit. He wants to be cocky, arrogant, conceited. Say no, he wouldn’t care.

But…

He needs to be him again.

“Yeah. I would.” You pause once more, in the quiet room, just the ticking clock and the fan whirling overhead the only sounds, along with your heart thrumming in your ears. “But I get it, if so.”

“We didn’t.” He exhales too much in relief, thank God you don’t see, fiddling with the tv, when Satoru starts getting everything on the floor, and pats it, letting you sit on the soft carpet next to him.

You’re just wearing sweats and a comfy shirt, and you look sexier than any model he saw today, casual, sweet and looking like you just showered. Hair fucking shimmering, skin glowy and dewy, a smile not leaving your lips, especially when you watch him bite the cheesy, gooey pizza, a string of mozzarella that he laps up.

“What?” He asks, wiping his grease from the pizza off his chin.

“Nothing, just… carbs huh.”

He snorts now, rolling his eyes, and leaning closer to you, so close you feel his toned, strong arm against you, feeling so good. “I’ll eat carbs on vacation I guess.”

“It’s on, it’s on!” You’re nibbling a cinnamon stick, a little sugar on your lip he’s dying to lick off.

It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot.

The movie starts, and he realizes you still know the shit word by word, and have no problem acting them out physically either. He’s laughing so hard his cheeks hurt, his tummy hurts, so full of pizza now, and you are popping open the wine as you carry on your quotes.

“Holy fuck, I didn’t know then.” He says softly, when you hand him a glass, and breathlessly sit next to him.

“Know what, Satoru?”

“You’re… a nerd.”

“Hey!” You nudge him, laughing again, sighing suddenly as both of your laughter dies down, and you’re sipping that glass, leaving a pretty, perfect lip print. “I was always nerdy, just… people were cool with it.”

“You were always you.” He brushes his fingers across your cheek, as you see your flushed reflection in his glasses, and he drops his fingers. “I’m sorry for yesterday, I was…”

“A jerk.”

“That.” 

You touch his face now, brushing along a jawline that’s just sharpened impossibly, studying the beautiful super model in his old room, in his old clothes. Everything that you’ve missed for so long feels real, tangible, and you don’t know how long this will last, this beautiful feeling. Is it fleeting?

“When do you return?” You ask softly.

“Two days.”

Your heart sinks a bit, but you nod quietly. “I’ll miss you when you go again.”

“Why would you miss me? After…”

“You’ll always be my Toru.” Satoru sips his own drink, gulping down the heavy feelings with it, you all are closer now, so close. His arm wrapped around your waist, you’re almost in his fucking lap. He’s nuzzling your neck and inhaling you, hand slipping up higher, thumb brushing the side of your breasts through your soft fleece, but even then he sees it, your nipples pressed up.

“I missed you too.” His admission shocks you, your eyes meet and lock, the very air crackling between you both, as you lean closer, hand gripping the stem of your glass, as he’s so close, too close. “You shouldn’t even let me close.”

“No?”

“No, not when all I can think of is tasting every inch of you.” His words shock you then, sexy and bold, and terrifying.

You’re so close to kissing him.

But if you do, what does it mean? A fleeting affair? Could you handle the pain of him going back to his world if you let him in? Could you lose him again?

“I missed this.” He’s just looking at you, as the badly dressed knights are fighting, and you want to believe him, fuck you do…

But you’re scared.

“You look like you did that night.” Your words make him smile a bit, leaning even closer, until his eyes are lidded, and his lips are parted, drinking in your gasp when he inhales.

“That’s because that night I had a plan. One I really fucked up.”

“What plan?” Your whisper sends your sweet, wine kissed breath into his, and he’s shaking with how badly he needs you, how badly he hurts for what he’s done, how much he wishes he could have changed that night, changed it all.

Was this finally his chance?

“Let me… show you.”

Mmmkay the drama isn't over, but he's learning a bit. I know he's an ASS but he's traumatized and we can fix him - I think

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