#still not over chapter 43

[dumptruckofanass]

for when the bell rings, brother, you're on your own

[nanistar]

Why is the flashback so long?

i have a loooot of info to cover

[everyryuujisuguro]

[stylesispunk]

'Silent Strain' | part I

Outbreak!Joel Miller x f!reader

next chapter

summary: Joel and you knew that bringing a child into this mad world was a mistake, but he wanted to give you the best that was left of that world after all.

w.c: 12,6k (this was 5k at the beginning)

warnings: established relationship, age gap (Joel is 43 and Reader 32) angst, mentions of pregnancy, mentions of abortion, fluff, not proofreading, sorry. The events of this story happen 10 years after the outbreak.

a/n: New Sunday, new fic? This one was on my drafts and I thought about developing a little bit more because I wanted to write one where Joel wasn't an asshole. This may become a really short series. Reblogs and comments are always appreciated. Happy reading.

dividers by @/saradika-graphics

Mornings in the QZ were far from a story teller, always bleak as any other, somber and carrying the weight of the guilty grieving each people who has survived this far dealt with.

Many people had become the worst versions of themselves, just monsters they never thought they would be. Others woke up with the survivor’s guilt, after years of letting go their people, family and friends.

And others carried all that, but had found a little spark shinning on their path.

That was your case.

And Joel’s too.

You both had found each other just a few years after the world descended into chaos. After that, you become each other’s anchor until now.

Even when days seemed to be grayer, even when Joel seemed a bit lost after losing his contact with Tommy.

Even on days when the world seemed grayer, even when Joel seemed a little more distant—his thoughts lost somewhere along the frayed edges of his mind, burdened by the loss of contact with Tommy—you held on. You knew what he was feeling; it was a familiar ache, a common wound you both carried.

Tommy was Joel’s last person who shared his blood. His brother, his last piece of family and what the old world had left him.

But he also had you, and that made him alive.

You woke up slowly, the thin, rough blanket tangled around your legs, the mattress beneath you creaking as you shifted. The air was cold, seeping through the cracks in the walls, and the faint light of dawn barely penetrated the small, grimy window. Outside, you could hear the sounds of the QZ waking up, the distant, muffled voices of guards changing shifts, the echo of boots on concrete, and the occasional shout. You pulled the blanket tighter around you, trying to keep the chill at bay.

The room you and Joel shared was small, barely large enough for the bed and a rickety chair in the corner. Outside the doors, there was the rest of the old apartment that worked as a roof for the both of you, and Tess.

The walls were stained with years of neglect, paint peeling in long strips, revealing the bare concrete beneath. There was a small table near the window where a lone candle had burned down to a stub, wax pooling on the surface, solidifying in random patterns. It had been another long, sleepless night, the dark hours stretching on endlessly, and you could feel it in your bones, an ache that went deeper than simple tiredness.

You glanced over at Joel, still asleep beside you, his face etched with lines of worry even in rest. He lay on his side, one arm slung over his face, his brow furrowed as if he were fighting off some invisible enemy in his dreams. The mornings were hardest on him, you knew. Waking up to the same bleak reality day after day, the hope of finding Tommy growing thinner with each passing moment.

A wave of nausea hit you unexpectedly, a sudden queasiness that made your stomach twist. You shut your eyes, taking a slow, deep breath, trying to steady yourself. You hadn't been feeling well for a few days now, just a lingering discomfort you chalked up to the lack of proper food or maybe stress. Nothing in this world was kind to the body or the mind anymore.

You pushed yourself up, careful not to wake Joel, and swung your legs over the side of the bed, your feet touching the cold, cracked floor. The chill ran up your legs, making you shiver. You sat there for a moment, steadying yourself, pressing a hand against your stomach as if trying to calm the unease that rolled there. There was a strange heaviness to it, something that seemed different, something you couldn’t quite put your finger on.

The thought crossed your mind, quick and unbidden, a possibility you immediately pushed away. It was too absurd, too impossible to consider. Not here, not now, not in this broken world.

You rose to your feet, steadying yourself on the edge of the table, your fingers brushing against the melted wax. You glanced back at Joel, who still hadn’t stirred, his breathing deep and even. You knew he needed the sleep, needed a moment of peace, however fleeting. You moved quietly toward the window, peering out through the dirt-streaked glass. The world outside was shrouded in mist, the familiar shapes of the crumbling buildings barely visible in the pale morning light.

There was a time when you might have found the sight beautiful, in a melancholic way. Now it just seemed desolate. Empty.

Another wave of nausea hit, stronger this time, and you pressed a hand to your mouth, swallowing hard. You took a few deep breaths, trying to steady yourself. You felt a sharp pang of fear, a sudden flash of panic that cut through the fog of morning fatigue. You forced it down, tried to stay calm. You couldn’t afford to be anything else.

From behind you, you heard the faint rustle of the bed as Joel shifted, his voice rough and low. “You, okay?” he murmured, still half-asleep, his words slurred with exhaustion.

You turned to look at him, forcing a smile, though you weren’t sure he could see it in the dim light. “Yeah… just a bit cold,” you lied softly, your voice barely more than a whisper.

He blinked at you, eyes heavy-lidded, and then nodded, seeming to accept it. “Come back to bed,” he mumbled, his voice carrying a warmth that made something in your chest tighten. “It’s still early.”

For a moment, you hesitated, feeling the cold air around you, the uncertainty pressing in. But then you moved back to the bed, sliding in beside him, feeling the heat of his body radiating through the thin layers of fabric. He reached out, pulling you close, his arm draping over you protectively, and you let out a breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding.

You closed your eyes, savoring the feeling of safety as Joel stirred Joel stirred, his hand rubbing small, soothing circles on your back. “Are you sure you are, okay?” he murmured, his voice rough with sleep.

“Yeah,” you whispered, hoping he couldn’t hear the lie in your voice. “Just a headache.”

He kissed the top of your head, the simple gesture sending a pang of guilt through you. “You’ve been getting a lot of those lately,” he noted, concern creeping into his tone.

You forced a smile, even though he couldn’t see it. “Just stress, I think.”

He hummed in response, not entirely convinced but willing to let it go for now. He gently nudged you off his chest, propping himself up on one elbow to get a better look at you. His eyes searched your face, and you had to fight the urge to look away. Joel had a way of seeing right through you, and you were afraid he might catch a glimpse of the truth you were hiding.

He frowned, clearly not convinced. “You’ve been saying’ that a lot lately. Maybe you should rest today, stay in bed.”

You shook your head, knowing you couldn’t afford to take a day off. Life in the QZ was unforgiving, and everyone had to pull their weight. “I’ll be fine. We’ve got too much to do, and they’re already short-handed at the ration line.”

You forced yourself to follow suit, pushing through the lingering nausea as you pulled on your worn clothes. The headache throbbed with each movement, but you bit back the discomfort, determined not to let it show. Joel kept glancing over at you, as if expecting you to collapse at any moment, but you just offered him a reassuring smile, even if it didn’t reach your eyes.

Once you were both ready, you stepped out into the harsh reality of the QZ. The streets were crowded, people moving about with a sense of urgency, always on edge. You and Joel made your way through the throng, his hand resting on the small of your back, guiding you through the chaos.

At the ration line, the day passed in a blur of monotonous tasks—distributing food, managing the restless crowd, keeping an eye out for trouble. But the ache in your head never fully faded, and every now and then, you had to pause, closing your eyes for a moment to steady yourself.

Joel noticed, of course. He was always watching, always worrying, though he tried to hide it behind a gruff exterior. “You sure you’re alright?” he asked again when you took a brief break, his tone betraying his concern.

“Yeah, just… It’s probably just the air or something,” you said, shrugging it off. But you could tell he didn’t believe you.

“See you later, then?” he asked before parting ways with you to your different duties.

“Yeah, see you later,” you replied, forcing a smile, trying to reassure him. Joel lingered for a moment, his eyes searching yours, he planted a kiss on your lips before turning to head off to his assigned area. You watched him go, feeling a mix of guilt and relief. You hated lying to him, but what could you say? That the world seemed to be spinning just a little bit too fast? That every time you bent over, a wave of nausea washed over you? It would only make him worry more.

The hours dragged on, the sun creeping across the sky, bringing with it a sticky heat that clung to your skin. By midday, your headache had grown worse, a steady throb that pounded behind your eyes. The noise of the crowd seemed to amplify the pain, voices blending into a harsh cacophony. You rubbed at your temples, willing it to stop, but it only seemed to make it worse.

At one point, while lifting another crate filled with canned goods, a sharp pain shot through your abdomen, causing you to drop the box with a loud thud. A few people nearby turned to look, but you waved them off, trying to catch your breath. The soldier supervising the line glanced over, raising an eyebrow. “You good there?” he asked, his tone half-concerned, half-annoyed.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you muttered, bending down to retrieve the cans that had spilled onto the ground. Your hands shook slightly, and you felt a bead of sweat roll down your back. The soldier didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t press further, turning his attention back to the line.

“Then clean the mess you made” he ordered.

You nodded, swallowing down the nausea that threatened to rise again. “Yes, sir,” you replied, bending down to pick up the cans. Your fingers felt clumsy, and every time you moved, the pain in your abdomen seemed to sharpen, making it difficult to keep your breathing steady. Sweat dripped from your forehead, stinging your eyes, but you pushed through, determined not to draw any more attention to yourself.

As you gathered the last can, another wave of dizziness hit you, and you had to steady yourself against the crate to keep from toppling over. You glanced over your shoulder to see if the soldier was still watching, but he had already turned away, his focus elsewhere.

You took a deep breath, trying to will away the nausea, when you heard a familiar voice behind you. “Hey, you, okay?”

Turning, you saw Tess standing there, her face set in a concerned frown. “Yeah,” you lied, forcing a weak smile. “Just a rough day.”

Tess studied you for a moment, her eyes narrowing. “You don’t look so good,” she said quietly, stepping closer. “You’re pale… and sweating like hell.”

You shrugged, trying to brush it off. “I’m fine, just… tired, I guess.”

Tess didn't seem convinced. Her sharp eyes swept over you, taking in every detail — the paleness of your skin, the way your hands trembled slightly as you held the cans. Her frown deepened, and you could practically feel the gears turning in her head.

“Look,” she said slowly, almost carefully, “I know you well enough to tell when you’re lying. And right now, you’re doing a pretty damn poor job of hiding whatever this is.”

Your heart started to pound in your chest, an uneasy thump that only made the nausea worse. You swallowed, glancing away from her probing stare. “I said I’m fine, Tess,” you repeated, but your voice came out too shaky, too uncertain. Even you didn’t believe it.

She took a step closer, lowering her voice. “Don’t bullshit me,” she murmured, her tone firm but not unkind. “You’ve been off for days now… the headaches, the dizziness. I’ve seen this before. And I’m pretty sure you know what I’m talking about.”

You stiffened, shaking your head quickly. “No, Tess,” you whispered, almost desperate. “It’s not that… it can’t be.”

Tess’s expression softened, but there was still a hint of stubbornness there, a determination to get through to you. “Listen,” she began, her voice a little gentler. “I’m not trying to scare you, but… you need to face this. If it’s what I think it is… then you’ve got a lot to figure out.”

“Please, Tess. Not now” you pleaded.

Tess hesitated, her eyes searching your face, but she nodded slowly, relenting — at least for the moment. "Alright," she said quietly, though the concern in her voice hadn’t faded. "But you can’t keep running from this forever."

You felt a lump in your throat as you looked away, blinking back the tears that threatened to spill. "I just… I can’t think about it right now," you murmured, your voice barely above a whisper. "There’s too much going on, and… Joel…"

Tess sighed, crossing her arms. "I get it," she replied softly. "But, you know, you’re not alone in this. Whatever it is, you’ve got people who care about you. Joel might be rough around the edges, but… he’s not going to turn his back on you. Not now, not ever."

You swallowed hard, nodding, though you still felt like you were balancing on a knife’s edge. "I know," you said, though doubt still gnawed at you. "It’s just…"

"It’s scary," Tess finished for you, and you could only nod again, feeling suddenly very small. "But you don’t have to go through it alone, alright?" she added, her voice softening. "I’ve got your back. Always."

You gave her a weak smile, grateful for her support, even if the fear still twisted inside you. "Thanks, Tess," you whispered.

She patted your shoulder, her touch gentle, almost sisterly. "Let’s get back to it," she said, glancing back toward the line. "But promise me… you’ll think about what I said."

You nodded again, though your mind was spinning with a hundred different thoughts. "I promise," you murmured, even though you weren't sure if you meant it.

By the time you got back to the apartment, the sun was already low in the sky, casting long shadows through the broken blinds. Your legs felt heavy, your head still pounding from the stress of the day. As you pushed open the door, you were met with the stale, familiar scent of the small, dimly lit space that you and Joel called home. The silence was almost deafening, broken only by the faint creaking of the floorboards beneath your feet.

Your eyes scanned the room, and they quickly fell on Joel sprawled out on the bed, his face slack in sleep. But what caught your attention was the nearly empty bottle of whiskey sitting on the table next to him, beside a few scattered, white pills. A flare of anger ignited in your chest.

You walked over and grabbed the bottle, knocking it down onto the floor. The sound of the glass hitting the wood was loud, but Joel didn’t stir. Frustration bubbled up inside you. “Joel,” you called out sharply, but he remained still, lost in whatever numbness he’d sought.

With a forceful shove, you shook his shoulder, your voice rising. “Joel, wake up!” you demanded. His eyes fluttered open slowly, bleary and unfocused. He blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision, and groaned.

“What?” he muttered, his voice thick with sleep and whatever haze the whiskey and pills had put him under.

Your hands clenched into fists at your sides. “What the hell, Joel?” you spat out, your voice trembling with a mix of anger and worry. “You’re drinking and taking pills again? You promised me… you promised you’d stop!”

Joel blinked again, pushing himself up on one elbow, confusion and irritation crossing his face. “It’s just… it’s just to take the edge off,” he slurred, running a hand over his face. “You don’t get it.”

“No, I do get it,” you shot back, your voice sharp. “I get that you’re hurting, Joel, I get you want to know where Tommy is but this is not the way.”

Joel’s eyes narrowed, some of the grogginess leaving his gaze. “I’m trying,” he muttered, a hint of defensiveness in his tone. “I’m doing the best I can, alright? It’s not that easy…”

You took a step closer, your heart pounding in your chest. “I need you, Joel,” you whispered, your voice breaking. “I need you here, with me… not drowning in a bottle. We’re supposed to be in this together, remember?”

He looked away, his jaw tightening, but he didn’t respond immediately. The silence stretched between you, heavy and tense. Finally, he let out a long breath, his shoulders slumping slightly. “He is my brother, the only family I get left.” he muttered, almost too softly to hear.

“What about me?” you asked, voice trembling.

Damn, why were you getting so emotional.

Joel's brow furrowed, clearly caught off guard by your question. He blinked, as if trying to process your words, and then his expression softened. “What are you talking’ about?” he asked gently, taking a step closer to you. “Of course, you're my family. You know that. You’re everything.” His fingers brushed against your arm, tentative, as though he was still uncertain if you’d accept his touch.

You felt a lump forming in your throat, and you blinked rapidly, trying to keep the tears at bay. “Then why does it feel like I’m not enough?” you murmured, the words slipping out before you could stop them.

Joel's thumb brushed against your cheek, wiping away a tear you hadn’t realized had fallen. “You are, sweetheart,” he murmured, his voice steady but soft. “I promise you are. I’m just… I’m scared. Scared of what could happen to you… to us.”

You looked up into his eyes, searching for something—an answer, a reassurance, anything to ease the turmoil inside you. "How are you feeling'?" he asked suddenly, his voice quieter, more tender than before.

The question caught you off guard. You blinked, trying to gather your thoughts. "I… I don’t know," you admitted honestly. “Tired…”

Joel nodded slowly, his hand slipping from your cheek to rest on your shoulder. “I know, I get it,” he said quietly. “But you gotta promise me… if there’s something’ wrong, you’ll tell me”

You nodded, “I promise.”

You wrapped your arms around Joel, pulling him into a tight embrace. The warmth of his body against yours was a small comfort, a fleeting sense of security in the chaos that seemed to be swirling around you. As you clung to him, the guilt and the weight of the hidden truth about your pregnancy settled heavily on your shoulders.

Joel held you close, his hand gently rubbing your back, his touch reassuring and steady. “I’m sorry,” you murmured into his shoulder, the words escaping almost involuntarily. “I’m sorry for everything.”

Joel’s arms tightened around you, and he pressed a kiss to the top of your head. “Ain’t nothin’ to be sorry for,” he said softly. “We’re in this together, you hear me? We’ll get through it. We’ll figure it out.”

You nodded against him, feeling a mix of relief and deep-seated worry. The truth about the pregnancy was still looming, a secret that was becoming increasingly difficult to keep. Every time you looked at Joel, you could see the love and concern in his eyes, and it made the weight of your silence feel all the more burdensome.

As you slowly pulled away from the hug, you wiped at your eyes, trying to steady your emotions. Joel looked at you with a soft expression, his worry evident but tempered with the resolve to support you no matter what.

The thoughts of your pregnancy, the uncertainty of the future, and the fear of how this might change everything were still swirling in your mind. You felt a pang of guilt as you remembered Tess's words, and you struggled with the decision of when and how to reveal the truth.

Joel seemed to sense the inner conflict you were grappling with. “If you need space, or if you need to talk about it,” he began, his voice steady, “just let me know. I’m here for you, no matter what.” You nodded, forcing a small, grateful smile. “Thank you, Joel. I… I just need a little time.”

He nodded in understanding, and as you both sat down, the silence between you was filled with an unspoken promise of support and love.

You woke up a little later, feeling the soft warmth of Joel’s arm wrapped protectively around your waist. For a moment, you simply lay there, savoring the comfort and the faint sense of security his presence provided. The room was quiet, the only sound the steady rhythm of Joel’s breathing.

Gently, you eased yourself out of bed, careful not to disturb him. You tiptoed out of the bedroom, the coolness of the apartment a stark contrast to the warmth you’d left behind. As you walked through the small living space, you noticed that Tess was already up, sitting at the table with a cup of coffee.

She looked up as you entered, her gaze softening. “Hey,” she said quietly, setting the cup down. “How’re you feeling?”

You offered her a small, tired smile. “Better, thanks,” you replied, taking a seat across from her. “I just needed some space to think.”

Tess nodded; her expression thoughtful. “Did you think about what I say?”

You took a deep breath, considering Tess's question. “A little,” you admitted, your voice soft. “It’s just been overwhelming, and I’m not sure how to handle everything yet.”

Tess studied you for a moment, her eyes reflecting both concern and a hint of sadness “And?” she reached across the table, placing a comforting hand over yours. “I understand it’s overwhelming,” she said gently. “But you have to face it.”

You glanced down at your hands, gripping the edge of the table as if it might anchor you to the present moment. The room felt too small, the weight of your thoughts pressing heavily on your shoulders. “It can’t be…I’m scared” you confessed, your voice trembling slightly.

Tess took a deep breath, her expression softening. “Take the test, I’ll go with you” she said, showing support.

“Wha-wha-what? I don’t have any test” you said, voice trembling

Tess gave you a small, understanding smile, her hand still resting over yours. “I know,” she said softly. “But there’s a way to get one. I can ask around… discreetly. I have a contact who might be able to help.”

Your heart pounded in your chest, a mix of fear and disbelief coursing through you. “You’d do that? For me?” The idea of someone knowing, of even a whisper of this spreading through the QZ, sent a chill down your spine. But the calm certainty in Tess’s eyes steadied you.

“Of course,” she replied without hesitation. “I’ve got your back, always. We’ve been through worse, haven’t we?”

You nodded slowly, though the tight knot in your stomach seemed to twist even more. “Yeah, I guess,” you muttered, trying to sound convinced, even though nothing had felt quite like this. “But what if… what if it’s true, Tess? What do I do then?”

Tess squeezed your hand gently, her thumb brushing over your knuckles. “Then we figure it out, step by step,” she said. “First things first, we need to know for sure. Until then, try not to let your mind spiral, okay?”

You swallowed hard, nodding again, though your mind was already a storm of thoughts and worries. You could feel the weight of this new reality settling onto your shoulders, heavier than anything you’d felt before. “Okay,” you whispered. “I’ll try.”

Tess stood up, giving your hand one last comforting squeeze before letting go. “I’ll see what I can do tomorrow,” she promised. “Go back to bed and try to rest.”

Your mind raced with possibilities and fears as you made your way back to the small bedroom, trying to steady your breathing, to find some calm in the storm of your thoughts.

When you slipped back into the darkened room, Joel was still lying on his side, one arm stretched across the bed as if reaching for you even in sleep. You carefully lifted the blanket and slid back under it, trying not to wake him. But as soon as you settled in, his arm instinctively curled around your waist, pulling you close. His warmth enveloped you, and for a moment, you felt a flicker of safety.

Joel's voice came out in a sleepy murmur, rough around the edges. “Where were you?” he mumbled; his breath warm against your neck. You could feel the weight of his arm, heavy and reassuring, holding you as if he sensed your unease.

“Just… talking to Tess,” you whispered back, trying to keep your voice steady.

His grip around you tightened slightly, his thumb tracing small circles against your side. Even in his half-asleep state, there was a protectiveness in the way he held you. “Everything okay?” he asked, still drowsy, but there was a hint of concern creeping into his tone.

You hesitated for a second, your heart beating faster. You didn’t want to lie, but you also couldn’t tell him—not yet, not until you knew for sure. “Yeah,” you finally replied, trying to sound convincing.

Joel made a low, comforting sound, a mix between a hum and a sigh. He nuzzled closer, his lips brushing lightly against your shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he murmured, his voice trailing off as sleep tried to claim him again. “We’ll figure it out… whatever it is.”

You bit your lip, feeling a lump form in your throat. You wanted to believe him, wanted to let his words soothe the fear gnawing at your insides. But all you could do was rest your hand over his, feeling the roughness of his skin beneath your palm, grounding yourself in his presence.

“Yeah,” you whispered back, more to yourself than to him. “We always do.”

Joel’s breathing began to slow again, deepening as he drifted back to sleep. You closed your eyes, pressing yourself closer against him, feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest.

“I love you” you whispered to him, breaking the silence. You were afraid of losing him.

For a moment, there was only the quiet of the room, the soft hum of the distant generator outside, and the gentle rhythm of Joel's breath against your skin. You wondered if he'd even heard you, or if your whispered words had been lost in the space between wakefulness and sleep.

Then, you felt his grip tighten around you, his hand moving to hold you closer, almost as if he was afraid, you might slip away. His lips brushed against your shoulder, a tender, lingering kiss that sent a shiver down your spine. "I love you too," he murmured, his voice a deep, husky whisper in the darkness. There was a raw honesty in his words, an openness that you rarely heard from him, as if he understood the fear hidden beneath your confession.

His lips pressed against your shoulder again, this time firmer, more deliberate. "Ain't nothing gonna change that," he added softly, his breath warm against your skin. His thumb stroked gently over the fabric of your shirt, tracing soothing patterns that spoke of comfort and promises unspoken.

You closed your eyes, letting his words wash over you, feeling a mix of relief and longing. The fear still lingered, but in this moment, held in his arms, it felt a little more manageable. You leaned back into him, feeling the strength in his body, the steady beat of his heart against your back.

Joel held you tighter, as if sensing your need for reassurance. "We'll get through this," he whispered. "Whatever it is, we'll face it together. You and me."

You nodded against him, unable to find your voice, your heart swelling with the weight of everything unsaid. "Together," you repeated softly, your hand squeezing his, grounding yourself in his presence.

For now, that was enough.

Joel woke up slowly, his body protesting against the cold air that had settled in the room overnight. He blinked against the dim light filtering through the cracked blinds, reaching out instinctively to your side of the bed, only to find it empty. His hand moved across the sheets, finding them cool, your warmth long gone.

He sat up, a frown creasing his brow as a flicker of worry ran through him. He scanned the room, half-expecting to see you in the corner, maybe getting dressed or lost in thought, but the room was still, too still. He called your name, softly at first, then a little louder. No answer.

His heart quickened as he swung his legs over the side of the bed, grabbing his jeans from the chair and yanking them on. The apartment was quiet, eerily so, with no sign of movement or life. His boots hit the floor with a dull thud as he pulled them on, his gaze darting around the small space.

Where the hell were you?

He moved quickly to the kitchen, eyes scanning the counters, the sink—anywhere you might have left a note, a sign of where you’d gone. But there was nothing. Just the quiet hum of the building settling around him. He glanced toward the front door, noticing Tess's boots missing from their usual spot. A knot of unease tightened in his chest. Neither of you were there.

He ran a hand through his hair, cursing under his breath. You wouldn’t have left without telling him, not without saying something. And Tess—she was always up to something, but she never left you behind. He felt his pulse quicken, a gnawing sense of dread creeping in as he grabbed his jacket from the hook near the door, slipping it on with practiced haste.

Joel pushed open the door and stepped into the hallway, his boots echoing against the worn floorboards. He looked around, scanning for any sign of you or Tess. The hallway was empty, but a few doors down, a neighbor—a middle-aged man Joel recognized but didn’t know well—was stepping out, adjusting his coat.

“Hey,” Joel called out, his voice sharper than intended. The man looked up, surprised. “You seen them?” He gestured back to your apartment.

The man shook his head slowly, clearly unsure who Joel was referring to. “Nah, haven’t seen anyone this morning,” he replied. “Everything okay?”

Joel forced a tight smile, though his stomach was churning with worry. “Yeah, fine,” he muttered, turning away. He started down the stairs, moving quickly, almost without thinking. His mind raced, a thousand worst-case scenarios flashing through his thoughts. Where could you be? Why hadn’t you said anything?

He made his way down to the ground floor, heading toward the small communal area near the entrance, where a few people were already gathered, murmuring quietly among themselves. He scanned the room, his eyes searching, hoping to catch a glimpse of you or Tess.

“Joel!” A voice cut through the chatter, and he turned to see one of Tess’s contacts—Danny, a wiry guy with a nervous energy—waving him over. Joel’s heart jumped. Maybe Danny had seen you.

“Where’s Tess?” Joel asked as he approached, not bothering with pleasantries.

Danny’s face tightened slightly, and he glanced around, lowering his voice. “She went out early, looking for something… didn’t say what. Figured you knew.”

Joel clenched his jaw, frustration flaring in his chest. “And her?” he asked, his voice edged with urgency. “You see her?”

Danny shook his head. “No, man. I just saw Tess.”

Joel felt a chill run down his spine. He took a step back, his mind racing with questions. If Tess had gone out and you weren’t with her, then where the hell were you?

He turned, scanning the room one more time, then made a decision. He needed to find you, now. Whatever this was, wherever you were, he wasn’t going to wait around and let worry tear him apart.

You sat in Lydia's small, cluttered living room, nerves thrumming beneath your skin like a live wire. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and old books, a comforting combination that somehow made you feel more at ease, despite the circumstances. Lydia's place was a small haven in the chaos of the QZ, filled with mismatched furniture, faded floral curtains, and a few potted plants she somehow managed to keep alive. The doctor herself, an older woman with graying hair pulled back into a messy bun, moved around the space with a calm, practiced efficiency. Her hands were steady, her expression focused but kind.

Tess stood beside you, her presence a quiet reassurance. She had her arms crossed, her foot tapping lightly against the worn wooden floor as she watched Lydia prepare a small kit on the table. Lydia glanced over at you, her eyes soft with a mixture of concern and affection. “You look pale, sweetheart,” she said, her voice gentle but firm. “You’ve been keeping up with your food and water?”

You managed a small nod, though your stomach felt like it was tied in knots. “Yeah, just… a lot on my mind,” you murmured. Your voice sounded small in the stillness of the room.

Lydia nodded knowingly, her gaze flicking to Tess for a moment before returning to you. “I’ve seen that look before,” she said softly. “It's not easy, being in this kind of situation… but you’re not alone, okay?”

You bit your lip, feeling a lump form in your throat again. “Thanks, Lydia… I just… I’m scared,” you admitted, your voice barely more than a whisper. “I don’t know what to do if… if it’s true.”

Lydia came over to you, setting a warm hand on your shoulder. “It’s okay to be scared,” she said kindly.

You nodded, taking a deep breath as she handed you a small, well-worn plastic device. A pregnancy test. It felt surreal holding it in your hand, the weight of it much heavier than its actual size.

Lydia’s expression softened. “The bathroom is down the hall,” she instructed gently. “Take your time, and when you're ready, come back out. No rush.”

You glanced at Tess, who gave you a reassuring nod. “Go on,” she urged softly. “I’ll be right here.”

Swallowing hard, you stood up, clutching the test in your hand, and made your way down the narrow hallway to the small, dimly lit bathroom. The old mirror above the sink was cracked, reflecting your nervous expression in fragmented pieces. You took a deep breath, feeling the cool tile under your bare feet, and tried to steady your racing heart.

The minutes stretched out as you stood there, staring at the test in your hands, feeling the weight of this decision. You knew that everything could change in an instant—your life, your relationship with Joel, everything you thought you knew about the world and your place in it.

You finally gathered your courage, took the test, and set it on the sink. You watched it like it might explode, the seconds ticking by with agonizing slowness. You could hear the muffled voices of Tess and Lydia down the hall, their words indistinct but soothing in their familiarity.

And then, after what felt like an eternity, you saw the result. Your breath caught in your throat, your knees feeling weak. You stared at it, your mind struggling to catch up, to process what you were seeing.

It was positive.

You felt a wave of emotions crash over you—fear, confusion, a strange sense of disbelief. You gripped the edge of the sink, needing something solid to hold on to, to keep yourself from spiraling. Tears welled in your eyes, unbidden, and you blinked them back, swallowing hard.

You took a few deep breaths, trying to steady yourself before turning back toward the door. You stepped out of the bathroom, your face pale, your hands trembling slightly.

Tess was the first to notice, her eyes widening as she saw your expression. She moved quickly to your side, her hand gripping your arm gently. “Hey… what’s the result?” she asked, though the look on your face already told her everything.

Lydia stepped closer; her eyes filled with empathy. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” she murmured. “Just take a breath.”

You looked at them both, your voice barely a whisper. “It’s… it’s positive,” you admitted, your heart pounding. “I’m… I’m pregnant.”

Tess squeezed your arm, a mixture of concern and determination on her face. “Okay,” she said firmly. “We’re going to handle this. We’re gonna figure it out.”

Lydia nodded; her expression warm. “You’re not alone in this,” she reassured you. “We’ll do what we can to make sure you’re safe… and healthy.”

You swallowed hard, feeling the tears spill over despite your best efforts to hold them back. “What… what do I do now?” you asked, your voice shaking. “I don’t want anyone to know this, okay?”

“Joel’s has to know” Tess said.

“No.” Your voice came out sharper than you intended, a flash of panic twisting through your chest. “No,” you repeated, firmer this time. “I can’t… I can’t tell him. Not yet.”

Tess’s eyes narrowed slightly, but her expression remained calm. “Why not?” she asked gently, though there was a hint of insistence in her voice. “He deserves to know. He’s going to find out sooner or later.”

You shook your head, feeling the tears start to flow again. “I just… I’m not ready,” you whispered, your voice trembling. “He’s already dealing with so much, with losing contact with Tommy, and… I don’t want to put this on him. Not when I don’t even know how I feel about it yet.”

Lydia placed a comforting hand on your shoulder, her touch steady and grounding. “It’s okay to feel this way,” she said softly. “But Tess is right. Joel will need to know eventually. He’s your partner… in all of this.”

You bit your lip, trying to steady your breath. “I just need some time,” you murmured, feeling a deep ache in your chest. “Please… don’t say anything to him. Not until I figure out how to even say it myself.”

Tess sighed, a mixture of frustration and understanding on her face. “Alright,” she agreed quietly, but you knew she was lying.

She walked towards the door before you saying to Lydia “I’ll pay you later.”

“There is no need, I’d do anything for this one here” she said, squeezing your shoulder.

Tess gave Lydia a small nod, but her expression was tight, her jaw set. You could sense the conflict simmering beneath her calm exterior. You knew Tess well enough to recognize that she wasn’t pleased with your decision. She paused at the door, one hand resting on the frame, before turning back to you.

“Alright,” she said again, this time her voice softer, almost resigned. “We need to get back. Joel’s probably tearing his hair out by now.” There was a hint of a wry smile, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. You felt a pang of guilt; you could only imagine how worried Joel must be at this point.

Lydia gave you a reassuring squeeze on your shoulder. “Take care of yourself, okay?” she said softly. “And if you need anything, anything at all, you know where to find me.”

You managed a small, grateful smile. “Thank you, Lydia… for everything,” you whispered, feeling a rush of emotion swell in your chest.

Tess opened the door and stepped outside, waiting for you to follow. You took a deep breath, trying to steady your nerves, before moving to join her. As you stepped out into the dimly lit hallway, Tess glanced at you, her expression unreadable.

“You know he’s gonna ask where we were,” she muttered, keeping her voice low. “And you know I won’t lie to him.”

Your heart sank a little. “I know,” you admitted quietly. “Just… don’t tell him yet, okay? I need to be the one to do it, Tess.”

She nodded, but the tension in her shoulders didn’t ease. “You better tell him soon,” she warned her tone more serious now. “Because if you don’t, I will.”

Two days had passed since you were delivered the news, and as you went through your shift, the morning sun cast a pale light over the QZ, and the usual noise of activity buzzed around you. You focused on your tasks, trying to push through the lingering fatigue and nausea. Despite your efforts to stay steady, a wave of nausea hit you suddenly, making your stomach churn violently.

You stumbled to the side, clutching your midsection as you struggled to keep yourself upright. Before you could react, the contents of your stomach erupted, and you doubled over, throwing up onto the ground. The sudden and intense discomfort left you gasping for breath, feeling a mix of embarrassment and distress.

Nearby, a few of your co-workers glanced over, their faces a mixture of concern and discomfort. One of them approached, a frown on his face. “You alright? Maybe you should sit down or get some fresh air.”

You shook your head, trying to regain your composure. “I’m fine,” you managed to say, though your voice was shaky. “Just… give me a moment.”

The soldier supervising the shift, who had already been keeping an eye on you, approached with a stern expression. “What’s going on? You can’t be throwing up in the middle of work. If you’re sick, you need to go home.”

You tried to protest, but your weakened state made it hard to argue. “I’m okay,” you said weakly. “I just need a minute.”

Before you could say more, Joel appeared, his face etched with concern as he hurried over to you. He placed a supportive hand on your back. “You need to go home,” he said firmly, his eyes filled with worry. “You’re not doing yourself any good pushing through like this.”

The soldier gave Joel a skeptical look. “She needs to get back to work. We can’t afford to have people slacking off.”

Joel’s expression hardened, and he took a protective step forward. “She’s not slacking off. She’s sick. You wanna have her work herself into the ground? Take her home, and I’ll deal with it.”

The soldier seemed taken aback by Joel’s intensity but eventually relented, grumbling under his breath. “Fine. Take her home, Miller. We don’t need sick people on duty.”

Joel nodded, helping you to your feet and wrapping an arm around you for support. “Let’s get you outta here,” he said gently, guiding you toward the exit.

As you walked out of the QZ, the cool air was a welcome relief, but the anxiety and guilt still gnawed at you. “I’m sorry,” you murmured, your voice barely audible.

Joel glanced at you, his eyes softening. “You don’t need to apologize, honey.” With Joel’s reassuring presence beside you, you made your way back to the apartment, each step feeling a bit heavier as you faced the reality of your situation.

When you and Joel arrived back at the apartment, you were both greeted by the quiet, familiar surroundings. Tess was sitting at the kitchen table, her eyes lifting from a worn-out map she’d been studying. She looked up as you entered, her expression shifting from concern to relief.

“Hey, you’re back,” Tess said, standing up quickly. “How are you feeling?”

Joel helped you inside, guiding you to the couch. “She’s not feeling great,” he said, his voice low. “She had another wave of nausea at work.”

Tess crossed the room, taking a seat next to you on the couch. “Alright, let’s get you comfortable,” she said, her tone gentle. She reached for a blanket and draped it over you, her eyes scanning your face with worry.

You nodded weakly, feeling the exhaustion and the strain of the morning catching up with you. “Thanks, Tess,” you murmured, settling into the couch as Joel stood nearby, his hands resting on his hips, clearly trying to mask his concern.

Tess turned to Joel. “You should take a break, too,” she suggested. “I can keep an eye on her for a bit.”

“No.” Joel glanced at you, “I want to know what’s happening, and don’t lie to me” he demanded, especially to you.

You frightened under his stare. You looked over at Tess looking for a way of reassurance.

Tess met Joel’s gaze steadily, her own concern evident. “Joel,” she began softly, “we need to approach this carefully. We don’t want to push her too hard.”

Joel’s eyes softened slightly, but his jaw remained set. “I just want to understand what’s going on. She’s been sick for days, and I need to know why.”

You took a shaky breath, feeling the weight of both their stares. “Joel,” you said quietly, “I’ve been… trying to manage. It’s been hard to admit, but… Tess might be right. I’m not sure how to handle it all.”

Tess reached out, placing a comforting hand on your shoulder. “What we’re dealing with isn’t just a simple illness. It’s important that we address it properly.”

Joel’s expression shifted from frustration to deep concern. “What are you saying?” he asked, his voice softer now, but still laced with worry.

“Joel, I…I” you wanted to tell him, but you couldn’t find the words or the courage to do it.

Joel's gaze was intense, waiting for you to continue. Tess’s hand on your shoulder was a grounding presence, urging you to find the strength to speak.

You took another deep breath, the lump in your throat making it hard to talk. “Joel,” you began again, your voice trembling, “I’ve been feeling… really sick, and it’s more than just the usual stuff. It’s… it’s because…”

Again, your voice got cut.

“Because of what?” he demanded.

“She is pregnant, Joel” Tess answered for you.

Joel’s face went pale as he absorbed Tess’s words. His eyes flickered between you and Tess, trying to reconcile the new information with what he had seen in you recently. The silence in the room grew heavy, punctuated only by the sound of your shallow breaths.

Joel’s hands dropped to his sides, his expression a mix of shock and disbelief. “Pregnant?” he repeated, almost as if he couldn’t believe it. His voice was a mix of confusion and pain, and he took a step back, needing space to process this revelation.

You nodded, tears threatening to spill again. “I didn’t want to tell you like this,” you said quietly. “I’ve been trying to manage, but it’s been really hard.”

Joel ran a hand through his hair, pacing slightly as he tried to gather his thoughts. He turned away from you, his face contorted with frustration. “Goddammit,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair again, the tension in his body palpable. “This… this is just too much.”

You flinched at his outburst, tears spilling freely now. “Joel, please—” you began, but he cut you off, his voice rising.

“Do you have any idea what this means?” Joel’s tone was harsh, though there was a tremor of anguish beneath the anger. “We’re barely surviving as it is, and now… now you’re telling me you’re pregnant?”

Tess stepped in, placing a firm hand on Joel’s shoulder. “Joel, this isn’t helping,” she said sharply. “She needs support right now, not anger.”

Joel shrugged off her hand, his frustration boiling over. “I know, I know,” he snapped. “But it’s a lot to take in! I can’t just ignore it!”

You watched, your heart breaking as you saw Joel’s struggle to come to terms with the news. “Joel,” you said, trying to reach out to him despite your own pain, “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to add to the stress, but I didn’t know how else to handle it.”

Joel’s eyes met yours, and for a moment, the anger in his gaze faltered, replaced by a deep sadness. “I just… I don’t know how to fix this,”

he said, his voice dropping to a strained whisper. “I thought we had a chance to figure things out. Now everything’s just falling apart.”

Tess moved closer; her voice softer but firm. “Joel, getting angry won’t solve anything. We need to focus on what we can do now. What matters is getting her the help she needs.

“We were supposed to leave to find Tommy and now we won’t be able to.” He said, angry.

“What?” you asked, absorbing the new information.

Joel’s gaze dropped to the floor, the weight of his words hanging heavy in the air. “We were planning to leave for Tommy’s,” he said, his voice tight with frustration. “But with this… we might not be able to. We’re stuck here now, trying to figure out how to manage all this mess.”

You stared at him, the realization hitting you like a cold wave. “Wait, you were planning to leave? To find Tommy?”

Joel nodded, rubbing a hand over his face. “Yeah, Tess and I thought it was the best chance for us. Tommy’s got connections, and he might be able to help us get through this. But now…” His voice trailed off, the anger and sadness mixing in his eyes. “Now, everything’s fucked up.”

“When were you planning to tell me?” You asked, hurt.

Joel’s face fell at your question, and he looked away, struggling to find the right words. “I wasn’t… I didn’t mean to keep it from you,” he said, his voice rough. “Things were just… so complicated. We thought we had more time to figure things out before we had to tell you.”

You felt a pang of hurt at his words. “So, you were just going to leave me in the dark? You were planning to leave without even talking to me about it?”

Joel looked back at you; his eyes filled with regret. “No, that’s not what I meant. Of course you were coming with us.”

“But now I’m a burden.” You uttered a thought Joel perhaps was having.

Joel’s face tightened at your words, the weight of your accusation clearly hitting him hard. “That’s not what I meant,” he said quickly, his voice strained. “You’re not a burden, never say that again.”

You stood up, your emotions swirling, a mix of hurt and frustration. “Then why does it feel like everything’s falling apart because of me?” you asked, your voice trembling.

You stood up, your emotions swirling, a mix of hurt and frustration. “Then why does it feel like everything’s falling apart because of me?” you asked, your voice trembling. Tears began to spill down your cheeks, the weight of the situation overwhelming you. “I’m pregnant and I don’t know what to do. I thought you were going to hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay, but—fuck this!” You turned abruptly and walked towards the bedroom, trying to escape the chaos of your emotions.

Joel's heart ached as he watched you go, his own emotions roiling. He hesitated for a moment before following you, his steps heavy with regret and worry. He reached the bedroom door just as you were sinking onto the edge of the bed, your shoulders shaking with sobs.

“Hey,” Joel said softly, his voice carrying a note of desperation. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this. I was just… scared and confused. I should’ve been there for you, and I wasn’t.”

You didn’t look up, focusing on trying to control your breathing. “Leave me alone.” You wiped your tears with the back of your hand, feeling his presence beside you.

“Leave, Joel.” You sobbed.

Joel’s heart sank further as you pushed him away, the pain in your voice cutting him deeply. He hesitated at the bedroom door, torn between his desire to comfort you and the need to respect your space.

“Alright,” Joel said softly, his voice almost a whisper. “I’ll give you some time. I’m sorry.” With that, he turned and walked away, leaving you alone with your emotions.

As Joel retreated, Tess quietly entered the room. She found you on the edge of the bed, still shaking with sobs. Without saying a word, she sat down beside you, offering silent support. Tess’s presence was calm and steady, a stark contrast to the turmoil you felt inside.

“Hey,” Tess said gently, placing a comforting hand on your back. “I’m here. Just breathe. We’ll get through this.”

You looked up at her, your eyes red and tearful. Tess didn’t try to force conversation; instead, she simply sat with you, her hand a reassuring presence on your back. Slowly, the comforting silence and Tess’s steady presence began to soothe you. Your breathing gradually steadied, and the tears started to subside.

Tess helped you settle into a more comfortable position on the bed, making sure you were warm and covered. As you drifted off to sleep, the emotional exhaustion finally taking its toll, Tess stayed by your side, her watchful gaze softening with concern.

After a while, Tess glanced toward the door and saw Joel standing there, his expression one of deep regret and sorrow. He looked as though he was trying to come to terms with everything that had happened. Tess gave him a sympathetic nod before turning her attention back to you.

“I know this isn’t the ideal situation,” Tess began, her tone firm yet understanding. “But she needs you now, Joel. More than ever.”

Joel’s jaw clenched, his eyes flicking from Tess to where you lay curled up on the bed, still trembling from your tears. “I don’t know if I can do this, Tess,” he whispered, his voice barely audible, filled with the weight of his fears.

Tess placed a hand on his arm, squeezing gently. “You’ve got to try,” she urged. “She’s scared, and she needs you to be there for her. You don’t have to have all the answers, but you do need to stay. You need to lay down next to her and protect her, like you always have.”

Joel looked at her, conflicted, the fight still lingering in his eyes. But Tess didn’t back down, her gaze unwavering. “She’s not asking you to be perfect, Joel. She’s asking you to be there.”

For a moment, Joel hesitated, the weight of the decision hanging heavy in the air. But then, slowly, he nodded, the tension in his shoulders easing just a fraction. He walked over to the bed, his movements careful and deliberate as he lay down beside you, his presence cautious but steady.

You stirred slightly, sensing his nearness even in your sleep, and instinctively moved closer to him, seeking the comfort you had always found in his arms. Joel wrapped an arm around you, holding you gently, as if afraid you might break. And as Tess watched, she saw the fear and anger in his eyes slowly give way to something softer.

The room was quiet, save for the sound of your breathing, as you finally found peace in sleep. Joel stayed awake, his thoughts still tangled, but his grip on you never faltered. Tess left the room quietly, leaving the two of you to find whatever solace you could in each other.

Joel lay beside you, staring up at the cracked ceiling of the apartment. He couldn’t sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, his mind raced, replaying the argument from earlier and the harsh truths he had tried to push away for so long. The room was quiet now, but his thoughts were anything but.

His gaze shifted to you, lying peacefully next to him, your breathing soft and even. You looked so small, so fragile, and it hit him all over again just how much had changed in the span of a few hours. The life growing inside you was a reality he couldn’t ignore anymore, no matter how much he wanted to. He watched you, his heart heavy with a mix of fear, guilt, and something he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in a long time—hope.

The thought of becoming a father again terrified him. After Sarah, after everything he had lost, he didn’t know if he could survive that kind of pain again. But here you were, carrying his child, and it was as if the world was asking him to take that risk all over again. He didn’t know if he had it in him, but as he watched you sleep, so peaceful and trusting, he realized that you were counting on him.

Joel stayed awake through the night, his thoughts swirling with memories of Sarah, the life he had lost, and the uncertain future ahead. He wanted to protect you, to shield you from the harshness of the world outside, but he didn’t know if he was strong enough to protect you both from the dangers that lay ahead. The weight of responsibility felt crushing, yet he knew he couldn’t turn away—not now, not ever.

As the first light of dawn began to seep through the cracks in the curtains, Joel’s exhaustion finally began to catch up with him. His eyes grew heavy, and despite his best efforts, he drifted into a restless sleep, his arm still draped protectively over you.

When he finally woke, the apartment was filled with the pale light of early morning. He blinked groggily, his mind still clouded with sleep, but something felt off. The warmth of your body beside him was gone. He reached out, his hand finding only the empty space where you had been.

Panic flared in his chest as he sat up quickly, his eyes scanning the room. The bed was cold where you had lain, and the room was eerily silent. “Where the hell are you?” he muttered to himself, running a hand through his hair as he forced himself out of bed.

His heart pounded in his chest as he searched the small apartment, calling your name, but there was no answer. The sense of dread he had felt the night before came rushing back, stronger than ever. He knew you couldn’t have gone far, but the thought of you out there alone, especially in your condition, made his stomach twist with worry.

Joel threw on his jacket, his movements frantic as he prepared to leave and search for you. He couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to you, not when he had just realized how much he needed you. As he headed for the door, he stopped short, his hand gripping the doorknob tightly. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down, to think. You were strong, capable—he knew that. But still, the protective urge in him screamed to find you, to bring you back and keep you safe.

With one last glance around the empty apartment, Joel stepped outside, his mind racing as he tried to figure out where you might have gone. He couldn’t lose you—not now, not ever.

Joel knew you had a habit of going to certain places when you needed space—when you needed to clear your head. He made his way through the maze of streets, his mind fixated on finding you. As he walked, his thoughts spiraled. What if you were angry enough to leave the QZ? What if you’d decided you didn’t want to face him again? The guilt from the night before weighed heavily on him, and the fear that he’d pushed you away was overwhelming.

He headed towards a small, secluded spot behind one of the less-used buildings—a place you often went when you needed to be alone. It was out of sight from most people, offering a rare bit of privacy in the crowded QZ. As he turned the corner, his breath caught in his throat. There you were, sitting on an old, crumbling bench, your hands clasped tightly in your lap.

Relief washed over him, so intense it almost brought him to his knees. For a moment, he just stood there, taking in the sight of you. You looked small and lost, your shoulders hunched as if the weight of the world had finally settled on them. But you were safe. You were here. That was all that mattered.

He approached slowly, not wanting to startle you. The crunch of gravel under his boots made you look up, your eyes meeting his. The raw emotion in your gaze—fear, uncertainty, and something that looked like regret—hit him like a punch to the gut.

Joel stopped a few feet away, unsure of what to say, how to bridge the gap that had opened between you. His mouth opened, but no words came out. What could he possibly say to make this better? To fix the hurt he had caused?

“I didn’t mean to leave,” you finally said, your voice small and fragile. “I just…needed to think.”

Joel nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I get it,” he replied, his voice rough with emotion. He took a cautious step closer, wanting to reach out, but unsure if you wanted him to. “I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have let you leave like that.”

You shook your head, a tear slipping down your cheek. “It’s not your fault. I just—” Your voice broke, and you wiped at your eyes, frustration evident in the gesture. “I don’t know how to deal with all of this. It’s too much, Joel. Everything is too much.”

“I don’t know if I can do this,” you whispered, the words barely audible.

Joel crouched down in front of you, his hand still on your shoulder, his gaze locked onto yours. “We don’t have to have all the answers right now,” he said softly.

“There isn’t a place for raising a baby.” You spoke, looking down at your hands, the thoughts swirling in your mind too overwhelming to express. “Lydia could help me,” you whispered, almost to yourself. “She could help me…terminate it.”

Joel’s reaction was immediate, his voice hard and unyielding. “No.” The word came out sharper than he intended, and he saw you flinch. He softened his tone, but the resolve remained. “We’re not doing that.”

You looked up at him, your eyes wide with a mixture of fear and confusion. “But, Joel, what if—” you began, but he cut you off.

“I said no,” he repeated, more firmly this time. “We’re not ending this.”

Tears welled up in your eyes, the intensity of the moment overwhelming you. “But I’m scared, Joel,” you confessed, your voice breaking. “What if we can’t do this? What if it’s too much?”

Joel crossed the room in two long strides and knelt in front of you, his hands gently cupping your face. “I’m scared too,” he admitted, his voice thick with emotion. “But I can’t lose you.”

Tears streamed down your cheeks as you looked into his eyes, the weight of the decision pressing down on you. “I don’t know if I can do this,” you whispered, your voice barely audible.

Joel pulled you into his arms, holding you tightly against his chest. “You’re not alone in this,” he murmured into your hair. “We’ll do it together. Whatever happens, we’ll face it together.”

You clung to him, the fear and uncertainty still gnawing at you, but for the first time since you’d found out, you felt a small measure of comfort. Joel wasn’t backing down, and maybe, just maybe, that was enough.

“I love you and I won’t leave you alone, baby” he whispered, kissing your lips.

Joel’s words wrapped around you like a lifeline, pulling you back from the edge of your fears. You clung to him, your grip tight but gentle, as if you were afraid, he might disappear again. The warmth of his embrace, the sincerity in his voice, and the tenderness of his kiss were all anchors in the storm that had been swirling inside you.

“I love you too,” you whispered back, your voice thick with emotion. You could feel the tears drying on your cheeks, replaced by a sense of tentative hope. The weight of your worries didn’t vanish, but Joel’s presence made them seem a little more manageable.

Joel gently cupped your face in his hands, his thumbs brushing away the remaining tears from your cheeks. “We’re gonna get through this,” he said firmly. “I don’t know how, but we will. We’re a team. We’ve faced worse before.”

You nodded, finding strength in his conviction. “Okay,” you murmured, feeling a flicker of warmth in your chest. “I’ll try to believe that.”

Joel’s eyes softened as he leaned in closer, pressing his forehead to yours. “We’ll figure it out together,” he promised. “But right now, my focus is taking care of you and the baby.”

Hours later, the apartment was quiet once again, save for the soft hum of a generator and the occasional creak of the building settling into its nightly stillness. You had managed to distract yourself with small tasks around the apartment, trying to keep your mind occupied and calm. The weight of the conversation with Joel still lingered, but his earlier reassurance had brought a sense of calm you hadn't expected.

You were in the middle of organizing some supplies when you heard the front door open. The sound of footsteps followed, and a few moments later, Joel's voice cut through the quiet. It was a familiar, comforting sound, but this time, it was tinged with an edge of frustration.

“You think this is a joke?” Joel’s voice was sharp, and you could hear the anger in his tone.

You quickly moved toward the front of the apartment, concern etching across your face. When you reached the living area, you saw Joel standing in the doorway, his face set in a hard line. Beside him stood a teenager—a girl who looked no older than sixteen. Her clothes were ragged, and she had a wary, defensive posture.

The girl’s eyes flickered between you and Joel, her expression a mix of fear and defiance. Joel’s anger was palpable, and it was clear that the situation was tense.

“Joel, what’s going on?” you asked, trying to keep your voice steady, though you felt a pang of anxiety at the sight of the girl and the intensity of Joel’s demeanor.

Joel's eyes shifted to you, the anger in them still evident but now mixed with a hint of exhaustion. “She’s got a name,” he said, gesturing toward the girl. “Her name’s Ellie.”

Ellie looked up at you, her eyes wary but hopeful. Joel’s expression softened slightly as he continued, “Turns out she’s supposed to be delivered to the Fireflies.

You glanced at Joel, understanding dawning. “You’re going to take her to them,” you said, looking back at Ellie. “And you’ll have the chance to find Tommy along the way.”

Joel nodded, a hint of resignation in his stance. “Yeah, that’s the deal,” he said.

“But what about—”

Joel cut you off gently. “I know it’s a lot to take in. We need to leave now. There’s an opportunity for us to get out of the QZ and head to a place where things might be better. But it means we have to move fast.”

Ellie shifted uncomfortably, glancing between you and Joel. “I don’t want to be a problem,” she said quietly. “If it’s too much—”

“No,” you interrupted, shaking your head. “It’s not that. I just… I’m not sure what to do. I mean, this is all so sudden.”

Joel stepped closer, his expression earnest. “We don’t have much time. We need to move quickly before things get worse. I know it’s hard, but this is our chance to get out of here. To find some place where we can start over.”

You looked at Joel, the weight of his words sinking in. “And what about the baby?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper. “How will we—”

“We’ll figure it out,” Joel said firmly. “We have to. There’s no time to waste. This is our chance to make a new life, to give the baby a better chance.”

You took a deep breath, feeling the gravity of the situation. “Alright,” you said finally, nodding. “I’ll do it. We’ll go. Just… let’s make sure we’re ready.”

Joel’s face softened with relief, and he gave a nod. “Good. Tess will be back soon. We need to pack up and get out before anyone notices we’re gone.”

As you hurriedly packed, a thought clawed at the back of your mind, growing louder and louder until it burst out of you in a shaky whisper. "But I’ll be a burden," you said, your voice breaking. "I’ll slow you down, Joel. You know it."

Joel stopped what he was doing, turning to face you. "No," he said firmly, the word cutting through the tense air like a knife. He crossed the room in a few quick strides and cupped your face in his hands, forcing you to look into his eyes. There was a fierce intensity in his gaze, something raw and unwavering.

"You’re not a burden," he insisted, his voice low and filled with emotion. "You're the reason I wake up every day. I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for you, baby. Without you… without you, nothing makes sense anymore."

Your breath hitched, and tears welled up in your eyes as you listened to him, his words breaking down the walls you had built around your fears. Joel’s hands trembled slightly as he continued, his thumb brushing away a tear that had escaped down your cheek.

"So, if this is the chance I have to give you a life you deserve in this shithole," he went on, his voice steady but thick with emotion, "then I’ll take it. I’ll take you with me and give it to you and our baby. I promise you, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you’re both safe. I won’t lose you. Not now, not ever."

You could feel his sincerity, the depth of his determination to protect you and the life growing inside you. You felt a wave of emotions crashing over you—fear, relief, hope, and love, all swirling together. You closed your eyes, leaning into his touch, letting his words sink in.

"Joel," you whispered, your voice trembling, "I… I don’t know if I’m ready for this, for any of this."

His grip on your face tightened just a bit, his gaze never wavering. "Neither do I," he admitted. "But we’ll figure it out. We’ve faced worse, and we’re still standing. We’ll get through this. Together."

You nodded slowly, your heart hammering in your chest. He leaned in, pressing his forehead against yours, and you could feel the warmth of his breath on your skin. "I’m not letting you go," he murmured.

Ellie stood by the door, her arms crossed, an incredulous look on her face. "Are you seriously risking your pregnant girlfriend?" she asked, her voice sharp with disbelief. She looked between the two of you, clearly struggling to understand the situation.

Joel turned his head, a flicker of annoyance crossing his features, but he kept his voice calm. "It's not that simple, kid."

Ellie scoffed. "Seems pretty simple to me," she shot back. "You're dragging her and… whatever's in there—" she gestured vaguely toward your stomach, "—through god knows what to get me to the Fireflies. What if something happens?"

You took a deep breath, stepping forward to meet Ellie’s eyes. "I know what I'm getting into," you said firmly. "I can take care of myself."

Ellie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and what if you can't? I mean, what if you get sick or something? What if you get hurt?" Her voice softened, just a bit, the worry evident. "It’s not just about you anymore."

Joel’s jaw clenched, and you could see the conflict in his eyes. He turned to Ellie; his tone more measured. "I get it, Ellie," he said. "But leaving her here… leaving her in this place… that’s not an option either."

Ellie threw her hands up. "Great, so it’s a lose-lose situation."

You couldn’t help but let out a small, dry laugh. "Pretty much," you said, trying to inject some lightness into the tension-filled room.

There was a beat of silence, the reality of the situation settling over everyone. Joel reached for your hand, squeezing it gently. "We’ll figure it out," he murmured, more to you than anyone else.

Within a short time, Tess arrived, and the group of you prepared to leave the apartment, stepping out into the uncertain world beyond the QZ. The prospect of escaping to a new place, combined with the responsibility of ensuring the safety of both Ellie and your unborn child, loomed over you.

Joel led the way, his eyes scanning the area as you followed, Ellie close behind. The journey ahead was fraught with danger and uncertainty, but for the first time in a long while, you felt a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance for a new beginning.

As you stepped out of the QZ and into the unfamiliar landscape beyond, the weight of your situation pressed heavily on you. The world outside was a mix of desolate ruins and overgrown wilderness, a stark contrast to the relative safety of the quarantine zone. With each step, you could feel the gravity of the journey ahead, not just for yourself, but for your unborn child and Ellie, who now looked up to you as a beacon of hope and guidance.

Joel walked beside you, his presence a constant reassurance in the chaos. He kept a vigilant eye on the surroundings, his hand occasionally reaching out to make sure you were close. Tess, ever practical, moved ahead, scouting the path and ensuring that it was as safe as possible.

Ellie followed behind, her expression a mix of curiosity and concern. The harsh reality of the world outside the QZ was a stark contrast to the relative safety she’d known, and she looked to you and Joel for guidance and protection.

The landscape seemed to stretch endlessly, with the occasional remnants of civilization scattered among the ruins. The path ahead was uncertain, filled with potential threats and unknown challenges. Yet, with Joel’s hand firmly grasping yours and Tess leading the way, you found a small measure of comfort in the unity of your group.

As you walked, Joel glanced at you occasionally, his gaze softening when he saw the lump forming in your throat.

With each step you took away from the QZ, you felt a mixture of trepidation and hope. The future was uncertain, and the dangers were real, but you were determined to face them head-on, for yourself, for your child, and for the family you were trying to protect.

[macfrog]

secrets cowboy like me chapter fourteen

one day i'll rein my chapters back in. today is not that day. thirteen thousand words of...a little bit of fucking and a lot of fighting. i love you all and i still can't believe the love you continue to show this series. you're all actually insane. i present to you: the penultimate chapter of cowboy.

pairing: dbf!joel miller x fem!reader

summary: the one where...everybody finds out.

warnings: age gap (reader is 23, joel is 48), a big argument, a lot of guilt, angry disappointed dad, one mention of alcohol consumption, lil bit of sub!joel, unprotected piv, tiny bit of degradation, tiny bit of praise kink, creampie, cursing, smut, fluff, angst 

word count: 12.9k (dry heaves) 

series masterlist | main masterlist | playlist | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 🧡

You haven’t slept a wink. Not one second.

You and Joel were awake until one in the morning on the phone; you – panicking, spilling words into the receiver, watching different cuts of your dad realizing everything as though projected across your blank ceiling, and Joel – monotone as fucking ever, batting every single theory away.

He doesn’t know a damn thing, he’d said. You didn’t miss the way his words hung over the edge of the sentence, trembling almost.

You scoffed and hissed back down the line. You don’t fucking know that! How can you know that?

You think he just found out about us and thought, Hey, better get some shut-eye before I deal with this? Really, baby?

I think he doesn’t know what he found out. I think he’s probably tryna convince himself that he’s wrong.

So, let him. He’s wrong. We go with that.

Joel knew he wasn’t doing anything to calm you down. Wasn’t offering anything you could seriously take on. You know he wasn’t trying to.

He was as worried as you were – he was just pretending not to be, because what fucking good would it do to have the two of you bouncing off one another with panic?

Still, he stayed on the phone the entire night. When he fell asleep, you lay in bed and tossed everything over in your head like tearing back the pages of a diary. Last night, then Frank’s, then the weekend before that, then the Hillcrest – all the way back to that first ride home. The pissing rain, the boxes of nails rattling in the glove compartment with each sway of the truck. Recalling every word spoken, every move made, every expression pulled and glance stolen and fucking breath taken.

Any sound from beyond your door shot a bullet of adrenaline through your veins, coursing through your body like ice. As if it was your dad, barreling in at 3AM to have it out with you.

You reckon you’d be ready if he did. Wide-eyed, fists clenched, heart hammering.

Joel groans back to life at eight. You hear the ruffling of bedsheets, the crackle down the line as he drags the phone across his mattress and pins it to his ear. You lift your own. Joel and 08:43:36, 37, 38 underneath it on the screen.

His voice drums low and groggy from the speaker. “You are gonna have my phone bill through the damn roof. I’m exhausted, darlin’.”

“I can’t think of anything else. He knows, Joel.”

He sighs. You can see his head falling into his hand, see his thumb rubbing circles into his temple. “Let’s just see what happens, alright? There ain’t any chance you left your phone in the living room ‘n he came across it, thought he’d keep it for you comin’ home?”

“I’ve barely left my room all week. Why would it be down there?”

Joel’s quiet. He just breathes down the line. After a minute, he clears his throat.

“Come over, would ya?”

“Huh?”

“Come over. I wanna see you. I wanna make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine, Joel, I’m –”

“Hey. Don’t make me ask again, alright? C’mon, now. I got some errands to run; you’re coming with me.”

He doesn’t have to say much else to convince you; you’re already pulling your bedsheets back and hanging up. Your hoodie and shorts are still hooked over the foot of your bed. The sun filters through the drapes, edges you nearer the door. Your chest fills with something calling itself bravery, and slowly, quietly – you click the door open.

The hallway is silent. A blushing gold in the morning light. The house is still – eerily still. Your dad’s room door is open, bed made, sheets tucked neatly under the mattress. Like he had time to spend on it. Stuff to mull over as he made it.

The carpet softens your footsteps when you finally move for the stairs. The birds are singing outside. The wallpaper canvases your shadow, a little monster creeping along one step behind you, passing picture frames which dazzle with sunrays and mirror a half-lit reflection back to you. One side you – the other, missing.

You lean over the last step, craning your head and shoulders into the hallway. The clock on the wall opposite ticks to no one. Tick tick tick tick. And aside from it, from its taunting tutting, there are no other signs of life. His jacket hangs from the peg. His boots lying below, laces tangled.

The sun separates into brittle shards through the window, illuminating the way to the kitchen. You’re not fucking prepared to follow it.

Shoulders hunched, like it might make a difference, you step forward and lower your thumb and index finger over your keys, aiming for them like a shaky arcade claw machine. Tick tick tick. They jingle as you hook your fingertip through them. Your nose wrinkles.

“Hey.”

He appears around the corner like an apparition. The keys drop back to the unit with a violent clatter.

“Jesus!”

“Woah, woah.” Your dad holds a palm up, laughing nervously. “Sorry. Where you headed?”

“Uh, J– Sarah’s. Some errands she wants some help with.”

He nods. “Yeah? You don’t want breakfast first?”

You drag your eyes to meet his for the first time. He looks drawn, skin like webbing, as though it’s just draped over his skull. As though you could put your finger through it like parchment, just push straight through. He looks like he’s had about as much sleep as you have.

“No, thanks,” you say, the sunken, sullen sight of him crumbling your voice to dust. Your lips move wordlessly, waiting for another lie from your tongue to offer over. But between the way he looks, weary and forlorn, and the thin veil of truth left between you – nothing materializes.

“Why don’t you – why don’t you hold back a second?” Dad beckons you forward, folding his fingers to his palm. “Got somethin’ I wanna talk to you about.”

“Dad, I really gotta go, I –”

“Just – come on. I’m sure Sarah won’t mind.”

He disappears without waiting for a response. Shifts back into the living room, shadow following him like a cloak across the door. You hear the creak of his chair as he settles down into it, the unsettling squeal of leather and spring.

Your feet are planted to the hall floor. To move in either direction feels like a trap. To follow after him – sit opposite and swallow back what you think you know is coming. All of his suspicions stuck in your throat like a bitter, powdery pill. Or to turn away – leave him in an empty house, nothing but the sound of his own breathing and that tick tick tick affirming your guilt.

No more excuses filter through – none of Joel’s ideas, none of his explanations. You let your shoulders drop and your eyes close. The only image behind them is that six-foot, graying, droning idiot who’s probably sat waiting for you to pull up so he can take you to fucking Trader Joe’s or whatever.

And his shirt, which he’d probably drape over your shoulders before he’s even said hello. And his smile, which would draw you onto your tiptoes, draw your lips to his. And his hands, and his waist, and his pulse in step with yours as you follow him around the quiet store, the Saturday morning air daring you to hook your fingers around two of his every now and then. The longing a gnawing in your chest, burrowing deep beneath the cage of your ribs.

He's not here, though. It’s just you. And if you call him now, if he shows up unannounced – it’s only going to confirm what your dad thinks. Fuck it – what he knows.

So you unstick your sneakers and haul yourself through to the living room.

He’s rocking in the chair when you sink back into the couch. Balls of his feet pushing him back and forth. His fingers to his lips, like keeping the words at bay for now. Like feeling the jagged shape of them through his skin.

You throw a pillow over your legs, shaggy ivory fringe tickling your bare thighs. Your dad doesn’t speak. When you lift your head, his eyes flit from yours down to your restless fingers knitting the tassels of his pillow.

“What is it?” you croak.

“Mind if I ask you somethin’?”

You shrug. “Go for it.”

He waits a beat. A hesitation. Like he doesn’t want to ask the first question. He’s at the edge of a cliff. One more step and he’s plummeting down the rocky side, into a fog of cloud. Nothing will ever be the same. Only – you’ve already pushed him. He’s already falling. He just hasn’t realized it yet.

Maybe he feels the drop in his stomach, right now. Maybe the wind screams in his ears. He finally asks, “When were you gonna tell me about y’all gettin’ into a barfight on Friday night?”

Unexpected. But keep your fucking cool.

Your fingertip whitens, blood halted by the knot of the cushion fringe. You chew on a torn leaf of skin from your lips. “What?”

“You ‘n Joel. When he picked you up. What the hell happened?”

Your eyes slide from his to the patio door behind him, garden lighting up with the sun scaling higher in the sky. You stare there until it burns, until it’s all just a blur of color in your vision, and then pull a half-blinded gaze back in his direction.

You’re frozen, as if he has you at gunpoint. Shoulders tense, eyes wide. Dontshootdontshootdontshoot. “Who –? Who said that?”

“Hank. Was on the phone to ‘im last night. Anna said Joel was squarin’ up to some kid in Frank’s. You wanna tell me exactly what happened?”

“Nothing.” Liar. “Nothing happened. It was just some asshole. Joel was just lookin’ out for me. For us. Me ‘n Anna.”

“She told Hank he knocked the kid out. That Sam had to stop it from gettin’ outta control.”

He stares at you, and there’s no mask on his face. No cover, no disguise. He’s suspicious. And he doesn’t care that you know it. He’s not just asking about the barfight.

“Are you gonna say it or am I, hon?”

“Say what?”

Your last thread of insane hope that he’s innocently wondering about Frank’s is snapped in two by the words that tear out of his mouth, so quick they rip into your skin like shards of glass.

“What the hell’s goin’ on between you two?”

Your body suddenly drops further into the couch, the weight of your blood freezing to ice in your veins. Your joints seize, your jaw locks. Air passes across your open lips with no intention of carrying words back out the way it came. You forget any ability you had previously to come up with excuses, to cover up, to lie. Hell, you’re not sure you’d remember your own fucking name if he asked that next.

You say nothing. And he cocks his head, drums his fingers on the arm of his chair.

Say something.

“Nothing.”

Say something more convincing.

“Nothing?” you repeat, a shrill pitch in your voice like it’s a question. Like he’s dumb for even thinking there might be something weird going on. Like he’s the idiot.

The clock in the hall ticks to itself, amused. Fifteen little snaps. Each one sounds like a plate of glass beneath your feet, cracking a little more, a little deeper, a little wider. The abyss opening its wide, dark jaws beneath you.

Your dad’s expression doesn’t change. He crosses his arms, head leaning back a little. He almost looks sad. Almost looks like he might give in. Send you on your way, on your errands with Sarah.

But something recharges him, something must flicker behind his eyes, because he sits forward again and watches your reaction intently as he says –

“Then explain the text messages you been sendin’ each other.”

Another blow hits your stomach, rippling waves of white heat through you. You feel hot, a scorching panic right beneath the surface of your skin so hot that it mistakes itself for ice cold. A panic which radiates from your heart, pulsating through your entire body, every limb beginning to shudder involuntarily. Your silence is answer enough.

He sighs. Sits forward with his elbows on his knees. “I knew y’all were close, knew you cared about each other. You sure always talked to ‘im more ‘n you ever talked to me, even before you went off to college. But I’ve been noticing things lately…Something’s different. Something’s changed.”

Your eyes trace his form as he talks. It’s fucking dizzying. He’s animated, like a character from some eighties cop show who finally solved the mystery. He knows. He knows everything. Your jaw won’t move to answer.

“Seeing you two together – talking, laughing. The way you look at each other these days. ‘n you’re always near each other, ain’t you? Always hoverin’. It ain’t anything like before. That day the three of us went to Costco, that – I –” His anger seems to boil over, cascading from his lips in an angry burst of hot breath. “I felt like a spare tire in the back of the truck that day.”

“We’re…We’re just…f-friends…I don’t –”

He holds a finger up. Doesn’t want to hear it. Not until his speech is done. The sun moves behind a cloud; the living room suddenly drains of light. “That day you said you were spending the night at Anna’s. Said you were havin’ a pool day, right?”

“Right,” you whisper, eyes closing over. They feel heavy. Tired and teary.

“Right. Except,” he brings his finger down, aims it straight at you, “Hank says you weren’t never there. Anna was at Sal’s all day Sunday.”

Fuck.

“Dad…”

You’re pleading with him now. Enough, I’ve heard enough. I know you know. As if you might still be able to stop the train, dig your heels in and hold on tight to derail it. Derail his thoughts. Salvage the situation, string it back together with shame and atonement.

But he doesn’t listen. He doesn’t even hear you.

“’n that’s when I got to thinkin’ – last Monday, at Joel’s. I went over to fix his sink – you remember I told you about his sink?” He doesn’t wait for a response. “I went over there, and he’s cookin’ this great big breakfast – pancakes, all of it – and there ain’t no one else in his house. Just him. Sarah was in Nashville, you remember?”

You take a deep breath. This is it. The ship’s beginning to disappear beneath the black waves.

“I thought maybe he had someone over, maybe expectin’ that girl from the plant hire…Anyway,” he bats his hand, bats the hopeful glint in Lois’s eye from his mind, “I’m walking downstairs, on my way out, and I notice somethin’ on the floor by the door.”

His chair squeaks timidly as he moves, his right arm lowering, scooping for something you can’t see yet. But when he shakily lifts it, your eyes fall to your knees. It hangs before you, apologetic and ashamed.

Joel was right. He knew it. You palmed him off. You told him your dad wouldn’t – couldn’t – put two and two together. And here he is, sat feet from you, holding the final piece to the puzzle in a quivering fist. Proof that, when he was in the house that day, you were only feet from him. Wrapped in his best friend’s shirt, dripping wet from his shower.

“This bag,” he hisses, and the tears finally drop onto your cheeks. They scurry to your chin, gathering and throwing themselves to your chest. Your shoulders drop, your eyes still low. You can’t look at him.

He speaks slowly. Speaks through his teeth. Every word like its own poisonous jab.

“Now you tell me: what in God’s name is your bag doin’ in Joel Miller’s hallway, at ten in the mornin’, when you’re supposed to be at Anna’s?”

Your fingers touch your forehead, a burning pain beginning to sting through your skull. You can feel your pulse in your temples. You’ve never wanted Joel to be stood in front of you so badly in all your life; just to deflect some of the interrogation off of you, just to give you breathing space. Just to protect you from the onslaught of questioning from your dad.

“No,” he mutters, shaking his head. The bag hits the carpet with a thud. “No, there ain’t no way. You were at Anna’s, right? You ain’t with Joel Miller, no way. I’m thinkin’, Please, God, don’t let that have been my daughter’s bag that day. But I’m right, ain’t I? You were there, weren’t you?”

You blink rapidly. The tears multiply quicker. The room is glossed in a protective film of salt and adrenaline. Give me something to say back. Give me something to say back.

“Where were you, hon? Musta been hidin’ somewhere, right?”

Give me something please think of something please come over please walk through that door please tell me what to say.

And then it comes to you. You blink the mist from your eyes. He said…he knew about texts you’d been sending Joel. How did he…?

“How did you know about the texts?”

“Pardon me?”

You straighten up and look him dead in the eye. Your voice feels hoarse. It sounds nothing like you. “How – did you know – about – the texts?”

“That’s your concern right now?”

“How – did you know?”

He begins to sputter, like the heat turned up under a pan on the hob. “Look, hon, you had me worried sick. Disappearin’ and I got no clue where you are. Always having an excuse to go off somewhere alone, no explanation. Don’t even get me started on those marks on your neck.”

Your hand immediately clamps around your throat, hot skin stained pink hissing into your palm. Joel’s teeth on you last night. His words cushioning the sharp bite. I love you. The heat hurts, now, when it felt so comforting just a few hours ago. It burns. It throbs. It feels like shame.

Your dad’s voice brings you back into the room.

“There’s another thing – last night,” he flings a laugh to you, “you were so quiet. So damn quiet. Didn’t say a word the entire time, and then I leave for all of ten minutes, and suddenly the two of you are headin’ over to his for – what was it? UCLA pamphlets?”

There’s a break between his words, a gap which makes you think that he wants you to answer. Like he’s giving you a chance, extending his arm. But he fills the space with a jeering laugh, and keeps talking.

“Where are they, huh? These pamphlets? ‘s why you were at Joel’s, right? Go on, go get ‘em. Show them to me.”

Your face solidifies. Lips tremble. There’s a scowl pulling your brows together. You’ve no right for it to be there. “Stop it,” you seethe. “Tell me what you did.”

“He’s the only one. The only one who could get you to talk. I had to check, kiddo. I had to know.”

Your stare doesn’t let up. Your lips bolt shut, refusing to say another word until he confesses. Which he does. Almost breezily.

“I looked through your phone. While you were gone. I – I went upstairs, ‘n I took it.”

He says it casually, as though he’s simply checked the newspaper. As though he’s just relaying the columns to you. Someone’s had a baby. Someone else won three grand on a scratch card. By the way, I know you’ve been messing around with Joel.

So it takes a minute for what he’s said to hit you. But when it does, the wave crashes over your shoulders so violently that it throws you to your feet, tasseled pillow whipped to the other side of the couch.

There are tears searing across your eyes. A twisted grimace of a smile on your face, a laugh breaking roughly from your throat. Some crazed, disbelieving, ugly little laugh.

“You – you checked my…my fuckin’ phone. You – you fucking –”

His head jerks back, offended. “Hey, now, listen to me –”

“I’m not listenin’ to another word! Am I twelve?”

You stalk over to the kitchen. The rattle of your dad’s chair tells you he follows.

“Well – you tell me, hon, ‘cause right now, you’re making a lot of real stupid decisions.”

That same ugly laugh echoes around the house. You grip onto the kitchen island. The room starts to wheel.

“Who the hell are you to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do?” you pant, eyes tight shut. Your thumbs begin to slip, sweat gliding between your skin and the counter.

“I’m your father! I’m lookin’ out for you, damnit! You think I wanna be havin’ this conversation with you right now?”

The granite countertop blurs in and out of focus when you open your eyes. You hook onto it, using it to haul yourself around the island until there’s distance between your wobbly figure and his. And you remember one week ago, when the same counter separated you and Joel, and you think of Joel, and think of his fingers around your wrist, and his fist against Knox’s jaw, and his teeth in your neck.

“Look,” your dad’s voice floats somewhere over the image of Joel’s eyes, “let’s just – let’s calm down. You ‘n me – we’re gonna talk this out. We’re gonna have a calm, mature discussion about all of this. You’re gonna tell me exactly what’s been goin’ on, and then I’m gonna head over to Joel’s – alone – and talk to him.”

But his voice doesn’t sound calm. There’s a tremble to it – a tremor as fragile as glass, as thin as ice. It’s crackling as he speaks. He can hardly keep a hold on it himself.

If he goes over to Joel’s – this you know – there ain’t anything calm or mature that will come of it. Suddenly the images in your head warp, and it’s your fingers around Joel’s wrist, someone else’s fist against his cheek, someone else’s teeth and the venom spat between them.

“Dad,” you pant, “it’s over. He ended it. It’s been done for, like, two weeks now. It was nothing.”

“Oh, nothing, was it?” He steps closer. You retreat. Edge further around the counter, further from him. His head tilts, eyebrows curl. He looks like a vulture, eyeing its prey. “Then what were the two of you up to last night?”

“We – we went for ice cream, that’s all. He wanted to make sure I was alright.”

He’s not convinced. And he shouldn’t be, either. He coughs a laugh. “For three hours? You were eatin’ ice cream for three Goddamn hours?” His cheeks wobble as he shakes his head. Then, in a softer voice, like he’s arming himself with a chisel to prick at the weakest parts of the sculpture, “What’d he do to you, girl?”

The marble cracks and snaps wide open. Anger floods out in hot waves. Any composure you’d managed to scrape together flushes clean out of your body.

“Nothing I didn’t want him to fuckin’ do. Stop treating me like I’m some kid who’s – who’s been tricked, or something. I’m twenty-three, Dad, I’m an adult.”

His silence sends another misdirected shot of panic through you.

“I was in on it just as much as he was,” you weep, fingers searching for a scratch of beard or kiss of flannel.

Your dad scoffs then, hands slapping against his thighs, and turns away. “There ain’t no gettin’ through to you,” he announces to the timid living room.

Still bracing yourself against the island, you take the break in his tirade to catch your breath. The only thought running through your head, losing velocity with each circuit, is Joel walking through that door. His face when he notices you with your flushed cheeks and wide eyes. His hands reaching for yours, through all the lies and hurt. Your dad, stood opposite, tight as an arrow and ready to fucking fly for him. Fists balled, teeth bared.

“He doesn’t even know,” you realize, staring at the glow on the floor cast by the front door. “You haven’t told him you know, have you?”

“’course I ain’t told him. I wanted to talk to you first. Not that it’s gotten us anywhere, huh?”

“I’m gonna text him.”

“Hon, don’t you d–”

“I am not having this conversation on my own. There are two people involved here.”

You pull your phone from your pocket and scrawl some messy message to Joel. Three messy messages. Something like he knows everything, can you come over? I need you. Some needy, dramatic, helpless message.

The typing bubble appears for a fraction of a second. So fleeting that you almost miss it through your tears, before it drops back to nothing. He doesn’t reply.

Doesn’t pick up, either, when you call him. Three times in a row. Three missed calls; three Hey, it’s Joel, sorry I missed yous.

The phone rattles off the counter when you drop it, your head falling into your hands. Your dad wanders back over to his armchair and collapses into it with a sigh, his fingers massaging his temples. The two of you mirrored, the same storm circling between you, only ice in his veins and fire in yours.

Fear keeps your feet planted to the kitchen floor; adrenaline alone keeps you upright. Your fingers push hard into your forehead, an ache sat directly behind that dizzies you. Blood thudding its fists against your eyes, screaming in your ears.

How the fuck did this happen? It feels ridiculous to ask, but it’s all you got. When did the two of you get so lazy? Start forgetting to cover your tracks? Or – maybe worse – stop caring enough to even try?

Of course, saying you were with Anna was a dumb fucking move. Her dad is one of your dad’s buddies. One of Joel’s, too. That was always going to fuck it all up. And you were too caught up, too hellbent on seeing Joel, too fucking horny to stop for five seconds and keep your damn story straight.

There’s nothing to say, nothing that might fix this. There’s no winding your way out of it. The trap has you by the throat. Your jaw aches from trying to free yourself.

Your dad sways side to side in his chair, staring silently at the wall ahead of him. Your face burns with shame, with anger, with embarrassment. Your heart stings from the hurt, from wanting Joel here, from his ignoring your pleas for help. And, most annoying of all – from letting your dad down.

It doesn’t matter what you tell yourself. How you spin it. Sure, you’re twenty-three. You can make your own decisions. That much is fucking clear now. Doesn’t mean they’re always good. Even when they make you laugh until your cheeks hurt, make your stomach flip with excitement, make you scream from pleasure.

Make your heart do things you’ve never felt it do before. Things you never knew that it could do.

You let your dad down. He can barely look at you for it. You know damn well that it was worth every second, and yet, right now, nothing but thick, awkward, unbreathable air between the two of you – it feels like it should never have happened.

You’re bent over the counter, head resting on your folded arms, breathing still staggered – when you hear it. The squeal of brakes outside. An engine cutting. A door slamming.

Two knocks on the door, and Joel pushes it open. You’re already in the hallway, watching his heavy head and loose shirt cross the threshold.

He looks up and your eyes meet. His hair’s a mess, he’s in the same tee from last night. He’s gotten straight out of bed and into his truck, and he’s braced, like he doesn’t know what’s coming. Which direction to expect the first punch from.

Your knees weaken at the sight of him. The safe haven of his arms, the home of his chest. The beating pulse behind it whose language you’ve become fluent in. Even now, when everything’s fallen apart, his being here washes relief over you like cool water dousing an inferno. Your body relaxes, your breathing quietens.

Joel nods towards you. You okay?

You shake your head lightly, and he flicks his fingers. You’re in his arms before your brain tells your limbs to move.

“’s okay,” he breathes, lips lined with your ear. His chest is soft, warm; you take fistfuls of his shirt. He strokes your hair, mumbling, “Told you we’ll be alright, yeah? It’s goin’ to be alright.”

You weep into him, lips dripping with salty tears. They part to reply, when a low growl rips between your bodies. Joel loosens his grip and you step back, turning around to face the ghost of your father at the end of the hall.

“Get the hell away from him.”

He advances, takes a few steps forward. You meet him halfway, gripping onto his shirt, planting yourself firmly between him and Joel.

“Woah, woah,” you say, pushing on his small chest, “let’s all just calm down. Dad.”

He’s smaller, scrawnier, older, and weaker than Joel. He’s never going to lift a fucking hand to him. Not if he wants to keep it intact. He wouldn’t square up to a fly, never mind an actual worthy opponent – but your gut tells you to make damn sure he doesn’t even try.

“Get out of the way, hon.”

“No. No way. And let you –? No.”

He’s not even looking at you. You’re nothing but an obstacle. He’s staring a few feet behind.

“Baby,” Joel says, voice weary and surrendered. “It’s alright, now. C’mon, outta the way.”

“Baby?” your dad seethes. “You just call my daughter baby?”

“Called me it as long as he’s known me, Dad.”

“’s different now,” he spits. “What the f–? I mean, what the fuck, Joel? What were you even thinkin’? Putting your Goddamn hands on my daughter?”

You don’t usually hear your dad curse. All through growing up, even when you left home – you could count on one hand the number of times you’ve heard it. It sends a bolt of fear through you as if you’re five years old again, and he can’t do much worse than say bad words in front of you.

You don’t usually see your dad do any of this stuff. Raise his voice, ball his fists. Lean forward, feet planted on the ground, like daring Joel to make the first move. Joel – his best friend. The guy he was supposed to be able to trust more than anyone in the world.

Angry. Furious. And you think: if there were a time he had a right to feel this way, to act like this and throw threats around as though they’re light as air, if ever there were a moment – this would be it. A betrayal. A secret this big.

Joel takes a step forward. He doesn’t seem scared. More – placating. Letting the tantrum run its course. He holds his hands out. “Let’s just – let’s just talk.”

“Talk,” your dad repeats, spitting the word like it’s rotten in his mouth. “You wanna talk? Let’s talk. What the hell have you been doin’ to her? Hm?”

Joel shakes his head, shoulders lifting. “I ain’t been doin’ nothin’ to her. That’s not what this is.”

“Hell,” your dad scoffs, “not what it is. Why don’t you explain to me exactly what it is, then, Joel? If it ain’t you takin’ advantage of a young girl? Takin’ advantage of my kid?”

Your head whips back to face Joel, hand lifting in a bracing motion. He sees it – sees the way your head shakes, imperceptible to your dad. Please don’t tell him. Not yet.

It’s bad enough that he knows you’ve been messing around. It hurts enough that he knows you’ve been lying for the entire summer. Telling him the full story – the conversation in the truck, the words exchanged over ice cream and the quiet tick of traffic lights across the street – would only hurt more. Would only sharpen his anger. He’d ask more questions; he’d drive his dagger deeper.

Joel pleads with you. His eyes do his bargaining. You don’t relent. Please.

“You know what I keep thinkin’ about,” your dad interrupts, “you know what’s runnin’ through my mind? That damn garden party. Those cupcakes. You puttin’ your thumb on her lip. I should’ve known the second you touched her what was happening. You arrogant, shameless son of a bitch, Joel, you got no idea what you –”

“Dad. Enough.”

Sure, you’re trying to calm him down, palms outstretched and motioning like he’s a wild horse, rearing frantically and threatening to crush you. But it also stings to hear him talking about Joel like that. Talking to him like that.

The same Joel he’d sling an arm around, knocking their beers together when the Rangers won. The same Joel you know he’d spent hours sat out back with, talking into the night and sharing stories and secrets with the stars.

The same Joel who covered your legs with his jacket last night, who held you when you were hurting, who reminded you what it was like to feel your heart again, beating rapidly in your chest.

He’s not talking about the same Joel. Not the Joel you know. Yours.

He’s still rambling. “…’n all this time, you pair have been closer ‘n you were lettin’ on.”

“You don’t understand,” you plead, “you don’t know him like I do.”

Your dad scoffs, twisted smirk on his face. “Oh, I know ‘im. I’ve known him a hell of a lot longer and a hell of a lot better ‘n you have, hon. Known him since he was fifteen, askin’ me ‘n my buddies to buy ‘im a case of beer from the liquor store. His little brother in ‘n outta jail like God only knows what. I know exactly what he’s like.”

“What he’s like?” you huff, exasperated. You spin on your heel, arms coming down on your sides with a slap. “Joel, help me.”

“Don’t you dare look at ‘im! Listen, kiddo, I know him. Know what he’s like at Frank’s, takin’ women home left ‘n right, then forgetting their damn names. Know he sure as hell can’t remember that schoolteacher’s name, can you, Joel? You remember her?”

“Quit it,” you tell him over your shoulder, still facing Joel.

Your dad laughs from behind you. It turns your stomach. “I’ll bet he never told you about that one, did he? That’d turn you off ‘im in a heartbeat, wouldn’t it?”

“Nah, he told me about Jess.”

Your dad’s voice cuts. Joel’s head finally lifts, his eyes ungluing from the floor to look at you.

You shrug back. “I figured it out. Sister’s name is Mia – she’s a year younger ‘n me.”

You swear he almost fucking smiles. Almost. It’s funny, or at least, it would be if you weren’t both in the middle of tearing your entire dynamic apart. Any other time, he’d nudge you, or tousle your hair, and say you were too clever for him, or something about being old again.

When you turn back to face your dad, he looks like he’s run out of words. So, he repeats ones he’s already said.

“I…Well, I know him, honey. And he ain’t someone you oughta be with.”

“How’d you figure that?”

He sighs. “I just told you my reasons.”

“’cause he wanted beer when he was a kid and he’s slept with people before? ‘cause Tommy gets himself into trouble – trouble that Joel then gets him out of?”

“No, I –”

“You don’t know a damn thing about any of this. You won’t listen to me. If you’d hear me out – hear us out, then you’d –”

“Don’t you dare tell me I’d change my damn mind. Don’t – you – dare.” Your dad’s voice is quiet and slow. Dangerous. Laced with something you’ve never heard in it before. It’s not worth finding out what.

Your head shakes, knee jerking with nerves. “I don’t…I don’t know what else to say.”

The fire flickers, loses light for a second. His voice softens. “Honey…This –” he waggles his finger between your body and Joel’s, “this thing y’all have been…It ain’t right. It is not right, what y’all have been doin’. You are far too young for him. He should know better, and the fact that he doesn’t – well.”

Your brows tighten, eyes pinching around painful tears. “I know why you’re mad. I get it. I’m sorry. But I can’t –” You sigh. “You are suffocatin’ me, living here.”

His façade drops instantly. He pushes his fingers into his eyes, groaning. “Hon, you’re not hearin’ me.”

“I hear you loud and clear, I –”

He cuts you off, throwing his arms up into the air with another loud yell. The words melt into one long drone, a mountainous ramble which peaks and falls in pitch; one minute low and angry and the next high and frantic.

You sigh, shoving by him for the living room. Joel reaches for your hand, your fingers brushing against his.

“Baby,” he says.

“Ah!” Your dad blocks his advance, shaky finger held to his chest. “You dare, son.”

You’re swipe the bag from the floor by your dad’s chair, your change of clothes still in a crumpled heap at the bottom. Slinging it over your shoulder, you whip past your father and lock your hand with Joel’s.

“Hey,” Joel says, slowing you down. “Darlin’, where are you –?”

“I wanna leave.”

“Huh?” he asks, brows raised.

“I want to go,” you whisper.

He glances over to your dad, dumbfounded by the stairs. “Where d’you wanna go?”

Your shoulders roll. Anywhere. Just take me away.

He doesn’t hesitate; barely thinks it over. He tightens his grip on your hand and pulls you toward him. Your feet stumble over the carpet.

“Where in the hell –?” Your dad’s snarling picks up again, his final chance. “I don’t think so –”

Joel’s backing up towards the front door, led by the pull of your hand. “Emotions are pretty high,” he announces, “why don’t we have this conversation once everybody’s calmed down?”

“Joel, if you take her, I’ll–”

“I ain’t takin’ her anywhere. She’s an adult.”

Liar. His hand wouldn’t let go of yours if you tried to pry it from his clutches.

“I’m leavin’,” he says, “she’s just coming with me.”

Your dad barks your name, and you freeze. Joel stops, too, allows you the time to turn. Like a deer in the headlights.

“I’m going, Dad,” you shakily tell him.

“I swear to God,” he says, “if y’all walk outta that door…”

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I didn’t mean for any of this.”

He shakes his head. “Stay, hon. Let’s talk.”

“You’re not talkin’, though. All you wanna do is argue. I wanna go with Joel.”

“You ain’t goin’ nowhere with no one! ‘specially not him!”

You shrug, give your head a solemn shake. “Stop me.”

Joel hears the exhaustion in your voice, the scratch of your throat. The way the words melt into one another. He tugs on your hand, leading you through the front door. Your dad doesn’t speak again, and you don’t turn back to check on him.

The neighborhood is silent in the early morning. Yards empty, curtains still closed. No one, not even the sun, tucked behind a thin veil of cloud, sees when you pile into the front seat of Joel’s truck.

“Baby,” he says, pulling your seatbelt over your body.

Your eyes fix on the asphalt ahead. “Just drive.”

“Hey. Look at me.”

When you turn to him, he takes your jaw in both hands. “I love you,” he says.

“Still?” you squeak, eyes heavy with sleeplessness and tears.

“More.”

“This is fucking insane, Joel.”

He nods. “Yeah. ‘n you’re worth all of it.”

“Hey,” Sarah calls when the two of you spill in through the front door. She’s on the couch, Switch console in hand. “What’s up?”

“We have a – a lodger, for the next…little while,” Joel grumbles, tossing his keys onto the sideboard. He kicks off his boots and slides them to the wall, straightens up and looks to you.

You follow suit wordlessly, slipping out of your sneakers. Joel places them by his.

“Cool,” Sarah says, standing up. “How come?”

“Just – dad trouble,” you whisper, deflated. She’s wandering around the couch. A defeated sound rings from the console hanging from her thumb.

Her head tilts. “I…I got plenty room for you,” she flashes you a warm grin, “it can be like a big-ass sleepover.”

You return her smile, a slow, grateful breath filling your lungs. Joel’s arm wraps over your shoulder as your mouth opens to answer.

“No, uh…” He clears his throat. “She’ll be in my room. With me.”

Sarah’s expression is blank. She blinks between the two of you, arms limp either side of her hips. Your eyes flit from Joel to her and back again, wide, waiting. Waiting for someone to move, or speak, or yell.

Joel looks indifferent. Unbothered. As if he just told her it’s sunny outside.

She takes a step forward, and by instinct, you draw back. “Sarah…” you mutter, and she swings around the newel post. She dodges your outstretched hand, whether accidental or deliberate – you’re not sure.

“No, it’s…Okay. Yeah. I’ll – I gotta…Yeah.”

You watch as she climbs the stairs backwards, still looking from your pleading face to her dad’s stoic. She shrugs, wiggles the Switch and mumbles something about it needing charged, before she’s spinning and taking the last few steps two at a time.

When her bedroom door closes, you slump back. Joel doesn’t let go of your shoulder, catching you and pulling you into his chest.

“Fuck,” you whisper, lips pressed against his tee. He smells like pine, like mint, like you.

“’s okay,” he says into your hair, hand curving the shape of your skull. “She’ll come around. You know Sarah.”

You turn, ear against his chest, listening for his heartbeat. It doesn’t tell you anything new. You miss the days you used to listen for secret messages in the soft rhythm.

Joel’s chin rests on the crown of your head. “I’m sorry, baby,” he says. “None of this is your fault, you hear? None of it.”

“Now you’re just lyin’ to me. You know that ain’t true.”

A hum rumbles against your cheek like the earth readjusting, rearranging beneath your feet. You lift your head, loosen your grip around his waist.

“You need sleep,” he tells you, thumb swiping gently beneath your heavy eyes.

You don’t protest.

Joel takes your hand, leads you mutely upstairs and into his room. His bed’s not made. The shades aren’t even open. He lifts the sea of sheets, tosses them twice in the air and then pulls the corner back, letting you sit on the edge of the mattress.

He undresses you carefully, like your limbs might crack and burst at the slightest touch. He replaces your hoodie with a fresh tee of his own, one that still smells like the world before its end, and you lay back into bed slowly.

It’s shaped like you – the divot in the mattress. You slot back into it like you never left. The curl of your back and the fold of your knees. You’ve left little pieces of evidence all over the place – all over Joel.

He runs a delicate hand across your head, the repetitive movement lulling you off to sleep. Pushing the boat out.

“You need anythin’?” he asks.

You shake your head, arms wrapping tight underneath your pillow. “I’m good,” you whisper, and the waves pull you under.

His bedside lamp is on when you stir, the left half of the room a glowing honey color. His bare leg slotted between yours, your hands intertwined on his chest. His finger drifts back and forth against your palm, the strokes matching your breathing.

You’re still tired, eyes still rolling beneath heavy lids, but when some commentator screams at the game playing on the TV screen, you snap awake.

Joel curses under his breath, begins tearing the bed apart for the remote – but by the time he turns the volume down, your head is propped against his pillow, knuckles rubbing your eyes.

“Sorry, baby,” he sighs, kissing your forehead as he sits on the edge of the bed.

“’s okay.” You flash him a lazy smile. “What time is it?”

“Almost five thirty.”

“Damn,” you mutter. “Slept all fucking day.”

“You needed it,” he says, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear. “You want some dinner? Or – breakfast?”

You nod. “Sounds good.”

He disappears downstairs. The echoing of pots and pans and the hum of the extraction fan follow in his wake. You groan, stretching out like a starfish across the messy bed, forgetting for just a moment why you’re here, and what’s happened, and how different everything is.

It feels the same, even after eight hours sleep. Same guilt, and shame. Same anger and resentment towards your dad. Same punch to your gut anytime you picture his face, the wrinkled frown. The trembling fist holding your bag in midair.

The blow is soothed only by the swelling of warmth across your chest, looking around the room. The safety you feel here, as though you’re cut off from the rest of the world. Your father on pause the second you left the house; Joel’s room and his bed giving you time to catch your breath and recalibrate.

You’re not thinking about when you’ll have to go back home. You’re just not.

You knot your shorts back around your waist, take one huge swig of the water Joel left for you, and open his bedroom door, your head throbbing with each movement.

There’s a figure at the end of the hall, frozen in space like a phantom.

“Morning,” she says. Her hair is tied back, oversized hoodie over her shoulders.

“Hi.”

“You sleep good?”

“Must’ve. Missed half the day.”

Sarah smiles.

“Are you gonna kill me?”

“Hm,” her head tips back and forth, “not today. Don’t have the energy. Watch your back tomorrow, though.”

For the first time in almost twenty-four hours, a genuine laugh pushes its way past your lips. The knot in your stomach loosens, even if only a little.

“You wanna come help with dinner?” she asks, nodding to the stairs.

You smile. “Please.”

The three of you settle on pasta with some tomato sauce from a jar mixed through. You sit opposite Sarah as Joel sets the plates down, sliding into the seat next to yours with a gentle squeeze on your knee under the table.

The three of you talk. About nothing in particular – college, Rita and her cross stitch, some client of Joel’s whose wife got caught having an affair – but it soothes the ache in your heart. It feels like a blanket over your shoulders, a spot by the fire, a voice in your ear promising you that things are still okay. That they can still be this way: light, alive. The earth is still moving, the stars are still pinned up in the sky. Tomorrow will always come, and the day after that.

Sarah asks about LA. You tell her you didn’t know she knew. She grins and says, “Well, now that I do – you better put an application in.”

You hum around the fork between you lips. “Maybe.”

“Come on. The two of us out there together? For six whole months? You gotta do it. Tell me you don’t wanna do it. Are you gonna do it?”

Joel casts her a glower, his stony expression pushing her back in her chair.

Your eyes shift from hers over to his. He runs a slice of garlic bread around the curve of his plate, coating it in sauce, before he notices you staring. His face breaks into a tiny smirk.

“I don’t know,” you decide, turning back to Sarah. “I still gotta think it through.”

She nods earnestly. “Yeah, you should sleep on it. And then, first thing tomorrow, we’re doing it.”

The two of you let her have the final say, falling quiet until some new conversation is shifted onto the table, and then another, and then another. When you’re done eating, Sarah takes your hand and drags you back upstairs.

Sarah Miller’s bedroom has been baby pink for as long as you can remember. Joel painted it one summer while she was at camp, eliciting help from your dad to shift all the furniture. As she grew up, she covered the walls in posters, changed the sheets, changed the curtains, strung fairy lights to distract from what she saw as a kiddish color.

But she never asked to change it. Always wanted the same blushing pink her dad had picked out when she was ten – even if secretly.

Her blinds are tilted, golden light from the slowly lowering sun filtering through onto her carpet, stained with tiny dabs of nail polish. She throws herself down onto the bed, her curls igniting brown in the summer light, and you slowly sink down beside her.

“Nice Zayn poster,” you note, pointing to the straight-browed, dark-haired figure painted in a moody grayscale on her ceiling. “Interesting placement.”

“Was so I could dream about him every night.”

“You didn’t wanna take him to California?”

“Didn’t have to,” Sarah smiles, tapping her temple, “he’s all up here, baby.”

You snort. Your eyes flutter closed; hands clasped on your stomach. She sighs contentedly by your side, listening to the chatter of birds out front.

“I miss this,” she says eventually, her voice smooth and soothing. She elbows you lightly.

“Me too,” you reply. And then, with a deep breath: “Sarah…are you okay?”

When she turns back, the sunlight catches in her eyes. They twinkle, like she’s some doe-eyed Disney character. Someone who might be able to wiggle her fingers and make the last day disappear.

“Am I okay?”

“Yeah. With…everything.”

She shrugs, mumbles an I dunno. “What can I do about it? It’s weird, but…it’s none of my business. I guess…I guess if y’all are happy, then – you know. I’m gone half the time, anyways.”

“It is your business, too, though,” you tell her. “I don’t wanna make you feel weird.”

“I think you got bigger things to worry about right now. Sounds like your dad’s pretty mad.”

You sigh, looking back up to the boyband poster. “Yeah. He’s pretty mad.”

“My dad told me what happened. Well, parts. I can kinda guess the rest. Can’t really blame him, I guess.”

You shrug. “Guess not, but then…I am twenty-three, y’know? I’m not a kid. I can make my own mind up.”

She’s still staring at you, but you don’t return her glance. Something tells you that you already know what it says. Still, she verbalizes it.

“Would you be okay if I slept with your dad?”

That is so not what I thought you were gonna fuckin’ say.

You shoot her a look. “What?”

“’m askin’. Would you be okay with it, if I –”

You lift your hand to shut her up. “That is…so totally different.”

“How is that different?” she scoffs.

“Because…because…my dad’s not hot.”

Sarah gags.

“And – and also you’re not friends with him. It’s just different, alright?”

“You were friends with my dad?”

You’re laughing with her now. You can hear how pathetic your justification sounds. “Kinda, yeah. I was close to ‘im.”

“Yeah, that much is obvious, now, babe.”

You smack her arm and she giggles.

“I think he’ll come around. Your dad.”

“I don’t. Not ever.”

“Why wouldn’t he? His best friend would become his son-in-law, I would become his granddaughter-in-law –” She gasps and props herself up on her elbow, staring you down. “Does this make you, like, my stepmom?”

You spit out a laugh, and Sarah throws her head back against her pillow, clutching her belly.

“You’re my fuckin’ mom, dude!”

“Don’t you fucking dare!” you reply, covering your face with your hands. “Aw, fuck,” you breathe, giggling.

You settle back into the bed, your heads leaning against one another as you stare up at Zayn and his audience of glow-in-the-dark stars. Sarah hums something softly to herself, her ankle rocking, her fingers tapping.

The two of you were raised together. Sisters, when neither of you knew what that word really meant. You figure she’s as close as you could find – someone who reflects all of your favorite parts of yourself and who calls out the uglier ones without hesitation. Someone who comforts you with a punch to the arm, a mocking quip about your hair or the something in your teeth. A safe little secret keeper, for all of your wildest dreams and biggest fears.

“I guess this is all why you were so down in the dumps last night, right? Your dad knew then?”

You shake your head. “Not at that point. He found out after we all left. Realized it all on his own. It’s all just…so fucking stupid…”

She sighs. “My dad – if he…if he makes you happy, then I don’t even know. As long as I don’t have to see it – we’re cool.”

One cinderblock of weight lifts from your chest, allowing a rugged breath to escape. “Wish my dad would take a leaf outta your book,” you mumble.

“He’s just mad,” Sarah says. “He’s just mad, and he’ll eventually calm down.”

“Doesn’t matter even if he does calm down,” you reply. “My dad has more of a…restrictive parenting approach.”

“Can you really parent a twenty-three-year-old?”

“He finds a way to try.”

She scoffs, saying, “I get it. My dad’s more, try it ‘n see. Your dad is, like, try it ‘n see…what your punishment is.”

You both erupt into laughter, and Sarah reaches for the TV remote.

“Exactly,” you tell her, tugging on the hem of Joel’s shirt. “Although, if your dad found out you were with my dad, I don’t think he’d be cool with it, either.”

“Yeah,” she smirks, flicking through Netflix titles, “y’all got what you deserved.”

The sound of Sarah’s bedroom door closing over stirs you. Her room is the color of rust; the stream of amber sunlight on the carpet replaced by that of the streetlights. Beneath the door, the sliver of light is shifted by the sway of a silhouette walking off down the hall.

Sarah’s snoring quietly beside you, still in her jeans. Keeping an eye on her, you roll off the bed and creep towards the door, a slow groan coming from the handle as you twist it. Joel’s at the opposite end of the hall, disappearing into his room as you shut Sarah back into her warm slumber.

“Thought you were sleepin’,” he whispers when you slip into his room. He’s already sat in bed, leant against the headboard. The room a thick darkness, a black cloud of dusk spiraling around you and cutting you off from the rest of the world.

“Heard you come in.” You wander over, pausing at the side of the bed. “Wanna stay with you.”

“C’mere,” he says, holding a hand out. You take it, pulling yourself into his lap. He slips his hands under the hem of your shorts, fingertips brushing the crests of your hipbones. “You okay?” he asks, thumbs swiping gently on the seam of your thigh.

“Never better. You?”

He sighs in response and looks off to the window, the light catching his eye. You tilt your head and bend forward, kissing below his ear. He smells like whiskey. You breathe it in, inhaling like the sharp scent might fold you under a numb blanket of inebriation, too.

Joel takes a fistful of your hair and pulls you from his neck, watching the shift in your expression before he kisses you – steady, bracing. The first time since everything went so wrong.

For a few minutes you pretend nothing has changed – you’re still sneaking around, shushing one another; someone’s in the next room, there are still secrets to be kept. You slip your shorts down your legs, kicking them over the side of the bed; Joel’s sweatpants follow soon after. His hands surrender and you push up on his chest, dragging your core against his stubborn crotch, lips never losing contact. Tongues rolling against one another, noses bumping; a tangle of breath between you until you’ve no idea which is yours and which is his.

It’s all you know how to do, after all. It’s how this started, it’s how it got out of control. The two of you taking out your needs on one another. Right now is no different. You need to feel something other than the dread in the pit of your stomach, the ache in your heart anytime you look at him and know he feels it, too.

You come up for air and suddenly the feeling dissipates; doubt sets back in and fear washes over you like ice water. Your hips cease, Joel’s hands lift from your body. He pushes the hair from your face to find his own expression mirrored in yours.

Everything has changed.

You watch his movements, the light trace of his finger on your bare skin, the pinch of fabric as he adjusts his boxers. The careful movements of his own hips, trying not to incite anything more.

“I love you,” you offer, when he doesn’t say anything. Whispered, like it’s a question, like something to dangle in front of him to make him bite.

At the very least, it unsticks his gaze from the cotton print over your chest and back up to your face – where he softens and says, “Oh, darlin’. I love you, too.”

He gives you a squeeze and pulls you by the shoulders closer, letting you feel his lips on yours again and again, until you’re out of breath. You nuzzle your head under his jaw, the rise and fall of his chest and the steady beat of his heart at your ear.

Joel trails his hands up and down your spine. He breaks the silence first – stammers his way through a question you’re not sure how to answer.

“Was I – was I hurtin’ you? All this time?”

You lift your head, looking blankly at him. “What –?”

“Was I hurting you?”

“Hurting me?”

He nods. “Everythin’ we were doin’. Everything we’ve done. You wanted me to be doing it, right?”

He looks…scared, as though forty years have been shaved from him over the course of one day. Eyes glassy like he might burst into tears; bottom lip almost trembling with uncertainty.

You sit up and cup his face; he breathes a sigh of relief when you look him dead in the eye and say, “I wanted you to be doing all of it.”

“All of it?” he repeats.

“Yes,” you nod, “nothing you ever did ever hurt me.”

He lowers his gaze. “’cept when I left.”

“You came back.”

His thumb curves beneath the slip of fabric on your hips, toying with the elastic. There’s more in his question, you know it. He’s not convinced by a word you say.

“It’s just…all such a fuckin’ mess,” he groans, fingertips massaging his forehead.

You hesitate, unwilling to agree and unable to disagree. It is a fucking mess – that much is true. But if that’s all it is, then why does your heart pause for breath whenever you see him? Why does the mere thought of his presence, the tiniest glimpse of him – why does it all send your stomach somersaulting?

How can something supposed to be so bad, make you feel so fucking good?

“It was wrong of me,” Joel says, “to flirt with you that night I first saw you again. To put you in that position. But I did, and we ended up here. And I’m glad we did, baby, you know I am, but…it’s on me. This thing with you ‘n your dad.”

“You don’t think he should back off a little? Don’t think he’s oversteppin’ a mark, even a tiny bit?”

He shakes his head. “I’d do the damn same, ‘n you know it. I shoulda known better. Shouldn’ta let it happen. You mean more to me than the world, and I – I caused all this hurt for you.”

Sure, it’s real noble of him to take all of the blame, but it wasn’t just him. You had a part in it, too: your batting eyelashes, your hands where they shouldn’t have been. Your jaw tightens when he says it, holding back from telling him you want as much responsibility in this as he’s taking, even if he won’t allow it.

But an argument with Joel, right off the back of one with your father, isn’t really something you need. It wouldn’t help anything. So, you swallow your words and whisper new ones.

“You shouldn’t have flirted with me?”

His eyebrows flick, concern knotting them together. He sits up, scooping you in his arms. “I meant I should’ve never let it get to this point.”

“’n what about the first time you touched me?”

The memory plays between you: the weight of him on your body, the sound of the stereo system firing up downstairs. One hand between your legs and the other pinching your heart.

The light in your eyes starts to bleed through your body into Joel’s, distorting the projected image of that scene in your bedroom. It ignites somewhere low, travelling upwards until his stare locks with yours: an understanding weaving between you both.

You lean back from him, drinking in the sight. “Nothin’ but trouble, right? That’s what you said, that first night. You knew damn well where it might go. ‘n you still wanted it, just as bad.”

“Darlin’, I’m not sayin’ I didn’t, I –”

“No, no, I get it. I get it.”

You push his shoulders to the mattress. Fire in your belly, some kind of twisted energy pumping through your veins, you grind down on him again.

That thing, about this being all you know how to do? About taking your needs out on each other?

Right now, you need distraction. You need something to tire you out, to drain you of energy, to stop your thoughts for five minutes. You need someone to hold you, and love you, and make you feel good. Joel’s the perfect distraction.

He’s still hard. You’re still wet. It’s easy.

You drag your hips lazily over his, cotton riding against lace. He’s growing harder, bigger; he’s pushing up into you. You respond by pushing down, and Joel groans.

“Hey,” he takes hold of your thighs, “baby, we don’t have to –”

“Then, let’s stop.”

He says nothing.

You reach down past the band of his boxers and take him in your hand. He bites back a moan, his head falling into the pillow. You’re stroking him: long, hard strokes, fist tightening around him, fingers dipping between your folds to apply your slick to his length.

“Say the word, Joel. We’ll stop,” you pant, unsure if even you buy the words you’re saying. “You said it: none of this should’ve ever happened. You should’ve never laid a finger on me.”

His arms lift, throbbing biceps curving around his pillow and crumpling it against his skull. He doesn’t tell you to stop, because he doesn’t fucking want you to. He needs this – needs you as much as you need him, needs you more than he needs the air in his lungs.

And you’re right: it is different now. Now, it’s out in the open. The whole world could know, for all the two of you care. And maybe that’s the kick to it, now. No more hiding. No more fleeing from shadow to shadow.

You tug his underwear down and lower yourself, dragging your folds up and down the width of him while sticky precome gathers at his tip, dappling the trail of hair from his navel. And when you can’t do it anymore, when the mere sight of him drenched in your arousal threatens to send you over the edge, you line him up to your entrance and sink down, slow.

He moans into the pillow, fabric muffling your favorite sound in the world. And he doesn’t stop, his chest doesn’t stop rumbling until you reach his hilt, where he gasps.

“Darlin’,” he whimpers, hands coming back down to hold you in place.

You bat them away. “Uh-uh,” you tut, pinning his wrists above his head. “Not a – fuckin’ – finger.”

Joel grits his teeth, eyes locking onto yours, directly above him as you slide up off his cock, hips circling as you do, and then back down. Your free hand curves around his ribcage, the solid flesh of his torso stabilizing you.

“Poor baby,” you coo, pouting your lip. “Can’t even touch me. Can’t put a hand on your girl when you need to most.”

“Fuckin’ – whore,” he grunts, and your hips grind to a halt. You release his wrists.

“That what you think of me?” you ask, sitting upright on his lap. Joel’s still buried deep inside you.

“No,” he’s breathing, lips curling, “no, baby. Keep goin’.”

“I’m not the one goin’ back on my word here.”

He flashes a thick, filthy smile. “I know, I know. Go on. Make me proud.”

You lean forward again and he sighs, the feel of your wet cunt wrapping like satin around him.

“You think he’d trust you, anyway, after everythin’?” you mewl. “Think he thinks I’m in a different room right now? Tucked up in bed, safe ‘n sound? Nah, baby, he knows. He knows what you’re doin’ right now. Keep your hands off me? You can’t keep your cock outta me.”

Joel moans in agreement, hands gripping into the sheets to ground himself, hips bucking up against yours. You place your hands either side of him on the mattress and start to bounce, skin slapping, bed shaking.

“You like that, huh?” you moan, feeling the sharp kiss of his head at your cervix. Nudging, nudging, nudging. Blunt pain, blissful pleasure. “Like me riding it. Takin’ what I – oh, fuck – what I need.”

He lets out a guttural moan, writhing around underneath you. It’s like he’s forgotten where he is, forgotten you guys aren’t alone in the house; drunk on the sight, smell, sound, and feel of you on him, not even trying to stifle his sounds anymore.

You close your eyes and hope Sarah doesn’t wake anytime soon.

You’re keeping the façade up for Joel, but on the inside, you feel the exact same. His words echo in your ears, shouldn’ta let it happen, and how quickly that melted into make me proud. Your head starts to swim, your eyes heavy, your body trembling.

The thatch of hair at the bottom of his cock brushes against your clit, a gasp drawing between your teeth. Pain begins to rip upwards on the inside of your thighs, forcing you forward.

“Joel,” you pant, leaning over him. “Fuck.”

“Gotta let me touch you, baby,” he whispers, hands lifting beneath the fabric of your shirt. His fingers ghost across the curve of your shoulders. “You need it, don’t you?”

You whimper in response and Joel slips past the moment of weakness, taking a strong grip of both shoulders and pulling himself upright on the mattress. The tee slips from your body in one breath, and his hands follow the incline of your neck to your jaw, holding you steady as he fucks up into you.

“You want me to fill you up?” he asks, leaning back with a palm flat on the bed behind to watch himself disappear between your legs.

You’re nodding desperately. “Mhm.”

“Gotta ask nicely, remember? Be a good girl for me?”

“Dick,” you hiss, draping your arms over his shoulders.

He pouts. Sweat gleams on his upper lip. His voice cracks, weakens like stone beginning to crumble. “’s not v-very n-ice, baby.”

“Comeinme,” you beg, your fingers swirling around the dark hair at the bottom of his skull. “Please, come in me.”

“Atta-girl,” he groans, and his hands instantly lock on your hips. You don’t stop him this time, letting him push you down as hard as he can onto his cock, coming as deep inside you as he can.

And then – that familiar feeling of being his. Filled with him, your eyes and your nose and your mouth and your cunt spilling with the sight, smell, taste and feel of him. He coats your walls, throbs deep inside you as he claims every tiny corner of your body.

He growls as his cock twitches, and you watch his expression go from determined, to blissful, to fucking exhausted when he stills and his head rolls forward into your chest. His breath hot and staggered between your breasts; light kisses peppered onto damp skin.

You watch him through a post-sex haze, the air between you thick and blurry, as he presses his lips into your chest. He sucks along the cushion of your breast until he reaches the nipple, lips cupping around it, tongue flicking with all the effort he has left in him.

When he lifts his head again, one final kiss to your sensitive flesh, you balance his chin under your thumbs.

“You come?” he asks, the words propelled by a heavy exhale.

You shake your head slowly. “I’m tired, anyway.”

“Alright,” Joel groans, flipping you over. He pushes your thighs apart, his spend leaking from your slit and running southwards.

“Joel,” you giggle, “c’mon, I’m tired. You don’t have to –”

He’s already pushing himself lower, whipping the dark cotton tee from his shoulders and brushing his naked chest over your stomach. You lower your arms to hook under his.

“Hey. Come here a sec.”

Joel blinks up at you. “What’s up?”

“Just – come here.”

He kneels back up to you, hovering over you with his hands under your shoulders. His limp cock lies against the inside of your thigh as he lowers his weight onto your hips. You tilt your head, mapping his face.

Your knuckle runs across his cheek, the jagged bristle of his beard on your warm skin. Like running your hand under water, unable to tell whether it’s scalding hot or freezing cold – there is no saying whether you’re so used to him now that the feel of him is unaffecting, or entirely all-consuming. There’s no middle ground. Not anymore.

“I know –” You sigh, your voice swollen with a soft cry. There’s no stopping the tears anymore. They just come. “I know you think you should’ve known better. But I am so fucking glad that you didn’t.”

It’s done nothing but pour all day. You woke up this morning to the rain battering against Joel’s window, your body hooked against his by his arm.

Day four. Still no call, no text, no nothing from your dad. You haven’t exactly returned the favor – the closest you dared was having Sarah drive you to your house while he was at work so you could dip into the hallway, grab your car keys, and drive straight back to Joel’s. You pulled up in his driveway alongside each other and she rolled her window down, checking your expression before snorting.

It’s like a damn Mission: Impossible film, she jested.

The pain feels blunter, more distant than it did on Saturday. Like your father has bowed his head, faded some into the dark background of upstage. You realize, a few days in – the movie nights and the meals homecooked by three chefs; the way Joel’s scent starts to become yours, his T-shirts hanging loose over your shoulders and his boxers snug against your hips – that you forget to check on the shadow of your dad. Forget the spot he once stood in, the thunderous cloud cast over his head. The same one that so regularly used to pour rain over you.

Sarah went out with her friends a few hours ago. She called to say she’d miss dinner, so you and Joel ordered Chinese. You’re sat with your legs in his lap picking away at some noodles, scrolling mindlessly on your phone while he catches up on some baseball highlights show.

“Fuckin’ – idiots,” he mumbles, fork angrily picking at rice.

Your eyes don’t lift from the Instagram caption you’re reading. “Fuckin’ idiots,” you flatly agree.

Joel’s head turns. “Alright, Miss Big Rangers Fan. I remember a time you pretended to be into ‘em to get my attention.” He attempts to grab your phone, and you swipe it from his grasp.

“Shut up,” you giggle, grabbing hold of your takeout box. “Joel – be careful!”

He snorts, settling back into the couch, changing the TV channel. You give his thigh a little kick, tugging your blanket up. As the TV switches from one showing to the next, your phone buzzes.

You glance down, chopsticks halfway to your mouth, and freeze.

Dear Candidate…

“Joel.”

“Hm?” he asks, eyes glued to the flickering screen.

“Joel.”

“Yes, darlin’?”

You unstick your stare from the phone, looking up to meet his perplexed expression. “They got back to me.”

He squints for a second before the remote is dropped to the cushion. “And?”

“I don’t know, I just saw the first line.”

“Open it, baby. C’mon. Whatever it is, you gotta know.”

“You know what,” you shrug, “I’m good. I don’t need to know. It’s all good.”

“Hey.” Joel snaps his fingers scooping your gaze from the floral, bohemian name on the header of the email and up to his own. “Open it, or I’m kickin’ you out.”

You mock gasp. “You’d put me out on the streets?”

“Worse. Put you back to your dad’s. Now open the email.”

Your thumb trembles as it hovers over the screen, one tap away from the biggest change in your life since you left for New York. Like it’s five years ago, and you’re sat in front of your laptop, psyching yourself up to open the response to your college application.

“Okay,” you breathe, slamming your thumb down. Joel leans in, staring at the screen from upside down.

It swipes across and your eyes flit down, focusing hard on the sentence beneath the opening line. You blink rapidly, waiting for the wash of tears to clear and dissolve it to Unfortunately, or After careful consideration, or We appreciate your interest.

But it never does.

Invite to interview stares back up at you, waiting for your face to break. Expectant, a little nervous. Jittering inside your shaking fist. Joel breaks first, when he spots it.

He almost throws his food onto the coffee table, taking your container from your hands and bundling you up in his. He pulls you into his body, presses heavy kisses to the crook of your neck as you laugh, your entire body quaking with joy and terror and relief and anxiety.

“What’d I tell you?” he says, kissing you roughly. “I knew it, babygirl. I knew you would – Fuck, I am so fucking proud of you.”

“It’s just –” sniff, “– it’s just an interview, remember. I might not get it, in the end.”

Joel shakes his head. “I don’t care. You’re a damn sight closer to gettin’ it than you were three days ago.”

You sit for probably twenty minutes, laughing and then weeping and then laughing again – until the food is cold, there’s a new episode of South Park rolling on TV, and Joel’s T-shirt is soaked with your tears.

“I gotta call Sarah,” you whisper, finger sifting through his hair. Your head buried in his neck, your knees either side of his hips.

“She’s going to lose her fuckin’ mind,” he mumbles into your shoulder, laughing to himself. “She’ll sit off-camera in the corner of the room, so they can’t see her, ‘n hold up cue cards.”

You giggle, letting it dissipate into something weaker, something unconvinced. In a small voice, you say, “We just got one step closer to being four states apart.”

He looks up at you, curving a hand around your jaw, and pulls your lips against his. It’s slow, tender – his every thought and feeling translated into physical movement, transformed into a spin of butterflies in your chest.

When you pull away from him, smiling dumbly, he clips your cheek. “That scare you?”

You hesitate, afraid to tell him the truth. But it’s Joel. He knows every thought that passes through your head. You nod, eyes filling with a salty sting.

“Why?” he asks.

You glance out to the street. “’cause I love you. I don’t wanna leave you.”

Joel nods. Considers it. Then says, “You know why it doesn’t scare me?”

You lift your eyebrows in response. Why?

“Because I love you. And we are gonna be just fine.”

And you believe him.

[javierpena-inatacvest]

Chapter 8- Something to Believe In

Summary: Frankie makes good on his promise to pick you up from work.

Word count: 3.7K

Pairing: Frankie Morales x f!reader (reader has a name/nickname, no use of y/n)

Warnings: Having a panic attack (cue Frankie to the rescue), mentions of death and grieving, angst, yearning, could we perhaps be ✨making progress✨?

A/N: Hi friends!! Thanks for bearing with me after no new chapter last week! This one's also on the shorter side, but that's not to say there aren't some BIG things happening 👀 My hope is to have another chapter done by next week, but with holiday business, it may have to be two weeks between chapters again (sorry sorry sorry!!) Thank you as always for your lovely and kind words, ily all so much MWAH

All The Things We Never Said Masterlist

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Frankie, Present 

“I’m done at ten.” 

By the time he gets back home at 6:43, he’s already counting down the hours until you’re finished with your shift. 

Three hours and seventeen minutes, to be exact. 

For as much as Frankie could easily spend the next three hours and seventeen minutes doing nothing but staring at the clock hanging adjacent to the TV in the living room, he knows he’ll drive himself out of his goddamn mind. He needs something to do. 

If he keeps himself busy, he can’t fester on the million and one ways he could manage to fuck this up. 

Frankie forces himself to eat some sort of half-assed dinner, despite his nervous nausea that’s got the best of him. He purposely uses as many dishes and utensils to make a sandwich as humanly possible- if he does, it gives him something to do after. 

He cleans out his entire truck, down to vacuuming every last crumb crunched between the driver’s seat and center console. He debates washing the car himself in the driveway, but if he drives it to the carwash three blocks down the road, it’ll kill more time. 

On his way home, he stops at Auto Zone to get you a new car battery and exchanges it for your old one, dead, under the hood of your car. 

Frankie takes a shower so long, he can feel in real time the water shift from boiling hot, to luke warm, to ice cold. He washes his hair twice. His body, three times. 

He unpacks just about every item of clothing from his suitcase, laying them out on his bed in multiple combinations of pants and shirts, debating whether you'll think he’s a psychopath for showing up in a different outfit only a few hours after dropping you off. Frankie settles on shorts and a t-shirt- nice enough he doesn’t look like a fool, but casual enough for you not to suspect he’s been staring at every article of clothes he owns for the past thirty minutes. 

And somehow, after all of that, he still ends up in the Parrot’s Nest parking lot at 9:23. 

Thirty-seven minutes worth of waiting is a lot more manageable than the better part of three hours. 

Unfortunately, the last thirty-seven minutes he spends sitting in the parking lot are the most agonizing of his whole endeavor. 

He throws the last few innings of the Tampa Bay Rays game on the radio in the background, unable to stand the sound of silence that haunts him when he’s alone with his thoughts. 

Frankie tries not to panic at the fact that it seems like he’s forgotten how to engage in basic human conversation, praying that no one can see the way he’s rehearsing his greeting to you upon your arrival into the passenger seat. 

“Hey, what’s up? No, fuck, that’s stupid.” Frankie mutters to himself, running his palm over his face, “Hey, MacKenzie, how was work? No, ‘cause what if work was fucking awful and I’m just gonna piss her off more. Jesus.” 

He takes a few more long, deep breaths, staring at the roof of his truck while he tries to concoct the perfect set of words to string together. 

“Hey, Kenz. Kenzie? MacKenzie? Does she even fucking go by Kenz anymore? Fuck. Hey, miss me?” He jokes by his lonesome, his fake smile quickly fading at the anticipation of your response, “She obviously didn’t miss you, idiot. You’re lucky you can barley get her to fucking talk to you. Fuck me.” 

His pained groan and scrunched shut face are enough cut off the awareness to his surroundings just long enough to leave him oblivious to the fact you’ve not only exited the Parrot’s Nest, but have made your way across the parking lot and have your hand wrapped around the passenger door, rattling the handle. 

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Frankie shouts, nearly jumping out of his own skin at the way you’ve announced yourself by shaking at the locked door. 

So much for rehearsing. 

“F-fuck-” He stammers, taking a moment to catch his breath from your scare, praying he hasn’t managed to shit his pants from how badly you’ve startled him. Once his pulse settles to rate low enough he’s convinced he hasn’t died of a heart attack, he leans over to unlock your door, unable to make eye contact with you as he grimaces his face in embarrassment. 

“S-sorry.” you murmur, sheepishly climbing into the seat next to him, quietly clicking in your seatbelt. 

“Jesus Kenz, you scared the shit outta me.” Frankie gulps, still trying to compose himself. He runs his hand through the curls of his hair, taking one last slow inhale and exhale with his eyes peeled to the floor, hoping the pink drains from his cheeks before he looks over at you. 

“Sorry, I- I didn’t mean to. I thought maybe you fell asleep, or something. You shrug, trying to defend your reasoning. 

“I wouldn’t offer to come pick you up and then fall asleep on you, I’m not that big of an assho-” 

Frankie cuts himself off before he can finish the rest of his thought, feeling the “L” and “E” of “asshole” die off somewhere in the back of his throat, killed by the death glare you give in proclamation of his own self-righteousness.  

He starts the car without another word, pulling out of the parking lot and hoping that his silence begs enough forgiveness. 

The crackling static of the car radio fills the void between you, Andy Freed’s ecstatic voice capturing both of your attentions enough to let the current state of the Tampa Bay Rays game shift your focus. 

“What’s the score?” You ask, nonchalant, eyes wandering anywhere but Frankie’s direction. 

“Oh- uh, I- I think it was 1-3 last time I checked, but it sounds like someone on the Rays just hit a sac fly, so I’m guessing it’s 2-3, now.” 

There’s a moment of silence, Frankie assuming you’ve got it in you to at least make one question’s worth of small talk. You seem just as surprised as him that you don’t let the conversation die there. 

“Did you um- you watched the game when you got home?” 

Your gaze won’t lock with his, but now, it’ll at least travel in his general direction. 

“N-no, I just uh- I just turned it on while I was waiting in the car.” 

“How long were you waiting for?” 

“N-not that long.” He barely gives you enough time to breathe, let alone call him out on his bullshit before he’s changing the subject, “How uh- how was work?” 

“Oh- It was uh- it was fine. Went by really slow. B-because it wasn’t um, it wasn’t that busy.” 

Frankie’s no code breaker, but he hopes the way you’re so quick to give him a reason why your shift had dragged on is a secret way of saying you spent just as long thinking about him as he did about you. 

“Sorry it was so slow.” 

Frankie knows his apology doesn’t do anything for you, but the way he’s picking each word that comes out of his mouth has him feeling like he’s tiptoeing through a minefield, too scared to make any move besides the one that seems the safest. 

“It’s okay, not your fault. That’s honestly part of the reason I took this job- was to give myself something to do, so I don’t spend every last second that my dad is alive dwelling on the fact that pretty soon, he’s not gonna be alive. It’s stupid, but I guess if being preoccupied with serving middle aged couples mozzarella sticks and over-cooked steak tacos for a few hours helps, then so be it.”  

He knows better than anyone that your attempt at humor is your shield, but it’s not hard to see how weathered and worn it’s become, barely hanging on by a thread to protect you from the worst battle you still have yet to face. 

“N-no, it makes sense. Distractions help. I-It’s been hard, having to see him like this. I get it.” 

His last sentence makes your head snap up from the ground. Out of the corner of his eye, Frankie hopes that maybe your attentiveness means he’s had a breakthrough, showing enough genuine empathy that you’ll cut him a little slack. 

When he turns enough to see the scowl plastered across your face, he realizes he’s stepped on a bomb, and he’s moments away from explosion. 

“Oh, you ‘get it’, huh?” You scoff, sadistic smile curling in the corner of your cheeks. 

Frankie can see the way your blood is beginning to boil, trying to backtrack as quickly as possible to find any way to save himself. 

“N-no- I mean, shit-  no, Kenz, you know what I mean.” Frankie pleads. 

“No, I don’t know what you mean, Frankie. Please, explain.” 

The way your arms are crossed and head is cocked tells him everything he needs to know. Against his better judgement, Frankie decides not to take cover. He goes headfirst into the warzone. 

“C’mon, Kenz, don’t be like this.” Frankie sighs, preemptively kicking himself that this is the route he’s chosen to take. 

“Like what?” You snap back, sharp and sarcastic. 

“Like it’s not hard for me, too. Like I can’t be sad about it. You’re not the only person who cares about him, MacKenzie. He was the closest thing I had to a dad, too.” 

“But he’s not your dad, is he? And if you were, that’d make you a pretty shitty son, wouldn’t it?” 

It hits him like a cold, hard slap to the face, the way you don’t dare to show him even an ounce of mercy. There’s something about the bitterness in the way you ask it that hurts even more than if you would have just screamed at him, cursed him out, punched and pushed him until he bruised. 

A stark silence falls over the car, tension so thick, it’s like a bag of bricks has been dropped from the sky, drowning him in a useless pile of cement. There’s no use in crying for help. He doesn’t dare to speak, simply out of fear that if he does, this won’t be the worst of what’s yet to come. 

Frankie stays trapped for what feels like hours, each second passing by more painfully slow than the last as you stare out your window, watching the shadows of street lights dance across your body, illuminating you just enough to see the way your chest trembles with short, frantic breaths as you unravel. Your sobs can’t hide behind the silence in the way your tears can in the darkness. 

“Do you know how fucking lonely it is, Frankie? How lonely it is when everyone you’ve ever cared about leaves you? It’s like I’m fucking Midas, but everything I touch, eventually, I lose. A life before cancer, my soccer career, an engagement, a future, my dad, you? You don’t get to tell me how hard it is for you, because you get to let go of what you want on your terms, when it’s convenient for you, don’t you? I’m so sick of losing, Frankie. I’m so sick of it.” 

He watches in real time how something inside you snaps, like a bottle of soda that’s erupted after someone’s violently shaken shaken it, the twist of the cap releasing all the pressure and tension that’s been stored up and compounded upon with each rattle of their wrist. 

Frankie knows he’s not responsible for all of it, but he's the last bump you can take before you have no other choice but to overflow, leaving every ounce of you to seep out, vulnerable and exposed. 

What starts off as softs sobs, quickly shifts to heart wrenching heaves of your chest, every word you’re trying to get out lodged in your throat. He sees how your eyes fill with fear at the way you suddenly can’t catch your breath, body shaking as you shrink into your seat, fingers wrapping around your seatbelt with an iron grip around the worn fabric. 

“Kenz? Kenzie, are you okay?” It only seems fair he’s completely disregarded everything you’d had to say, beginning to panic at your tremoring figure crumpled next to him, speaking in nothing but violent wails you can’t control. 

“I- I- f-fuck, f-f- Frankie, fuck, n- no, no, I-” 

He won’t let you finish your thought- he only lets you stammer out the few words you can manage before he’s pulled off on the nearest neighborhood side street he can find. He blames it on military habit, how quick he is to react in the face of your panic, but he knows damn well it’s nothing but instinct the way he’s all but throwing off his seatbelt so he can reach across the center console and wrap you in his arms. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. I’m here. Just try and breathe, okay?” Frankie whispers, squeezing you so tightly in his arms you just might break. 

“I c-can’t, I can’t, fuck, i-it- it, it f-feels like I can’t breathe.” You sob, feeling your tear stains pool in the fabric of his shirt covering, face buried against his chest. 

“I know. I know it’s scary. I promise you’re okay, it’ll pass. Just try and breathe with me, okay?” 

He hopes you don’t notice how shaky his own breaths are, trying his best to stay calm with each long inhale and exhale he takes. The wave of grief that washes over him is different than the one you’re drowning in, the kind that makes his heart break at the type of panic he’s known all too well- he’d give every bone in his body to absorb your pain and make it his, but the best he can do is hold you until it subsides. He’ll hold you all night, if that’s what it takes. 

It’s a few minutes before he can finally feel your heart rate starting to slow, the stiffness of your muscles beginning to ease in his grasp as you come back down to earth with him. Your tears haven’t stopped, but at least your chest starts to rise and fall with his. It’s a baby step, but he’ll take any steps he can get in the right direction. 

“There ya go. Just like that. It’s okay. Worst of it’s over, I promise.” 

With the way one thumb is gently stroking your back and the other is carefully brushing the back of your head, it’s safe to say every inhibition Frankie could have has flown out the window. He hates how there’s a selfish part of him that can’t describe the way it feels to hold you again, even if it’s like this, but that’s a battle of his own he’s not willing to face today. For now, he’ll accept the sweet bliss of his self-indulgence while you’re curled against him. 

“You’re okay, Kenz. I’m here. I promise, you’re okay.” 

Enough time passes that his t-shirt isn’t getting any wetter, finally brave enough to peek your head up from the crook of his neck to wipe your tear stained cheeks with the back of your hand. Frankie’s grip only loosens enough to let you sit up, arms still engulfing your frame, tight enough to make sure you don’t float away on him again. 

“I- I’m s-sorry.” 

It’s so soft as it leaves your lips, if he wasn’t waiting on your every word, Frankie just might have missed it. Little do you know, he’s hanging on your every breath. 

“Hey,” he pauses, your eyes locking with his, softly pouting at the way your panic has made your face red and puffy, carefully swiping his thumb across your cheek to catch the wetness still streaming down the corners of your eyes, “you have nothing to apologize about, okay?” 

He waits in the silence again, letting you softly nod your head in agreement, watching the gears turn in your head as you process everything that’s just happened. You’ve come to enough to notice the way his hand still sits on the small of your back- he’s just as surprised as you when you let him keep it there for another moment before subtly shifting back in your seat. 

Your face scrunches shut, wincing with the last few deep breaths you take, like you're trying to push the rest of it out of your system for good. Frankie runs his hand through his messy hair and down the nape of his neck as he takes you in, still riding his melancholy high of the weight of your body pressed into his. 

“Thank you. For um- just, t-thank you.” You mutter, too sheepish to look him in the eye again now that full blown embarrassment has set in. 

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.” 

Frankie nods, trying his best to let you know that he means it- really, truly means it. It’s the way he won’t take his eyes off you that must let you know he understands, watching you shift just enough in your seat for him to notice how your body turns ever so slightly to face him. 

“They’ve uh- fuck, it just comes out of nowhere sometimes. It’s um- it’s happened before, but these past few weeks, it just- it’s been a lot, I guess.”  

“It’s been a while since I’ve had one, but I um- I got ‘em all the time after I came home. Feels like you’re dying. It sucks.” 

It’s not graceful, but it’s genuine. Vulnerable. Honest. Frankie knows it’s the most truth he’s given you in more years than he’d like to admit. It’s not much, but it’s enough to see you scale the top of the wall you’ve built between you and him and kick down one of the bricks that’s holding it together. It’s not much, but it’s one less brick than that wall has had for a very, very long time. 

“What are you talking about? That was so much fun.” 

In the shared moment of soft, sympathetic laughter, it’s that he realizes the softest smile that’s stretched in the corner of your lips. Frankie tries not to stare, but when he sees it, he remembers how much he’s hated living without it. He takes it in for as long as he can, memorizing every crease and crinkle in your face, no matter how subtle. He’ll soak in every second he can. He’s thankful he does, because it’s only a matter of time before it starts to shift, corners of your cheeks shifting as you pick at the skin around your nails. 

“I- um- I’m sorry- a-about what I said earlier.  I- I didn’t mean it.” 

Frankie lets out a huff of confusion, convinced you must be playing a joke on him with your unprompted apology. He’s almost tempted to laugh again, but the way your jaw shifts back and forth, anxiously grinding on your teeth while your eyes stay peeled to the fingers working away at your skin reminds him of every other apology you’ve ever offered. The same look when you accidentally popped the brand new basketball he got for his 13th birthday, the same fidgeting of your fingers when overreacted to the dent you thought he put in your brand new car backing out of your driveway, the same tick of your jaw when you had told him why you hadn’t written him more while he overseas on his last tour of duty. 

You really do mean it. 

“It’s okay. I deserve it.” Frankie admits. As hurtful as it was, he knows you weren’t completely unjustified in what you said. He also knows if you’re offering him an olive branch, he’ll offer you nothing short of a whole olive tree back. 

“No- well, I mean, maybe a little-” your sarcastic self correction makes him laugh again, something long forgotten warming in his heart at the way your hidden grin reappears in the corners of your cheeks, “No- I just- that was shitty of me to say. I’m sorry. It’s- it’s just a lot right now. Not totally fair to take it all out on you.” 

“I know. It’s okay.” Frankie pauses, captivated by the way your eyes flicker up to meet his, still wet and sparkling from the last of your tears, shimmering in the warm glow of the streetlights. He wants to reach out, to grab you, hold you, press you against his chest again and tell you that everything will be okay, but he won’t risk burning the bridge of the progress he’s built. Not yet. The best he can do is keep building, nail by nail, plank by plank. 

“If you um- if you ever need someone to- to talk to, or whatever, I’m always-” 

“I know.” 

There’s a different kind of silence that fills the empty spaces of his truck the last ten minutes of the ride home. It’s no longer heavy, burdened by pain and fear with every breath that enters its void. It’s the quiet kind of reassurance that doesn’t need any words. The kind that says everything it needs to from stolen glances back and forth, accompanied by the warmth of pink cheeks hidden in the black of the night sky. 

The last thing that’s said after he’s pulled into your driveway is a simple “thank you”. It’s only two words, but something about those 8 letters put together seems like enough to fill a book with how much it says. 

The only thing that says more is the way you look over your shoulder when you make it to your porch, so brief that if he wasn’t looking for it, he surely would have missed it. 

Because in that moment you look back at him, he swears there’s a smile straining against the line of your lips that you’re trying desperately to fight. 

Maybe he’s imagining it. Maybe he’s truly lost his mind. Maybe he’s crazy. Whatever he may be, Frankie Morales knows he won’t sleep a wink tonight at the thought that he’s finally the reason for the smile on your face again. 

@chaotic-iguana @bbiophiliaa @pertinentpostmortem @angelofsmalldeath-codeine

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[thelovehypothesis]

Part 2.2 : Between the Pit Walls and the Heartbreak - 43

part 1

Franco Colapinto x fem-engineer!reader x friend!Max Verstappen

+2k words

a/n’s: lastly! full credit to @afterglowsainz go read their fic “don't smile” its amazing, and this is the long awaited part 2 on my take of their fic! BUT here is and alternate ending... Part 2.1, I really enjoyed wiriting this, hope you like it!

warnings: angst-fluff

Summary: Two hearts, one racetrack, and a love that no team can control. When love collides with ambition, can they find a way back to each and if they can, can they learn to forgive?

Start line, finish line, at the end it's the same 

It had been nearly four since you walked away from Franco, since you’d chosen your career and dreams over the love you once thought would last forever. Life had changed in ways you could never have imagined. The moment you accepted the position at Red Bull, everything shifted. The high-intensity world of being Max Verstappen’s race engineer consumed you, leaving little room for reflection, which was how you preferred it.

You were good at your job—great, even. From the very first race weekend with Max, you felt the rush of adrenaline, the electric tension of every decision you made behind the mic, and the weight of contributing to a world championship. It was thrilling, everything you’d ever worked for, and yet, there were quiet moments when your mind drifted back to what you had left behind.

But you didn’t have time for what-ifs. You stood in the garage, headphones around your neck, watching the pit crew scramble as they prepared the car for qualifying. Max was a machine—focused, relentless—and the two of you had developed an easy rapport. He trusted you with critical decisions, and you trusted him to deliver on the track. It was a partnership built on mutual respect and shared ambition.

As you stood there, watching the screens, you felt a familiar tug of emotion—memories of race weekends with Franco, late-night strategy talks, and the way he used to smile when he nailed a lap. But you pushed those thoughts away. That chapter of your life was over.

“Y/N, we’re ready,” Max’s voice crackled through your headset, pulling you back to the present.

“Copy that,” you replied, all business again. “Let’s nail this one, Max.”

The next few minutes were a blur of data, radio calls, and fast decisions. Max was flying, setting the fastest times in each sector. By the time the session ended, he had secured pole position, and the garage erupted in cheers. You smiled, proud of the work you’d done and of what the team had achieved together. This was where you belonged now—at the heart of the action, right on the edge of greatness.

But as the celebration in the garage began to die down, you caught sight of a familiar figure across the paddock—Franco. He was there, leaning against the railing, watching you. His eyes met yours, and for a brief moment, everything around you seemed to blur, the noise of the team fading into the background.

He looked different—older, somehow, more serious. But that same magnetic energy was still there, the pull between you undeniable, even from a distance.

Franco was back in the paddock as a reset driver for Williams and Mercedes in the 2025 season. It was bittersweet seeing him there, a constant reminder of the past and what you had left behind. His presence felt heavy, especially for him when he started to believe Max had feelings for you. Franco noticed every subtle interaction—the way Max’s eyes would linger on you during quick debriefs or the soft smirk on his lips after a race. Franco was convinced there was something more, but you didn’t see it. To you, Max was just being friendly, and you never thought to question it. Yet, Franco couldn’t shake the feeling, and each time you were near, the tension seemed to grow.

You quickly looked away, your heart pounding in your chest. It had been so long since you’d seen him. You didn’t know what to feel—anger, sadness, or relief. You had moved on—or at least, you convinced yourself you had. But seeing him here, now, was like reopening a wound that hadn’t fully healed.

Later, after the garage had emptied out and the team had retreated to prepare for the race, you found yourself wandering the paddock, lost in thought. You didn’t expect to bump into Franco, but as fate would have it, there he was, standing by the entrance to the hospitality suite, waiting for you.

Y/N," he called out, his voice soft but urgent.

You froze, torn between walking away and confronting the emotions you had buried. Slowly, you turned to face him.

"Franco," you said, your voice steady though your heart was racing.

He stepped closer, his expression unreadable. "I wasn’t expecting to see you here."

You raised an eyebrow, trying to maintain your composure. "I work here now. This is my job."

"I know," he said quietly. "I’ve been following you this season. You’re doing incredible things."

There was a brief silence, filled with unsaid words and memories. Finally, Franco spoke again, his tone softer, less guarded. “I’ve thought about you a lot. About us.”

You swallowed hard but kept your emotions in check. "Franco, that part of my life is over. I made my choice."

"I know you did," he said, his voice strained. "I’ve made mine too. But I don’t want us to keep being strangers. We shared too much to walk away from each other like this."

You hesitated, not expecting this direction. "What are you saying?"

He sighed, running a hand through his hair, frustration mixed with something softer. “I don’t want us to end on bad terms. We were friends once, Y/N. I don’t want to lose that, too.”

Your chest tightened, the weight of the past heavy on your shoulders, but his words reached you. "You hurt me, Franco. We can't just pretend like none of that happened."

"I know," he said, his voice thick with regret. "And I’ll carry that. But maybe we could start again. Not like before, but as friends. You’ve moved on, and I need to accept that."

You studied him, searching his eyes for any hint of insincerity, but all you saw was the boy you had once cared for, now standing before you, trying to make amends.

"Friends," you repeated, testing the word.

He nodded, hopeful but cautious. "Yeah, friends."

A small, tentative smile tugged at your lips. "I think I’d like that."

Franco’s shoulders relaxed as if a weight had been lifted. "I’d like that too."

For the first time in a long while, the air between you felt lighter. You knew it wouldn’t erase the past, but maybe it was a step toward healing it.

"I’ll see you around, then?" you asked, taking a step back toward the paddock.

He smiled softly, nodding. "Yeah, I’ll see you around."

As you turned and walked away, the knot in your chest loosened. Maybe this wasn’t about choosing the past or the present—it was about allowing both to coexist in their own space.

Heading back toward the Red Bull hospitality, you felt a sense of closure. You were ready to move forward, and for the first time, it didn’t feel like you were leaving something behind.

For the next few races, something began to shift between you and Franco. Slowly but surely, your interactions felt less heavy, less tied to the past. You started to talk more during race weekends, sharing little jokes or catching up between sessions. It wasn’t forced, and for the first time in a long while, it felt easy.

As the weeks went on, your friendship began to mend. The conversations that were once filled with tension now carried a lightness, and the lingering pain of what had happened between you both faded. You found yourself laughing with him again, and before long, you were falling back into the familiar rhythm of being really good friends—just friends this time you promised yourself. There was no pressure, no unspoken feelings. It was just you and Franco, rebuilding something new.

The next  race,  you once again crossed paths with Franco again. 

“Hey,” he called out, taking a step closer. “I’ve been meaning to tell you something.”

You raised an eyebrow, intrigued but cautious. “What’s up?”

He leaned in slightly, his voice lowering as if sharing a secret. “I think Max likes you,” he teased, a mischievous grin playing on his lips. “I mean, have you seen the way he looks at you? It’s like you’ve got him all flustered.”

You laughed, shaking your head in disbelief. “Oh, come on, Franco. Max and I? It’s nothing like that.”

Franco crossed his arms, still smirking. “Sure, sure. But I’m telling you, he’s definitely interested. You just don’t see it.”

You rolled your eyes, smiling at his playful tone. “Trust me, it’s all professional. Max and I work well together, but that’s as far as it goes.”

He raised an eyebrow, not quite convinced. “Really? Because he seems to hang around a lot when you’re around.”

You nudged him lightly, amused by his teasing. “Don’t worry, Franco. I’d never see Max that way. He’s my driver. That’s it.”

Franco chuckled, clearly enjoying the banter. “Alright, alright. Just don’t be surprised if he starts asking you out for coffee or something.”

You laughed again, feeling the tension between you both ease with each joke. “I’ll keep that in mind, but seriously, it’s nothing to worry about.”

He smiled, and for the first time in a while, it felt light between you two. “Good to know. Just looking out for you.”

You nodded, grateful for the lighter moment. “Thanks, Franco. I appreciate it.”

As you turned to leave, Franco called after you, still with that teasing tone. “But if he does ask you out, you owe me an update!”

You laughed over your shoulder. “Deal!”

After the race, as you and Max walked toward the team hospitality, he glanced at you with a grin. “Hey,at this point I just need to tell someone, when I head back to Monaco, I’ve got a date lined up,” he said, his tone casual but playful.

You blinked in surprise, then smiled. “A date, huh? Good for you,” you replied, nudging him lightly. “I hope it goes well.”

“Thanks,” he said with a wink, and you couldn’t help but feel relieved. Whatever tension had been there between you two, it seemed Max was focusing elsewhere. It was a reminder that everything between you was purely professional.

Later that night, back at the hotel, you found yourself thinking about the past few weeks and Franco’s teasing remarks about Max. Pulling out your phone, you shot Franco a quick text: "You were wrong. I was right 😏 Max has a date, so nothing to worry about!"

Moments later, your phone buzzed with his reply: "Told you I wasn’t worried 😉 Wanna grab ice cream and celebrate your victory?"

You hesitated for only a moment before responding with a quick, "Sure, see you in a bit"

It didn't take long for the two of you to find a cosy, well-known ice cream shop nestled in the heart of town, far enough from the hustle of the paddock to feel peaceful. The shop had a retro charm, with colourful decor and the scent of freshly made waffle cones filling the air. You both grabbed your favourite flavours and found a quiet corner by the window, the soft hum of chatter around you.

Sitting across from each other, you fell into easy conversation—old memories, upcoming races, and life outside the paddock. The laughter came naturally, and it was as if the tension of the past had melted away. The familiarity between you felt comforting, like slipping back into something that had never really been lost.

As you looked over at Franco, you realised something you hadn’t expected. Despite everything, despite moving on, there was still a part of you that loved him. It was buried deep, hidden beneath layers of time and distance, but it was there, undeniable and real.

The finish line?

A week later, when the F1 circus rolled into the summer break, you found yourself spending a few days together with Franco. It wasn’t planned, but it felt natural, falling back into a familiar rhythm. You wandered through small towns, shared meals at local cafes, and simply enjoyed each other’s company. The past no longer felt like an anchor, pulling you back; instead, it was something you both acknowledged but didn’t dwell on.

The moment you sat down during one of those quiet afternoons, Franco reached over and took your hand, his thumb brushing gently over your skin. There was no pressure, no unspoken expectations—just the comfort of being together.

“Everything okay?” he asked, his voice calm, yet filled with concern.

You nodded, squeezing his hand in return. “Yeah. Everything’s fine now.” And for the first time in a long time, you truly believed it.

The weight of the past no longer held you down. You were moving forward, and maybe, just maybe, there was still something between you and Franco worth exploring.

(abu dhabi grand prix)

The Grand Prix was electric,charged with tension, adrenaline, and the weight of the championship. Max was on the verge of winning his fifth world title, and every decision you made felt like it could either secure or break the season. The pressure was immense, and everyone in the paddock knew what was at stake. The intensity of it all was almost overwhelming, but you were laser-focused, guiding Max through the race.

On the final lap, a risky opportunity appeared—one that could win both the drivers' and constructors' championships in one brilliant stroke. You had mere seconds to make the call. Your heart raced as you pushed the radio button, your voice steady despite the adrenaline coursing through you.

“Box, box, Max. Trust me on this.”

There was a heartbeat of silence before Max’s calm voice responded, “Copy. I trust you.”

And that trust was everything. As Max executed the strategy perfectly, crossing the finish line first, the Red Bull garage erupted in celebration. The screams of the team echoed around you, but for a second, you were frozen—still processing the magnitude of what had just happened. Max had done it. You had done it. Together, you had clinched the championship, securing not just his fifth world title but the Constructors’ Championship for Red Bull as well.

The team started racing toward the barricade to greet Max as he pulled into the pit lane, his car surrounded by a sea of red and blue. As you ran alongside your teammates, you were suddenly jostled in the rush of bodies. The next thing you knew, you bumped into Franco—completely by accident—but before you could even apologise, his arms were around you.

He caught you easily, lifting you up, and in one fluid motion, he kissed you. The world seemed to stop, the noise around you fading into nothing as his lips met yours. Franco pulled back just slightly, his voice filled with emotion as he whispered, “Congratulations. That call was amazing.”

You were stunned, the whirlwind of emotions overwhelming you, but you smiled through the tears that suddenly welled up in your eyes. “Thank you,” you whispered, before leaning in to kiss him again. This time, it was slower, more intentional, as if you were both grounding yourselves in the reality of the moment. The past, the pain, all of it seemed to fade away.

When you finally parted, Franco set you down gently, his hands lingering at your waist, and you gave him a soft smile. "I guess you owe me some ice cream later,” you joked, trying to lighten the charged atmosphere.

He chuckled, his eyes softening as he gazed at you. “Definitely."

With a quick glance at the roaring celebrations ahead, you squeezed his hand and ran toward the podium area, where the ceremony was about to begin. Max was already there, grinning ear to ear, waving to the ecstatic crowd. You stood beside him, watching as he was crowned world champion again, but all the while, your mind drifted to Franco.

From your place on the podium, you spotted Franco standing quietly off to the side, watching you with a look of pride and something deeper. And in that moment, as the confetti rained down and the world celebrated around you, you realised the truth that had been tugging at your heart all along—you still loved Franco.

You found yourself falling in love with him all over again.

---The end---

I'am really happy with the outcome! hope you are too.

Once again my request are open for all your request!

-lots of love, Em.

[ckret2]

Chapter 43 of suddenly human Bill Cipher is pretty eager to remain imprisoned inside the Mystery Shack:

The Eclipse: Part 1

Gravity's disappearing in Gravity Falls. Bill has an explanation for what's going on that has absolutely nothing to do with him, and also doesn't make any sense. Fiddleford has an alternate theory that makes a lot of sense, and has a whole lot to do with Bill. Ford trusts Fiddleford.

####

"An eclipse," Ford repeated. "Gravity's vanishing, you're floating, and you expect me to believe that it's due to an eclipse."

Bill shrugged. "I don't expect anything out of you. Believe whatever the heck you want. That's what it is, though."

"Even if it wasn't a ridiculous notion, there aren't any solar or lunar eclipses anywhere near Oregon this summer—"

"Did I say the eclipse was solar or lunar?" Bill asked. "No. I didn't." He breezed past Ford, heading to the kitchen. "Hey, is anybody gonna eat those pancakes?"

"Mine." Dipper ran past Bill to his abandoned plate.

"Then what kind of an eclipse is it?" Ford demanded.

Bill leaned on the kitchen counter, crossed his arms, and pursed his lips thoughtfully. Finally, he said, "Gravitational eclipse."

"There's no such thing!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Dr. I Think Having A Mere Five PhDs Means I Know Everything! Please, enlighten the trillion-year-old all-seeing eye who spent a year correcting all your math with your superior knowledge of physics!"

"It's twelve PhDs and you know it."

"Oh, so what! I can still count 'em on one hand." (Dipper gave Bill's hand a puzzled look.)

"Is that how it is!" Ford huffed angrily. "Fine, great teacher—would you be so kind as to educate your student on what the devil a 'gravitational eclipse' is!"

He fully expected Bill to start spouting some absurd science fiction explanation; but instead, Bill hesitated, gaze flicking nervously toward the ceiling. Ford looked up, but didn't see anything.

"Just don't worry about it." Bill rubbed his right eye. He turned away from Ford to watch Dipper struggle to squeeze pancake syrup out of an uncooperative bottle. "Everything will go back to normal in three days. Just—don't look at the sky."

"Why not?"

"Don't worry about it," Bill repeated.  "Hey, take off the lid and stick a knife in, you're never getting anything out that way."

"I've got it," Dipper said testily.

Soos came downstairs at about the same time Stan joined them from the hallway. "Dudes, I think something weird's going on," Soos said.

Ford turned his back on his fruitless conversation with Bill. "We've noticed. Gravity's decreasing."

Soos paused. "Oh," he said, slightly deflated. "I thought I was developing super strength."

"Sorry to disappoint."

"So what's causing it?" Stan asked.

"I don't know yet."

From the kitchen, Bill called, "I just told you!"

Ford didn't look at him. "I don't know the real reason yet."

Stan asked, "Think it might be a portal thing? When it was powering up, gravity got kinda screwy. It wasn't like this, though. Any time there was a surge, gravity hiccuped for a few seconds. It never just... went down a little."

"And not for this long, either," Soos said. "It's been like this all morning." He paused; then asked, hopefully, "You sure we aren't just all developing super strength at the same time?"

Ford shook his head apologetically.

"Aww."

"I suspected the portal first," Ford said. "But I just looked it over and checked the equipment. There's no way any of it could have powered on. It's been completely disassembled since last summer." 

Stan shrugged. "What else could it be?"

"The gravity anomalies occurred whenever the portal was connected to the Nightmare Realm. All I can think is that perhaps it's something else with a connection to the Nightmare Realm that might be having a destabilizing effect on the fabric of reality. Something much weaker, but steadily regaining power..." He turned to cast a venomous look at the kitchen. "Power like the ability to float..."

Bill had been preoccupied with dipping a strip of raw bacon into a stolen uncapped syrup bottle; but at the accusation, he stared at Ford in disbelief. "What—are you kidding me?"

"Have a better explanation for why, the moment all this starts, you can suddenly hover down the stairs?"

"Sure," Bill said. "I'm better at floating than the rest of you because I've been doing it longer."

"Oh, that's stupid!"

"You're stupid."

"You're up to something," Ford snarled. "I know it."

"What could I possibly be up to!" Bill spread his hands, exasperated. "Seriously! Tell me! What could I possibly be up to?"

Ford screwed his face into a scowl, trying to think of any way Bill could have orchestrated the gradual decline of gravity while imprisoned in the Mystery Shack. "You are up to something," he said firmly.

Bill groaned and rolled his eyes. "Well if you ever figure out what, let me know! I'm dying to find out what I'm plotting." He chugged from the syrup bottle like it was a flask. And then had to keep holding it up while he waited for the reduced gravity to work on the syrup.

"Hey, Dr. Pines?" Soos held up his phone. "Just got a text from Tate. He says Old Man McGucket wants to know if you can come discuss the gravity issue?"

"I was just thinking the same thing. Let Fiddleford know I'll be there as soon as I can. Does he want me to bring anything?"

"Nope. Just your handsome face." Soos chuckled. "He—he didn't say that part, though. I did. I just think guys should compliment each other more."

Ford nodded solemnly. "Thank you, Soos."

"Grunkle Ford, can I come too?" Dipper dumped his dirty dish in the sink. "I could—I dunno—help brainstorm solutions, or something...?"

"I'd be delighted." Ford had wanted to spend so much more time with Dipper this summer. By now, he'd thought they would have had at least one hike through the mountains around Gravity Falls and maybe dug into a couple of old mysteries he'd never solved. At least this was one mystery Ford could bring him along for.

Dipper's face lit up. "Hold on, let me go get my journal." He ran upstairs, bouncing up two steps at a time in the reduced gravity.

Ford murmured to Stan, "You can hold down the fort while I'm gone?"

Stan nodded slightly. "I'll keep a close eye on him."

"Good."

When Dipper had returned and they were headed out the door, Bill called from the kitchen, "Keep your head down out there. And get inside as soon as you can."

Ford shot a dark look at Bill, but said nothing. "Let's go." He shut the door behind them a bit harder than necessary.

Soos headed into the kitchen to make breakfast. As he passed, Bill said, "Hey. Does the 'guys complimenting guys' thing only apply to humans, or what?"

"Oh. Uh..." Soos pulled his head out of the fridge to look at Bill. "You... look good in yellow? Is—is that a good compliment? I don't know what triangle demons consider a compliment."

Bill considered it. "Sure, it'll do." He dipped another strip of bacon in the syrup. "I look even better in gold."

####

A quarter mile from the shack, Ford drove over a small bump in the road he'd gone over a hundred times before.

The car bounced so high that Ford's head hit the car roof.

Somewhere, he just knew, Bill was laughing at him.

####

Dipper's knee had been bouncing for three minutes straight by the time they approached the gate to the Northwest Manor. "Dipper, are you alright?"

"Sorry." Dipper planted his foot flat on the floor. "It's just—we're driving really slow, and this whole gravity thing is kind of an emergency..."

Just nervous. "I know," Ford sighed. "I can't go any faster without losing control. Lower gravity means lower traction between the tires and the road." But it was driving him mad.

At the manor, Tate greeted them at the door with a slight nod. "Hey. Dad's in the lab."

"Thank you, Tate. I know the way."

When they entered the lab, Fiddleford was working with a soldering iron on an electronic device the size of a toaster. He looked up as soon as they came in. "Stanford, Dipper! Good timing. Come in. How's the shack?"

"Down a few rubber balls."

Ford left Dipper to drift around the lab inspecting Fiddleford's equipment and listening in on the conversation as he and Fiddleford caught up. Fiddleford had first noticed something was wrong during his usual morning post-coffee rambunctious rollick, when he leaped high enough to bang his head on the ceiling. ("All the way to the ceiling? In this house?" "Well, I was standing on the counter, you see." "Ah, of course.") He'd immediately built a vacuum chamber he could drop various tools and cutlery in so he could measure the acceleration of gravity. Usually, objects on Earth fell 9.8 meters per second. When Fiddleford first measured, falling objects accelerated by 7.9 meters per second—almost 20% slower than they were supposed to. Now, it was 7.7 meters per second. If that rate of decline was steady, gravity must have been going down overnight without anyone noticing. By Fiddleford's calculations, gravity was decreasing by around 1.5% an hour—and, if it continued at this rate, it would be gone the day after tomorrow, by early afternoon.

(Bill had said three days. That wasn't even two and a half.)

Fiddleford had done some scans and called some old college pals down in Texas to ask if they'd noticed anything strange—and it seemed that Gravity Falls was the only place in the country experiencing anything unusual, at least according to NASA's data. Fiddleford had asked Tate to drive around town dropping things; quelle surprise, the gravitational oddity seemed perfectly contained to the circumference of the town's weirdness barrier.

"If you're in communication with NASA, I don't suppose you could ask if..." Ford winced at himself, "they've... noticed any astronomical anomalies?"

Fiddleford stroked his beard. "I reckon I could, but—why?"

Ford sighed. "Bill said this is being caused by what he calls a 'gravitational eclipse.' Which sounds like patent nonsense, but—on the one percent chance he's telling the truth..."

"I getcha. That Bill's as trustworthy as a rattlesnake with rabies—but until we know what's happening, we ought to consider every possibility."

"Yes. Precisely." Ford paused. "Can... rattlesnakes catch rabies?"

"Absolutely not! Which is why you should never trust one what says he's rabid."

"Ah. Yes. I see," Ford said uncertainly.

Like Ford, Fiddleford's first suspicion was that this had something to do with the portal—a suspicion that was scuttled when Ford informed him he'd already checked the portal. Ford's own next theory was that Bill personally was somehow behind this. His gravity already seemed to be far lighter than the rest of the town. But Ford didn't know whether that was because Bill was causing the gravity-reducing anomaly, or because the gravity-reducing anomaly was disproportionately affecting Bill. And even if Bill was causing it, as yet Ford had no idea by what mechanism he was doing it.

Fiddleford had the first idea that might explain how this was physically happening: dimensional rips.

At the end of last summer, the town and surrounding woods had been lousy with small dimensional rips torn in spacetime by Weirdmageddon and its aftermath. A few had been large enough for a grown man to stumble through, but many were barely as long as a fingernail. Ford and Stan had spent the last few days of summer running through the town and the woods with the kids, armed with alien adhesive, glueing shut the rips; and then—after traveling back and forth to California to attend Dipper's bar mitzvah and to get hollered at by Shermie for disappearing and/or faking a death—they'd spent most of the next month taking care of even more rips. (Just enough time for gnomes to steal Ford's new Journal 4.)

The remains of the rips could still be seen throughout Gravity Falls: odd invisible seams in the air that seemed to make the woods behind them bend strangely, like the transition between air and water where light refracted differently. Sometimes the sun would line up just right with a gap in the leaves so that you could see a sunbeam bending in midair.

Fiddleford had two theories:

Theory one: even after they'd sealed up all the rips, the distressed fabric of reality around Gravity Falls had grown threadbare. Rather than a few huge rips tearing through to the Nightmare Realm, countless micro-rips were forming—hundreds of thousands of holes between the fibers of reality, too tiny to be seen or detected—and they were reaching critical mass. The structural integrity of reality itself was about to catastrophically fail. The barrier between here and the Nightmare Realm could shred apart at any minute, ripping open a massive maw too wide to ever be repaired, irreversibly swallowing Gravity Falls into Bill's dying dimension of madness and leaving a frothing pustule of chaos trapped inside the weirdness barrier, ready to spread across all of Earth if anything should ever pop it!

Or two: something else was happening.

Ford thought it was worth investigating. The damage was already there; maybe Bill knew it, was exacerbating it—perhaps by his mere presence—and was just hoping the humans wouldn't figure it out before his homecoming.

"You remember the wormhole detector I built last September to sense when new dimensional rips were openin' up?" Fiddleford asked. "Well, it ain't detected a thing in town since March—but if these micro-rips are real, they'd be too little to detect from any farther than forty or fifty feet. So's I whipped up a portable scannermadoohickey!" He picked up the object he'd been working on when Ford and Dipper arrived. "You can take it to the places with the most damage and wave it around to see if it senses anything!"

Ford inspected the scanner. "It says it's detecting eighteen right now."

Fiddleford waved him off. "That's fine, a few itty bitty little tears oughta be expected for the kinda damage we got last year. But if my theory's correct, there's somewhere in Gravity Falls that'll have hundreds of thousands of tears within the scanner's radius. That's what we're looking for."

"Great. And, what do we do if we find them? Such small rips would be impossible to individually seal with my adhesive applicator."

"I thought of that, too!" Fiddleford scrambled over two tables, knocking tools on the ground as he went, to grab a plastic cone-shaped object the size of a football. He scuttled beneath the tables back to Ford. "Look! I made a glue grenade!"

"A—a what?"

"Once you figure out where the micro-rips are concentrated, just pour that alien adhesive of yours into this spout here, pull the pin, and chuck it! It'll instantly seal up all the micro-rips in the area and then cover the whole town in a cloud of alien adhesive, closing any remaining rips!"

"Hmm... It sounds risky. It would use up the rest of our andhesive all at once," Ford said. "And the environmental impact could be devastating."

Fiddleford blinked. "Environmental impact?"

"Just think of an adhesive this powerful settling over the whole town and forest in a thin film. It would glue people's pores shut! They wouldn't be able to sweat! Imagine. And that's just one example of the potential consequences."

"Hm." Fiddleford scratched his head. "I could invent a body lotion with alien adhesive solvent?"

"Or, maybe we should only use the grenade once we're sure that such an extreme measure is necessary."

"Aww." Fiddleford kicked his foot in disappointment. "Hold on—let me at least whip up a spray attachment for your adhesive gun. So's you can patch up any clusters you find as you go." He darted between several tables, searching through drawers and tool chests for supplies, and then returned to his soldering station.

"Wait, hold on," Ford said. "In the space of a morning, you've built a vacuum chamber to calculate the gravitational acceleration in Gravity Falls, called NASA to get ahold of somebody to collect data across the rest of the United States, built a handheld version of your wormhole detector, and built a grenade to distribute alien adhesive?"

"I sure did!"

"And, how long have you been awake?"

"An hour and a half!"

Ford stared. "Where do you get your coffee?"

Fiddleford glanced across the room at Dipper, and whispered, "I'll tell ya later."

Dipper had drifted over to the miniature particle accelerator and was slowly circling it, inspecting all the pipes, trying to figure out how it worked. He was leaning over the trash can when Ford drifted over to join him. "Hey, Grunkle Ford? I... think there's a cat in here?"

"You don't know that!" Fiddleford shouted. "It could be dead!"

"No it's not, I can hear it meowing."

"That might be something else! You can't tell!"

"I could just open it—"

Fiddleford chucked an empty plastic spool of solder wire toward Dipper. "Don't you touch that!"

Dipper withdrew his hand from the trash can lid and looked at Ford, baffled.

"I'll explain how it works," Ford said.

While Fiddleford worked, Ford caught Dipper up on the details of the fuel they needed for the Quantum Destabilizer, the contraption Fiddleford had built to synthesize it, and the complicated way they'd tried to paradoxically (not) observe the experiment in progress. When Fiddleford came over to offer the completed spray nozzle, Ford asked, "Any progress on figuring out how to get this thing working?"

"No," Fiddleford sighed. "I've been lookin' into more stable paradoxes to replace the cat. But as far as the observer—I'd hoped usin' twins might just get close enough, but I've redid my cac'lations three times and I'm afraid the only way to get this thing working is by gettin' one person to both observe and not observe it at the same time. If we can just do that, we'd have all the fuel we need. But for the life of me I can't figure out how."

"Maybe if we had two versions of the same person from different dimensions..." Ford mused. "But that would require opening up a portal to reach another dimension, and there's the risk that uniting parallel versions of the same person might destabilize our entire dimension. It's not worth the risk."

"It sounds like one of those impossible riddles," Dipper said. "Like, 'If only a barber shaves people who don't shave themselves, and if anyone who shaves himself isn't a barber, then who shaves the barber?' Because if he shaved himself he wouldn't be a barber but since he shaves other people he has to be a barber..."

Ford said, "A second barber shaves him."

Fiddleford said, "He just don't shave at all."

Dipper paused. "I think I told it wrong."

Ford patted his shoulder. "But I think you're on to something. We need to think of this as a riddle; and every riddle has a solution. We just need to find it."

"After we save the town, right?" Dipper asked.

Ford smiled wanly. "One crisis at a time."

####

They agreed that investigating all the potential micro-rip hotspots around town would probably necessitate a camping trip—which was the only bit of good news to come out of this mess so far. Due to all of this summer's Bill bullsoup (as Stan had taken to calling it in front of the kids), Ford and Dipper had hardly gotten to see each other so far, much less do any serious paranormal investigating together. Hiking and camping while in search of the strange sounded like exactly what they'd been missing out on—and it would've sounded even better if the situation weren't so dire.

Ford and Dipper came back in the Mystery Shack as Shandra Jimenez said on TV, "Today's top story in Gravity Falls is that gravity isn't falling. Many residents recall similar incidents around this time last summer, when gravity intermittently shut off entirely, leading many to ask: could this possibly be another devastating effect of global warming? Temperatures today are—"

Ford scoffed. "Global warming. Of all things. Gravity is probably the only part of the environment it isn't affecting."

"I dunno, Ford, maybe you oughta consider it." Bill was sitting cross-legged on the couch, chin in his hand. He had his eye patch over the eye he'd been squinting that morning. "As long as you're already rejecting the real explanation to make up one you like better, why not go whole hog? Let's adopt a real crackpot theory."

"You want to talk about 'crackpot theories'? Global warming sounds at least as likely as an eclipse."

"That says a lot more about your education than it does about the theories."

Ford grit his teeth. "You know I'm one of the most educated men on Earth."

"And that says a lot about your planet's educational system."

Stan, sitting in his armchair reading the paper, folded it down to glower at Bill. "Stop antagonizing my brother."

"Tell him to stop making it so easy."

Ford grit his teeth harder, but ignored Bill. "Dipper, go pack your backpack. I'll check the basement and meet you when I'm done."

"Right!" Dipper hurried up the stairs.

Ford crossed the living room, checking the micro-rip scanner—88 detected rips, over five times higher than at Northwest Manor, but still nowhere near the 100,000 rip danger threshold. He'd see whether that remained true next to the portal. He paused next to Stan's armchair, "Stanley, do you remember where we stored the alien adhesive applicator?"

"Uhh... when's the last time we used it?"

"Last fall, right before we headed to Seattle."

Stan lowered his paper, staring at the ceiling. "I think we stored it in one of the lockers in the basement, right?"

"It's not there," Bill said.

Ford gave him an exasperated look. "And how would you know."

"Because the first day I came here, I emptied out all those lockers and hid their contents while I was waiting for the rest of you to get downstairs."

Ford smacked the back of the armchair, making Stan start. "So that's what happened to my infinity-sided die! Where the devil did you hide it?"

"Frankly, I don't think you're responsible enough to handle that kind of power," Bill said archly.

"Where's the adhesive applicator!"

"What do you need it for?"

"That's none of your business."

"Pity." Bill turned up the volume on the news.

Ford moved between Bill and the screen. "If you don't tell me where you hid it..." What threat could he make? This was the demon willing to threaten suicide if his captors didn't keep him entertained.

"Tell me why you need it."

"As if you'd give it to me if I did!"

"Maybe I'll find your cause noble," Bill said flatly. "Try me."

Oh, what did he have to lose. "Fine. I'm testing to see if imperceptibly small rips are opening between Gravity Falls and the Nightmare Realm. If they are, I'm going to seal them shut." He hoped the revelation would throw Bill off—he hoped he was close enough to the truth to shock Bill into giving something away.

Bill's eye widened, eyebrows shooting up; and then he burst out laughing. "That's what Specs filled your head with? Embryonic wormholes? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! And you're turning to him for an explanation when you've got a being with infinite answers sitting in your living room?"

Ford scoffed. "Sure, infinite answers—and just like the infinity-sided die, whatever I get is infinitely more likely to be trouble than anything useful. Now tell me where you put my adhesive applicator."

"I didn't put it anywhere." Bill held the remote out to the side to change the channel and stared at the TV straight through Ford, as if he didn't exist. "It's still in the basement. A little adhesive leaked out, I couldn't get the locker door open."

"Ha!" Stan slapped an armrest.

Ford whirled around to glare at him.

Stan held up his hands appeasingly. "Sorry! Sorry. That's not funny. Wasn't—wasn't funny at all. How dare you, Bill."

"I know, I'm just the worst."

Ford held in a harsh sigh and stalked out of the room. He didn't have time for this—not when they were on a deadline to prevent whatever was happening. (What if it became too late to reverse before gravity even reached 0%? What if they were approaching a tipping point when the whole sky would rip open?)

He opened the vending machine and headed downstairs.

####

He had to break the locker door to get the alien adhesive applicator out. He'd have to figure out how the nozzle had leaked before he stored it again.

According to the sensor, there were over a thousand micro-rips detectable just from standing near the portal controls. The number increased as he approached the portal itself; the highest quantity the scanner detected was nearly 5,000. Over fifty times higher than on the shack's ground level. It was clear some sort of damage had been done here.

But Fiddleford had said, for them to be concerned about reality shredding, there should be hundreds of thousands of micro-rips in one location. And Ford trusted any numbers Fiddleford gave him; wherever Ford tended to double-check his math, Fiddleford quintuple-checked his.

Even at the interdimensional portal itself—the spot where the veil between Gravity Falls and the Nightmare Realm had been ripped open and stitched shut so many times, the spot where the rift that nearly ended the world had been formed—there were less than 5% of the rips they needed before they started reaching dangerous levels.

Ford looked up at the portal, frowning.

The portal's torn and crumpled pieces lay against the cavern walls where he'd left them last summer.

Never mind. There were several other places that could be hotspots for micro-rips. He couldn't draw any conclusions about what was happening here until he'd checked them too.

But whatever was happening, it certainly wasn't an eclipse.

He added Fiddleford's spray attachment to the adhesive applicator and filled the chamber with a mist of glue, until the scanner read less than 200 micro-rips; then stopped by his study to grab a couple maps of the mountains around Gravity Falls, his antique lantern, and a tent; and headed back up to the house.

####

During their past year of travels, Stan and Ford had started keeping two emergency backpacks stocked in case they needed to flee on short notice. The backpacks contained everything they'd need to survive in the wilderness or a strange city for three days; and Ford had thirty long years of experience to teach him exactly what supplies that necessitated. He grabbed his backpack out of the guest room, and then spread out his map on the kitchen table to show to Dipper.

"If our micro-rip theory is correct, there are four potential places where I suspect they'll be most densely concentrated: the place where the interdimensional rift formed; where it was unleashed; where it was suspended for the majority of Weirdmageddon; and where it was sealed."

"And you've already checked the portal where it formed," Dipper said. "What about the place it was suspended? It was floating in the sky over town. There's no way we can get up there until gravity's completely gone, and by then it'll be too late."

"I've considered that. The closest we can get is Gravity Peak, but from there we should be able to get the sensor close enough to tell if there's an unusual amount of rips." Ford circled three spots on the map, and drew a dotted line connecting them. "We're heading out late, but we should be able to hit the locations where Weirdmageddon began and ended today. We can cross the lake to camp in the cavern behind Trembley Falls, get an early start, and take the hidden cave tunnel up to Gravity Peak."

"Not the best time for a hiking trip," Bill said.

Ford shot him an exasperated look. Bill was leaning in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, smirking condescendingly. "Or maybe it is, if you're trying to avoid as much effort as possible," he says. "But I still wouldn't go if I were you. You don't want to be outdoors during an eclipse—and you don't want to be on a mountain when gravity comes back."

"Nobody asked you," Ford said, turning his back on Bill. "Now—cooking will be difficult as gravity decreases, but not to worry—" he unzipped his backpack, "—I've already prepared everything we'll need." Grinning, he pulled out what looked like a toothpaste tube with a "beef and vegetables" label. "Astronaut food!"

Dipper grimaced. "Great."

"You should have asked me," Bill said, a bit louder. "Considering that Specs is sending you on a wild goose chase. But hey, if you're that determined to waste your time, just don't say I didn't tell you so."

"You haven't even told us what an 'eclipse' is," Dipper said. "If it's not important enough to explain, I don't see why it's important enough for us to listen to you."

"Well said," Ford muttered.

"It's too important to explain," Bill retorted. "I've told you everything you need to know!"

Ford said, "Ha," and started folding his map to pack.

There were a few seconds of blessed silence; and then Bill walked into the room, leaned on the fridge, and glowered at Ford. "Listen. As far as you're concerned, the eclipse is probably harmless. It should peak in three days—"

"Fiddleford said at its current rate of decrease, it should be the day after tomorrow."

Ford expected Bill to argue; but instead, he frowned uneasily. "I—Sure, fine, whatever, he's probably done the math, I've just been eyeballing it. Did he say what time?"

Surprised, Ford said, "early afternoon, by his measurements."

Bill nodded vaguely, glancing again toward the ceiling. "Whatever time it happens—gravity will gradually decrease until totality, and then it'll come back very quickly, so—if you want to help your town so much, tell them that they don't want to be climbing trees in zero G. Otherwise, the best thing you can do is stay inside, wait for it to pass, keep your eyes shutduring totality—and do not look up."

"Why can't we look up?" Dipper asked.

Bill laughed derisively. "Would you stare at the sun during a solar eclipse? It's like I'm talking to babies!"

The last fraying thread of Ford's patience snapped. He seized Bill's hoodie by the strings and dragged him closer. "Enough!"

Bill flailed, kicking the table as he tried to back out of Ford's grip, and ended up losing his footing and landing on the floor. It was too easy to drag him around—he was so light. Ford leaned down to glare straight in his eye. "If you're so worried about how we're handling this eclipse of yours, maybe you should come with us!"

Horror bloomed in Bill's eye. "What? No no no, that's—that's fine, I told you everything you need, I'd just slow you down, I'd really be much happier in here—"

"I bet you would be," Ford snarled. "As far as I'm concerned, the fact that you want to stay inside so much is reason enough to bring you along! Either something out there scares you, or there's something in here you want to be close to during totality! Maybe something will happen at the portal! Whatever it is you want, I don't want you to get it."

"Grunkle Ford?" Dipper had gotten out of his seat and was looking uncertainly between Bill and Ford. "I'm not sure about..."

Bill's gaze snapped from Ford's face to Dipper's, and Ford could almost see the gears shifting in his head as he latched on to a more vulnerable target. "Kid. Remember when I told you there are things out there you don't want to meet? Stay inside—let me stay inside—find a good book to distract you the next couple of days, and don't worry about things you don't want to know too much about. As far as you should be concerned, this is a weather phenomenon. You don't want to dig any deeper than that. Stay. Home."

The corners of Dipper's mouth turned down. He grabbed Ford's coat sleeve and said, voice low, "Great Uncle Ford, I... I'm not sure he's lying. I've never seen Bill scared like this before. And when he told me about things in other dimensions, this gravity thing hadn't even started, so he couldn't have..."

"Unless Bill was expecting this to happen, and everything he told you yesterday was the groundwork to make us believe whatever he wants us to believe." Bill had wormed deeper into Dipper's head than Ford had realized, if it was enough to make him consider Bill's nonsensical claims. Ford should have asked more about what Bill told him yesterday. The monster could have been filling his gnephew's head with all sorts of nightmares. "Doesn't it seem a little lucky that he told you all that one day before this?"

Dipper grimaced. "I mean..."

Ford glared at Bill again. "I'm not buying it. And the more you make up ridiculous explanations like 'gravitational eclipses' and 'things from other dimensions,' the more you insist that this is somehow both no big deal and incredibly dangerous just to witness, the less I believe this is anything but a patently ridiculous attempt to keep us from interfering with whatever is about to happen! And frankly, that makes me want to interfere even more!"

Bill let out a strangled laugh. "You've gotta be... If you think I'm that suspicious, how do you know this isn't reverse psychology?! Maybe I want you to take me outside!"

"Maybe you do. That's the awful thing about you, Bill: I can second-, third-, and fourth-guess everything you say, and I'll never be sure I've figured out the truth! At some point I just have to make an educated guess."

There was a knock at the doorway. "Hey, Dr. Pines?" Soos leaned into the kitchen. "I heard furniture and anger. Is everything... uh..." He trailed off, taking in the scene—Bill on the floor backed up against the fridge, Ford crouched over him, Dipper watching anxiously. "Everything cool here?"

Ford got to his feet. "Dipper and I are going on an expedition—and unfortunately, he has to come along. Soos, do you have a spare backpack we can use for his supplies?"

"Uh, I think so—"

"Great," Dipper snapped. "This is just perfect. I've been waiting a month and a half for us to do something cool together, and when we're finally about to go on an expedition, it's ruined by him?" He gestured angrily at Bill. "He's already ruined the rest of summer!"

Bill said, "Hey, I didn't consent to this plan either."

"You shut up," Dipper snapped. "This is all your fault! You could have just left us alone, but...!" He let out a frustrated noise. He pushed past Soos out of the room and ran up the stairs.

Ah. Ford's shoulders slumped. Sometimes he wasn't quite sure where he'd misstepped in a conversation, but this time it was pretty obvious. Between this and the nearly-disastrous trip to Portland, Ford was well in the lead for Worst Grunkle of the Summer.

"Wow. You broke that kid's heart," Bill said. "Not too late to make it up to him by going back to the original plan."

Ford shot him a dirty look.

Bill shrugged. "I'm trying anything I can think of at this point!"

Ford sighed harshly, and left to follow Dipper upstairs.

Bill sat up and waited until Ford's footsteps had receded. Voice low, he said, "Questiony, listen, I need your help. Stanford's gone completely insane. You didn't see how he was ranting and raving before you got in here. Who knows what he'll do to me if he gets me alone outside the shack with only his junior sycophant as a witness—?"

Soos looked deeply uncomfortable, but he shook his head. "Not buying it, dawg."

Bill groaned.

####

Ford knocked, and gently pushed the kids' damaged door open a crack. "Dipper?"

Dipper grunted. He was sitting on his bed, chin in his hands, glaring down at his journal in his lap.

"Can I come in?"

Dipper grunted again. Ford wasn't being ignored, so he took that as permission to enter. He delicately sat next to Dipper and tried to figure out what to say next. (He was surprised at how firm the mattress was—and then realized the real reason he wasn't sinking as far into it as he expected.) "Dipper..."

"You don't need to say anything," he sighed. "You're right—Bill probably is up to something. If he wants to be in the shack so much, and won't give us a straight answer why, then... it's probably safer to keep him out of it." But he sounded so terribly resigned.

"All the same, I understand your disappointment," Ford said. "I'd far rather go hiking with you than with him."

Dipper nodded. "Yeah. It's just..." He trailed off.

"I know. I wanted this summer to be different, too." Ford sighed. "As soon as he's gone, I owe you another hiking trip."

Dipper nodded again. He mumbled, "I've never gone hiking before."

This was some way to experience it for the first time. "We could treat this like a practice round? A warm-up with lower gravity to make it easier. Next time will be a real trip—without any crises to worry about, and without Bill."

"I don't mind the crises," Dipper said. "I'm kind of used to them, actually. They're almost fun now."

In his mind, Ford knew that this was probably another thing that should earn him a Worst Grunkle award. But in his heart, he was proud of Dipper. That was an adventurer's attitude.

"It's just... I haven't been able to get away from him all summer," Dipper said. "And even when I'm avoiding him, Mabel's spending all her free time either with her friends or trying to reform him, and you're spending all your time trying to figure out how to kill him, so I barely see you two..."

And that wasn't even something Ford could blame on Bill, was it? He hadn't been spending his time trying to figure out how to kill Bill since he'd handed over the Quantum Destabilizer design to Fiddleford. He'd simply been... obsessing. Hiding and obsessing. Ford stared down at his hands guiltily. "Tell you what. As soon as this is over, we can go do—something. I don't know what yet, but we've got a couple of days to think it up. I've spent too much time underground the last few weeks, anyway. We may not be able to go on that big adventure until Bill's gone—but it's something, for now."

"Yeah, I'd like that. Thanks, Grunkle Ford." 

Ford nudged him. "And as long as you do have to put up with Bill for this trip... look on the bright side. Haven't you been wanting to get a crack at him without your sister around? See if you can pry out any more alien wisdom before his execution?"

Dipper huffed—but one corner of his mouth reluctantly quirked up. "Thanks, but I'm starting to think that's a bad idea. Every time I try, he just says stuff that gives me nightmares."

"Well—consider it an intellectually broadening experience."

Dipper gave him a weak smile.

"Anyway, with a little luck, it won't be long before you'll never need to deal with him again."

####

Soos had an old Monster-Mon backpack with cracked vinyl around the straps that he hadn't used since he outgrew it in fifth grade. "Lucky I didn't throw it out when we moved. You never know when you're gonna need old stuff!"

Bill had no idea what he was supposed to take on a forced camping trip. He knew what humans took, but humans craved all kinds of material comforts that meant nothing to him. After a couple minutes staring at the bag forlornly, he stuck in a spare shirt and leggings—he doubted he'd need extra underwear or socks, right?—and the Pony Heist bedsheet he'd been using as his sole blanket the last month, his toothbrush and toothpaste, a cider six-pack, two boxes of cereal, a kazoo, and the TV remote.

"I need some first-aid supplies. In case of emergency," Bill told Soos.

"Sure, whaddaya need?"

"Bandages, painkillers, matches, and a knife."

"You got—" Soos paused, then pursed his lips at Bill disapprovingly.

Bill sighed. "Bandages and painkillers. And cold medicine. Woods get chilly."

He glanced up as he heard footsteps upstairs. Not much longer until he was dragged outside. He grimaced. "One more thing, Jesús. This is important."

"Whoa. Full-first-name important?" He stuck a bottle of cold syrup in the backpack, hit something hard, and peered in confusion at the six-pack.

"Stanford's being petty and refusing to believe anything I say, but I know you're not that stupid," Bill lied. "So listen: this thing will peak in a couple of days and then go back to normal. It's mostly harmless to humans—but once the peak has passed, gravity's coming back like that." Bill snapped his fingers. "So anyone you want to come out of this intact needs to do two things. One, the moment gravity completely disappears, they need to anchor themselves, as close to the ground as possible, before it comes back. And two, do not look at the sky. Got it?"

Soos hesitated; but then nodded. "Y-yeah, got it."

"Understand?"

"Understood."

"Good."

"So are you like... trying to protect the town now?"

Bill laughed bitterly. "I'm trying to cover my base. When this is all over, even if all my warnings were ignored, at least nobody will be able to say I didn't try. I could have sat on everything I know! But I didn't! And I'm going to rub. It. In. Ford's. Face." He punctuated each word with a jab to Soos's chest.

Soos endured the jabbing with a patience Bill didn't deserve. "Byyy protecting the town?"

Bill opened his mouth, reconsidered, and said, "Sure! Of course I'm protecting the town! Why would I want any harm to befall the citizens of my once and future capital?"

"I mean, no offense, but you befelled a lot of harm on us last year—"

"I did not," Bill snapped. "Everyone was perfectly comfortable in my throne of frozen human agony." He yanked the backpack's zipper shut, pulled it on, and pushed Soos aside to leave the kitchen.

Stan had stopped Ford at the foot of the stairs. "But if this is some nightmare dimension thing, isn't that just another reason not to take Bill outside? What if one of those wormholes opens up and he dives through? Maybe escaping back to his dimension will give him his power back, we don't know."

"I've considered that—but if that is what he's planning, all the more reason why he should stay with Dipper and me, so we can stop him if he tries anything."

"Are you nuts? It'll be two of you in the woods versus four of us here in the shack! We outnumber him more than you do! Plus walls and doors!"

"We have the hexed bracelets, he won't be able to escape us," Ford said.

"Aww, I get to share matching friendship bracelets with someone?" Bill gave Dipper and Ford what he hoped was his most obnoxious smile. "Who's the lucky guy?"

Scowling, Dipper raised his hand.

Bill's smile dimmed. "You are the lesser evil," he admitted grudgingly. "But I'm surprised ol' Six-Fingers doesn't want to keep as tight a grip on me as possible."

"We decided that if you try to kill your bracelet partner and escape, Grunkle Ford would have a better chance of avenging me than I would have avenging him."

Bill's brows shot up. "Ruthlessly utilitarian. Was that Stanford's idea?"

Ford ignored the question, pushing on with his conversation with Stan: "And anyway, there might be more people in the shack, but none of them would be me. I know him better than anyone else."

Bill laughed hard enough that his feet momentarily lifted off the floor. "Oh do you!"

Ford's gaze shot to Bill's face, eyes blazing with fury. "You know I do. I've spent thirty years learning every trick, every lie, every betrayal that's made you who you—"

"What's my favorite food."

Ford's mouth worked uselessly. "That—doesn't matter—"

"You think you know my innermost soul when you don't even know my favorite food?"

"Favorite... human food, or...?"

"Oh, sure, I'll give you a fighting chance. Human."

Ford chewed on the inside of his mouth for several seconds. Finally, he said, "Jalapeños."

Bill crossed the entryway, leaned into the hallway, and took a deep breath. "HEY, MABEL!"

From the far end of the house (where Mabel was seeing how high she could jump in the floor room), she shouted, "YEAH?"

"WHAT'S MY FAVORITE FOOD?"

"NACHOS WITH CHOCOLATE SAUCE AND SUMMER-SHAPED SPRINKLES!"

Bill gestured down the hall, ta-da. "THANK YOU!"

"I was close," Ford grumbled. "Nachos have jalapeños."

Stan said, "You're not even out of the house and he's getting under your skin. Are you sure you wanna—?"

"I am not," Ford said, "leaving him in the house. And if you'd heard how he was fighting to stay under this roof, you wouldn't trust him in here either."

Stan looked at Bill.

Bill looked Stan dead in the eyes and said, "I don't know what he's talking about. I agreed to go as soon as he asked."

"Oh, shut your—" Ford snatched the bracelets off the coat rack, flung one end at Bill, and handed Dipper the other. "Put these on. We're leaving."

Bill scowled, but considered his odds of successfully resisting, reluctantly put his end of the bracelet on, and yelled down the hall, "BYE, MABEL! I'M BEING KIDNAPPED BY YOUR UNCLE AGAINST MY WILL! I MAY NEVER RETURN!"

"I'LL MISS YOU FOREVER!"

Ford opened the door and gestured impatiently. Bill took a couple reluctant steps closer, but stopped to look at Soos and say, "Remember what I said. Do not let Mabel be in the air when gravity comes back, you know if someone doesn't watch her she'll launch herself as high as she can—"

Ford snapped, "Either you walk or I drag you, Cipher."

"I'm coming." He stepped outside, paused, and cast a worried look at the sky; then squeezed his eyes shut, lowered his head, and walked into the sunlight.

####

(That's this week's chapter! I'd love to hear your comments and thoughts. Next week: I'm gonna do my level best to shatter your hearts. Look forward to it!)

[noiriarti]

The Winner Takes it All: Anakin Skywalker x Reader (Enemies-to-Lovers Modern AU) | Chapter 2

NSFW! Minors DNI!!! Summary: The moment the thesis competition was announced, you knew your biggest threat. Anakin Skywalker, golden boy of the engineering department. He's the only other person smart enough to beat you, and the only other person insane enough to stay in the lab until midnight every night. He's also an asshole, but you're starting to think maybe he's not as bad as you thought he was... Pairing: Anakin Skywalker x Fem!Reader CW: mentions of masturbation WC: 6.9k AN: hehehehehe this chapter was so much fun to write and i fear i have added a bit of a plot to this pwp fic. next chapter will get even wilder! as always, asks and requests open <3

Ch. 1, [Ch. 2], Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6

Chapter 2: Testing

Anakin stumbled to his room on unsteady feet. When he entered, it was 1:43 am, but he had never felt more awake. He couldn't have slept even if he had wanted to, because you were haunting him. The wood of his door as he unlocked it felt like the lab bench under his fingers. His lips felt phantom kisses from you. Your angry voice echoed in the creak of the hinges. His pillows were soft like your clothes, like your skin.

The more he thought about it, the harder he got, which he wasn't sure was possible, really. His cock was pressing against his jeans so hard that he was relatively certain he could get off just by thrusting into the material a few times. Anakin rocked his hips experimentally against the rough material, and a shiver of pleasure ran down his spine. Jesus. He was definitely sensitive enough to cum like that. But he shouldn't. He really, really shouldn't. It would be weird and creepy, when you told him you didn't want to do more of this. He shouldn't. He resolved to sleep it off, but found sleep was still evading him about an hour later when he lay awake in bed. Fuck my life. Fine. If he was going to be up, he might as well get some work done. So, he spent the night typing at his desk, which he distinctly had to try not to imagine kissing you against.

Anakin didn't hate you. Far from it. Okay, maybe not that far from it. But if he hated you, he something-else-ed you with equal measure. He just wasn't sure what that something else was. Did he like you? This wasn't like any crush he had before. You were so rude sometimes, but he would snap right back, and then escalate. Anakin didn't love that personality trait in himself, but it came out in spades around you. In freshman year, your name on the posted top homework of the week was exhilarating. Finally, some competition. Someone who loved engineering as much as he did. Someone who understood the fire that got him out of his backwater town and into the world. Then he met you, and that exhilaration turned a thousand times stronger. You weren't just a peer, you were a challenge. Every jab you threw at him, every time your bot would beat his in the traditional end-of-year tournament, he'd feel like he was suddenly on fire, electricity shocking through his very being. It was the same feeling he chased in taekwondo, that edge where he wasn't sure if he'd win, but he was so, so close. It was easier to interpret it as anger, as hatred, as fuel.

Even though he thought you could be a know-it-all, he had to admit that he always had a sort of begrudging respect toward you. You worked on a group project together, three times, once per year on average, and he could consistently rely on the fact that you'd never be a slacker. Others on the team would sometimes ghost, which annoyed you both in equal measure. The two of you would butt heads over what to do in the projects, but you were always 100% dedicated. He respected it about you, even if you were critical of his admittedly shoddy handwriting or the logical jumps in his proofs.

By senior year, he was unknowingly nursing what could affectionately be called a crush, though it was masked under layers and layers of frustration and competition and anger. Anakin wasn't very self aware, but it was beginning to dawn on even him that, perhaps, he liked you. There were several signs. Late nights in the lab were torture for him. He'd sit there, trying to focus on something, anything, but he kept seeing that piece of hair that fell into your face when you bent over your bench and your deft hands wiring capacitors. Sometimes, when you passed him and he caught a whiff of your smell, his heart would speed up. When he heard your voice in class, he would start smiling. It was honestly kind of embarrassing.

In retrospect, it was surprising he hadn't broken and kissed you earlier. But, now that he had, all he could think about was kissing you again. As he sat at his desk thinking, the next steps for his thesis slipped through his hands like grains of sand. At practice the next afternoon, his technique was sloppy, which his teammates riffed on endlessly. In class, the professor could have said the secret to traveling faster than light, and it would have gone in one of Anakin's ears and out the other.

You had said it couldn't happen. Why? Did he do something wrong? At the time, he was clouded with arousal, joy, and exhilaration, so he didn't ask any questions, just agreed mindlessly, but your statement was haunting him. We shouldn't do this again. Why not? His body was screaming for it, at the very least, and so was his heart, but he chose to ignore that.

Anakin was pondering this issue over a piece of tech for the Jinn lab, where he worked part-time during the semester, when Obi-Wan walked in and headed straight for him. Though Obi-Wan was technically his supervisor, being a third-year graduate student advised by Professor Jinn, Anakin considered him a friend. Though he was usually pretty serious, Obi-Wan appeared thoroughly amused today and looked a bit like the cat who got the cream.

"Anakin," Obi-Wan said by way of greeting as he passed by his chair.

"What's up?" Anakin asked as he tried to get a particularly annoying screw tightened.

"Were you in the thesis lab last night?" Yes, he was, in fact. He was making out with you, but he didn't need to mention that.

"Yeah, working on some hardware for my next prototype, why?" Obi-Wan's smile spread further, if possible.

"Did you know there's cameras?" The blood froze in Anakin's veins. The suggestion in his voice was unmistakable.

"What?" His voice came out like a whisper.

"Good thing you were simply working on your prototype. You should warn other students to take… dalliances elsewhere," Obi-Wan said, winking.

"I-um-fuck--I." The words died on Anakin's tongue. Holy fucking shit. "I didn't see cameras."

"They're small. Qui-Gon had me install them this year. Nevertheless, things happen," Obi-Wan said, pausing, then quickly added, "Good luck." Obi-Wan patted Anakin on the shoulder and walked into his office in the back of the lab, leaving Anakin frozen in his chair.

Later that evening, once he'd worked (read: sat in shock) for four hours at the Jinn lab, finished two assignments for his gened, and led a practice for the TKD team, Anakin dragged his tired ass to the thesis lab. He was still restless since Obi-Wan's revelation. There was a video of the two of you, and he found himself wondering more than a few times if he could get it. For safekeeping, of course. No other reason.

He nodded at Barriss, who was on her way out, on complete autopilot. Seems she's getting in gear for the competition, he would have thought had he been mentally present in the slightest. He was the only one in the lab, a relief considering the fact that all his brain cells tended to leave the building as soon as you were near him, so he could get some work done. Get some tests in, make some actual progress. Maybe he could even pull a win on the competition, if not just an A on his thesis. He'd written some code during thermo lecture that he loaded onto an Arduino, turning over the device and its sharp pins in his fingers before disconnecting it from his laptop and shoving it into a breadboard. It looked ugly, clunky, and inelegant, but it was just a temporary setup for the test run before he attached the Arduino to the current motherboard. Sometime midway through the code running, the door to the lab clacked open.

It was you. Who else would arrive to the lab at 8pm? You looked gorgeous today, which hit Anakin like a punch to the gut. Cool, cool. This was normal. He could handle this. The cold had darkened your lips and cheeks a bit, so subtle he wouldn't have noticed if he wasn't staring. But he was, and he looked away quickly, back to his computer, and choked out a "hey." Anakin heard the tell-tale smack of your backpack on the floor, then each layer you shed (thump for coat, gentle taps for gloves, barely a thunk for hat). His eyes were fixed intently on the screen, even though there was nothing to look at there. When he looked up, you were right in front of him, close enough to touch.

"Hi," you said. Your eyes were gazing up at him earnestly and he could almost see his reflection in them. Fuck. You were standing incredibly near him, much closer than anyone else in his life would.

"Hi," he breathed. Was this it? Were you going to tell him that, actually, you wanted him? That maybe you could go on a date, or, at least go back to your place? Just going back to yours for sex wouldn't be exactly what he wanted, but then again beggars can't be choosers. And he was definitely a beggar right now.

"I need the small pliers." You reached out your hand expectantly. Oh. Okay.

"Yep." He handed them over, then watched as you walked back to your table.

Awesome. So Anakin was still horrendously awkward around you. He knew how to speak to you after the past several years, where he'd found himself getting little kernels of knowledge about your life and thoughts. It was more that he didn't know what he could say that wasn't a confession that he really really wanted to kiss you again.

The dark had already fallen outside hours ago when you began to put away your prototype. All of the world was asleep, the hallway outside the makerspace dark. The only light outside the lab were the streetlights glowing through the open windows, casting shadows over the sidewalk. Time was fictional in those moments, stretching and shortening and contorting until a minute passed in what felt like an hour, or the other way around. Nothing made sense in those moments. His calculations. The unease he felt. Least of all, why you didn't want to kiss him again. Why he didn't just tell you that he couldn't stop thinking about you. But you were already putting your coat on, slinging your backpack over your shoulder, and--

"Wait," he called out desperately, gesturing with his hand toward you. He fell silent. What was he going to say? He'd ask you to talk, to explain that he actually really enjoyed yesterday and that he'd really really like to do it again. He'd tell you that he didn't hate you, actually. That he'd actually enjoy going on a date, maybe to dinner or a movie, he wasn't picky. The words were on the tip of his tongue.

"Can you just stay for five more minutes while I use the drill press?" Close enough.

You looked at him and simply nodded. You kept an eye on him while he used the drill press, and his hand almost slipped three times under your scrutiny. But then he was done, and you both went through the paces of closing up the room. Vents off, machines off, check printers, check laser cutters, lights off, leave.

On the walk home, Anakin looked up and saw an empty sky, so different from the one on the farm at home. No matter where he turned there, he saw constellations and different worlds. Here, between the tall buildings and under all the light pollution, it was just black. You walked home wordlessly again.

The next day, he was determined to be more normal, and immediately asked you how your project was going. He could tell you were guarded based on the wariness in your eye, but you still answered. That you were dealing with a test not working. He offered to take a look at it, but you shot him down.

Later, you asked him if he knew how to deal with an issue with your CAD model, which he did, and he helped you extrude text on the curved surface. Anakin tried not to notice how close your body was.

The normalcy returned within three hours between the two of you. Sure, there was an elephant in the room (or, really, a herd of elephants), but you two were getting comfortable again, casually chatting about class and boasting about your projects. You revealed the thermo midterm hadn't gone so well, and he confessed that it hadn't for him, either. He was very worried about the class, actually, but the thesis was his priority. When he told you, Anakin couldn't figure out what your expression meant. Surprise? Anger? Sadness? Sympathy? He shrugged it off. Probably was a shock to realize he wasn't always perfect.

An hour later, he was thinking about going home, but then he saw you staring at your computer with your headphones in.

"Whatcha watching?" He hoped the question sounded casual. You paused the video and looked up at him.

"An old Criminal Minds episode," you responded with a hint of a smile. His heart leaped.

"Can I join? I'm waiting on a print, and I need a break anyway." Was that smooth? He couldn't tell. You nodded, and he pulled up a chair. He was endlessly thankful you were using wired earbuds today (you had explained you'd forgotten your usual wireless ones at home), so that he had an excuse to sit near you. It was just how far the cord reached, not how badly he wanted to press himself against you. That was all.

"Oh, it's totally the teacher," he remarked at one point, midway through the episode. Your legs had gotten closer, almost pressing the sides of his thigh to yours. That did not make his heart race. It was probably the tension in the episode.

"Obviously, dumbass," you chided, smacking your leg into his, but there wasn't any bite to it. It was affection, and he reveled in it the whole way home.

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

Ahsoka Tano wasn't stupid. She had eyes and a capability for critical thought that she thought two particular people in her life lacked. When her roommate came home from the lab one day in mid-November, dead silent with hair mussed and lips still swollen from making out with someone, Ahsoka knew something had happened between you and the only other person who would be in the lab that late. Finally. But there was a clench in your jaw, a hard set in your eyes, that told her it wasn't all positive. But it was progress.

The first time she met met Anakin was when she was a freshman and joined the Coruscant U taekwondo team. She'd seen him around the competitive taekwondo circuit, of course; he was national champion two times running in the 16-18 division. Anakin was precise, vicious, and powerful. By the time he was a freshman, he was about to reach the fourth Dan, a feat which took most people years. He was just that good.

When Ahsoka met him, she was certain he'd be the kind of arrogant that could only come with prodigy status. And, though he was a bit full of himself, she was surprised to find him to be kind. Not nice, necessarily, all quips and snipes and sarcasm, but definitely kind to the younger students, and to her. When he asked her to be his vice-captain, she said yes immediately. There was no one better she could learn from.

The first time she noticed the tension between you was at the first competition she was in, when you came to watch her. At some point, Anakin's name had been announced, and you looked like you'd smelled curdled milk. When she asked you about it later, she hadn't expected the total word vomit that spilled out of you about how annoying and horrible and infuriating Anakin was in class. Your actual issues with him were fairly minor, she thought: 1. He gloated (definitely true), 2. He sabotaged other people's projects so he'd do better (probably not true), 3. He was always getting praise from the professors (probably true), and 4. He always assumed you didn't know what you were doing (probably true).

But Ahsoka saw a side of him you didn't. At a competition in her sophomore year, in the dead of night at the Airbnb the team had rented, she saw him frantically sewing his expensive competitive dobok, heavy with embroidery befitting his dan, when one of the seams tore mid-match the day before. It took some digging, but he confessed that he didn't have a backup. He couldn't afford a new one right now. Anakin didn't talk about home much, and, when he did, it was in clipped sentences saying that yes, he had a mom and a new stepdad. Yes, he was from a small town. As vice-captain, she had access to the list of students who the team was sponsoring at competitions because they needed the financial aid. Anakin was on the list every time. Ahsoka didn't mention it to him, ever.

Over the past three years, she had watched the spark between the two of you ignite into fights and frustration. She'd heard Anakin ask about you in a way he thought was subtle, but was actually glaringly obvious. She'd heard you complain that he was so annoying enough times. Now that something had actually happened between you, that was it. She was going to do something about it.

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

"A taekwondo party?" You had asked.

"Yeah! At Rex's," Ahsoka had said. To be honest, you kind of needed a break. Or, at least a night to not think about circuits. You were beginning to see that Anakin was smart, even smarter than you had thought, and it was creeping up on you that, maybe, just maybe, you wouldn't win no matter what you did. Maybe he was just too brilliant. You wanted to forget that, and getting drunk seemed like a great way to do just that. "Anakin will be there," Ahsoka's voice echoed in your head. Why did she say that? The peace you had settled into with Anakin was tenuous, but there. Did she know about what happened between the two of you?

You still weren't sure when you arrived on the door of the brownstone. Tau Kappa Delta wasn't an actual frat, but it was a house full of the TKD team competitors who called each other "brothers," so the nickname stuck. It was a bit out of the way of campus, but it was the prime place to hold parties if you wanted to get raunchy in a safe place. You and Ahsoka had gotten dressed up, you in some kind of short black silk dress she shoved in your hands, and her in a strappy ensemble that looked a bit like battle armor. There were straps around the arms that extended into fingerless gloves and some kind of tactical belt was slung low over her hips. Her halter top showed off her strong arms, and, for an instant, you wished you played sports for the university. How she wasn't shivering in the cold air, you'd never know.

The door swung open and the warmth indoors hit you, thick with bodies and sweat and beer, and some guy ushered you in while Ahsoka gave him a hug. This must be one of the team members you had met, some sturdy guy with an accent. You couldn't quite place if his name was Cody or Vaughn, but it was one of them, you thought. The room you entered was full of coats and bags, as well as a few people standing and chatting with drinks in their hands. Through the doorway, music blared in what was probably the living room. You couldn't make out any furniture through the dancing crowd.

Ahsoka reappeared with a shot in each hand, offering one to you with a wink.

"To a good night where you can relax, because God knows you need it," she toasted, bumping her shot glass against yours and downing it in one go. The tequila burned as it went down your throat. You coughed for a bit, then asked her for another. Might as well get the party started right. Another shot went into you, and then Ahsoka dragged you to the dance floor. The lights in the room were flashing all kinds of colors--red, purple, blue--and the music was loud enough that you could feel it vibrating through your organs. Ahsoka pushed her way past some people, closer to the center of the room, and then found enough space for the two of you and started dancing. The rhythm flowed through you, and you were just drunk enough not to care if you looked stupid. It was perfect. The two of you danced for three, maybe four songs, before Ahsoka went to get you both another shot, and then another. Some of Ahsoka's friends had joined you, not that you knew them, but you were in your own world, having fun. People bumped into your shoulder, leg, elbow, whatever, but you were on cloud nine. The bass felt like one heartbeat connecting all of the strangers on the floor to you, like you were all one beast. Dancing with your friends like this, going to parties, that's all that you cared about. This would be one of those memories you treasured, you were sure of it.

And then you saw Anakin. Much to your annoyance, he looked particularly good that day, his hair still as touchable as it was every day in the lab. He was wearing light-wash jeans (like that night, a small part of your brain reminded you) and a black, comfortable t-shirt. Oh, and there was a woman with him. Like that wasn't the first thing you noticed. She was shorter than him by a good bit, standing in front of him so you couldn't see her face, just her annoyingly shiny chestnut hair and perfect neck. Cool. Fine. They were in the corner of the room, with him leaning against the wall and her standing in front of him, shouting conversation over the loud music. Anakin shot her a warm smile, the one he rarely turned toward you, and then she put her hand on his chest. It was the alcohol that flipped your stomach, you were sure of it. And anger at seeing him, nothing else. You tapped Ahsoka and got close to her ear.

"Who's that?" You asked. She turned closer to you, her eyebrows drawn.

"Huh?" She half-yelled back. You lent in closer, trying to get to her ear.

"The girl?" You could barely hear yourself over the noise.

"What?" Oh, fuck it. You full-on yelled, but it didn't even come close to the level of bass in the room.

"Who's the girl with Anakin?"

"Oh," Ahsoka yelled back. "That's his ex." Awesome. Whoop-de-fucking-do. There was, objectively, no reason why that should have annoyed you. But it did. The girl waved to Anakin, then left, leaving him looking incredibly hot up against that wall. Your eyes took in the width of his chest, the muscles and veins in his arms. And then he was looking at you.

He had caught you. Fuck. He gave you a little wave with a smirk, then left into the next room. Shitfuckmotherfucker. Ahsoka grabbed your shoulder, shouting something about how the two of you should get some air. You nodded and let her pull you out of the dance floor, then to a room down the hall, where you could hear voices talking, laughing.

You recognized a few of the people. Jesse, Echo, the one whose name you'd ascertained was actually Cody, Fives, and Fox were all there, and, of course, so was Anakin. They were sitting in an uneven, horrible circle that was really more of a convex shape around the couch. Some girls you'd seen before around campus but you hadn't really met and some other team members were strewn about the room, sipping beers from their red cups. Anakin greeted you both with a wave.

"Hey, come join us, we're playing truth or dare," he yelled across the room. Ahsoka grinned and almost pulled you down with her to the floor.

"C'mon, let's play," she said as she grinned up at you. Truth or dare and other party games had never really been your thing, and you kind of were feeling the number of shots you had taken, so you decided you were out.

"Oh, I'm not sure--" you started.

"What, gonna chicken out?" Anakin's voice called. That motherfucker.

"Never," you shot back, plopping your ass down. You weren't sure there was a way to win truth or dare, but you were going to find it, goddamn it.

"Okay, Rex. Truth or dare?" Jesse started. You'd only met him once, but he had a nice voice and a glint in his eye that made you like him immediately.

"Dare," he responded gruffly. Some oohs peppered the room as they watched their intrepid assistant captain about to get loose. Jesse thought for a moment.

"Take two shots!" The crowd chanted as Rex sighed, poured himself two shots of tequila, and downed them with only a small wince. After he was done, it was his turn.

"Ahsoka, truth or dare?"

"Truth?" Ahsoka crinkled her nose.

"Aw c'mon Snips. Bo-oring," Anakin teased. Ahsoka shot him a look that said if I weren't across this circle, I would smack you right now.

"Only 'cause y'all can't think of a better dare than drinking," she said. Chuckles bubbled through the room.

"Fine, then, have you ever kissed Lux Bonteri?" Rex's question apparently hit the nail on the head as all the color drained out of Ahsoka's face.

"I changed my mind. Dare." Ahsoka's eyes were wide, and you knew why. She and Lux had kind of had a thing going, but he was on another school's team. She'd come back home after matches with stories about what he said, asking if you thought it was romantic or platonic. But she'd never admit to doing anything with a member of their fiercest competition. Rex rolled his eyes as people booed, Anakin especially loudly.

"Fine, fine. I dare you to… call your ex," Rex conceded. That was easy enough for Ahsoka, given that her only ex was Barriss, who she was still good friends with. Barriss had broken it off to focus on work over a year ago, and it had been hard on Ahsoka at first, but they got over it and were back to just being a little bit awkward. With an eye roll and a scoff, Ahsoka pulled out Barriss's contact and pressed the call button. The phone rang out on speaker, just getting Barriss's voicemail. "There, ya happy?" Ahsoka asked, then turned to someone else.

The game went around and around, questions about the last time someone had sex and dares to kiss someone else flying across the room as the team members who obviously knew each other too well publicly tortured one another. Eventually, someone said your name.

"Truth or dare?" It was Echo, who Ahsoka had told you was finally competing again after tearing his ACL. He had kind eyes, and the room seemed electric, so you made your choice without much thought.

"Uh, dare?" Echo smiled in a way that seemed apologetic, and you realized that perhaps this was a terrible idea. Was the room holding its breath, or was it just you?

"Okay, I dare you to straddle Anakin for three minutes." The room erupted, cheers and hollers coming from every player in the nearby vicinity. "Get it, Cap" came from somewhere on your right, and a whistle came from your left. Anakin looked white as a sheet, and you noticed he was staring at Echo with murder in his eyes. They'd pay for that in practice, most likely. He was leant back on his arms, legs criss-crossed, but the position suddenly looked tense. A muscle in his jaw bulged. The chants weren't stopping, and you decided to get it over with.

Whether it was the alcohol coursing through you or some newfound bravery, you weren't sure, but you started moving over to Anakin, who was three seats to your right, near a wall. He made eye contact with you, his gaze softening, and you could practically hear him asking you if you were okay with this. You were, you realized. It was probably the alcohol talking. The wolf whistles of the other players faded away, and sitting on his lap suddenly became the only thing you wanted.

You hitched one leg across Anakin's body, then sank down so that you were sitting on him. The rough material of his jeans slid against your bare thighs, and you cursed your choice not to wear pants. Your stomach was pressed to his chest, and you noticed that, even though your cleavage was in his eyeline and you always thought he was easily swayed by tits and ass, his eyes were intently staring into yours. In your shadow and the dark light, they were blown wide, the black almost consuming his blue irises. A world away, someone yelled that they had started a timer.

Somewhere behind your back, Ahsoka slipped Echo five bucks. You wouldn't have noticed if she had done it in front of you, because you were too busy trying to slow the beating of your heart. Or was that his? You couldn't tell. Everything was a bit fuzzy. In this position, you were above him for the first time, looking down at those eyes that were casting you a look that churned something inside you. With that look, you were back in the lab, and he was telling you to jump up onto the table, and his hands were all over you. You'd lose yourself in that moment, if you could.

Anakin's eyes traveled down your figure with a hard gulp that bobbed his Adam's apple. His gaze lingered on your low-cut front, tracing over the seams, then reaching down to your thighs. In your drunken state, you hadn't noticed the amount of skin that was exposed when your dress rode up. He definitely did. You felt something slowly changing beneath you, and it took you a second to comprehend that he was getting hard. Because of you. You rationalized it as the reaction any person with a penis would have to being straddled like that. Right?

His heavy breathing seemed to confirm it, and Anakin mouthed 'sorry' when he felt himself press against you subtly. You distinctly did not mind. His eyes flicked down between your legs, where the skirt had ridden up so that one wrong--or right--move would let him see what was underneath it. Him seeing you didn't bother you one bit, actually. You kind of wanted him to put a hand to you, press his fingers inside you. Maybe he could take you upstairs to one of the rooms and fuck you furiously. Or maybe you could shove what you were feeling against your legs into your throat. Or maybe one, then the other.

His gaze met yours again before sliding down to your lips and staying there. The same energy that he had when he was one-upping you, confidently answering a question in class, or telling you to re-solder your work grew in his eyes. That intensity. That fierce desire for success. You found it incredibly attractive then, but now, it was irresistible.

The timer beeped, and you thought of the 3D printer that night in the lab. Cockblocks, the both of them. The others in the room cheered as you got off him instantly, then slinked back to your usual seat. Now that you were sitting on your own, it became obvious that the heat between your thighs was not entirely from his legs warming you up. You pulled the hem of your skirt down just a tad. The adrenaline of the moment hadn't stopped, even though you were reminded of the existence of the crowd that had just watched you. You didn't want it to end. You'd give anything for the room to be empty right now, like the lab at night. You pulled out your phone and sent a message to Anakin, your fingers wobbly on the keyboard.

Upstairs. Follow me in 3 mind, the text said. Fuck. Maybe you were a bit drunk. *Mins, you corrected. Anakin checked his phone almost instantly, his eyes still locked on you from before, and quickly typed something back. k. You waited two more rounds of questions before getting up.

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom," you said to Ahsoka, who was absorbed in some kind of debate with Fives and Cody. She nodded at you, and then you were off. You weaved through people, up to the floor with the bedrooms, which was much less populated than the downstairs. There were a few rooms that seemed either occupied or locked, but one at the end of the hall sat ajar. You entered, leaving the door cracked so Anakin would know where you were, then sat down on the bed. It was a twin, in a decently clean room that had a bunch of posters for bands along the walls. Whoever lived here really liked Pink Floyd, apparently. It was actually nice up there; the music was pumping through the building, but it was a nice backdrop this far from the speakers. The window was open, so the cool breeze was flowing.

A few moments later, the door opened. The second you saw Anakin, you pounced on him. He let out a slightly surprised mmph, but then feverishly kissed you back. Anakin tasted like alcohol and orange juice, but you didn't mind. As long as he was kissing you, he could taste however he wanted. One of his hands scrabbled behind him to find the door handle and shut it, while the other came up to your jaw. Whatever desires he had downstairs, he was clearly showing them now. His hand went down to grab your ass, his fingers pressing into the soft flesh. You pressed yourself against him, just like you were downstairs, your whole bodies melded together until you didn't know where he began and you ended. The way Anakin kissed you was intoxicating, more so than any of the shots you had taken that night. More than any drug you would ever take. That fire, that anger-desire-passion-whatever that burned in you intensified until the music downstairs and the unfamiliar surroundings faded away, and all you could feel was him.

You rocked your hips forward, just to test his response, and he growled into your mouth with a ferocity you didn't expect, but loved anyway. Fuck, you'd do anything to hear that again, to hear it all the time. He pulled your hips into his, grinding against you in the process.

Suddenly, he twisted around so he was pressing you against the door with his body enveloping you. Anakin trailed down from your lips to your jaw to your neck. The little nips and wet kisses were driving you wild, so you decided to return the favor and snaked your hand down his chest, which was shockingly hard and muscular, until you reached the hem of his shirt. Your fingers toyed with the edges where his skin met the soft cotton, and you could feel his ragged intake of breath when you trailed even further up. He pulled away, his breathing still heavy. You thought and hoped he would take his shirt off. To show you what you'd seen on the rare times his shirt had ridden up while he took off a hoodie or jacket. Instead, he just looked at you and stopped.

"Fuck me, please," you whispered into the room. For a moment, he looked like he was strongly considering it, and you found yourself praying he would say yes.

"How many drinks have you had?"

"I don't know, like four? Does it matter?" You shrugged. "It doesn't change that I want you," you whispered in a way you hoped was seductive. Anakin got off you so quickly that you were almost hurt, but he still remained close enough that it soothed the sting.

"I'm sorry. It's going to kill me to say this, but we shouldn't do this now. I've only had one drink and you're clearly not thinking straight," he said. His eyes were so full of concern that you almost didn't get mad at him. Almost.

"No, I'm thinking very straight. I'll say the alphabet backwards if you want," you offered, getting closer to him again. He took another step back.

"I'm talking about your decisions. I don't want to have sex, and then have you wake up in the morning and regret it. Just--let's go back to yours." He caught the look in your eye, which clearly meant that yes, you would indeed like to go back to your place, then hurried to add more.

"Not like that. You go to sleep. I'll stay in your living room. In the morning, if you still want to do this, I'll fuck you right then and there." Anakin rumbled the last words out so intently, so full of promise, that you finally conceded.

"Fine, let's go. But as soon as I wake up, I'll take you up on that. And then I'm going to the lab. I've gotta get back to work," you said, letting him past you to open the door for you. Anakin chuckled.

"Maybe you're more sober than I thought." The two of you went back down the hallway, past the other closed doors to the staircase, which was somehow even sweatier than you remembered, then past the living room to the entrance. Anakin's hand was clasped around yours the entire time, to make sure he didn't lose you, and you found that, actually, you didn't mind the contact. You wanted to do it a lot, even sometimes outside of sex. But that was the tequila talking. In fact, the tequila was doing a lot of talking right now, and the world was a little bit wobbly and fluid. Your head was heavy, and you found yourself stumbling a few times in your impractical heels.

Somehow, in all the chaos, Anakin found Rex by the entrance. You couldn't hear every word he said, but you caught "too drunk," "going home," and "make sure Ahsoka gets home safely." The 15 minute walk home passed by in a blur because you were a bit too distracted by the smell of Anakin's jacket around your shoulders. You really were stumbling around, and Anakin had to catch you a few times, but you made it back to your dorm in one piece.

This time, instead of going to the west elevator, Anakin followed you to the east, then up, up, all the way until you got to the tenth floor. Your key scraped against the lock, and you could hear Anakin's impatient sigh as you missed the hole again. You finally got it in, then got into your apartment and immediately flopped face-first onto your bed. Everything was a muddled mess after that. Anakin helped you take your shoes off, though not without making fun of you for being so drunk first, and then handed you a makeup wipe. You slapped it across your face a few times, then tossed it to the side. With a quick "good night," Anakin was about to leave your bedroom to crash on the living room couch.

"C'mere," you called, sitting up and stopping him in his tracks. He approached the bed, then sat down next to you until you put your head on his shoulder. This was bad, you knew, but it felt, for a moment, like that didn't matter. "Stay." Your voice was so small, so quiet. Vulnerable.

"I want to, but, no, I really should--" You interrupted him, still a little drunk and groggy but definitely annoyed. Could the bastard stop trying to be chivalrous for one second?

"If you don't stay, I am gonna dunk your Arduino in water. After you've soldered it." The threat was slightly diminished by the way you nuzzled his shoulder, but it worked anyway. Anakin was always a sucker. His deep sigh confirmed it.

"Fine. Just--oh God this is weird--let me take off my jeans if I'm going to sleep in a bed." You nodded and watched as he stood up, then unbuttoned them and pulled them down so he was in loose boxers and his t-shirt. His strong legs were on display, and you filed the image away for later as he crawled in behind you on the tiny twin bed. Your bed was shoved into the corner of the room, so he had to smush himself between you and the wall, but he managed it with only minimal complaining. He was so warm, so big and comforting. Maybe this was the relaxation you needed tonight, not a stupid party. Maybe you could do this more often. Anakin put his arm around your stomach, pulling you into him. Yup, you definitely had to do this more often. His breath tickled the back of your neck delightfully, and his bare legs felt incredible against yours.

"Is this okay?" You didn't have time to answer with anything more than a mhmm before you fell asleep. It was the most restful sleep you had in months, but that wasn't because of Anakin. Maybe it was. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn't so bad. Maybe you liked him a bit, when he wasn't being an ass. But that was probably the tequila talking. It was the tequila, really.

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

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[jolalibrary]

4. green smoke

frankie morales x f!reader | chapter four of do me yourself

summary: a meet-cute in a hardware store? impossible, out of the question. except, that's exactly what happens. a need for screws leads you to a broad-shouldered, brown-eyed man who you're sure is about to change your day, never mind your life.

wordcount: 3.7k chapter warnings: [see masterlist for series warnings] meet cute, flirting. fluff. flirting in person and over IG. frankie calls you 'rainy' (paint related from chp.1) no other descriptions or name used, you wear a date outfit but not specified and the shoes have heels but not mentioned what kind. minor discussion of past canon events incl. drugs. no use of y/n. an: if this as a friends episode this would be called "the one where they talk"

prev chapter | frankie's ig

key: frankie is in bold, you are in italics

Friday soon arrives.

It comes hand-in-hand with a tumultuous storm, bringing with it ominous rumbles echoing through your house. The air feels charged with tension, wrung tight, all sense—as if it’s holding its breath while the world around seems to retreat into darkness. Even if the time on your laptop says 14:43.

Your gaze fixates on beads of rain running down the window, all racing one another—like you have been for several minutes. The steady patter provides a rhythmic backdrop to your solitude, interrupted only by the occasional sighs that escape your lips and the soft tapping of your pencil against the notebook—a feeble attempt at pretending you’re concentrating.

Pretend is the optimum word.

Merely putting on a show of focusing on the task at hand. In reality, your eyes keep flicking to your phone—the one lying silent on the counter, eagerly anticipating the next notification that’ll make it illuminate.

Your work, the one thankfully with a deadline of next week, continues to sit ignored—barely considered, never mind plotted. Because it isn’t what fills your mind.

It’s him.

Just thoughts of him—mind populated with vivid memories that refuse to fade, unable to stop lingering on the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles or his infectious laugh. The one which has dug itself a place into the walls of your home, lit it up.

Then, you think of his lips, the ones that are purposeful, all heavenly. The mere thought of them sends a shiver down your spine, a longing present, spreading—

Unloading a delivery and you’re falling on me.

It's difficult not to smile at his message.

Something he effortlessly elicits from you now. Has done so since the very beginning. A thing he continues to do so the more the two of you speak.

It's giddy, almost teenage-like, the way your heart scampers to catch itself as your fingers try to pretend they're not darting to reply.

Excuse me? Rain. Oh, that is such a dad joke. It was. I’m pretty proud of it. Bet it made you smile. I will not confirm or deny. So that means it did. Shut up.

Thumbs swirling over the screen, you roll your lips, toes twitching on the floor as you grin.

So, how big is the candle going to be in the middle of the table? Ummm, appropriately sized for a restaurant? Hmm, I have only gone on dates with inappropriately sized candles. Are you flirting with me when I’m at work? Are you saying that like you don’t flirt with me when I’m at work? In my defence, you choose your own hours. Do you mind me flirting with you? Not even a little bit. Good. Because guess what I’m wearing right now? Hopefully nothing. I’m wearing sweats and a baggy T-shirt. Still hot. Get back to work, Butterscotch.

You know it’s not long—a handful of hours until you’ll be across from him.

Likely with your smile hurting your cheeks, eyes unable to stand looking away from him for more than a few minutes. Unable to explain or rationalise how straightforward it is with him, how natural it feels to get swept up in all of this and find yourself wanting to be around him.

Something you try to put to the back of your mind, to not clock-watch, not count down. Doing well at it until you hear your phone buzz and see his name appear on your screen.

The laundry you're putting away ignored, the item dropped from your hand to the floor, before wiping your hands on your thighs, taking a measured breath, then lifting the phone to swipe it.

His voice fills your ear almost immediately. All hello and your name, a can you hear me? following.

And your heart skips a beat—missing a whole thud against your ribs as you stare at the outfit hanging on the closet door.

“I’m really sorry—“

And your heart falls. Descends gradually, like a feather freefalling. Doing so until it has nowhere else to go but sit in the hollow void. Disappointment beating, pulsating.

“—Harold… he had to leave early, his heart was playing up and he said he’d come back. But I can’t make him do that, wouldn’t be able to enjoy ourselves if he just—"

“—Frankie—“

“—And I’ve tried to move the reservation, rang the restaurant. But, they’re booked up and I really want to take you there—”

“—Frankie?”

You brush the fabric, the hanger holding on to the top of the door with sheer will as you do so between thumb and finger. Half-smiling—even still. Listening to the way he takes a breath, to the way he cares so much.

“It’s okay,” you interrupt, swallowing, shoving the dismay down. “I… promise.”

The voice you hear back is soft. So tinged with sadness, and regret, you half-want to call him Butterscotch just to make him laugh. “You sure?”

Biting the inside of your cheek, you reassure him, comfort him—voice steady as you do so, "We can reschedule. It's not a problem."

A moment of silence follows, with a sense of letdown settling in the air like fog. It sits there, resting, hanging. Because even if you know it’s just a minor adjustment, a twinge of disappointment still seeps in. Not so much a sharp pang, but a lingering weight that makes your shoulders sag, as though everything had deflated like a balloon slowly losing air.

“Baby… I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you assure him, a smile making its way onto your face despite the circumstances. "There's always next time."

“Not drove you away then?” he half-laughs, one you imagine is a little forced.

“Not even a little bit.”

Sighing, you swear you hear him smile with it. “I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

You grin, nothing but light and easy, “Just make sure next time you can show up, that’ll be a good start."

Frankie laughs, it flowing down your ear before it’s joined by a promise that he will and he can call you later, if you like? A thing which sounds like a good idea, even more so when it's followed by the fact he wishes he could stay—talk, but you know. Nodding to no one but yourself as you bid him goodbye, leaning against the wall—hanging up, full of bittersweet.

You let your head fall against it, rolling it there as your eyes flick back up at your clothes, lingering over it.

And an idea appears.

It grows—smothering over sadness before it blooms.

Then, you’re grinning. One almost as large as you do when he makes you giggle. Almost.

You’re thankful the sign still says open when you step out of your car—fingers tugging at fabric, ensuring it sits how it’s supposed to.

Even for a surprise, you wanted to look as picture-perfect as you should have been entering the restaurant. The paper bags catch your leg, noise crinkling against the air as you yank on the handle—entering, being washed in wood chippings, bleach and paint.

For a moment, one stuck between time and space, you look. Glance. Unsure where to find him, until your eyes land on him and find his head lifting at the sound of your entering.

Whatever Frankie had been in his hand dropped, all forgotten. His mouth parting at the sight of you. Taking you in. Sweeping brown, surprised eyes all over you as heat rises up your neck and brushes over your ears.

“I know I’m a little overdressed for buying a hammer, but…”

Mouth falling open, he looks torn between grinning and speaking. “What are you…”

Shrugging, watching his eyes roam up and down the outfit you’d chosen. The one that had been on the hanger for days—one you’d not thought could be replaced by anything else.

“Well,” you begin, smirking, “My date got caught up at work and I’d been really looking forward to seeing him.”

Frankie smiles, hand rubbing along his jaw as he stares.

“But then, someone told me there’s a secret restaurant here. One behind a metal door that says, Staff Only?”

Dropping his hand, and swiping his tongue across his lips—he slowly moves around the register. Coming to join you as you hold the bags up, the heels of your shoes clicking on the shop floor tiles as you meet him halfway.

“I also suspect that you might not have eaten, since you've been alone for most of the day.”

It’s at that moment his stomach roars. It grinds, what you assume is coffee, before groaning inside of him as he claps a hand on his apron.

“The only problem is,” you say, narrowing your eyes, scrunching your nose. “I… I didn’t know what you would like, so I might have bought a ridiculous amount of food.”

Taking a bag, his eyes widen when he opens it. “You’re staying, right? To help me?”

Reaching inside the bag he didn’t take, you pull out a single, battery-powered candle. “It’s a date.”

He gives you a wide smile, his eyes twinkling with happiness. "I just need to lock up," he says.

You watch with a flutter of excited nervousness as he moves around the store, flipping the sign on the door from 'Open' to 'Closed', and then securing the door. The lock clicks into place, echoing in the quiet store. He then proceeds to shut off the lights, plunging the store into a soft, inviting darkness lit only by the glow from the streetlights outside.

Turning back to you, he extends a hand.

"Shall we?" he asks, his voice filled with anticipation. You place your hand in his, feeling the warmth spreading through your fingers.

As you walk together towards the back of the store, a tinge of excitement flutters in the air. The 'Staff Only' sign looms above the door like a secret entrance to a place you shouldn't be, but with a gentle gesture, he ushers you inside.

You don't miss the way his fingers brush your lower back, the heat they ignite up your spine as his chest meets your back, face close to yours. Lingering, eyes sweeping over you.

"Lemme just..." he whispers, elongating it, before he bends to pull you a chair out—one with three wheels, no back—fingers sliding up to brush over your shoulders as you sit down.

“Careful.”

Swallowing, you suppress the effect he's having on you, forcing a smirk. “Oh, I’ll try, Morales. Don’t want you to have to fill out the accident book.”

“Harold would murder me.”

Snorting, you watch him join you—taking the candle from your hand, flicking it on and placing it directly in the middle before the two of you begin taking food out. He gazes at bundled packaged burgers, stealing a fry from the bag before it’s laid out over the desk.

“So, as it’s our third date.” His eyes flick to you, mid-bite of his food as you twirl a fry in your fingers. “I get to ask you challenging questions, right?”

“Fuck,” he says, under his breath. Grinning. “Alright, let me have it.”

Nudging him with the tip of your shoe he laughs. “Okay. You and Luca’s mom?”

“Ah.”

Grabbing a napkin, he wipes his mouth. “You don’t have to worry.”

“And as everyone in history knows, those words are how people stop worrying.”

Smirking, he turns on the wheely stool, facing you, knees abutting yours. “We haven’t been together since he was born—we… we weren’t even together by the time he reached six months. He… he doesn’t know any different. We have things we say, and truly, she’s a fantastic mom, we have a great co-parenting situation.”

“Okay.”

His fingers land on your knee, dancing over them, light and feathery as he sighs. Heavy. Weighted. It makes you swallow, makes you want to dig your fingers into your leg to stop yourself worrying, thinking—overdramatising whatever it is.

Scratching his head, he rolls his tongue from his cheek to the front of his teeth. “I wasn’t a good person then… a lot of shit had happened—I’d left the service, found myself… haunted, I guess? Me and her, we met, we… seemed good. She seemed good. And then, I…”

Your hand slides over his, one of your fries still in hand as you do. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“I want to.”

Nodding, he half smiles.

And then he does.

He tells you about his days in the army—and the sleepless nights when he was back home. The sense of loss he felt without it, the uniform that meant nothing when he joined a regular job. How flying helicopters for people with money who had no cares in the world began to make him hollow, carving a piece inside of him that didn’t fill with laughter at barbecues and trivia nights. He tells you how he’d rambled to someone about the lack of sleep, before he found a little white bag in his locker—an opportunity, a chance to not overthink.

That it had stayed there for days, almost a week until there had been news about someone he had once worked with.

Then he explained how it wasn’t a problem, but it also very much was. How he was lost, drowning—that people reached out, but the lights had been on, but no one was home. How it became a coping mechanism, a small dose to take the ache away—before he learnt he was going to be a dad. Her worries about him making her ignore the signs, much further on than they thought—and then, one month later, how he failed a drug test.

Trace amounts, barely anything, but still plenty.

His license, revoked—paused. His future dwindled, a baby due to arrive, one he’d heard the heartbeat off at the same time as he found himself at the threat of being alone. A second chance dangled, offered—do better, Frank. Don’t be selfish.

“—but, I didn’t change. Don’t change.”

Your heart falls, and descends.

Watching him shake his head, grabbing a handful of fries before stuffing them into his mouth as he chews, and you pick at one from your own box.

“Things were good—Luca, he had ten toes, ten fingers. He was great, happy. It made us being good seem real? But, it lingered, y’know? If work kept me later, there was this distrust, this question. And I couldn’t blame her, didn’t. Never would either. I broke that, I know I did. But…”

“It wasn’t healthy?”

Shrugging, he swallows, before nodding. “Then, I helped a friend, one from my squad. Had to… it was dangerous. I was gone longer than I said—and she worried, panicked. I knew before I left that when I got back I’d likely find my stuff packed—not that I blame her. I know we tried. But, I broke it. But now we’re better… better co-parents than partners, you know?”

Nodding, you chew, rolling the salt on your lips together. A beat passes, ice clanging in the drinks, cartons scratching against the table as the two of you eat.

“That was probably a lot.”

“It’s okay. Are you… are you good now?”

Nodding, he chews another fry. “Clean since Luca was born. Five years, fifty-seven days.”

“Well, I know this might be weird to say, but I’m proud of you.”

Smiling, he chews his cheek, meeting your eyes for the first time since he began sharing. “You’re a bit too good for me, you know that?”

Smirking, you steal one of his fries. “Oh, a hundred per cent. You might have a bunch of followers and good taste in paint colours, but did you know that I can sand down a dresser to the point a prominent Instagram DIYer has told me ‘I did a good job’.”

“Doesn’t sound that trustworthy. Bet he doesn’t know what you call wrenches.”

Pouting, you narrow your eyes as he laughs. “Thank you for telling me.”

Nodding, he rolls his lips. “I had to… ‘cause… are we enacting third date-talk honesty?”

“Of course.”

Half-smiling, he nudges himself closer on the stool. “I really like you.”

Biting the inside of your cheek, you look up at the ceiling, before grabbing his knees and wheeling yourself closer. “I quite like you too.”

Smile spreading, he places his hands on top of yours. “Yeah? Because I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to… run from all of that.”

Smirking, you try to move closer, even if the wheels of both stools try to prevent you. “Did you know, honesty is really, really hot?”

Brows raising, chin lifting, his lips slide further into his cheek. “I’m glad you came.”

“I’m glad too.”

Swallowing, his fingers slide in between yours, eyes flicking from one eye to the other. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Dangerous, that.”

“Well, I’ve seen your house now.”

Nodding, you smile. Feeling it, whatever he’s going to say, ask, think lingering in the silence. His grin widens, a spark igniting in his eyes that sends a rush of warmth through you.

“So, I think it only seems fair you see mine.”

Wiping your hands on your napkin, licking your lips as you cross a leg over the other. “Well, for fair sake I definitely should.”

“Do you want to… now?”

“Tonight?”

Nodding, that same flush of pink rises up his neck, up his jaw.

Smirking, you loosen your hand from his—resting your palm on his cheek, elbow on your knee. “I’d like that.”

The car ride to his should be tense, but it isn't.

Instead, it's filled with soft laughter, teasing comments and shared glances—your fingers twitching, wondering whether a hand on his knee is too soon. Even when everything else feels so normal, natural.

When he pulls up outside his place, anticipation fills the air—a rush of warmth flooding through you, making your fingers clamp together and stare out at the place as he says, this is it.

It’s nice, well-kept—charming, from what you can already tell. Eyes spot chalk drawings on the patio, lit up by the outside lights and a plastic red car close to where he's parked.

“Luca has some good parking,” you smile, pointing to it next to you both. “You learn from him, or?”

Smirking, he undoes his belt. “Maybe, I taught him how to park. I’m very good with heavy transportation.”

You don’t miss the way he emphasises the sentence. Your 'oh' is swallowed by the sound of him opening the door and telling you to wait.

Watching as he moves around the vehicle, his eyes holding yours. Earlier, you'd been thankful that the rain had taken a pause; now you wished it hadn't stopped its lashings that glued clothing to skin, thighs pressing together on the seat before the door beside you opens.

“What a gentleman.”

“Just wanted another chance to chance to check you out, really.”

Swatting him, he takes your hand, his laugh blending with yours as he leads you up to his front door.

If he feels nervous, he doesn’t show it. Finding his keys and slides one into the lock without missing. Opening the door without as much as an awkward shove of the door.

If anything, it’s effortless. It not even squeaking or catching as he pushes it open.

“It’s not a lot…” he begins.

But he couldn’t be more wrong.

It’s cosy and warm. Exuding an unmistakable homeliness that immediately comforts you. Dark woods, off-whites, and splashes of orange, caramel, and greens intertwine harmoniously, creating a space that feels both freshly decorated and deeply loved. A balance you assume exists because of him being the one to bring it all together, knowing from the videos you've seen how talented he is.

As you glance around, you begin to see the traces of the Frankie you’ve been getting to know. Photographs of him at the beach, with his son, with friends and more with Luca at varying ages.

Then, there are the plants. An assorted mix of them, some big that you remember from photos, some greener than others—some tall and in plants with animal faces like raccoons and beavers, others in decorative pots placed on shelves.

As you step in further, you spot furniture you recognise from videos—even noting the stacked pile of books from a photo he’d shared recently and a record player on a side table.

“C’mon, let me show you around.”

He leads you, hand in yours, showing you his well-equipped kitchen, and dining space. Occasionally, he points things out, like the markings on a wall he’s using to measure how tall Luca gets and the scuff marks from dragging the dining table in after varnishing it. Before finally, the two of you are outside the half-open door to his bedroom.

Frankie giving you a wink, bodies almost flush.

“That where the magic happens?”

“Not usually…”

"Maybe that's cause people haven't been saying the right magic words." Shrugging, you lick your lower lip, staring at the beading on the door. "I should tell you, I've heard I'm quite good at magic words..."

You let it linger, sit. Before you turn on your heel, fingers brushing over a table as you head back in the direction of his living room.

He follows, a step or two behind, letting you and your eyes capture all the personal touches before you feel fingers on your wrist, tugging you back, body flush to his.

Wrapping an arm around your waist, you find your throat dry—eyes flicking to his mouth.

“Go take a seat, I’ll bring us a drink.”

It’s soft, the nod you do as he slips his hand from your waist. You move, almost on auto-pilot, to sit down on his sofa, running your fingers over a cushion—one stitched with greens, golds and oranges.

When he reappears, you look up at him, noticing the hint of nerves in his gaze as you plaster on a reassuring smile as he places them down on the coffee table.

Slowly, you reach out, squeezing his hand, "Your home is lovely, Frankie."

He chuckles, a soft blush creeping up his cheeks as he joins sitting down. "Yeah?"

Nodding, you press your knee against his. “So.”

“So.”

With a smirk, you draw a measured breath. “I believe... I want to kiss you now.”

Swallowing, his gaze flickers to your lips, lingering, before snapping back up to your eyes. Warmth spreads over your cheeks, neck and ears. “I believe you should, Rainy.”

A response there, nestled between teeth and tongue, is muffled as his lips meet yours—for the first time in several days.

an: as a warning, the next chapter will include smut. if you wish to skip the smut, you can miss the chapter as there will be no other scenes. the following chapter will pick up the next morning.

NEXT CHAPTER ->

[aethon-recs]

This Week in Tomarrymort (12 – 19 September 2024)

Hi everyone, so sorry this is a couple of days late this week! Will be back on the normally scheduled time next week!

As with last week, please feel free to add a little overview/summary about your update to the notes! I so enjoyed reading all the notes last week 🤍

(And in case you missed, a recap of the extra notes from last week!)

Ills of Murder by @shadow-of-the-eclipse (E, 37k, WIP) [source] "Harry comes in swinging from a bleak version of sixth and seventh years, fully intending to kill Tom. Unfortunately it seems the only people Tom and Harry are incapable of killing is the other. Harry's on attempt 4 and counting and this time he gives up on spells and decides to punch Tom Riddle's nose off. Tom's still utterly enamoured with him." friend of the devil (a friend of mine) by @shyinsunlight (E, 11k, WIP) [source] "When after four long years Harry and Tom meet again, the world turns upside down. Or maybe it was upside down all along, and it’s now flipping back over." These Fragments We've Shored by @rowena-rain (M, 23k, WIP) [source] "Things have gone from bad to worse, and Harry is finally about ready to take matters into his own hands…even if it means defying the normal laws of Magic and actually doing something for himself for once. (Guess which one will be harder for him 😂) In this update, Harry and Voldemort unexpectedly come face to face for the first time since the Dark Lord's death…which leads to a disturbing realization for Harry." Anytime, Anywhere, Always by @moontearpensfic (E, 13k, WIP) [source] "A Harry-corrupts-Tom AU: Tom expects to feel victorious at his greatest enemy's confession. Instead, he develops a crush on him." the crushing weight of cancelling your fav by @cindle-writes (M, 4k, complete) [source] "Tom Riddle has made millions and built a cult following around his politics-themed online stream, much to his boyfriend Harry’s bemusement. However, bemusement quickly turns into concern when Harry meets one of Tom’s biggest, most fervent fanboys, Regulus Black."

Now onto the updates from this week!

*

Tomarrymort One Shots and Completed Fic

Chapter 22 (Completed) of A Shot in the Dark by Ragdolly

One Shot | The Dinner by moontear for @moontearpensfic

One Shot | There's Something About (The Way You Are) by Ragdolly

*

Tomarrymort Ongoing Fics

Chapter 12 of the stars, my destination by @milkandmoon-ao3

Chapter 1 of bad moon rising by sansaerys

Chapter 11 of Sits the wind in that quarter by @mosiva

Chapter 2 of a pound of flesh by @ictyn

Chapter 8 of Saint Harry by @alenablack @chaos-bear

Chapter 34 of Part One - The Solitude of Suffering by @iseliljathedreamer

Chapter 18 of Date Ideas for the Linguistically Inclined by Antique_Mango

Chapter 14 of Double-Aspect Paradox by TimaeusKosmou

Chapter 6 of God is a Wizard by @onehitpleb

Chapters 121 through 123 of Liquida Tenebris (Remastered) by @dymis

Chapter 17 of Learning to love by @l-archiduchesse

Chapter 1 of The Cosmos In Your Eyes by @v33r00

Chapter 7 of Do It Over by @thefangirlibrarian

Chapter 6 of These Fragments We've Shored by @rowena-rain

Chapter 21 of Time Stumbler by Wintumn

Chapter 4 of Hole in the Wall by tomrddle

Chapters 1 through 3 of Fetters of the Damned by @sc0rpiflow3r

Chapter 16 of Outrunning the Villain in You by @zenyteehee

Chapter 5 of midnight train by @girl-with-goats

Chapter 43 of Of Monsters, Of Men by @ca-xan-dra

Chapter 2 of the body is a blade by @lovely-lotus

Chapter 2 of Dream a little dream (of me) by @cenedrariva

Chapter 12 of Just Business by @holaolla1

*

[thatfeelinwhenyou]

HANDS ON YOU — lee heeseung

IN WHICH; I-LAND 2 happened and you debuted first place as the leader of LUMIÈRE. Having been told that your group is involved in a lore crossover with ENHYPEN, you navigate work, friendship, and love while trying to make it in an industry filled with animosity and condemnation. When life throws you lemons, you gotta make lemonades chuck it right back!

PAIRING: idol!heeseung x idol!fem!reader

GENRE: smau, strangers to lovers, celebrity x celebrity, fluff, don’t let the first part of the smau fool you i swear it’s full on angst towards the end, slowest of the slow burns…

WARNINGS: contains profanities, horrible humour, kys/kms jokes, sexual innuendos, spelling errors, incorrect timestamps, probably some cringe-worthy moments, cyberbullying, racist and misogynistic comments made about reader, death threats, mentions/depictions of overworking, insomnia, eating disorders, not proofread etc. (i am not in anyway romanticising, encouraging or condoning the usage of these topics. purely for the plot and development of the story.)

STATUS: completed! (04/06/2023 – 08/08/2023)

AUTHOR'S NOTE: please read! literally my first attempt at a smau so please don't flame me 💀 i must warn y’all that the timestamps are really all over the place, so DO NOT pay attention to them until stated. the content and depiction of the characters in this smau do not in anyway represent them in real life. chapters with ‘(hw)’ next to them indicates that they are half-written, in case y’all accidentally skip over it! last but not least, if you do end up enjoying it please like, comment (absolutely love reading comments!), and reblog! without further ado, enjoy!!

p.s this was written way before the actual airing of I-LAND 2 and not meant to be connected with the real show/contestants in anyway. this was also before i found out you can actually put more than 10 photos in one post 🤡

TAGS: #tfwy handsonyou

prologue - introducing LUMIÈRE part 1 | part 2

profile. one | two

chapter 1 - number 1 hater

chapter 2 - infant

chapter 3 - #prayersformarklee ✊🤞

chapter 4 - dog-eater…? (hw)

chapter 5 - breaking records(?)

chapter 6 - still employed!

chapter 7 - bad publicity is still publicity

chapter 8 - to hee or not to hee

chapter 9 - the heist

chapter 10 - trigger warning

chapter 11 - soompitydimpity

chapter 12 - chronic insomnia

chapter 13 - to hee after all

chapter 14 - wild pokémon heeseungie

chapter 15 - artists

chapter 16 - that should be me

chapter 17 - bills

chapter 18 - the elephant in the room (hw)

chapter 19 - if you let me

chapter 20 - trouble? travel! (hw)

chapter 21 - caught in a lie

chapter 22 - always on your side

chapter 23 - princess syndrome

chapter 24 - you (hw)

chapter 25 - golden thread

chapter 26 - way back home (hw)

chapter 27 - uh oh…

chapter 28 - fight or flight

chapter 29 - close friends

chapter 30 - paradoxx invasion

chapter 31 - ramen

chapter 32 - 080923 (hw)

chapter 33 - driver

chapter 34 - demure and honest

chapter 35 - p-platonic?!?

chapter 36 - friends don’t look at friends that way

chapter 37 - bungeoppang

chapter 38 - back to the way things were..?

chapter 39 - wheel of fortune

chapter 40 - i miss holding your hand (hw)

chapter 41 - sooha (real)

chapter 42 - rizzseung

chapter 43 - project luminescence

chapter 44 - i will go to you like the first snow (hw)

chapter 45 - it’s awfully quiet…

chapter 46 - jake pick me era?

chapter 47 - my life without you is a misery

chapter 48 - your honour, i’m innocent

chapter 49 - breaking my silence

chapter 50 - he’s being exploited!

chapter 51 (finale) - number 1 fan (hw)

epilogue - forever ruined by you

bonus chapter!

the exes talk

Copyright© 2023 thatfeelinwhenyou All Rights Reserved

[toournextadventure]

everyone but her pt.43

Summary: Wednesday knows she'll discover the killer. She will end this string of disasters. Even if it's the last thing she'll ever do.

Word Count: 5.5k Warnings: swearing, blood, canon typical violence Pairing: Wednesday Addams x Reader A/N: This has maybe two or three allusions to the one-shot revenge, but it's not required to read before this chapter. (Masterlist)

The summer air was starting to give way to fall in the most minuscule of ways. Heat still enveloped the atmosphere, leaving you miserable and sticky with a sheen layer of sweat. Wednesday liked seeing you with a layer of sweat covering your skin. It was attractive in a primal way that she wouldn’t dare be ashamed of. The only thing she didn’t like was your attitude.

Which had only gotten worse since the charity event.

You weren’t unkind, not intentionally. It was evident in the guilt written across your face whenever you snapped at someone or something. Not too long ago, you had snapped at Wednesday after she had asked to assist you with making dinner. She had stood her ground as you berated her, saying you were “more than capable of cooking on my own, I’m not inept.” No sooner had the words left your lips had you turned to face her with tears in your eyes.

Of course you had apologised instantly, incessantly. Never had you said something to her with the intent to injure. Not unless you were already hurting over something you had yet to talk with her about. She knew this, knew your insecurity with emotions. After all, she was learning along with you, and it was no easy journey.

But those very instances were what led Wednesday to struggle with figuring out how best to assist you. Nights passed where you were found unconscious on the couch, all the lights on and the television still playing. It was usually something childish; a technique you and Enid shared in common to disallow the nightmares from reappearing.

Even when Wednesday attempted to stay awake with you, insisting she preferred your company, the nightmares prevailed. Or perhaps they weren’t nightmares, but intrusive thoughts. She could hear you mumbling to yourself, both conscious and not, arguing with someone who wasn’t there. If you finally managed to sleep, you twitched and whined and cried.

Initially, she had believed you were talking to Nicky; she remembered when you had told her you could still see him. For a long while, she had believed that was who you were talking to. She knew siblings bickered and fought, it wasn’t too unusual. After all, she and Pugsley fought as well, it was quite common.

She wasn’t so confident in her beliefs after the fire.

You were more on edge, jumping at the slightest of noises. And after the charity, your reactions had gotten worse. If you were unaware of her presence, you talked in a normal tone, arguing with whoever you could see. Or perhaps you didn’t see anyone at all; after all, you weren’t a Seer. Whatever was inside your head, she had no idea. All she knew was it was slowly driving you insane, and she couldn’t help.

I’m scared, you had said once. I don’t think I’m alone in my mind. She had asked her mother what it could mean, but she had no concrete answers. And it wasn’t like she could very well ask you, seeing as you were unaware of what was going on as well.

The only saving grace through the entire summer was Eugene graduating from Nevermore and getting accepted into the same university they all attended. For the first time in years, Wednesday saw you smile effortlessly. You had instantly invited Eugene out for a night, and he had eagerly accepted. She enjoyed seeing you happy. If she had known all those years ago that her forcing you to hang out with Eugene would have led to this sort of friendship, she would have never believed it.

“Don’t go into the woods,” Wednesday said when you grabbed your keys by the door.

“Why?” You asked.

Images flashed in her mind of the woods. The two people from her last vision were standing there in their own blood, looking directly into her soul. Surely her visions didn’t always come true. Whatever the case, she wouldn’t let this one come to pass.

“Every time you two have gone into the woods, you’ve come home injured,” she said instead without an ounce of hesitation.

“The first time was a full moon, and the second was a freak accident,” you argued, entirely too stubborn to accept defeat so easily. “We’re a perfect duo.”

“A perfect duo of tomfoolery,” she said.

You smiled. “I like that word,” you whispered. “But quit worrying, we’re just going to get coffee.”

“In town?”

“No, in the forest,” you chimed back. Wednesday turned just enough to give you the look she knew you hated. “Of course it’s in town, love,” you chuckled.

She turned back to face the overly large Investigation Board you had bought for the apartment. Though she loved her original one, it was hard to deny she had needed the extra space. Information came to light almost faster than she could keep up with, and her one board had long since become crowded. With your new addition, she could continue to investigate without any worries.

Boots hit the ground lightly, getting closer until an arm snaked around her waist. It used to startle her, sending her pulse skyrocketing before she remembered who it was. Now, it was a comfort. Your warmth scorched its way to her soul, and the silent possessiveness of the act was not lost on her. It was a character trait you had picked up after the gala. She wasn’t upset about it.

“We’ll be safe,” you said softly, your breath brushing against the shell of her ear. “My phone is charged this time.”

“Is Eugene’s?” She asks.

“Let me check,” you said. Behind her, you shifted to your other foot and leaned down to her other ear. “Yeah, it’s good.”

She knew you didn’t check.

“No unplanned excursions without prior warning,” she said. Demanded. Pleaded. It was humiliating.

But when she thought of the two previous instances you had been caught in the woods with Eugene - three, if she included when you had gone with Yoko - she lost any care about how she sounded. Too many times she had seen you on the brink of either death or mental anguish. Or both. If pleading for you to be careful was humiliating, then she would put her pride aside for the time being.

“If we do something else, I’ll call,” you said.

“If I do not answer?”

“I’ll call Enid,” you answered immediately.

Good. She had trained you well.

“Inform Eugene that I said hello,” she said.

“Yes ma’am,” you said.

Behind her, you shifted, pulling her back into you ever so slightly. Not enough to disrupt her train of thought - though you had done that already - simply to get her attention. Warm lips pressed lightly to the back of her neck and, not for the first nor last time, she thought of how unusual the comfort was.

Perhaps you had made her into her mother after all.

Oh. Oh, that was a horrific thought.

“We’ll go over the board when I get back?” You asked when you stepped away and made your way to the door.

“I’ll have my findings in bullet points,” she said without turning to face you.

“Sounds good, I'll be back!” You called out. Far louder than necessary, but that was rather typical.

Wednesday didn’t answer. Which, quite frankly, was also rather typical. She was too focused on trying to find out how to get you unconnected from the list of suspects. Of course, she knew you weren’t the one that had attacked those fraternity boys, or your therapist, or Ash and Joel. She knew, because you had told her you hadn’t.

Perhaps it was foolish to believe a suspect, but she trusted you implicitly.

Which left her feeling at a loss for new leads.

Your mother’s words echoed in her head. This curse prevailed long before Nicholas. Surely that hadn’t just been a threat. There wasn’t much that she knew about your mother, but she did know the woman was calculating. Raised in a higher society that valued cold precision over reckless action.

Was it a genuine curse? She was well aware of them, Grandmama Addams had taught her everything she knew. Her mother had taught her everything she knew. If it was a genuine curse, there would be some way to break it. Perhaps, if she talked with your mother, she could learn the nature of your downfall and reverse it.

The thought of something surrounding you, enveloping you in chaos and distress was unsettling. Wednesday was well versed in chaos and distress, she craved it, actively sought after it even. But when it involved you? She had seen your troubles enough over the years she had known you, she knew you didn’t need any help from outside forces.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to talk with your mother after all. Would you hate her terribly for it? Surely not, she was doing it for you, after all. If it could help you have a normal life like you wished, then there would be no problem at all. You just needed to trust her.

Now all she needed to do was find a time to make it happen.

“Hey Wil-,” Wednesday turned quickly to see Enid stopped in the doorway, “-um, ew.”

Of course. The Investigation Board.

“Finding any answers?” Enid asked as she precariously entered the apartment.

Wednesday huffed. “No.” Her arms sat crossed over her chest. “Though I have a list of suspects.”

“Is your girlfriend anywhere on that list?” Enid asked cautiously with hands clasped tightly behind her back.

“Of course not,” she said quickly. “Why would she be?”

“Well.” Enid let the end of the word drag out. “Okay listen,” she sighed. “You know I totes love her to death.” Wednesday nodded once. “But don’t you think it’s a little suspicious that everything happening seems to revolve around her?”

Well, she didn’t like that train of thought one bit.

“All of her whereabouts have been accounted for since everything started,” Wednesday defended.

“Have they?” Enid asked. “No one knew for sure where she was when Mac was murdered.��

“At the shop, there were cameras.”

“That weren’t working,” Enid said quickly.

“I was by her side the entire fraternity party.”

“Until you went to round everybody up.”

“We were together when we discovered the murders of her parents’ acquaintances.”

“How about before they were discovered?”

Wednesday opened her mouth to argue. Of course she had been with you the entire time. Where else would you have been if not by her side? It wasn’t like you would simply run away, commit a murder, and come back like nothing had ever happened. Besides, every new murder had seemed to shock you, and you weren’t a good actor. She would have noticed if it wasn’t genuine.

Her mouth slowly fell closed. She supposed you had left before at least one of the murders. Or… all of them. No, that was impossible, you couldn’t have done such a thing. You had been gone for reasonable times, and never unaccounted for. Even if you hadn’t told Wednesday personally, you had told someone else. There was no possibility that it was you.

“I mean, she did kill those Canadian guys when she was younger,” Enid said with a shrug.

Wednesday did her best to push the thought of her mind. As usual.

“Have you found anything useful?” Enid asked softly, changing the train of thought either nary a hitch.

Wednesday turned to face her. “Do you truly wish to know?”

She hummed and nodded.

Not that there was much to tell. Wednesday went over the knife wounds, and the attempt to blame a werewolf (which she was, appropriately so, angry about). About the possibilities of a siren, or shapeshifter, or who knew what else (you had both agreed it was still up in the air). Everything she knew, she informed Enid of.

Much to her surprise, Enid didn’t faint at the autopsy photos.

“Are they even still out there?” Enid asked as she stepped closer, her shoulder brushing gently against Wednesday’s. “It’s been a while since the last one.”

“The family house burned down only a few months ago.”

“Well yeah, that was weird, but I mean the murders,” Enid said. “We technically can’t say if the two were related.”

“They’re out there,” Wednesday said definitively.

A phone vibrated on the small dining table. She left Enid to look at the board as she picked the phone up. Anxiety bubbled up into her chest at your name, but when she swiped the phone open and read the message, it eased.

“Everything okay?” Enid asked.

“Y/N and Eugene are going to lunch with Devan and Casey,” Wednesday said as she placed the phone back on the table.

“I’m glad they all get to hang out,” Enid said as she finally placed herself on the couch. It only took her a moment to find the remote and put something on the television.

As am I, Wednesday thought before situating herself beside Enid. She was elated that you were hanging out with Eugene again. You had sighed and moaned about missing Eugene more times than she could count. You had both talked on the phone plenty of times and played your silly little games together, but it wasn’t the same. Or so you said, she believed it was rather similar.

Though she could have done without you seeing Casey and Devan. They were most certainly on her list of suspects.

Enid didn’t stay long; a bit unusual for her, though it was a full moon later so it could be excused. Her absence, along with yours, left the apartment quiet. Cold. An unusual situation to be stuck in. Wednesday wondered when she had started to rely on your presence to make the living space feel complete.

Her eyes trailed away from the television. Your things were so interspersed with hers that she was unsure what belonged to who. That dagger on the shelf had belonged to her, but you had stolen it at Nevermore, and now it sat wedged perfectly between a handmade mug and an old Addams vial of poison. An heirloom if ever there was one.

If one were to open the closet, one would assume it was split perfectly in half. Wednesday’s dark wardrobe in contrast to your carefree, occasionally bright and colourful one. Yet that’s not what they would find. They would find black mixed with colour, items not belonging to one person but to you both. With the exception of a few items that didn’t fit the other, everything was shared amongst you both.

Though she had fought the idea at first there were even… photographs hanging around the apartment. She knew of the paintings in the Addams family home, all of her ancestors. But this was different. To know she was in the photographs with you, together, showing the most vulnerable of emotions around you. It was solidified in a physical manifestation, laid bare for the world to see. Or the photographs you had taken without her knowledge, of her and the friend group and your family and her family. It lit a fire in her chest that she had initially thought was horrific.

She was wrong.

As much as she despised the thought, she wondered if her mother had seen such a thing happening. Had she predicted that you would be so intertwined in Wednesday’s life? That if someone wished to see you separated, they would have to surgically remove each part with inhuman precision.

And she found a surprising amount of joy in that fact.

Wednesday found herself still staring at those pictures when the door to the apartment opened. There you stood, bags in your hands and an unusually serene look on your face. She liked seeing you come back to the apartment. To home. Your shared home. She wished to have you come home to her every night for the rest of your lives.

“Are you okay?” You asked as you closed the door behind you.

Wednesday hesitated. “Of course,” she said, “why wouldn’t I be?”

“It’s your writing time,” you said with a head gesture toward the typewriter.

Of course. She had nearly forgotten you cared enough to remember - and respect - her schedule. Something you had done from the moment you met her, and yet it still surprised her. Though she was stuck in her own determinations, she should have realised then that you were different. Special.

“I'm quite content to skip my writing time today,” Wednesday said.

You smiled. “Too busy with the Board?”

She hummed in response. It was better for you to believe she was investigating. As soft as you had made her over the years, she didn't have the humility to inform you of her actual actions throughout the day. To tell you she had done nothing but think of your life together.

“Oh,” you said from the kitchen, “I brought dinner!”

It wasn’t even nearing the proximity of dinner time.

You reappeared with empty hands. “Chung had a few pickup orders that were never picked up,” you explained as you walked toward the couch. “Eugene took some home and I gave some to Ash since, you know, she claims I’m going to get her killed.”

You fell onto the couch, and your hand instinctively went to her knee. The skin on your palms was unbearably rough and calloused. From years of use, whether it be climbing or carpentry or helping your family, your skin was what she could consider “worn.” Yet when you touched her, all she could feel was the gentleness underneath the rough exterior. The love and care you put into every movement around her.

She stiffened. There. This softness was the perfect motivation to ease whatever curse had been laid upon you.

“Did you give any to Joel?” She asked. You tilted your head. “Since the same argument can be used for both him and Ash.”

“I’m not gonna get him killed,” you mumbled. Even softer, “he wasn’t home.”

Wednesday nodded in answer. Silence enveloped the room as you both sat on the couch and looked off into nothing. Something was playing on the television, but she couldn’t have said what. The sound was down so truly, it didn’t matter. Your fingers rubbed gentle circles on the inside of her knee.

Your head tilted once, then again.

“Is it morbid that we have pictures of dead bodies in our living room?” You asked.

She looked back at the Investigation Board taking over a good portion of the living room. It was quite the anomaly to most people, she would admit. Since Nevermore, Enid would always faint and the others would comment. None of it mattered to her, of course, but it was an undeniable fact.

You had never said anything negative.

“I believe it’s quite acceptable,” she finally said.

You nodded subconsciously. “My thoughts exactly.” Your shoulders sagged with a sigh. “Whatcha wanna do now?”

With a turn of her head, she looked out the window. Clearly she had misjudged the time, as the sun was starting to make its decent to the ground. Still bright, leaving a column of light on the floor, but fading second by second. It was a calming sight, to watch the sun start to set from the comfort of her living room. Your living room.

The idea was bold. She didn’t care.

“I would like to bathe,” she said. Her eyes met yours. “With you.”

Your smile met your eyes. “I’ll go start the bath.”

Without time to say a word, you practically jumped from the couch and ran to the bathroom. Always so eager, she thought as she stood. You were rummaging around in the bathroom before the faucet squeaked and water rushed into the tub. What were you looking for? Had you found it? Her questions internal questions about you were endless.

“Don’t come in yet,” you called out through the still-open door.

You had a plan, that much was obvious. She loved when you had plans; more often than not, they failed. There was something enjoyable about your failed plans. It made them more realistic. Not because you weren’t good at planning, but because you simply planned bigger than life.

Her feet carried her to the bedroom while you continued to shuffle around out of her sight. The closet doors eased open and Wednesday lowered herself to her knees. There, in the back right corner of the closet - in what had originally been her side - was a pair of boots that often went unworn. A small black box sat in the left boot, shoved into the toe behind a rolled-up pair of socks.

Small fingers gently pulled it from its cave before opening the top. And there, in the middle of the box, was a ring. A ring that she had gotten from her mother, who had gotten it from her mother, and the list went on farther than she could accurately remember. Just a simple silver band with a black stone in the middle; simple, efficient, comfortable.

Your humming floated into the bedroom before reaching Wednesday’s ears. She hadn’t heard you do that in months, if not longer. Something you only did when you were relaxed. Safe. An unknown song that you were probably making up on the spot. A soothing melody that rested peacefully in her chest.

The ring would look stunning on your finger.

“Hey did you want-”

-Wednesday’s head spun to look at you standing in the doorway to the bathroom. Looking directly at the box in her hand; no, at the ring.

“Put it back,” you said quickly. What? You pointed directly at her. “Wednesday Addams, you put that back in your boot right this instant.”

She couldn’t find the words to say. What could she say? What did you mean? How did you even know she had kept the ring hidden in her boot? You practically stomped over to the closet and kneeled beside her, mirroring everything about her. Even down to the boot on your side.

You pulled out a box of identical size.

“You’ve beat me to everything,” you said as you shifted, falling further to the floor to cross your legs. “I wanted to beat you just this once.”

Between your slender fingers, you gripped the ring gently and held it up for her to see. A black band that held a white stone between thorny vines. On each side of the stone was a small metal skull with white eyes. It was macabre; perfect. How long had you saved up for such a thing?

“I was gonna ask you after graduation,” you said with a crooked smile. “Didn’t wanna distract you.”

“You are rather notorious for it,” Wednesday answered.

Your smile grew. “I found your box back when we went grave digging,” you continued. “Reminded me I needed to step up my game.”

The peaceful look on your face warmed Wednesday’s cold heart. Her mind was still running rampant with the implications. You had… taken the time and money to buy a ring? For her? After all the things she had been unable to do for you? You still got something that solidified your feelings.

She had been - and still was, at times - unable to talk about her feelings with you. Or even listen to your own without prior warning. Time and time again she had been unable to emotionally console you because her own emotions were so far separated from the average person. She had taken her sweet time to learn how to be in any sort of relationship, even something as simple as a friendship.

And yet, that ring stayed firm between your fingers.

“I’ll wear yours if you wear mine,” you said, pulling her out of her mental spiral.

She blinked once. “Is that a proposal?” She asked. “I don’t believe this would be considered romantic.”

“I have a plan for later, I promise,” you chuckled as you held the ring out to her. “But now I’m kind of excited.”

Something stuck in her throat to prevent her from voicing a similar opinion. Instead, she simply held the ring out for you to take as well. Your smile was almost contagious, leaving her with spiders in her stomach. An almost forgotten feeling, but she wouldn’t wish for anything else.

Surprisingly, by some grace of the Addams ancestors, both rings fit perfectly.

“So do I get to be an Addams now?” You asked.

You were happy. You were excited at the prospect of being an Addams. To be part of her family in every way possible. The sight of your joy at being one of them left a feeling in her chest that she couldn’t explain. Something that spiderwebbed across every nerve and blood vessel in her body.

It was too much emotion for her. She only truly knew of one way to dispel such feelings. You were still looking at the Addams family ring on your finger. Her hand - adorned with a ring of its own - reached out and grabbed you by the collar of your shirt. She leaned forward as she pulled you into a kiss.

Your lips were uncharacteristically soft. Surely you had been using the chapstick everyone continued to gift you time and time again. Not that Wednesday cared, she simply enjoyed the feel of your lips against hers. It went no further, just a kiss, but it was all she wished for, all she could ever want.

Lightning struck behind her eyes. Your lips were no longer on hers, instead replaced by the warm wind of late summer. She looked around to see a familiar sight. It was becoming too familiar to her mind; talk about unsettling. There behind her stood two figures, dwarfed in comparison by a hulking creature behind them.

A creature with menacing eyes.

“Wednesday.”

Her eyes opened to see you looking at her with a concerned face. How often had she had visions in front of you? How long would it continue? She couldn’t even begin to fathom the cause of such an event. But she refused to believe it had anything to do with you.

“You’re fainting more often,” you said softly, “maybe we should take you to the hospital.”

Wednesday looked away from your face to see it was finally dark outside, the full moon hanging low in the sky.

Wait.

“We have to go,” Wednesday said quickly as she stood up from her spot and started rushing out of the apartment.

“Go where?” You called behind her, followed by a whispered “shit” as you too followed behind.

The door remained open as she ran out. Only a second or two passed before it slammed shut and your footsteps followed. Down the stairs, past Ash - who you mumbled a quick “hello” to - and out the front of the building. Far in the distance, she could hear the howl of a wolf. A wolf much larger than Enid.

“Where are we going?” You asked from somewhere behind her.

She couldn’t talk. Perhaps that was how you felt when your house was going up in flames.

Wednesday picked up the pace once she saw the woods. If she could get there in time, her vision wouldn’t come true. She could keep everyone safe. Her brisk walk turned into a run once the wolf howled again. She could get there in time.

“Wednesday, come back,” you called out.

Warm fingers wrapped around her upper arm, pulling her to a stop. She was forced to spin her body to face you. Vaguely, far away from her thoughts, she could feel the ring pressing into her skin. It was comforting; you were actually wearing it. You were an Addams.

“What’s going-”

-a familiar howl echoed through the woods.

“Enid?” You asked.

Both your eyes went wide.

“Okay, go,” you said as you took off into the woods, pulling Wednesday along behind you.

It was unintentional, but she always forgot how fast you could be. Her feet barely touched the ground with your speed, and if your wings had been out, she swore you would have been airborne. Even with your shirt covering the harness, your wings twitched underneath the cloth, begging to be set free.

Her body slammed into yours when you pulled up to a stop.

“Oh shit,” you whispered.

Wednesday looked around you to see the realisation of her vision. On the ground was Eugene, covered in dark liquid that continued to pour from wounds across his chest. Enid’s wolf stood over him, splotches of red in her otherwise blonde fur. Opposite her was a wolf.

A familiar wolf.

“That’s the bastard who got me at Nevermore,” you huffed.

“How can you tell?” Wednesday asked while you took your shirt off and started undoing the harness.

“I left that scar on his shoulder,” you said with a frown. “Help Eugene.”

If you had given her time, she would have argued with you. Told you to stay put, not to get involved. Enid wouldn’t dare hurt you, but when two wolves were fighting, casualties were expected. You weren’t invincible like you believed you were. She told you not to even go into the woods earlier, you most certainly weren’t supposed to be fighting werewolves.

But she couldn’t stop you. Not when you took off into the air with a gust of wind behind you. It agitated the dirt and left a cloud behind. Each particle that went through Wednesday’s nose tickled and, if she hadn’t been so preoccupied, she would have sneezed.

Enid growled and took off, and Wednesday struggled to keep track of where everyone was. But she knew where Eugene was. Yeah, she could take care of him, that would be easy enough. She could keep her concentration long enough to help him. Not like she was worried about you.

Someone whimpered when she kneeled beside him.

“Don’t bite,” You growled.

Another animalistic scream.

She looked down at the injuries on Eugene. He seemed to be breathing just fine. That was good. The blood had soaked through his shirt, but it hadn’t pooled around him like she had been worried about. That was also good. Okay, she knew what to do. All she had to do was put her hands on the wounds and push down, it was simple.

Something ripped through flesh behind her.

The fight carried on behind her. You and Enid were putting yourselves in danger while she sat there and tried to keep her friend alive. Things were supposed to be getting easier. You were wearing an Addams ring, you weren’t supposed to be putting yourself into such needless danger. The both of you should have been in the bath, enjoying your evening together.

Eugene was still unconscious.

Something solid hit the ground.

A whimper.

Another growl.

There were too many sounds, and she couldn’t bring herself to look. Couldn’t bear to see her friends dying, to see her fiancee getting hurt. Why was it always everyone else? Why was she not the one to ever suffer? Was her punishment for existing simply to watch everyone she cared for get hurt because of her visions-

-a gunshot.

A lingering whimper that faded into the forest.

Wednesday’s dead heart was frozen as she spun around faster than she believed possible for a human. Had someone shot you? Was Enid okay? Oh gods please let Enid be okay, she already looked injured when you had both arrived in the woods.

Ash stood by the thick trunk of a tree, rifle held steady in her hands.

That hadn’t been part of her vision.

“What are you doing here?” You asked breathlessly.

From what Wednesday could see, you were standing tall. Blood dripped from your fingers, but you didn’t appear injured. Beside you, Enid was slowly turning human again. You kept your eyes on Ash, but kneeled to cover Enid with the shirt you had taken off what felt like hours ago.

“Y’all ran past me in the apartment,” Ash said calmly, lowering the rifle. “Addams doesn’t run.”

“Crazy bitch,” you mumbled as you got on the ground to replace Wednesday’s hands on Eugene’s wounds. “Thank you.”

Wednesday stood and looked at Enid. She was finally back on her feet, pulling your shirt tight around her. Blood fell from the deep claw marks on her face. Thankfully, aside from that, she seemed to be okay. As okay as she could be for a werewolf fight.

“Willa,” Enid said with a whimper.

Without hesitation, Wednesday walked forward and pulled Enid into a hug. Enid’s breath on her neck was comforting; it meant she was alive. The thoughts continued to ravage her mind. She could have lost her best friend. She could have lost everyone she cared for. Enid’s hands gripped her tighter.

As much as the thought killed her, Wednesday decided then and there what she needed to do.

She needed to talk with your mother.

[just-dreaming-marvel]

Love That Burns ~ Ending 2 ~ 43

LOVE THAT BURNS MASTERLIST

< previous chapter

Word Count: 3,225ish

Summary: You, Logan, Charles, and Laura are on the run.

Warning(s): canon violence, injuries, illusions to sex, Logan is jealous of a child

Reminder: I DO NOT do taglists. Please don’t ask. Please follow and interact! I appreciate any reblogs, likes, comments, and asks!

Logan stopped at a gas station as soon as he believed he had put a safe distance between the group and the smelting plant. Logan got out of the driver’s seat and got into the back of the limo. He was relieved to see that you were sound asleep, still breathing. He reached to take you from Laura, who was still caring for you, but she held tight and growled.

“That’s my wife you have your paws on, kid,” Logan retorted. “I’ve got to get that bullet out of her before—“

“Laura already took the bullet out,” Charles responded.

“What? When?”

“While you were driving.”

“Still.” He reached over to try to grab you again. Laura shook her head as she kept you near. “Damn it, kid!”

“It’s okay, Laura. He’s going to take care of her. He takes good care of us.” 

Charles shot Logan a soft smile, knowing that Logan had truly done so much to take care of everyone. Laura slowly released her grip, allowing Logan to pull you into him. He could hear the beat of your heart, allowing him to relax a bit.

“Logan, we need to talk,” Charles said after a moment. “Maybe you could give Laura some change for the mechanical horse.”

“Fine.” Logan pressed a kiss to your head before gently laying you back down. “Come on, kid.” 

Laura glanced at Charles, who gave an encouraging smile and nod before she followed Logan out of the limo. Logan led her to the mechanical horse and inserted a few coins, allowing her to ride it. 

“Stay put,” he ordered before heading back to the limo. “Come on, sweetheart,” Logan whispered as he knelt beside you in the back of the limo. “Wake up.”

“Logan?” You rasped, blinking.

“I’m right here… you had me scared there for a moment.”

“What—What happened?” You glanced down to see that your wound was healed, leaving behind a scar.

“Laura took out the bullet when you fell asleep.”

“Where is she?” You groaned as you sat up.

“You need to lie back down.”

“Logan. I’m fine. Where’s Laura?”

“She’s on the mechanical horse outside,” Charles responded.

“Is she okay?”

“She’s not my biggest concern at the moment,” Logan muttered, eyes still scanning you for more injuries.

“She should be,” Charles said. “Did you get any information from the woman she was with?”

“I got the woman’s phone.” 

Logan pulled it out of his pocket, surprised it at stayed there after the fight. He opened it up to see a video already pulled up. You sat up, leaning into Logan.

“You need your glasses,” you told him.

“Shit,” Logan muttered as he reached into the front and grabbed his glasses. He slipped them over his nose and looked at you over them. “Better?”

“Much.” You leaned in and kissed his cheek. Then Logan pressed play.

“My name is Gabriela Lopez,” the woman on the screen introduced. “I’m a nurse. And for ten years, I worked for Transigen Research in Mexico City. Transigen is owned by an American company. What I am about to show you is illegal in the U.S. and Canada. They told us we were part of a pharmaceutical study. But, of course, that was a lie. These children were born in Transigen. They were born here, and have never left. They have never seen the sun or the ocean, rain or snow or any of God’s creatures. They have no birth certificates. No names, besides the ones we have given them. They were raised in the bellies of Mexican girls. Girls no one can find anymore. Their fathers are semillas geneticas, special seeds in bottles. We do not dress them up for Halloween. We do not call them ‘baby’ or kiss boo-boos. Don’t think of them as children. Think of them as things with patents and copyrights. They thought we were too poor and stupid to understand. We’re poor, yes, but we are not stupid. This is business. They are making soldiers. Killers. These are babies of mutants—“

As the woman spoke, the video showed different clips from the facility. The children of different ages and mutations. The children being trained and fighting. It broke your heart to see all of this. Laura came up in the video a few times, breaking your heart even further. The phone died before the video finished. Logan tore off his glasses and looked at Laura.

“North Dakota,” Charles stated.

“Mmm?” Logan hummed.

“You took that woman’s money. You said you would take the child there.”

Logan kept his eyes on Laura, watching her grow angry as the machine stopped. “What is she?”

“She’s your daughter, Logan.”

“Alkali…” You whispered. “Alkali has your genetic code.”

Logan’s worried gaze met yours. “Not just mine,” he said. He went to the door and opened it.

“Logan,” Charles called.

“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t wanna hear about it anymore.”

“Logan.”

“Just stop!”

“I have to pee.”

Logan huffed before grabbing the wheelchair out of the trunk and helping Charles into it. You got out and leaned against the limo, watching everything unfold. Laura was growing angrier at the machine as it refused to move more. She let her claws out of one fist and went to slam it into the controls, but Logan caught her wrist. Logan finished another quarter from his pocket and held it up.

“Last ride,” he told her.

Logan placed the coin in the insert, causing the mechanical horse to begin moving again. Logan and Laura glared each other down for a moment.

“You’re welcome,” Logan said before limping away to help Charles.

You shook your head, already exhausted from just watching Laura and Logan interact. Pushing yourself off of the limo, you came over to Laura.

“When the ride’s over, you want to go in and get some snacks?” You asked her. 

Laura nodded. When the ride was done, Laura took your hand and you led her inside.

“You can get whatever you want,” you said. “Don’t worry about what Logan may tell you.”

You walked around with Laura as she grabbed chips and a drink. Looking out the windows, you realized that Logan wasn’t back yet.

“I’ll go grab some money,” you told Laura. “Stay put.”

You went back to the limo, only to hear Logan shout back at the store.

“Not okay!” He was holding Laura’s wrist, whose claws were out. He dragged her out of the store. “Come on. Get in the car.”

“What happened?” You asked.

“She just tried to kill the worker. You need to be watching her.” He pushed her in your direction.

“Logan—“

“Let’s just go.”

~~~

You stayed in the back with Laura and Charles as Logan drove. You kept your gaze out the window. Laura sighed as she sided eyed you. Slowly, she moved over to your side and pulled at your hand.

“What is it, Laura?” You asked, trying not to sound exhausted.

She held up her palm and wiggled her fingers around. 

“She wants you to make a flame,” Charles said with a smile.

You held up your palm and made a small flame. “This?” You questioned.

Laura smiled and nodded. She watched with awe as the flame flickered above your palm. You were watching her reaction, that you missed the soft smile Logan had as he watched you from the rearview mirror. Charles noticed that Laura’s backpack was open. He reached in, pulling out X-Men comics. He smiled as he noticed they were mostly about you.

“Laura,” he called, motioning to the comics, “are you a fan?” Her enthusiastic nod caused Charles to chuckle and you to melt. “Yeah? I am, too.”

“Charles,” you shook your head with a scoff, unable to stop the smile.

“Logan though,” Charles motioned to the man driving, “she’s her biggest fan.”

Laura shook her head, causing you to laugh. You closed your palm, extinguishing the flame. 

“Get some rest,” you urged. Laura immediately cuddled into your side. 

You couldn’t help but wrap an arm around her to keep her close. You glanced up towards Logan, meeting his softened gaze in the mirror.

“You all should get some sleep,” Logan muttered. “I’ll keep driving.”

“You sure?” You asked.

“Get some rest, sweetheart.”

~~~

Logan drove to Oklahoma City, where the night life was bustling. Laura woke up and moved from your side to the window, staring at all the bring lights.

“Is this where we’re hiding out?” Charles asked.

“We’re not hiding out,” Logan responded. “We’re gonna get a couple of hours’ sleep, clean up, get some new clothes, get a new ride and get outta here.”

Logan pulled the limo up to the front of a Hotel and Casino. He got a suite with two rooms, two bathrooms, and a living room with a couch in the middle. On the way to the elevator to head there, Laura stopped in front of a store window, looking at the clothes.

“Come on, let’s go,” Logan urged. “Hey Laura.”

“We need clothes,” Charles said.

You placed a hand on Logan’s arm, catching his attention. “I’ll deal with the clothes,” you told him. “Why don’t you get everyone else upstairs and settled in? I’ll be right there.”

Logan was heavily debating on telling you no. But he was exhausted and needed to give Charles his meds. “Fine.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out some cash. “Let me know if you need more.” He pressed a kiss to your forehead. 

You went over to Laura, who was still by the windows. “Go with Logan. I’ll grab the clothes and be right up.”

Laura hesitancy matched Logan’s, which was both cute and annoying. She shook her head and grabbed your hand. You sighed and looked back at Charles and Logan.

“I guess she’s staying with me,” you told them. You could see that Logan didn’t like that plan. “We won’t be long.”

With huff, Logan gave a nod and you headed into the store.

~~~

Logan had already cleaned up Charles and put him in to bed when you and Laura arrived with the clothes. You set the bags on the coffee table as Logan stepped out of the other room, downing a small bottle of alcohol. 

“Kid will sleep on the couch,” Logan said. “We get the bed in here.”

You nodded, looking Logan up and down. “You should get cleaned up.”

“So should you… I can wait until the morning.” 

Suddenly, Laura was back at your side, grabbing your hand. She tugged at it before placing it palm up. You laughed.

“Do you want a flame?” You asked. She nodded. You lifted up your other had and formed small flames in both of your palms. 

Keeping her eyes on your flames, Laura side stepped over to Logan and tugged at his jacket. She pointed at your flames.

“Yeah,” he gave you a soft smile. “She’s cool, kid.” He took her head and guided her to sit down on the couch. “Now, stay here. Sleep.”

You let Laura take one last look at your flames before you extinguished them. Logan took the needed steps over to you and took your hands. With a groan, he pulled you up.

“Come on,” he muttered, guiding you to the bedroom.

You turned your head. “Good night, Laura.”

Logan shut the door between the two of you and Laura before guiding you back to the bathroom and shutting that door. He wrapped you up in his arms and held you close.

“I thought you were going to die,” he whispered, failing to hide the shake in his voice.

“I’m right here, Logan,” you replied quietly. 

He pulled away quickly as he began to cough, using the counter to hold himself up. You placed a warm hand on his back and began rubbing circles.

“You’re getting worse,” you mumbled.

“I’m—“ he coughed, “fine.” He wiped off his lips with his jacket as he turned back to face you. His hands found your hips and pulled you into him. 

“We should get some rest. We can clean up in the morning.”

The two of you took some of your clothes off before stepping back into the bedroom. Both of you immediately noticed Laura sitting in the bed, waiting for the two of you.

“No,” Logan said, shaking his head. “There’s a perfectly good couch out there. Go.”

“Logan,” you giggled, “the bed is big enough.”

“Are you serious?”

“I can sleep in the middle. If you can’t handle it, there’s a perfectly good couch out there.”

Logan’s jaw clenched, hating how you used his own words against him. He already knew he wouldn’t get much sleep tonight, but he had least wanted to hold you close as he failed to sleep. Besides, he was also done fighting with you. It was taking too much out of both of you.

“Fine,” he sighed before pointing at Laura, “but stay on your side of the bed.”

Laura moved to one side, allowing you to crawl into the middle. Logan went around to the other side. Laura went to cuddle into you, but Logan quickly pulled you back into him.

“My wife,” he growled, tightening his arms around you.

You could sense the growing tension between the two and you quickly placed an arm out towards Laura and on arm on top of Logan’s. “There’s enough of me to go around,” you told them. 

You weaved your fingers through Logan’s as Laura wrapped around your outstretched arm. You watched as she fell asleep. Logan kissed your head before he buried his head into your neck. For that brief moment, there was a sense of peace and family in that room, causing you to fall asleep with a small smile on your face.

~~~

Logan was up first. He took care of Charles, changing him, before laying out Laura’s clothes. He took your new clothes and his into the bathroom. As he came around to pick you up from the bed, he noticed Laura carefully watching him. She was still gripping your arm. Logan went to pulled you into him when Laura growled.

“Stop that!” Logan scolded as quietly as he could. “I’m just trying to take care of her. I’m not gonna hurt her… She’s my wife. I love her.”

Laura hesitated a moment before she let go of your arm. Logan pulled you up into his arms and carried you into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him with his foot. You moaned as you began to come to. Logan set you on the counter and held you up.

“Logan?” You rasped.

“Hey, princess,” he gave you a small smile before pecking your lips. 

“What are you doing?”

“Taking care of my wife, like I should be.”

Logan pulled off your shirt, revealing the new scar from the bullet wound. Logan’s calloused hand gently ran over the scar before he bent down and kissed it. You closed your eyes, inhaling sharply at Logan’s tenderness. He trailed kisses up your neck to your ear before pulling away.

“I’ll be right back,” he whispered. “Gotta start the shower.”

You nodded, giving Logan the signal to move. He moved as quickly as he could to get the shower on and remove his clothes before helping you with the rest of yours. Logan wrapped his arms around you, but you pushed against his shoulders.

“You can’t go carrying me around like you used to,” you said, running a hand through Logan’s hair. “It hurts you too much.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” he responded. “Let me carry you until I die.”

Logan firmly kissed you as he carried you over to the large hotel shower. He held you up against the tile wall.

“Logan,” you breathed. 

“I’ve got you, baby,” he whispered against your lips. “Let me show you.”

~~~

After some shower sex, you and Logan lovingly washed each other before getting ready for the day. Logan kept coughing, causing you to help him get dressed. You were grabbing his shirt when he began coughing into a towel. He pulled it away to see specks of blood on it. He quickly tossed it away, not wanting to worry you further, before downing another small bottle of alcohol. 

“Here,” you said, holding up the shirt. 

“I can do it,” he grumbled.

“I know, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be getting help.” As carefully as you could, you helped Logan put his shirt on, his flannel, and then his jacket. “There.” You fixed the collar. “Ready to save the world.”

His hands slid around your waist, tugging you into him. “I don’t want to save the world anymore… I just want to save my world.”

The two of you shared a kiss before exiting the bathroom. 

“I’ll go check on Laura and Charles,” you said, noticing Logan eying Logan’s bag and the files spilling out. You reached down and grabbed his glasses from the table, sliding them onto his face. “Mmm,” you hummed, “handsome.” You gave him another kiss before heading to the other part of the hotel room. 

Logan sat down on the end of the bed and began flipping through the files. The files held information on the mutant children, including Laura. It also confirmed that Logan’s genetics were used to create Laura. He tossed the files aside and continued looking in Laura’s bag. There were X-Men comics, most of them were about you. He flipped through one, the ending page catching his eye. You were in a wedding dress while Logan was pictured in a tux. The two of you were kissing at your wedding. Logan’s heart clenched at the thought of making it official. Grabbing the comics, Logan marched into the room which Charles was laying on the bed watching a movie and you were helping Laura tie her shoes.

“You read these in your spare time?” Logan questioned Laura, holding up the comics. “Oh, yeah, Charles, Y/N, we got ourselves an X-Men fan. Or, an Ember fan more like it. You do know they’re all bullshit, right? Maybe a quarter of it happened, but not like this. In the real world, people die! And no self-promoting asshole in a fucking leotard can stop it!”

“Logan,” you scolded.

“This is ice cream for bed-wetters!”

“Logan,” Charles tried.

“That nurse has been feeding her some grade-A bullshit.”

“She’s allowed to believe in the good of what we did, Logan,” you said. “We did do a lot of good… and even the good times end.”

Logan scoffed.

“I don’t think Laura needs reminding of life’s impermanence,” Charles added. “Did you say something about finding us a new ride?”

Logan picked up the pill bottle on the dresser and held it up. “Two more pills in one hour.” He threw them at Laura, who caught them. “Give ‘em to him.” He grabbed your hand and dragged you into the other room.

“You need to be nicer to her,” you whispered, growing angry at him. “She is your daughter.”

“No, she’s not. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Don’t leave the room.” He yanked you closer, crashing his lips against yours. “I love you.”

Logan slipped out of the room, leaving you standing there. Your hand went up to your lips, fingers brushing against them as the taste of alcohol and blood lingered on them.

next chapter >

[carmenized-onions]

Doing Too Much. | House Call

logline; Appliances can reach their breaking point, when you push them too far. Same goes for people.

[!!!] series history, this is the sixth; First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth

[New Thing!!] Spotify Playlist, if you like to listen while you read. I listen to it when I write :) Constantly gettin' added to.

portion; 4.8k

possible allergies; eatin' meat, besides that, we're pretty good actually. did somebody say calm before the storm....?

pairing; Carmen ‘Carmy’ Berzatto & Fem Reader (no pronouns, but girl is said a couple times, i believe.)

After this chapter, I'm entering my era of couch hopping as I move to a new city n start a new job. I'm really excited for the chapter after this one, so hopefully I actually get time to write it-- But that's just my lil warning if you're left rereading for like two weeks </3 But I'll def be stalking my activity/inbox so please do yap to me

Monday morning. The next morning after everything. Well, closer to noon than morning, at this point. You’re supposed to have, what, a work ethic this week? After the most insane weekend of your life? No. You’re lazing around and doing fuck all. No matter who calls. Well… Not completely no matter, but like, most people.

When you check your phone, you’ve gotten a text at 6:43 A.M. Unknown number. Ah. Carmen. You put him in as Carmy, and put his nickname as ‘Mister New York’. Listen, old nicknames Mikey ingrained in your brain die hard.

It’s a simple text, deeply un-romantic.

‘Connections Puzzle #342’

Then, four lines of four perfect categories. Flawless. Purple first, even. The hardest category. And then,

‘Morning’

Stupid. Incredibly stupid, to be enamoured, by this. You reply,

‘Good morning!’

‘Connections Puzzle #342’

And then a failed jumble of coloured squares, you get one out of four categories. What the fuck is 'dogleg' and since when has it meant taking a sharp turn? You follow that up with,

‘Fuck you.’

Aside from Carmen, you’ve actually gotten texts from a couple people. Your boss at Eden’s asking if you’re alright. What the fuck did Cicero say? Oh well. You tell him you’ve ‘been better, been worse. Will be okay by next week.’ Perfectly vague, and you still get wired your cheque and tip out. Alright, maybe Uncle J does deserve your free labour.

Speaking of, the next text on your itinerary is from Uncle J, just info for the winter nuptials of Vinnie and Mira. Oh yeah. Three-hundred guests, you remember that part. You also remember him saying it’d be an ‘easy gig’… He did not mention you’d be the only bartender. This is going to be a nightmare. Oh well. You text back that despite it being an open bar you get to put out a tip jar. He just reacts to it, ‘haha’. That sounds like a yes to you.

And then, adorably, a selfie from Syd, wearing the collar and pins you’ve gifted her, under a green sweater. Cutie. You hype her up accordingly.

Besides some texting though, Monday is relatively unbusy. No calls. No emergencies. No businesses knocking down your door for your services. You’re thankful for a break, letting the inertia set in, finally being able to relax after fix after fix after—

Tuesday comes, you get sent another perfect round of New York Time’s Connections around half past six in the morning, along with a good morning text. And again, you fuck it up. You send him your Wordle results this time, as an act of rebellion. You then ask,

‘How’s reworking the menu going?’

‘Hard to say’

‘Ask me tomorrow’

God he’s an awful texter. Horrifically dry. You know you’re down bad beyond a belief when you find that endearing. You spend Tuesday drowning and pruning your plants after depriving them for so long.

Plus working on your art piece for Carmy. You’re pulling out old film photos, a canvas, and a load of bleach—It’s like high school art class all over again— Surprise surprise, the handyman who loves to up-cycle is a mixed media artist. Who could’ve guessed?

While trimming a photo, an exterior of The Beef, a picture frame on your wall falls down behind you, you tut, turning your head to it, chastising the air. “Mikey! It’s a copy, relax! I’ve still got the original print…”

There’s every chance you’re insane— No, you’re definitely insane. But you’re allowed to be, your best friend died, you’re allowed to talk to the air as if he’s still around. Sometimes the timing of doors swinging open for you and things falling down are just too uncanny to not be a ghost.

Wednesday arrives, and again, just after 6:40, Connections results. And the Wordle, this time; plus a ‘Good Morning’. It looks like this is simply just your thing, now. Every morning, the second both of you get up, you send each other puzzles and wish a good morning. You don’t mind that. It’s nice to have a ‘thing’, with someone. With Carmen.

Part way through the day, around two o’clock, you get another text. Two, actually. From Carmen, in quick succession.

‘Are you busy?’

‘Don’t worry if you’re busy. Can call Fak’

You’re quick to reply, frankly deeply offended.

‘Are you fucking firing me????’

‘I’m gonna get ready. Text me details’

While getting dressed, you watch three dots bubble, bubble, bubble… He’s taking forever, just don’t look at it, you’ll get anxious for no reason. No jumpsuit today, you’ve got to switch it up every now and again. Navy cargo pants with the perfect number of pockets and zippers, and an orange Chicago’s Kindest shirt, tucked in. Hm. Looking in the mirror, hickey is still there. Lighter, but there. Foundation? No. You’ll sweat it off and that’ll just bring up more questions. If Syd asks you’ll just tell her you fell down the stairs… On your neck. She's not the type to confront anything remotely sexual anyways.

Speaking of Syd, before Carmen can text you back, she calls you, which is fair— Don’t leave a Carmen to communicate. You stick your phone in the crux of your neck and answer while you pack your utility belt. This feels nearly nostalgic. “What’s fucked?”

Carmen is in the background; you can hear the tail end of a sentence, grumbling. “—Don’t call—”

“My life.” She responds without missing a beat. “And also, Carmy’s stove and oven.”

“Oh.” You squint. “What the fuck happened?”

“Overuse? I actually don’t fucking know, it just stopped working. We plugged it in and out— He even reset his apartment’s breakers. I dunno what’s wrong with it. It’s probably got something to do with him putting his fuckin’ jeans in there.”

“…He what?”

You can hear him in the background, again, clearer this time, grimacing, “What are you doing to me?”

Syd does not mind him at all, continuing, “I know! He’s fucking weird!”

“He’s extremely weird.” You like him a lot. “I’ll be over soon, were you guys like, mid-cooking?”

“Yessir.”

“Christ, alright… I think I have a dual burner hot plate laying around somewhere, you want me to bring it—”

They both speak clearly this time, together, “Please.”

You’ve got a pile of things to give to them anyways, and maybe you miss Carmy’s face. Just a little.

Instead of just buzzing you in, Carmy comes down for you. When he sees you through the door window, carrying a cardboard box, he almost breaks into a full run. He’s somehow opening the door, grabbing the box from your hands, and chastising you all at the same time. “You should’ve left it in the car, I would’ve—”

You step in through the entryway and kiss his cheek, cutting him short. You can’t help yourself, it’s the first time you’ve seen him since and you feel like a giddy teen. The teenage girl in your head is no longer just in your head, she’s fully manning the station. “You’re very sweet. But it’s also not heavy.”

When he continues to be frozen, the regret starts to mount, “Is—Sorry, is that okay to do—?”

“It’s very okay to do.” He manages to reply, with haste. Nodding to himself. “It’s good.” He nods again, then marches off, expecting you to follow to the elevator. You do.

“What floor?”

“Eighth.” He sniffs; you press the button. He stands next to you, looking you up and down. He astutely observes. “Orange.”

“Yeah.” You smirk, looking back at him, “Turns out, businesses can have two colours in their designs.”

What’s a little roasting of fellow small businesses between two not just friends?

“Oh yeah?” Coy, smirking. Oh no. You’ve gotta get the teen off the controls. He tilts his vision to stare at your jacket. Ah. You opted to wear your Carhartt instead of his jean jacket.

“Didn’t wanna give Syd more questions.” She already guessed you’re a sugar baby, you don’t want to wrap Carmen in on that too. Especially since ideally in a month or two he’ll be your boss. Hm. The Bear is going to need an HR.

He hums, nodding. “We’re not telling Syd?”

“What’s there to tell?” You grin, crossing your arms. “You suddenly have free time, Bear?”

He takes a beat, thinking, then just takes a deep frustrated yet amused exhale. “I’m gonna fuckin’…” He can’t think of a threat. “…Get you.”

You snort, “You’re gonna get me?”

“Fuck you—!” “You’re gonna fuckin’ get me, Bear?”

“I—” He tries to hold a straight face, it doesn’t work. “Yeah, I am.”

“Can’t wait.” You nod, grinning, turning back to the doors. “You told me to ask how menu’s going tomorrow.”

“I did.”

“It’s tomorrow.” The door dings, opening on the eighth floor; you step out together. He switches his grip to hold the box in one arm. Alright Biceps, we don’t need to brag here...

“It’s… We’re getting there.” He grimaces. “Syd’s recipes are always… Almost perfect.”

“Ah.” You nod, you know your friend well enough to know where this is going. “And she fucks up one thing hard?”

“Mhm.”

“And when you tell her it’s okay and give her a hand she just feels worse?”

He nods. A touch surprised you’re right on the dot so quickly. “Everything ends up perfect, but I think she’s finding the edits…”

“Demoralizing.” You walk down the hall together, he nods. “I know what she needs, I’ll find an in.”

“You always do.” He hums, you walk just a touch ahead of him, unknowingly walking past his door. He pulls you back by the back of your jacket, making you stumble back into him. This seems to be this villain’s intention; as when you turn around, he’s quick to grab your chin and kiss you.

“It’s very good.” He emphasizes, again, before opening his door and acting like everything’s totally normal and fine. Since when did he turn the tables and make you the desperate one? Son of a bitch.

Ah. Actually, subtract any attraction you had in this moment— He lives like this? Books on the floor, by the window. Jeans on the dinner table, because they were in the oven. The kitchen actually looks alright— You’re almost certain that’s purely for utilitarian purposes while they’re working on the menu. This motherfucker better have a bed frame or him asking you to sleep over would be downright offensive. God, he’s wonderful. God, you’re an idiot.

You find Syd at the table, moping, head in hands. Carmen sets the box down, sitting beside her. You pat the top of her head. She silently moves one of her hands to go over yours. You nod. The silent exchange of girls who know.

“Yeah?”

She nods, grumbling. “Yeah.”

Carmen has no fucking idea what’s happening and he’s never been more intrigued by a near wordless social interaction in his entire life. What? You’re not even making eye-contact. What the fuck is happening?

You fish through the box with your free hand, grabbing a pot. You place it in front of Syd. “Look.”

She peeks through her fingers. A tiny but flourishing nursery pot of basil sits before her. You speak. “You’re gonna hyper-fixate on this basil I’m gifting you, and then you’re gonna crack back into it with the dual burner until I’m done fixing the oven.”

She nods, putting her hands in her lap, “Yes, Chef.”

You pull out a second nursery pot, setting it down for Carmen. “For you.”

“What for?”

“Basil grows like a motherfucker and it’s getting unhinged. I need to start pawning off to people that’ll make good use of it. A-K-A, chefs.” You look at Syd, pointedly, “Talented chefs.”

You hand off the heating pad— Wrapped in brown paper with a card tied to it, to Carmen. “For Nat.” You add, when he looks confused, “Can’t imagine I’ll see her sooner than you will.”

He looks even more confused, when you hand him a spray bottle full of reddish water. It’s one of the good spray bottles, too. Continuous. Carmen wouldn’t know the difference, but you do. “Rosemary. —Water, that is.”

He squints; you clarify, gesturing to your own hair. “You mentioned, losing hair, so— Thought I’d make some, with the trimmings of rosemary I had. Got ginger and cloves in it, too.”

Why have you trapped him in hell? You’ve remembered such a specific off hand from days ago and acted on it? And he can’t express the grandiose level of affection he feels right now? Are you serious? You’re the devil. You’re absolutely the devil. He just coughs out a ‘thanks’.  

“And, the pièce de résistance,” You pull out the old ass, boxed up double burner countertop stove. “A stovetop that ideally fuckin’ works. It was my single claim to fame in my college dormitory.”

Carmen’s already opening the box. Sydney smirks, curiosity peaked. “Was that legal?”

“You a fuckin’ RA?” You grin, poking her forehead. “It was not. And that’s exactly why everyone loved me— Didn’t serve them fuckin’ hot pockets.”

The configurations of Carmen’s apartment would be great for literally any occasion besides the current one. The kitchen is narrow, and so, when you pull out the stove to check the back, there’s an estimated no fucking room left for Carm and Syd, so they sit at the dinner table with your stove top. You’d think they’d look like they’re doing a cute hot pot. No. They look like two conflicted and confused twelve-year-olds working on a science project.

So do you, honestly. Wiring is definitely more your speed than plumbing, but if you’re being honest, this is the first oven you’ve worked on without your dad, and you’re having a hard time remembering everything. There’s a lot of embarrassed Googling on your phone, when you're sure they’re not looking. They can’t know you’re even slightly incompetent!

You’re pretty sure it’s just a couple damaged wires, fried from overwork— Easy fix, if you had wire. You don’t. Slightly harder fix. But soldering is your bitch really, you’re in your bag. You look stupid, wearing chunky goggles and a respirator, but you’re in your bag, baby! What’s that one saying? Skills make you hot? That’s not a saying.

But it is true. When Carmen’s able to peer into the kitchen, quickly looking over his shoulder when Syd takes a moment to write a measurement or direction down, you look stunning.  Respirator and all. You just look correct there, in the kitchen. His kitchen. So stunning he feels guilty. Do you find it annoying? Constantly fixing errors behind him? Probably. You say it’s not a lot of work, but that can’t be true.

“How’s The Bear, ‘sides menu rework?” You ask, raising your voice in the kitchen.

“S’good.” Carmen. “I’m in hell.” Syd. Not hard to tell which statue is lying, here.

Syd stutters on, “Nat’s takin’ care of baby Michaela— Which is very good and—and cool, actually.”

“But?”

“But we’re back to handling the business side entirely ourselves, for like— The next month. Maybe two? Fuck, are we doing the wedding without her?” Sydney almost burns her sauce, Carmen’s quick to move it off the burner.

He mutters, “Don’t even start to think about it. It’s gonna be fine. We’re gonna figure it out.”

“Oh yeah, wedding— Have you gotten your menu yet?” You call from the kitchen, muffled by your respirator.

“Oh my god!” Sydney exclaims, and Carmen is wincing. She can’t tell you things are going wrong; doesn’t she know that? You’ll fix it, if things are wrong. You always fix it. Fix him. You’re gonna put him in your phone as Carmy Bad News. If you haven’t already. Start a support group with Tif.

Syd continues, “They’re so fucking particular and somehow also vague—Like, ‘we want salmon and chicken’ for main course— What kind of preparation? ‘Surprise us!’ Okay, how about roasted chicken—? ‘Mmmm, no, not that’. I’ve been told ‘non quello’ at least ten times in the last four days.”

No, you’re witty. Bad News Bear. Fuck, that’s definitely his name in your phone, isn’t it?

“Fuckin’ nightmare. Y’know, I’m the only fucking bartender? For like three hundred guests? Thank God they’re not asking for a custom cocktail or anything, I’d lose my shit.”

Sydney laughs, and she steps back into her flow easily, reducing the sauce without burning it, now. She looks more serene than she has in days. What? How are you doing that? What are you doing? Are you casting a spell?

“Can you even fucking imagine what their couples’ cocktail would be?”

You groan from the kitchen, laughing in return, “Not you too, Syd! Must you make me work!?”

“C’mon maestro, make a cocktail!”

“Bleh. Uh… They give long island iced tea energy, but it’s a wedding so— Like a boozier negroni?”

“That sounds fucking disgusting.”

“I didn’t say it’d be good, I said it’d be their couples’ cocktail.” You’re both giggling, like school girls. It’s like you said— You become teens, together.

Despite the fact that Syd is making an incredibly complex dish, and you’re fixing an oven—His oven— Ridiculing the other impossible tasks set out for the both of you… Despite all of that, you’re laughing.

Carmen is, what, nearly thirty? A restaurant owner, with a full crew, who attends Al-Anon, and is only now truly registering the power of an unsolvable burden being shared. Not fixed, shared. Talking. Laughing. God, this all comes so easy to you, doesn’t it?

You finish soldering, test each burner, and the oven— All working, thank God. You quietly cheer in the kitchen, removing your respirator and goggles. “We’re good here! Fixed!”

“C’mere!” Syd calls out to you, and so you do. Eagerly. She hands you a fork. Unprompted, she does the thing. You’d missed the OG, really.

“Beef Oxtail, pressed in a Foie Gras casing, seared. Basted in a King Oyster mushroom sauce. Pureed greens on the side.”

“I never know what the fuck you’re saying.”

She pushes the side of your face with the palm of her hand. “Put it in your mouth and chew.”

You want to make some sort of kink joke, but you respect the already struggling man in the room and take a bite. Hm. Hm. You put a finger over your mouth, swallowing. “...Now it might just be my unrefined palate.”

“That’s why we have you try it.” Carmen pipes in. Syd nods, following. “It’s important to know the baseline.”

“…It’s got like,” You hand the fork to Syd so she can try it, while you think. “A bit of a bitter aftertaste? Which might be the… goal?”

Syd spits it out the second it touches her mouth, she shouts your name, your actual name— A rarity. She’s so terrified that she forgets the Walk-In bit she’s been in on all week. “I just fuckin’ poisoned you— Oh my god?! Are you good? That was— Fuck! You swallowed that?!”

She grabs your face like a concerned mother, also maybe to check if you have superpowers, you’re not sure. All you know is there’s a golden opportunity to make another sex joke and you have to hold back. Life is so unfair.

Carmen takes a quick taste, also spitting it out. “I’ve got it, Chef, don’t sweat.” Immediately looking to the drafted recipe card to see where they went wrong.

Syd almost squeezes your cheeks like a stress ball but thinks better of it, letting go, groaning, beyond frustrated at this point. “You shouldn’t have to fix it— I should fuckin’ have it, at this point.”

Carmen's trying to ignore how much he relates to the sentiment. He's not the focus, right now.

“We make mistakes, Chef—” “Syd.” You snap your fingers, pointing to her, interrupting Carmen. “Can you help me grab something, from my car? It’s kinda big.”

Carmen’s quick to chime in, already going to untie his apron, “I can—”

“No!” You look at him pointedly, trying to communicate through look alone. He kind of gets it? “It’s… Girl stuff.”

Syd squints. “You need me to help you carry a big girl thing?”

“…Are you fuckin’ helping or are you gonna poke holes?”

“What are you actually dragging me out for?”

“Technically I do actually need your help grabbing something, it’s just not a girl thing. And it's also not from my car.”

“Oh?”

You walk out of Carmen’s building with his keys, and gesture out to every apartment buildings treasure trove— The spot everyone throws their furniture when they move out and don’t know what else to do with it.

“Bookshelf!” There is actually one pristine looking bookshelf, a cheap one, definitely just something from IKEA. But it’s better than the fucking floor. “I spotted it on my way in, we’re gonna bring it up for Carm.”

She groans, hating the concept of manual labour, but still walks with you and grabs one end anyways. “Why didn’t you make Carmen carry his own bookshelf?”

“Because you need a fuckin’ pep-talk.” You pick the other end of the bookshelf up. It’s thankfully not that heavy. You walk backwards so you can keep facing Syd.

“…I don’t—” “Yes the fuck you do.”

She kisses her teeth, you frown. “What’s up, Adamu?”

“It’s just fucking annoying— I keep, I keep fucking it up. I keep—Keep—”

“Doing too much.”

She gives you a look, ‘are you serious?’, type look. You continue. “You’re doing too much. You’re not cooking like you.”

“I can cook like Michelin—”

“I never said you couldn’t. Watch your step.” You interrupt, walking over a bump in the sidewalk. “You can do star level shit, Syd. But that’s a grade, not a type.”

She kind of reels, at that. You continue, “You cook great complex dishes, you always have, I’ve tried them. But now, you’re all caught up trying to prove some shit, to Carmen, to—to— Who gives stars? The tires guy?”

She laughs, almost dropping the bookshelf. “Yeah, I’m trying to impress the tires guy.”

“Fuck you.” You snort, stepping up the stairs. “What I’m trying to say is, you should make what you want to eat, not what you think you should eat.”

She nods, you stop on top of the stairs, both taking a second to breathe. “…Thanks.”

You nod back, hands on your knees for a second before standing back up, opening the lobby door. “I’ll always be your cheerleader, Syd.”

“More like coach.”

“Can you let me have one hot girl career, please?”

When you get back up to Carmen’s, he’s already grimacing. You and Syd are split apart by the bookshelf standing between you in the hall. “Fuck is this?”

“It was free and I’ll clean it!” You press your hands together pleading. “C’mon, you can even put your jeans in it!”

“Jeans on a bookshelf?”

You turn to Syd. “Better than the oven.”

“I think he’s doing that to dry them.”

“I think it’s ‘cause he doesn’t own a dresser.”

“It’s both.” Carmen clicks his tongue, single-handedly picking up the bookshelf and carrying inside. Alright, does he need to show off this much? Whatever. It’s definitely not making you feel any type of way at all.

You squint, watching him walk further in his apartment, and then to Syd. You speak at the same time. “He stays doing too much.”

As promised, you wipe down the bookshelf, making sure it’s free of grime and roadside pests. Syd and Carmy work together in the kitchen, with a now functioning oven. You load the shelf up with the books on the floor— Thankfully they’re piled into categories already, so you don’t have to bother him about that.

You’re tempted to clean his living room, but that would probably be rude, right? Don’t want him to take it as you saying he’s a slob. But they are taking a while… Alright, you’ll just throw out trash. You won’t fold blankets or pick up dishes or anything. Just trash! No big! He can’t be mad at you for that.

You pile together the garbage, then sneakily throw it out in the kitchen trash can as fast as you can, before he looks. He’ll think he’s just sleep cleaning, or something. “How’s it goin’ in here?’

Carmen pipes up, eyes focused on the dish as Syd plates it. “Good.” Syd holds the plate in one hand, and silently corrals you with the other to sit at the table. You do. She sets it down the plate before you, handing you a fork and knife.

You look up at her expectantly. She shakes her head. “Eat first, this time.”

She looks serious, so you nod, cutting into the dish. It’s different from the last one. Instead of oxtail, it’s pastry. Or at least, a puff pastry exterior. You’re pretty sure it’s Pillsbury, you remember Carmen buying that, the other day, on your excursion.

Inside it, you believe is the beef oxtail, there’s other things, too. Some sort of sauce, some greens— Oh well, no time to bask in the cross section because Syd looks like she’s about to explode. You take a bite. You nod, chewing.

Syd starts, “Searing the duck caused the bitter taste— So instead of- Of searing the outside, I coated it in the mushroom sauce, the greens— Not pureed, this time, for texture. Your basil, too. There’s a crumble of feta, for a subtle tang. And then wrapped it all together in puff pastry, and baked. It’s sort of like, a varied take on a beef welling—”

“You made a fucking gourmet hot pocket?” You swallow, wheezing. The second you say this, Sydney’s focused face beams, laughing, like she’s just pulled off the most perfect prank of all time.

Carmen was so intrigued and focused on Sydney’s explanation, that you watering it down to hot pocket and being right makes his entire system reboot. He cannot stop smiling, aghast. He's been helping Syd make a hot pocket for the past hour?

“I told you to make what you want and—” wheeze “—you make a fucking hot pocket?!” You double down, laughing with her, she’s trying to defend herself but she can’t stop wheezing in tandem.

“I— I can’t fuckin’ stand you!” You snort, covering your face with your arm. “I hate your ass, oh my God, Syd.”

“Did—” snort “What did you think?” She recovers, slowly but surely.

You shake your head, handing her the fork. “It’s sick, Syd, obviously, it’s fucking perfect… Chef.” You tack on at the end, almost forgetting. “I’m not gonna be able to have an actual hot pocket, ever again. You’ve ruined my life.”

She takes a bite for herself, nodding. She does a small cheer, pumping her fist. “Let’s fucking go.” She points her fork at you— Purely on muscle memory, and you both instantly remember the days of her testing out recipes and you pairing them on first taste. She’d point her fork to you like a microphone. It was a fun game between two nerds.

It’s a reflex response for you, even now. “Barolo. Savory, dry, red. A young one, though. Light body. Could also do an Amarone, if you’re not buried in money.”

She hands the fork off to Carmy to try it, then writes the pairings down, mumbling, amusement still in her voice. “How the fuck do you do that?”

“I honestly don’t know. I think I have some wires crossed.”

“Fire, Chef.” Carmen swallows his bite. “We cannot call it a hot pocket on the menu.”

“Then what’s the point!?”

Leaving Carmen’s place is objectively the most awkward experience— But also the funniest. You offer to wait for Syd and drive her home— You’ll need a second to pack anyways while they make their business plans.

When you do offer, of course, Carmen stutters short, almost asking you again to sleep over or at the very least stay late, but saves it, realizing himself.

Syd accepts the ride offer. You pack up and wait for her to be done. When she is, Carmen offers to carry your things down with you both, in which Syd accuses him of thinking you’re both weaklings— He does not have a defense case for this, he has to let you go. You can tell he wants to kiss you at the door, and you do too. Sadly, you’re equally down bad, but he can’t know that…

You say your goodbyes, Syd helps you load your tools and hotplate in the trunk of your car. Your phone vibrates. Text from Mister New York.

‘Look up I’m on the balcony. 8 floors.’

You look up, sure as shit, he’s out there, cigarette in mouth. Unlit. He waves, you wave back. He texts again, in rapid succession.

‘Thank you’

‘For helping Syd’

‘And the oven and the hot plate and the bookshelf (not necessary)’

‘nbd + I think it’s v necessary’ Does Carmen understand acronyms? You’re risking it, here.

‘and cleaning my trash’ Sonofabitch.

‘ah fuck. I don’t think you’re messy!!! I just wanted to help!!!’

‘I know. You’re you. Be safe.’

Oh goddammit, stupid dry texter, saying something so gah. You jump as Syd taps the roof of your car behind you, getting your attention. Watching from a far distance, Carmen laughs, though you don’t notice it.

“Are we going?”

“Yes! Sorry!” You hurriedly pocket your phone, waving one last time as you get in your car. Syd sits beside you in shotgun, her pot of basil sat safely in her lap. You drive off.

You’re half way down the road, when Syd pipes up again. “So y’all are fucking, correct?”

You almost brake check the guy behind you.

 “How do you fuckin’ do that!?”

the opening is dedicated to my dear friend and i who have sent our wordle results to each other everyday for the past like year and a half.

Things of note, one - people usually skip the shit up top-- I made a spotify playlist! Listen if you like, I'm not your dad.

Two, I know this is a self insert right, i know what I set myself up for-- Do you know the hell i am in as a syd x carmy girl writing scenes with both of them and it NOT being them? What have I done, to myself? The only coping mechanism I have is imagining in this universe Syd is a lesbian. And that is helping.

The hot pocket recipe-- Who fucking knows, if that would taste good? I think it would? In theory? I fucked with a dish from Daniel NYC, to make it into a bit. Would it work? ....Beef wellingtons do, I can't see why this can't???? Idk man.

Rosemary water w cloves and ginger does fucking work btw. I am part of the so stressed out i lost my hair brigade. Also basil does grow like a motherfucker.

We're seein' a little bit of that tenseness that comes with being in an 'almost relationship' both of them feel like they've got something they can fuck up now. Poor birds. They'll be okay. Probably.

I'm really excited for the next chapter, I don't wanna give shit away, but it's gonna be,,,,,, different. I haven't seen anyone try this kinda formatting on tumblr before, and I'm excited to see what you think. Between my moving and how complex the choreography of it is gonna be, it's gonna be a much longer minute between this chapter and the next, I fear. But listen, you already knew your ass was gettin' spoiled with a chapter every two days. Hehe.

As always, please come yap to me in the replies/inbox/dms/reblogs. I love to hear thoughts!! It sustains me, baby!!

Next Part

[graciereadshannigram]

hey fam, welcome to the April 2024 roundup of the best hannigram fics i've read this past month! i read over 100 fics total, and these were the cream of the crop.

as a reminder: the ingredients for a five star rating typically (but not always!!) include some combination of a.) believable characterizations of both Hannibal and Will, b.) compelling plot and/or character arcs, and c.) high quality smut.

that being said, my judgment of the aforementioned ingredients is powered almost exclusively by vibes and as such, is incredibly subjective.

you can find past recs below:

February March

and if you have any recs of your own for me, PLEASE SHARE.

anyway, in no particular order, let's go!

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A place you can never go by det395

Word Count: 84,596 Summary: When things don’t go according to plan, Hannibal makes a wish. He finds himself a year-and-a-half in the past and seemingly given another chance with Will. His feelings about the situation only get more complicated when he realizes he may not have completely lost access to his old timeline after all. A Digestivo canon divergence.

If you follow me, you probably saw me already raving about this fic. This was so fucking good, holy fucking shit. And also heartbreaking. Made me think a lot about the nature of reality and what does it mean for something to be "real." Plus, I really love fics that explore their shared mind palace because I genuinely think that is one of the more underexplored aspects of their relationship. Definitely heavy on the angst, but there is a happy ending!

even though our love is doomed by bleakmidwinter

Word Count: 82,427 Summary: Hannibal solves the mystery of time travel and he and Will decide to go into the past and take opportunities previously missed along with rewriting the regrets they each hold. Changing the past does not effect the future and they have free reign to play as the please.

GIVE ME MORE THAN FIVE STARS PLEASE. I am obsessed with this fic. I've mostly stayed clear of time travel fics (aside from, you know, the one right above this) because the execution can be hit or miss, but let me fucking tell you. This was a god damn home run. There's a little bit of angst, but then there's also a chapter where Will challenges Hannibal that he wouldn't have been able to seduce him while Will was still working in Louisiana fixing boat motors. And obviously Hannibal decides to take that challenge.

Railroad Romance by OneWhoSitsWithTurtles

Word Count: 12,400 Summary: Hannibal is still Hannibal, and Will is still Will. Except Will is not part of the FBI and they meet on a two day train trip from New Orleans to Baltimore.

Dirty. Talk. In. FRENCH. Holy shit. Okay this was excellent. EXCELLENT. Perfect characterizations, and wonderful dialogue. Wow. Also, I love trains. Who doesn't love trains?

patroclus in furs by bleakmidwinter

Word Count: 130,185 Summary: If Will and Hannibal hadn't gone into their respective careers, they would have become porn stars.

I had my doubts about a pornstar AU, but I've really enjoyed everything else by this author and it was over 100k, so I gave it a shot! And WOW. The characterizations of both Will and Hannibal were spot on and believable. A good mix of fluff and angst, and the author clearly put a lot of thought into the porn scenes. Tbh I'm probably going to reread this shortly.

Pavlova by nbcravenstag

Word Count: 33,369 Summary: It’s not like Hannibal didn’t know that Will was hiding something. It was after the third body drop a week ago that it became clear that Will had a secret that somehow involved the case, one he wasn’t willing to share yet, not even with Hannibal. At 6:43 AM, Will had texted Hannibal that a fourth body had been found and that he was on his way to the scene with Jack. At 8:06 PM, Will had stepped into Hannibal’s office, thirty-six minutes past his appointment time, and practically shouted “I used to be a stripper!” as loudly as his hoarse voice would allow him to. Hannibal Lecter, though not phased by much in life, has never been entirely able to predict Will Graham, but this is just… getting out of control. Alternatively, the FBI is hunting a serial killer targeting male strippers, and Will decides to throw himself into the fray. Hannibal is beyond pleased.

An AU where Will was a stripper in college and now he's working a case where he can be live bait as a stripper? Shut the fuck up. Mostly told from Hannibal's perspective, and it's just *chefs kiss*. Who knew Will giving Hannibal a lap dance would be so HOT. (I could have guessed.)

Lessons In Submission by wyldefire

Word Count: 5,173 Summary: Hannibal was stubborn, independent, and Will had always loved that about him, but there were times, times like these, in the midst of heat, in the midst of such a thorough breeding, when lessons in submission were necessary.

My only thought at the end of this was, "Shut the whole fuck up" in the best way possible. Smut. Just all smut.

A Very Special Guest by LesBeanBurrito

Word Count: 56,660 Summary: Season 1 AU in which Will stays for Hannibal’s dinner party after bringing the bottle of wine at the end of 1X07 Sorbet. Embarrassed and Sassy Will Graham meets Smitten Hannibal Lecter.

I LOVE a good season 1 AU and this was checking all of the boxes for me! There's a secret relationship, Hannibal actually gets Will treated for his encephalitis, Will finds out about Hannibal, etc. Very much loved the plot, and the characterizations were spot on.

lover to your nightmare (look what you made of me) by merrythoughts and ReallyMissCoffee

Word Count: 123,367 Summary: Driving back home, it’s then he reflects on Hannibal asking him to run away that night. To forgo their plans altogether, to slip away. [Canon divergent. Will confesses his betrayal and asks Hannibal to run away with him, but Will has a plan of his own...]

You want dark!Will mixed in with some incredibly jealous and possessive Hannigram? Hooo boy do I have a fic for you! The ending was a little abrupt, but it was the perfect mix of gut-wrenching angst and toxicity + smoking hot smut. I genuinely had to stop and focus on my breathing more than once.

On the Lam by shotgun_sinner

Word Count: 63,992 Summary: Post-Fall (Hannibal)season 4Crack Treated SeriouslyOn the RunWill Graham Discovers FanfictionExplicit Sexual Contentsexual identity crisisThat's Not Really A CrisisWill Graham is HannisexualMurder HusbandsHomophobiaMurder of a HomophobeHannibal Lecter Loves Will GrahamWill Graham Loves Hannibal LecterPower Bottom Will Grahamthey love each other your honorvery meta

This was such a fun read – I love the implication that hannigram fanfiction exists and it's all there for Will to accidentally discover. I adore this author and just thoroughly enjoyed how Will learned a thing or two about himself by reading smutty fics (same dude).

Golden Promises by shotgun_sinner

Word Count: 68,488 Summary: Hannibal (TV) Season/Series 01Alternate Universe - Canon DivergenceEpisode: s01e07 SorbetHallucinations?Will Hopes SoLELOplugSexuality CrisisThat Ends Up Not Being A CrisisWill Graham Has EncephalitisHannibal Gets Will TreatmentDeveloping RelationshipWill Graham's Dogs - FreeformBonding over fooddoting hannibalEventual SmutHannibal Lecter Loves Will GrahamWill Graham Loves Hannibal LecterAlana DisapprovesRimmingOral SexBottom Hannibal LecterTop Will GrahamBottom Will GrahamTop Hannibal LecterWill Graham KnowsNon-Consensual Drug UseWill Gives Him Shit For ItMurder HusbandsCannibalismis that tag even necessary?Hannibal Lecter Loves Max

This was fluffier than I typically read, but I told y'all I love this author. Pretty much no angst, and the smut, as always, was next level. Also, the idea that Hannibal would wear a solid gold butt plug to his dinner parties had me laughing before I even started reading.

What Hatches by HotMolasses (@snazzymolasses here on tumblr)

Word Count: 107,847 Summary: There is a village, nestled on the edge of an ancient forest where it is always winter. Few of the townsfolk ever venture into it, except for one lonely hunter named Will Graham. A loner who makes his living selling stag meat and spends more time with dogs than people, he finds his life changing when he comes face-to-face with a magical beast, one that he cannot get away from, and isn’t even sure he really wants to.

What started out as a curiosity about the monsterfucking tag on AO3 brought me to one of the most unique and interesting hannigram AUs I've read??? I'm as surprised as you are, if not more. I adored this fic and I loved how both Will and Hannibal were characterized and the plot and the smut (oh my god, the smut) and the ending? Phew. Go read this.

lay like a flood spills away by bleakmidwinter

Word Count: 35,733 Summary: Will starts going to a nude beach that happens to be for gay men, even though he considers himself straight.

This was highly enjoyable. I LOVE AUs that manage to keep the characters true to canon. Also nude beaches. Hannigram and nude beaches. Eating ass and public sex with some actual plot sprinkled in. Say LESS.

Now, What Should We Do Next? by HigherMagic

Word Count: 51,116 Summary: Kinktober 2018

Smut. All smut. I showed this fic to a friend who has literally never read fanfiction, let alone Hannigram, before and she is now hooked. So. Do with that what you will. And it's so clear that this author has actual, real-life experience with kink and it comes across so well! Bonus point: there is also an equally good sequel.

To Mend With Gold by beforethedawn, ConstructFairytales, Destinyawakened

Word Count: 98,863 Summary: Will and Hannibal have been living as a gay married couple for three years, but they haven't slept in the same room let alone the same bed. Will Graham has a reckoning, one way or another.

THIS WAS TENDER. Fluffy, angsty, smutty, I loved it. Molly showed up with Will's dogs and decided she wasn't going to turn them in, which was a little weird, but I really loved this fic. Just them learning how to be with each other. Also EXCELLENT marathon smut scenes. Like yesssss, of course they can each cum like three times in a row.

A Clutch at Balance by Deverauxs_Disease

Word Count: 25,466 Summary: When Will Graham storms into Hannibal's house muttering about kissing Alana Bloom, the good doctor makes Will an offer: Pretend to date Hannibal in order to prove to Alana that Will is not only stable but capable of being in a relationship. When Alana is convinced Will is the man of her dreams, Hannibal will step aside and Will can get his girl.

Y'all know I love fake dating that all of a sudden, whoops! Isn't so fake anymore! Sprinkle in some jealous and possessive Hanni and Will? I'm sold. Say less.

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And that's a wrap on this month! See ya next time!!!