#to write 100 words and 100 words alone | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lilacgaby · 3 months ago

Text

‧₊˚ what are we?

...nothing. right?.₊˚⊹

convienence. a means to end. that's all this was for both of you right? when katsuki is fed up with the crazed fangirls who just won't leave him alone, he works out a deal with you. it was just coincidence he had a huge crush on you.

☆pair. 2ndyear!katsuki x reader. tags. fake dating!trope, fluff, reader is academically flopping for a bit, pet names, cursing, fighting (verbal), happy ending wc. 6k

ღnote. sorry that this took so long lol! i wrote this in chapter form if you'd like to read it here, but this one shot is the same thing.

post-war brought troubles for a lot of the students in class 1-A. especially bakugo katsuki.

he had to completely relearn how to write with his other hand, had to learn how to fight without injury to it.

and he had to learn to deal with his crazy amount of fangirls.

his fight had been broadcasted, the manner in which he pushed himself to the very brink broadcasted to the world. his victory brought spoils, though not in a way he expected.

he didn't expect to be chased down the hallways every morning, to have a line of girls wanting his autograph as he ate. he didn't expect to be gifted things, things they just assumed he liked, but couldn't be farther from the truth.

luckily, you seemed to like chocolate. he found refuge these days sitting on the roof floor of U-A next to you during lunch, passing you the chocolate gifts he'd been given.

he hated chocolate. but to be honest, he loved seeing you smile.

"thanks 'suki." you said for the nth time, picking the best chocolates out of the box and leaving the gross ones alone.

"yeah." he sighed, glancing at you occasionally as he moved to support the weight of his head with his hands. he found himself speechless around you often. words failing as he leant into the comfort of your presence.

you were about to say something, he thinks. your mouth was open though the blaring of the bell cut you off. "oh, let's go 'suki." you said, holding your hand out to him.

he took it, letting you pull him up and holding onto your hand for just a second too long. you dumped the rest of the chocolates in a trash can and made your collective way down to 1-A. you laughed at how he seemed to try and hide behind you, eyes darting around for the general course girls who seemed to have nothing better to do than follow him around.

they didn't come though. he saw a group of them but when they saw your proximity to him..

they left him alone.

a lightbulb went off in his head, he mentally kicked himself for not thinking of it sooner. as he sat in class, eyeing your seat between momo and jirou, he thought about how he'd ask you.

test papers were being passed out, graded ones. "yo man," kirishima started, looking over his paper, "what'd you get?"

katsuki scoffed. "what do you think? another 100, easy as shit."

kaminari groaned beside him, "you're cheating or something! i got an 80."

"that's high for someone like you!"

"hey!"

"aw man, i got a 70. you're so manly bakubro!"

"yeah, guess i am."

katsuki tried to resist the turning of his head, he really did. but he wanted to know what score you got, if you did well. though from the expression on your face and the way momo patted you on the back,

not to mention the red ink used all over your paper. he knew you didn't.

"man this totally sucks!" you exclaimed, your hands clutching the paper of your test. "i studied and everything, i don't even need math, im a hero for crying out loud!"

jirou's teases and momo's comforts faded into the background as he only focused on you, and the nagging feeling for him to help you.

with another ring of the bell and a sigh from mr. aizawa, katsuki left early to try and beat the crowd of girls who seemed to pounce on him.

he didn't though, he found himself at the entrance at U-A, almost to freedom when the crowd pointed at him, "that's him! i can't believe it!"

"dynamite, an autograph please?"

"hey- don't be so casual. it's lord explosion--"

"who cares? i want a photo!"

at that, they chased him. all his progress down the stairs and through the halls was gone as he was led right back down to class 1-A. he stupidly lead himself right back into a corner.

his head darted around, until he noticed a tuft of familiar hair in the classroom. you hadn't left? oh well, he needed your help and quick.

you were sobbing internally, looking over your horrific test score with a sad expression. a 70? you might as well just drop out now.

as the hours of studying you'd done for waste passed over in your mind, a noise caught you off guard.

he had burst in, making your deflated form jump off the desk. "katsuki, don't scare me like that!"

he rushed over to your side, grabbing your hand off where it was hanging limply on the desk. "be my girlfriend for a second."

the words barely even processed in your brain before you were being manhandled off the desk, your mind rushed to catch up. "wait-- wha-"

before you knew it you were led towards the door of obsessed fan girls. his hand was intertwined tightly with yours, a slight flush on his face.

"listen up." he started, making his fans shush eachother. "my girlfriend hasn't been appreciating all your bullshit. and neither have i, so for the love of god stop it already."

he pulled you alongside him, "move." a path opened for the two of you, letting you two through. he walked you to the entrance, no words spoken between the two of you until you stopped infront of the lockers where you'd keep your shoes.

"[name]-- uh." he took a breath, his heart sped up rapidly around you. it sped up at the simple tilt of your head.

"so. if you help me with this shit, i'll tutor you.

or whatever."

a hand was behind his head, his averted eyes now focusing on you as he awaited your answer with baited breath.

you had an expression of thoughtfulness on your face. your finger on your chin as you looked up to the ceiling to think.

'have everyone think youre dating a cute boy and get a tutor?'

the pinkie of your hand shot out, a closed eye smile on your face. "i'm in!"

a soft smile graced his lips, his pinkie intertwining with yours and sealing his fate in more ways than one.

because you really did have him wrapped around your finger. literally and figuratively.

"let's go to my room so we can talk over it!"

you really were going to be the death of him.

it's not like he'd never been to your room, just not in a situation like this.

not when he'd declared himself your boyfriend an hour earlier, not when his hands were sweaty with his nervousness, and not when you'd agreed so hastily to be his.

he wondered if you'd accept if anyone else asked you. if izuku or todoroki had been facing this situation instead of him.

"'suki?" you patted the side of your bed next to you, "sit with me."

he sighed, the thoughts disappearing from his mind at your words. he really was whipped for you.

"yeah, yeah. i'm goin'" he sat beside you, oddly stiffer than normal. he held his own hands as he waited for you to say something.

"okay, so, we should have like-- a plan or something right?"

"a plan? what the fuck for?"

"like so we don't get caught faking this or whatever. if they find out your fans will just come back running, no?"

he shuddered at the thought. "yeah, don't wanna deal with that shit."

"right? so the first part of our plan, is that everyone has to think we're dating. cool?"

katsuki's mind was racing. cool? more like the best thing that would happen to him. he felt as if everyone knew of his crush on you.. except for you.

being to say he was all yours and that you were all his, even if it was a lie..

"yeah, it's cool."

"great, that's really the only thing we had to establish. we hang out a lot anyways so, we'll just have to be affectionate or something to seal the deal."

his heart jumped at the idea of hugging you, wrapping an arm around you, holding hands with you in public. the ghost of a smile came over him.

"right."

"cool. so nothing else matter--"

"we're starting your studying shit tomorrow. the next test is next week, so we don't have time to play around [name]."

"ughh. i wish you forgot about that." your head fell into your hands. "i hate math, what do i even need it for?"

"advanced math, nothing really. but estimates are important in hero work. estimating time, the abilities of your body, the amount of civilians, all that stuff."

"you're such a nerd."

"hah?"

he continued explaining the importance of math to you despite your grievances. his finger was pointed in the air, you swore you could see the need emoji popping over his face.

your eyes closed, the weight of the day, your grade, and the thought of studying alongside a nerd like katsuki tiring you to no avail. you yawned, laying your head on his shoulder.

you could hear the thumping of his heart, the racing of his blood in his veins. it rocked you to sleep, "wake me up later, m' a take a nap." you mumbled against his shoulder, before falling asleep.

his mouth shut, eyes peeled on your body that now clung to his side. his face grew hot, when did it get so hot in your damn room?

he tried his best to stay awake, to let you nap and wake you up in the morning. but as the clock hit eight o clock, the time he was supposed to head back to his dorm.. he found himself stuck in place.

not by an invisible force, not by some obligation. it was only the thought of wanting to be with you, next to you. wanting to let the comfort of your weight next to him drive himself to sleep.

so he did. he fell asleep, letting his head lay on top of yours, holding your body closer to his. shutting his eyes.

the light of the sun woke him up first, you didn't close your blinds yesterday, and the sun shined brightly,

directly into his face. he groaned, his voice deep from sleep as he peeled himself off of you. he was confused from fatigue, wondering why he was still in your room.

he felt an arm around his waist, he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes to see it was you who was holding him close. he thinks you were using him in place of your huge teddy bear, the one laid neatly in the corner of your bed.

his heart rate quickened once again, wanting to go back to his room, but fighting the urge to stay looking at you.

an absentminded hand moved a couple strands of your hair out your face, pinching your cheek when he got bold.

you don't wake up, he sighed a breath of relief. 'til he felt your body start to stir, you pushed your head more into his chest, your eyes finally starting to open slightly.

"oh? g'morning kat'." you were sleepy, your words slightly slurred and muffled from how you were pressed against him.

"you slept here?" you asked, pulling away from him as you moved to stretch your upper body.

"uh-- yeah." he was once again lost for words at the sight of you, your shirt slightly pulled up from how you'd slept, your hair messy from the lack of a protective style before sleep.

"sorry for waking you up then, 'suki."

"no, i was already up. i just didn't wanna wake you."

"well, you failed." you joked. "anyways, you should get out of here soon, if iida sees you he'll probably flip out and tell mr. aizawa."

"right."

"let's walk to class together!" you clasped his hands in yours. "okay?"

you were going to be the death of him once again. "okay."

you let go and he got up, ruffling his hair slightly and looking back at you who sent him a small smirk and wave. before slowly walking out your door. he did his best to keep his movements quiet and minimal.

he was at the elevator, before uraraka walked out. shit. "bakugo? what are you doing here?"

"uh.. got lost."

her face scrunched in confusion, a knowing smile on her face after a second. "right.. tell [name] good morning for me."

".. tell her yourself." he got into the elevator, already seeing the grin in uraraka's face as he went up a floor to his room.

the same grin everyone greeted him with as he went to sit next to you in the common room, having made you some breakfast. he and you were all ready, you had refreshed your hair from when he was playing with it, simple makeup and your uniform ironed. he admired you while he ate his meal.

"ah, thanks 'suki."

"mhm."

you moved to whisper in his ear, "why's everyone looking at us?"

"fuck if i know."

"so you two lovebirds aren't gonna say anything?" denki said, putting his hands on his hips as he looked you two over.

"'bout what?"

"that you two are totally dating!" mina exclaimed, pointing at you. "and you didn't say anything? wow [name], i thought.. we were closer than that." she mock fully cried.

katsuki was about to say something, you cut him off though. "i thought everyone knew?" with a tilt of your head, a question mark almost visible from the blank expression you wore.

the class only sighed, kirishima shrugged his shoulders. "yeah, we should've guessed. i mean bakugo had a obvious crush on you for the longest."

"yeah, good looks man." sero gave him a thumbs up.

"tch. let's go [name]." he sat up, placing his and your finished dishes in the sink before you followed behind him.

"right! bye guys!"

you grabbed his hand as you walked out the door. nobody was around, there was no need to keep up appearances now.

but that didn't stop him from holding your hand tighter.

and that didn't stop you from clinging even more to his side.

it seemed you two were now together all the time. a clingy couple is what you seemed like to your friends, and more importantly his fans.

at lunch he could now be in the cafeteria again, you were stuck his side as you ate, an arm around you as you shared his food, insisting his cooking was better than the U-A food.

you were caged in by his body, you really did just look like a sappy couple to everyone.

during class, he was caught glancing at you. a lot. he'd roll his eyes and pretend nothing even happened, but everyone knew he was far gone.

during training, as you sparred you noticed he was going harder on you than before. some would think that because you were his crush he wouldn't get so aggressive,

too bad katsuki only wanted to push you harder, get you to show the strength he saw you unleash on those villains in the war. he wanted you to be stronger beside him, if he was number one, he'd want you to be ranked closely to him, because he knew you were strong enough.

that didn't mean it wasn't any more hard to fight him, the man was a maniac.

"you can chill out you know!"

"what? can't take it?!"

"no, slow your fucking roll!" you barely dodged his other attack, just barely moving out the way as he threw an explosion in your direction.

you now had met the conditions to use your quirk, comeback. by generating a max of 8 orbs, they'd absorb energy that you could use back for your offense. the only downside?

melee attacks couldn't be absorbed at all.

a kick to your legs sent you to the ground, you dispersed one of your orbs with the explosion stored inside of it.

"be nice and let me win!!"

"no."

he dodged your attack and pinned you to the ground. he won.

"you're so mean 'suki." you shoved him off you, making him grunt. "a good boyfriend would've let me win!"

a nagging voice in the back of his head was telling him he wasn't yours, you weren't his, and that he was only doing this for his convinience.

"well, i guess i'll be a better one next time."

even that voice couldn't deny that the way he cared for you wasn't anything less than real. that even if this relationship was fake, that he was undoubtedly yours. that the way he held his hand out to you, lifting you as gently as he could fathom.

"wanna go again?" he asked, a boyish smirk on his face.

"you know it!"

your plan of tiring katsuki out with exercise didn't work, so you found yourself in his room at his desk. showered and wiping the dew off your neck with a towel, you sat in front of him with a book splayed open.

he was hammering topic after topic into you.. statistics or something? you weren't really paying attention, you were more interested in the bulge of his muscles out of his tank top.

his words were a blur when you suddenly found yourself reaching a hand out to feel his muscle,

your hand squeezing it.

'firm. hm.' you thought, until he pulled you away, an incredulous look on his face. "this is why your class ranking keeps falling [name]. focus!"

"how can i focus with you in front of me? it's like dancing a donut in front of a cop!" you whined, face planted onto his desk.

"you're.. insane."

"you love me though, don't you?" the words slipped out of your lips without a second thought, your face flushing slightly. "oops, sorry! almost forgot you arent my like-- real boyfriend!"

he swore he heard a bit of disappointment in your voice, felt a bit of reluctance in your movements as you pulled away at him, saw a bit of longing in your eyes.

"uh.. yeah. 's fine. let's just.. take a break." he said, motioning over to lay on his bed and do nothing for a little while.

if you would've told him a couple months ago that he'd be sat, face to face, body next to body, hands awkwardly close to each other as you remained in silence. you'd had a movie on in the background, something stupid he thought. not like he payed attention to it at all.

it was comfortable, being around you. he'd be a liar if he said that he didn't like the fact that everyone now thought you were his and vice versa. not just his fans, not just yours, but your mutual friends. family.

"do you wanna try again?" he asked after a while, voice soft and his hand moving to rub his eyes. it was his bedtime, eight o clock sharp, but he'd break it for you.

"hm? to be honest no." you moved to face him. "you look tired anyways 'suki, you should sleep."

he grumbled, his eyes closing slightly as he slowly swatted your hand away from his face, his grip lingering on your wrist.

"right." he yawned. he didn't know if it was the sleep or impulse, maybe a mixture of both. but he pulled you closer to him. making you crash against his chest with his head in the nook of your neck.

"stay." he uttered, his breath flush against your neck making the hairs stand up.

"katsuki?" you thought you were dreaming. you'd move to pinch yourself if you weren't being pinned down by him.

"please?"

"..okay." your words barely matched your actions. you cuddled more into him, pulling him impossibly closer as you melted into eachother.

a blanket was thrown over the two of you. you fell asleep in his arms, the beating of his heart matching yours as you breathed a sigh of realization.

you were horribly in love with katsuki bakugo. and he was with you.

your 'fake' activities as a couple were coming along a little bit too easily to the two of you.

feeding him a snack in his room as a joke, him finding out he kind of liked being babied, him blackmailing you so you shut up.

all couple things. normal couple activity.

you didn't even have to continue those things behind closed doors, but it just came so naturally. it seemed wrong not to do it.

it seemed wrong for him not to sling a hand over you, not to hold your hand when it was so close to him, not to move the stray strands of hair and tuck it behind your ear.

it seemed wrong for him not to save a spot for you at lunch, not to wake up a bit earlier and slip out of your sleepy grasp to prepare you a meal alongside his.

not to make some breakfast for you, light or heavy, depending on what he'd learned you preferred.

not to walk with you to class, even walking with you to go see your general studies friend in the morning, leaning against the doorway with a smile on his face as he watched you rave on about a show you'd watched recently.

why wouldn't he do it if he could? why shouldn't he watch your favorite shows just to have things to talk to you about?

he found himself fighting to stay focused during your study sessions now too. he found himself noticing things about you, the smaller things.

how you'd flip your hello kitty pencil around while you were speaking. how you'd bite your lips in concentration, your expressions of disbelief when you actually started getting things correct.

he'd have to cover his hand with his face. you were just too cute.

sometimes he'd even get distracted mid sentence. he was explaining simple things over again, just to make sure you knew what it meant.

but it was hard even keeping eye contact with you.

"so, in this problem x would be.. uh.." he went silent, his mouth open but no words escaping.

"x would be what? 7?" you showed your page of work to him, with a nervous smile. "if it's not right tell me already! i know im kinda dumb, it won't hurt my feelings too bad i swear!"

he looked down back at his page. mentally slamming his head onto the table, before recovering. "yeah, no you're right. you got it."

you slammed the work onto his desk, "finally! then we can break now right?"

"yeah, 'guess so."

"let's do something fun. take a walk, my legs hurt from sitting." you pulled him up by his hand, dragging him to his door. "hurry up!"

he couldn't help the small chuckle that escaped him, you really reminded him of just how young you two were. how he was just a high schooler with a huge crush, how--

"why are you looking at me like that? are you sick?" you placed a hand on his forehead, making him promptly rip it off. a scowl quickly replaced the smile that been on his face moments prior. "no i'm not. let's go."

you walked hand in hand, the sunset the background for your 'date'.

the last few days, he'd been nervous to bring up what was happening between you. he was nervous to ruin the odd relationship you two had, he didn't want to lose you. he thought the things you two had been doing crossed the line between friendship and lovers.

you didn't have to do any of this. though he was sure you knew that already.

"math exam's tomorrow."

"don't remind me! you totally ruined the moment you know."

"you'll pass. i mean, i was your tutor after all. if you fail with me as a teacher? you are a lost cause."

"that's not nice to say." you ripped his hand away from yours, crossing your arms on your chest. "thats really messed up 'suki."

he leant down to face you, the sun goldening you two in its wake as he grew a cocky smirk on his lips. "oh really?"

"yes really."

"n' what're you gonna do about it?" his face was barely an inch away from yours. with a glance to his lips, he moved closer.

he barely pecked you, before he heard a loud, obnoxious idiot speak from behind him.

"[name] and bakugo are totally making out over here!"

denki and kirishima were looking at the two of you, a glare crossed over katsuki's face as he basically dragged you with him back into his dorm. he was about to leave you at your dorm, the hallway empty since curfew was around the corner.

he held your hands in his, running his thumb over the knuckle of yours. he intertwined your fingers, only letting go after a while.

he tilted your head upwards with his two fingers, wordlessly asking for permission. moonlight now struck you two as he moved in.

uninterruptedly, he kissed you. deepening it with a pull of the hand, holding you against him.

he let go after a while, his internal clock signaling it was almost time for curfew.

before he left, he whispered to you. "i don't.. really care what we're labeled. and if this shit is real or not.

i just want to be close to you."

he turned, walking to the elevator. leaving your breathless, with your heart in your throat.

no more words were spoken between you two, not as you screamed into your pillow, and not as he stared up into the ceiling of his room.

you passed that math test. and each assignment that went with it.

the end of the year was now coming quickly, of the school year that is. you and katsuki still kept up your 'act', the activities now stretching to dates after school mixed in with your study sessions.

one's that'd leave the touch of katsuki on you more than the touch of knowledge. but it was working nonetheless.

it was all good between you two, an eternal honeymoon it seemed. after all, by now it had been at least seven months since this began. your class ranking was higher, he no longer had to worry about strolling through the halls, it seemed nothing could get in your way.

well, besides two things.

one: the fact that you two were scared to label in between yourselves yet, too bashful to call him your boyfriend and you his girlfriend in private, yet proud fully admitting it to others.

two, the girl currently straddling him with no regard to you whatsoever. your entire cafeteria table was staring at her, looking at what katsuki would do to move her off.

but when he didn't immediately, didn't immediately curse the girl out and push her off him? you did the job for him.

you yanked the girl by her hair, sending her to the floor with a tray of food falling onto her body. all attention was on you as you stared at katsuki, your mouth agape in anger.

"what the fuck bakugo?" you ignored her, even stepping on her leg slightly as your hands were agitated, your whole body was. you didn't even know why you were jealous. this wasn't real, it never was, he was just playing his role too well.

you should've known katsuki would go too far. he always did.

"babe-- it's not what you think-"

"then what was i looking at? and don't call me that. don't- don't fucking call me anything. we're over."

you knew to him that probably meant something different. you acclaimed the despair in his eyes to the loss of protection, to the loss of ease as he walked in the halls and the lack of paparazzi that'd ask him questions on his love life.

but to him it was so much more.

it was those things, yes. but it was more so the thought of losing you. the thought of the affection over the months being nothing but a memory and not his future. the thought of not having you close to him.

the thoughts of becoming nothing to you, less than a friend.

he didn't know why he didn't move, it was like he physically couldn't. the look in the girl's eyes, the grip she had on him, the weird smile. he recognized her as one of the girls who usually would be in the crowd following him around.

"you don't mean that." his voice sounded more desperate than it had in the whole time he'd met you, more longing slipping through than he intentioned.

but the sun's casting light had moved away from you, casting you in a shadow. "i do mean it. fuck you."

he was going to run after you, to chase you as you slammed your lunch tray into the trash. heading up to the rooftop to he alone.

but a hand, mina's, pulled him back. "i think.. you did enough bakugo."

she went after you instead, promising to bakugo she'd check on you.

fangirls were one thing? but a messy public breakup where you were never really something in the first place? surprisingly worse.

he'd been more snappy lately, his aura making the girls around him keep their distance.

he'd become quieter, closed off. you didn't come to eat lunch with him anymore, obviously. and he didn't go up to the rooftop to join you.

he didn't know how to speak to you, how to explain what happened, how to say that he was sorry.

he ran the scenario in his head a million times, thinking over the girl's quirk that had forced him into place. but it sounded so convenient, like he was lying.

but since your entire relationship was based off of one, he didn't know how to approach the topic in the first place.

a week. a week passed before he could muster up the words to speak to you.

a week of being ignored in the hallways, side glances and being walked off on. a week of not having you by his side, not having you to talk to, to study with,

to kiss.

you were alone on the rooftop, eating silently as you felt a presence behind you. you saw his hair in the shadow and sighed, placing your plate onto the floor next to you. "what?"

"let me talk."

"...fine."

he breathed a sigh, hands balling as he forced the words out. "i know what you saw. and i know it was bad, but listen. that.. girl. she had some quirk on me or something."

he paused, seeing as your movement shifted. he took the fact that you didn't leave as a sign to continue.

"i couldn't move, i would've. you know that. but, it was right for you to be fucking pissed. i'd be too.

and i know, this is my fault in a way. i've been.. a fuckin' loser about this." his hand went up to support his head, his eyes averting from where he felt yours eyeing him.

"i needed to ask you out, officially i mean, a long time ago. it was wrong of me to use you-"

"it wasn't like that and you know it." you moved now to face him, you taking his hands in yours once more.

"what are we? to you i mean."

"right now..

we're nothing, right?"

your eyes widened, his eyes came back to look at yours.

"what?"

the words settled between you, it sent a cold shiver down your spine at the implication.

"wait-- fuck i'm messing this shit up. i mean, we're, not anything right now. we weren't anything."

your heart sank, eyes falling to the floor though your hand still held by him. your bleeding heart was in his grasp too, it was apparent.

"but,

i'd like to be? if you'd have me."

he squeezed your hand tightly. "i, i think i did this all out of order. but, would you go out with me?"

you let out an anxious laugh mixed with emotion. relief? despair? you honestly didn't know. tears burned the corners of your eyes.

"you're-- you're real weird, you know that?"

"is that a no."

"no, it's a yes. i think."

"ya think?"

"you don't get to question me!"

"yeah, whatever." you shared a laugh of relief together. he held you, moving away to bring something out of his pocket.

a small bento box for you.

you gasped at the sight of it, it was so cute. "thank god! i hate this school shit." you sat down, patting the side beside you, prompting him to sit down.

"wow, a heart? don't tell me you like me or something katsuki."

instead of deflecting, of telling you to buzz off, of shoving you lightly, a small smile came over his lips once again. after a beat, he laughed boyishly.

"you caught me."

...

he patted your back as you choked on the heart shaped seaweed.

your first date was cute, a small picnic with the country of musatafu as your backdrop. it was weird, this scene had played out between you two various times. in his room, in public, in private, to everyone else you two had just recovered from a messy breakup. and yet,

your stomachs were filled with butterflies at the affection between you two.

your rank was high, the dates were endless between the two of you now. study dates, just going to cafes, mundane things became more when you were by each others side.

years passed, and your poor dorm was going mostly unused. you'd sleep in his bed most of the time, actually- you'd spent most of your time in his room. he even cleared out a section for you in his closet despite the fact that yours was perfectly fine.

graduation came along, your careers came rushing at the two of you.

you were the top rated woman hero, and he was number one. just like he dreamt, just like he imagined the future would be for the two of you all those years ago.

you were picking out some drinks from the vending machine, a pocky hanging out your mouth as you decided between two flavors.

you finally chose, having two drinks in your hand for you and katsuki when he suddenly dragged you into an alleyway, grunting when he pushed you against the wall.

deja vu? maybe, you felt like you lived through this before, the same mindless stampede of girls rushing past.

"i told you to clip down your hair."

"shut up. don't they even care that we're married now? why do they fucking bother?." he sighed, annoyed as he lightly grabbed the can out your hand, his frustration not matching his actions.

"well, maybe we need something that'd make it even more official." a lightbulb went over the both of your heads. you faced each other, a streetlight letting you see the slight pink tint of his cheeks.

"a ca-"

"a baby."

you laughed, keeling over at the sight of his face that grew impossibly red.

you went home, hand in hand, the photos of the two of you together making rounds in the media again.

but as you laid with his head laid on your lap, your head rested comfortably against the furniture you'd chosen for your home?

you couldn't help but feel like everything worked out perfectly.

and with the new addition of your family laid sleeping on top of katsuki's chest.

tags (can't tag orange :c): @k0z3me @darhinadadragon @maddietries @amayaaaxx @i-the-fluffo @irenne-stans @hisonlyobsession @dead-fish-soup @pretty-sparkle-bomb @matchat3a @yura-4life @djlance-rock @zuzukusna @hiimsaraandyou @uy242c

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orestesimp · 2 years ago

Text

RED FLAGS ║ PART 13 | FINALE

CO-WRITTEN WITH @THIRSTWORLDPROBLEMSS

Pairing: Steven Grant x female reader x Marc Spector (x hints of Jake Lockley)

Summary: The end is the beginning is the end. Or alternatively: You finally get to have Marc's beautiful face buried between your thighs.

Content: will cause unrealistic sex expectations.

Word count; 17k (guys I'm so sorry)

Series Masterlist | Astroboot’s Masterlist | Thirstworldproblemss’ Masterlist

[PREVIOUS]

Your face, small and pinched and dirty, looks back at you from the tiny mirror in Steven’s loo. The unflattering fluorescent lights aren’t doing you any favours. Eyes wide and strung out. A burst bottom lip. You look dreadful.

Your clothes are soggy and cold underneath Marc’s somewhat drier jacket, mucky with grime and mud (and god knows what else), clinging wetly to your skin.

You look like something the cat dragged in.

You shiver. The idiom feels a little too on the nose, considering you were dragged across East London’s dirty concrete not even an hour ago. Just… not by a cat. You shiver again, harder this time, trying not to think about it.

A shower. Marc sent you in here to take a shower. “Go get clean,” he’d said, “Warm up.”

Right now you feel like you’ll never be warm again.

Marc’s jacket comes off first, and you hang it carefully on a hook, running two fingers over the cuff. You stare at it for a moment, fighting the urge to clutch it to your chest and bury your face in it. On autopilot, you reach out to undo your wristwatch instead, fingers running over the bare skin for a moment, searching, before you stare down at your wrist in confusion.

Right. Your watch is gone.

Or… not gone. Probably still out there in the alleyway, lying face up, cracked glass and all, on the concrete in the rain… next to the carcass of some invisible monster. You shake your head, pushing away the image. It’s as good as gone, then, isn’t it? You’re certainly not going back out to search for it at this point. You’re bloody well never going down that alleyway again if you can help it. Hell, even going outside ever again might be off the table.

Pulling the shower curtain aside, you start the shower and peel off your ruined clothing, letting everything plop in a solid, sodden mass on the corner of the bathroom floor.

The muscles in your arms and shoulders are stiffening up and threatening to cramp up as the last bit of adrenaline abandons your system, leaving bruises and all-encompassing exhaustion in its wake. Your knees throb with the leftover pain. The water stings your scraped shin when you step under the spray.

At least it’s warm.

The heat of the water feels like a balm on your aching limbs, and you close your eyes, tilting your head back under the spray, trying to let the comforting warmth relax you.

In the darkness behind your eyelids, the shower sounds like rain. Your nakedness feels like vulnerability. Like maybe you never made it back. Maybe you’re still out there, in the narrowness of the alley, under threat from an otherworldly creature that you cannot see, let alone fight.

Your chest squeezes painfully sharp, and your eyes fly open, half expecting to see the hazy moonlit sky overhead. But no, there’s nothing but the expanse of the blank white ceiling.

You’re still here in Steven’s shower. Safe, or as safe as it gets right now.

Dropping your gaze, you watch the blood and muck sluice down your legs and onto the tiled floor in rusty red-tinted waves to pool on the tile floor. The dirty water leaves lines of fine grit behind as the rest is sucked down the drain.

You feel strangely numb. Like some part of your brain (probably an amenable survival mechanism) is trying to block out what happened so you don’t go mad. But maybe it’s too late for that. After all, you were a hair's width away from meeting your maker tonight at the claws of an invisible blob monster.

It’s impossible to not think about. An irritated half-healed scab itching to be scratched. You turn it over in your mind, trying to process the fact that the supernatural is real—or those creatures were, at any rate. And apparently Marc dons a mummy costume and goes out into the night to battle them like he’s magical girl Sailor Moon.

God. All of this is right proper insane, isn’t it? You want to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness.

You almost died; your understanding of the world as you know it has fundamentally changed; yet none of it feels real. The world itself doesn’t feel real.

The water by your feet is running clear now. The dirt and grime finally washed off, but the film of exhaustion still clings to your limbs. Turning off the tap, you step out, grabbing the towel Marc left for you in the corner by the door. Your eyes linger on the set of clean clothes waiting for you underneath, folded into a neat square.

You can't reconcile the man who does this for you with the same man that pummelled a supernatural monster into a whimpering pulp without hesitation. Didn’t recognise the Marc you thought you knew in the man in the alleyway standing over the creature and curb-stomping it into the ground with cold and blank disdain in his eyes. Couldn’t see that man in the Marc who escorted you home and gently bullied you into the shower.

Reaching for the clothes, you quickly dress and pull aside the accordion door only to find the very man you were thinking of right outside the door, arms crossed and back plastered to the closest wall as he stands guard.

You barely cross the threshold before he's already pushing away from the wall and moving in to guide you gently but firmly towards the kitchen like a particularly insistent herding dog.

There’s a fairly extensive first aid kit laid out on the counter, well used by the look of it, and you try not to think too hard about why that might be.

"Up," Marc commands, curt as ever, swatting a hand down on the surface of the countertop, and you feel like a lamb being rounded back into the pen.

A ‘please’ wouldn’t have hurt him, but you let it go with just a glare as you shuffle over, too drained to put up a fight over something so small. You lift your arms to brace against the countertop, getting ready to hop up, and flinch a little as your shoulders twinge and ache.

Marc is in front of you in a heartbeat, watching you with worried eyes and a furrowed brow. His hands hover, like he wants to help but doesn't dare to touch, and any testiness in you fizzles out at the sight of him.

You give him a small nod, barely able to complete the motion before his hands come down on your waist, lifting you. Even though you’re expecting it, the loss of ground beneath your feet feels sudden, unbalancing you, and you gasp, hands instinctively flying to his shoulders to steady yourself.

Part of you expects him to drop you, but he doesn’t. Marc’s warm and solid under your palms, strong muscles bunching as he perches you on the counter.

Blood rushes to your head with furious speed. It must be from the sudden change in altitude. That’s what you tell yourself no matter how doubtful that is considering the standard kitchen counter height is not even three feet above the floor. You're not exactly climbing the Himalayan mountains. But you don’t want to think of the more probable reasons right now.

You're still reeling from lightheadedness when he lets you go in favour of busying himself with the large tin box on the counter, rifling through the arsenal of medical supplies, and sets down what he needs next to you. Then he's dragging a nearby chair to position himself in front of you. Sitting so close he's practically nestled between your legs.

It does nothing to help with your newly discovered vertigo symptoms.

"I’m going to check you over for injuries now,” he says perfunctory, pulling you from your thoughts, “Left leg.”

You stretch out your leg into the air, glancing down at him, unsure of where to rest it. There’s no space on the tiny kitchen stool. Do you just… put it down in his lap? On his crotch?!?! Or–

Marc's hand wraps around your ankle, and his executive decision-making ends your flailing, as he gently guides your foot to rest against his thigh. Then his head ducks down, and he starts to inspect the patch of scraped skin on your knee, dabbing gently at the scattered dots of blood with a square of clean gauze.

With how tender and swollen everything feels, you expect it to hurt. That at the slightest pressure on your skin, it is bound to sting and snag and tear. But it doesn't. Marc is gentle, barely pressing down and showing such minute care as he tends to you that you barely feel the brush of the cloth at all.

It's such an impossible contrast. The tenderness of his touch as he fusses over you, placing a plaster on your knee, compared to the brutality you’ve now seen him capable of.

You still can't make sense of it. What happened, or what that invisible monster in the rain was. Why Marc was out there. Or what he meant by that being "what he does."

"Marc," you start tentatively as you lean forward to get his attention, "What happened toni--"

“Wiggle your toes,” he interrupts.

His odd demand cuts off your line of thought. “What?”

“Try to wiggle your toes for me”, he repeats, without looking up. “Want to make sure you didn’t get any nerve damage.”

You frown, you’re not blind to the fact that his request conveniently just cut you off from asking a question that undoubtedly Marc doesn’t want to answer. Still, you comply, angling your foot upwards and wiggle your toes for his inspection.

Whether you passed his ad hoc medical examination, Marc’s expression isn’t giving you any clues. His face is as stoic as ever as he sets down your foot. He doesn’t say anything. Just reaches over to your right side to draw your other foot into his lap.

Marred with bruises, looking like something that got mangled in a bear trap. Your right foot does not make for a pretty sight. It’s swollen and bleeding sluggishly from long gashes where the blob monster’s claw-like grip must have broken through skin.

It's a gruesome picture, but miraculously, the injury doesn’t seem to be too serious. It stings more than it actually hurts, and it’s not even bleeding much anymore. Not even worth a trip to A&E really, as you doubt it’s deep enough to need stitches.

At least that’s the assessment based on your own limited medical knowledge. If you based the severity on Marc’s reaction, you’d think it needed amputation.

The line of his shoulder is pulled taut and reminds you of a live wire. Mouth set in a grim tortured line. He has the expression of a doctor about to give the nearest kin some heartbreaking news as he’s staring down at your foot with haunted guilt in his eyes.

"I'm all right. I’m sure it just looks a lot worse than it is," you tell him.

He doesn't meet your eyes or reply for that matter. Instead, he begins to gently tend the wound. Mouth pressing down so tightly his lips go pale white from it. He dabs away the oozing blood, carefully applying antibiotic ointment to the worst of the broken skin, and covering them with large squares of gauze that he tapes in place. It’s all quite professional, really, the practised ease that only comes with repetition.

You wonder how many times he has done this before. You wonder how much harder it must be for him to suture his own gashes and gaping wounds. Wonder how long he’s been doing this by himself, fighting these hellish creatures. These things that you still have no bloody fucking idea as to what they are.

"Marc,” you start tentatively, “what was--" A ticklish sensation rushes through you. In panic, you think a centipede is crawling down the sole of your foot. You instinctively jerk your leg up and away, nearly kneeing Marc in the face before you realise what’s happened.

Your eyes fly downwards to Marc who is entirely unfazed by the close call as you stare at him in shock. His index finger rests on the arch of your heel and you blink up at him in a dumb stupor, not believing your eyes.

Did he just– did he just fucking tickle you?!

There’s no hint of wrongdoing in his expression. No grin, or crack in his stony facade. He is unflappable as always as he continues cleaning your wound with a straight face.

"Needed to check if you still had sensation in that foot," he offers up as an explanation as if he thinks that tickling was a perfectly reasonable thing for him to do in the circumstances.

You frown, biting down the tart comment bubbling in your throat. You want to call him out on it, that you know what he’s up to and he’s acting like a child. But you know that the moment you do, the conversation will derail into an argument and in the flare of your temper, you’ll lose track of your questions. You’re pretty sure Marc knows you well enough that that’s exactly what he is aiming for.

Gathering a deep calming breath into your chest, you steady yourself before you take a second shot.

"What was that thing in the rain?" you ask again.

He acts like he doesn't hear you. "Roll your ankles side to side," he requests instead.

Irritation prickles your face. This bastard is still trying to evade your questions.

"Marc," you start again, "what was--"

"Press down your weight on my hand with your foot."

"Marc!" you bark.

He finally drags his eyes upwards to meet yours without bothering to lift his chin, seemingly as detached and reposed as ever. But there's something else in there too. A tiny flicker as you hold his gaze, and he has to look away.

He looks… scared.

Scared of what you don't know. The man practically single-handedly beat three monsters straight out of a Lovecraftian horror story with his bare fists tonight. With strength like that, you don't think anything should ever be capable of scaring him.

"Can we talk about what happened tonight?" you ask again, trying to keep your voice even.

His head ducks back down again, and he busies himself by rechecking the bandaids on your injured ankle.

“There's nothing to talk about,” he murmurs offhandedly, but his hands betray him.

There's no mistaking it. Even though his shoulders are obscuring your line of sight, you don’t need to see it in order to feel how unsteady his hands are. How his fingers stutter against your skin as they trail over your ankle.

He’s not letting go, as if he’s afraid that if he wasn’t holding onto you, you’d get up and walk away.

Gazing down on him from your vantage point of the counter, Marc doesn’t look as imposing as when you were looking up at him from the rainy concrete in the alley. From up here, he looks small and scared even.

Even though there is nothing in this flat that should intimidate him. No invisible monsters lurking in the dark shadows behind Steven’s piles and piles of books. The scariest thing in Steven’s flat is dust mites.

No, the only thing Marc is scared of, you realise, is this conversation.

That’s what Steven told you, wasn’t it? That 'there are things that Marc hasn't told you.' That 'once you know everything,’ Marc thinks ‘you'll walk away'.

It’s the final puzzle piece, slotted into its rightful place, and you can finally see the picture that was blurred out before, crystallising in startling detail.

This is it. This is the big secret. The thing that Marc hasn't told you.

You get it now. Why he has avoided you all this time. Why he stayed away even after you told him you love him.

Because how on earth would anyone even begin to explain what happened tonight to someone who wasn’t there?

How could he possibly have explained any of this to you before now? How would he possibly convince you those things out there (whatever they are) were real without dragging you into danger, head first, to see it with your own eyes?

Didn't you struggle with the very same thought when you’d first tried to tell Marc what you’d seen in the alley on your own before all hell broke loose? The fear that he wouldn't believe you. That he'd think you were insane.

Even if he had managed to explain and get you to believe him– what then?

You can understand it. Why he was convinced that you would leave not just him but Steven as well, causing further collateral damage, if he told you everything. You can see from where he was standing, why he’d worry.

But this is where Marc is wrong. You still want this. Him. Them.

"What happened tonight, it doesn't change how I feel about you," you start, and his hand on your foot spasms, grip tightening. It’s how you know your guess was right on the button, so you press on. "What I told you on the phone, I still mean it. I–" you hesitate on the word.

The last thing you want is to spook him away again by repeating it. It might be too much too soon. Instead, you settle for second best.

"I want you to come back. Steven and I both do."

Marc lets go of your foot. You can see his hand shaking despite Marc’s attempt to make it stop. His fingers flex and curl in agitation until he gives up and reaches up to drag it through his matted curls in frustration.

“You don’t want this,” he says quietly, and his face is still turned downwards, staring at the floor refusing to look up at you.

Knowing Marc, you know that he could very well mean the situation or himself. After everything that’s happened tonight, the part that upsets you the most is that he still feels this way about himself.

"I do," you counter, saying the words with the whole of your chest. “I. Want. You. I want all of this.”

In the face of your certainty, he flinches, face pinched as if telling him you want him is a physical slap that pains him. It takes him a second to recover, to shake his head in refusal as he stares down at the floor like it committed a great wrong against him.

"You want a normal life. Steven can give you that if it’s just the two of you. I can't,” he tells you. His voice, low in that weary and tired tone you overheard in the bathroom.

"I don't need you to give me a normal life. What does that even mean? ‘Normal,’” you say derisively. “I don't need or want normal if it means you're not there Marc. That's not the life I want.”

He's still not looking at you, biting the insides of his cheek, and you can almost see the walls closing in around him before your very eyes.

"You said you wanted me safe”, you say, ducking your head to try to catch his gaze, and you manage to see his eyes peer up at you from his lashes, as you continue. “And happy. I'm telling you now, I'm not going to be happy if you're not here."

Marc’s eyes widen with alarm. “You were awake?”

"I–" you start, but he cuts you off before you finish.

“You were pretending to be asleep?”

"No, I thought I was dreaming, I–"

“What else did you hear,” he asks. There’s panic in his voice, and he’s already rising from his seat in preparation to flee the room.

Fuck, how are you fucking this up this badly this fast? Seeing his distress almost makes you want to backtrack, to fold it up and call it a night, try again tomorrow maybe. Because you know in his mind Marc is already bolting for that door, ready to leg it and put as much distance as he can between you and him.

But… your mind flashes to the weight of his gentle touch on your shoulder. To his fingers brushing away the hair on your forehead. To his quiet voice as he whispered, 'I love you too'. You know what you heard in the dark: a testament of Marc’s feelings for you, and it emboldens you.

“Marc.” You lean forward, reaching out to take his hand in yours. He stiffens with a jolt as your fingertips brush up against his knuckles, and you can almost see the line of his shoulder vibrate. But he doesn't make any moves to pull away at your touch.

“I want you. Do you want me?” you ask.

He stills. Marc looks at you for a long unflinching moment. It’s the same conflicted set in his jaw when you were standing next to him in front of Gus’ tank. The same hesitation written over his face when you were watching him through the back window of the taxi as it pulled away from him in the night. That same pained look when your eyes met in your office before he fled from you.

His mouth parts with hesitation, but then he bites down and grinds his jaw hard enough that you think you can hear his molars grate from where you sit. “What I want doesn’t matter,” he answers you stubbornly.

It's enough to make you want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him back and forth and scream into his face.

“It does!” you say, almost half-shouting. “Of course it matters. You matter.”

"Don't. Don't do that.” Marc shakes his head, and he moves his free hand over yours, gently prying it off of him. “Save that for Steven. He deserves it. Deserves… you. I… I don't.”

“And what about what I deserve,” you demand, fed up to the gills with his tendency for self-sacrifice, “What I want? Don’t I deserve to decide for myself?”

That seems to catch him off guard. For once he doesn’t have a ready response, just glares at you, his jaw still set at that impossibly stubborn angle, but his eyes are full of so much pain that it hurts you to see it. You reach out again and cup his cheek.

"Remember that night Gus died? You came to me for help. You said I was the only one you could think of to ask, and it made me so happy that you did. I want you to ask me for things.”

There’s another moment of indecision in his eyes. The upper half of his body tilts in your direction, almost like he’s reaching for you, even if he won’t let his hands do so.

"I just want to be with you,” you continue, “I want to be your person. The person you come to when you need something. Can’t that be enough?"

His eyes are glued on you, mouth gaping open. For a moment you think you've succeeded, managed to stun him into silence and maybe even convinced him.

It doesn’t last.

He closes his parted mouth and clamps it shut until it’s compressed into a thin determined line. Then before you can react, he’s abruptly pulling away, turning with wordless efficiency, and walking away from you.

"Marc?" you call after him, but his determined stride doesn’t even falter, "Marc!"

Oh goddamnit!

You hop off the counter, your sore ankle twinging when you land on it, but you ignore the dull ache as you run after him.

“You don’t have to do this, Marc!" you shout. Slinging your arm out, you only just manage to catch him by the back of his shirt. Your fingers grip onto the fabric for dear life to stop him from getting further away, "You don’t have to do everything on your own. You don’t have to be alone. Steven and I are here. Stop running away from us! We want to support you. Please! You can lean on us.”

He stops, turning about sharply, fire and brimstone in his eyes. The fuse of his already short temper burnt to a crisp.

“You and Steven were never supposed to know about me or get caught up in any of this,” he snaps. “I’ve– My life is dangerous. It’s not safe.”

“Yeah, I noticed the red flags already, you dunce. I still care about you regardless!”

“I don’t want you to care!” Marc roars, and it hits you with the force of a punch to the chest.

You suck in a sharp pained breath, and he must see the hurt in your face because his eyes soften slightly, but his voice is no less emphatic, “You can’t go poking around in my life. Running out after me in the middle of the night. It's dangerous! You got hurt tonight. You could’ve been killed!"

And that does it. The pain of his implied rejection, the scolding tone, the way it feels like he’s blaming you for getting yourself hurt. It all rubs you the wrong way. All of the patience you had in you up until now evaporates, replaced by a fiery heat burning up your chest until it comes to a boiling point.

“Me?” you bite back indignantly. “What about you? Running around in a bloody Halloween costume in the middle of the night. Fighting invisible monsters? What if you got hurt? What on earth were you doing out there?”

“This is exactly why you needed to stay away from me. You do not want or need my fucking mess, okay!?"

“Yes, I bloody well do! I'll take your fucking mess, Marc—every speck of it—as long as I get to have you too.”

His gaze bores into yours, eyes dark like spilt ink and brimming with anger so stark it practically sparks.

“You really want to know what I do? Why I was out there tonight?” he asks, voice quieter, but the anger is still there, simmering just below the surface waiting to erupt.

The sudden change feels like a gauntlet being thrown down, challenging you to a metaphorical game of chicken, daring you to back away and run for the hills while you still can.

You stand your ground, heels digging into the floor as you nod, swallowing the anxiety you feel pressed up against your throat like an acidic heartburn.

“I serve Khonshu. I’m his avatar,” he says matter-of-factly as if it’s the most sensible thing in the world. As if any of this is supposed to make sense to you.

It doesn’t. It makes no fucking sense at all.

Your mind scrambles to connect the dots. Khonshu? Avatar? What the hell is he on about? Avatar as in James Cameron’s Pocahontas in space? And Khonshu? What even… You can’t even begin to think of what that is supposed to mean. Don’t recognise it save for a passing familiarity that it’s a word that Steven has used when passionately serenading you with facts on Ancient Egypt. The connection between the two is lost to you.

“What is… ‘Khonshu?'” you ask, and this time, you don’t have to drag the answer out of Marc.

He answers you willingly and as plainly without varnish as before. “Khonshu’s the ancient Egyptian god of the moon. Years ago, I was stabbed and left for dead. He saved my life and in return, I work for him now.”

There’s no hint of emotion as he says it. He’s not pleading for you to believe him despite how fantastical it sounds. Not trying to convince you of anything. Marc is leaving it to you whether or not you believe him, almost like he wishes you wouldn’t. Like this bizarre rambling will hopefully finally send you packing and out of his life. And that’s… how you know he’s not lying to you.

“Work for him… how?” you ask.

His eyes flick upwards, grinding his teeth as if he’s biting down on a curse, before his gaze settles back on you.

“I swore to protect travellers of the night.”

And once again, that tells you absolutely nothing. What does that even mean, ‘Travellers of the night’? As in prostitutes?!

Marc’s obfuscation and frankly dodgy-as-fuck explanations have your blood boiling. You’re almost positive he’s doing this on purpose to get you hacked off, and he’s succeeding.

“Can you speak in plain English?”

“I take care of bad guys so they don’t harm good people. Protect civilians who can’t protect themselves.”

“So you’re… what? Like a supernatural police officer? A monster hunter? A guardian of the night?”

He grits his teeth.

“Something like that.” The answer is dismissive, and so is his attitude. He folds his arms across his chest, trying to distance himself from you, casting a glance at the door. “Satisfied? We done here?”

“No! No, we’re not ‘done here.’ We are the furthest thing from done. I already told you, Marc. Nothing that’s happened tonight changes how I feel about you.”

He shakes his head, jaw set mulishly, before tearing his eyes away and turning towards the front door.

And that just won’t do. If you let Marc walk out now, you know he’ll do everything in his power to avoid you for the rest of his life.

Moving quickly, you dart around Marc and slide between him and the door. In your single-minded hurriedness, you bump into the small table by the door, sending several things clattering over and probably adding yet another bruise to your already abused body, but you don’t care. You cannot let him leave. Plastering your back to the door, you stand tall and raise your chin, prepared to act as a physical barrier if you have to.

Marc’s eyes narrow into slits, a snarl of pure exasperation erupting from the back of his throat.

“Move,” he orders, taking a step closer to you, but there is no real threat behind it. He doesn’t reach out to touch you; doesn’t grab you or shove you out of the way

He just looks at you like you are an actual obstacle he cannot surpass. But you know that he could move you by force if he wanted to. It’d be easy for him to force his way out of the flat with little effort.

Between the two of you, physically he’s the stronger one. You’ve witnessed him take out supernatural monsters tonight. If he wanted to, he could shove his way straight through you. Carry you into another room and lock you in. Could easily snap every bone in your wrist in the blink of an eye.

But he won't. After all this time, if there is one thing you’ve learnt about Marc, it is that harm is only ever his last resort.

The man is squirmish at the prospect of physically harming a goldfish. Would rather visit all the pet shops in all of London in the middle of the night to find a mythical one-finned fish to avoid that outcome. At the core of him, he wants to shield and protect, not break.

And towards you? He would never use brute strength on you. Would never hurt you. Would give his very life to make sure you’re safe and unharmed. Happy.

In front of you, Marc takes another step forward, closing the distance. His commanding presence crowds you in against the doorframe until there’s barely any space between you anymore.

Marc is angry. Jaw tense, shoulders tied up in a tangled knot, nose flaring like an angry bull emitting a bright and blaring warning signal for you to move. But you stay put because if he’s a bull, then that must make you a matador, practically waving a red cape at him to come charge you.

He’s staring down at you again. That look in his eyes, like he knows what is best for you. That same stern gaze when he swore you to secrecy, deciding what was best for Steven. The determination there that tells you that this is not up for discussion.

It’s a recurring pattern with Marc. He decides what he thinks is best for everyone else, with no consideration of what the person in question actually wants.

“Last chance,” he warns, through gritted teeth, “I won’t ask again.”

Marc probably thinks this is a threat. But it’s only because he can’t see himself, the pain-filled eyes that look back down at you. Nothing is menacing about it.

“I’m not moving,” you tell him.

It’s only a fraction of a second, but you catch his eyes flickering to your lips. A near-growling sound tears out of his throat, and then he’s moving forward further into your space.

What is he–?

His hand cups the back of your neck, pulling you to him, and then his lips are on yours.

Oh.

Marc Spector is kissing you.

It’s hard and demanding, his lips crushed to yours, clearly driven by the frustration and anger that seems to vibrate just under his skin. But it doesn’t matter. You have dreamed of kissing this man for so long. Even with the harshness, you can’t help but respond to him, meeting the brutal press of his lips with your own more eager one. Mouth parting in invitation for him.

Something shifts.

All the fight goes out of him, leaking away like hot air out of a punctured balloon, whatever anger was there fizzles out of him, and you feel him melt against your lips. The kiss slips into something softer, sweeter. Something that steals every ounce of oxygen from your lungs.

You don’t know how long it lasts, the only thing you know is that it doesn’t last long enough. If you could have the choice, you’d want it to last forever.

It doesn’t of course. Marc retreats from you with an unsteady step. His eyes are etched with shock as you take him in, brows pinched and pupils wide, and you already want to kiss him again.

The two of you have been here before. Staring at each other from so close a distance that your foreheads are inches from touching. Except this time it’s not in front of a fish tank with an imposter goldfish between you. A stray curl falls into his eyes and tickles your nose. It’s the hint of clean linen, the note of coffee you brew for him every night that he will unfailingly drink because you made it for him. It’s the smell you wake up to embedded in Steven’s sheets.

You want this man, all of him, to be yours.

Your face tilts up to him. So close, his lips ghost over yours.

“Marc,” you whisper, and his eyes flicker over your face. “Stop running.”

Part of you expects him to stop you again. That he will pull back, eyeing you like you’re something dangerous, the way he did that night in front of the fish tank.

He doesn’t.

You tip your face forward even further, your nose dragging along the bridge of his.

“I love you.”

You can hear the sharp inhale just like last time you said it over the phone when you did not know if he was on the other end or not. When you didn't know if the sound was imaginary or real. Now you know.

You couldn’t see his face then, but this time you get to. The pinched furrow between his brow, that look in his eyes that makes your heart seize in your chest. There’s no doubt about it now.

"And you love me,” you say.

His lips part, and you brace yourself for another protest or denial, but it doesn’t come. Instead, his head does the slightest tilt forward. A nod, you realise.

“Yeah.” He whispers it so quietly you nearly miss it at first.

You smile. Happiness surges through your insides, weaving through your ribs until you think that your chest might burst.

Marc Spector loves you.

You swallow in relief, smiling even as you feel a sting prickle the corner of your eyes. Then Marc leans down and closes that infinitesimal space between you, bringing down the final barrier of separation that he has maintained since you met him.

It’s a soft press of his lips to yours. So soft, it’s scarcely there, but it feels perfect all the same, a fluttering warmth that you can feel down to the curl of your toes.

It’s an admittance. An invitation. A sign of trust.

Marc kisses you again and again with lingering kisses that he deepens with each gentle press of his mouth to yours. His hand moves to cup your face in his palm, cradling your cheek like you're the most precious thing he’s ever touched.

You feel like you ought to be surprised by how gentle he is, but you’re not. Not at all, because of course he’s gentle.

That’s the thing, isn’t it? Marc’s hardness is all smoke and mirrors, hiding the vulnerable softness that lies under the hardened skin. Beneath it all, Marc is protective and caring, kind even.

And now, you finally get to have him in all his confounding complexities. This stubborn, kind, impossible idiot, right here in your arms.

You pull him closer, even as you keep kissing him, fingers twisting into the brushed cotton of his shirt, and he lets you. Head leaning down as he adjusts his angle so he can slant his mouth fully over yours. He’s pressed up against every single inch of you, from his knees to his chest, your lips fused and somehow it’s still not even close to enough for you. You tug his collar, encouraging him to come even closer and he does, obedient, in a way that you’ve never known him to be before.

Stepping forward, he follows your lead, inching closer, until the solidness of his chest presses you flush to the door. His arm comes to brace the side of your head, hand cupping behind the back of your neck, and you realise only belatedly it’s the reason why your head isn’t colliding with the hard wood behind you.

Not that it would matter if you did. You don’t even think you’d notice if your head went through the wall right now. Too focused on the softness of his lips. Too lost in the quiet, near-silent humming sound he makes as he kisses you that sets your nerves alight.

God, he’s perfect. His closeness is heady. There’s a growing hunger in your stomach that makes your limbs shake and tremble. After all the time he's been away, hiding from you, you feel starved for this. For him. You want to bite his neck, lick along the protruding line of his collarbone and swallow every inch of him down to the marrow if he’d let you.

For all the gentleness that Marc is showing you, you have no intention of returning the favour. Your teeth sink in, biting down on his bottom lip, and he lets out a quiet involuntary gasp into your mouth. Your veins burn at the sound. Fuck, you want him to make that noise again, that careless pitch of pleasure that sounds so unguarded coming from him. You want to bite and nibble and scratch and claw and have him make every noise known and unknown to mankind.

You drag your teeth along the swell of his lip, and he shivers, eyes squeezed firmly shut like he’s teetering on the very edge of his self-control. Then you nip down again.

His hips stutter forward involuntarily, and he curses, the sound breathless and raw, like you tore it out of him before he was prepared. It’s all you want. To hear that sound again and again and again. You want to hear his tiny moans in your ear, the involuntary muffled growl as he buries his face into your neck trying to keep quiet, hear him gasp ‘fuck’ in barely audible decibels. You want everything.

Hooking your fingers into the belt loops of his jeans, you haul him closer as if he wasn’t already pressed alongside your body. Thighs nestled between yours, the coarseness of denim scraping against your bare legs. You can feel the hardening bulge trapped between you, and you want him to grind against you, to rut into you mindlessly until you can feel his cock twitch against the softness of your belly.

But Marc isn’t showing any signs of obliging you in that department, and you’re not willing to stop kissing him in order to give him directions. Instead, you arch your back away from the wall, tilting your pelvis until you rub up against his crotch. He jolts hard at the contact, the line of his body wracked in shivers with a gorgeous groan that is cut off too soon.

"Shit!”

His hand leaves your neck. Then he’s pulling back and away from you in retreat. You immediately miss the warmth of his body, reaching up to try to chase after the loveliness of his lips, but he stops you. A gentle but firm hand comes down on your shoulder, pinning you against the wall.

You stare up at him, and you’re not sure you’re breathing anymore at the sight of him. You should be used to how preposterously beautiful this man is by now. But you never are. Each time feels novel and so much worse–no, better than the last time. The collar of his shirt is stretched and askew. Curls a mess against his forehead. Lips, slick and kiss-swollen as his mouth hangs open, chest heaving as he pants.

As stunningly pretty as Steven is when you’ve succeeded in making a mess out of him, to do it to Marc is something else entirely. This orderly, neat freak of a man who makes it his life mission to repress his emotions and jam them shut inside of himself with a tight lid. You did this. You’ve made a mess of him. It’s electric, your veins buzz with the thrill, and your brain is screaming for more.

Your hand reaches up, fingers carding through his hair as you reel him in by the back of his neck. Your mouth finds his, kissing him hard before he has time to overthink it or, god forbid, change his mind and try to bolt again. His mouth parts, and you swallow the soft oomph of surprise that escapes his throat and lean in, licking desperately into his mouth. If this is all you get, you want to try to savour him.

Marc doesn’t stop you this time. Instead, his hands settle on your waist, fingers digging into your hips as he’s pulling you closer. It has the whole of your back from the base of your spine to the tip of your nose tingling.

This time he’s the one grinding into you, the hard outline of his cock pressed tight between you. Even through the thick layer of denim, you can feel how hard he is, and you shiver pleasantly.

You moan into the kiss, rising on your tiptoes to meet him. There’s not an inch of space between your bodies, and you swear you can feel his cock twitch against your hip.

And fuck, fuck– that’s–

You need to get him in bed now before you hitch your legs and clamber onto his thighs to climb him like the trunk of a tree. Why the fuck did the architect place the bedroom section at the opposite end of the flat.

Stepping one foot sideways, you tug at the neck of Marc’s shirt to steer him towards the bed. There’s no resistance. He shows you the same obedience as before, easily letting himself be pulled by you as you start walking blindly backwards, navigating the two of you through the junkyard of Steven’s mess.

Any second now you’re expecting to trip over the damn ottoman, except this is Steven's flat, not yours. And this isn’t Steven; it’s Marc in your arms. Steady and composed in his every step, with none of the charming incoordination of Steven. No, Marc steers you like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Arms bracketing your side to make sure your hips don’t bump into any hard-edged furniture, preemptively pushing back a teetering book from the shelf before it even has the time to leap off the ledge.

Marc—beautiful, stubborn Marc, who is as immovable as a rock in his decisions—is letting you pull and tug him in whatever direction you’re choosing to go. Kissing you with each unbalanced step backwards, like you’re the only air he ever needs to breathe.

There’s a flicker of light as you pass Gus’ tank, and it dims when you move past Steven’s desk and the telly. God. It’s a journey of fewer than 20 feet that should take you less than ten seconds and not the eternity that it seems to take.

When you finally feel the fine, gritty sand beneath the sole of your foot, it feels like victory. The soft brush of the sheets pressing up against your calves is the rope of the finish line that you’d never imagined you’d reach.

You want to memorialise this moment somehow. Etch it into your memory so you’ll never forget. Carve it into the wooden beam structures of this very flat so it’ll outlast you both.

Marc’s hands on your hips guide you gently to a stop, and you realise with a rush of giddiness that you’ve finally reached your destination. You break the kiss long enough to sit down on the edge of the bed, and you don’t even need to tug at the corner of his sleeve for Marc to dutifully follow you down. He helps you lay back and leans in after you, the firm weight of his body settling over you, pressing you down into the mattress.

The weight of Marc feels perfect, as his head tips down to your face, kissing over the curve of your jaw to your neck. He’s pressing open-mouthed kisses down the line of your throat and the swell of your chest. It’s tender. Reverent almost.

Marc is unbothered by the cotton layer of clothing that separates his mouth from your bare skin as he goes. His mouth grazes your knuckles, kissing the inside of your wrist. He’s soft yet insistent. Hungry but slow. God, he’s slow, infuriatingly so, to the point where you wonder if he’s taking the mick out of you.

His lips trail a row of devoted kisses against the bare skin of your stomach where your shirt has ridden up, barely lifting the hem up and letting it ride up against your ribs as he puts his mouth there too. If it didn’t feel so good to have his mouth on you, you’d consider it torture with the pace that he’s going. You’re aching, everything inside is pulled so taught and tight you might burst out of your skin.

Those cotton soft curls tickle against your thighs on his way down, and you spread them for him in a not-so-subtle invitation. But Marc doesn’t pay you any mind, that earlier obedience that had endeared him to you is nowhere to be found now. He continues down, knees sinking into the sand lining the perimeter of the bed until he’s kneeling down in front of you on the bed.

Then he stops.

You hold your breath waiting for him to continue. But nothing happens, and your first instinct is that he’s changed his mind again. You’re almost lunging after him. Fully prepared to tackle him down with a wrestling move you’ve seen on the telly and pin him against the sand and wooden floor.

But he’s not moving away from you.

Opening your eyes to peek, you lift yourself on one arm, tilting down your head to find yourself staring back at those pitch-dark eyes.

You’re not prepared for the sight of him. Of Marc on his knees, peering up at you through his lashes, like you’re a solemn prayer that he’s clinging onto by his fingertips. The vision of him flattens your lungs, taking any oxygen away with it. He’s looking at you like you’re something to be protected and cared for. As if you’re all he’s ever wanted and would never allow himself to have.

Marc’s bending down again, lips brushing your skinned knee as his warm breath ghosts over the raw skin. He goes over every scrape and scratch with his mouth. It’s his way of atoning for ever letting you get hurt.

And as good as that feels, as much as you never want him to stop. You need more. More than this torturous, drawn-out pace that he’s giving you, or you think you’ll tear your hair out by the roots and go mad with it.

“Marc.” You’re trying to say it with urgency, maybe even hint at your annoyance, but it comes out as a high-pitched, delirious plea, “Marc please, I need–”

He doesn’t answer you with any words. Instead, his hands come to the side of your hips, fingers slipping into your sleep shorts, hooking the hem of your knickers with them as he pulls them down.

“Lift,” he commands, in the same brusque way he had before when ordering you to sit on the kitchen counter. But this time you’re only too eager to comply.

You’re so excited you nearly deal a high kick to his face, miraculously missing him by only a couple of inches.

From the corner of your eye, you swear you catch an amused half-smile quirking the corners of his lips. But before you can take a better look to confirm it, he ducks his head back down, even though you think you can see the line of his shoulders shake from what might very well be laughter.

But your mind doesn't get to linger on it for long. His hand curls over your thigh, and he settles your leg on his shoulder, pressing a kiss to the inner side that his mouth can reach. Then he hooks your leg over his back, and sharp heat settles deep in your stomach.

His warm breath fans against the bare skin raising goosebumps in its wake. He continues to lick over the softness of your belly. Nipping at your hip and the insides of your legs, covering every inch of you he can reach with his mouth. Purposefully avoiding the slick ache between your legs where you need his mouth and tongue most.

Fuck, you could kill him for that.

“Marc.” His name is a whine between your lips. It sounds pathetic to your ears, but you don’t care. You’re not above begging. Not if there’s a chance it will get you more of this, of him.

“Please, Marc, just– I need you to–”

“Baby,” he murmurs, cutting off your pleas. It’s almost reproachful, but it doesn’t matter because that’s not what your mind is focused on. This is the first endearment Marc has ever used for you and it sounds so sweet on his lips. Makes you feel loved and cared for despite the admonishing tone.

“Be patient,” he scolds, but there’s so much fondness in his voice for you, it makes you lightheaded. “I’m gonna take my time with you.”

There’s only a brief second as you catch a peek of the pink tip of his tongue, glistening against his lips. His eyes flutter closed as he dips down. Heat crackles throughout your limbs, and your lungs pull tight in anticipation. The air around you thins, and for a moment as you try to desperately swallow down the air in your throat, the room seems to tilt.

Then he gives you his mouth, and as cliche as it sounds, it’s heaven. A long, controlled press of his tongue through your wet and slick folds. Endorphins rush through you to the top of your head, and you can’t help how your body reacts, arching up against his mouth with a gasp that is punched out of your lungs.

Then he does it again, and somehow, though you can’t even fathom how it’s not defying the laws of science and time as you know it, he goes even slower. The velvet softness of his tongue drags with an unhurried press across the seam of your pussy until he reaches the apex and licks with a silken glide on your wet clit. You nearly swallow your tongue to tamper the whine trapped in your throat.

This is not the pace you were expecting. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on your part, but you thought he’d be impatient. Almost anticipated that his movements would be sparse and efficient like every other aspect of his life, pushing you to a high-speed climax like a carcrash.

This is not that. This is Marc taking his own sweet time. His tongue is a slow decadent drag against your clit, and you feel his warm breath ghost over you, inhaling the scent of you as he takes you in.

Sweet heady pleasure climbs up the back of your thighs, filling your stomach with it. It’s so much, you don’t know if you can fit it all within, all the emotions that are welling up in your chest to spill out of you. Your fingers grip his solid shoulders to anchor yourself. You roll your hips against his mouth in an attempt to urge him on, but he refuses to take the hint. His tongue makes a slow, thorough exploration, interrupted only by the open-mouthed kisses that he presses against your mound, your hip, your cunt.

You can feel the tension in his shoulder under your thigh. Can hear it in the quick rasp of his breath, but still, his pace remains slow and measured. Steadily kindling the smouldering heat beneath your skin, lick by torturous lick.

It’s perfect. Hot as sin and twice as glorious, but you could scream with how agonisingly glacial the build-up is. A strange, high-pitched sound escapes you. An unflattering blend between a moan and a sob. It sounds like you’re in pain when all you feel is pleasure, and then you hear Marc shushing you again. This time softer, comforting even.

“It's alright. You're alright. You can take it for me,” he says into your skin, mouth pressed against your clit with a warm hum that rumbles through your flesh. Your veins drip with something sweet and honeyed at his tone.

Marc is so exacting, not at all like Steven’s wild hunger. His tongue laves at you, warm and wet, with an unceasing gentle pressure, gliding over and around your clit. Decadently slow, but never stopping. The feeling is intense and unrelenting. Somehow dragging you closer and closer to the edge but never quite enough to push you over.

Digging your heels into his back, you tilt your hips as far as the strain in your muscles will allow you to get closer. You rock yourself against his mouth, and Marc groans, a pleased, encouraging sound, even as his hands grip the flesh of your waist and hold you firm against the pillowy softness of the bed to make sure you don’t try to ride out your own pleasure against his face at a faster pace than he has set for you.

You could scream with frustration. If the left hemisphere of your brain responsible for speech wasn’t so severely compromised by Marc, you would be screeching until your throat goes raw with it. Instead, you hiccup a broken sob, his name quiet and cracked on your lips.

"That's right. You're alright," he soothes, as he presses his forehead against your stomach. If you didn’t know better, his voice almost sounds a bit shaky, slurring on the last word as he bends back down and puts his mouth back between your thighs, onto your sensitive flesh and gently sucks.

Those unruly curls tickle against the soft skin. You only meant to brush his hair away, but as soon as your fingers curl into the soft heat of them, you can’t help but grip tighter at the silky touch. Carding your hand through the curly locks.

You don’t mean to tug, but the careful drag of his teeth against your clit sends a sharp electric jolt up your spine, short-circuiting your lungs and sending you clawing at his curls for dear life. It should not feel this good, and yet you find yourself chasing the sensation, nearly buckling over, as your heel digs into the firm muscles of his back to anchor yourself.

You can’t even look anymore. Why torture yourself with the sight of him buried between your legs. Cheeks dusted crimson, and those breathtakingly expressive eyes burning into yours as if he’s trying to memorise every minute detail of your expression. You can see his jaw working on your pussy. Can feel him as his tongue keeps sliding hot and insistent without reprieve against your overstimulated clit.

It’s so much. Too much. All your senses feel overloaded. Your vision goes blurry. You’re not sure if it’s tears that are stinging behind your eyelids or if they cross at the back of your head as everything dims and darkens, like a fuse box blowing out. It’s all too much, and you’re being dragged under and drowning in the sensations. You need to pull up above the surface to breathe again or you’re sure you’re going to die.

You grab at Marc’s hand like he’s your life preserver, and he weaves his fingers between yours. It’s surprisingly intimate, as he squeezes your hand back, pressing your intwined hands to your hip bone, reassuring you he’s right there and—fuck, it’s… It’s so much, too much.

It’s chaos. A mayhem between your violently beating heart and burning lungs. You think there must be something wrong with you. Can’t possibly contain the pleasure that keeps pouring and pouring into you. For a fraction of a second, as your mind is torn apart by the sensations, and you are convinced that you must be having a heart attack. What other explanation could there possibly be?

“Ma–Marc, I–I’m– Fuck, oh god, oh fuck."

Marc eases back, “It’s okay.” He presses his mouth to your clit and kisses it, and the slick sound his mouth makes have you trembling and shaking so hard you’re convulsing against the sheets. “You’re okay,” he soothes. “Let go. I’ve got you. Come for me.”

Warmth floods your veins touching every part of your body, humming through every nerve and cell as your orgasm washes over you. It’s hard and unforgiving. Your body is trying to claim revenge on you for allowing it to take so long as it did. Everything else around you disappears, pulling you under with a vengeance that blots out your vision and all sounds with it.

But it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters to you anymore is how everything in you tingles pleasantly. It lingers long after it’s over, and you can still feel it from the tip of your fingers to the curl of your toes as you come down on Marc’s tongue.

His face is still buried between your thighs. His tongue curled against your entrance as he laps every drop of slick out of you. Drinking you down and swallowing every trace of your pleasure. He doesn’t let up for long moments until finally he’s satisfied and drags his head up your body.

“Did so good,” he praises, voice raspy and raw as his tongue trails a long affectionate line down your femur.

He presses his mouth to your knee with the same gentle care he did when he’d applied plasters. It’s intimate. Sweet.

Part of you feels silly to feel this affected by such a simple affectionate gesture considering what preceded it, but your heartbeat flutters at the touch.

It doesn’t matter that you’ve barely just come down from your orgasm or that you’re still throbbing and sensitive between your legs. Limbs so wrung out, they’re tingling and numb. You’re already craving the closeness of him all over again.

“Marc,” you call out for him, arm outstretched in an invitation for him to join you on the bed.

He doesn’t move, and it takes you a few moments, your mind fuzzy around the edges with the afterwaves of your orgasm to register that something's wrong. Everything is blurry and obscured by a warm haze, and you have to blink through the watery periphery of your vision before you can see him a bit more clearly.

Still on his knees, Marc’s mouth parts slightly open, like he maybe wants to say something but he doesn’t know how. There’s hesitation there in the tenseness of his jaw as his eyes flick away from your gaze, as if there’s still some invisible barrier that he won’t let himself cross.

It is a little bit ridiculous. After all, what barriers between you are there possibly left to cross? You and him nearly died together tonight. You love him, and he loves you too. Bloody hell, he’s just spent the better half of this night with his head buried between your thighs. There’s no stone left unturned.

But you know it’s not that simple. There’s a deeply embedded seed in Marc, buried under his skin and flesh and left to sprout for decades, long before you came along. Making him doubt himself and his place with you. It doesn’t matter how far you two come. He might always struggle with letting himself have what he wants guilt-free. Because he still doesn’t think he has a right to, that he doesn’t deserve it.

You plant an elbow on the mattress to raise yourself. But your arms have turned into boneless gelatine, wobbling under your weight, and you nearly topple over. Marc moves so fast, you only register a blur of movement, before he’s by your side. Steadying you with his hands on your shoulders.

“Easy. Lie back,” he says, eyes narrowed and worried, as he’s ushering you back down. The man’s got a protective streak a mile wide.

“Marc, please—” you start, but you don’t have to finish.

He breaks with your plea, and his knee dips into the bed, fully climbing in. His arms brace your sides as he lowers himself onto the bed.

“What, baby? What do you need? Tell me.” He says it like you only have to speak the words, and then your every wish will be his command.

There’s no fight left in his tone anymore. Voice gone soft. Any internal doubts have melted out of him. The look in his eyes as he gazes down on you tells you that Marc would give you anything you ask for. This man would insist on throwing himself under a double-decker bus if he thought it would make the ride a tiny bit smoother for you.

And oh… You get it now.

It’s taken you far too long, but you might have finally solved the puzzle that is Marc Spector. For all his aversion to let himself have even a morsel of happiness, there’s always been one overriding drive. There’s one thing that towers above the shame and guilt. One thing that’s more important to him than everything else. It’s in the way he’s always trying to meet the needs of those he cares for. Their happiness. Steven’s. Yours.

All you need to do is ask for him.

“You. I need you. Want you. Please.”

You can see it in real time as it happens. How the last traces of hesitation in him crumble, replaced by a determination that carves into those rich brown eyes. He drops forward, then he's sealing his mouth over yours like he’s signing on the dotted line, giving himself over to you.

It's everything.

Marc leans back again, fingers hooking into the hem of his t-shirt and dragging it off over his head in a single fluid motion. There’s no tangling of fabric, and it doesn’t get snagged as he tugs it over his head. There’s none of the clumsy adorableness of his alter. Marc undresses with practised ease like it was choreographed for the sole purpose of making your heart race faster.

Good fucking grief, you might’ve already seen this man before you naked on more occasions than you can count. But as he towers above you, skin golden in the dim light, the sight of his bare chest feels novel in a way that has your heart dropping to your lungs that must be entirely medically unsafe. You can’t help but stare shamelessly.

Chiselled and hard from the top of his head to his toes. You remember being surprised by how fit Steven was the first time, but somehow on Marc, it seems right. His physique reminds you of mythic Greek heroes memorialised in marble, and you're taken aback at how soft and warm he is under your hands. That he's human, made out of flesh and bone, and that he shivers as you drag your palms across the bare skin of his chest and stomach.

The anticipation crackles in your thighs, burning with a searing intensity at the thought of undressing him, gingerly unwrap him like a decadent present. But you’re greedy and have none of Marc’s patience. You wrench at his belt with little to no finesse, reaching down and wedging your fingers along the hem of his jeans to shove them down forcefully against the generous curve of his ass. You tug hard enough that you hear Marc choke out a wheezed breath, but you’re not even paying it any attention.

His hardened cock slaps against his stomach with a heavy thud and everything in you roars to attention at how thick and swollen he is for you. You feel heavy with need at the sight of it, and your brain is on autopilot, acting without conscious thought as you’re already reaching forward. Your knuckles skim down over his stomach before greedily wrapping your hand around his cock.

A deep groan tears out of his chest, and his hand snaps up to grab your wrist, holding you still. He clamps his eyes shut and takes a deep breath, inhaling heavily through his nostrils, breathing in and out with great struggle.

As much as you enjoy getting a rise out of him, you’re not trying to make things difficult for Marc on purpose. At least you don’t think you are. But you can’t look away from his cock. You can feel it straining and twitching in your hold, can see the trickle of glistening precome welling up from the flushed tip.

Your tongue feels heavy in your mouth, practically salivating as your thumb gently drags over the slick wetness there. The touch has his hips bucking, stuttering into your hands with a sound that sounds suspiciously close to a whimper. Your cheeks burn and tingle, your whole body flashing hot.

“Fuck,” he snarls and knocks your hand away, “You fucking ruin me, you know that?”

You want to retort that he’s the one to talk. Point out that he’s left you a dripping slick mess that’s soaked into the bedsheets and mattress and made them unsalvageable; that your thighs are an aching mess and you’re still swollen and sensitive from his mouth. But all vocabulary flies out of your head at the sight of him, as he replaces your hand with his own, wrapping one large hand around his cock.

Your heart stutters somewhere in your chest, and the breath in your lungs still with anticipation as he drops down to settle himself into place between your legs, knees nudging against your thighs to spread you wider for him as he notches the fat tip against your slick entrance.

His eyes lock on yours, the tip of his nose brushing alongside yours. He leans down to kiss you again, mouth warm and slick. You can still taste yourself on him, tart and almost sweet. Then he pushes inside of you, and your mind goes numb.

The first slide of him inside you is perfect. A sweet filling stretch that threatens to blot out everything else into nothingness.

Even though it’s your first time with Marc, your body already knows him. Craves every inch of him, and he’s willing to give that to you now, inch by slow maddening inch as he eases inside. Large hands clutching your sides, as his hips press forward and he works himself inside you. His cock pushes deep until he’s buried to the hilt. Then he stills, shuddering.

“Shit—,” he groans, dipping his head to press his face into your shoulder. “You gotta be kidding me.” His voice sounds shaky and strained. You’re not entirely sure what he means or what he finds so implausible. If he can’t believe he’s finally inside you after all this time or how good it feels. You just know you can’t believe it either.

It's flawed logic, but you’re not exactly coherent at this moment. Lungs squeezing tight in your diaphragm, you’re only capable of sobbing nonsensically at the consuming sensation of him filling you. Can barely focus on the warm tingle on your spine that settles over you. Your mind has been filled with cotton, soft and hazy as he’s completely sheathed inside, as deep as he can physically be.

Marc holds there for a long moment, his breath hot on your skin where he pants against your collarbone. He doesn’t move. Hips pressed flush against yours, taking his time to let your body adjust to the girth of him.

His mouth is on your bare skin, pressing kisses to your lips and then the apples of your cheek, before he drags himself downwards to mouth at the side of your neck, and under your jaw. Hands roaming along your ribs and hips like he cannot stop touching you. It’s devoted, loving even, the gentleness to his touch. It makes everything all the more overwhelming for you. He’s ruining you, with every caress on your flesh, and kiss to your skin, and he has barely even moved yet.

And god, you need him to.

"Marc."

He doesn't seem to hear you, mouth continuing to dot lazy kisses across your clavicle.

"Please.” You arch your back towards him, but you don’t get very far with his weight flattening you down against the bed.

“Marc, need you to move," you try again, voice high-pitched and needy, but you could be pleading to a stone wall for all the good it seems to do. His hips don't move from his position, immovable like a boulder. Instead, his palms fan out against your ribs, fingerprints permanently searing into your skin with the heat of his touch.

You can’t take it anymore, everything inside you is screaming, bursting at the seams for more and you wrap your legs around his waist in an attempt to force him deeper. To move.

Your heels dig into the rounded curve of his ass, and he jerks and gasps. You can feel his cock twitching inside you, as those stupendously gorgeous eyes flutter open. He’s looking at you again, stirred from the spell and the soft expression on his face hardens with determination.

"Yeah, baby. I got you," he says, and he finally complies. His hand comes to rest on the small of your lower back, tilting you up to him as he moves again. The hard drag of his cock slides out of you until only the blunt tip rests inside, and then he thrusts back, unhurried and deliberate.

Slow simmering pleasure bubbles up in your veins and you have to swallow it down with a hiccup of a sob. It's still the same ruthlessly slow and thorough pace. The one that tells you he won't be rushed, won't be hurried, even as he's giving you exactly what you asked him for.

Stubborn. Unreasonable. Maddening. You won't survive him.

The next thrust is demanding. It strikes heat along your spine and squeezes the air out of your lungs, until there's none of it left so you can fit more of him inside. A strange squeaky noise punches out of your throat, and in panic you clamber onto him.

He does it again. Hips dragging back as he pulls himself away, altering the angle of your hips with a small adjustment as he cants your hips upwards again. This time he lifts you further up than before and he pushes his way in with an almost testing stroke. His eyes narrow as he gazes down on you, brows furrowed in concentration and you realise what he’s doing.

Marc is slow and exacting, studying your every reaction, learning the best way to intricately pull you apart.

Staring up at him like this feels like you’re witnessing your own demise as it unfurls. Those unwavering eyes are focused on you, watching your every expression. He’s tilting the angle of his thrusts until he drives the pleasure deeper inside you with devastating precision until there is nothing left of you. Until tears are stinging in the corner of your eyes because you’re sure that you can’t fit more within you — the pleasure and him— and then he does somehow.

He catches your leg, hitching them higher so that he can slide a few inches deeper. The angle shifts, striking against something raw and overwhelming. You think you go blind with it and you swear you see stars collapsing behind the darkness of your eyelids.

"Yeah, there we go." His voice in your ear is calm, but he also sounds proud and pleased, and you're not sure if it's with himself or you. It’s all you can hear, and then he’s moving again.

A rich pleasure fills you at the slow glide of his cock dragging out of you, and then he pushes inside again, deep and determined, until his cock is kissing that deep perfect spot that robs you of your ability to breathe.

“Fuck, that’s it, baby. Can feel–” he groans, rolling his hips into yours, and it’s fucking devastating.

Your mind goes blank. A clean slate with no thought left in you except how good it feels. All you can do is moan and whimper, hands clutching desperately to his shoulders. "Oh– Oh, god. Marc, I– oh!"

He groans, slanting his mouth over yours and swallows the words down, cradling your head with his fingers. Soft doting presses of his lips to yours.

"Fuck, you feel so–" His sentence is cut off, and you never get to hear the rest of what he was going to say.

His mouth is on yours again and it’s nothing like the starved and overwhelmingly eager kisses you’re used to from these lips when it’s Steven who’s kissing you. This is slow and measured. Patient and deliberate as he takes his time with you. He’s kissing you like he’s trying to tell you a secret. Like he’s entrusting you with something important, to protect and to keep for him.

His finger rubs small circles under your ear, his hips slow and consuming as he fucks his cock into you. His arms never leave your side. Mouth never lifting from yours. His whole body pressed as deeply into you as he physically can.

It feels like a confession.

The ‘I love you’ that he can’t bring himself to say in front of you and can only admit to in the dead of night when he thought you were asleep.

His kiss is a soft and devoted touch. A complete contrast to the rest of him, as he continues to thrust into you, fucking his cock deeper inside you and he doesn’t stop, doesn’t let up.

It’s pleasure. It’s aggravation. It’s love and a defeat and a million other contradictory emotions between you and Marc that may never be resolved.

And you’re not going to try to. You’re happy to take him as he is, cracks and all. You accept it, his lips pressed against yours. Accept his demanding rhythm as he drives himself into you deeper and deeper. Accept the insistent heat that curls at the base of your spine, until it is a searing and smouldering burn and sparks like ember, numbing your legs with it. It is threatening to consume your very being and burn you into ashes as it flares bright in your lungs and you can no longer breathe as the pleasure of it is ready to overspill, and—

“Baby, you close again?”

And fuck, that’s—that’s— Your stomach tenses up again. The warmth spreads, twining and branches out along every single vein flooding it with blinding bliss until you’re dizzy with it.

You’re trying to say yes, trying to nod, but your body isn’t responding to your will anymore. It has a mind of its own, and all it wants is to be closer to Marc, to grab onto him and never let go. Your limbs are wrapped all around him, legs locked around his waist, nails digging into the meat of his shoulders so hard you know you’re breaking skin. The only thing you’re still in control of is to helplessly squeeze down tight on his cock as it slides thick and heavy in you.

“Oh fuck, that’s–” his voice sounds pitched and almost vulnerable, the arm curled around your leg, squeezing tighter.

Pleasure builds in you like the tide, rising slow and steady but inexorable, filling you until there's no room for oxygen or thoughts or anything else except the consuming push of Marc’s cock inside of you.

And then it breaks, ecstasy streaking out along your every nerve, overwhelming and inescapable, threatening to wash you away with it, except that you’re pinned, held safe by the grounding weight of Marc’s body and the reassuring press of his forehead against yours as you come on his cock.

You open your eyes to find yourself staring up at him, still bleary-eyed and drunk on bliss. You can only make out the colour of his eyes, the dark ink of his hair. But blurry as he is, you’re intimately aware of how he can see all of you. The glazed look that you must be holding in your half-open eyes as wrought out with pleasure as you are. The hair plastered to your forehead. The absolute mess of a state he’s left you in, and how debauched you must look in front of him. Face to face, all of you bare and uncovered, there in its unembellished form for him to see.

But that means you can see Marc too. As your vision clears, you can pick out every small detail of his expression. The subtle tic of the muscle in his jaw. The furrow in his brow. How his mouth is slack with pleasure. Those rich eyes of his are blown wide open until they’re left exposed. You can see it clearly now, how he’s clearly trying and struggling to hold back. The vulnerability that he’s been trying to hide from the world the entire time you’ve known him.

Not for the first time, as he holds himself above you, you find yourself marvelling at how beautiful he is. Identical to Steven, yet worlds apart.

Steven is hope and light and the curve of a gentle smile. Marc is sharp lines and dark shadows and heat behind his pained eyes. Jagged edges to Steven’s soft curves. Jaded cynicism to Steven's cheerful enthusiasm. Dark secrets and carefully hidden skeletons lurking in closets to Steven's forthright honesty.

And god help you, you love them both beyond measure.

The weight of his body is pressing down against you now. Every inch of the smooth golden skin pinned against yours, warm and flushed against your heated flesh. He grinds himself against you, needy, and desperate. There’s no longer any rhythm or logic to it. Just an instinctual primal need to get closer. You spread your legs as wide as you can to welcome him deeper, to take all of him as much as you can even as your thighs ache in protest from overexertion.

His mouth moves against yours, stuttering and trembling, and it takes you far too long to register the words that are coming from him.

“Fuck, baby, fuck I’m–” he chokes out brokenly against your lips, his hands on your hips holding on tighter.

He stills, and you think maybe this is it, that he’s about to come. Anticipation rises in your chest, and you hold him tighter, body clenching down in preparation.

But he doesn’t come. Just holds himself there, shuddering against you, his forehead against your chin, panting breaths, hot and humid, against the base of your neck. His cock is pulsing where it’s buried thickly inside you. Thighs quivering and barely able to keep them upright where they’re pressed between yours. You know that he wants to come. Needs to come. You just don’t understand why he’s refusing to give in.

“It’s okay, Marc. You can let go. Come for me,” the words are a struggle to get out. Your voice hoarse and scraped raw in your throat.

There’s a long moment of stillness, then he heaves a sigh so weary it makes your heart clench, as he starts shaking his head.

“No,” he grits out, voice low and determined as it so often is. His head comes up, dark, fuck-drunk eyes meeting yours, jaw set at that stubborn angle you’ve come to know so well, and he says it again.

“No. I– I’m not–“ He cuts off, shaking his head again. “Fuck, not yet,” he says. Then he rallies through, lifting his body away from yours and drives himself deep inside you with a shudder. “Not ready. Don’t want this to end.”

It sounds like a plea, and you’re not sure who he’s pleading with, you or himself, and there is a pang of pain in your chest for him. Because this idiot still doesn’t get it.

It’s like he’s never known softness. Hardness forged from a lifetime of a man who’s always had to hold himself up without respite. There’s a loneliness in it, of being the one who always has to take care of everyone else with nowhere to put down his burdens.

Fondness swells up in you and there is nowhere to direct it except for the object of your affection. You wrap your arms tighter around him, smoothing one palm over the sweat-slick, heaving muscles of his back, and whisper reassurances into the hair above his ear.

“Marc,” you breathe out and at the sound of you calling his name, his eyes snap up to yours. “Nothing’s ending.”

His arms buckle and he lets out a small choked sound that almost sounds like a whimper. He looks like he can barely hold himself up anymore.

“You have me,” you murmur, pressing your mouth to his. You kiss the arch of his jaw and mouth at the column of his neck. “Have had me for a long time.”

He tenses at your words, whole body trembling above you. But he still refuses to let go.

How many times will you have to keep reaching out to this impossibly stubborn man before he starts believing that you mean it?

Your hands come to the sharp edge of his cheekbones, cradling this face that you have fallen in love with twice over. Not just because it is Steven’s face. Not just because he’s the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen. But because it’s Marc too.

“I love you.”

At your words, those determined eyes pitched with dark concentration blanks into a stupefied daze.

His head tilts slightly, a movement so small it doesn’t register at first that he’s nodding. Then his face drops closer, pressing his lips to yours. The line of his shoulder softens under your locked arms, lowering himself down onto you. His hips sink into you, his cock dragging thickly inside you as deep as it goes.

You watch in awe as his mouth falls open, eyes rolling back, and you can feel it as he comes inside you. Pulse after devastating pulse.

And god, he’s so beautiful like this; unruly curls wild and ruined, cut cheeks a faint crimson, skin slick with glistening sweat in the dim light. So perfectly undone and at peace. The pulse of his cock inside you as he spills himself deep inside you is almost secondary.

You bask in it. The warmth of his arms caging you in, his forehead pressing down firm against yours. The feeling of him so deep inside you, you’ll happily drown in the feeling of this man after waiting for him so long. His body slumps, dropping his weight on yours, completely depleted.

His cock is still hard, arms still trembling when Marc shifts on top of you, trying to raise himself on one elbow. It's too soon for him to move, you don't want him to move, want him to lie on top of you forever.

Logically, you know it’s out of consideration. He’s probably worried that he’s squishing you, but an irrational fear swoops low in your stomach at the idea that he’s going to leave again. Your fingers dig into his forearm, dragging him back towards you.

He lands on top of you with a quiet and tired grunt in your ear, but there’s no other protest from him. Marc lets you, shifting ever so slightly to make sure that his elbow doesn’t jab into your ribs as he settles on top of you. Then he stays, and you get to listen to the slow steadying of his breath, as the erratic rise and fall of his chest ease into something more even.

The two of you stay this way for a long time, staring up at each other, with half-lidded eyes worn from exhaustion without speaking, and you catalogue his face as it cycles through a series of micro-expression with each second that ticks by.

If this was when you’d first known Marc, at first glance, each expression would have looked the same to you. But you know him well enough now that you can tell that the tiny pinch of his brow means something is troubling him. That the narrowing slant of his eyes means he can’t find the right words to express it. That him biting the inside of his cheeks means he’s hesitating on whether he would be offloading on you. Every detail says just as much as Steven’s openly variable animated expressions.

His eyes blink in quick succession, and Marc takes a deep heaving breath as if bracing himself. Then he’s lifting himself up and away from you by his forearms, slipping out of you to a sharp pained hiss as you whine in response at how empty you feel at the loss.

He rolls to the side of the bed next to you and settles there, and you feel a bit nervous about what’s going to happen next, because you don't know what is going to come.

“Is this still what you want?” Marc asks.

He’s looking at you as he says it, but somehow you feel like he’s looking through you, eyes not quite meeting yours. His voice sounds impassive, and if you haven’t spent so much time with him by now, it could easily be mistaken for disinterest or even boredom, instead of the defence mechanism that you know it is.

“Yes, of course, it is,” you say without hesitation.

There’s no response from Marc, he’s lying so still next to you. So quiet you can’t even hear him breathing anymore. If it turned out that he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open you wouldn’t be surprised.

You turn onto your side so that you can scoot even closer to him as you watch him. One sole stray curl is draped across his forehead, and it’s fallen into the line of his big gorgeous brown eyes. So ridiculously pretty, this one.

Yeah. This is definitely what you want. Him. Steven. Both. All of them.

“You’re– okay with all this?” he asks hesitantly, and he looks genuinely puzzled as to why you would be. “With... what happened earlier too?”

A breathless huff pushes its way up your chest. “I don’t know if ‘okay’ is the right word here, Marc. I’m not sure how to deal with the revelation that gods and monsters are real, and there’s a very high chance I’ll freak out about it tomorrow or next week. But…”

You press a kiss to the side of his cheek as you draw your eyes up and meet those rich expressive eyes of his. There’s no mistaking it, you feel it, in the same way that you do for Steven. Even if it’s different… there’s no doubt in you, haven’t been for a long time about this.

“What I’m sure of is that I want to be with you. You and Steven. No matter what. I’m not going anywhere. I meant what I said. I want to be your person as well as his. And– and I hope you can be mine.”

Marc tentatively draws his hand towards you, fingertips searching across the length of your arm until he finds your fingers and weaves them with his.

The palm of his hand is warm and sturdy, sending a pleasant buzzing sensation across the back of your neck. It’s your favourite thing in the world, whenever Steven does this, and you’re pretty sure it’s going to be your shared favourite when Marc does it too.

“Yeah”, he finally says after a long moment, “I’d like that.” His voice is soft and quiet, and a kaleidoscope of butterflies swoops your stomach at his warm tone filled with affection.

Tilting your head upwards, you close the distance between you, pressing your lips to his. It’s sweet and tender as his hand cups your cheeks protectively, like a promise that he’s not going to run anymore and it makes your toes curl into the sheet until you’re giddy.

You clutch at him, hands cupping the back of his neck and lace your fingers into those ridiculously soft curls of his. Marc shivers against you, and you smile like a loon as he ducks his head and buries his face into the crook of your neck contentedly, and exhale deeply.

Who would have guessed that post-sex, the man would be the world's most grumpy cat turned soft and cuddly, asking to be petted. You comb through the matted locks and the blunt tip of his nose nuzzles into your damp skin. He makes a quiet, content little sound somewhere from the back of his throat like he doesn’t want you to stop and who are you to deny him?

Your fingertips trail his scalp, from the nape of his neck to the crown of his head, when it occurs to you that you should probably be more careful with his head.

He was flung several feet in the air and landed head-first into a concrete wall with a bone-cracking sound that still makes you sick to your stomach. You continue to card through his hair, mapping him out in search of any signs of injuries, but you can’t find any and your fingers still.

It doesn’t make sense. You weren’t put through the ringer in any way near what Marc was tonight and you’ve still ended up with your fair share of scrapes and bruises. But there’s nothing on Marc.

No swelling, no bumps. No wounds.

On top of it all you’ve spent the better part of this evening, pulling and tearing at his hair. Your nails had been digging so deep into his shoulders you might as well have been excavating for gold and he hasn’t so much as hissed or flinched in pain even once.

There’s a faint muffled sound of complaint from Marc as he lies on top of you. It’s so distorted that it takes you a few moments to appreciate that they’re words.

“What's wrong?” Marc asks.

“You don’t have any injuries. You were hurt.”

“I was wearing the suit,” he answers in his typical deadpan manner. No background information, no context, no painting out a scene for you. To Marc, the limited information he’s given you should make perfect sense to you.

You grimace, and you’re just about to have a moan at him, when Marc seems to realise how confusing that explanation must be. He lifts his head from your neck as he continues. “Khonshu’s ceremonial armour. It protects me. Heals me when I need it.”

An image of the swirl of bandages wrapping itself around Marc’s body to form an otherworldly magical suit plays out behind your mind, and you can’t resist teasing him.

“So you transform like Sailor Moon and then fight evil at night?”

Marc lifts his eyebrow inquisitively, with a completely blank expression. “I don’t know what that is.”

“Really? Sailor–” you sputter, shocked he doesn’t know what you’re talking about. “Steven would know that reference.”

“Steven has too much free time,” he sighs, but the fondness hiding under his gruff tone is unmistakable.

The playful jab at Steven brings a small smile to your face. The levity of it is a nice change of pace from the whirlwind of seismic events and paradigm shifts tonight, because there’s been a lot to take in. Much of which, you’re pretty sure you haven’t fully taken in… Don’t even know how to start to process it.

Ancient Egyptian gods are real, and your boyfriend—(boyfriends? Just exactly how involved is Steven?)—is some kind of indentured fighter priest who battles invisible monsters—also real—for one of them.

What is the correct reaction to a revelation like that? How does one even begin to mentally process that?

“Any other questions? Now’s your chance,” Marc says.

There is no hostility like before and this time you don’t have to drag it out of him with the persistence of a detective in an interrogation room interviewing a suspect as you ordinarily have to.

You’re not entirely sure how you feel about that, except that you’re a little bit stunned and you realise that something has shifted between you and Marc.

He’s… opening up to you.

You look up at him, and he meets your eyes steadily. There are a million things you still want to ask: What’s the deal with his and Steven’s mum? What did he and Steven go through while they were away? How did he almost die, and how on bloody earth did he manage to just stumble upon an ancient Egyptian God to end up in his service?

Marc hasn’t moved from the spot as he observes you. Still seemingly expressionless, except…

There’s a tension to the set of his shoulders, isn’t there? And he’s too still—even for Marc… It hits you all at once he’s holding his breath, the line of his lips set in a thin nerve-biting straight line.

He’s waiting for you.

Regardless of how hard Marc tries to hide it, trying to school his expressions, there’s only so much his body language can repress. The ring of his eyes is dilated and vulnerable.

He’s nervous.

Marc’s jaw tightens in anticipation and maybe something a little like fear, and it makes your chest ache with an overwhelming need to protect him. Those other questions can wait. You have all the time in the world together. Right now you want to make him feel as safe and cared for as you do. You want to make him smile.

"So..." you begin, and you see him stiffen, watching as he braces himself like he’s expecting a blow. It’s how you know you’re making the right decision. "Do you actually like my coffee?"

His eyes widen and he sputters out "You– Your–" then barks out a laugh.

Even in the dark, you can see it, a soft smile on his face that illuminates the darkness of the room with it. A gentle curve, as the dimple of his cheeks carve a deep dent into those hollowed cheeks, the soft crinkle of lines around his eyes. It’s like nothing you have ever seen before. It’s bright and uninhibited. An electrical socket has been plugged in and every nerve in you is flicked alight with excitement.

It stuns you and takes your breath away, and for the longest moment, you forget about everything else.

Because god, he’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your life.

It takes you several seconds, maybe even a full minute to compose yourself enough to ask him again.

"Well...?" you prompt, and you’re gifted with the pleasure of watching him try and fail to hide that perfect smile.

"It's… a little more complicated than that," he says, and you narrow your eyes at him, trying to look playfully peeved while tampering your own smile that’s twitching at your lips and failing.

"I like that you make it for me," he tries.

"That wasn't the question, though."

Marc shifts in the bed, scooting closer to you until he’s brushing up against your knees. That small but near-magical smile is still on his face.

"Tell you what,” Marc murmurs, as he tightens his grip around you, pressing his forehead to yours, sweat-slicked curls tickling your nose. “Tomorrow, let's make it together."

His voice is so assured, it feels like he’s promising you a certainty, and you trust him with every inch of you.

A warmth spreads in your chest, and you can feel the dopey grin pulling at your lips until your cheeks almost hurt, but you can’t stop yourself and you don’t think you want to either.

There is so much that is still unresolved, so many more things you need answers to, but it’s a good start and that’s good enough for tonight. After all, as Steven would tell you: you have all the time in the world.

“That sounds perfect,” you tell him.

When you wake, the morning light is filtering in through the large windows. The sun is blinding and makes it difficult to see anything at all.

Reaching out your hand, the spot next to you is cold and empty, any residual heat long gone from the sheets. You’re alone in bed again.

Marc has really got to stop fucking doing that.

“Marc?” you call out, but there’s no response. You hesitate for a second before adding, “Steven?”

“Here.”

Then you hear familiar noises coming from the kitchen, and the tension in your chest melts away at the sound of porcelain clinking together. There are no folded clothes by your side, but to your surprise, your watch sits on the nightstand, cracked face turned up, waiting for you.

A small smile tugs at the corner of your lips, and your stomach warms at the sight. Marc must have gone back to retrieve it while you were asleep.

You sit up on the bed, bending over to grab a discarded shirt from the floor as well as your knickers from last night, and pull them on, smiling to yourself as you start to make your way across the flat to join him in the kitchen.

The familiar sweet, bread-like smell wafts out to greet you, and you falter.

Pancakes? That isn’t right. Today’s not Sunday.

In the bright morning sun, you see him standing, with his back turned against you over the kitchen stove. Wearing only his jeans, bare from the waist above, the carved muscles of his back flexing as he flips the frying pan with a dramatic flair. Even before he speaks, you already know what’s happened.

“Morning, sweetheart,” he greets you. He's turning his head just enough to throw you a quick glance, and a one-sided crooked smile.

You stop in your tracks. The cadence is alien, the smile off, but you recognize it immediately.

Not Marc. Not Steven. But you have met this man before.

That first night at Steven’s; the man you woke up to who looked at you like you were a stranger; the man who followed you to the lift to return your watch; the same man who towered over the invisible creature with nothing but cold contempt in his eyes as he snuffed out its time on earth with precision and brutality.

All this time, you thought that the first night you’d spent with Steven was also your first encounter with Marc.

But Marc doesn’t call you sweetheart. Marc doesn’t flirt. Marc doesn’t smirk like he’s trying to imitate something he’s seen on the telly.

This is detached and impersonal, like he’s not really smiling at all. When Marc smiles it’s snow thawing in the spring.

It’s funny how you didn’t see it until now. Marc was never the wolf.

You cross your arms against your chest, planting your feet firmly on the floor, standing up straight and tall as you confront the man before you.

“You’re not Marc, and you’re not Steven,” you say and you shift on your legs, puffing out your chest in a display of put-on courage. “Don’t you think it's time you introduced yourself, seeing that you’re in my boyfriends’ flat?”

The man huffs out a laugh, and his accent is different when he speaks again. A New York accent, you think, but almost cartoonishly so, like he’s watched one too many Martin Scorcese movies. It’s oozing out of every word as he speaks with a slow and nasal hum.

“Nothing gets past you, does it, sweetheart?”

He sets down the frying pan on the stove, turning it off before he wipes off his hand on a flower-patterned tea towel and extends it towards you, a polite invitation to shake.

“Name’s Jake Lockley.”

You take a step towards him, and maybe you should be nervous—afraid of this stranger wearing your boyfriends’ face—but the panic and fear from that first night you met him is absent. That painful pounding in your chest is no longer there.

You accept his hand, looking up into this man’s familiar eyes that are staring down at you in an entirely unfamiliar way. Not Steven’s wide and adoring gaze. Not Marc’s protective and gentle attention. No love resides in those eyes for you at this moment, just curiosity.

But you’re not scared this time.

Because come what may, you already know the most important part. Whatever happens next, whoever this Jake turns out to be, it’s not going to change your mind about Steven or Marc.

You’ll take them as they are. Red flags and all.

THE END.

Author's notes

This is the end. I wish I was more coherent to write a meaningful and heartwarming message about what this story has meant to me. How grateful I am to everyone reading it, but I do not think I have any words that can do it justice.

The only thing I can say is thank you. Thank you for reading this, whether you've read this from the first chapter, or whether you only read the first chapter or you've only read bits and pieces. Whether you've commented or liked or reblogged or simply just lurked-read, from the bottom of my heart thank you for giving this story your time, I'm really grateful to you all.

A big thank you to my friends who have listened to me whine and bitch and moan and generally emotionally terrorised them with this story, and especially thank you to my cowriter: thirstworldproblemss who has been put through the ringer with this story and suffered alongside with me. I love you the moooooooooooooooooooosetest

a/n: to be notified of new writing updates follow astroboots-writes and turn on notifs.

#i’ve been trying to get my thoughts in order but i just can’t #first of all thank you guys for writing and sharing this beautiful story #it must feel great to have completed this book even though it’s probably also a little sad #i know wr all enjoyed and basically worshipped this story #now holy fucking plot twist #it’s so funny because the story is called red flags and it’s about this character ignoring the red flags in her boyfriend #but now i realize that it’s also about us ignoring the red flags in that first ‘marc’ encounter bc marc doesn’t use the word sweetheart and #he isn’t forward like that and he doesn’t smirk #and ive gone back to the first chapter and you guys use words to describe him that 100% fit jake and bc we believe that this is marc #pretending to be steven we think that this is why marc acts that way #WE ignore the red flags and now my mind is blown #*galaxy brain*#it’s just genius #i’m so intrigued #now the smut was top tier my god that man is gorgeous #the whole confrontation was so heartbreaking and the lead up to the kiss 🙌🏼#loved the sailor moon reference we’re showing our 90s #and steven would 100% understand the ref #I’m dying she doesn’t know he has his own little suit oof her knees would weaken faster than santiagos #number one fan of the watch #whoever picked it up from the street is a hero bc i was a little sad it’d be lost all alone (being sad about lost objects is also very 90s)#fic rec #steven grant #marc spector #jake lockley

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aaaghhhhhh · 1 year ago

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i'm both pleased and also really annoyed that the daily prompt challenge/accidental Cav backstory fic is going to be the longest thing i've ever posted. it was silly warmup prompts! vibes only! i did not plan this!!

#prompts alone is 4280 words but im writing more 100 words bits to shove in the gaps i did not prompt

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pinesfallll · 5 months ago

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— dating stanford/stanley ! ✪

genre: soft + smut

characters: f! reader stanley pines + stanford pines (head cannons)

cw: not proofread, soft,smut, established relationship, all characters are 18+, MDNI

STANFORD PINES soft +nsfw hcs

- Ford as your partner would be so wholesome!!

- He's not the best at relationships considering you're his first, but he'll still try his best for you

- Would write you love letters

- He needs touches/ likes being touched etc, but his is subtle and more shy when you first started dating he'd do small things like hold ur hand wrap his hand around your waist. Laying his head on your lap/ shoulders

- He likes it when you compliment him and his work

- He 100% is good at baking/cooking, tell him your favorite meal and he'll cook it/learn it

- Matching science-y aprons

- his kisses will always start slow and passionate he likes the long soft kisses.

- He cant get enough

- he would 100% want to include you in his work/ adventures but sometimes he’ll have you watch from a distance because he's scared of something happening to you.

- play with his hair…yeah.

NSFW

- he can be soft when he wants to be

- Sometimes if he's too upset with his work..you're in for a treat

- He says he likes soft but you know deep down he LOVES being rough

- he wont admit it but something about being in control of your body gets him going

- he likes catching you off guard with how rough he can be

- I don't think he'd be into degrading but he definitely would praise you

- "good girl." "thats it sweetheart almost there.", "do you like it when I touch you there?","you're so

cute like this."

- Maybe a tini bit of humiliation and teasing

- he likes it when you ride him

- Big cockwarm fanatic omg he loves it

- When you first brought it up he was kinda confused about it but when the two of you tried it he wanted you to do it 24/7

- he just likes being close to you

- your chest is his favorite, he gets flustered when he touches them like it's his first time

- Grunts, gasps, praises your name allli the time He is quiet but when he close he gets loud

STANLEY PINES soft + nsfw hcs

- Stan as your partner, is very different compared to ford

- He can be charming, and kind but on the DL

-might seem like he doesnt care but he does sooo much

-super lovey dovey when hes needy for you

-"whats a'matter princesss?" "ya miss me?" "ya know you lovee me"

-will include you in his crimes

-he wont admit it but hes a sucker for when you kiss him he always wants more

-"aw c'mon thats its?!"

-he likes to hug you from behind and bury his head in ur neck.. if he's really needy he'll do some light kisses

-his type of love is more physical then words. he wont explicitly say your the love of his life and he would do anything for you but he'll get or do something to show it.

-takes you out on rides in el diablo

NSFW

-stan is ROUGH

-very rare of him to want to do it soft

-he loves pulling your hair

- call him sir (if ykyk)

-doggy is #1

-would degrade you

-"yeah? Feelin' good yet princess?"

-facefuckingggg

-if you want to ride him one day good luck cus he wont leave you alone

-"thats all you got?" "tsk your baddd at this."

-would do multiple rounds

-he would definitely smoke his cigarettes while he fucks you

thats all folks !! send some requests if u want :)

#gravity falls #stanford pines #stanford x reader #stanley x narrator #smut #gravity falls stanford #gravity falls stanley #stanley pines #x reader

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cherryxbooo · 10 days ago

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Not the same anymore

Summary: After ending his three-year-long relationship due to his friend’s influence, Lando tries everything to get his lover back.

Note: I’m back!!! The winner of the poll I set up was loud and clear! I hope all of you enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it! P.s buckle up this one is a long one!

Reader x Lando Norris

Genre: fluff/angst

I had been dating Lando for three years, and our relationship was everything I could have ever hoped for. We met at an event, our eyes locking from across the room. He was so handsome, his smile blinding, and I knew right then that I had to talk to him. Except I was too shy to approach him. At that moment it felt like the universe heard me and made Lando approach me. We talked all evening long and we hit it off instantly.

From that moment on, we were practically inseparable. We spent hours talking and getting to know each other, our bond growing stronger with every conversation. I still remembered vividly how he had made me laugh until my sides hurt, how he listened with genuine interest to every word I said.

I remembered the excitement and anticipation when he asked me out, the butterflies in my stomach when he first held my hand. It felt like a fairy-tale come true, and I knew from that moment on that he was the one for me. We shared so many moments of joy, of happiness, and even the occasional disagreement, but we always worked through them together.

At first, I tried not to worry, thinking it was just a phase, but the changes in him only became more pronounced. He was less responsive to my texts and calls, and he seemed to prioritize spending time with his friends over me. I felt lonely and confused, unsure of what had caused this sudden shift.

Lando invited me to his place, and I was excited. I thought he was doing just the same, planning to spend some quality time together.

However, as soon as we found ourselves alone, Lando's face was serious, and my heart started to pound. I knew something terrible was about to happen.

Lando sat down next to me, his gaze fixed on the floor. There was a long, heavy silence before he finally spoke.

"We need to talk," he said, his voice almost a whisper.My heart dropped. Those words... they were never good.

I sat there, feeling the dread settling in my stomach. I knew whatever was about to come couldn't be good. Lando took a deep breath, but his face remained serious.

"I think... we need to break up."

I felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the room. Break up? The words hung heavy in the air, and my mind struggled to process them.

"W...what?" I managed to choke out, my voice shaking slightly. "Why, Lando?"

He avoided my gaze, his fingers fidgeting nervously. "It's just... I need to focus on my career right now," he said, his voice robotic, like he was reciting lines. "Being in a relationship is a distraction, and I can't let it interfere with my goals."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He was throwing away our three years together with such ease, as if it meant nothing. I tried to reason with him, to remind him of all the happy memories we had shared.

"We've been together for three years!" I said, my voice rising in volume. "Why is it suddenly a problem now?"

"I need to be 100% focused," Lando insisted, finally meeting my eyes. "It's not just about the amount of time, y/n. It's about the current moment, and right now, my career is my priority." He sounded almost cold, like he was pushing me away.

I felt tears welling up in my eyes, but I fought them back. How could I mean so little to him, that he would discard our relationship so easily?

"What about us, Lando? What about everything we've been through together?" I pleaded, my voice shaky.

He remained stoic, his expression unchanging. "I'm sorry, y/n," he said, his tone lacking emotion. "But my mind is made up."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It felt as though he was a stranger, a shell of the man I had fallen in love with. “You don’t mean any of it! You’re just stressed.”

Lando seemed to snap. "My friends were right," he said, his tone sharp. "This is for the best. Now, I don't need the distraction of a relationship, and I'm better off without you."

His words felt like a stab in the heart, and I couldn't hold back the tears any longer. I wanted to defend myself, to challenge him, but his friends were the last thing I wanted to bring up.

But I couldn't help it. "Your friends?" I shot back. "They're the worst! All they care about is partying, drinking, and living off your money.”

Lando's expression darkened, his eyes narrowing. "Don't you dare talk about my friends like that," he snapped, his tone filled with resentment. "They're the ones who are always there to support me, unlike some people."

I couldn't hold back anymore, the emotions boiling over. "Unlike some people? Are you kidding me?" I retorted, my voice cracking. "Who was there for you when you were doubting yourself? Who stayed up late with you, listening to your worries, pushing you to keep going? Wasn't it me?"

He looked stung, but he shook his head, trying to uphold his cold facade. "That's not how things work," he said stiffly. "My career is my top priority, and I don't have time for anything else."

I felt my own anger rising to match his. "So, you're telling me three years of love, support, and understanding mean nothing to you? Just throw it all away for the sake of your career?"

Lando stood up, his face tense. "The decision is made. I don't need a distraction right now, and that's what you are. A distraction." His words felt like a slap in the face.

My heart shattered, each word breaking another piece of it. How could he turn our love into nothing more than a mere bother? How could he talk to me like this? But I couldn't let myself break down fully. Not here, not in front of him. I clenched my fists, trying to hold back tears and keep my composure.

"Fine," I said, my voice cold. "If I'm just a distraction, then go ahead. Focus on your oh-so-important career." I crossed my arms, trying to hide how much his words had hurt me.

"And you know what, Lando?" I continued, my voice rising. "Your friends? They're all using you. They're not true friends; they're just there 'cause you're famous and rich."

Lando's face twisted in anger at my words. "How dare you talk about my friends like that?" he sneered, his tone spiteful. "They're the ones who have supported me through everything. They're true friends, unlike you. Maybe that's why I'm better off without you."

My eyes narrowed. He had crossed a line. How dare he? "At least I never used you. I loved you for you, not for your fame or your money," I shot back.

He laughed, a humorless, bitter laugh. "Love? Please. You only liked being with a famous guy. The attention it brought you, the luxury. Let's not pretend this wasn't also about status for you."

I felt my fist clenching so hard it hurt. "You know that's not true," I said through gritted teeth. "I never cared about your fame or money. I loved who you were, or at least who I thought you were."

"Oh, really?" Lando challenged, his tone sharp. "Then why didn't you ever say no to the fancy parties or designer clothes I bought you? Don't pretend you didn't enjoy it."

I felt like my chest was tightening with every one of his accusations. How could he twist things like that, making it seem like I only cared about his money? It was so far from the truth. The minute those words left his mouth I knew it was his friends feeding him these lies about me.

"Those were gifts, Lando," I said, my voice cracking. "I loved them because they came from you, not because they were expensive!"

I didn’t let him speak as I grabbed my bag, my hands shaking with emotion. "Fine. Just don't contact me ever again," I said, my voice cold and void of emotion. "This is over. You’re not the same anymore.”

I walked out of his place, my steps heavy and numb. I didn't look back, afraid of seeing him or breaking down in tears. I just wanted to leave, to get away from his words that echoed in my head, and the painful ache in my heart.

As I stepped outside, the fresh air felt like both a relief and a cold slap in the face. I hailed a taxi, and as I watched the familiar streets pass by, I felt as though my old, happy life had shattered into pieces. I had given him everything, and he had thrown it all away for his stupid career. I would never make that mistake again, I promised myself.

Lando sat in his place alone after she left, the silence of his now-empty home weighing heavily on him. He started thinking about the breakup, feeling a pang of guilt, but quickly pushed it aside, remembering that he had chosen his career over her. It was for the best, he told himself, repeating what his friends had been telling him.

As the hours passed, the guilt started to fade, numbed by the pain and the alcohol he poured himself. He eventually called his friends, and they eagerly agreed to come over, happy to hear he had broken up with his now ex-girlfriend.

They arrived, with smiles on their faces, their eyes glinting with anticipation. "Finally, you get to live a little without that distraction!" one of them said, slapping Lando's back. "We're gonna party hard tonight, man! You deserve it."

Lando felt himself slipping into a numbing haze, the alcohol dulling his emotions and his conscience. He allowed himself to be guided by his friends, their words like sweet poison, promising him that he was better off without me, that he wouldn't miss her. They started planning their night out at a flashy new club, their enthusiasm infectious in Lando's alcohol-doused state.

Lando found himself nodding along, his resistance fading away with each drink. The idea of partying seemed like a good escape, a way to drown out the guilt and the loneliness. He convinced himself that tonight, he would let loose and forget, throwing himself into the nightlife and the company of his so-called friends.

As the night progressed, Lando found himself increasingly affected by the alcohol he had consumed. The world started blurring at the edges, and his thoughts became a jumbled mess. He grabbed his phone, his fingers clumsy as he fumbled with the buttons. After several clumsy taps and misdialed numbers, he finally managed to dial Max's number.

As the call went through, he heard Max Fewtrell answer from the other end. "Lando? What the hell, it's 3 am, are you drunk?"

Lando let out a chuckle, his voice slurred. "Heyyy, Maxxy," he said, his words tripping over themselves. "You sound so grumpy. Come ooon, I need to talk to youeee."

Max sighed, rubbing his eyes, trying to shake the sleep from his voice. "Lando, this better be important. I was trying to sleep, you know." His tone was annoyed, but the concern was evident under the surface.

Lando ignored Max’s tone, his mind swimming with alcohol-induced impulsiveness. "I need to talk, buddy," he said, his words stumbling over each other. "It's about y/n."

Max sat up in his bed, his annoyance fading in the face of Lando's evident distress. He cleared his throat, trying to sound more awake and alert. "Okay, Lando, I'm listening," he said, his voice steady.

Lando took a deep breath, his words slurred. "Max, I messed up, I really messed up," he slurred, his voice cracking. "I broke up with y/n, and man, I feel like crap. I miss her, Max. I miss her, and it... it hurts, Max, it hurts so much." The line of words came out in a jumble, the weight of his emotions too heavy to hide under his inebriated state.

Max let out a sigh, his concern growing with Lando's admission. "Okay, Lando, listen to me. Stay exactly where you are, and for god's sake, don't go anywhere else. Tell me the name of the club, and I'll come get you."

Lando mumbled the name of the club through the phone, his words a bit muffled. "It's... uh, it's called 'The Neon Lights.' It's that new club in town, very fancy. Can't miss the neon lights," he hiccuped.

Max sighed, rubbing his temples. "Alright, Lando. I'm on my way. Just don't do anything stupid. Just stay put and wait for me." Max quickly got dressed, leaving his bed behind for the task ahead.

Max drove as fast as he could, and reached the club soon. He spotted Lando right away. His best friend was sitting outside, next to a homeless man, laughing loudly in his inebriated state.

Max couldn’t help but roll his eyes at Lando's current predicament. He approached them, giving the homeless man a nod in greeting. "Alright, Lando, let's go," Max said, reaching out to grab Lando by the arm to help him onto his feet.

Lando tried to protest, but his words came out as a muddled mess. "No, wait! I was just having a talk with him!" he argued, hiccuping. He tried to pull away from Max, but his balance was too shaky. "He's a cool guy, Max. Look!" Lando gestured at the homeless man, his movements exaggerated.

Max shook his head, trying to keep his composure. "Lando, stop making a fool of yourself. Let's go, you're coming with me." He gently led Lando away, making sure he didn’t stumble and fall.

By now, a few people from the club were giving them odd looks, amused by the sight of an apparently famous driver being a mess outside. Max just focused on guiding Lando away, thankful no one had recognized him. "Come on, buddy," he said softly, his arms holding him steady.

Lando put up minimal resistance, his limbs heavy and uncooperative. He tried to protest but his words only slurred together, making it impossible to understand. His legs felt like jelly, and he let Max guide him to his car, his head spinning from the alcohol.

Once they reached the car, Max opened the passenger door for Lando, gently guiding him into the seat. Lando slumped in with a groan, his eyes flickering. Max secured Lando's seat belt, making sure he was as safe as he could be in his current state.

As they arrived at Lando's apartment, Max helped Lando out of the car, his feet dragging sluggishly. Walking him to his bed was a challenge, as Lando leaned heavily on Max. With effort, they finally made it to the bedroom, where Lando practically flopped onto his bed, groaning as his head spun.

Max was concerned about Lando, still inebriated and vulnerable. He grabbed some medication and water, placing them on the bedside table for when Lando woke up. He covered Lando with a thin blanket, making sure he wouldn't be cold in the night. He left quietly, making a mental note to check on him in the morning, closing the door softly behind him.

Max returned to Lando's place the next morning, his concern for him still lingering. He used the spare key Lando had given him and let himself inside the apartment. There was a noticeable silence, the aftermath of Lando's excessive drinking still hung heavily in the air.

Max was in the kitchen by the time Lando trudged down, looking half dead from the night before. His hair was tousled, his eyes bloodshot, and his face pale. He groaned as he spotted Max standing by the counter, a cup of coffee and a plate of breakfast ready.

Max watched as Lando slumped into a chair, cradling his head in his hands. "What the hell were you thinking, Lando? You were drunk off your ass," Max scolded gently, his voice laced with worry.

Lando winced as he lifted his head, his eyes squint to slits. "I... I don't know. Needed a distraction," he groaned, his voice hoarse. The alcohol had taken its toll, and he felt like death warmed over.

Max sighed, pushing the cup of coffee towards Lando. "There are better ways to distract yourself than getting drunk, Lando. What if the media had found out? You could have jeopardized your entire career."

Max paused, his gaze fixed on Lando’s disheveled state. "So who were you with last night? Who was irresponsible enough to let you drink in such a state, and then leave you alone in that condition?"

Lando rubbed his temples, trying to remember through his foggy memory. "Some friends," he mumbled, avoiding Max's accusing stare.

"You know, just some guys I hang out with sometimes. They were partying, and I... I don't know, I joined in." He paused, trying to compose himself. "Then I got drunk and they... they left."

Max’s eyes narrowed, seeing right through it. "Those friends, right? Are those the ones who always use you, Lando? The ones who take advantage of your fame?" His voice was sharp and filled with frustration, knowing exactly how those 'friends' manipulated Lando.

Max’s tone was hard as he continued, his questions probing deeper. "Did they invite you or did they just drag you along with them? Because I know how they are, Lando. They always take advantage of you. They use you for your money, your fame, and never really care about you."

Lando hesitated, his eyes downcast. He knew Max had a point. "I... they invited me," he murmured, his voice barely a whisper. "But I went because I wanted to forget. I wanted to forget her." His voice trembled slightly, the pain he felt creeping into his voice.

Max's ears perked up at the mention of y/n. "Is that why you broke up with y/n, then?" Max's tone softened slightly, realizing this was a sore subject.

"Because you wanted to forget her? To distract yourself from the pain?" He saw Lando wince at the mention of her name, and it confirmed his suspicions.

Lando swallowed hard, the pain in his eyes speaking volumes. "I... yes," he whispered. "I thought if I ended things, it would make it easier, but it's only made it worse." His voice shook with regret, the weight of his mistake heavy on his shoulders.

Max probed further, sensing there was more to this. "Were the friends the ones who influenced you to break up with y/n, Lando?" He had a feeling they were involved, knowing their toxic nature.

Lando shifted uncomfortably, not meeting Max's gaze. "They... they encouraged it, yeah," he admitted, his voice quiet, almost ashamed.

"They kept saying she was holding me back, that a relationship would only hinder my career, and I... I let them get into my head."

Max was furious. He had seen how much y/n loved Lando, how much she supported him at every turn, and now he had thrown it all away because of some 'friends' who didn't care about him. "They're the worst, Lando!" His voice rose. "They don't care about you, not like she does. She's been there for you, through everything. And you let them poison you against her?"

Lando closed his eyes, the reality of Max's words piercing through his foggy mind. Max was right. He had let himself be manipulated by his so-called friends, allowing them to turn him against the one person who genuinely cared about him.

"I know," he whispered, his voice choked. "I messed up. I'm an idiot."

Max sighed, his frustration mingling with a sense of compassion.

"You're not an idiot, Lando. But you made a terrible mistake. You let yourself be led astray by the wrong people. Those friends, they're poison. And y/n... she's the one who truly cares for you. You need to fight for her, Lando. Don't let them ruin what you and y/n had."

Lando admitted, his voice filled with regret and defeat. "It's too late, Max. She has blocked me everywhere. She doesn't want anything to do with me." His shoulders slumped, the weight of his mistake heavy on him. "She probably hates me now, and I don't blame her. I hurt her, Max. I don't think she'll ever take me back."

Max, determined to help Lando, decided to take matters into his own hands. He texted y/n, hoping to plead on Lando's behalf, but Max was met with a cold wall - she had blocked him too. Frustration welled up inside, knowing how much of a hole Lando had dug for himself.

"Lando," he said, his tone heavy, "She blocked me too. This is going to be harder than I thought."

Lando flinched as Max confirmed y/n had blocked him too. It felt like the finality of his mistake, like the door to reconciliation was slammed shut, and he had no way to open it.

"I can't blame her," Lando muttered, his eyes downcast. "I messed up so badly. She's got every right to hate me now."

Lando's phone suddenly buzzed with a text from one of his 'friends,' inviting him out again. But before Lando could even react, Max swiped the phone from his hand, angrily blocking them all.

Lando stared at Max, a mix of shock and annoyance on his face. "Dude, what the hell!" he exclaimed, trying to get his phone back.

Max's expression was serious, his tone firm. "Those friends of yours are poison," he stated, holding the phone just out of Lando's reach. "They're the ones who encouraged you to break up with y/n. They're not your real friends, and I'm not letting them influence you further."

Lando tried to reach for his phone again, his eyes blazing with frustration. "Max, please give me my phone. You can't just block them all! Those are my friends!" He sounded desperate, trying to justify something he knew deep down was wrong.

Max stood his ground, shaking his head. "No, Lando. Those friends are the reason we're in this mess right now. They don't have your best interests at heart. They only care about what they can gain from you. You need to see that!" His grip on the phone remained firm, not giving Lando any chance to retrieve it.

Lando, still hungover and angry, tried to make his case. "But... but they're the only ones who are there for me, Max!" Lando argued, desperation lacing his voice. "They're the ones who party with me when I feel down. They're the ones who go out to clubs while y/n stays home. They're just trying to look out for me."

Max's patience wore thin, his anger boiling over. He threw the phone at Lando with a snap, the device landing on the bed next to him. "Fine!" Max sneered, his voice cold. "Figure it out on your own, Lando. Seems you'd rather listen to those so-called friends than hear the truth. See how far they take you."

Lando flinched as Max threw the phone at him, feeling a mix of guilt and stubbornness bubbling inside. Max's words rang true, a painful reminder of the fact that he was defending his toxic friends over the one person who cared. But in his hungover state, he was stubborn, unwilling to admit his friends were the ones pulling him into a toxic pit.

"Fine!" Lando retorted, his voice rising. "I don't need you trying to control my life! And I don't need y/n. I can do whatever I want with my friends!" He grabbed his phone, clutching it tightly, his anger and resentment towards Max growing.

Max stormed out, leaving Lando alone in that moment, his thoughts swirling like a storm. Lando sat in silence, surrounded by the chaos he had created, and the weight of his choices. Max's absence left him with nothing but his own thoughts and the quiet, empty apartment, the reality of his situation setting in.

Days blurred together as I drowned myself in work, my fingers flying over the keyboard, creating numbers and reports that seemed like a lifeline in this sea of heartache. The silence of my apartment was too loud, so I stayed at the office, working until exhaustion took hold.

My best friend grew worried, her concern palpable, but I couldn't bring myself to open up. Who would even want to listen to my sob story, anyway?

I couldn't even bring myself to think about our breakup, the pain still too fresh. Work was my solace, a way to stay one step ahead of the thoughts that threatened to consume me. I tried to focus on the numbers, the deadlines – anything to avoid confronting the reality of my shattered heart.

But as much as I worked, the pain lingered, refusing to fade away. Every now and then, I'd find myself staring off into space, the memories of our time together flooding back. The sound of Lando's laughter, his warm touch, it all came crashing back in waves that threatened to crush me.

Lost in my own world, the sound of my best friend's voice finally broke through the fog of my thoughts. She had been calling my name for the past five minutes, but I hadn't heard a word, too consumed by my own internal battle. I blinked a few times, trying to shake off the daze.

She stood by my cubicle, her expression a mix of worry and concern. "Y/N, are you okay?" she asked, her voice soft. "I've been trying to get your attention for a while now."

I blinked again, trying to shake off the haze and focus on her words. "Yeah, I'm fine," I lied through clenched teeth, forcing a small smile that didn't quite reach my eyes. "Just really focused on this project." I tried to sound convincing, but I couldn't meet her gaze.

My best friend gently urged, "Y/N, I'm here for you, whenever you're ready to open up. How about a girls' night out tonight? A chance to take your mind off things? You need a break."

Each word felt like a lifeline. She knew just what I needed, an opportunity to lose myself for a moment without the weight of the breakup suffocating me.

The distraction of a girls' night out sounded tempting. I'd have a chance to let go, to pretend things were fine for a while. "Okay," I softly agreed, a small hint of warmth amidst the pain. "A girls' night sounds great. Let's do it."

As the hours passed, I tried to focus on the preparations, changing into something comfortable after my long day of work. But as I stood in front of the mirror, my mind kept wandering, the memories of Lando and the happier times we shared together. I took a deep breath, locking those thoughts away at the back of my mind, and plastered on a smile.

We met at a nearby bar, the noise and laughter a stark contrast to the silence of my apartment.

My best friend tried to engage me in conversation, steering clear of any topics about relationships or exes. The music was loud, the drinks were flowing, and I found myself sipping on my favorite cocktail, letting the alcohol blunt the edges of my pain for just a moment.

As the night progressed, my best friend knew something was still weighing heavily on me. She steered the conversation deeper, her eyes meeting mine in understanding. "Y/N, really, what's going on? I can see something's eating at you."

I sighed, taking another sip. The alcohol had loosened my tongue, and the pain I'd locked away started to slip out.

I hesitated for a moment, then the floodgates opened. The alcohol had loosened my tongue, and with each sip, the words poured out. "Me and Lando broke up," I said, my voice wavering. The pain I'd tried to hide finally came out in the open.

My best friend listened without interruption as I told her everything - the pain, the doubts, the sense of loss. She held my hand, her thumb running across the back of my hand in a comforting gesture, allowing me to release all the emotions I had been holding in.

The pain intensified as I allowed myself to acknowledge it again. "I still miss him," I confessed, my voice barely above a whisper, "but I can't go back to him. Not after everything he put me through."

My best friend stayed silent, letting me take the lead, listening without judgment, offering reassurance with her hand, holding mine firmly.

Her words were gentle, yet comforting. "You're strong, Y/N," she said, squeezing my hands. "It hurts, and it's hard, but you'll get through this. I'm here for you every step of the way."

Her words provided solace, reminding me of my own strength, even when I felt like I was crumbling.

She was right; I had gotten through tough times before. This, too, would pass. I tried to hold onto those words, a glimmer of hope in the midst of hurt. I wiped away my tears, taking a deep breath, trying to regain some semblance of composure.

After hours we decided to call it a night. As my best friend dropped me off at my apartment, the night's diversion ended, and the silence of my apartment fell heavily around me.

The momentary respite from the pain had come to an end, and the reality of being alone set in again. I tried to ignore the loneliness, the emptiness without Lando. Instead, I got ready for bed, trying to find solace in routine.

I reached for my phone in an attempt to distract myself from the memories that kept invading my thoughts. But as I opened it, I was met with a barrage of social media updates about Lando and me - our pictures together, speculation, and the truth I had been trying to escape. The pain hit me all over again as I saw others asking about our breakup, theories swirling around me.

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f1gossippoffical Trouble in Paradise? Fans have suspected that Formula One driver Lando Norris has broken up with his girlfriend Y/N. The pair have unfollowed each other on all platforms and haven't been seen together in months. This suspicion was confirmed after fans saw Lando getting drunk at a club without his partner, living his life. What do you think happened? Follow for more updates!

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loveformywags2 What? Is this confirmed? This can't be right?! 🥲

lalalandlando4 He deserved better anyways 🤷‍♀️

f1maniaclvr Do y/n and Lando know about this? 🤦‍♀️

pookielanscar481 It's just odd that he was seen being drunk out of his mind without her

mam4you81 That's what I was thinking... What if she broke up with him and he's drowning himself in alcohol?

nanalalaf14 Honestly I don't think so, I think he dumped her since he had stopped interacting with her on his socials while she still liked and commented on all his posts.

4everf1loca NOOOOO my sheilaaaaa 😭

As I scrolled through the comments, reading the theories about us, a bitter realization hit me. They were only seeing the surface, the façade we had carefully crafted for the public. If only they knew what had really happened, the pain, the reasons behind our breakup.

The comments were full of speculation and curiosity. People thought they knew our love story, but they knew nothing. They didn't see the fights, the lies, the coldness between us. Their theories felt like a slap in the face, mocking the reality of our relationship.

All I knew at this moment was that I should take the time to heal and not let anyone ruin this for me.

Months had passed since the breakup, and I had finally made significant progress in my healing journey. Though the memory of Lando and our heartbreak still lingered, I had come a long way. I had focused on myself, investing time in hobbies, spending quality time with my friends, and allowing myself to heal.

I had established boundaries, avoiding social media and news about Lando that would reopen the wounds. I started a new project at work, pouring my energy into something productive. Slowly, I felt like I was rebuilding myself.

Right now, I was sat with my best friend, enjoying lunch together. My phone buzzed with a notification from an old group chat I had almost forgotten about. It was the group chat I used to be part of, with Kika and Alex.

When I opened it, I was greeted with a flood of messages, the group hasn't been active ever since my break up. So I was curious to see what this was all about.

My best friend, curious, noticed the notification that I had checked my phone. She gave me a questioning look, asking, "What was that about?"

"It's an old group chat from two of my WAG friends," I explained. "They want to catch up during the next GP."

My best friend raised her eyebrow, visibly curious. "And are you going to go?" she asked, her voice gentle but eager to know.

"At first, I didn't really want to go because of... well, Lando being there," I admitted, a mixture of hesitation and bravery in my voice. "But then I thought why should I let him dictate what I do? I shouldn't be scared of him, right?"

I paused, my determination showing through. "So, yes, I agreed to go."

My best friend's face lit up with happiness as she heard my decision. "I'm so proud of you!" she said, her pride shining through. "You're not letting him hold you back or influence you anymore. That's such a huge step forward, and you should be proud of yourself."

For a moment, seeing my best friend's proud expression filled me with a surge of bravery. She was right; I wasn't letting Lando affect my decisions anymore. I was taking control of my life again, one choice at a time.

As I laughed with my best friend, the weight of Lando gradually faded into the background. We continued talking, laughing, and enjoying our lunch together. Lando's name didn't come up in conversation. For now, he was just a distant thought, overshadowed by the joys of friendship and healing.

Lando stood in the McLaren garage during the Silverstone GP, his entourage of fake friends surrounding him in his papaya-colored driver overalls. They joked, laughed, and offered their hollow support, all while he got ready for the race.

Amidst the laughter, Lando's thoughts turned to y/n. He missed her, the void she had left in his life was still present, gnawing at him. He had tried to reach out, creating new accounts, but he found himself blocked at every turn, silence his only reply. It was as if the universe itself was holding back any chance of them reconnecting, driving home his deepest fears and regrets.

Lando snapped out of his pensive state, focusing his mind back on the race ahead. He had a job to do, after all. With a firm tone, he told his friends to stay put, to relax and enjoy the race while he got ready. His determination was evident, a momentary distraction from his heart's constant ache.

Lando quickly realised that he had forgotten his phone. As he retraced his steps to retrieve his phone, he heard muffled voices from within his driver's room. Curious, he stopped before he entered, straining to hear the conversation inside.

Michael chuckled, his voice dripping with amusement. "Can you believe Lando was so stupid to break up with her?" Sam agreed wholeheartedly, a sneer on his face. "She was perfect for him, a distraction holding him back from his true potential."

Jake snorted. "Yeah, she was a total inconvenience, always nagging and taking up his time and money. Good riddance, I say."

They shared a cruel laugh, satisfied with their opinions. The conversation between Lando's fake friends revealed their true intentions - to have Lando's undivided attention, away from someone who truly cared about him.

They continued their conversation, mocking y/n's influence on Lando. Michael spoke with a mischievous grin. "It was a piece of cake convincing him. He ate up everything we said like a fool."

John snorted in agreement. "Yeah, we made sure he saw her as a hindrance. Now we have him all to ourselves, no competition."

James interjected, a cruel glint in his eyes. "We convinced him she was holding him back, that he needed to focus on his racing. We even convinced him she was just after his money. Classic play."

They chuckled, pleased with the web of lies they had spun. Michael added, "He doesn't even know what's good for him. We'll keep him under our control, keeping his attention and his wealth all to ourselves. He's too naive to see through us."

Sam, the schemer, couldn't contain his glee. "This has been the easiest con ever. Lando's so trusting, so foolish. We just have to keep filling his head with our lies, and he'll do whatever we want."

Lando, his heart heavy with the revelations, stormed back into the room, anger seeping through his every feature. His fists clenched, his eyes darkened in fury. He couldn't believe how easily he had been manipulated, how blind he had been to the deceit around him.

"How could I be so stupid?" he bellowed, staring down the group.

The group of fake friends froze, their faces stunned. They stared at Lando, wide-eyed, their laughter abruptly silenced. They hadn't expected Lando to return so soon, or to have overheard their malicious conversation.

Lando's voice trembled with a mix of fury and pain. "I can't believe I let you manipulate me like this!" His eyes burned with a potent blend of anger and regret. He stepped closer, his voice filled with a mixture of disgust and hurt. "You were behind all of this, convincing me to break up with her, making me think she was holding me back."

The friends, caught off guard, tried to scramble for excuses. But Lando's words cut through their attempts to justify themselves. Michael spoke up, his voice trembling, "We... we were just looking out for you, Lando. We thought she was holding you back. We wanted what's best for your career, that's all."

Sam chimed in, trying to appease Lando. "We were trying to help you, Lando. We saw how she was distracting you, taking up your time and money. You need to focus on your racing. You're our golden goose!" He forced a fake chuckle, hoping Lando would buy into the manipulation again.

Lando clenched his fists, his body trembling with fury. "You didn't care about what's best for me. All you cared about was having me all to yourselves, using me for my fame and money. You manipulated me, turning me against the one person who loved me truly."

Jake tried to interject, his voice oozing with false concern. "Lando, we did care about you. We just wanted to protect you from a bad influence. We didn't want you to be taken advantage of." He attempted a manipulative smile, trying to deflect the blame onto me.

Lando's voice rose in intensity, his anger boiling over. "Don't you Dare talk about her like that! She was the only one who genuinely cared about me, not you. You're just jealous because she didn't let you use me like you do. You're nothing but a bunch of leeches!"

Michael, emboldened by Lando's anger, smirked, his words sharp. "Don't you dare blame us. This is on you, Lando. You were the one who was too stupid to see through our facade. Now you've lost her because of your own damn foolishness, not our fault in the slightest."

Lando, seething with a mix of hurt and anger, quickly called the security guards. With a firm voice, he instructed, "Get these snakes out of here now!"

The security guards, recognizing the tone of a man pushed to his limit, swiftly entered, escorting the fake friends out of the garage. Lando stood there, watching them leave, a bitter taste in his mouth.

As the fake friends were forcefully escorted out, Lando was left alone in the garage, the weight of his emotions crashing down on him. The pain, the regret, the anger—it all slammed into him, finally giving way to the torrent he had held back for so long.

He slumped against a wall, his body trembling with the force of his emotions. Tears prickled in his eyes, his breath coming in ragged breaths.

As Lando sat there, the regret gnawed at him, growing sharper by the second. He thought about y/n, the love he had lost. The memories of their time together flooded his mind, and he berated himself for throwing it away. He blamed himself for listening to the friends who had manipulated him.

He thought about the love they shared, how he had let it slip through his fingers, shattered by his own foolishness and vulnerability to their lies.

Lando, still in a vulnerable state, decided to reach out to Max, despite their rocky past. He thought about the clubs and the disagreements they had had, but he had no one else to turn to now. With a mix of regret and desperation, he dialed Max's number.

Max picked up the phone, immediately sensing the desperation in Lando's voice. As Lando poured out his emotions and apologies, Max listened, his tone softening.

Lando confessed, his voice cracking, "I should have listened to you, Max. You were right about them, all along. I was a fool to listen to their lies and ignore you."

Max, surprised but relieved, replied, "I'm glad you realize now, Lando. Those friends were toxic. They used you, and I tried to protect you, but I understood, now." Max's words were sympathetic, understanding Lando's turmoil, even though they had their differences.

Lando confessed, his voice trembling with a mix of regret and desperation. "Max, I miss her, I miss y/n so much. I'll do anything to get her back, anything at all. It's the biggest mistake I've ever made."

Max fell silent, his concern deepening. He didn't know the extent of Lando's mistreatment of her.

The mention of y/n stirred worry in Max. He gently asked, "Lando, you know I didn't want you to break up with her. But why do you think you mistreated her? Can you tell me about that?" Max's tone was cautious, sensing that there was more to the story than he knew.

Lando hesitated, knowing he had a lot to unpack. Max's curiosity fueled a mix of fear and guilt inside Lando. He knew he had to come clean, even though it was painful to admit.

Taking a deep breath, Lando began to confess, his voice shaky. "I... I treated her badly, Max. I hurt her, ignored her, and took her for granted."

Max couldn't help but wince, knowing there was a deeper issue.

Lando's voice cracked with remorse. "They fed me lies about her. They convinced me that she was holding me back, that she wasn't good enough. I believed them, and I treated her poorly."

Max, as supportive as possible, tried to provide words of encouragement. "Lando, that's rough. You've made mistakes, but the first step is admitting it. You know you messed up; now it's about making amends."

He sighed, "Lando, remember that true love isn't about perfection. It's about growing together, learning from mistakes, and valuing someone despite their flaws."

He paused, his voice serious. "But you've got to show her you mean it. Words are easy, but actions will be your proof. Are you ready to do that?"

Lando, though shaken and determined, nodded, his voice firm. "Yes, Max. I'm ready. I want to prove it to her. I'll show her I've changed and that I'm serious about making amends."

Max and Lando continued talking, their conversation growing shorter as Lando had to prepare for the race. As they bid each other goodbye, Max reminded Lando, "Stay focused during the race. Clear your mind; that's important, too."

Lando, though his mind was heavy with emotion, took Max's words to heart. He knew he had to compartmentalize his feelings for now and focus on the race ahead. He focused on the tracks, his car, and his performance, pushing aside his turbulent emotions for the moment.

I stepped into the grand prix feeling a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. The grandstands, the roaring fans, and the smell of rubber and fuel in the air brought back a whirl of emotions. Seeing the tracks where Lando and I used to share moments filled me with nostalgia and a pang of heartache.

My thought were interrupted by two voices. Kika and Alex, my two closest friends, ambushed me with warm hugs, pulling me into their embrace. Their cheerful voices cut through the noise of the Grand Prix, and I felt a mix of relief and joy. It had been a while since we had been together.

"Y/N! You made it!" Kika exclaimed. "We've missed you so much!"

Alex chimed in, grinning widely. "We've been dying to hang out with you! It's been ages." She playfully pinched my cheek. "You look great, by the way."

"Oh, stop it! I didn't do anything special. You two, on the other hand, are the real stars here. Look at you!" I playfully nudged them both, my tone teasing and lighthearted.

Kika and Alex beamed, clearly enjoying the compliment. "Alright, alright, enough with the flattery," Alex said, feigning exhaustion. "We're here to have a blast. You ready for this?"

I sighed one more time while looking around before replying. "More then ready."

We made our way to our favorite hangout spot at hospitality. It was cozy, far from the chaos of the track. As we settled in, surrounded by comfortable couches and tables, a mix of nostalgia and anticipation washed over us.

"I've missed this place," Kika said, her voice tinged with nostalgia. "So many memories, right?"

We spent hours catching up, sharing stories, laughter, and heartfelt moments. The conversation flowed easily between us, like old times. Laughter echoed in the cozy space of the hospitality center, and our spirits were lifted. Time seemed to slip away as we bonded and supported one another. Eventually, the time came for Kika and Alex to head back out; their respective significant others were getting ready for their races.

Kika and Alex rose from their seats, their faces slightly apologetic. "We have to go," Kika sighed.

Alex nodded, adding, "Come find us later, okay?"

I gave them both a nod, understanding their commitment to support their boyfriends. "Of course, we'll catch up after the races. Good luck to them!"

Kika and Alex shared one last embrace, their hugs warm and reassuring, then they left to get to their respective spots by the trackside.

As they left, I was left to navigate the grandstands, finding my spot amidst the sea of fans. I blended into the crowd, the anticipation in the air as the racers prepared for their engines to start.

The race concluded, but it felt bittersweet. Lando's face was everywhere - on the screens, the winners' podium, the trackside banners. Seeing him in his natural element, celebrating victories, stirred mixed emotions in me. The pain of missing him and the hope of reconciliation blended together in a complicated mix.

After a bit, I decided that I needed to use the restroom so I headed that way. I made my way to the private VIP restrooms, my VIP pass granting me access. The restroom was clean and spacious, offering a respite from the noise outside. I checked my reflection in the mirror, taking a moment to compose myself.

As I exited the restroom, I was lost in my thoughts, only to bump into someone in the hall. I froze, instantly recognizing Lando's familiar voice. His figure stood in front of me, and I felt my heart skip a beat. His gaze met mine, and time seemed to stand still.

Lando called out for me, his voice filled with surprise, "y/n." His eyes held a mix of shock and tenderness, his voice holding a hint of the emotions he was trying to keep at bay.

As the words hung in the air between us, my heart raced. His presence was so close, the warmth of his voice sending a shiver down my spine.

I got out of my stance, trying to leave, I tried to walk past him, but Lando blocked my path, stopping me in my tracks. I felt a wave of emotions crash over me - pain, anger, hope, and a deep longing all mingled together. The intensity of it was overwhelming, and I tried to suppress it.

Lando's voice was hesitant and filled with vulnerability. "Y/N, please…can we talk? Just for a moment."

His request was sincere, his eyes pleading with me not to walk away.

I shook my head, my resolve firm. "No, Lando. I can't and I don't want to." I replied, my voice resolute. The pain from our breakup was still too fresh, and talking to him now would reopen wounds I wasn't ready to confront. I tried to move past him, my expression set with determination.

Lando's face fell, a mix of hurt and resignation evident. He saw my determination, my refusal to engage. He took a step closer, his words soft but desperate, "Please... just hear me out."

My frustrations boiled over. "Don't you think it's ironic? Now you want me to hear you out, when you never listened to me when you decided to end things," I retorted, my voice filled with a mix of anger and sadness.

Lando winced at my words, the truth of them hitting him hard. "I know... I made a mistake," he said, his voice tinged with regret. He was trying to find the right words, his eyes pleading with me to give him a chance.

Lando's expression twisted, the guilt evident on his face as he processed my response. The words cut deep, the truth behind them undeniable.

"A mistake?" I repeated, my voice dripping with bitterness. "You ruined me."

I continued, my words raw.

"I spent months wondering what was wrong with me, why you ended a relationship of three years for a fake friendship that didn't even last a year. Where are those 'friends' who supposedly supported you through everything? I don't see them here, Lando."

Lando looked down, ashamed. He had no answer. His fake friends were nowhere to be found, leaving him alone to confront the consequences of his actions. The weight of his mistake seemed to grow heavier.

He finally managed to gather his thoughts, his voice a mix of guilt and sincerity. "I messed up. I don't expect you to forgive me right now. But please, let me explain." He took a step closer, his regret etched on his face, silently begging for my understanding.

I raised an eyebrow, my words sharp. "Explain? What's left to explain? You threw away three years of us for a group of shallow friendships. What could you possibly say to make this better?"

Lando knew my words hurt, but he was desperate. "I was blind. I was a damn coward," he confessed. "I allowed myself to be manipulated by my so- called friends, and in the process, I hurt you."

He continued, his voice tinged with regret and shame, "I saw them as my real friends, but now I realize they only saw me as a way to elevate their social status." He sighed, his shoulders slumping. "They saw you as a threat, someone who could expose their true intentions. They convinced me you were holding me back, when in reality, they had me blinded."

His voice trembled as he continued, "I let myself believe their lies. They filled my head with jealousy, making me doubt our relationship, and I was stupid enough to listen to them." His vulnerability shone through, his emotions raw.

I nodded, my expression guarded. "I'm glad you've recognized your mistakes, Lando. But can you imagine the pain I've experienced because of them, because of you?"

My words conveyed a mix of grief and resentment. The hurt I suffered remained a palpable presence, a constant reminder of the pain he had caused.

Lando nodded, a heavy sigh escaping his lips. He knew he couldn't take back what he had done. The time he spent believing those fake friends and ending our relationship had shattered something that couldn't easily be repaired. He understood the depth of my suffering, a consequence of his blind trust and foolishness.

Lando looked at me, his expression sincere, and asked if we could try again. He voiced his regret, hoping for a chance to make things right. The hope in his eyes was clear, but the weight of the past lingered between us. He wanted to rebuild, to fix what he had broken.

He pleaded with me, his voice filled with remorse. "I know I don't deserve a second chance, but I want us to try again. I want to prove to you that I've changed, that I won't let those fake friends influence me anymore. I'll do whatever it takes."

I shook my head, my voice resolute. "No, Lando. I'm still healing, and right now, I don't want to try again. I need time, space. I can't just forgive and forget in a snap."

My words were firm, expressing my current inability to jump back into a relationship after everything I had been through.

Lando, his voice filled with sincerity, looked into my eyes. His gaze conveyed the depth of his regret and determination. "I understand," he said. "I will wait for you, for ten years or more," he promised. "I'll be here when you're ready, no matter how long it takes."

As we concluded the conversation, Lando stood there, his heart heavy with the weight of our future hanging in the balance. He watched me leave, a mix of emotions coursing through him: regret, hope, and an ache of longing. He had to accept that he couldn't rush our healing process, no matter how much he desired to be by my side.

I walked away, my eyes misty, the past and the uncertainty of our future intertwining in my thoughts.

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f1gossippoffical Months after their break-up, Lando Norris and Y/N have been spotted after the Silverstone GP. Sources state that the ex-couple were arguing, what the argument was about is still a big question. Many suspected it was because of a third party being involved. Thoughts about this one?

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lazyformulaland Bro leave them alone, they're both adults. Let them solve this in peace ffs. 🙄

lvr4lan Noooo Lando honey this isn't you run!

wagslov4 Did he pick you yet ? 🙄

bbpiastri81 What the hell is going on

norriswithrizz4 This is insane, the main focus of formula one isn't even on formula one anymore smh 🤦‍♀️

4everyours4ln Y'all are too invested, leave my girl y/n alone.

momolew16 Forreal the girl didn't ask for this

closetofpeacefashion7 Exactly she was finally thriving and then this happend. It doesn't even look like she wanted to talk to him

mayyoushush8 Did she tell you that 🤨

closetofpeacefashion7 @mayyoushush8 Don't be stupid even a kid can see that 🥱

I decided to head back home, not forgetting to shoot Alex and Kika a quick message which they completely understood.

As I reached home, the weight of the evening's emotions crashed down on me. The conversation with Lando had stirred up all the hurt and confusion I had been suppressing. I felt emotionally exhausted and overwhelmed, unsure of what to make of it all.

The silence of my home only amplified my inner turmoil, leaving me to wrestle with my conflicted feelings.

A few days passed after the incident, I decided to move on with life and not let it bother me again. A perfect distraction? Drowning myself in my workload.

I arrived at work as I stepped inside the building, I was greeted by Linda, one of my co-workers.

Linda, approached me with a mischievous grin, her question catching me off guard. "Do you have a secret admirer, by any chance?" she asked, the curiosity palpable in her voice.

I stared at her, confused by her question, wondering why she would draw such a conclusion. I shook my head, puzzled by the idea. "What makes you think that?" I replied, raising an eyebrow.

Linda chuckled, her eyes sparkling with a hint of intrigue. She replied, "Have a look in your office."

Puzzled by her cryptic hint, I made my way to the elevator and reached my office. As I stepped inside, confusion lingered in my mind, wondering what I was about to find.

My eyes widened with shock and surprise as I entered the office, finding a massive bouquet of my favorite flowers. The delicate blooms filled the space with a sweet, comforting fragrance. Attached to the flowers was a note, mysterious and intriguing. My heart fluttered with anticipation as I reached for the note.

My fingers traced the delicate paper of the note, and as I read the words, they stirred a whirlwind of emotions. The poem was written in delicate script, the words flowing like music... and it was about love. Each line spoke of tenderness, trust, and a future filled with hope. The words were so beautiful, it was as if they were carefully chosen specifically for me.

The little poem, written with a tender brush of affection, read:

"From the morning dew to the evening's glow, My love for you continues to grow. Through shadows and light, in every season's rain, Our bond remains, a gentle refrain.

In whispers of joy and moments of peace, I hold you close within my heart's embrace. Each smile shared, each memory we weave, My love will remain a boundless pledge."

I was so confused, who could've been behind this? As I read the poem again, my mind wandered to Lando for a moment. I quickly dismissed that Idea. He had confessed that he couldn't write romantic words, finding them cringeworthy.

If it wasn't Lando, then who would have written such a poem?

As the day wrapped up, I found myself heading home, my mind still lingering on the mysterious poem. Entering my home, I sank onto the couch, exhaustion seeping through my bones. The softness of the cushions welcomed me as my thoughts played through my mind, trying to unravel the mystery.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sudden ring of the doorbell that echoed through my home. It was late in the evening, and I couldn't guess who might be at the door at such a time. With some curiosity and a hint of wariness, I got up to answer.

I went over to the door to open it and I was met with a delivery man. The delivery man handed me a massive bouquet of fresh flowers and a large box of chocolates. The fragrance from the flowers mingled with the scent of chocolate. The combination was almost overwhelming, leaving me baffled as I accepted the gifts.

Now I was even more confused, this bouquet was even bigger than the one from my office. And the weird thing was, that the chocolates I got were only my favorites.

I examined the box of chocolates, finding another note attached to the top. Carefully, I opened the wrapper, retrieving the note. Just like the previous one, it was written on delicate paper, filled with intrigue. I unfolded it, ready to read the message.

As I unfolded the paper, I was met with neat, elegant handwriting. The words held a romantic touch, and I felt a mix of anticipation and curiosity. The second poem spoke of tender love and adoration.

"Your presence brings light to every room, A symphony of grace in each simple bloom. Though we may walk separate paths in life, My heart's allegiance is a ceaseless strife."

I sat there, taken aback by the heartfelt words. They spoke of admiration and deep affection. Who could have written these beautiful poems and left them for me? The confusion deepened, and I pondered who could be behind the mysterious gestures.

Plagued by curiosity, I reached for my phone and called my best friend, hoping for answers. As the call rang, I prepared myself for a wave of questions, expecting her to know something.

My best friend's cheerful voice filled the call, answering instantly. "Hello?" She sounded cheerful as ever, not knowing the mystery I was about to unload on her.

I cut straight to the point, my tone slightly urgent. "Hey, I have a question. So, I've been receiving anonymous flowers, chocolates, and... poems." I paused a moment. "Any idea who it could be?" I asked, hoping for some insight.

She was silent for a moment, her surprise apparent. But then her voice brightened, and I could tell she had a theory. "Oooh, a mystery admirer?" she asked, half-joking, half-curious.

I sighed, rolling my eyes playfully. "Well, yes. It is somewhat mysterious." I replied, unable to hide the hint of unease in my voice amidst the flowers and chocolates surrounding me.

We delved into the mystery, discussing possibilities. From past crushes to unknown admirers, we contemplated various scenarios. But no concrete conclusion surfaced, leaving me even more intrigued and slightly frustrated.

That was until my best friend's insight sparked a new perspective. She pointed out that the mystery admirer seemed to know me well. They knew my workplace, my love for romantic poems, and even my favorite chocolates and flowers. It wasn't just a coincidence; they seemed to have a grasp on my habits. The timing of the delivery was eerily precise, appearing just when I arrived home.

My best friend continued, her voice filled with speculation. "It's not just the flowers and chocolates, it's the timing. They know your work schedule. It's almost like they're watching, waiting for the right moment."

I agreed, thoughtfully absorbing. "Yeah, that's been bothering me. The timing is too perfect. They either know my schedule or they're stalking me." I chuckled, trying to soften the situation with humor.

"Wait!" My best friend suddenly interrupted, a speculative glint in her eyes. "Could it have been Lando?"

The name hung heavily in the air, bringing our conversation to a halt.

I shook my head, quickly dismissing the idea. "No, probably not. Lando doesn't enjoy writing, especially not romantic poems. He always told me he found them cringe."

My bestie nodded, acknowledging my response. "Ah, right. He's not exactly the poetic type, is he?"

I grinned slightly, remembering Lando's disdain for poetic words. "Nope, definitely not. He'd rather punch a wall than write a poem." I joked, the idea of Lando writing a poem seeming far-fetched, even for a moment.

After a while of thinking and cracking our brains open, we ended the conversation, deciding to table the mystery for the moment. We said our goodbyes and hung up the phone, my mind still swirling with questions. I prepared for the night, the flowers and chocolates lingering in the background, their presence a reminder of the mysterious admirer.

Several months passed, and the mysterious gifts persisted, each one more thoughtful and personal. The flowers continued arriving, alongside a new addition - small, handmade tokens. Notes slipped into the bouquet containing thoughtful messages, while a box of my favorite chocolates came with a heartfelt poem.

I sought information, asking friends and family if they knew anything. They were taken by surprise and genuinely had no idea who was behind the surprises. The mystery deepend as everyone denied any involvement.

The mystery escalated. Along with the physical gifts, I discovered a surprise on my phone. Text messages arrived with miniature poems, each one carefully crafted and sweet. The sender's number remained undisclosed, leaving me baffled about the identity.

The messages, delivered alongside the tangible gifts, carried messages that resonated with my emotions and experiences. It felt almost as if this person truly knew me, yet remained hidden behind the anonymity of their identity.

It was that time again - our annual girls' night out. We always looked forward to these nights, a chance to let loose and have a blast in a vibrant club. I had my best friend beside me, ready to dance the night away. The only problem? My best friend chose a club that Lando used to go to every time. She reassured me that he wouldn't be here which I took her word for.

We strutted into the club, excitement filling the air. Music pulsed through the venue, the bass matching the rhythm of our hearts. The lights dazzled the dance floor, and we blended into the crowd, the worries of the day fading in the throes of the nightlife. We decided to hit the dance floor, letting go of any inhibitions as we lost ourselves in the music.

We danced with abandon, the beat pulsating through us, the rhythmic movements our shared language. The neon lights flashed, adding an electric charge to the atmosphere. As we danced and whirled, we felt liberated from the daily grind, living in the moment, lost in the music and the company of my best friend.

Later that night we both got thirsty, I made my way to the bar to get us drinks, when suddenly a man approached me. I could already smell the alcohol on him as he staggered towards me, a lopsided smile plastered on his face.

He smirked, his words coming out in a clumsy manner. "Hey there, pretty lady," he slurred, his tone oozing with an unwanted familiarity. He invaded my personal space, leaning in a bit too close for comfort.

I could feel the warmth of his breath, tainted with alcohol, against my cheek as he spoke. "What's a beautiful girl like you doing here alone?" He tried to flirt, his persistence evident even amidst his intoxication.

I tried to maintain a polite smile, stepping back slightly. "I'm here with a friend," I replied, my voice a mix of politeness and discomfort. I glanced at the bartender, silently praying for my order to arrive sooner so I could escape this uncomfortable interaction.

He chuckled, his intoxication making him clumsy yet bold. "Oh, come on. A pretty girl like you shouldn't be tied down to just one friend. You should let loose and have fun," he insisted, his words filled with a suggestive undertone.

I tried to end the conversation, giving him a firm but polite dismissal. "Thanks, but I'm good," I said, my tone leaving no room for further conversation. I discreetly inched closer to the bar, hoping he would get the hint and leave me alone.

Instead of taking the hint, he persisted. "Oh, come on. Don't be a party pooper. One drink won't hurt," he insisted, his words slurring even more. He took another step closer, trying to close the gap between us.

I felt a mix of discomfort and annoyance as his persistence continued. The smell of alcohol was overwhelming, leaving a cloying odor on the air. I tried to maintain my composure, not wanting to cause a scene but also wanting him to back off.

He took another step closer, his gaze lingering on me. I could see the effects of the alcohol on him - the unsteady steps, the glazed look in his eyes, the clumsy attempts at charm. He reached out, attempting to touch my arm, his gesture too familiar and unwelcome.

The guy got annoyed when I backed away. He reached out, his hand grabbing my arm with a firm grip, trying to pull me back. I felt a jolt of fear as he attempted to drag me.

His hold tightened, his voice a mix of frustration and insistence. "Come on, don't you know how to have fun? Just one drink, a little chat." He tugged at me, his alcohol-fueled stubbornness evident.

I felt a mix of panic and defiance. "Let me go, you sick prick!" I exclaimed, my voice strained. I glanced around, hoping for someone to intervene, but every face seemed lost in their own world, oblivious or uncaring about the situation. The loud music blared, making it seem as if no one could hear my cries for help.

The guy gripped my arm tighter, his eyes filled with a mix of drunken determination. He leaned in closer, his face twisted with frustration. "Why are you making this so difficult? Just one drink, come on."

He forced me into an empty, private room, his grip on my arm still strong, leaving me with a sense of dread. The music was a distant throb outside, leaving me more isolated in this unsettling scenario.

His grip faltered as someone unexpectedly appeared, a figure entering the room with a decisive move. Before the guy could even think of pulling me fully into the room, someone intervened, delivering a well-aimed punch to his gut. The guy groaned, doubled over in pain as he released his grip on me.

The guy fell to his knees, clutching his stomach as the force of the blow rippled through him. Confusion, pain, and shock replaced the smugness from before. I could only watch, relief washing over me as I realized I wasn't alone anymore.

The drunk guy, overwhelmed by the combination of alcohol and the punch, scrambled to his feet before stumbling out of the room, whimpering in pain. The sudden exit left me alone with the mysterious person who had stepped in to save me.

Lando rushed towards me, concern etched on his face. "Are you okay? Did he hurt you?" he asked, his voice filled with emotion. The warm green in his eyes held a mix of worry and relief that I was alright.

He reached for my arm where the drunk guy had grabbed me before, inspecting the area to check if I was hurt. I could feel the tenderness as he gently ran his fingers over the spot, ensuring I was unharmed. Lando then gazed at my face, studying it for any signs of distress.

I gently pulled my hand away, forcing a small smile to reassure him. "I'm okay," I insisted, my voice steady but guarded. His concern was palpable, and I could see the relief in his eyes as he saw that I was not physically harmed.

Lando seemed desperate, unwilling to let me leave just yet. He reached for my arm again, his grasp gentle but firm. "Please, just hear me out," he pleaded, his voice filled with a mix of vulnerability and hope.

My response came sharp, biting. "Why would I? You didn't try to reach out, didn't try to find me, or even show an ounce of concern until now," I shot back, my words laced with bitterness and resentment.

Lando's response came with a mix of frustration and hidden emotion. "I haven't tried? Since our last talk, I've done everything I could to win you back," he retorted, his words carrying a hint of vulnerability. "Who do you think sent you all those gifts? Who else would know your work schedule, your favorite foods, your love for poems? I know I said I hated them, but for you, I embraced them."

His words were layered with hurt and a desire for reconciliation. Lando finally confessed, "It was me, all along. I couldn't bear the thought of losing you forever, so I hoped my gestures would speak for me." The pain in his face was evident, his eyes pleading for understanding.

I stammered at his words, a mixture of surprise and confusion overwhelming me. Never in my entire life I would've thought Lando would do all of this for me. My mind raced as I tried to comprehend the lengths he had gone to reach me.

My voice trembled as I spoke, "So... you were behind those text messages as well? How...? But I blocked all your accounts, even the new ones. How did you manage to send me messages?"

Lando hesitated for a moment, his eyes fixed on mine as he confessed. "I bought a new phone with a different SIM card... just so I could message you." His answer hung in the air, the weight of his dedication palpable in the quiet space of the room.

He continued, his voice earnest, "I couldn't bear the silence between us, the distance. Even if you blocked me everywhere, I had to find a way to reach you, to express how I felt." The depth of his yearning and determination to keep the connection alive was evident in each word.

I remained silent, overwhelmed by his confession. Lando had gone to great lengths just to communicate with me, buying a new phone and SIM card, defying my attempts to cut off contact. The depth of his dedication was both touching and overwhelming. I couldn't deny the mix of emotions swirling within me.

Lando stood there, his eyes searching mine, desperate for a glimmer of hope. The air hung heavy with anticipation as he awaited my reaction, his vulnerability on full display, his heart on his sleeve.

I grappled for a response, my mind a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. "I... I'm still processing this," I managed to utter, my voice filled with a mix of hurt and confusion. "Why didn't you tell me earlier? Why let me think you didn't care?" I blurted out, a hint of betrayal seeping into my voice.

Lando's eyes filled with remorse, his shoulders slouching slightly. "I was afraid," he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. "Afraid of being rejected, scared that you would push me away if I tried to talk to you and most importantly scared you would've moved on. I thought sending those gifts and messages would be a way to reach out without directly risking rejection."

I stared at him, taken aback by his honesty. His confession laid bare his fears and insecurities, exposing the vulnerability beneath his usually composed facade. But my hurt remained, the sting of his silence lingering.

I couldn't hide my feelings, and I let my resentment spill out. "But you let me suffer!" I cried out, the pain pouring out in my words. "I thought you didn't care, that you moved on, while I was here, hurting over our broken relationship."

Lando's face contorted with pain at my outburst, his shoulders sinking lower. He took a step forward, bridging the gap between us. "I know, I know," he pleaded, his voice filled with regret. "I was a coward. I let fear dictate my choices, and I hurt you in the process. I'm sorry."

I wanted to believe him, to fall into the comfort of his apology and the sweet gestures he had made, but the wounds of the past remained. The memories of his silence, his refusal to communicate, and the pain I endured still weighed heavily on my heart.

Lando saw the hesitance in my eyes, noticed the barrier I had put up. His expression pleaded with me, a mixture of sorrow and yearning. I could tell he wanted me to forgive him, to let him back in.

"Lando, I'm so conflicted," I confessed, my voice cracking. The wounds of the past still fresh, I couldn't let go easily. "How can I trust that you won't hurt me again? I've suffered so much because of you, how can I be sure you won't do something like this again?" I asked, hoping for an answer that would quell my doubts. The pain was still too raw to simply forgive and forget.

Lando's eyes filled with remorse, his face a mask of sorrow and guilt. He knew he had caused me pain and had no right to expect forgiveness so easily. He stepped closer, the gap between us becoming smaller. With a gentle voice, he spoke. "I don't ask for you to trust me instantly," he said, his voice tinged with sincerity. "I want to prove to you that I've changed, that I won't make the same mistakes again. Please, just give me a chance to show you."

I held his gaze, my eyes pleading for understanding. "I need some time," I implored, my voice shaky. "I can't just forget overnight. Give me the space to process everything, to heal." The emotions coursing through me were overwhelming, and I needed time to make sense of the rollercoaster of events.

Lando's response was gentle and resolute. "I will wait for you. Remember, even if it takes ten years," he said, his voice filled with sincerity and a hint of vulnerability. "I'll be here when you're ready, no matter how long it takes."

I looked back at Lando, his pleading eyes yearning for a reprieve. With a heavy heart, I whispered, "Goodbye," and reluctantly turned away. The music and lights faded as I weaved through the crowd, searching for my best friend who had remained oblivious to the emotional storm that had just unfolded between Lando and me.

I found my best friend in the crowd, her smile lighting up upon seeing me. However, her smile quickly faded as she saw the tears streaming down my face. Without a word, she stood up, concern etched on her face.

She wrapped an arm around my shoulders, gently guiding me towards the exit. "It's okay," she whispered, her voice filled with understanding. "Let's go home."

We stepped out of the club, the cool outside air a stark contrast to the stifling heat inside. We hailed an Uber, and my bestie decided to spend the night to provide comfort and lend an ear.

We settled into the car, the soft hum of the engine accompanying us as we made our way home. I took a deep breath, preparing to recount the tumultuous events of the evening to my best friend.

The Uber pulled up in front of my building, and we disembarked, the night's cool air a stark reminder of the emotional journey I had been through. We made our way into my house, the silence between us filled with anticipation.

We entered my house, the familiarity of the space providing a semblance of comfort. My bestie guided me to the couch, pulling a blanket over us as we settled in for what was sure to be a long night of conversation.

I poured my heart out, recounting every detail, from Lando's apology to the painful memories that still lingered. My best friend listened intently, her eyes widening in surprise and shock as she took in the emotional rollercoaster I had described.

She was stunned, her face reflecting the whirlwind of emotions that had unfolded. "Wow," she gasped, her voice barely above a whisper. "I can't believe he did all that."

My voice trembled with uncertainty, "I don't know what to do," I confessed, my emotions a tumultuous mess. "I want to trust him, but it's so hard to ignore the pain he caused. It feels like a never-ending cycle of confusion and fear." I rested my head on my friend's shoulder, seeking solace in her presence.

She rubbed my back soothingly, her support an anchor that kept me from drifting further into despair. In a gentle yet reassuring tone, she spoke. "It's okay to feel conflicted. Trust is earned, and forgiveness takes time. Don't rush yourself. Take whatever time you need to figure out what you want." She held me closer, offering her presence as a grounding force amidst the chaos.

My best friend posed the question that echoed within me, "Do you still love him?" The question sliced through the air, digging deep into emotions I had tried to bury.

Hesitantly, I met her gaze, tears glistening in my eyes. "I… I don't know," I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper.

My friend's words were honest, cutting through the confusion. She persisted, "That isn't an answer, y/n. It's a simple yes or no question." I remained silent for a long moment, my emotions swirling inside. Finally, after an excruciating pause, I whispered, "Fine, yes. Yes, I still love him." The admission hung in the air, vulnerable and raw.

My best friend looked at me, her eyes mirroring a mixture of understanding and support. "Give him a chance," she urged, her voice gentle yet firm. "Don't give in immediately. See how far he's willing to go. If he goes beyond just gifts and gestures, you'll know he's sincere.''

A wave of confusion washed over me, and I turned to her for clarification. "What do you mean, 'beyond gifts and gestures'?" I inquired, the words tumbling out in a whispered plea for understanding.

She seemed to gather her thoughts for a moment, then met my gaze with an earnest expression. "I mean, beyond just grand gestures. Beyond the gifts and the poems. Love is about more than just gestures. It's about genuine care, about being there for each other, through every high and low. It's about trust and communication. Those are the true tests of sincere love," she replied, her words wise and heartfelt.

She continued, her voice steady. "If Lando truly cares about you, he will show it in every aspect of his life, not just with grand gestures. He will prioritize your needs, respect your boundaries, and be there for you, even in the most ordinary moments."

Her words resonated within me, their truth echoing in my heart. It didn't matter if he had sent flowers or sweet poems. Love wasn't just about gifts; it was about presence, understanding, and unwavering support through life's tumultuous journey.

We continued talking for hours, my best friend's words sinking deep into my thoughts. Eventually, we decided to call it a day, both exhausted by the emotional rollercoaster. My mind whirled with questions as we prepared to say our goodnights.

Lando's dedication persisted. In the days that followed, his gestures remained constant. I noticed flowers and chocolates carefully placed on my desk each morning, a poem hidden amidst the petals, and a warm coffee waiting when I arrived in the morning, exactly how I liked it.

Today it was different. I heard a knock on my office door, I replied with a simple 'come in' as the person entered. Lando stood in my office doorway, his hands holding my favorite coffee and a neatly prepared lunch. He spoke softly, concern in his voice.

"I hope I'm not interrupting, but I know you can get forgetful about your nutrition while working. So I brought you something." The gesture warmed my heart, leaving me momentarily speechless.

His willingness to break away from his busy schedule, solely to ensure I took care of myself, touched me deeply.

"Thank you," I expressed gratefully, touched by his thoughtfulness. I had to ask him, curious about the sacrifice of his valuable time. "But aren't you busy? You still made time for this?"

Lando responded, his voice gentle yet sincere. "I'm busy," he admitted. "But I make time for you because you matter to me."

His simple yet powerful response struck a chord within me. In the midst of the busyness of life, he had made time for me, prioritizing my wellbeing. It spoke volumes about his devotion and care, that he was willing to sacrifice his valuable time just to ensure I wasn't neglecting myself.

The sincerity in his eyes and the way he stood in my office doorway, a small lunch in hand, felt overwhelming. It was as if he was trying to prove that he valued our connection more than the hustle and bustle of life.

In the weeks that followed, Lando's gestures became an integral part of my routine. He arrived at my office each morning with my favorite coffee, not missing a single day, even when I forgot it myself. During lunch breaks, he carefully watched over me, ensuring I ate, sometimes even bringing me delectable meals he prepared himself. He began helping me with paperwork, even when he didn't have the expertise—a gesture that left me touched.

Once, when I found a mouse in my apartment, he came at 4 a.m., not hesitating for a moment despite having an early flight.

His devotion continued. In the midst of his travels, he remained constant in sending me thoughtful gifts. The distance didn't seem to matter as his love crossed time and continents.

With each passing day, my heart opened up a little more. His gestures filled my heart with a mix of gratitude, warmth, and a hint of rekindling love.

It seemed like any ordinary day, with Lando on the other side of the world for a race. I was engulfed in my work, my focus solely on the paperwork, to the neglect of myself. Suddenly, my colleague Linda burst into my office.

Linda spoke with concern, her voice filled with worry. "You've been working nonstop. Come on, let's get something to eat." I protested, insisting on finishing my task first, but Linda's stern expression was unrelenting. I agreed reluctantly, rising from my seat. Little did I know, the world was about to spin.

As we walked, I started feeling dizzy, an unfamiliar sensation overtaking me. Linda's voice was heard from beside me. "Sweetheart are you alright?"

"No, no, I'm fine," I quickly reassured Linda, believing I had just stood up too quickly. Yet, before I could take another step, my world slipped away, and I plunged into the darkness of unconsciousness.

Linda witnessed the sudden collapse and hurried to my side, concern filling her voice. "y/n, are you okay?" she asked urgently, but I was unresponsive, the world around me fading into blackness.

The sound of voices echoed in the distance, Linda's voice calling my name. However, the comforting embrace of darkness held me captive.

As I emerged from the haze of unconsciousness, I felt a soothing yet firm hold on my hand. I groaned softly, my eyes slowly creaking open, reluctantly adjusting to the stark brightness of my surroundings.

As my vision cleared, I realized I was in a hospital room. The sterile environment, the soft hum of medical equipment, and the distinctive smell of antiseptic filled the air. I heard someone calling my name, I turned my head, my gaze drifting towards the source of the voice that called my name.

I blinked, still in a state of surprise to see Lando beside me. He looked at me with concern, his presence unexpected given that he was supposed to be on the opposite side of the globe. He spoke urgently, "How are you feeling? Should I call for a doctor?" His worry was evident in his eyes as he waited for my response.

Amidst the haze of confusion and exhaustion, my mind clung to one question. "What are you doing here?" I asked, my voice weak but filled with surprise. "You're supposed to be on the other side of the world."

His response caught me off guard, touching my heart amidst the whirlwind of emotions. "I'm you're emergency contact," he reminded me, and the realization set in.

He had crossed continents and time zones, arriving swiftly on his private jet, driven by his concern for my well-being. I had been asleep for 12 hours, and in that timeframe, he had made his way across the globe to be by my side.

The depth of his commitment touched my heart. Despite the demands of his career, he had flown across the world to be by my side, prioritizing my well-being above everything else. The knowledge that he was my emergency contact made a surge of warmth flow through me. It was a reminder of my significance in his life and the lengths he would go to for me.

I tried to compose myself, my voice still weak, I told him, "You shouldn't have done this. You have important things to attend."

Guilt tugged at me, knowing he had sacrificed his commitments to be here. His racing schedule, his career, everything seemed secondary to his concern for me in that moment.

Lando shook his head, his expression resolute. "I don't care, none of it matters as much as you do," he insisted, his gaze filled with sincerity. He reached out to gently hold my hand, his touch comforting. "Nothing is as important as you," he repeated, emphasizing his priorities.

His words struck a nerve, causing a mix of emotions to rise within me. Tears welled up in my eyes, his unwavering devotion filling me with a combination of gratitude and sorrow. I had doubted him, feared a lack of commitment, yet here he was, proving me wrong in the most dramatic way possible.

His presence in the hospital room, despite the distance he traveled, felt surreal. The sound of medical equipment beeping in the background seemed distant compared to the intense emotions swirling between us. Lando held my hand, his touch warm and reassuring.

In that moment of tender silence, Lando spoke again. His voice was soft, carrying a mix of concern and affection. He squeezed my hand gently, his thumb tracing small circles on my palm. "I was so worried," he admitted, his eyes locked on mine. "Seeing you here in the hospital... was terrifying."

His eyes mirrored the vulnerability he rarely displayed, raw emotions laid bare. The fear he had felt, the concern that gripped him, all visible in his expression. The reality of the situation weighed heavily between us, his emotions palpable and sincere.

I offered a reassuring smile, trying to ease his worries, though the weakness in my voice betrayed my fatigue. "I'm okay," I whispered, exhaustion evident in my words. My weak hand attempted to squeeze his in return, hoping to show my gratitude despite my physical state.

Lando's grip on my hand tightened, his thumb tracing comforting circles on my skin. His gaze remained focused on me, studying my face, searching for any signs of discomfort or pain. He was skeptical of my reassurance, his worry etched on his furrowed brow.

We delved into conversation, discussing random topics, our worries fading into the background. Our chat was filled with laughter and genuine connection. However, our peaceful moment was interrupted when the doctor entered the room for a routine check-up. The doctor informed me that I was discharged, giving me the okay to leave.

Lando assisted me in gathering my belongings, the tenderness in his gestures evident. He carried my bag and carefully guided me out of the hospital room. We paced side by side, making our way to Lando's car parked outside.

We traveled in a soothing silence, the weight of the hospital now off our shoulders. As we reached my place, Lando diligently helped me bring my belongings inside and prepared to leave. But before he could go, he paused and called my name, the sound breaking the tranquility.

I turned my attention his way, meeting his eyes with curiosity. "Yes?" I responded, wondering what was on his mind. His voice had held a hint of hesitation, as if there was something important he wanted to convey.

He inhaled sharply, the weight of his question becoming apparent. He spoke with vulnerability, "There's something I want to ask you. You're free to refuse, but I genuinely want to ask... Will you go on a date with me tomorrow?"

I was initially startled, but the anticipation in his eyes was evident. He swiftly added, "Only if you want it to be a date of course" I could see the sincerity in his gaze. A soft smile tugged at my lips as I accepted his invitation, my voice steady with anticipation. "Yes."

The relief and happiness that washed over Lando's face at my acceptance were evident. His shoulders relaxed, and a smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "You'll go on a date with me?" he asked, a mix of surprise and joy in his tone. "Really?"

The vulnerability in Lando's voice hinted at the significance of my acceptance. He was eager to hear my confirmation once more, his eyes glimmering with hope. I smiled warmly, reassuring him, "Yes, I'll go on a date with you."

We bid each other good night, both feeling the exhilaration of the upcoming date. The way we acted mirrored that of teenagers experiencing their first date, a mix of excitement, nervousness, and anticipation. As we exchanged a final glance, our connection felt like a magnetic pull, both eager for the moment to come. The goodbye lingered for a few moments, filled with electricity.

The evening of our date arrived, and my best friend was diligently working on styling my hair, while I focused on applying my makeup. She fussed over my locks, while I carefully applied concealer and mascara to enhance my eyes. My outfit hung on the closet's door, chosen for the evening. The weight of my excitement made my heart flutter in anticipation of the night ahead.

My best friend, brushing through my hair as she styled it, spoke up. "You know, Lando really went above and beyond for you, don't you think he deserves a chance?" she said, emphasizing his efforts.

There was a pause as I met her gaze in the mirror, a mix of emotions coursing through me. I set down my mascara and turned to face her, the weight of her words settling.

She looked at me, waiting for my response, her eyes filled with a mix of encouragement and genuine concern. The reminder of Lando's efforts weighed heavily on my thoughts. He had shown dedication and cared for me, but my past fears and apprehensions lingered, making it hard to fully let go.

I took a moment, considering her words. Inhaling deeply, I nodded, offering a soft smile of agreement. "Yeah, I know," I admitted, my voice a mix of vulnerability and hope. "But it's... it's hard to trust after everything."

I voiced my intentions, my eyes glimmering with determination. "I want to give him a chance," I declared, my resolve strengthened. "Not just a chance, but an opportunity to show me that he's worth trusting." My past pain weighed heavily on my heart, but the hope in my voice was undeniable.

Her squeal of happiness filled the room, echoing her encouragement. "Oh my god, y/n! I'm so happy for you!" she exclaimed, her voice filled with enthusiasm. "You're doing the right thing, giving him a shot. He'll make you so happy!"

She grinned, her excitement infectious. "I can feel it in my bones, this is gonna be great. He's going to sweep you off your feet."

We concluded our primping, with my best friend leaving with a parting "keep me updated, and good luck!" The anticipation in my stomach intensified, a mix of excitement and nerves gripping me. I took another glance in the mirror, taking in my appearance one last time.

I was wearing a black off shoulder dress, that hugged my curves nicely. I paired it with the famous uncomfy YSL heels and matching purse. My hair was styled in a beautiful blow out flowing over my shoulders. I sighed one more time before grabbing my stuff.

The doorbell echoed through the room, signaling Lando's arrival with its gentle tone. My heart leaped in my chest, his presence just outside my door.

I took a deep breath, steeling myself, and then opened the door. Lando stood there, his presence immediately filling the space, and warmth spread through my chest. He looked handsome, his well-groomed appearance evident, but it was his warm eyes and gentle smile that greeted me.

Lando stood before me, a bouquet of vibrant flowers in hand. His expression was one of awe, his words momentarily lost. He managed to compose himself and spoke, his voice filled with admiration. "You look absolutely stunning," he said, his eyes drinking in the sight of me.

The flowers were a beautiful display of color, their delicate petals reflecting the soft light of the hallway. Lando held them out, offering them to me like a bouquet of promises. I extended my hand, taking them with a soft smile, his compliment making my cheeks flush.

We walked out together, arm in arm, the cold evening air washing over us. Lando guided me to his car, opening the passenger door and helping me inside as a gentleman. As we settled in, the city lights danced outside, casting a cozy ambiance in the car.

We arrived at the restaurant, a charming Italian bistro with soft lighting and a cozy ambiance. Lando got out, rushing to open my door, offering a hand to help me out with a soft smile. The scent of fresh herbs and garlic filled the air, a promise of a delicious meal to come.

We stepped inside, the warmth wrapping around us. The atmosphere was romantic, with soft music playing in the background. Lando guided me to a table by the windows, pulling out my chair before taking a seat himself. Candles flickered on the table, casting a soft glow over everything.

We settled into our seats at the table, the ambiance around us serene and inviting. The waiter approached, greeting us warmly and setting menus before us. The scent of fresh bread and delectable aromas wafted from the kitchen, fueling the anticipation for the meal ahead.

Lando spoke with confidence, knowing my preferences. "What do you want to get?" he asked, but before I could respond, he answered himself, "No, I know already. Let me guess... the carbonara." A smile tugged at my lips as he remembered my favorites so effortlessly. I replied, "You know it," a mix of affection and appreciation filling my voice. His attention to detail and memories of things I liked made my heart swell with warmth.

The night unfolded, filled with lively conversation and laughter. Time seemed to stand still as we lost ourselves in our connection, the sound of others around us fading into the background. It felt as if the world had narrowed down to just us, an intimate bubble filled with shared laughter, stolen glances, and shared stories.

As the night drew to a close, neither of us wanted it to end. Lando paid for the meal, and I thanked him with genuine gratitude. We decided to take a stroll, drawn to a nearby bench that offered a view of the water. As we settled onto the bench, the gentle moonlight illuminated the night, casting a silvery glow over the water's surface.

I broke the comfortable silence, my voice soft and sincere. "Lando?" I began, my words carrying heartfelt appreciation. "I really enjoyed today. Thank you," I expressed, my eyes glimmering with warmth as I looked at him.

Lando met my gaze, a soft smile playing at his lips. He spoke with sincerity, his voice filled with warmth. "I'm glad you enjoyed it," he replied, his eyes mirroring the appreciation in mine. "It means the world to me that you had a good time. I truly enjoyed every moment with you."

I addressed the elephant in the room, acknowledging the immense effort he'd put in. "You know, you really have gone above and beyond for me these past months," I said, my tone sincere.

It had been a challenge to regain my trust, and Lando's consistent gestures had played a significant role in rebuilding it. His eyes glimmered with a mix of vulnerability and hope, absorbing my words.

Lando's voice was quiet as he responded, his tone sincere. "I know I have, but every moment of it was worth it," he confessed, his emotions clear in his eyes.

"I wanted to show you that you could trust me, that I would go to any lengths to earn your trust," he added, his voice filled with a mix of vulnerability and earnestness.

I continued, my questions flowing out. "What about after we get back together? Would you still care about me like this" I inquired, my eyes searching his.

Lando's expression shifted, vulnerability and sincerity mixing in his gaze.

"After we get back together, I want to cherish every moment even more," he admitted, his voice filled with sincerity. "I want to support you, care for you, and be there for you through anything. I want to keep building on the trust we have and make our relationship stronger than ever."

His sincere words found their way to my heart, a tenderness washing over me. The vulnerability in his expression, combined with his commitment to cherishing our relationship, stirred something within me.

I spoke up, my voice soft but filled with resolution. "I think," I began, "I'm ready to be yours again."

Lando stood up, his eyes wide with disbelief, his emotions overwhelming him. He wrapped his arms around me, lifting me off the bench in a tight embrace.

As he spun us around in a whirlwind of joy, he spoke with heartfelt conviction, "I won't disappoint you ever again. I love you so much."

His hands remained on my waist, a tender touch that seemed to anchor me. I felt a surge of warmth and contentment as I replied with a giggle that turned into laughter, sharing in Lando's excitement.

"I love you too, Lan," I confessed, my eyes glimmering with affection

Lando's grip on my waist tightened as he pulled me into a passionate kiss, a fusion of his emotions and desires. The softness of the moment contrasted with the intensity of our feelings, the kiss sending a surge of electricity through my body. I melted into his embrace, returning the kiss.

As the kiss intensified into a make-out session, I reluctantly pulled away, the reminder of Lando's fame echoing in my mind. However, Lando was unfazed, his response quick and resolute.

He shrugged off the potential consequences, insisting, "Let them see. I've got my girl back, and that's all that matters." His smile was filled with a mixture of certainty and passion as he pulled me back, their lips meeting once more in a toe-curling kiss that seemed to defy any outside concerns.

The moon shone down, lighting up the night as Lando wrapped his arm around my shoulder, pulling me close, and we walked back to his car. The air held a delicate sense of anticipation, and as we drove away, I nestled my head against Lando's shoulder, feeling safe and cherished.

Gratitude and affection swelled within me as I realized I had given Lando another chance, and that my heart had bloomed open once again. I smiled, my thoughts swirling with appreciation and love for the incredible journey we were about to embark on.

The end

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