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starry-bi-sky · 1 month ago

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finally giving fem danyal her own au and fulfilling my 'danny is an animal whisperer' agenda at the same time: mother of monsters danyal 2.0

i say "2.0" because TECHNICALLY 'mother of monsters danyal' is an au I made back in June for Dark fem!Danyal (who I promptly named Layal). However, I haven't posted much for her yet, and I like the "mother of monsters" premise too much to leave it only to Layal. Plus Danyal in that au was going to become the mother of monsters anyway, just with significantly less world domination and mass extinction.

'Animal whisperer' Danny has been something I've been thinking about since my latest DP 'wolfpack au' post and it's! So fun to think about, and who no better to assign the idea to than Danyal Al Ghul? Who comes from a family infamously known for their love of animals and nature?

Fem Danyal is just purely self-indulgent. *gestures wildly at her* i just lomvb,,, her,,,, I've only really mentioned her in context of the 'Things in Threes' au/my first Danyal al Ghul au with the facial scar, but she's!!! I love her. She deserves her own au <33

So kill three birds with one stone! Make a post about it.

Anyways, Danny has a large lair. Similar to cult leader danyal, her lair is a giant mountain region resembling nanda parbat with a big temple/palace-like area built into the mountain. It's large, it's overflowing with natural flora, with its own mini-floating islands hovering over some areas, and it's also completely empty.

Danny takes one look at her lair upon first meeting, -- noting that it looked relatively smaller from the outside -- and promptly, with the elegance of an Al Ghul, goes "What the hell??" Because yes, while she does enjoy her own solitude and privacy, this is a bit ridiculous.

For heaven's sake, there's even a massive lake in there! What's she going to do with all this space? Can she make it any smaller? Why is it so big in the first place? This looks borderline like one of the mega-islands!

She finds out later that apparently, the amount of ectoplasm a ghost has can have an effect on the size of their lair. And since she has such a large core, her lair reflects that. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, it's bigger on the inside so it doesn't take up "too much space" on the outside. Don't worry about it too much.

Danyal isn't totally opposed to having such a large lair, she's just... a bit baffled by it. It feels like so much wasted space is all. All this flora and no fauna to enjoy it with. It's practically eerie.

She decorates her temple-palace area, transforming rooms to match her needs as she sees fit. In the center of the inner gardens is a massive tree that she likes to climb, with twisting, winding branches. Sam and Tucker have honorary rooms, even if they can't safely leave the specter speeder for long periods of time, even with proper safety equipment. So does Jazz. Ali (Dani) has one too, but he can actually use that one, and Danny brought him to her lair so he could decorate it himself.

She has a personal garden, but for the most part she lets the flora exist as it is. Too much space to cultivate it en masse anyways.

Skip to a few weeks later, on her next visit to Clockwork. She developed a habit of going to see him semi-regularly just because. She enjoys his wisdom, and he has a lot of stories to tell, and when he's not being the cryptic and esoteric timekeeper, he's a bit goofy.

(pushing my dadwork agenda here,,, i think Danny deserves to go 'hey, Lord Clockwork, do you want me to buy you something' while she's at walmart, only to receive a singular glowing sticky note that says 'cucumber gatorade'.)

(She insists on referring to him with his proper titles even for the most mundane of things because it's proper, but Clockwork sees a future where she eventually calls him "Cee" and by all things in existence is he determined to get there. Anyways,,,)

On her next visit to Clockwork, just as she is about to leave, Clockwork stops her and goes; "Ah, I have something for you. Hold out your hands."

Danny does as such, and Clockwork doesn't give out things often, so her curiosity has spiked to the highest levels. He turns away from her for a moment, using his staff to summon whatever it is he needs, and when he turns around.

He drops a fish into her hands. Granted, a fish in a small glass tank. But a fish nonetheless. A small one, roughly about the size of her finger, with a blue-black, eel-shaped body and four sets of glowing eyes. She can see thin, almost translucent, but spiny fins down its back and the start of bioluminescent markings. It's swimming around in circles in its small container.

"Lord Clockwork." Danyal says all too calmly.

"Yes, Danyal?"

"What is this?"

"That is an adolescent leviathan, Danyal." She’s transfixed onto the tank, but she doesn’t need to see Clockwork’s face to hear the smile he’s stifling.

The myriad of emotions that runs through her all at once threatens to overwhelm her, and she can’t tell if the feelings are negative or positive. So she carefully closes her eyes to breathe in through her nose.

“Clockwork.”

“Ah, I see you’ve dropped formalities.”

She ignores that.

“Why have you given me an adolescent leviathan?”

She's expecting the trickster to look amused when she opens her eyes. Instead, he just looks endeared. "I know you're fond of animals," he says, "and you always look amazed when you come across an animal of the realms. So I thought you might enjoy taking care of the young beast, it's mother is dead so it has no one to care for it."

Oh.

"But, if you don't like it," Clockwork's hands reach out for the tank, "I can simply take it back--"

Danyal shifts the tank out from his reach and hugs it possessively. "I never said that. How do I care for it?"

And so clockwork gives her a list, and when Danyal returns to her lair, she sets up a large tank in her room for the leviathan to swim in -- it's much too small for the lake right now, she thinks. She'll feel better if it's somewhere she can find it. She names him Suhā.

Suhā grows quickly, and by the end of the mortal month she transforms one of the rooms into a large pond for him to swim around in. He's a very loyal beast, recognizing her as it's mother of some kind. Danyal takes great care ensuring that her beastie gets quality care, and Suhā swims to the surface to see her when he senses her in the room.

It spirals from there. Somehow, Pandora catches wind that Clockwork gave her a leviathan, and so the next time Danyal visits the Greater Athens, she gives her a baby chimera. It's eyes are still sealed shut, Danyal can't bring herself to say no. She names the little beastie Firas.

Frostbite hears about it too, and not to be outdone, gives her an animal she's never even heard of. Infinite-realms born, apparently. A fox-like creature with two small horns like an impala, four eyes, and tall legs. The name isn't something she's quite sure how to write down, and she's positive that her friends won't be able to comprehend it. She names her Eira.

Getting the three of them used to each other was... interesting. Suhā tried to eat Firas when Danyal first introduced the two, and they've hated each other ever since. Firas and Eira are seemingly getting along. Her island already feels full enough with the three of them on it.

Of course, that's not the end of it. With her luck, she begins stumbling across other monsters. Realms-borne or otherwise. An injured hydra in the Grecian islands that, through lots of trial and error, Danyal is able to rehabilitate and heal. It routinely comes to visit her afterwards.

A griffin with a broken wing that she moves permanently to the island that likes to keep to itself, but tends to come down when she's near. It gets along best with Firas.

A panther-like monster from the Shades Woods that had six legs and three tails, with ends that reminded her of a venus flytrap. It stuck around the heavy foliage and she can only make out where it was when she saw its golden eyes reflect.

She befriends a young indrik with its leg injured, and much like the hydra it follows her back to her island, and stays there in the mountains. It comes out when she's alone, much like her other beasts.

She receives two more leviathan -- one from clockwork, and one she finds herself while exploring the deeper and darker recesses of the Ghost Zone. It was huddled against the carcass of its mother, and she managed to befriend and get close enough to it to bring it back to her island. Suhā is fully grown by then, with a head bigger than Danyal herself and he still likes to stick her head out of the water for nuzzles when she's near.

He's not very happy with his new siblings, but he's not trying to eat them when she's not looking. So she calls it a win in her book.

And it's not just large beasts either; smaller animals begin popping up when she's not looking. Bird-like creatures and small mammals, and she swears she saw a doe (or something resembling a doe) grazing in the forest while she was walking by.

She takes back with her a lone snake egg once, and it grows so big it wraps around her island and sleeps with its massive head on the mountain beside the temple, like some smaller breed of Jörmungandr.

And on and on it goes. Some of the beasts she comes across never step foot onto her island, some of them follow her back, while others she has to carry back. Not all of the ones that follow her stay, and Danny rehabilitates the injured and releases them when they're fully healed.

It's hectic, and busy, and frankly she loves it. Some of her rehabilitated beasts return to visit her, or to have their children somewhere on the island, or whatever it is they need to do.

She becomes a bit infamous for it. She goes to visit Dorathea once, and as she's walking through the streets she can hear some of the denizens whispering while she walks past.

"Is that her?"

"Her highness' friend? Yes--"

"--that's the one--"

"--Mother of monsters--"

Danny's not sure how to feel about that.

Although, she can't say she's opposed.

Danyal Al Ghul, Mother of monsters, raiser of beasts. It has a nice ring to it.

#danny fenton is not the ghost king #dpxdc #dp x dc #dpxdc crossover #danyal al ghul au #dpxdc prompt #fem danny fenton #fem danyal al ghul #mother of monsters danny #if anyone wants to hear about Layal specifically I'd be HAPPY to tell you about her. she's inspired by the song 'scylla' from epic #you can't leave me with dark danny for too long i give him depth if i do. anyways i gave layal mommy issues. she has a complicated view on #danyal and both loves and hates her in equal measure. she killed her out of mercy. she's her mother her sister her other half.#she despises her. she misses her. she'll never see her again. she sees her every time she looks in the mirror. she's 24. she's 10 years old #can you tell that i made layal during a time where i was thinking about the 'dan is danny's kid' dpdc trope bc that's exactly what happened #*holds dad!clockwork up like potato.* 'i just think he's neat :)'#i am incapable of making things only cracky. i must make it meaningful in some way or another.#MMMM i have to cut it off here before it gets too looooNNGGG.#if this flops i'll be sad :((#i just think the idea that danyal has her own little world on her island is neat. she's got dragons and wyrms and serpents and giant wolves #and griffins and one time there's a sphinx although she doesn't stay permanently. Danyal has a blast answering her riddles though.#that panther is based off the dnd displacer beast. there's little salamanders and gazelles with three eyes. there's more sea monsters than #just suhā and the other two leviathans but i couldnt think of any. im obsessed with the sea serpents if you havent notice LMFAO.#there's pegasi and a manticore and a ton of infinite realms monsters that are just an assortment of animals slapped together #the shades woods are a mega-island idea that i had. they're where a bunch of the “shades ghosts” are from. Its this large forest area with #megaflora trees similar to the redwood forest with canopies so thick and wide that no light can reach the bottom. so all of the native faun #living there have adapted to live in the shadows. there are a few villages that live in tall tree houses like the ewok villages that outsid #ghosts can go visit. the panther that's from there is very fond of danyal honestly. anyways yEAH ANIMAL WHISPERER DANNY.#her beasties are all animals up until she's like. 19. where she promptly steals an infant minotaur from a Legends Islands near Pandora #he wasn't being treated well okay!!! she couldn't stand by and watch. his name is asterion. he's a year old. and she'll kill for him.#i dont have enough tags to talk about Damian or her family >:T. just know that i am leaning into her assassin bg as usual :)

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triglycercule · 2 months ago

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thinking about mtt literally physically dragging eachother down and being restrained to eachother because theyre genuinely that fucking ass for eachother but then it means i'd have to decide which of them to humiliate by putting a collar on them. and i can't choose. if they dont all equally suffer than whats the point man 🙁🙁🙁

#i think they'd all have interesting reactions to it 2 #like a permanent collar that cant be taken off. to make even more gruesome what if it were like built into the BONE????#or it could just be something less extreme like bone carvings. killer would absolutely do that shit #anyways i think horror would be the most reactive to it. anger is the most intriguing emotion #and also dog horror real. anyways he'd hate to be demeaned and disrespected like that. he has an ego and honor man and this is cutting it #dust drags him around constantly. killer pets him and disregards his boundaries. like a fucking DOG #because horror hates kist enough that he'd never let them get vulnerable enough. not that it stops killer LMAO #dust thinks some of horrors hatred towards them is a projection of his own self hatred (and hed lowkey be right)#loser. dust i think would be unique because to me he'd be a bit fine with it #i mean i think itd be hidden under paps scarf so it wouldn't be a constant reminder of horror n killer #but he lets the two hold the leash at least a bit. give him an eensy bit of touch and let a few insults slide #but the second he decides that even the smallest thing is enough he gets ticked off and then yk. someone has to put bunny back in his place #because dust is chill enough to let normal things in his eyes pass. he's not very reactionary or the type to immediately bite back #(since dust would just avoid horror and killer if he did meet them. means he has some sort of tolerance for them. keeping his peace fr)#but the moment hes reminded that god these two do suck and i shouldn't be letting this happen all of the held back anger comes out #killer would seek out the force and stuff. horror would treat him like shit because it makes himself feel good and killer look like an idio #dust doesn't even glance at him though and it pisses killer off. both of their actions do actually #like WTF DUST you guys literally put this on me. treat me like the piece of shit i know you think i am #but also STOP HORROR!!!! dont pull me around and demean me im not a pet i dont want to be treated that way even tho i say it do #yeah hes caught in a standstill. AND SO AM I do you see my issue. cannot pick one specific #all the trio would have such interesting reactions i cant just choose one to solely suffer......... anyways mttpoly am i right #should i tag this. like majority of the interesting stuff is in tags. but also i didnt post today i have a duty #dust sans #killer sans #horror sans #murder time trio #utmv #tricule rant #this just ended up being me thinking about mtt with collars. maaan what about handcuffs and chains and other restrictive things #having them have restraining relationship isnt enough i need them to PHYSICALLY RESTRAIN EACHOTHER

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skunkes · 7 months ago

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I mean this vent completely neutrally and as an observation rather than Woe is Me negativity but going ham in my sketchbook has been Fun but along with not really Learning anything (tho historically no art knowledge ever sticks to my brain) I'm no closer to understanding how I WANT to draw! if that makes sense.

I dont really identify with or want to continue any of the patterns I try (nor do they get any more muscle memory-y, in the fundamentals area).

Its fine as long as its Fun but I really feel the aimlessness. Like I'll keep going but I've also. Been doing that. All I do is Keep Going, when does it all tetris together!

#continuation of this is like. idk how to trust my eyes if im being honest! and im understanding rules but not how to break em #like how i understand that in realistic proportions theres as much space above the eyes than below them on a face #but obviously people draw characters with shorter foreheads/skulls all the time #ive done it too. but it looks Wrong when i do it on purpose. i feel everything i try to do looks unintentionally wrong #idk how to get to the intentional part or what i even want that to look like!#the permanent issue of not knowing what i want it to look like i just know i dont want it to look like this #which is bad bc you shouldnt qualify things by the negatives like that....wagh #im no good at making things from scratch i wish someone wld just draw in my ideal art style already so i cld study it #(jork)#technically i cld do this with urasawa bc like i said thats a dream style right there ill just infuse it with mine #but it Feels wrong #and i know u dont need to have 1 art style forever but i draw one way and forget all the previous ways ive ever drawn #i rly dont understand! i wish we cld share brains with each other so i cld gain understanding of what to do next ykwim #bc ill always keep going i just worry im never going to Get it #that there will always be that bizarre and extreme disconnect between eye and mind and hand #talkys

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stillfruit · 2 months ago

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i love not knowing if i'll ever be healthy again i love all of the time i've used to move my body become nothing i love spending my adulthood wasting away year after year for various reasons baby!

#i know i'm being dramatic and privileged etc etc right now but i hate living like this #i probably had covid in the beginning of august and since then my heart and lungs have just been fucked #so now i'm probably looking at at least 2 years of long covid and maybe permanent neurological damage #could i be lucky and get better in few more months? maybe. do i believe that will happen? no. optimistically maybe next summer id be better #my symptoms are not that bad considering what i know other people have suffered but at the same time that makes it feel not real #otherwise i'm pretty much fine except i feel like fainting alot after standing up or excerting myself and anything beyond walking #spikes my hr to 160 and right now even laying down my hr is around 80. this comes with the associated shortness of breath etc #what fucks me up about this is that my normal hr is low with my rhr being under 50bpm and i'm physically active #so basically i've went from regular running and half marathons being no issue to not being able to jog 1km at the slowest pace possible #without spiking my hr to zone 4 #so now with the recovery time of this being however long if properly ever i'll have to basically start all over again with everything #i biked to the grocery store yesterday and that took me out for the rest of the day because my heart rate just didn't go down afterwards #outwards i look fine and i wouldn't be as affected if sports and moving wasn't a part of my life and relationships but it is #i've read studies about recovery times and a lot of them don't feel applicable because the test groups are either very different from me #based on the baseline health info such as activity levels or they're elite atheletes which i am not #some have given me hope that keeping my hr under like 130 by doing activities like walking until maybe someday things get better works #but who knows and even if it does this will be yet another thing that takes the littlest bits of muscle tissue i have on me away once again #because besides deconditioning muscle loss is yet another symptom. so i will be even weaker than i am right now #i don't know how much of what i'm experiencing in terms of mental effects is from anxiety over my physical health and how much is brainfog #but we'll see i'll just have to start walking a lot every day and keep up with simple and slow strenght training so i'll want to die less #i don't think my family will ever properly understand because almost all of them are athletes and the one who isn't never does any excercis #so either i just look like i'm weak but i was always weak so it's not a big deal or my experience isn't really that important #this is so so so pathetic both my reaction and the issue but it's difficult to not feel this way especially with the uncertainty #shit talking

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steampoweredskeleton · 25 days ago

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Ignore

#delete later #the issue with having no emotional object permanence is that every bad situation is the worst thing ive ever experienced #my grandad died five years ago so i know ive felt grief before as an adult. but the emotions i felt have no permanence so #i have no concept of how it felt. so knowing that my aunt is going to die soon feels like the most painful thing I've ever felt #and it means i cant really think of much else. and i fucked up aGAIN at work today. and my manager is getting fucking tired of it #but like im really trying. like i checked those things. i just didnt see them. its frustrating. im not processing anything correctly #and my grandma losing her younger brother. and watching my mum and aunt losing their sister. is making me ao so so scared #of losing mine. I've never processed how close it was. abd now i feel like im just re experiencing it at random times. abd that's #terrifying. i don't know what id do. and now im crying again. fuck man. i swing wildly between being so scared abd upset at #losing my aunt and what it means for everyone i love. and being super matter of fact aboit it. bc ive had harm ocd since i was #a kid. ive been thinking about the ways i and everyone could die and coping with it by being matter of fact that everyone dies #and its as natural as being alive. turns out both things exist in me and idk how to do anything with them #but anyway. tomorrow morning i will go outside. i will look in charity shops for home things. i will maybe buy ingredients for cake #and i will continue on. i want to make apple cake. and chocolate cake. and i will deal with the eggs as i must

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gay-dorito-dust · 8 months ago

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How they’d react to you not kissing/hugging him before leaving for a mission…

Dick acts as though you told him his ass isn’t that fat in his spandex suit-

He’s insulted.

You always, always remember to kiss his cheek before he leaves. His ‘good luck, be safe and kick ass’ cheek kiss!

It’s your thing as a couple! Do you want to see him cry because he fucking will! He’ll do it!

Dick will pout, huff and whine loud as possible in hopes that you’d realise your error and rectify it tenfold. He won’t tell you what’s wrong. No, he wants and expects you to figure it out for yourself, which doesn’t get him anywhere when you’re looking at him confused and lost as to what he was whining about; Literally.

His mood will be down for the entirety of the day and you’ll no doubt have texts from his teammates and family members asking what was wrong with Dick to look so down.

You’re just as confused as them seeing as how Dick didn’t disclose his innermost thoughts and feelings to you despite being his partner, so you were at a loss on how to help them with something even you weren’t privy to knowing…it’s probably one of your biggest issues as a couple but that’s for another time.

Dick will do that pathetic thing where he looks back at you expectantly the closer he gets towards the door, even going so far as to walk extremely slow when he was within reaching distance of the door handle as to buy you enough time to notice before he genuinely had to leave.

When you don’t however, Dick acts like a kicked puppy for the rest of the day and will proceed to exaggerate to anyone with ears about how his lover was restricting him of his affection.

On the other hand, If you do manage to remember to give him a good luck kiss, planting an extra one on his other cheek for extra, extra luck. Dick will have a permanent smile on his face that will not go the fuck away, even when he’s beating someone’s ass, the smile remains glued on his face as though with gorilla glue.

Seeing Dick brutally beat someone’s ass with a smile was horrifying for anyone to witness but it’s okay bc he’s happy that you remembered to kiss him good luck.

Jason will immediately call you out on your bullshit.

And by that I mean cross his arms over his chest and stare at you saying. ‘Well?’

And you’re like: ‘well what?’

And he’s like: ‘where’s my good luck kiss that you owe me? Roy is waiting on me and here I am waiting on my kiss, so give me my kiss chipmunk.’

Jason doesn’t piss about and gets to the meat of the issue at hand. He wants his good luck kisses and he wants them now and he will not leave the apartment until he gets them.

You’d raise a brow at his not so subtle neediness for your affection and decided to tease him. ‘I thought you didn’t need my good luck kisses remember? You’re a big boy who can fight with or without my good luck kisses.’

Jason groans, not expecting you to pull that out. ‘I said that one time. One time and I was being a dick back then too because all you wanted to do was show me that you cared about me and didn’t want me to get hurt.’

You smiled and got up from the couch and walked over to him, resting your hands on his biceps. ‘So now that you admit that you were a dick and the way that you acted was wrong…’ you trailed off as you pressed a kiss to his lips once, twice, three times because you loved to kiss Jason whenever possible and will try to plant as many kisses as you could.

‘Thanks chipmunk.’ Jason murmurs against your lips, feeling everything has gone back to being right again. ‘Now I better be off or Roy will tease me for lingering too long-‘

‘Too late.’ Roy said from the doorway and Jason closed his eyes and silently curse while you smiled and waved at Roy. ‘Hi Roy!’ You said. ‘Hi y/n, mind letting Jason come out to play?’ Roy joked. You played along by making a thoughtful face as Jason mutters under his breath; ‘are you being serious right now?’

You snapped your fingers. ‘As long as you make sure Jason doesn’t get into trouble then yes, he may go out and play.’

‘I hate you both.’ Jason groaned as he walked past you and playfully shoved Roy aside to leave the apartment. Roy then cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted after him. ‘Are you sure you don’t want your goodbye kisses?’ You and Roy laugh together upon hearing Jason cursing him out from a distance.

Damian acts indifferent about it.

He doesn’t need a good luck hug, hell! he doesn’t need luck at all!

He’s skilled enough to win any fight without relying on something silly as Luck. Luck was just probability under a different name and definition. (A/n: Don’t quote me on that.)

So when you forget to give him a hug before a mission, Damian doesn’t think anything of it but it will linger in his mind unnecessarily much to his annoyance.

Why was he so hung up on not getting something a silly as a hug? Or was he instead more upset over the fact that you, his closest friend/partner, completely forgot about it as though it wasn’t anything worth remembering.

Either way he was conflicted and didn’t know how to go about saying any of this to you without getting frustrated over his apparent loss for words. He was a man of action more then anything so when he finally catches up to you, he will stride towards you and stop just a couple of inches and silently stare at you with his resting bitch face.

‘Damian?’ You asked. ‘Are you okay?’

Damian doesn’t say anything because he couldn’t think of anything to say in that moment and instead stays silent as to save himself from further embarrassment.

‘Damian?’ You asked again, getting worried over his unusual silence. ‘I can’t help you if you don’t tell me-‘ before you could finish your sentence, Damian had lunged towards you and brought you into a very tight hug. You smile softly and gladly hugged Damian back, not saying a single word other then;

‘You don’t need me to say it but I’ll reaffirm it anyway, you’ll do great out there Dami. I know you will.’

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mywritersmind · 2 months ago

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TOUCH ME - LN4

summary : y/n shows her affection through hugs, kisses, and just plain touching. lando is sad when he realizes that she does this with everyone but him.

listen up : no warnings!! cuteness!! singapore win!

word count : 747

⋆｡‧˚⋆

It had been bothering him for months. Lando noticed when he and Y/n started becoming friends. After a long period of not liking each other, the two finally agreed to put their differences aside because of all their mutual friends.

Their mutual friends started becoming the issue for Lando.

She touches everyone. Not in a weird way, she just shows affection through touch… Through touching anyone but him.

Lando watches her in his drivers room, she’s drawing on the small whiteboard; a tiny lando and a tiny y/n in the corner.

“Why do you touch everyone?” He asks out of nowhere, she turns back slightly, giving him a look before turning back to the board.

“My love language is touch… I guess? At least that’s what people tell me.” She shrugs, coming to the end of the drawing.

“But you don’t touch me.” This makes her pause for a moment before finishing off the drawing and turning back around to face the man.

He's sitting on his drivers bed, race suit unzipped half way and water bottle in hand.

“You want me to touch you?” she raises a brow, teasing him a bit.

He looks down at his water, fiddling with the straw, “I just mean- we’re friends, right? You seem to kiss and hug everyone except for me.”

This makes her more uncomfortable, she slips her hands in her pockets and shrugs, “I don’t mean to not. I guess it’s just different with you.”

“How am I different from Oscar or Charles?” He looks up at her again, his eyes so bright, “They both have girlfriends and you don’t seem bothered.”

Y/n laughs, not thinking before speaking, “Yeah because I’m not into them like that.”

Lando’s eyes widen a bit, “But- you’re into me… like that?” Y/n decides there is two options,

1. Confess her feelings for Lando, ruining all the progress they’ve made to have a good and comfortable friendship while simultaneously risking rejection from someone she really cares about.

2. Lie.

Two seems safer.

“Of course not.” she shakes her head.

Lando doesn’t believe her, or he just doesn’t want to believe her, “So why don’t you touch me? Even after I won in Zandvoort you didn’t hug me.” she hadn't realized how much this had hurt him. She was simply thinking about the hundreds of cameras facing them and how she was already blushing.

Someone knocks on the door then, calling out, “Lando, Warm up starting now.” He swallows, looking up at Y/n.

“I’ll go.” She says quietly, wondering how everything so quickly went south, “Good Luck, Lan.”

⋆｡‧˚⋆

Y/n watched the race with Max, on the edge of her seat and sweating. The moment Lando crossed the finish line, a grin was permanently planted onto her face.

After every interview, the podium, a shower, and change of clothes, he walked out to the track where Y/n sat.

She jumped up and hugged him.

“You’re so fucking amazing.” Lando’s heart skipped a beat.

“Enjoy the race?” He smiles as she pulls away, her hands joining and clapping.

“Duh! Everyone else was all boring and whatever but you did so well! Twenty seconds ahead- shit!” even though he was in the race and just had a thirty minute meeting about it, he could listen to her talk about it for hours. “And Lan, about before- I really didn’t mean to hurt you it’s just different and I don’t know why but I swear it’s not to be mean! You’re my friend and-”

“Just friend?” Lando stops her immediately.

She looks up at him, “Well… I always thought-”

“I fancy you. I have for a while.” He just spits it out, his hands on her elbows as she stares blankly at him.

She blinks, “You’re not taking the piss are you because I swear!” He kisses her then.

She’s laughing against him as he pulls her closer, touching her softly and savoring it.

“I like you too.” She blushes. “And fuck you for not telling me sooner!”

He scoffs, “You could have as well! Plus you’re so damn mysterious I couldn’t tell if I should be flattered at your yelling or scared.”

She laughs, kissing his cheek before resting her head on his chest.

He puts his arms around her, his heart beating rapidly, “If you touch your friends like that then i’m damn excited to see how you treat your boyfriend.”

#fanfic #formula 1 fanfic #lando norris #lando norris fanfic #f1 imagine #lando x reader #f1 fanfic #f1 x reader #lando imagine #f1 fic

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enwoso · 3 days ago

Note

Possibly leah can propose to alessia, and get lovie involved or leah moves in permanently and lovie only wants to sleep with them. Hope the writers block goes away

SLEEP SCARES — alessia russo x leah williamson x child!reader

i’m back! well sort of-

just a quick lil something as i feel as though i’ve lowkey forgotten about yall. but i promise it’s with good reason, life’s been busy and i’m on holiday rn but im hoping when i get home i can get back to normal and start to get some more fic/blurbs out for you all🙃

grumpy masterlist

as a baby and as you grew that little bit older, alessia could generally say she had been quite lucky with how easy it was for you to get to sleep.

she had never really had any issues with you waking up during the night — of course there had been the odd occasion when you’d been poorly but other than that, you liked sleeping in your own bed.

however, ever since your little mind had discovered the secret of your mummy and leah and the fact they were more than friends. your bed and room wasn’t as comfy and cool anymore. you instead now wanted to be in your mummy’s bed watching whatever silly adult show was showing on the tv sneaking a few sweets which you really shouldn’t be having after brushing your teeth.

this cycle had occurred more often when leah was staying the night, “how long do you think it’ll be until lovie’s wondering through the door?” alessia whispered as the two were lying tangled together in bed, the only light coming from the tv which was on a low hum.

“hm i’d give it at least thirty minutes” leah rasped out as she ran a hand through alessia’s hair, alessia humming in response, sinking deeper into leah’s arms.

the two knew that there time together wouldn’t last long until you were tip toeing sleepily into the room with your elephant under your arm as your eyes were filled with sleep.

alessia and leah had dosed off, the tv playing adverts as the door creeped open. you tip toeing so lightly, as you climbed into the bed from the bottom. sinking yourself inbetween the two.

alessia feeling the movement, as her eyes opened slightly. “lovie? what you doing?” your mummy questioned as she sleepily yawned, moving a little from leah’s warmth. you sat in the middle of the bed on your knees, a sleepy look on your face.

“can’t sleep, there noises in my room” you pouted as your shoulders sunk down. a flash of worry came across alessia’s face as her brow furrowed downwards slightly.

“what do you mean noises?” alessia asked as she sat up, her back resting against the headboard of her bed reaching over to turn on the side lamp. moving with much caution hoping not to wake the sleeping blonde beside her. knowing the grumpy mood she would wake in if she was woken up from her slumber.

are you sure it’s not just the wind?” alessia pushed more knowing sometimes the sound of the wind can sometimes make some scary noises.

you shrugged, a small yawn falling from your lips. “i sleep in here” you cutely asked, your eyes forming a pleading look as a small sigh came from your mummy’s lips.

“do you not want mummy to come and lie in your bed with you?” she asked, hopeful that would be the best solution. but you shook your head, the bed slightly shaking as you did so.

alessia surrendering as she whispered out a yes, not wanting the hassle of trying to coax you back into your own bed as admittedly she just wanted to get back to sleep herself.

your mummy moving slightly to make a small gap in the bed for you to lie in as a small smug smile of victory flashed across your lips as you flopped into bed. your mummy placing a kiss to your cheek as she whispered good night in your ear, circling small shapes on your back.

it didn’t take long for you to fall asleep as your chest started to rise slower indicating you had fell asleep, alessia still tracing shapes on your back as she noticed leah starting to move around.

leah’s eyes opening for a split second before they closed but even through the darkness alessia never missed the small smile which was on her lips.

“at least it was longer than the thirty minutes we thought” leah whispered out as a quiet chuckle left alessia’s lips.

#alessia russo x y/n #alessia russo #alessia russo x reader #woso x reader #woso community #leah williamson x reader #leah williamson #woso #woso imagine #woso blurbs #awfc #arsenal women #arsenal wfc #grumpy universe asks #grumpy universe #enwoso

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hwan-g · 2 months ago

Text

( 𝑻𝑬𝑬𝑻𝑯 ) ୧ ⠁

ೀㅤ۪ pairing. biker/drug dealer! chris x fem! reader : genre. age gap, dark romance, angst, smut : warnings. read at your own risk — mdni ! use of pet names, smoking, explicit sexual content, possessiveness, obsession, severe anger issues, violence, flawed characters that make mistakes : word count. 10.1k

ೀㅤ۪ synopsis. he was born with a gun in his hand, a ticking time bomb in his head. it’s been counting down since, the brain has festered into a landmine, a battlefield. no. peace is a foreign word. reserved only for you.

PROLOGUE.

You cannot begin telling this story if you don’t first punch your own mouth. His gun, safety off, shiny and awful in the dead of night, the barrel of it pointing at your temple, a patient irony. It’s three in the morning and the red bleeding is sweet, oh so sweet.

There’s no love without violence, sweetheart, and did you know? He loves you so much, he’ll kill you. He loves you so much, you’re calling for help. Of course, it cannot be your voice, and if he gives you another chance, you’ll say everything differently this time around like—this bed is where he fucked me slow and rough, I think he was trying to bury some part of himself in me, and here, you see, the sheets smell just like his cigarettes, and this, here, is where he brushed my hair, just like this, so careful, but never mind the cracks in the mirror, the shattering is always the same, it has nothing to do with me, everything to do with him.

You hear his voice in your head all the time, haunting, your dutiful ghost; he’s there when you sleep, he’s there when you wake up, a nightmare concealed as a daydream, and you want him to do his worst, you want it to hurt, to scar, to be a permanent mark, because it’d mean you’d loved him; that love has been here and it was ugly and terrifying, and you survived it, even if you could never survive him.

Upstairs, the bed is unmade, stained with wine and your climax. Chris is gentle in all the ways he is not, which is to say he kisses you with teeth, he holds you with fists. You saw him on a black motorcycle once, an impressionable girl in a dark place, lost, searching for purpose, and he looked like a knight in shining armor, he looked like hell and heaven combined, a savior and captor, and you’d wished to crawl inside, to make a home out of him. You’d smiled and waited, you've always waited, you always will.

When he came, he was so cruel, he burned brighter than fire—you believed in him; after all, how can a man be so consumed by flame and not put his own hands around his neck, not succumb to his charcoal painted flesh? You were a fool, and he saw it, and you paid the price for it. He wants to keep you forever now, he’s never going to let you go, do you understand that? Why, why, why did you go ahead and do that?

For what? A scrap of metal heart and a ribcage, bone and muscle?

What about your own heart?

What about the eternal winter residing when he's not there?

ACT ONE: before.

He smiles and the world expands. His face blooms into a thousand different shades; the pink of his mouth curving, the red of his cheeks rounding, the dark of his brow straightening. A stop motion picture, the beginning of autumn, the turn of the leaves, the crisp air replacing warm winds.

His fingers weave through yours, interlocking, thumb running down index, mouth a breath over yours, so close he could graze your lips if he wanted to. You look between you, noses touching, then back to brown so deep you imagine raw honey gliding, real amber in the face of the sun.

Chris. You whisper his name in your head. It sounds like a secret. Your best kept one. Chris, Chris, Chris . . .

There’s blood on his shirt underneath the leather jacket. There’s a loaded gun on his belt strap, a knife tucked in his boot, a razor engraved on the ring he wears, and he’s not so careful with it, and you don’t think you want him to be. You assume it’s normal to want this—if his blood mixes with yours, well, isn’t that enough to take you with him? Isn’t that almost a wedding ceremony, isn’t that almost a declaration of war?

Do you think I’m crazy, you think to yourself. Do you think I’m crazy, would you want me if I am, would you want me, do you want me? You don’t dare say it out loud, but he’s staring at you as if he could eat your face raw—a demon, a demon—and shove the rest of you in the deep freezer, so you decide to bite him instead. You get on your tippy toes and nuzzle into his neck, biting the soft flesh underneath his earlobe.

He doesn’t exclaim, not a hiss, not a gasp, not even the slightest of inhales. He withstands the pain you inflict him, and you feel his desire digging into the inside of your thigh. His arms reach out around you, pulling you to him in that all-encompassing way, and you’re left to witness what can only be the slow consumption of your beating heart. His bike groans under the sudden weight, but he’s got you. You don’t think, then, of what that entails.

“(Y/N).”

The night sky comes into focus, all dark indigo, starless, and the streetlights flicker bright, sounding the late hour. The light never seems to go anywhere near you two, it refuses, it hesitates, and back then you found it all so mysterious and exciting, ignoring the warning bells, swallowing down the instinct of danger, danger, danger.

“Yes?”

Your eyes fall shut at having his rough palm grabbing hold of your face, thumb tilting your head upwards to meet his sizzling gaze. You hold onto his wrist for support, your body floating, mourning the loss of his body heat against the biting cold. He notices this, and moves to shrug off his huge jacket, wearing it over your shoulders in one swift move.

“What will I do with you?” It’s a plea. A threat. Both.

Chris looks down at you, and the earth shakes to its core. He looks down at you, and you don’t want to be alone anymore. You want this, this, this, every day, all the time, forever. You wish to wake up in bed next to him and know he’s yours, wake up and not wish for some other dream so you can find him again. To be awake and want to be awake.

His big hands caress your face, sink into your hair. He stares at you intently, as if he’s holding back from saying whatever’s turning over and over in his head. It can switch so fast, that look, faster than you can blink, a clipped temper, a quick anger.

You’ve only seen it once, and you’d been quickly turned away. He’s got people watching everywhere, he’s been haunted by darkness and shadows long before you served him that drink in The Bloody Muse. You almost forget about returning to your shift, time slipping away, responsibilities fading whenever you’re near him.

Seungmin will be missing you, Felix will be looking for his good luck charm before he goes on stage. Midnight means you return from dreamland. Still, you have a couple of minutes left. Enough to hear the gunshot, enough to panic and let out a scream and have Chris slap a hand over your mouth, willing you with his gaze to calm the fuck down.

You breathe hard, stiff with fear. He appears perfectly composed, relaxed even. It’s then you realize who he is and what he does, and how this is probably his or his club’s doing. There’s misdirected anger in you ricocheting on all corners. You want to bite his fingers, you want to demand an explanation. You work here, dammit, and he’s kept his bullets away from this place so far, for what you thought was your sake.

Chris was a handsome hypocrite, a skilled liar.

“It’s not what you think,” he says simply, removing his palm from your mouth, shaking his wrist off. “Don’t overreact.”

All of his previous warmth disappeared, instead, the cold, menacing man you know very little of and have never dealt with taking its place. You understand he has to be this way, but you hate that he has to act like this with you too. Because of your reaction. Because you couldn’t keep your cool.

Silly girl.

“What is it, then?” A naive question, so many untrue answers he could give you.

He passes a finger over the cut on your cheek. The cut he gave you. You lean into his touch, desperate for anything, hungry, starving, even. You don’t want him to leave, but he won’t stay. You hate, hate, fucking hate this part.

“Something that needed to be taken care of,” he chooses the words carefully, you can tell, and you decide that, if he wants you to stay in the dark, you will. You have to.

You love him.

“Someone,” you correct, quietly.

Chris smiles, mouth curving, and his hand moves to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear. The touch is tender, affectionate. Something inside you cracks and caves, it melts. You would withstand too, you think then. You would deal with anything, put up with everything, for that single touch. For that one single look.

“Someone,” he echoes, his own voice smooth blue velvet, an overture. “You should get inside.”

A sharp pang of bitterness in your chest. “I should?” Because I questioned you?

He drops his hand, and brings his arms over his broad chest, crossing them there. Closed off and done for the night. You unconsciously take a step back, hurt from the sudden change, whiplashed and upset.

“If you don’t want to be late,” he states matter-of-factly, but he says it in this kind of open tone, a mere suggestion rather than a complete dismissal. Yes. “Don’t look at me with those damned eyes, sweetheart, what can I do against them?”

You wipe at your cheeks, and try to fix the mess, try to smooth over, to make right again. “I’m not, I’m sorry.”

“Come here.” A command.

You go like a kicked puppy, your leash short, your loyalty unshaken, despite the scolding. He reaches out and slams you to his chest, a hand pressing the back of your head there, and you inhale him, all of him, memorizing his scent, trying to hold on to whatever parts of him you can in case he decides to never come back for you again. It’s pathetic and it’s pitiful, but this is what you know. This is all you know.

“You’re my girl, you know that?” He mumbles in your hair, his breath hot on your scalp. You lean into him, wrapping your arms around him, and almost cry yourself dry from the prospect of ever losing him.

You’d die. You’d die, it’s entirely unthinkable. It’s the worst pain imaginable.

“You’re my girl, baby. I’d never let anything happen to you. Do you believe me?”

You nod your head yes. He squeezes you against him tighter. You feel so safe, then, the safest you ever have. Of course you believe him. You’d believe his every word, you’d follow him into anything, blindly, willingly. You want to please him. To make him happy.

He grabs a fistful of your hair, suddenly and pulls you back to look at him. His eyes are manic, black. “I need your words, (Y/N). Do you believe me?”

“Yes. Yes,” you yelp, your mouth falling open from the sting.

In your stomach, something lights on fire. You rub your legs together, trying to relieve it. He glances down between you, curses.

You started it.

The descend.

It was your fault.

He’d never touched you so savagely before that night, he’d never shown the same need you had. That he could want you the same way you do. . .You felt so giddy you could squeal, so happy you would gladly reduce yourself to schoolgirl-and-her-stupid-little-fantasies.

“Is this fucking getting you wet?” And he pulls harder, tilting your head all the way. His tongue comes out to lick from the base of your neck all the way up to your lips. You’re on fire, you’re on fire! You moan hoarsely and try to keep your footing. “You like me being rough with you, sweetheart?”

You’re too embarrassed to respond. So, you guide his hand under your skirt. Chris curses again, more lewdly this time, nasty things, words you’ve never heard him say before. Oh, this fucking cunt, fuck me . . . So goddamn wet, baby girl, I bet it tastes so sweet. Will you let me? Will you let me have a taste right here?

“I— I have to go back, I’m—” but his fingers are already dipping into your underwear, his palm cupping your burning sex.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he growls into your ear. “You hear me?”

You jump, and look around, paranoid. He grabs your face and forces your eyes back on him. He’s got that crazed look again, the one that lets you know he’ll stop at nothing to have this. Out here, in the open. And he’ll fucking make it worth it. You succumb, too flushed, too bothered, unbecoming in his arms, as he backtracks you into the wall next to the exit door, and gets on his knees, tugging your undergarments down with both hands, hooking your leg over his shoulder.

Your fingers dig into his hair, dark eyes staring up at you. In your mercy, kneeling in front of you. Do you love me? Is this you, saying it? Is this your way of showing it? You caress the soft strands, staring back, overwhelmed. The beginning of the end for you. You’ll never escape him after this. He’d never accept it. You’d never survive it.

When his face gets lost in between your legs, you almost collapse, your entire body shaking with the forceful need to come. He licks and laps and sucks your clit into his mouth, and it’s too much, it’s fucking unbearable, it’s incredible, it’s so much, it’s everything, you want more, you want him to stop, more more more, oh my God, please, please—you’re being so loud there’s no way they haven’t heard that, that Seungmin hasn’t, he’s really only around the corner, and what about everyone else, oh God, oh God, you’re close, you’re so fucking close, if he could just—oh, fuck yes, fuck yes . . .

Chris pulls away, his lower face glistening with your juices. You whine at the loss of contact, your pussy clenching around nothing, aching.

“Don’t fucking come,” and he’s getting up, he’s unzipping his pants, and you’re eager to help, you’re eager to reach inside and grab him, free him. “I have to get inside you, baby.”

His cock is standing rock hard, angry. He wraps one hand around your neck, and the other slides over his length once, twice, you’re so entranced you can’t look away; he’s so big, he’s so erect, and you want him so fucking much, you’d do anything right then, you’d be anything.

He turns you around, and you barely have time to get a good grip on the wall, before he’s entering you with one long, violent thrust. You scream out, pressing your temple on the cool brick, allowing him to take whatever he needs. His fingers squeeze around your neck, tighter and tighter still, until all you see is stars, until all you feel is him slamming into you, his hot body over yours, your mixed moans of pleasure.

I could come to this image forever . . . Look at this fucking ass, you beautiful fucking girl, I never want to stop . . . fucking tear you apart, lay inside you . . . Taking cock so well, made for me, made for me, made for this . . .

His movements turned sloppy and primal, reaching the end, and you, forever following him, forever after him. He was no more than beast, pistoling into you with vigor, all animal, your sides bruised from the way he was holding onto you, but you loved it, you wished he’d never stop, exploding into a million pieces, coming apart under him in vibrant streaks of color and tears. His head dropped on your lower back, whispering there she is, there you go, sweetheart, there you are, my baby, as he gave one, two, three final thrusts, before reaching down and removing himself from your soaking cunt, flipping you around, and forcing you on your knees, his cock in his hand, on the verge of climax.

You open your mouth wide, and he shoves in, fucking into it no more than three seconds before you feel his cum hit the back of your throat, warm and salty.

“You fucking vex me, woman. Look at the sight of you.”

You breathe through your nose slowly, as he grabs your face and makes sure you swallow, fingers rough, before pulling out at once, tucking his softening length back in his jeans, and lifting you up by the waist.

He fixes your skirt over your ass, and smoothes over the edges, making sure no indecent part of you shows. When you catch his eye, he winks at you. You bubble over like a soda can, spilling everywhere, and he chuckles low and raspy, before reaching for your hand and pulling you flush against him, trailing kisses on your shoulder, your knuckles, your cheeks, your brow.

This is the Chris that looks at you and sees you. The one you love, the one you miss the most when he’s gone. This Chris comes out only when you’re alone, when he’s forgotten what else there is, what he has to do after you go back to the club. For now, he loves you, no violence, no hunger.

You almost weep at the sight of him.

“I’ll talk to your boss,” he murmurs, pecking your lips over and over.

You giggle, and he twirls you once, your arms extending as you try to go towards the door. He pulls you back in at the last minute, handsome, glowing, smiling.

“I haven’t lied to you,” he says, and half of you doesn’t miss the solemn way in which he says it. “I won’t let anyone touch you. Ever.”

You pause for a split second, still remaining in the post bliss of your orgasm, but then you’re moving again, slipping from his grasp, heading back to your drinks and suggestive conversations.

“I wouldn’t want to be touched by anyone else, Chris,” you retort, blowing him a kiss, and disappearing through the big black door, letting it close behind you.

You don’t see the way you leave him standing there, how he closes his eyes and has to breathe through the loss of you; how he drags his feet to go pick up his jacket from the floor. How he inhales your sweet smell, and instantly wants you back, a corpse in his arms that can’t go nowhere.

The corruption began when you told him your name. It invaded his bloodstream and blackened his mind.

He’d rather kill you than have you walk away from him like that.

ACT TWO: in the midst.

Chris fucks you with the purpose of possessing you.

There’s not a minute of peace when you are with him, he envelops all senses, he erases all other thoughts, until all you know is him, his touch, his cock. Months into sharing a bedroom, and coming apart underneath him every night, he’s never once mentioned that incident, the first one.

He’s never apologized for how he treated you, never brought it up. But he’s never once treated you the same since. Now that you live together, he gets to call all the shots, know your exact whereabouts, control what you wear, what you eat, how you come, how many times—he’s fucked you in places you never thought possible. He’s fucked you in front of people, shamelessly; on the banister, in the pool, on the kitchen counter and the office. Against walls and on the hood of his car, parked in the garage, Changbin, the road captain, working on his bike not a few steps away.

No one ever said anything to you, tried anything. They didn’t have a death wish, or they respected Chris too much. His influence was a testimony to his abilities. No one questioned him, but everyone obeyed him. They treated you like one of their own, they protected you when their sergeant would leave the house.

Other things—the shitload of drugs hidden in every trinket, every crevice, places you’d never think to check, and the meticulous way they deliver said product, how the trucks come in the middle of night, motorcycles deconstructed, filled to the brim with cocaine and sent to wherever, distributed to whatever unfortunate person. Chris never touched the trucks, you never saw him near them.

That was Minho’s job.

You spent entire days in bed after the deliveries, fucking, improvising stories of hunters and angels falling in love, how the hunter is always attracted to the angel’s light, how the angel forgives the hunter for his nature, and willingly dies by his axe. Chris bathes you and washes your hair with lavender, then carries you over to the vanity and brushes the strands with such care, you think he’s always loved you, in every life. That, perhaps, he was born loving you, and that this was predetermined; inescapable, inevitable.

He doesn’t sleep. He spends hours making love to you, feeding you; he works for even longer, meetings with the president, meetings with the suppliers, mountains of paperwork that you see him burn afterwards in the fireplace downstairs. If he does close his eyes, it’s flitting, twenty minutes here, an hour there; after he comes down from the high of being buried inside you, after a shower, at night as he watches you sleep, you pretend to close your eyes and feel him get comfortable on your stomach, his lips kissing any spot of naked skin he can find. When he does drift off, you lift your head and observe a man such as Chris Bahng sleep, how he does it, so unaware and off guard, so unlike his usual self.

It’s endearing. You love him the most when you find him in those positions, so peaceful, and a part of you thinks, ashamed—at least no one is dying by his hand tonight. His soul is something you think about a lot, the wretched, poisoned thing, paying for his actions. You asked him once; what keeps him up, why is he so unable to fall asleep?

“Nightmares,” he mumbled against your neck, teasing the sensitive flesh there. “Every time I close my eyes . . . someone is waiting for me. It’s always different, but they always end up dead. Everyone I care about— you. When you’re in my dreams, I can’t stand it. I’m always the one holding the gun. You’re always falling, or— fucking . . . walking away from me. When I wake up, I always check if you’re next to me,” his hand travels to yours, interlocking your fingers. He avoids your gaze. “If you’re not, it’s . . . it gets hard to breathe. I think I’ve killed you, that I’ve finally fucking lost it and, and done it, and the walls close in around me . . . Christ, I sound fucking insane.”

It’s difficult for you to say anything after that, so you slowly make your descend at the foot of the bed, making sure to kiss every inch of him, to let him know you’re right there, that he’ll never lose you, that the day it’ll come to that you’d rather he does kill you, that he does make that decision for you, because you’d have clearly gone mad; you cannot see yourself beyond him, cannot see a future where he’s not there, even as a fixture, even as someone who’s loved you once, a very long time ago. A friend, a lover, it’s all the same, and it’s all him, and you’ll always get whatever version of him you can.

You know you sound crazy, and maybe you are, maybe you deserve each other in that way, but it’s irrelevant to this story. This is not for the faint of heart—loving someone like him does not come easy, it’s not one of those ridiculous words—fate or destiny—or anything simple like that; loving him is hard fucking work, it’s torment and agony, it’s excruciating, and it’s a choice you make every single day, because you need it to live. An addiction, perhaps, though you’ve never been an addict.

You know this is how it feels. The needle in the vein. The snow on your nose. The smoke in your lungs. The burning, the boiling. This is it. When you take his cock in your mouth, when you hear that broken gasp fall from his lips, the familiar groan, the guttural sounds from the back of his throat, and how he grabs the back of your head, forcing you down to the hilt of him; when you’re so full you might as well inhale him entirely, become part of his crotch, his most private part, the one he keeps to himself—you think this is what it’s like to wait on someone’s steps, a beggar, a desperate girl giving her heart on a silver platter for the one in the house, the one holding the reins.

Chris is kind and generous. He opens the door, he allows you to come inside. There’s light and warmth here, but there’s also shadows in the corners, there’s locked doors and no one else around. It’s a lonely house, but he’s right there, all you need, all you’ll ever need. He welcomes you with open arms.

You get lost in the labyrinth of him.

“What the fuck was I doing before you, sweetheart? Who was I, who was I without this fucking mouth, fucking hell, baby . . .”

It’s a savage act, some would call it cannibalism, but it’s only been known as love to you. Your insides are aflame, roasting a pretty crackling orange, when he finally comes on your tongue, his hips lifting, eyes shut tight, your head in his big hands, keeping you there, making sure you’re swallowing every last drop. You do. You do. You‘re licking circles around the shiny, swollen tip one moment, and he’s got you bouncing on it the next, manhandling your ass, facing you away from him, wrapping muscular arms around your waist, ravaging your back with his teeth, biting and soothing, putting out the forest fires himself, braving the danger.

A devouring hunger. Stripped to its most primal state. Everything within you is jumping. No one talks about this—screwing for the sake of the flesh. You need to come, and keep coming, and he does too. There’s no other thought, no other reason. He’d mount you if he could, knot in you for hours, pump you full of his seed. If this is the way it’s meant to be, then let it be. Let him fuck you until he’s satiated. Let him fuck you into your last dying breath.

But his words. You want those for yourself. He whispers them in your ears, his mouth everywhere, the hotness of his breath, the raspiness of his voice—just as lost as you. This is how you need him.

“This cunt is mine, fucking mine, mine . . . Say it,” he drills into you, skin slapping on skin, sweat like water, and your tears, so uncontrollable, so many— “Say it, damn you.”

“Yours,” you comply, your arm reaching out to wrap around his neck. He kisses your shoulder, he bites, he marks. “All of me. Forever.”

“Swear it. Don’t ever leave me.”

“No . . . no . . .” You moan loudly as he reaches deep inside, to spots that make you see stars.

He shoves your face in the mattress, and gets on top of you, pistoling his length into you, hard and fast, chasing after the high he craves. You cry out and take it. The pain is so intense, bleeding into pleasure, overwhelming your body. You can’t feel your own heartbeat anymore, only Chris, only his pounding.

“Such a goddamn slut. Look at you,” he slaps your ass once, “fucking look at you,” twice, three times, four. You sob into the sheets, grab onto them. He’s relentless, he’s so close, you’re so close— “Why are you crying, huh?” He pulls you by the hair hard, lifting your head. You gulp down air, you’re glutinous, deprived. “Did you need my cock that bad? Have I not fucked your needy little hole enough?”

“You have, you have, please . . .”

Let go for me, sweetheart, fuck, you feel so fucking good . . . Never get tired of this pussy, taking me so well, baby, so fucking well, come on, one more, one more, that’s it . . .

Coming felt like the gates of heaven liquifying inside you. Your orgasm tore through you so savagely, you forgot how to breathe for several moments, your limbs unresponsive and extremely sore. Only thing you could do was convulse under Chris’ massive body, and let him ride his own, his nails digging into raw flesh, voice groggy and incredibly deep after three rounds of sex.

“Did I hurt you? Did I hurt you, baby?”

You hadn’t realized you were still crying ugly, terrible sobs. You immediately missed the weight of him as he got off you at once and flipped you on your back, panic-stricken honey eyes searching your face, your chest, any part of you he might’ve harmed.

“Where does it hurt? What have I done?” He kisses your temple, your eyes, he tastes your tears. He’s so worried you almost feel guilty for not responding. “(Y/N), I need you to tell me, sweetheart, I can’t see it, I can’t—is it your—”

“I’m fine,” you pacify him, placing your hands on either side of his face. You’re still breathing abnormally fast, but so is he. The room is spinning. “You didn’t hurt me anywhere, I’m fine, Chris.”

“But if you were, you’d tell me, yeah?”

He was so handsome, so handsome when he loved you.

“I would.”

His gaze was piercing, honeycomb giving way to molasses. His hands were trailing off again, doing their own thing, what they knew best; how to please you. His thumb on your clit, rubbing soft circles, your creamy entrance making lewd sounds that had the man over you growing impossibly hard again.

“And what about this?” A warm, tingly sensation grew low in your belly. “Does this hurt?”

You trap his hand with your thighs, and he smiles. You smile back.

“Maybe a little,” you lie, stretching.

He doesn’t let up. His fingers slip inside again, his other hand moving on himself, veiny and sure. Chris masturbating to the sight of getting you off is perhaps the hottest thing you’ve ever seen. Your body is a tool he’s acquainted well with, and has made his sole expertise. So many hours on this bed, learning each other naked.

“Your cunt says something else,” he smirks, pumping his fist over his girth slowly, deliberately, growling low in the process, making you wetter, making you want, want, want. A chain of chemical reactions, you’ve become. “I wanna eat you out, (Y/N), you think you’ll be able to handle that?”

Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

“I’ve been thinking about it all day,” he mumbles on your stomach, placing a kiss there, and traveling down, nose dangerously close to where you want him most. “Your face when you come apart on my tongue—I wish I could die between your legs, baby.”

“Don’t say that,” you hide your face in embarrassment, as you feel him get in position, opening your legs wide, staring shamelessly at your swollen pussy.

“I’ll say whatever the fuck I want,” he licks it once, tongue pressing flat on your clit and flicking, and you’re fucking gone. You’re writhing, trying to get away, moaning so loudly the whole house must’ve heard you. “This is mine, you’re fucking mine, and you’re so goddamn beautiful.”

He doesn’t get to work much on you, you’re coming apart in minutes. You’re so overstimulated, your legs are shaking uncontrollably, the muscles twitching. He doesn’t seem to care though, because he’s fingering all of your cream on his cock and finishing himself off, an ungodly sight, something out of a renaissance painting, the most explicit one, all well defined abs and veins popping on his neck, mouth formed into a perfect silent scream, as he pumps, and pumps and shoots on your thighs, white thick streaks, hot and sticky.

There’s a knock on the door, a throat clearing.

“Bahng,” Changbin’s voice. “It’s important.”

The room drops in the negatives. You see the abrupt change on your boyfriend’s face, his expression freezing over, his jaw clenching, moving, as he stares at the door like he wants to break it, and then beat his friend’s face in. You get on your elbows and whisper softly, “It’s okay,” to which he ignores.

“What the fuck do you want?” He calls out, furious, getting off the bed and grabbing a pair of discarded jeans from the floor.

“Meeting in ten,” his captain replies, and then there’s footsteps shuffling away.

“I need to shower, anyway,” you try to lighten the mood, reaching over the bed for your shirt. “We’ve been holed up here for hours. I don’t even know what time it is.”

“Why do you need to know?”

You don’t let his tone ruin what you’ve been building for the entire day. He was perfectly fine up until two seconds ago, it has nothing to do with you. You repeat this to yourself as you move around the room, clipping the hair away from your face, wiping the makeup from your cheeks.

“It’s really alright, Chris, you’ll only be gone for a bit.”

He ignores this as well. What he does—he takes two big strides towards you and grabs your face roughly. You meet his eyes, dark and menacing, and keep your cool. You don’t let his anger scare you, you’ve seen it all before. It has nothing to do with you, it has nothing to do with you.

“All you need to know, is I’m still in this fucking room and you smell like my cum, and there’s a lot of fucking things I can do in ten minutes,” he snarls, patting your hair down, bringing your hips together. “All you need to know is you have no use for clocks, because you’re not going anywhere. Am I fucking clear?”

You try not to let your body take over your mind, as it’s happened many times before. He knows your weak spot, he knows how good he can make it feel, and he uses it to his advantage any chance he gets.

You will not be manipulated. You will stop falling for his words.

“You’re going to regret saying that,” you retorted, suddenly sad. “You’re only being like this because you want to stay.”

To that, he visibly calms, he mellows. “Of course I do. I never wanna be anywhere else. I wanna fuck you until you’re on the verge of passing out, and then I want to take you in the water and make it all better,” he tries to kiss you but you turn your head. There are no words to describe the hurt etched on his face, then. “You’re the only thing that matters, (Y/N). The only true thing.”

“Why do you treat me like this, Chris? Hot, then cold, again and again.”

You might’ve as well slapped him. He untangles himself from you at once, and walks over to the closet for a shirt. Your stomach drops. You definitely said something you shouldn’t have. Who knows how he’ll be now, what he might do. You might not see him for days. He knows how to hurt you and keep hurting you. One coin, two sides.

Nevertheless, you have to know. He never gives you any answers. You’ve given away so much to be here, to be with him. He walks the thin line of having something like that, a line between holding you—broken glass on his shaking palm, recklessly picking up the pieces when they fall, unafraid of the blood, of the cutting and maiming, and the repercussions afterwards.

His self destructiveness has never been more prominent before. Now it’s all you see.

“One true thing, Chris. Please.”

He looked so severe, the set of his jaw, the glint in his eye. When he punches the closet door closed and smashes the mirror with his fist, you don’t think he’s quite there in the room with you anymore. He’s in that faraway place again, in that hole, so hard to find.

Of course, the blood. The blood is always there. It’s been there from the start.

He motions for you not to move, his hair a mess sticking in all directions. Such violence and it’s all within him, there’s nothing you can do to pull it out of him. Only when it lashes out, only when he becomes the weapon.

“Don’t fucking come near me,” he barks, and you stop, you remain perfectly still, your gaze locked to his knuckles, bleeding profusely, staining the carpet. “I will never hurt you,” he rasps, and there’s iron will behind his words. “I will never fucking hurt you, I’d sooner die. I’d sooner fucking die . . .” His eyes fall closed, his breathing deepens, and you’re pretty sure you only have a few seconds before this all goes to shit.

You grab your clothes, and shoes, and where’s your phone, where’s your stupid phone—

“Get out of here. Get out of here now.”

You bite your lip until you taste copper. You won’t cry. You won’t fucking cry. This is not your fight. This is not your problem.

“I love you,” you squeeze out, before you throw the door open and spill down the stairs, the beast bellowing behind you, “GET THE FUCK OUT, GET THE FUCK OUT.”

“What the hell’s going on?” Changbin puts his hands out, grabs your shoulders.

Felix doesn’t even have to look at you; he curses, and climbs the stairs three at a time, calling for backup. The demolition has already begun.

You won’t cry. You refuse, you refuse, you refuse.

There’s no love without violence, sweetheart, and did you know?

ACT THREE: intermission.

In a fight, he’s devastating.

You’d told him time and time again, none of it meant anything, not a thing, just some mindless flirting to get better tips, it was part of your job, it was silly, little, nothing, nothing at all. You’d warned him against coming inside the Muse. It’d only cause trouble.

He would only cause trouble. It’s why he had Minho permanently positioned in there, it’s how the club was under Strays payroll, it was his excuse for visiting that night.

Making sure the product was being distributed properly. Keeping an eye out. Bullshit. You were so mad at him. He never showed up for these things, they went through other people. Chris was too important for it. And yet, here he was, disrupting your workflow, beating your regulars into a pulp.

You didn’t recognize anything from the man he was the last time you saw him. He had none of the tenderness, none of the ember in his gaze, no softness; only sharp, obliterating cruelty and the gun on his strap. His fists were bloody, his anger palpable.

Your tables had emptied out, unpaid. You were so angry.

“Try it, motherfucker,” your boyfriend smashed the poor guy’s head against the hardwood floor, repeatedly, in succession, until your voice was scratched raw from shouting for someone to stop him. “Try getting near her again, let me see you. Walk a straight fucking line to my girl, see if you get to live another goddamn day.”

“I didn’t know she was your girl, man! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” The man had been reduced to tears, his face so beat up you could barely make out his features under all the blood.

Minho stood in one corner, observing passively, while Seungmin tried to keep his friend back, ever the security guard. Chris was gone, though. There was no way to bring him back. There’d be a death tonight, and all of you would have to pretend it never happened. You think about that. About the first time you lied for him. For them.

“Bet you wanted to fuck her, hm?” He pulls his head up, only to bring him to his knee, kicking his nose broken, and throwing him back on the floor, chairs wobbling and falling over in the storm of him. “That’s what you’ve been coming for, isn’t it, you sick fuck?”

The whimpering is what did it for you. “I didn’t know. Please! Please!” You couldn’t just stand aside; you couldn’t let this go on.

The stage was empty, the band long finished with their set, now sitting at the counter over at the bar, glancing curiously your way. It was infuriating how none of them wanted to get involved. It was too late for this. Too fucking late, and you were tired.

So, you walked over to where Chris was stomping on the man’s ribs, making sure you were in his line of vision. When you got as close as you could, you called out his name. Nothing. You tried again.

“Chris. Chris.”

“I’ll fucking kill him, baby, he’ll never look at you twice, he won’t be able to, I swear it to you.” In what dark, dark place have you crawled into, my love? How do I get there?

You try to keep your voice steady, reasonable. From the corner of your eye, you see Seungmin shaking his head at you, motioning you to step back, away, out from the line of fire.

“I don’t want that, Chris. I want you to let him go.”

“What?”

“And then I want you to go home.”

In retrospect, you should’ve heeded the bouncer’s advice. This version of Chris does not belong to you, it has nothing to do with feeling or logical thought. It festered in some terror-stricken hole he’d found as a child, and grew into a large open wound, the heart tree of all inhumanity in him. You’d have to carve it out if you’re to ever save him. But to carve it . . . No. You couldn’t. Not you.

Two terrible things happened that night, things that you’d quicker forget than let yourself remember fully.

His calloused hand attacked your neck, wrapping around it with such brutal force, it knocked the air out of you. Immediately, four men jumped to your rescue, circling you like hounds, yelling at Chris, trying to snatch him away from you.

“Stand the fuck down,” he snarled at them, never taking his black eyes off you. “You think I’d actually fucking hurt her? She can take this, can’t you, sweetheart?”

You nod, willing yourself to breathe through your panic, to combine this touch with the one he uses when he makes you feel good, the pain only pleasurable, only flitting, almost enjoyable. He watches you do this, and something flashes in his expression, a recognition, a moment of clarity. It’s gone as soon as it arrives.

“Don’t ever tell me what the fuck to do, you understand? I’m doing this for you, so you can be safe,” he’s never raised his voice at you, and he’s not doing it now, either. You’d take the screaming over this eerie calmness, this polite rage.

This is the monster under your bed, the demon in your closet. You can’t do anything about this, you don’t even know what’s hiding there.

“I didn’t ask for that, Chris,” you manage to say, placing a hand over the one on your throat. No one speaks, no one moves.

“You’ve no fucking idea what’s good for you, do you?”

“Clearly,” you reply, calmly, bitterly.

You see him swallow, and fight with the shadows clouding his judgment. You see the split decision—and the way he shoves you away, the way he refuses to look at you any longer.

“Have it your way,” he snaps. He’s still so beautiful to you, even like this, the way a severe thunderstorm is, the way gray clouds can cover an entire sunny day in minutes. Not despite, but in spite. “But this fucker dies today.”

In a split second, your life—an infinite whirlwind, a dizzying dance with no end in sight—it changes, it shifts, because—Chris takes his gun out, a single click, and shoots the man on the floor beside you. All it takes. A blink of an eye. No one seems to get what happened, probably accustomed to the death looming over, but you—you’re covered in blood now, blood that’s not yours, and you’ve never seen someone die before. You don’t even think it registers in your mind, really. You just stare, and stare, and hope that he’ll get up and go to a hospital, because he looks terrible.

“Don’t feel too bad, princess,” Felix whispers somewhere from behind you. “He was a registered sex offender. Boss found out today. Chris had to do it.”

“Chris is not a hit man,” you say mechanically, paralyzed, something else looking through your eyes, inhabiting your body.

Where are you? Where’d you go?

“No, he’s not,” he agrees. You faintly feel a hand on your shoulder. You don’t react. “But he’s the one that’ll always get the job done. No matter what.”

This is the second thing. Learning that your boyfriend might be more of a collection of ghosts than an actual person. That the blood sprayed on your legs could be anyone’s, could be yours. The thing is, you weren’t truly scared before, but you are now.

And the terrifying truth—you still love him. You love him, you love him, it beats as sure as your heart, it fills you with guilt and despair, because . . . you don’t even really care. You should, surely. This is a horrible situation. But Chris is standing a mere few feet away from you, and he wants nothing to do with you, not when he’s like this, and somehow that’s more severe, that’s—that’s the real tragedy.

“Take care of it,” he cracks his neck, addressing no one in particular. Any of these men would do anything for him, for the club. Honor and loyalty, above all. “Bring me the books. There’s still business.”

Minho and Seungmin get to work, while a third person goes in the back. You don’t know who, you don’t see them, your gaze hasn’t moved from Chris. You whisper his name again, like back in the alley, over and over, and hope for him to turn around, to look and see, to dance with you, to shake you and make you spill. But he doesn’t. You don’t think he ever will again.

You’re one of them now. He didn’t keep you away, he failed, and so now you know.

“And for fuck’s sake, someone take her the hell away from here.”

You kickstart. “No, I won’t go.” You’re here, you’re here, where would I go if you’re here?

He won’t even spare you a second, a moment. He’s walking towards the bar, he’s lighting a cigarette, his hands are still raw and bleeding. The club is closed for the night, you’re no longer needed. Just another witness, just another person in the room. He can make you feel so small, so incredibly small, like you never mattered at all.

Felix steps up and offers to drive you.

“To the house,” Chris instructs firmly, skimming through pages of numbers. “Stay with her until I come back.”

There’s tears stinging your eyes. You fight not to let anyone see them. There’s so much movement around you, it’s making your head spin. Red, fuschia, orange, yellow, blue—the lights never stop turning, they bleed over everything, a dream, a technicolor dream. You lift your hand to your cheek to confirm you’re still real, that you’re still breathing.

You’re sick to your stomach. Not enough. Not enough.

“Why are you sending me away?” You try again, foolishly hoping he’s going to pay you any mind, give you any explanation.

“Come on, (Y/N),” Felix mumbles close to your ear. “You don’t wanna be here for the clean up, trust me.”

Why are you sending me away, why are you sending me away . . . You don’t remember the ride to the club house. You don’t remember much of anything after the click of that gun. It echoes. The man’s eyes roll to the back of his head, a loop of red, fuschia, orange, yellow, blue, redfuschiaorangeyellowblueredfuschiaorangeyellowblue

Someone screams.

ACT FOUR: after.

“I’ve never had a moment’s peace.”

Shirtless, with bandages running down his chest and over his shoulder, he looks like a tortured man returned from war. Burned. Turned inside out.

He was born with a gun in his hand, a ticking time bomb in his head. It’s been counting down since, the brain has festered into a landmine, a battlefield. No. Peace is a foreign word. Reserved only for you.

You listen, you let yourself become the body he loves. You can’t find it in you to be angry at him, not anymore.

“How can I hold a thing like you in my hands and not break it? When you asked me for the truth . . . I couldn’t think of anything, (Y/N), not a single fucking thing,” he wraps a towel around your head, sure, capable hands pulling you up and helping you out of the bathtub. “What I feel for you is poisonous, it’s disturbing. You don’t want that. You shouldn’t want that. It’s not what you deserve.”

“You’re saying all this like you’re saying goodbye,” you whisper, letting him dry your skin, noticing the way he won’t allow himself to linger too long.

You see his mouth curve, his brow furrow. A strange image. It’s almost as if . . .

“I’ve only ever been a monster. A pathetic fucking excuse of a man, and I cannot keep you caged, I can’t keep being selfish with you,” when he’s once again met with your silence, he circles around you, hides behind your back. “You’re incredible, you know that? Other girls would’ve been running for the hills, but not you,” when he lets your hair fall, there’s a horrifying sound, like the earth ripping apart, the heavens falling—

Chris is crying.

Chris is crying and something is very, very wrong. Nothing feels right. He won’t let you turn around. His hands hold you still, his face is buried between your shoulder blades, and he.won’t.let.you.turn.around.

Your eyes sting with the effort it takes not to break down alongside him.

“You just—won’t—fucking—leave. You won’t give up,” he sobs, and then he’s hugging you, he’s hugging you so tight your ribs burn, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, because you never in a thousand years ever pictured this man crying, much less in front of you.

“I’m never giving up,” you reassure him, trying to soothe the boy trying to come out, to escape. “Because I love you. Whatever that means for you, Chris. I love you. I’m not going anywhere.”

He feel him shake his head, his hand wraps around your throat, bodies flush against each other. “I want you. I want you without . . .”

He lets go.

You turn to him, tilting your head, looking for his eyes. He exhales shakily, and moves away, grabbing his lighter from his back pocket, the cigarette from behind his ear. He rubs his face raw, then lights it, tip cherry red and burning fast, and he uses a hand to sit on the tiled floor, one arm resting on his knee. You get in front of him, towel forgotten, numb, completely numb.

“The club?” You say, quietly, so as not to anger the spirits, the demons. For no one else to hear but him. “You want to leave the club?”

He chuckles bitterly, and scratches his brow with a thumb, avoiding your gaze completely. Smoke swirls around you like snakes hunting for prey, an ominous presence. “I can’t even fucking say it. It’s been my whole life, my whole life. This fucking place—I know nothing else.”

“We‘ll figure it out. If you want out, we’ll find a way. Chris, these people look up to you, they trust you—”

“No, the fuck they don’t. That trust goes out the fucking window as soon as I walk. If I leave I’m a fucking traitor. If I leave I’ve betrayed all of them.”

You reach for his empty hand. He pulls away. You can’t ignore the Deja vu of this action. “And what about you?” You press, still. “What about what you’ve given for them, for their laws and rules? Your soul, Chris—”

He laughs, then, a proper laugh. When he does, finally, meet your eye, you see it all. The tortured, the choked, the repressed. It will never be easy. Ever. He might not ever make the decision, he might not ever leave. But dreaming about it . . . He has the right. No matter how unattainable, how unrealistic it seems to him. Why has no one ever shown him how?

“That battered, old thing,” he muses at his cigarette. “Lost it a long time ago, baby. Nothing there.”

“I don’t believe that.”

His smile breaks your heart. It looks so defeated, so devoid of any real happiness. “This is why I can’t let you go,” his fingers reach out and touch your bottom lip, the intention pure, nothing more than a reminder you’re still there, still his, but his gaze speaks of something darker, something you’ll never be able to quit.

“I got charges against me,” he says. “If I take the fall, the club remains. If I don’t, it all goes to hell.”

No. No. “Let it,” you choke out. “Let it! Chris, we can leave. We can go. Let’s just go. Please, I don’t—I can’t, I don’t want to lose—”

The biker puts his hands on your shoulders, shushes you, cradles you like a baby. You comply, a million different things bubbling inside you, ways to get him out, words you never said, everything you didn’t get to do yet. It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair.

“Listen to me,” he continues, cigarette hanging limply from his mouth. “It’s already done. I’ll be gone for a long time, alright, and I need to make sure you’re fucking taken care of. Be a good girl for me, yeah? Listen to me, (Y/N).”

You couldn’t. You were crying too hard, you missed him already. What you two had was nothing but burrowed time, you knew this, and you still mistook it for forever. This was why he didn’t want to get too close. This is why, every time you tried to hold onto him, he slipped away like quicksand. It was all coming down to this.

“Sweetheart, come on, stop crying. You know who I am, yeah? Don’t worry about me, I can take care of myself. Listen to me—I’ve hidden money away. I want you to have it, okay? Use it to get yourself a place, somewhere safe. And don’t fucking go back to that club, I don’t wanna hear you went back, you hear me? Do something for yourself, go to school, I know how fucking smart you are, you’ll fucking blow them away. Hm?” He lifts your chin with his thumb, kisses your forehead, staying there, lingering for one, two, three seconds, before he pulls back and looks into your eyes, willing you to agree, to accept the money, to go on living without him. “I love you, alright? You got all of me, whatever’s still there, it’s all yours. Don’t wait for me. Live.”

“I don’t want to.”

He deflates, sighing heavily. “Don’t make this harder than it is, (Y/N). Do what I say.”

You shake your head, sniffling, wiping at your cheeks. “Not without you. I’m not doing any of that without you. I’ll wait. I’ll wait for you.”

His expression is pleading, his nails digging into your skin like he wants to crawl inside and change your mind. “It’ll be years, baby. Too many. You’ve no fucking idea the shit I’ve done. They got it all, some fucking snitch went and gave it all away. I’m turning myself in tomorrow, I’m not—I’m not fucking asking you to wait. You’re not. Find some lucky boy that’s got nothing to do with this life, and be normal. I never meant to bring you into all of this. You didn’t—didn’t fucking deserve it.”

“Just like that?” you ask, defeated. You could never picture yourself being with anyone else, no one at all.

After Chris, nothing. Alone. Lonely, forever.

He chuckles, crushing you to him, his arms strong, and steady, and home, home, home. “Just like that. I’ll wring his fucking neck out if he’s not good to you, though. I’ll always keep an eye out, always make sure you’re safe.”

“Can I hear it again?” Such a quiet request, barely anything.

He knew exactly what you meant. Your heart broke, fresh tears making their descent on your face. He wiped all of them away. He held you as if, if it was up to him, he’d never, ever let go.

“I love you. I love you so fucking much, sweetheart. You’ll be alright. I got you. I got you.”

You reach to where you know he keeps his gun. His hand flies out to stop you, gaze flaming with fear, with anger. Ash burns your arm, but you don’t even feel it. You’ve seen him use it; undo the safety, press down on the trigger. It was so easy for him. It’ll be easy for you too.

“Shoot me, then,” you bellow. “If you’re not gonna let me do it myself, shoot me! I don’t fucking want this, I’m not losing you, I’m not getting with someone else! What about me? You got this great plan—did you ever stop to think about what I’d want? If I’d be able to move on like how you’re expecting me to? I can’t just switch off my feelings for you, Chris, it doesn’t work like that, okay? I’ve gone through too much, I’ve seen too fucking much to just—to just—”

He wrestles you down, pinning your body on the floor, and getting on top of you, his smooth, cold gun resting on top of your heart. His mouth had curled into a tortured snarl, a bitter smile, his eyes shiny, crazy. You were shaking, he was shaking. You started crying, he started crying. With his thigh against your cunt, you felt his erection, hard and twitching.

“You think I didn’t think of this first?” He said roughly. “Christ, (Y/N), I’m trying to do the right thing here. You think I’ll be able to fucking kill you? I fucking adore you. I’d rather shoot myself in the head first, get it over with. Don’t ever fucking ask that of me again. I’ll be a dead man the second I do such a thing. I’ll be a dead fucking man if I’m not able to have you. Don’t ever fucking do that again.”

“Coward,” you spit in his face, and fight against his death grip. “Sentence us both then. I’ll be dead either way.”

He smashes your lips together. It hurts, it hurts, you wanna say, but you don’t think it’ll ever stop. There’s nothing in his way, everything in yours. In the time it takes to unzip his pants, grab his cock and guide it inside you, you’ve mourned him a thousand times over. To never have this again—him, again. . . You’ll die from missing him. You’ll cry yourself dry. There’s absolutely no way to escape this fate. You’re not ready, you’ll never be. How ridiculous it all seems in the end, faced with losing him.

He makes love to you slow, gentle, like he’s never done before. It’s not so much to get you off, than it is to make you understand. He could kill you both, but he’ll never be able to see you again. His place will be hell, the lowest level, the one he’ll have to keep walking for all eternity, while you’re up with the angels. If he doesn’t, if he hides the gun and never thinks of it again, at least he knows you’re somewhere out there, where there might be a one in a million chance he gets to be with you once more. If you’ll take him. Old and grey. He’ll never see you again as you are underneath him right now.

You stay like that on the floor for a while, with his seed spilling from between your legs, your scent all over him. You kiss him and for the first time, he kisses back. No teeth, no fists.

When he moves you over to the bed, he sleeps for the first time since he was born.

He sleeps and he dreams of you, of little hands reaching out, of being away from all this, far, far away. What he would give.

Everything. Everything.

#bang chan scenarios #bang chan smut #stray kids scenarios #stray kids smut #bang chan #chan scenarios #stray kids #skz scenarios #skz smut #bang chan fanfic #chan smut #chan x reader #bang chan x reader #skz fanfic #stray kids fanfic #stray kids imagines #—mine.

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greyskyflowers · 4 months ago

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I'm just such a big fan of Edwin having some permanent issues after a second trip to hell and the final run in with Esther.

I like the idea that he actually has to sleep now. Nowhere near what a living human needs but more then he ever needed before. Maybe sleeping for several hours every few weeks.

Iron wounds take longer to heal, even though Edwin has always had a higher pain tolerance due to his experiences in hell.

When he's really tired, things start to hurt. Tender pain along all his joints, the spots where the demon spider found it was the easiest to tear him apart.

He get bruises under his eyes, headaches, occasionally a little chill, stiffness, and just a general aching all over his body.

It's hard for Edwin to sleep, for several reasons. Nightmares, anxiety, restlessness, and just being stubborn.

The vulnerability of sleep is terrifying.

The idea of leaving Edwin alone somewhere to sleep, even in their office, has Charles skin pickling. Especially knowing Edwin is also reluctant to sleep without him there.

So, Edwin does not sleep alone. Ever. Occasionally he gets left with Niko, and sometimes Crystal, but it's for very brief amounts of time before he's back with Charles.

It should be embarrassing to have these issues now, and it is, but they're even closer after Port Townsend and it's not something Edwin can avoid. He has to sleep now.

Really, it comes down to does he wants to keep it to himself and nap when no one else is around to avoid feeling weak? Or does he want to sleep with the comfort of knowing someone is with him and hell won't take him before he even gets a chance to wake up?

It comes down to how fearful is he of something dragging him off into hell again and the answer is apparently incredibly so.

Also, if he's going to look vulnerable and weak then it might as well be with Charles, who's seen him at his worst.

He tries not to overthink how pleased Charles is each time Edwin seeks him out for a nap or how good it feels to be held, the safest place he can think of is in Charles arms or under his sharp watch.

Charles hovers, and he's aware of it. He can't convince himself to stray too far from Edwin. Part of it's because he's protective, reluctant to leave Edwin in anyone else's hands when he's more vulnerable then before.

Part of it is selfish, he's a little possessive. A sleeping Edwin is not something anyone else needs to see. Edwin in pain is not something anyone else needs to see.

Crystal had recently demanded they have a bed available in the office for when her and Niko stayed over, even though they rarely use it. It's soft, covered in pillows and blankets, and Edwin has taken to hiding away in it when he sleeps. Crystal looks incredibly pleased when it slips that Edwin uses it and Charles is hit with a intense wave of fondness for her.

No one needs to see Edwin like this. Especially not when he loses a lot of his layers and curls up in something more comfortable. It leaves him vulnerable, his throat and wrists bare, and looking smaller without all extra clothing.

Nobody needs to see how he only really lets himself sleep when Charles is in bed with him or close enough in the room to reach out for if needed. He watches Charles do whatever it is he's doing with half lidded eyes, a strip of green that stubbornly stays visible until Charles is closer.

In the beginning they thought it was something temporary. Ghost don't need to sleep, Charles never sleeps. Sometimes he can get himself to relax enough that it's almost like sleeping but it's not anywhere near actual sleep.

They think it's just him trying to make up what Esther took.

But it keeps happening. Again and again.

And it makes them both anxious. Charles is worried about why Edwin suddenly needs to sleep but Edwin is worried about the actual sleeping part.

He does not want to sleep. Sleep means dreaming and nothing good will come from his dreams, he's sure of it.

It's also scary. Sleep is a weakness, it leaves him vulnerable and unaware. He doesn't want to sleep.

In those first few weeks where they all still thought this would pass, exhaustion caught up to him one evening as they were finishing up a long case. Charles was out and he couldn't even think about how wonderful it would be to go to go lay down because Charles was not there.

The office was too quiet. It made him restless and he would have paced but he was feeling especially sore that day. His hands had ached while he was writing and he had to stop frequently to flex them.

He was weak, alone, and rapidly sliding into a decreased mental awareness due to exhaustion. It's not a situation he liked.

They weren't apart for long those days, and still aren't, so Charles is back pretty quickly but it's long enough that Edwin was struggling. He blinked sleepily at Charles, with eyes that itched when they shouldn't have, and he must have looked terrible because Charles straightened up a little bit and his eyes jumped around the room before he relaxed.

He said something, dropped his bag and walked forward until he could put his hands on Edwin and that's it. Edwin leaned forward until he was relying on Charles to hold him up, turned his face into his neck and passed out still standing up.

It doesn't get that bad again. Charles is good about noticing when Edwin starts to slow down, and when it takes him a little longer to string his words together or explain himself. He picks up the way he carries himself different on day where things hurt a little more or how he rubs his temple when he feels a headache coming on.

He herds Edwin to bed like a sheep dog and makes sure everything is locked up so they won't be bothered. Edwin had managed to find a spell that would keep anyone else, living and none, out of their office when activated. It's perfect for extra privacy and security.

Charles hates that Edwin was hurt enough that he needs this now, and he hates seeing him wore down and exhausted... but part of him loves these days.

Edwin sleepy and soft, usually pulling Charles down with him until they're under all the blankets and pillows, tucked on their own little world.

He clings when he sleeps. He buries his face in Charles throat and under his chin like he's trying to hide, presses in as close as he can until they're completely tangled together. Not that Charles has any problem with that. He runs his fingers over skin in soothing gestures and pulls him in close if he starts to show any signs of a nightmare.

He wakes up with hair sticking up and clothes rumpled, blinking at Charles a few times as he tries to wake up enough to remember what's happening. Sometimes, Charles gets lucky and Edwin will stretch out like a cat before readjusting himself to be close again and doze off for a little longer.

It knocks the breath he doesn't need out of his lungs and love sits in his throat until it threatens to choke him.

Sometimes there are nightmares and Edwin shoves himself away desperately with a pained and fearful noise that has Charles cringing. Edwin stares at him from the other side of the bed, eyes big but unfocused in a way that shows he's not actually seeing Charles. He's tight, tense and completely locked up. He couldn't move even if he wanted to. They're both still laying down, and Charles doesn't move even though he wants to. He starts talking, low and soft, keeps doing that until Edwin starts to relax again. It's a slow process and it takes a while before Edwin is relaxed enough that Charles can reach out and coax him back closer. He's exhausted after those little episodes, too tired and his body too sore from being so tense to put up much of a fight as Charles tucks him in close again. Sometimes he's asleep before they're even settled back in, limp with sleep as Charles rearranges him in a way that won't have him aching when he wakes up.

Sometimes Charles is too wired to lay down, even if cuddling is great motivation, and he keeps himself busy while Edwin rests. Sometimes they're in the middle of a case and there's still work that needs to be done, so he does what can while until Edwin is back up and functional.

It's a powerful feeling, having Edwin trust him so much and so openly. Sometimes Charles has to check on him, the quiet and unmoving lump on the bed making him nervous until he looks him over, just to make sure everything is okay. It's hard to tell sometimes since they don't breathe like the living, and Edwin sleeps so quiet. He doesn't even flinch at Charles getting close, nothing triggering those survival instincts gained in hell that would have him awake and moving if it was anyone else this close.

God help anyone stupid enough to try something when they're like this. He'd fight anyone who disturbed them, anyone who woke Edwin up from his much needed rest or threaten to cause them harm. It burns under his skin and it makes his teeth itch.

Nothing would separate them. Nothing could take them away from each other.

#dead boy detectives #payneland #charles rowland #edwin payne #dbda #chronic pain edwin keeps me going #you know he's gotta be all fucked up from everything #plus if Esther figured out she could use him then you know there's going to be others who are going to figure it out and give it a try too #anyway #solving cases with greyskyflowers

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vivwritesfics · 8 months ago

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Military Flyover

The dagger squad don't want to do a military flyover of the Las Vegas grand Prix. None of them really knew much about and, those that did only really knew about Nascar.

She hated the Vegas Grand Prix as much as those doing the military flyover. But the cute WSO there to support his friends was making it bearable.

Robert 'Bob' Floyd x F1 driver!reader

5.6K

a/n: yes a military flyover doesn't make sense for vegas buuuut let a girl dream lol - i'm hoping I've managed to write this for an audience that might not really know f1 but idk how confident i am in my abilities lol

Bob couldn't quite believe what the two time Top Gun graduates were having to do. They had completed an insanely dangerous mission and returned to be permanently stationed in San Diego, except from when they were called away for deployment.

They were a part of the military, why were they doing this?

Well, at least Bob didn't have to actually fly. He was a Weapon Systems Officer, he didn't have to take part in this. But he still went, more to morally support his squad.

Nat wasn't happy about have to do a military flyover of the Las Vegas Grand Prix. She, Bradley and Jake were constantly complaining. None of them knew anything about Formula One, not enough to appreciate doing the flyover.

(May I just say, even if they did know about F1, they still wouldn't appreciate it. They'd train for years to be in the navy and now they were having to waste their time on this.)

The flyover was on the Sunday. Only Natasha, Jake and Bradley were taking part. Bob didn't have to go, didn't have to visit the track on the Friday and the Saturday with the three of them.

But Natasha had begged him. "Drive up with me," she'd said to him. "It's five hours and I could use the company."

So, Bob agreed. His dad had sometimes watched Nascar while he was growing up. He didn't know much of anything about motorsport but, if Nat wanted him there, he'd go.

The navy pilots didn't know they'd been invited to meet the drivers. Bob followed Natasha through the paddock. "Getting to meet the drivers might be the only good thing thing to come from this," Nat mumbled as she led the way.

The paddock was buzzing with life. There were cameras following people around, interviews happening as they walked through the paddock. Fans stopped men in team shirts and hats for pictures before letting them continue.

There was a familiar whistle, just loud enough for Natasha and Bob to hear over the crowd around them. They turned and saw Rooster and Hangman striding towards them.

"Where are we meant to be?" Asked Hangman as Rooster pulled off his aviators and looked around. The three of them (Natasha, Jake and Bradley) were in their overalls, looking proper in their uniform. Bob, though. He was dressed down, wearing jeans and a sweater (Vegas really wasn't that warm this time of year), his military issued glasses sitting on his nose. He looked cute, even if he didn't know it.

"Cyclone said the Ferrari garage, right?" She said as she looked between the other aviators. Bob, who had studied the itinerary, nodded his head and the four of them set off towards the red garage.

***

The Las Vegas Grand Prix was a joke. All of the drivers thought so.

The Ferrari drivers weren't happy about it (just like the rest of the grid). They had spent the season struggling behind the Red Bulls and driving on an unknown track wasn't going to help that.

She needed a lot of mental preparation for this one. Just like the other drivers, before the first practice session her only experience on the track had been through sim racing. She was nervous in a way she hadn't been before.

She donned her red fireproofs, the overalls hanging from from her hips. She pulled her cap onto her head when there was a knock on her driver room door. "Yeah?" She called and the member of Ferrari staff walked in.

"The navy pilots are on their way," she said and went to back out of the drivers room.

"What?" The Ferrari driver called suddenly, her brows furrowed. "What navy pilots?"

The member of staff gulped. "They're doing a military flyover before the Grand Prix," she said. "They're on their way here to meet you and Charles," she said.

The driver let out a huff. She grabbed her drinks bottle and marched out of her drivers room, heading to find her teammate.

Charles was doing an interview for Sky Sports when she walked through the garage. She didn't much care, though. She powered on, her hand on Charles's shoulder as she stood at his side. "Chuck," she said, looking at her teammate.

Lawrence Barretto moved his microphone back to his mouth. "Is that his official name for the Vegas Grand Prix?" He asked and moved the microphone towards her.

"Yes," she said as Charles shook his head, repeatedly saying 'no'.

She stood beside him until the interview was over, answering any question Lawrence sent her way. As soon as they were done she grabbed Charles and pulled him away, pulling him further into the Ferrari garage.

"What's up?" Charles asked. He was a brilliant teammate, one of her best friends. They'd known each other for yeas and were close enough for people to think they were together at one point. Brocedes 2.0, many commented on the pictures of the two of them posted on the Scuderia Ferrari Instagram account, as if they were a disaster waiting to happen.

"Did you know we're having to meet the navy pilots doing the military flyover?" She asked, hands on her hips.

Charles furrowed his brows. And then his face relaxed as he shook his head at her. "Start checking your emails, please," he said.

She gently pushed him as a member of the Ferrari staff, the same girl from before, approached them. "They're here," she said and left them to it.

Charles led the way back through the garage, heading to where the navy pilots were standing around his car. Three of them, the three that looked the part, chatted with Fred while one, one that was dressed down, stood to the side.

Suddenly, she pulled Charles out of sight. "What is it?" He asked quickly, concern written on his face.

She looked back around the corner at the pilots for just a second. "Holy shit, Cha, I think I'm in love," she said and Charles just laughed.

"Do you need a wingman?"

She furiously shook her head. "Don't you bloody dare."

She steadied herself and followed Charles over to the navy pilots. Fred spotted his drivers first. He gestured over to them as he back away from the pilots, letting the drivers take over.

Charles held his hand out towards them introducing himself first. She went next, giving them her name as she reached out to shake the woman's hand.

"Natasha Trace," she said with a smile as she shook her hand. "Callsign Phoenix."

She moved on to the man with the moustache. "Bradley Bradshaw, or Rooster," he said and shook her hand, his grip firm. He wore a smile, but it was respectful.

Unlike the man next to him. She could tell who he was from the moment she looked at him, wearing that flirty smile. "Jake Seresin," he said, pulling her hand up to his lips to kiss the back of it. "You can call me Hangman."

The smile dropped from her face and she pulled her hand away, clearly unimpressed. She looked past him, at the guy in the sweater and the glasses. "How about you?" She asked, completely ignoring Hangman. "Are you in the navy too?"

Bob blushed bright red as he stepped forward. "Robert Floyd," he said and shook her hand. "I'm a weapon systems officer."

"Oh," she said. Just that one word and she sounded incredibly fascinated. "Do tell me more."

She'd asked Charles not to wing man her, but he did it anyway. She might not have been aware as Charles spoke to the other navy pilots, doing the job for both of them. (Charles didn't know if Bob was the one she had fancied, but it was easy to guess. He looked like her type).

They spoke for a good twenty minutes before the drivers were told to wrap up the conversation. "You got a call sign?" She asked Bob as she crossed her arms over her chest and leant against the wall.

Jake had been wrapped up in the conversation he, Rooster and Phoenix were having with Charles until that point. Upon hearing her question, he placed his arm around the WSO's shoulders and grinned at the driver. "This is Baby On Board," he said with a grin, going to pinch Bob's cheeks.

Again, his cheeks were flaming as he stepped away from Jake. "It's Bob," he said. "Just Bob."

"Just Bob," she repeated as she smiled at him, completely ignoring everything Jake had said (something that Bob was grateful for). "It's simple, I like it."

Her engineer called for her. She turned and put her thumbs up before turning back to Bob. "Are you staying for the free practice?" She asked and Charles couldn't stop himself from answering.

"Sorry," he said to the pilots. "She doesn't read her emails."

She sent a glare in Charles's direction. The drivers said a quick goodbye to the navy pilots (although she hoped it wasn't for the last time), and got themselves ready for the first practice session in Las Vegas. They pulled up the red and white overalls and placed the balaclavas over their faces.

Bob watched as she pulled her helmet on, hiding her undeniably pretty face. He really did think she was beautiful, and she seemed interested in him, but he wasn't going to read too much into that.

He couldn't see as she gave him a smile from beneath her helmet. When she climbed into the red car with the number 53 on it, Bob knew which one he had to look out for.

The track wasn't ready, everybody knew it. But they didn't know how bad it was until they shower of sparks coming out the back of her car. "What the fuck was that?" She said to her engineer down the radio. "I just hit a fucking manhole cover."

The pilots were leaning forward as she stopped the car. The session was stopped, the other drivers coming into the pits. She jumped out of the car, waiting for it to be lifted onto the truck so that she could look at the extent of the damage beneath.

As the car was taken back to the garage and workers surrounded the manhole cover, she climbed into the medical car and was taken back to the pitlane.

Bob watched as she stormed into the garage, pulling off her helmet and balaclava. "Nine fucking minutes!" She heard her say to somebody in a Ferrari shirt. "I officially hate the Vegas Grand Prix."

She looked around the garage, eyes focusing in on the pilots. They were watching her, too, and she forced her expression to soften as she walked over. "Sorry you had to see that," she said, unzipping her race suit.

Bob shook his head. "'s no worries, ma'am," he said before he could stop himself. When his fellow aviators looked at him, his cheeks flushed red.

"We're just glad to know you're okay," Natasha said for him.

The driver smiled at them. But the interaction was short lived as she was called over to her wrecked car. (It looked fine on the top, but everybody knew the damage was beneath, invisible).

The nine minutes of practice wasn't enough to help the aviators get into F1. Rooster, Hangman and Phoenix wanted to head back to their hotels, but Bob wanted to stick around.

"My dad was into Nascar," he explained as the others left. They nodded, but they knew better. Their Baby On Board had a crush.

She hadn't expect him to stay, that much was clear. She'd seen the other aviators leave and had gotten on with what she needed to do, speaking to the mechanics about the parts they needed to replace and speaking to Fred about the potential consequences.

"Oh!" She said when she saw Bob still sitting there. "I thought you would have left."

Bob gave a polite smile and shrugged his shoulders. "I wanted to learn more."

The smile she gave him matched his own. "Well, you're not gonna learn much here," she said. "Let me get changed and we can get dinner."

Bob didn't expect dinner to be in the Ferrari hospitality suite. He'd didn't exactly think he'd be going out to dinner with her, but he didn't expect this.

She sat Bob down at a table and got a selection of food for them to share. "I can't exactly go crazy," she'd said as she sat down opposite him, placing the single plate in between them. "I still have a car to drive later."

Bob grabbed something from the plate. "Why does that mean you can't go crazy?" He asked curiously, innocently.

Every question Bob had, she answered. He told her that his dad watched Nascar while he was going up but he couldn't get into it. Didn't have the time once he joined the navy.

She asked him all about that, just as curious as he was about her job. Bob knew she was meant to be this big celebrity, but she was normal with him, and he really appreciated it.

He hadn't known who she was going into this weekend, but he heard the way the fans screamed her name. She was so famous, and he was just a boy from Montana.

"Are you and your friends watching anything else of the Grand Prix weekend?" She asked as she ate a piece of lettuce (literally just holding a big piece of lettuce to her lips and crunching on it).

Bob shook his head as he looked down at the table in front of him. "'Friad not, ma'am," he said, looking at her over the top of his glasses. Bob didn't know what compelled him to do it, but he took them off.

"Aw," she said with a pout. "I liked them."

"Really?" Bob couldn't hide the surprise in his voice. "I used to have ones with slightly thicker frames, but these are military issued," he explained, putting them back on his face.

She grinned at him. "They're cute," she said, resting her cheek in her hand. It was undeniably flirty, and her grin was only making it worse. Well, that would have been if Bob could have allowed himself to believe that was flirting with him.

"I could get you tickets, if you'd like," she said. "You and your pilot friends. You can come back back to the Ferrari garage, support us for the rest of the weekend."

Bob gave her a gentle smile. "I'd like that," he said.

They continued chatting until she had to head back to the garage. Bob followed her, walking behind her.

She took him back to the garage, leaving him to stand with the rest of the Ferrari guests while she disappeared into her drivers room. Bob couldn't help but think of her as she got herself ready, getting dressed into her fireproofs and race suit. If Nat was here, he could ask her for advice.

Ten minutes before the start of FP2, she walked over to Bob. He'd seen her dressed down in a Ferrari hoodie and cute cargos, seen her in her race suit, and seen her in her fire proofs, race suit sitting low on her hips.

That was how she walked towards him. He'd seen so little of her, but this was his favourite (and he certainly wanted to see more). "Want to sit in the car?" She asked, hands on her hips.

***

The first thing she did after FP2 was give Bob her phone number. He couldn't quite believe it, and made a mental note to recount everything to Natasha as soon as he got back to the hotel.

"Have you got a way back to your hotel?" She asked, her helmet tucked beneath her arm.

"I, uh..." No, he and Natasha had gotten a cab together.

She waved him off before he could give her a proper answer. "I can drive you, if you'd like," she offered.

That was how Bob found himself sitting in an F1 drivers car, telling her about his childhood as she took him back to his hotel. He told her about his big family and the mountains he grew up around. He told her about when he joined the military, about his first time in Top Gun and his permanent stationing in Coronado.

Before very long they were pulling up outside of his hotel. "Well, here we are," he said, patting his legs. He didn't move to leave the car, but she didn't much mind.

"I really liked meeting you today, Bob," she said as she tapped the heel of her hand against the steering wheel.

"It was lovely to meet you, too," he said.

"Promise you'll text me?"

"Promise."

She held out her pinky finger and Bob wrapped his own around it, sealing the deal. He looked at her one last time and climbed out of the car, heading into the hotel.

Bob couldn't hide his smile as he walked through the lobby and into the elevator. Just days ago he'd hated the thought of a military flyover for the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Now, he couldn't wait to get back to the track, back to the Ferrari garage.

Nat noticed it the minute he walked through the door of the hotel room they were sharing. "Had a good time watching the rest of it?" She asked as she pushed away from the desk in the room.

Bob nodded as he pulled out his phone, clicking on her contact. But, the moment he was there, he didn't know what to say to her. "Nat," he called, looking up at her. "I need your help."

He only needed Nat's help to get the ball rolling. But soon, she and Bob were sending messages back and forth with just a second long gap between. Sometimes Bob took a little longer to reply, but only because Nat was reading the messages over his shoulder and assuring him that she was flirting.

Bob couldn't believe it. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't.

"I'll go with you tomorrow," Nat said as she climbed into her bed. It was incredibly late and Bob was hyper-aware that they were still texting. "Find out if she really is flirting with you."

"Nat..."

"Goodnight, Bob."

Natasha went to sleep, but Bob stayed up. She was still replying to his messages, and he couldn't bring himself to not respond. At least until she turned around and wished him goodnight.

When Bob woke up, she had already texted him. I don't have to be on track until later - wanna get food?

Who was Bob to say no? Natasha grinned as he got himself ready, including his glasses. (He had brought his contacts to Vegas because of how much he hated wearing his glasses. He didn't have time to put them in before they headed to the track the day before, but Nat didn't expect him to wear them now).

He walked out of the hotel, ignoring Hangman and Rooster as they called after him. They sat in the lobby, do doubt waiting for Natasha as they whistled at him.

Bob kept going. He saw her car before he walked out of the glass doors, and had to stop himself from breaking into a small jog. As he approached, she pushed open the passenger side door. "Hey, Robby!" She called, wearing a grin.

"Hey," Bob said, wearing a smile as he climbed into the passenger side.

As soon as he was buckled in, she began driving. "Have you ever been to Vegas before?" She asked as she headed towards the strip.

Bob shook his head. "No, ma'am," he said. It wasn't in the same way he'd said 'ma'am' before. No, those time he had been nervous saying it. This time, it was so fucking cute and she loved it. "I don't get enough leave for that."

"Why do you call me ma'am?" She asked, but she never wanted it to stop.

Bob couldn't stop his smile. "My momma raised me right."

That much she could tell. She parked the car and climbed out as Bob did the same. "Come on," she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him along.

They went to a restaurant. Bob didn't catch the name of it as she pulled him through the doors. Even when sat gave the waiter her name, she was still holding his hand.

They sat down at a table for two. It felt far too intimate, almost like a date. She couldn't order a drink, but insisted that Bob did. He ordered one beer and made sure to make it last through their entire lunch.

She ordered a salad. Bob wanted to do the same, but she could see how conflicted he was. "Have whatever you want," she said, lowering her menu.

So, he did just that. Bob got himself a burger, the cheapest one on the menu (which was still incredibly expensive).

While they ate, Bob couldn't ignore the way her foot touched his knee beneath the table. He gulped as he reached for his beer.

While they waited, she told Bob about how she had grown up. Karting from a young age before moving onto single seaters.

The more she spoke, the more Bob could imagine getting into F1. Watching races, coming to see her in Vegas when he wasn't deployed. He just had to hope she still liked him enough to keep in contact with him.

They spent the entire afternoon together, until she was taking Bob to the track with her. Pictures of the two of them were taken as they walked through the paddock, too close to just be friends.

Once again, Bob stood in the garage while she completed the last practice session. She led, the fastest car until the Red Bulls were released onto the track.

But still, Bob couldn't stop watching the number 53 car. She came into the pits, had her tyres changed and went out a few minutes later.

Bob couldn't help but smile as he watched her climb the leaderboard. When practice ended, she didn't come in right away, doing a practice start with the other drivers.

When she got out of her car, she pulled off her helmet and balaclava, and spoke to her engineers. She had looked so happy when she climbed out of the car, but Bob watched as her face fell.

She walked over to him, unable to keep herself from sighing. The anger dropped from her face, replaced by sadness. "Wanna come sit in my drivers room?"

So, Bob followed her to her drivers room. She led him inside and shut the door behind him, letting out a breath as she leaned against it.

"Everything okay?" Asked Bob as he pushed his glasses up his nose.

She unzipped her overalls and let them fall to her hips. Bob shuffled over on the couch, giving her space. She sat beside him, shutting her eyes as she leaned back. "Because of the parts they'd had to replace in my car, I'm probably going to get a penalty later," she mumbled.

Her head fell onto his shoulder and Bob didn't move. He hesitated before wrapping his arm around her shoulder. That that, she shuffled slightly closer, which Bob didn't mind one bit.

Suddenly, she let out a weak laugh. "You're kinda making me want to stay in the states a little longer, Robby," she mumbled.

He looked down at her. "Would you? Seriously?" Bob could imagine it then, taking her to stay with him in San Diego, taking her to Montana to meet his mom at Christmas.

She shook her head. "I can't," she said and sighed through her nose. "There's one last race before the end of the season."

After that, Bob wanted to say. But he squeezed her shoulder instead.

When her trainer came in, Bob wished her good luck and headed back out to the garage. While he waited, he pulled out his phone and sent Natasha a text. She hadn't gone to the track with him, instead going with Bradley and Jake to the hangar they would be flying from.

If Nat showed Rooster and Hangman his texts, he'd never hear the end of it. But Bob realised he didn't mind. Let them talk, he was here with her.

The first round of the qualifying session was about to start. Bob sort of knew what to expect, she'd explained it to him while they sat in her drivers room, her head on his shoulder. He watched as she walked towards the car, her red, gold, black and white helmet on her head.

She climbed into the car and somebody strapped her in as somebody else spoke to her. She nodded at whatever they were saying and put her thumbs up.

Admittedly, Bob couldn't tell the difference between the practice sessions and the qualifying session. He watched as she went from having no time on the board to being the quickest car on track. But then she was knocked out of the top spot, down in eighth by the end of that session.

Bob had assumed that she was starting the race in eighth position after the eighteen minute long qualifying session. But then she and fourteen other drivers were going back out onto track.

Again she was at the top of the board, knocked out by the same driver. But she stayed in fourth, unable to get a quicker time in before the end of the session.

She went out for a third and final time. Bob heard her calling down the radio as somebody got in her way. But she put an impressive time on the board, finishing third.

It may have been obvious to everybody else in the garage, but Bob had to ask the girl standing next to him. She pushed her dark hair behind her ear and answered with a thick French accent. Bob thanked her and watched as the 53 car came into the garage.

She hopped out, did what she needed to do and came to find Bob.

It was near midnight and she couldn't quite believe he was still there, watching her. They'd spent the entire day together, and she'd loved every minute of it.

"Want me to drive you home?" She asked and Bob nodded his head.

She did just that, driving Bob back to his hotel. "They haven't confirmed if I've got a penalty or not," she said as she drove him. "So, for now I'm starting in P3." She quickly glanced at him and then looked back at the road. "Think you might be my good luck charm, Robby," she said and he blushed a deep shade of red.

She pulled up outside of the hotel, just as she had done the day before. And, like the day before, Bob was hesitant to climb out of the car.

As Bob reached for the handle of the door, she opened her mouth, ready to say something, and he stopped. But she closed her mouth. Still, Bob didn't move.

She sucked in a breath and tried again. This time, words came out. "Can I come up?"

Bob knew what that meant. How could he not? Some part of him had been wanting her to ask something like this for the last few hours. But still, he shook his head. "I, uh, I can't. I'm sharing my room with Nat."

"Oh," she said and looked down at the centre console between them. "Oh, shit. Are you and Nat- I didn't mean to overstep... I-"

Bob quickly shook his head. "No. No, Nat's my best friend, but only my best friend," he said. "But, her bed is a couple feet away from mine, so..."

She couldn't help but let a smile cross her face at that. "Can I kiss you, Robby?" She asked.

He leaned over the centre console. Her arms went around his neck, fingers playing with the short hair at the back of his neck.

Bob kissed her. He closed the gap between them, his arm awkwardly resting on her shoulders as his lips moved against her own. Her nose bumped the lens of his glasses, but neither of them minded.

If the expensive car left room for it, he would have moved her onto his lap. But he couldn't. He pulled away, staring at her as his eyes opened again. "Holy shit," he whispered and she grinned at him.

"I'll come and get you before the race," she said and Bob climbed out of the car.

***

He didn't wake up to a text from her. Immediately Bob's mind played tricks on him, telling him that, after they had kissed, she didn't want him.

He sat in the hotel for half of the day, in a perpetual state of anxiousness. Part of him didn't want to move until he heard from her, until he knew that everything was okay.

"You coming?" Nat asked him. He checked his phone one last time before following her out of the hotel room.

He didn't know what she was currently dealing with, that she had just found out about her grid place penalty. "This is such shit!" She cried as she and Charles walked through the paddock. She'd woken up to the news and hadn't had time to message Bob.

"Well, there's nothing we can do about it now," Charles said, stopping to sign things for fans (signs, hats, and even a packet of oreos). "How are things going with the navy guy?"

She grinned as they kept walking through the paddock. "We kissed, Cha," she said, suddenly much happier.

"Kissed and..." Charles tried to push.

She shook her head. "Just kissed."

Charles nodded as they walked into the garage. "Just kissed, but you wanted more," he said. "Are you gonna see him before we leave?"

"Yeah," she answered. "I'm gonna go and pick him up before the race."

Through the evening, she and Charles did what they needed to do for the race. When she got a minute, she texted Bob, but she didn't have many opportunities to check her phone.

As soon as she had a chance, she ran out of the paddock. She held her phone to her ear as she went, making her way to her car. Bob picked up on the third ring. "Hey," she said, opening the door of her car. "I'm on my way."

Bob hesitated before he answered. "I'm not at the hotel right now."

"Do you still want to come to the race?" She asked quickly.

"Do you still want me there?"

She let out a laugh. "Of course I do, Robby. Give me the address and I'll pick you up."

That was just what happened. She picked Bob up and took him to the track. She promised the other aviators that she would get him there to watch the military flyover and drove off with him in the passenger seat.

"Have you ever been to San Diego?" Bob asked as she drove. It had been playing on his mind a lot since they kissed, his best case scenario (which was currently happening. He could have laughed at himself for being so worried).

She shook her head. "I haven't had a chance to explore outside of the places we have Grand Prix," she answered.

"So, you haven't been to Montana?"

"Nope."

Bob couldn't help but smile. He sucked in a breath, steadying himself. "I don't know when you're gonna have time off, but I could show you Montana, if you'd like."

She grinned at him as she parked the car. "I'd love that, Robby," she said and climbed out of the car.

She checked the time on her watch, grabbed her hand and began running. "I'm late!" She cried. Bob was only happy to run beside her, heading into the Ferrari garage. He slowed to a walk, but she kept going, running to her drivers room to pull on her fireproofs and overalls.

Bob watched it all. He watched as she stood for the national anthem with her fellow drivers, watched as she completed the formation lap from the back of the grid (something he had to ask about), and watched as she raced.

Bob couldn't help but be impressed as she fought her way across the track, racing past most of the grid. She overtook ten other cars, finishing in 5th.

When she climbed out of the car, Bob could see just how happy she was from her body language alone. She did what she had to do, spoke to the team and was interviewed, before she ran over to Bob and threw her arms around him.

"That was incredible!" He cried, smiling down at her. "I didn't realise racing was so exciting."

She grinned and kissed his cheek. "Think you'll watch next weeks race?"

"Definitely," he said.

He hadn't expected her to kiss him in front of all of the cameras. But Bob didn't mind. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close until she pulled away.

"I leave in the morning," she whispered in his ear. "Stay with me, in my hotel. One last night."

"Until Montana?" Bob asked, his forehead against her own.

"Until Montana."

a/n: ok i loved this and it may need a part two lol