#where their parents’ couldn’t or wouldn’t | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

luluahxo · 1 day ago

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bonachita

14k - unedited - ni-ki x reader

warnings: 18+ smut, drug use, parental abuse, suicidal ideation

(this is unedited, its been in my drafts for over a month so I decided I'd just post it, maybe edit it in the future and move onto writing my other drafts. also met the most diabolical florida man while I was at the end of writing this. thinking of u babe!)

summary: my heart is a mess of thick, congealed blood from the pressure of the speed. I associated him with the paresthesia in my chest. I associated him with the sickness I enjoyed. cursed I believed myself to be, I didn’t mind being reworked. reworked into his image. this is not love but this is a bond. One that I cherish. drive me around the track in your Trans-Am one more time. take me to Bonachita. die with me there.

its florida in the spring when you meet Riki, the boy who encapsulates everything you silently dreamed for and everything you runaway from

[00MPH]

My heart is a mess of thick, congealed blood from the pressure of the speed. I associated him with the paresthesia in my chest. I associated him with the sickness I enjoyed. Cursed I believed myself to be, I didn’t mind being reworked. Reworked into his image. This is not love but this is a bond. One that I cherish.

Drive me around the track in your Trans-Am one more time.

Take me to Bonachita.

Die with me there.

[01MPH]

We first met with no words exchanged between us. I often spent time in the campus lounge situated on the first floor of the library.

Not wanting to go home or study, I was killing time by watching the 1970 Trans Am season. With my cell phone in hand and the sound of a race playing, I headed towards the vending machine for a snack, where he was crouched.

Only the tips of his blond hair could be seen peeking out from the gaps in his black hoodie.

I stared back at him awkwardly before realizing I should lower the volume on my phone. It was just me and him in the lounge on a Friday night but he seemed bothered by the noise. His face was striking, each feature harmonious like an old oil painting. His brows knit together and creased into the folds in between making an expression that gave me a sense of embarrassment. I gave up on getting a snack all together and went back to my seat.

I wouldn’t see him again for a while

[02MPH]

I stayed on campus until late because I was a’ problem child’. To go home would be to bring problems. Me and my mother never agree, I’d always somehow manage to do the wrong thing.

In her words ‘sorry meant nothing’. Her fits of anger often ended in something thrown or broken. Sometimes I felt like I deserved it. Other times I found her suffocating and over reactive.

When I got to university I became a worse problem but all the same to her.

I was frustrated I couldn’t leave my home or the shitty rundown town we lived in - no chance I’d ever have enough money.

In my restless dissatisfaction I picked up some habits from the people around me. The first was cigarettes. Something about the smoky and burnt taste it left in my mouth soothed me alongside the buzz of nicotine. The time I started smoking was the time I also began accepting my college friends inviting me out.

I began going to campus parties but I never got wasted. Instead I began taking pills like valium or xanax.

I sat slumped in the corners of houses and frat party bathrooms, happy in the intense drowsy calm I felt.

I felt so damned.

In my blurred memories I can still remember when the boy from the vending machine appeared in front of me.

It was towards the end of Spring semester and I sat, muscles loose, by the edge of the pool.

He was swimming in illuminated waters, the only light that shone in the pitch black night. Slowly he swam towards me, pushing his elbows up outside the pool and splashing water onto my face. I had been cut by the broken glass in one of my mother’s fits again that night and the chlorine in the water burned the fresh wound under my eye.

Wincing from the pain I opened my eyes back to see a familiar face. That was when I knew it was him. His recognizable hair was now dark at the tips but his roots remained blond. Among everyone else he stood out. He said something I couldn’t understand in my drugged up mind and I leaned forward to hear him better but my weak body fell into the water.

My cut burned just as much as my lungs that inhaled the pool water. I could only see the surface become farther and in a numbing limbo I sank. My body wouldn’t move how I wanted. I couldn’t get my arms to push me upwards. My mind felt as if it was falling asleep and the urgency my body should feel was shut off. My half open eyes saw a silhouette come down towards me and I thought maybe it was an angel ready to take my soul away and relay my sins.

The angel was a blur of blond that came to lift me out. Yet it was no angel, it was a boy.

His hands left a prickling sensation on my cold skin. My clothes stuck to my skin as closely as his gaze that never relented. I was pressed against him chest to chest, holding me afloat.

All I could say was “Who are you?”

He told me his name was Riki and he held me in the pool throughout the night as I drifted out of consciousness, wondering if this was a fraction of what death felt like.

[03MPH]

I woke up feeling soggy sheets beneath me. The ceiling didn’t look familiar and my muscles were twitching from the crash of all the valium I took. My eyes regained focus but my mind remained foggy as I sat up and saw in front of me a passed out Riki in a chair. I called out his name but my voice came out hoarse. I could feel my muscles tighten uncomfortably as I crawled towards him and reached out from the edge of the bed.

To be honest I was becoming terrified at the unfamiliar setting. I had no idea where I was and my own body could barely function. I collapsed forward causing my fingertips to graze Riki’s knee. My face was nestled in the sheets and I felt my muscles wreak havoc on my state of being. My jaw fell slack from the sheer pain of the spasms.

I could hear movement from where Riki sat and no longer felt his knee against my hand.

He groaned from what I could tell was him waking up. The chair squeaked as he stood to his feet and a small shadow fell over me. A cold hand wrapped around my chin and I faced his sleepy eyes looking down at me.

“You’re a mess aren’t you.”

I could see his hair was still damp as if he came here with me straight from the pool. His cold hands pushed me up to sit on my legs which he pulled out from under me to hang over the bed. His other hand rested on the back of my head. In his freezing embrace I shook. The only warmth I felt was from the small tears that began to form in my eyes.

Riki began to caress my hair, his hand that moved my legs wrapping around my side.

I wanted to ask why he was treating a stranger like this but my voice was still gone from my dry throat and mouth.

“You’ll be fine,” he said. His words confused me more than they soothed me.

Sometimes my body reacted badly to the pills I took but it’d always pass. This reaction was heightened compared to all those in the past though.

I hated to appear this way in front of a stranger.

I pressed my hands down into the mattress and tried to lift myself up on my own. Horsley I managed to ask where we were.

He told me it was his campus apartment.

My voice came out disgustingly as I responded in shock, “Why? I don't know you.”

He sighed and leaned back on his palms.

“What else could I do when you passed out in my arms. You didn’t come with any friends.”

At my silence he got up and pulled the sheets off the bed from beneath me, noting they were wet due to coming straight from the pool. He left the room and I sat looking down at myself. My shorts had ridden up my thighs, my shirt strap was falling off my shoulder, the fabric had bunched up, and my hair felt damp against skin. All the while my body still trembled.

I was an absolute mess.

Riki came back into the room with clean sheets, setting them down on the bedside table before helping me off the bed and into the chair he once sat in.

“What time is it?”

He pointed at his small bedside clock, “Four in the morning.”

He threw the sheets over the bed and tucked them in as I watched

“Do you wanna stay the night?”

If I went home like this my mother would do more than throw a bottle.

“If you don’t mind.”

He smiled and said he didn’t.

I decided I’d hold my questions for when I wasn’t in such a pathetic state.

[04MPH]

I got ready to leave Riki’s apartment at around ten in the morning. I passed by him asleep on the couch while thinking of excuses to give my mother. His face was peaceful like an angel’s. I couldn’t help but admire the soft slope of his nose that led to his pouty lips illuminated by the morning light. I crouched down in front of him and at my presence his eyelashes fluttered open. He seemed to be a light sleeper. Sitting up he rubbed the sleep away from his eyes and asked if I was leaving.

“Yeah, but thank you for last night”

As I stood up he reached out for my wrist.

“Let me give you a ride.”

“It’s ok you helped me out enough.”

He sat up straight and persisted.

“No no it's really ok.”

I relented,

“Ok.”

I didn’t wanna pay for a ride anyway I guess.

He ran into his room, grabbing a hoodie and cap to cover the mess of his morning hair. I kicked my legs on the couch as he fumbled around the apartment, looking for his keys, brushing his teeth, and mumbling. He seemed more boyish in these moments than when I’d seen him before when his expression was cold and distant. Behind all the mysteriousness perhaps Riki was an average boy. I put my own shoes on and stood by the door.

Once Riki was ready, we headed out to his car. I stopped in amazement when I saw that it was a 2012 Boss.

It looked just like the car I'd seen in the 1970 Trans Am season. Even the retro stripes were perfectly recreated, and I couldn’t help laughing out loud in awe.

"You have a 302 Mustang?"

Riki smiled mischievously as he ran his hand down the side of the car.

"Do you like cars?"

"No, not really. But I like watching vintage races.”

"I've been obsessed with it since I saw it in the 70s season."

"It’s beautiful. You can drive a manual?"

Riki rolled his eyes a little and responded in amusement.

"Of course."

He unlocked the car and I got in the passenger seat. Riki immediately started the car and the Mustang rumbled to life. As he pulled out of the lot, the side pipes let out a sharp bark, echoing through the residence.

“You’re definitely not from around here, no one can afford something like this here,” I mused.

“I’m not, I’m from Bonachita.”

“Bonachita?”

“It’s a West Coast city,” He turned and smirked at me, “But where are we going.”

“Just keep going straight, I'll tell you when to turn.”

“Do you party often?”

Riki’s question broke the silence in between my directions.

“I just started going this past semester, my friends invite me out sometimes.” “I didn’t see you with them though?”

It was true, me and my friends sort of went separate ways at parties. They’d probably find a guy, dance, drink and I’d find a good corner to get high off pills. Still, there were times we’d spend the night together.

“I saw you all alone too?”

Riki hummed, tapping the steering wheel in thought before answering.

“That was my first time going to one. I didn’t recognize much of anyone until I saw you so I came up to you but then everything happened.”

‘Didn’t someone invite you? How come you were all one.”

“Not really, I just heard around about it.”

“Not a party person, huh?”

His smile was shy, “No.”

“You’d think a boy that looks like you is.”

“A boy like me?.”

“You know, dyed hair, ear piercings, the denim and leather jackets.”

“Just not my thing.”

“Rather focus on school?”

His nod was slow, like he had more reasoning than my explanation but ran with it.

I directed Riki all the way until a couple blocks before my house and had him drop me off.

Before I could get out of the car he folded his hands on top of the steering wheel and rested on his chin to face me.

“Don’t be a stranger.”

It seemed our friendly conversation made me forget about all that happened just the night before. I didn’t know if he even realized I was gone on pills. What did he think? Was it even normal to bring a stranger home like that even if they had passed out? I didn’t know. I guess guys bring girls to their place all the time and have their way with them but Riki seemed to have had a different motivation.

“Why’d you help me out so much?”

Riki hesitated for a brief second.

“You seemed lonely.”

“That on its own?”

His smile grew weak, “I guess I was too.”

At a party full of people ‘lonely’. Funny.

I walked down the block home with my heart a little warmer than before.

[05MPH]

The warmth I felt was fresh blood.

Don’t get my mother wrong, she’s not a violent woman. She’s just not okay. I shouldn’t have pushed her limits. If I was a little more considerate, if I thought of someone other than myself I wouldn’t experience this.

Yet there I go thinking of myself all over again.

Silly of me to come home with a joy that neglected all my actions, forgetting that there's consequences for any decision.

The moment I came through the door I saw her sitting at the dining room table a hall down. Her blank stare went nowhere but became sharp as I approached. Her sudden screams scratched at my ear drums, asking ‘where I was, who did I think I was, just because dad left do I think I can do whatever I want’.

My apologies reached deaf ears. It was impossible regardless for me to look genuinely apologetic coming home like this.

She held her head in her hands and kept mumbling over and over again before looking back up at me with an indescribable face.

With a final yell, she snapped, “Don’t look at me like that.” She threw her morning cup of coffee straight at me.

Lucky for me it was empty. Still the porcelain shattered at contact and dug into the skin of my collarbone, eyebrow, and arms. The searing pain resounded simultaneously in every spot I had been pierced. At my feet the pieces of the cup lay like a halo. I couldn’t look up. I didn’t have it in me to face her eyes and could only count the pieces of shattered porcelain to hold back my burning tears that bubbled through my throat and to my eyes.

She wouldn’t look at me or speak to me after.

It’d last days.

She did that with my dad once.

She went upstairs.

I cleaned the mess.

[06MPH]

I trembled with anxiety as I bandaged my new cuts in the mirror. Every creak or slamming door made me flinch. Even though the bathroom door was locked I was afraid she’d walk in. From my school bag I pulled out a tiny plastic baggie I had for a while now. I was reluctant to use it, but I thought maybe it would ease the pain for now. I emptied the contents onto the counter top and attempted to line it up with the edge of a cleanser bottle. I brought my nose down to the edge and pressed my index finger against the side of my nose.

White powder glaciers, broken up and inhaled by me.

I rubbed my nose clean and quietly slipped through the front door. It was Monday, I had to show up to class.

I never did make it though.

Once I got to campus I found myself circling around hallways I’d never been down before. My brain found I had to read all the boards in the Humanities Department before going anywhere but then I also had to stare at the senselessly big television in the Business building that showed the stock market. I was in the Engineering hallway when I ran into Riki. When I saw him flocking out of class alongside the rest of his classmates I reacted with no inhibitions and grabbed onto his shoulder. His pretty face turned to me with shock. It’s been over a week since we actually saw one another. Such an entrancing expression with the furrow in his brows. Immediately I begged him to take me for a ride.

”Let’s take a drive, let's go.”

He looked at me as if I told him to come with me and kill the president.

Maybe I came off suddenly but I bubbled with the desire to use my free will and so I did. This euphoria was blending my heart into my mind and I made decisions with no further contemplation than the mere thought.

”Please, please.”

”Do you not have class?”

”Do you have class?”

”No..”

My other hand rose to his shoulder as if I was a coach pep-talking my star athlete.

“Then let's go.”

He laughed me off, “I guess I can’t say no to you.”

[07MPH]

The bumps and slopes of the winding roads felt as if the wheels were shoes I wore while walking on the street. The speed with the windows down during a warm April evening could only be described as fresh. I felt this was the youth that I hadn't yet lived. The coke enhanced every passing gust of wind into a euphoria I wanted to drown in. I rested my shoulder blades on the open window and looked up at the sky, my hair blowing violently around me. Is that the sky where the angels sit looking down on us? Is it just a metaphor? Were the angels on my shoulders falling off from the accelerating speed of Riki’s car?

I bent further out the window, now turning around to rest on my elbows before I felt a tug on my hair pulling me back inside the car.

Riki’s eyes stayed on the road just as his hands in my hair did.

“Are you trying to kill yourself?”

I laughed deliriously and leaned onto his shoulder.

“No.”

Heaven is a beautiful place for the dead but I wouldn’t see it, so why die now?

Riki’s eyes flickered from me to the road again.

“Why is your face all cut up?”

I ignored him and bored holes into his side profile with my eyes. I wanted to take a piece of him, put it in my pocket, ingest it, make it a part of me, cherish it, admire it, possess it. Just never lose it.

I bit onto the sharp point of his jaw. It looked like it’d fit perfectly between my teeth, soft and supple skin, pulled taught around his bone. It felt like a layer of marshmallow candy. Sweet like his face, the taste.

Riki yelped out in pain.

“Actually what is wrong with you?!”

“You look so soft.”

“Are you on something?”

I shrugged my shoulders gleefully and sat back in my seat properly.

I felt my filter had really turned into dust.

“It just happens sometimes when my mom gets mad, she throws something, I get cut, the end. She’s just lonely without my dad, it’s only me and her so she’s sensitive.”

My head rolled over to face Riki and I spoke on.

“Are you lonely? Do you still feel lonely when you’re with me?”

Silence.

Until Riki finally countered.

“I'm not from here. I'm not even from the West Coast originally. I’ve met plenty of people, but still-

even if the city is full of people and the room is crowded, if you can't connect with anyone, it's just loneliness.

I thought that one day I would meet people I could truly connect with. But in the end, that "someone" never showed up.”

“Then who am I to you?”

His laugh was gentle, “A lucky stranger.”

“There's nothing lucky about me.”

“Then why am I happy?”

“Then smile at me.”

Riki never turned to look at me, but I saw the sweetest image of joy form in the shape of his lips, upwards, all the way to his genuine eyes.

[08MPH]

With no direction he drove onward, and the sun drifted down giving space for the moon.

After driving aimlessly Riki parked by the road next to the beach. There's no beach in Florida you could say isn’t a sight.

I asked him if the West Coast beaches are anything like the ones in Florida. He said the water is a duller shade over there. I asked what the beach was like at his original home, before Bonachita. He said there's a coastline, it only exists in his memories blurred with time, but beautiful nonetheless and better than any Florida beach.

I jested and said he must be homesick. My high is gone, I’m thinking of my own home when I ask.

Riki said if he had to call a place home it would be there, and so yes he’s homesick.

I asked him why he's far from home.

The reason is he wants to be a mechanical engineer, there's no better place than the US to get an education for it. He has the money to back it too.

He turns the conversation back onto me.

“What are you studying for?”

I don’t know. I went into college as a Physics major. Would I go to professional school or grad school? I’d like to but I can’t necessarily afford it. Then considering how many times I’ve missed class in the past week and all the hours of studying I skipped out on I probably won’t make it in.

Riki questioned why a physics major.

“I could do research with it I suppose, I just always found the subject interesting.”

It was the fundamentals that pulled me in. The state of entropy of the entire universe will always increase over time. If you ignore that it’s about energy, It's fascinating on its own.

I say I’m fine just living a simple life if it means I’m stable, a nice apartment with a good view, pocket money, and a 401K. I'm not worried about a specific career.

“What happened to your dreams?”

His question caught me off guard for a second.

“I don’t think I really had any.”

“That's just not possible”, he pushed.

“If I could be at peace that's all I could dream for.”

“When you’re this young, even if it may never come true, you should still dream.”

“You’re a really hopeful person.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“I have hope. It might be ridiculous, but it gets me through, because there has to be a limit to everything, and there must be some good that comes with every bad thing. But really, I don't know anything, and that's why its hope.”

His stare shifted into something new, an expression he hadn’t shown yet, one of intrigue.

“Sit with me on the beach.”

I followed Riki’s words that ignored my previous ones.

Down the incline of the hill our shoes pressed into dry sand and we sat.

The waves pulled by the moon crashed fervently, alive and wild.

By my side Riki leaned over, his chin on my shoulder and he said so softly “Don’t beautiful things make you want to dream.”

I faced him, only centimeters separating us, “You want me to dream?”

“Just think of something, something you really want.”

I put my finger to my chin and dramaticized my thinking. Riki bumped by shoulder with his own.

“Be serious.”

“Maybe, go to Bonachita?”

“Why Bonachita?”

“I just wanna go.”

Riki laid back fully in the sand, granules the color of his roots blending in.

“Bonachita, maybe when you're in your sixties.”

“Howcome?”

“It’s a good place to retire, super suburban, lots of old people. A nice place to die.”

“Well that's morbid.”

“Dream another dream.”

I laid down, imitating Riki.

“Then I dream of dying there.”

I had come down for a while now, exhaustion laid heavy on my eyes and I wanted to be lulled to sleep here, never going home.

I nudged myself over until my head rested on top of Riki’s shoulder and chest.

His familiar hand brushed through my hair and I fell asleep.

[09MPH]

By dawn we were a tangle of sleepy limbs and sand. It seemed Riki fell asleep too. I rolled over onto my stomach and watched Riki whistle through his nose asleep while I lit a cigarette. The click of my lighter rose wake to his eyes and groggily he stared back at me. The sharp smokey smell wafted around us and the smoke I exhaled danced in the air like a luring hypnosis that Riki couldn’t take his eyes away from. After taking some drags from my cigarette Riki reached for it and took it away from me.

“Do you smoke?” I asked

Riki sat himself up on one arm and shook his head ‘no’ while bringing the cigarette to his mouth. His lips wrapped prettily around it, tight in a closed-lip drag, still puffy from sleep. A deep inhale led to an immediate exhale—and a sudden coughing fit. I found his inexperience cute, but his eyes wet from the pressure of choking on the smoke and sleep swollen lips made my thoughts run lewd.

I took the cigarette from his hand giggling and ran my thumb across his bottom lip to his cheek, wiping off stray specks of sand.

“Someone like you shouldn’t smoke.”

Riki took the cigarette right back and threw it into the sand.

“Neither should you.”

I kept on laughing and fell backwards onto my elbows.

“Too bad I already do then.”

He rolled his eyes at me and got up, dusting himself off. I did the same as him, quick to nag in my elated mood.

“Riki I’m hungry.”

“Are we on a bender? When am I gonna go to class?”

“I didn’t even eat yesterday.”

His eyes easily showed defeat.

Riki slung his arm around my shoulder and walked me forward to his car.

“Ok ok, just stop whining.”

I leaned into his hold and asked to eat back at his place.

[10MPH]

After Riki took us back to his apartment for breakfast he went to class and I stayed back at his place.

I had no classes on Tuesdays and so I rolled around mindlessly on his bed with nothing to do except study for midterms, which wasn’t going to happen. Laying on my stomach I reached down for my bag and rummaged through it. In the corner was a pill bottle, five tablets of ten milligrams of valium. I swallowed one dry, scratching my throat as it slid down. After fifteen minutes of feeling nothing I took two more, and then another. In the end I was face to face with one pill. She looked so lonely. Back in her bottle she went and I stared at the ceiling, starting to feel heavy. Swallowing the tablets like that left a knot in my throat, uncomfortable and irritating. The sun as well was pouring in from the window and shining with an intensity that made me feel as though I’d dissolve in its light. It was a sign of Spring but I wanted to hide from the sun. So I turned and hid my face in the sheets of Riki’s bed, reminiscent of the last time I was at his place, my first time at his apartment. The musk of cologne and his scent suffocated my nose but it was better than the sun. Addicting in comparison to the sun. Riki was like my valium, every semblance of his presence soothed me, I was hooked, and maybe it wasn’t a healthy attachment but I didn’t want to be without it. Just a short time of knowing one another and I felt so attracted to him like an elementary crush, but it was different. I sought out the feeling of reliability he provided for me. A fictitious sense of guidance, even though we were in the same place in life, equally confused, at the same starting line, but he seemed to run faster and I was out of breath.

I wanted to catch up.

I aimed to dissolve entirely in the sunlight if it was his.

I’d hold on to any good thing.

I’m a thankful person, and simultaneously selfish.

The forty milligrams I took laid a sheet of drowsiness over me and in a disoriented state I mulled over thoughts of Riki until unconscious.

It seems it became a habit to wake up to him. I opened my eyes to Riki sitting on the floor by the head of the bed, textbook open and scribbling down the solutions to whatever problems he was solving.

Watching him every breath felt too light, like my lungs weren't working properly. There was a strange pressure in my chest- not a pain, just a heaviness. I was breathing out too slowly, but I couldn't breathe any faster. I reached out to him, causing a shift in attention

Riki held my hand in return but I only knew from the sight. My hands were numb. Tingling like radio static ran up my limbs

I heard him ask why I was shaking but I didn’t even know I was shaking. I watched my hand tighten around his as I made a conscious effort to.

I closed my eyes and pretended to fall asleep so he wouldn’t know that my body was falling out of tune, but I was still trembling. It was pointless.

A shadow rested over my dark sight, and when I opened my eyes I saw Riki’s jacket covering me.

I was lifted up into his arms where he held me like a child.

Riki’s voice came out broken, as if he was holding back his worry to try and seem calm.

“What did you do?”

I could only press my head against his chest, hoping to gain some kind of sensation.

Riki's arms wrapped around me. They were firm, but with the gentleness of someone handling something fragile. I knew he was holding me, but I couldn't really feel it. All I felt was a faint pressure on my skin. I wasn't sure if it was really warmth. My body was too heavy to move, yet too light to feel real. I wanted to get closer, I wanted to feel him. Even his voice whispering in my ear sounded far away, like it was through another room. He was holding me. but it felt like I was a ghost. It scared me.

His hands around my shoulders gripped tighter, the tips of his fingers now in my field of vision as he spoke softly against my ear.

“You were like this last time and I thought it was because of you falling into the pool but that's not it. Just tell me what this is.”

This whole time he had no idea?

I don’t wanna tell him.

I fought against my jaw to get the words out,“It’s ok, I’m ok”.

My cadence was sluggish and only proved to counter my point.

Riki’s voice was barely audible, “No it's not.”

We sat like that for so long I couldn’t count the time, somewhere in those hours I didn’t even notice when I began to cry. I was consoled by his mere presence, soothed by his words, and nurtured by his relentless compassion.

My senses didn’t come back for an entire day after. I never called my mom, I never went to class, Riki stayed by my side cradling my body, and never taking me to the hospital due to my pleas. The fatigue lingered and my muscles would twitch but at some point I could feel the heat of his skin flush against mine again.

“Riki,” I whispered.

He responded with a hum.

“Why are you so good to me?”

His fingertips ran through my hair and brushed against my shoulder.

“Because I care about you.”

I sat up to look him in the eye. I didn’t understand. It didn’t make sense.

“But we’ve only known each other for a week?

His eyes held no trace of disillusionment. He was eagerly willing to attach to someone, just like me. He had an open and forgiving heart. One day it’d be the death of him. I could tell.

His lips parted hesitantly, before succumbing to his truth.

“Still I know you, so I care about you, and you’re not okay.”

My head fell against his chest in defeat. He was only saying everything I wanted to hear but I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. I began to laugh. I began to lose myself. He was blind, I was even worse. What didn’t he get? The reality of me was pathetic.

“Yeah I’m not ok. I pop pills, I don’t care for my mom, I don’t go to my classes even though whining about getting an education, I’m stuck in this bum fuck town, hell I even snorted a fucking line of cocaine, I’m a mess I can barely keep my shit together, I don’t, I cling onto you, you shouldn’t give a shit about me. Why care about someone like me, Riki?”

I don’t know why I was getting aggressive with him for caring about me. I guess if it would end later once he realizes how pathetic I am it’d be better to wake him up now.

Riki’s hands played with my hair as my head remained against his chest, his words patient,

“Why would you do that to yourself?”

Oh.

I looked up at him, the tears in my eyes raw, coming down without restrain. His solemn gaze bore back into me.

What did I do any of it for?

I knew why I started but how I got here I don’t know.

“I don’t know.”

“Underneath your brain fog, you do.”

His hands lifted from my hair and back to cradle my face.

“Call your mom, tell her you’re ok, shower, eat, and explain all this to me.”

I nodded pushing myself up from his lap. On my way to the door I turned back around to Riki who was still on the bed.

“Riki, I don't wanna go home.”

He simply nodded at me and I accepted it.

[11MPH]

I’m alone in the kitchen, the phone rings for what feels like years before being picked up.

“Mama.”

I’m choked by the hand that isn’t there.

“Mama?”

She picked up but there's no words said, just shallow breaths on the other side of the line.

“Mama, I’m ok. I’m sorry mama.”

I know she doesn’t believe in “sorry.” Faith never told her to.

Perhaps it did. I didn’t read well. Instead let's accuse her heart, and ignore my obvious faults.

“I swear to God, if you ever come to my door it’ll be locked for you. I swear.”

“Mama, mama, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry means nothing, you wanna act like an adult? Go be one.”

“Mama.”

Her voice was rigid, cutting through my pleas sharp enough to pull blood through the phone.

“I have no daughter, no family, nothing.”

“But mama.”

The line buzzed. She had hung up. Hung up like I wasn’t gone for three days without a word now.

Are mothers usually forgiving? Is a mother the one you run to when you’re not okay? Did she even care?

Is the love for a child conditional?

I wanna know.

Truth is I already know. I know I’m an outlier. I know I mean less than nothing to my blood. And so my blood runs easily with no importance. If I was a better daughter would she hold onto me more - the same way I hold onto her?

How disgusting am I in her eyes?

Mama, why do you make me hold onto the care of strangers? Why can’t I have you like all the other kids?

If I died that night and Riki never nursed me back to health, would you even feel a thing?

My mind clung to desperation, I was driven to prayer from the emptiness my mother rooted in my heart, born from indifference, disappointment, and impatience. There has to be a saving grace. There has to be a hope. There has to be a dream like Riki says, and one that comes true.

I put my knees to the floor, hands to my chest, praying to God let these floorboards be my witness, the ceiling fan attest to the sight. Have the angels on my shoulders testify. Know that God sees all and God knows well, I’d be in a different place if every moment in life depended solely on my intentions. Let God know I fear him just as well as I know he is merciful. My soul is separate from my body and still both belong to God solely. Forgive me for my final sins. Forgive me God, for who I am, who I will be, and who I was. Help me God, to be forgiven by you, and see my sincerity that I know you see just as you do my weak mind.

I kneeled, forehead to the ground, until no pleas went without repetition, and no prayer went unsaid. Riki never walked in. Clinging to my skin to ground myself I realized there was no place for me to go and so I’d go to nowhere.

How many hours is Bonachita from Florida?

[12MPH]

Riki is an enigma. To every side of him you know there's one you don’t. The reason he's that way is hard to pinpoint. He never talked about himself much. He has money, drives an eccentric car, came from the West Coast, has dreams, but none of these explain his weak heart.

Fact is, no one clings quick like Riki does, it's just not normal. His family? I know he’s from Japan originally, but do you always have to blame family for the deficits in your character?

Riki isn’t normal but I understand him. He chases the fulfillment he never got a taste of. If he works hard he thinks something has to come from it, if he holds onto someone something has to come from it.

Riki, your problems are simple on the surface yet they strike a cord in you so complex you never quite understood how to sort through the feeling. As straightforward as a situation may be, what is within our minds never is. You’re not a book though, I can’t read inbetween the lines. I can’t fill in the gaps for unanswered questions.

Riki never had much to say about my mother’s fits, he never told me to confront if I had an addiction, he didn’t say the things you usually expect from someone.

Riki isn’t from the West Coast.

Riki cares but he isn’t honest.

Riki is lonely, because Riki doesn’t interact with people as expected.

Riki isn’t from Bonachita.

Riki lies to himself more than he’d ever lie to anyone else.

There's a blockage in his mind. There's a time in his life he can’t remember. There's things his brain can’t process.

That's why he responds with silence.

Or he just makes something up to have something to say..

Riki has a sweet soul. He’s just a little unstable.

But he holds it together really well, you wouldn’t even be able to tell. He doesn’t need to break down to show he’s reaching his limits. They’ve been passed but somehow his back is straight. He runs the race on unsteady feet. Still he's ahead of the rest.

Riki.

Riki, you lied.

Bonachita never existed.

[13MPH]

I had nothing to pack that day other than the schoolbag I carried around. I couldn’t go home to get any of my things and so I made due with what I had.

I decided I would just go. Even if I stuck around it wouldn’t make sense to burden Riki with my situation, even if he said he cared, he had no clue I got essentially disowned.

We never even actually talked about what he wanted to. I just took my things and left without a word, without him knowing.

It wasn’t rational, Riki was there with me through it all but in my clouded mind it was the only step I knew to take.

I decided I was going to visit Bonachita.

If I have money for valium I have money for a train ticket.

At the station I asked for a ticket to the closest city around Bonachita.

The man looked at me crazy so I thought maybe Bonachita wasn’t a known place but some kind of niche town.

It was my first time looking it up but nothing came up. Just links to ancestry.com and randoms with the very rare last name. No, directions, no map, no chance of misspelling, it simply didn’t exist. Bonachita wasn’t a city, a town, village, nothing.

But that would mean Riki lied?

I sat down on the station bench, holding onto cold cash.

Riki who seemed to be so upstanding, so stable, lied about where he came from?

What else did he lie about? Why even lie about something like that?

I stared off at the stone floors with endless questions running through my mind. It seemed so fast everything could just crumble. Even the things I held on to with a firm grip.

With my last pill of valium, random notebooks, a hairbrush, deodorant, only the clothes I had on, and loose bills in my hand, I booked a night at the nearby motel.

In the rough motel blankets there's no comfort, only the chilling cold that rises goosebumps to my skin from the blasting air conditioner. I closed my eyes and imagined the cold to be the sensation of Riki’s hands around me the day I was pulled out of the pool by him while flipping my pill bottle in my hands, the one lone pill making a dull sound as it rolled around. His memory was fond to me, I didn’t harbor any negative feelings towards him even when I found out he lied. It was almost comforting to know I wasn’t the only one losing it. Still the feeling of overwhelming isolation overtook any solace I could find. My tears that used to run easily were stifled, burning me from inside.

The weirdest thing of all.

I missed my mom.

When I was a kid, she’d put dove chocolates at the bottom of my cereal bowls. Whenever I’d unwrap them they’d have some message on the inside and then I’d pour the milk over and have breakfast. On Valentine's day she’d get me a gift. We used to go on walks around the middle school track on weekends and then get ice cream. I played the flute, and she’d come to concerts in elementary, even middle school. I miss that mom.

Towards the end of middle school her and my father fought over money a lot. The house would be tense for days when they wouldn’t talk or even be in the same room as one another. I found out my dad had a woman in North Carolina he took care of and took out large sums of money for. He was slowly planning to leave and never told my mom. My mom didn’t have anything except my dad. And me. She sacrificed a lot to start a family with him, thought there’d be an award for settling down along the line. Her own childhood was pretty bad, she brought a lot of her insecurities into her marriage. She didn’t know security. After dad left the fits she had toward him turned to me. It seemed all the leftover anger she had could only be let out at his daughter. The waste of flesh and blood that reflected no love. I was only a symbol of the tarnished sanctity of marriage. All the promises that went down the drain.

Initially her fits were small but they got worse over time. Verbal turned into physical. I don't know what I could've done but I always felt I should’ve done something.

She never realized I lost something too the day dad left.

I wonder what Riki lost to act how he does.

Does he think holding tight onto something means you won’t lose it?

Look at us, we're both foolish. Making me dream about the things I’ll never have, because he made it look so fulfilling, because he seemed so full of life.

I never felt as alive as I did when beside him. The speed of his car, the fragility of me fading away in his arms, his patience, his hope, his company, his touch.

Opening my eyes, I pressed open the bottle lid and swallowed the last valium pill.

It was too little dosage to do anything for me.

Now it was all over.

In the uncomfortable sheets I fell into a heavy sleep while running my hands down my arms in an attempt to mimic the way Riki once held me before.

That night I dreamt I got everything I wanted.

[14MPH]

The view from the motel window is desolate, roads and yellow grass. Only when I crack it open does the blur from the old window pane show the true colors. Every couple minutes cars drive up and down the street showing signs of life. My fingertip traced the thin film of dust on the edge of the windowsill, blowing it forward. I didn’t even know how many days of class I had missed at this point. I didn’t have the energy for school regardless. I settled into the motel as days passed and my money slowly ran low. I bought a new shirt and denim shorts. It was a white fitted tee, fresh in appearance compared to the room. I had thirty dollars left. It wasn’t enough for another night, not after the five I already spent. It’s weird I don’t have Riki’s phone number. Would I call him? Would he be in class right now? But it’d be weird to come to him just because I ran out of money.

He never judged me and when he found out my truth he stayed firm by my side. So I feel indebted to be there by him. It’s also that I never stopped wanting to be.

Is this an opportunity or an excuse?

Is his door open for me?

I can’t go back for the reason I left.

But I want to see him.

I lit a new cigarette and leaned my bare thighs against the wall. My head rested on the window and each drag was like a petting comfort to my lungs despite the reality. I recalled the beach, and how Riki’s lips wrapped around my cigarette once. I wondered how his lips would feel against me. Would it feel as good as his touch?

His sleepy lashes, rasped voice, wandering fingers, his cologne. I leaned deeper against the wall, sucking in deeply and hollowing my chest as if the cigarette was me inhaling him.

I have thirty dollars and a burning heat.

[15MPH]

On my sixth night I was back in the nearby train station, awake all night and confined to a bench. At one in the morning the station closed and I was left out to wander the sidewalks. Spring winds pushed me along and the cicadas chirped, filling the silence. It was scary to be out so late alone. I started thinking I could go to campus and spend the night pretending to study in the twenty-four hour section of the library and so I ordered a ride with half of the thirty dollars I had.

Street lights turned into blurs as the car sped up after I got in. The palm trees swayed, people walked in and out of diners or convenience stores, groups of teenagers walked the streets pushing along bicycles, neon open signs, everything was alive around me.

It was beautiful, this Florida Spring night.

So beautiful it seemed my feet walked me away from the library. I circled the lab building and went through the parking lots. In hills of grass I passed Old Main and ended up at the campus apartment complexes.

It was a garden style complex with exterior entrances. I could walk straight up to his door. I was at his door, with a hesitant hand and a pounding heart. It was two in the morning at this point. With a spur of impulsivity I knocked, twice.

[16MPH]

Truly, before now I never acknowledged how much taller Riki was. His pale face looked down at me, taut and hiding all expression once opening the door.

No words were exchanged between us.

His arms wrapped around me in a tight hug like it was the position we had always belonged in. I held onto him, his stature enveloping me entirely in the embrace. The faint sounds of his breath tickled my ear, all my senses opened up to him. We stumbled backwards into his apartment, my mind only able to perceive him. I didn’t even realize when he closed the door where we fell to the floor while his hand cradled the back of my head. Pulling back to look at one another I felt the need to consume him entirely. There was no chance I’d separate myself from my greatest desire in this moment where I held him so close. I’m under his trance.

I lifted my lips to his, causing warmth to shoot through my body. Riki kissed me back, only pulling me closer with desperation. His hands were a mess in my hair while my own gripped at his shirt and skin.I was surprised he kissed me back. We were never shy to touch one another but it was a line we didn’t cross until now. I pulled away to admire him in the thick silence only broken by our shallow breaths. His gaze on me was as if I was the most beautifully fragile thing he ever held. Riki softly brought his kiss back to my lips. We remained there on the floor for a moment, as if, in his mind, I would slip through his fingers and disappear into nothingness. Once I tugged on the waistband of his pants he lifted me up and, without ever parting his lips from mine for more than a second, pushed me towards the bedroom.

We fell backwards onto the bed, sheets strewn, his puffy, andalusite eyes meeting mine and reading through me. They were beautiful, like gems reflecting their own light onto me in the darkness of the night.

Riki’s hands brushed under the hem of my shirt, taking it off and letting it lay on the pillow above my head before kissing down my collarbone while unbuttoning my shorts to pull down the zipper. My own eager hands fumbled to remove his clothes, leaving only undergarments and skin against skin in an intoxicating heat. It was all in an overwhelming need we both felt to be closer.

He really looked like a man, the veins showing in his neck and arms, the hollow definition of his abs. I trailed my fingers up his abdomen until my hand fell flat under the pressure of his body coming down against mine, his nose nuzzled in my neck where he spoke the first words of the night.

“Why’d you leave?”

I pulled his face back by his hair that was now dyed back to a natural shade of black, something he must’ve done in the days I was gone. He was stubborn but eventually he faced me again.

I could only murmur apologies, no reasons.

His tears fell onto my own cheeks. The shimmer of his somber eyes laid soft kisses on my soul, my body nurtured by his touch. Every part of me was filled with the intense pleasure of being reunited. The feeling sent shivers down my spine despite the overwhelming heat within and burning through my skin.

The soft whine from his throat led me to cling tighter to his skin.

He bit mine, kissed and bit, nibbled and sucked. I was raw and numb with bliss.

His hand ran down my throat, past my sensitive chest, and to the bottom of my stomach where his fingertips toyed with the line of my underwear, dipping into the slick.

Working me up before going down on me, he placed his lips around my swollen clit and let out a deep moan. I was breathless at the new sensation.

He explored my body with a gentleness, oscillating between devotion and need that drove me to the edge. For a time my body lay there experiencing all the possibilities of his hands, lips, and tongue. There seemed to be not a single corner of my skin missed by the fervent affection.

I tugged on his hair until I called out his name and he dragged his body up, his arousal bumping against me.

My meek voice, torn with desire, begged for him.

I belong here in his arms

I exist between his legs

My heartbeat is fast but my mind is calm. Give me the sweet release.

I spread my arms open to completely be consumed by him inside me.

Adore me.

Cherish me.

Fill me.

In the late morning we woke up, his sleepy head resting on my chest. The sunlight slipped through the gaps in the curtain and highlighted the moles under his eyes to the one on his chin. I shook him awake and asked if he had class. He groggily responded no, but I knew he did. Shoving him to wake Riki finally got up and pulled on a random pair of pants to email his professors. I was still naked and pulled the covers over me, watching as he moved around the room. He threw a towel at me and told me to take a shower.��

After we both had showered, Riki made a simple breakfast of fried eggs and toast. At the table I sat with my knees up against my chest, clad in only a borrowed oversized tee and shorts. I nibbled at the toast while Riki stood behind me and combed through my damp hair. Bending my neck back I interrupted his movements and looked up at him.

“You know why I left.”

He only moved his eyebrows to answer. Incapable of finishing my sentence while maintaining eye contact I looked down at the runny yolk of my egg.

“I was gonna go to Bonachita.”

Riki stopped brushing my hair.

“And”, he questioned.

“It doesn’t exist.”

He didn’t move an inch.

“Why’d you lie?”

“To give you an answer.”

“What do you mean?”

“There's some things, some months, that when I think back to, there's a blockage in my mind.”

His voice fell silent before he went back to combing through my hair and spoke up again.

“When I think about life before college my memories lead nowhere. I remember some of my childhood in Japan, I remember moving around alot after. I don’t remember any city. When I think about it a little too long I get uneasy, my head hurts, and I just don’t visit the memories again.

I couldn’t just say all that back then.”

I hummed to myself before answering.

“So you don’t even remember a thing.”

“Barely.”

“Have you ever gone to a doctor?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t wanna,” he mumbled.

I didn’t push him any farther with questions and asked him to eat with me. Riki obliged and broke into the yolk of his own egg with the no longer warm slice of toast.

“Do you still take pills?”

Shocked at the sudden questions, my eyes widened.

Coughing slightly I spoke,

“Not really, I ran out.”

Riki’s jaw flexed.

“You wouldn’t take them again though, right?”

I clicked my tongue in thought. There wasn’t a time since I started where I was sober for long. I had no idea what the withdrawal would be like, it’d be unwise to go cold turkey just as it’d be to continue.

I sat up on my knees and leaned in.

“I can’t go cold turkey, I’m gonna start getting withdrawal symptoms soon.”

Riki sighed deeply, “Why’d you ever start.”

“It doesn’t matter, I'll just wean off.”

“Ok ok, have you been home?”

I couldn’t help but laugh, it wasn’t that I found the question funny but I found the reality to come out like a sick joke.

“I got kicked out.”

“Last night?”

“No, like basically a week ago now.”

He ran his hands over his face, the truth of everything at once must’ve been too much to come up with a proper response.

He picked up the plates of our breakfast and took them to the kitchen sink, silently washing the dishes. I pushed my chair in to come up behind him and leaned my head on his shoulder.

“You know-”

Riki’s voice came out faint.

“You said you dreamt of dying in Bonachita.” The sponge made slow circles over the pan. I watched the water spiral down the drain.

“Mhm.”

“Did you want to die?”

I hate these kinds of questions.

“I wasn't thinking about death, I just had nowhere to go.”

“I was here.”

I kept my mouth shut.

Riki turned to face me, a slight aching in his eye.

“You’ll stay here for now with me though right?”

I kissed the tip of his nose and the mole on his chin lightly, promising that I’d stay, and not because I had nowhere else to go, but because this is where I longed to be. It would only be as long as he was here.

[17MPH]

May is approaching, the days only get hotter, longer, and in two weeks it’ll be time for finals. Kids whine and fuss in the halls of the science and technology building about their professors, the increasingly hard exams, or lack of sleep they’ve gotten. I spend weekends turning in coursework I already know won’t save me. I’ve long since let this semester go. Riki doesn’t like me going to parties, so I can’t get valium that way. I never cared for them much anyway. More time to study.. Instead I take smaller doses of valium each week that I buy off my friend. What I still do is smoke, but I do it outside the apartment.

One night, I came back into the apartment after a smoke. Riki crawled onto the bed and asked if on the first day of summer we could go to the beach.

I told him we can go wherever he’d like, but what made him want to go?

He claimed to have always liked the beach, he’s never been without it for long.

After two weeks I sat down for my matrices and modern physics exams, packed a bag, and drove up to Canaveral National Seashore about an hour and a half away with Riki. It's a beach with miles of untouched coastline, just white sands and barely a soul.

Our shoes left imprints on the long walk before Riki decided to stop by the shore. I held my sandals in my hands and let the water bump against my bare ankles. Riki stood rather than sitting. Looking at the expanse of water it seemed endless. If you get a boat and keep going eastward in the direction the ocean takes you, you’ll cross the Atlantic and possibly end up in the Moroccan Sahara. A stark contrast from where we sit now. The world is so pretty when you leave the confines of a town.

I looked up at Riki above me, but the sun shone down so hard his face became a blur of striking white.

I asked him to get in the water with me.

Both of us weren’t wearing appropriate clothes, still I ran into the water without waiting for his response, splashing around like a child and soaking the fabric of my short dress. It now stuck to me like a glove and revealed the outline of everything beneath. Riki laughed at me until I pulled him in. His own denim jeans, too hot for a summer like this, and cotton tee became heavy with saltwater.

We played in water for hours, jumping waves and pushing one another down. Only when the sun began to set did we swim back towards the shore.

With wet hair, drenched clothing, and arms intertwined we walked back to his car.

Our room was small—four walls, a bed, a closet, bathroom and a microwave. It was the best we could find at the last minute while being a close enough drive to the beach. That night on our way back I told Riki I wanted to get drunk, I’d never had alcohol before. I still had the fake ID from when I’d party with my campus friends. We’d go to Wawa before heading back to one of their dorms, but I never drank it. It was off putting since the bottles my mother would throw were often the beer she drank.

Tonight I’d pretend it never was.

We poured shots of liquor for one another throughout the night in dixie cups. At first a slight anxiety gnawed at me as I took sips. It felt like a rebellion against the firm boundary I had once set. If I wanted to live without carrying the baggage of all that had happened perhaps this was a step I could take. Each shot diluted my unease into a weightless glee. Every touch felt heightened, like a delirium of mind and body. I’m the only one new to this but Riki is just as gone leaving no space to be awkward. Laughing about nothing I straddled Riki on top of the bed, the cheap frame creaking with each movement. Still in our beach clothes, damp like our skin and hair, I lit a cigarette, the flame illuminating the dimness for the briefest second. Beneath me, Riki hooked his fingers under the straps of my dress, tugging them down with slow, deliberate movement. I leaned down, resting my chest on his collarbones, to pour the full cup in my right hand into his open mouth, while taking a drag of my cigarette with my left. His throat moved with each weak attempt to swallow. Most of the liquor dribbled down his chin and neck like a honeyed waterfall. I licked the stickiness from the contour of his adams apple to his full lips.

He kissed forward, the sweetly intoxicating flavor of him blending onto my tongue.

Throughout the night my phone rang, yet the sound became white noise while we continued drinking and kissing.

I feel the truth of my youth in his arms. If only my eyes could capture this moment in a polaroid and frame it as the scene that defines my young adult years and ignore everything else. All my poor decisions pour into one mass of pleasure and pain. The pleasure found in Riki can tune everything else out. I like the pink blush of his drunken cheeks. I like the way he traces my skin. Killing me with beauty, slowly, softly, sweetly. God, he is beautiful, sharp and angelic all at once. He slurs his words, saying I look pretty from this view. So I put a show on of slipping my underwear down my thighs before sitting back down onto the cold metal of his belt. Each divot in the detailing rubbed against my bottom uncomfortably. At my slight noise from pain Riki slid his hands beneath me to unbuckle his belt. The swift sounds of unclasping metal and falling leather echoed crisply. I tugged at the waistband of his heavy denim jeans, asking him if he felt hot. His hips lifted beneath me slightly, rubbing against my bare skin.

“Won’t you take it off for me?” His tone was boyish and seductive at once.

I obliged, pulling the zipper, making Riki smile devilishly, the messy bangs on his forehead shadowing his blackened eyes. His bulge was prominent against the seams of his boxers. The cigarette I held between my teeth had to be placed elsewhere so I flipped it around to fit lazily between Riki’s plush lips, the perfect adornment. I could only smile at the sight of him a mess beneath me before pulling down his boxers to reveal the reddened tip of his frustrated cock. Holding the base in my hand I licked a stripe upwards with a lack of experience nor the coordination I’d have sober. The taste was unfamiliar, almost nothing, but slightly salty. Once I took him in it was suffocating. Breathing through my nose, the deeper he hit my throat the more difficult it became. The smell of my own saliva mixed with the musk. I began to gag but Riki only pushed my head down further as he moaned mellifluously. The sound itself left an ache in my core, I couldn’t help but be turned on further. When his breaths stuttered I pulled off, leaving him leaking and close to coming. His whines filled my ears like music. Taking the cigarette back from him, almost at its end I inhaled and positioned myself to sit back on him, flush against the heat of his groin slick with my saliva and his own precum. I could only tease him a moment longer before my own patience ran thin.

With everything off but my dress, I lifted to let him in. Once Riki bottomed out, pleasure shot through me like waves in the drunk haze. I shoved his shirt as high as possible to flick the ash of my dwindling cigarette onto his nipples, causing him to let out his own moans louder than before, mixing with mine.

The smell of sex filled the air of the tiny space, Riki’s eyes rolled back as he climaxed. Pulling out after coming down his slender fingers rubbed against my entrance before slipping in and working in and out against my inner walls, repeatedly hitting the most pleasurable spot as he easily became accustomed to my body. His movements became messier as he ran out of energy, yet I found myself chasing his fingers. I started to feel sick with desire. I was left panting, the pathetic butt of the cigarette extinguishing on Riki’s skin as I fell over onto him. In that same position I fell asleep, cushioned by his firm body. While my mind faded into slumber I could vaguely make out Riki’s mumbling.

“Is this enough for you to stay?”

Little does he know we’re bound by an unbreakable string of fate.

[18MPH]

The hangover is like a freight train running back and forth on tracks made of my neurons. God, it hurts. With an aching body I reached over to the floor to pick up my phone. I had ten missed calls, two messages, all from my dad. Immediately my heart sank, I hadn't talked to my dad in over two months. He says hi, I say hello, he makes me say hi to his wife, he hangs up, I cry. That's how it usually goes.

His first message was “Why don’t you pick up?”

the second read, “Your mom texted me.”

I knew he was going to say something I didn’t want to hear.

Right when I was going to turn off my phone the screen lit up with a call from him.

I stared at the vibrating screen causing Riki to turn in his sleep and stare at me quietly with an expression devoid of readable emotion.

My head throbbed, I just wanted to curl up in my sheets and ignore everything. Still, I accepted the call to be greeted by a familiarly distant voice.

“Why didn’t you pick up before?”

What excuse would ever satisfy a man like this.

“I was asleep, it’s summer break.”

“Well, your mom talked to me, she said you haven’t come home.”

“Well she kicked me out.”

“She told me about how you’ve been acting out, but just because she says things when she's angry doesn’t mean its true.”

“....” “She wants you to come live with me.”

“In Carolina?”

“Where have you been staying anyway?”

I lied straight through my teeth.

“Hotels, motels.”

“With what money?”

“I worked in the summers, you know?”

“Whatever, I’m busy so I’ll pick you up next week.”

He hung up like that, not asking me any more questions. Whether I was ok didn’t seem to matter, the nuisance just needed to be handled.

I fell back onto the bed, the call only worsening my headache.

“You’re gonna leave?” Riki murmured.

I could only shrug. If my dads wife didn’t want me at the house, no way in hell he’d take me in. I was an adult he wasn’t obliged to. But I guess a daughter on the streets looks bad.

It wasn’t like I could live with Riki forever anyway. Everything comes to an end eventually.

“Let's stay another night.” His eyes held an emotion I hadn’t yet seen him express before.

I felt his fingers snake around my wrist in a firm embrace.

“Let’s stay another night.”

Who am I to say no to a face like that, especially when I never wanted to leave in the first place.

Riki started to shake my wrist back and forth like a child, his voice bordering whiny.

“I’ll take you for a drive again, I promise.”

Does he not see he can pull the strings on my back as he likes. Isn’t that a pathetic reality. I don’t care. His will is mine.

“Ok, let's stay another night.”

His grip finally relaxed, his face still half pressed against the pillow. He was speaking with the mind of someone only halfway awake. Still as we sat there his eyes remained trained on me.

“Riki, what are you thinking?”

“About what you’re thinking.”

Internally I sighed,

“I think we should take a bath.”

In response Riki stood up and trudged to the bathroom, leaving the door open, letting me watch him fill the bathtub.

While the water loudly pattered against the enamel Riki lifted me up out of bed, letting the soiled dress fully slip down my body.

The warmth even in the summer was soothing to my hungover body. I sat on my legs facing Riki who was still outside the tub, lathering shampoo between his hands to wash my hair with. The massage on my scalp worked away the tension slowly. Watching his focused expression I was even more at ease.

“Tell me something.”

His eyes shifted onto mine.

“Like what?”

“Everything I don’t know.”

“I got a new piercing.” I leaned in, bumping against the edge of the bath to look at his ears.

“Which? I can’t tell which is new.”

“I got a double helix, it used to only be one.”

He pushed his hair back with the knuckles of his hand to show the reddened cartilage of his right ear.

“When’d you get it, it must be a pain to heal”

“About like three to four weeks ago.”

That was when I was at the motel.

“You changed a lot in a short time.”

Riki tilted his chin up, shaking the suds in my hair

“What do you mean?”

“Well you used to be blond.”

“Did you like the blond?”

“I liked it all. But why’d you go back to black?”

“I wanted to do something to my appearance.”

I faintly touched the stray strands of his hair with my wet hands.

“In a month you’ll be a whole nother person.”

Riki let out a childish laugh, his genuine smile breaking through. Yet a part of me wasn’t joking.

“What if I can’t recognize you/”

“I’ll always be the same though.”

I looked down at the curve of his shoulders while he spoke.

“I’ll walk the same, speak the same, fidget the same, at the core all the same.”

His hands left my scalp and ran over the scar tissue of the old cut I got on my collarbone so long ago.

I fell against his shoulder, damping him with shampoo and water.

My blond angel is a black haired boy.

[19MPH]

The sun is strong in the evening but rain is forecasted.

In the daytime there are more people coming to the beach than in the past day. A lot of fishers, a good amount of families. The heat in the sand burns the soles of my feet without shoes, so Riki offers to take a drive instead. The loud and familiar engine of Riki’s mustang was like a healing purr as it came to life. As we coast through the first few streets, marshes blur into sleepy houses, and eventually, we’re on real roads. I ask Riki how fast his car can go. He says 157 miles per hour. I ask him where he can go at that speed.

“Basically nowhere.”

When we end up on a rural road I ask him to try it, go a little faster.

As soon as he presses his foot on the accelerator the car jumps from forty to eighty. I feel the speed push me against the car seat, and he only goes faster, shifting gears and teetering around 100 to 120. The exhaust begins to get louder, wind thrashes making my vision turn into a blur of melting landscapes and stray hair.

Riki’s hands stay firm on the wheel. My instinct is to scream, not from fear — from joy. It’s like a roller coaster with no track. At 140, we’re flirting with death.

I found myself thinking this would be a beautiful way to die.

Every twitch of the wheel is a whisper between life and disaster. Down the slightest hills, the car surges faster. But Riki holds it steady. When he finally brakes, it’s smooth — a gradual pull, a careful downshift.. By the time we stop, my heart could fly straight out of my chest. The adrenaline is unbearable, delicious, and then it all spills over. All the adrenaline went to my head and laughter burst through both our lungs at the crudely selfish stunt we pulled.

Riki circles back to the seashore and we walk down onto the coastline, clouded by the soon coming rains.

Times like this we don’t exchange many words. We simply bathe in the moment. Soft winds, grey skies, and ocean scape. His hair is much more tousled than any other day, I stare at it as I watch the back of his head with each step.

Rain begins to slowly pour onto our shoulders, a pitter patter every other minute. At the same moment my phone buzzes from my pocket, the vibration distant. Riki looks back at me but I ignore whatever the call is and continue to look ahead at him. Soon he stops in his tracks and drops to sit on the sand. I look down at him in confusion. He tells me he has no pictures of me. I say I don’t like pictures. He says he wants something to remember me by. I say I’m right here.

Looking like teenage dreams in the grains of white sand his eyes reflected all of my own fears. And all my compassion.

“Are you not leaving?”

Why doesn’t he look at me as if I’m disgusting? It'll make this easier.

I still stand looking down at him.

“So what if I go to Carolina?”

“You won’t go to college here anymore will you.”

“I was going to take a gap year regardless.”

“But when would I see you again?”

I remained quiet.

“So you don’t care if we don’t see eachother again?”

“Of course I do.” I was turning pathetic, my voice cracked.

Riki’s yearning eyes looked up at me, a million desires, a thousand questions, and not a single resolve given.

“You could just stay with me.”

“You know that's not possible.”

“Why not?”

I raked my hands through my hair in frustration.

“I can’t leech off of you like that.”

His own voice became strained,

“But you're not. I want you to stay with me. How is that leeching?”

A scoff came from his throat.

“What's the point of living with someone who doesn’t care about you when you could live with someone who does?”

“Why do you care about me anyway?”

Distress shot over his expression for a mere second. I continued to say all the wrong words.

“Because you didn’t need to know everything about me to understand me. Because I’m not all that I went through, I’m my character and you came back even after you found out the truth because of that. Didn’t you?”

I fell to my knees, only inches away from Riki and wrapped my arms tight around the broadness of his shoulders, my face directed towards all that was behind him.

“I’m gonna pack my bag, get in his car, go to North Carolina, and I’ll miss you.”

“No.” His voice was annealed glass.

My teardrops watered the slope of his back, blending in with the light rainfall.

His hands clung onto me as if he’d have no will to live otherwise.

“Just tell me what you want, you can have it. If you want me you can have me. If you have a dream I’ll fulfill it. What do you really want?”His tone shifted between tenderness and possessiveness.

I thought the wise thing to do was rely on a parent instead of someone my age, equally as unstable. I thought I’d go with my dad and live fine with the memories of him. What if he didn’t always want me next to him? Then where would I go if I had turned down my dad’s offer. How do I know his eyes will always look at me with such a devoted expression? How do I know he’s entirely mine?

“I want you to take me to Bonachita.”

[157MPH]

He watches me get ready in the mirror.

My hair is neat, my dress is short, and my lashes curled. Even with less makeup than I used to wear, I feel pretty.

Every curtain is open, all windows let in the cool morning breeze. Dew is clinging on to each blade of grass and slipping from low hanging leaves due to last night's rain. Everything catches light but there's a film of hazy fog. Nature is lush and alive.

When I get up, so does Riki. There's coffee on the table, this is his apartment. He lives here even in the summer because it doesn’t belong to the university. Yet these apartments are majority owned by students and only a couple minutes from campus so it feels like the semester never ended. We came back last night. On the drive back we could catch glimpses of the launchpads. On one side was the Atlantic and the other the Indian River. The salty smell of ocean water permeated through the air, a nostalgic scent. We went south down the A1A. Light filtered through the spanish mosses and oaks of Titusville, Melbourne, and Sebastian. Each town was distinct despite being so close. When we reached home we immediately fell asleep.

Now I’m sipping on bitter coffee. I can’t tell if I like the taste or not but I continue to drink. Riki tells me to listen to the birds chirping outside. It’s the perfect song to play in the background of this morning. I say it reminds me of when I was kid, the last days of school having breakfast at the round wooden table in front of the window that let in the sounds of nature, open for the first time in months because of the incoming summer. He says when he was young he dreamt of being a race car driver. He watched Trans-Am, Formula 1, NASCAR, all of it. And he dreamt, that’s not a lie.

I asked him if he ever tried. He said it takes a lot of training that he never got close to doing. So he took that dream and polished it into mechanical engineering. I admire him. I tell him so.

Riki’s not good at taking compliments, he smiles like a fool, like an angel. His boxy smile showing his teeth.

In another life maybe he drives around a track, fast and fulfilled. If only he could have everything he wanted and I could be the one who gives it to him. I keep that to myself. Instead I attempt to light a cigarette but I can’t find my lighter. Riki gets one from the kitchen before standing in front of me, flicking the flame to life and setting both my lungs and heart afire. I’d rather kiss him than smoke. I wrap an arm around the nape of his neck and bring him down to me. My cigarette is looming over the floor in my other hand, accumulating ash. I kiss against his pouty lips into bliss. The taste of coffee lingers on both of our tongues. The bitterness imitates the sweet taste of love. I want to believe that this is a form of love crafted especially for people like us. Even if I can’t have something pure and sweet, I’m allowed at least the bitterness that faintly mimics its taste. I ask Riki what he wants most at this moment. He leaves the faintest kiss on my lips before saying

“Nothing.”

I see all my suppressed dreams from the past years reflect in his eyes, and I let them pass on.

The coffee pot half full remains and we get into his car, the leather of the seats is hot from drowning in sunlight. I feel it against my skin, cauterizing already healed wounds. The windows are down, we drive slowly throughout town as the wind cools us down. At one point we nearly pass my mom’s house but narrowly get on a different avenue. There's kids on the street playing ball, running around, and falling. There was a time when we were that age. Riki hums while taking a turn and for a second I wonder what he was like as a child. His smile must’ve been the same back then. There are some things that just don’t change even when everything else does. His eyes are on the road and my eyes are on his face. The streets are now lined with trees rather than houses. There’s a bridge arching above the road a couple miles away. It’s made of limestone, the kind of bridge people cross over, but today its empty.

Riki is no longer looking at the road, his gaze is solely on me. He asks if I still want to go to Bonachita.

The fact is I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to go to my dad’s house. But I know I can’t keep running. In all honesty, I absolutely adore Riki. But things catch up. The feet are fast but reality is quicker. To never move forward is to die and to go on is to endure the greatest pain yet. I feel absolutely terrible.

So I bundle all my joys and give it an address.

Bonachita.

Riki has glossy eyes at my nod of confirmation. I see in my peripheral his foot go against the accelerator harshly, and he shifts gears.

Forty, fifty, ninety, a hundred,

one-fifty-seven.

I can’t process a thing as the bridge becomes imminently closer.

Yet I know, in a world that forsakes forgiveness, where the mistakes you make are the most defining moments, he cherished me as if I wasn’t made less than by all I’ve done.

I really like to be human in the eyes of another.

Maybe in another life, this is his race car, and Riki just got first place.

Everything jerked sideways. Only the stone of the bridge filled my sight sporadically alongside the profile of Riki’s face. A loud crunch of metal echoed with the shattering of glass. I feel the seatbelt holding me back as my chest tightens. We both lurched forward, adrenaline resounding throughout my entire body. This sound is the cadence of death. My body is weightless, I flow with the pressure. There's no way to prepare for how reality warps.

This final blow lands us in the infinite peace of Bonachita. My pretty, curated, illusion.

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aza-writes · 1 day ago

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hi love!! hope you’re doing well!!

i was wondering if i could request no voldemort au, wolfstar!daughter reader where her parents and harry’s parents have been making jokes about her and harry dating, and since then they have seen her slowly fade and kind of just drifting away for a few months, and when her parents, lily, and james talk to her about it she just tells them she likes girls and was really scared of telling them because she felt she was disappointing them bcs she wouldn’t date harry.

thankss, feel free to make any changes on the plot or not doing it if you don’t feel comfortable 🤍🤍

Hey! Sorry this took so long but I've started applying to grad school😭.... This has been a MUCH needed stress relief

Now, without further ado...

The "Father of the Year" Upset

Parents!wolfstar x daughter!reader

Requested: Yes!

Summary: see request!

Warnings: homophobia? Kinda, but not really. Implied Darry

A/N: Omg thank you for the request! I’m so excited! Second request!! If you want more like this, please read my Little Wolf and Little Star series. It twin!reader(s) x dads!wolfstar. Selene is a lesbian icon in that series, and both she and her sister are hopeless romantics!

Y/n was adopted with a built-in best friend… or that’s what she believed.

Harry was great in many ways: a great Quidditch player, great at transfigurations, a great listener like his mum, and an even better talker (like his dad).

And that’s the issue. Harry was great… so why couldn’t y/n force herself to fall in love with him? Worse, why can’t she just admit it?

Actually… those are stupid questions. The answers are simple.

Why can’t y/n fall in love with Harry? Easy, he was a boy. Plain and simple.

Why can’t she admit it to not only herself but to her very gay dads? Because she would be forced to end her da’s, Sirius, and his honorary brother/best friend, Uncle Prongs, dream they’ve shared since they found out they would have kids the same age.

Y/n was adopted at the age of 18 months, just one week before Harry turned 2, and ever since then, James and Sirius have had a joke that they were gonna make sure their kids fall in love.

Slowly but surely, it became more than a joke.

It became a dream, a hope, a desire for their children to fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after. And since y/n is a pathological people pleaser (especially to her dads), there was no way in hell she was going to ruin that dream.

“Caridad, you’re gonna bite a hole through that lip if you keep chewing on it like that.” Remus lightly teases as he taps his cane on y/n’s shin, a subtle way to point out that it was bouncing out of control.

“Sorry…” Although y/n’s leg quit bouncing, their ankle started shaking.

Remus knew his daughter like the back of his hand. He could read her face easier than Sirius’s, and his husband wears his emotions on his sleeve.

“Sorry for what? Being uncomfortable?” His teasing tone is more sincere yet still light to avoid scaring her off. “Come on, dove, what’s on your mind? Maybe your da or I can help.”

“Help with what? You know what, it doesn’t matter. I’m great with advice.” Sirius plops down on the couch next to Remus, his arm instinctively lying on his partner’s shoulder.

“Miss is doing the leg bounce again.”

“Ah, so anxiety. School? Friends? Harry?”

Harry.

But not in the way he was expecting.

“Oh? So it is Harry? That’s another point for Da being correct and the best parent in this house. Try to keep up, dear moons. You’re falling behind in the “Father of the Year” contest.”

His chipper mood just makes y/n feel worse, causing her to sink into her seat, which immediately alerts her dad that the issue isn’t something that will be worked out with ease.

“Caridad, what’s wrong?” Remus sits up, his cane placed firmly on the ground as if he’s ready to jump and solve whatever was worrying his daughter. “You can tell us anything.”

Y/n knows she shouldn’t feel guilty. She shouldn’t feel shame. Hell, she’s been going to pride events since she was adopted. They would accept her; she knows it… but the look on her da’s face.

His silly little dream, crushed.

“I’m sorry.” Y/n squeaked out, barely even a whisper.

“W-what?” The color from their faces drained, and only the worst-case scenarios were running through the couple’s minds.

“I-I’m sorry.” She said a bit louder, her eyes filling with tears. “I really tried.”

“W-what’s wrong? What happened? You tried what?” Sirius was sitting just as straight as Moony, ready to do anything for his daughter. “Did someone hurt you?”

“No! No. I-I’m fine.” Y/n frantically reassured, their panic only increasing hers.

That small sentence calmed them both, but only a bit. Remus kept his cane firmly planted while Sirius kept a secure hand on Remus’s knee.

“Tried what then? Darling, please, we want to help you.” Sirius’s gaze was filled with worry, but also love. He hated seeing his daughter upset, and he would do anything to take that pain from her.

“I’m… I’m not into Harry…” That was the understatement of the year, but it was all she could manage to get out. Why can’t she just bite the bullet?

“Oh, thank Merlin.” Remus slumped into his seat. “Caridad, I thought the worst of the worst.”

“What? That’s what’s bothering you? Star, that was just a joke, teasing. James and I have caused you this much anxiety?” Guilt was written all over his face. The new knowledge of the amount of anxiety he caused his daughter was causing a knot to form in his stomach.

“It’s not just that…”

The couple resumes their tense, straight position. Cane and doc martins firmly planted on the ground.

“I… I don’t like any guy…”

Silence. The tension was somehow rising and dropping at the same time. Remus’s eyebrows hit his hairline before he relaxed completely.

Sirius, on the other hand, only one eyebrow was raised.

“Not one fella? Ow!” He flinches at a light thwack on the shin from Remus’s cane. “What? What did I say wrong?”

“You’re clueless… don’t be a twp.” Remus grumbles.

“What? How? Our daughter doesn’t… oh.”

And before y/n could register what she was saying, the sentence “Yeah… I fancy girls…” was already out of her mouth.

“Oh… fuck I’m so stupid.”

“Sirius!-”

“How did I not notice!? Oh I’m the worst. That’s it. Congratulations Moony, you’re father of the year on account of how I’m dumber than a cat.”

“Isn’t the phrase ‘dog’?” Y/n raises an eyebrow, no doubt a trait she picked up from the dramatic da.

“Watch it, Star.” Sirius feaux scolds.

“Sirius, calm down.” Remus rolls his eyes as Sirius dramatically falls onto the couch before sitting up.

“Calm? We’re two gay men and I didn’t notice how my own daughter is gay! Star, I’m so sorry I’m so stupid. You deserve a better da.”

Y/n knew he was being dramatic just to make her laugh, and damn it was working.

Sirius ends the theatrics with a small smile grows on his face hearing his daughter’s laugh.

“I truly am sorry, Star. I shouldn’t have gone that far with the joke.”

“It’s alright, I don’t know why I was so nervous…”

“Same reason I was nervous to come out in my friend group even though your pops was already out for over a year. Coming out is scary. You’re being vulnerable.” Sirius moves to kiss his daughter’s head. “But know we love you no matter who you fancy.”

Y/n didn’t hesitate to hug her da. Her arms wrapped around his torso tight and his arms were quick to reciprocate. The hug was completed when Remus joined in.

“We love you, caridad.” He kisses the top of her head. “More than the moon and stars.”

“Love you both too.” Y/n’s voice was muffled due to the group hug.

“Good, now, I have a phone call to make.” Sirius wiggles out of the hug to go to the landline.

“Huh? To who?” Y/n follows her da to the phone.

“I have to inform my culprit that all jokes about the future Potter-Lupin wedding must cease.”

The phone only rang twice before a chipper “Yello” carried out of the speaker phone.

“James.”

“Yeah?”

“Our dream is officially not an option. It was a fun-”

“How the hell do you know already?”

“What? How do you know?”

“Harry just told me.”

“Harry told you y/n is gay?”

“What? No! Harry told me he is dating a blonde- wait! Y/n is gay?”

“Yeah… how did I not notice? She’s basically a-”

“Mini Marlene!”

Yeah, that made it official. The father of the year award was a tie.

A/N: I thought I had this scheduled for a few Fridays ago… I forgot to hit the save button. Oops.

#sirius black #marauders as parents #maraders era #maraders fanfic #sirius and remus #remus and sirius #remus loves sirius #remus x sirius #wolfstar daughter #dad wolfstar #parent wolfstar #wolfstar as parents #wolfstar #wolfstar x reader #marauders as dads #sirius black x reader #marauders #sirius being sirius #remus lupin

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void-tiger · 9 months ago

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…wHY do y’all feel the need to mention where someone’s at when they’re not around! Sure I have a crush on that idiot but I’m never going to admit to it, and actively avoid bringing them up myself ‘cause it’d feel like a freudian slip and it’s not my business anyway.

How often do I even come up in y’all’s home conversation. Is it out of pity? Or is this idiot just as insufferable as I am to my friends who are WELL AWAY from this and therefore Safe to repeatedly try spring-cleaning my demiromantic acengst with.

Are y’all pressuring them about me, too, or has that FINALLY, finally eased off.

(And what value can I possibly have, anyway. I’m unemployed and just shy of a shutin from severe anxiety/moderate depression and cptsd, adhd, and a smorgasbord of muscular-skeletal issues that just keep creeping up and staying and moving the goalpost to even TRY getting a job. The idiot has other friends when they have time to spend on them. All I am is stubborn enough to stick around and wait if I’m not actively being chased off IF the other party seems to really want that connection.)

#tiger’s roar #i am pathetic #and it’s hard to feel Good about being moved out #when I CAN’T work/keep a job. and how many credits I have to take to keep my scholarship makes trying to get a part time job Impossible Too #I’m doing this on student debt #and my parents won’t just Stop calling me spoiled apparently out of envy #that they’re able to spot my deposits and rent for the 2 months before reimbursement #and cover getting things like cooking utensils and used furniture and cleaning supplies #even though 2/3rds of what I have I either bought/kept myself OR are things they don’t want anymore #if anything. it should be a victory that they CAN provide this for me #where their parents’ couldn’t or wouldn’t #sure I got to move out whereas they immediately married ‘cause a kid was in the oven and the judgement that came with that #but they also weren’t chronically ill to the point of disability #and the chances of me marrying? almost zero. because I’m asexual and kiss repulsed and demiromantic #…sure I’m pretty sure my crush likes me back. and despite what happened last year their family really seems to like me #but even if they felt they did have the time and energy to just. ask me out? or hang out like we both seem to want?#I don’t think I’d ever accept that I wouldn’t just. drag them down with my stupid health #and even WORSE: make them feel sensually neglected ‘cause I can’t even think about kissing without basically gaslighting myself.#…friends can be supportive and physically intimate with hugs and whatnot #but me as a girlfriend? HA. I can’t give someone ‘enough’ without making myself feel utterly awful #and yeah. there’s a grief with that.#I’ll…try to let it be someone else’s Choice. not make someone else’s decisions for them #…but.

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goblins-and-gloves · 9 months ago

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Angry at parents hour!

Undiagnosed autistic fuckers are delulu.

#headline descriptor plus rant in tags #oh yeah sure sibling could have #sat down and studied for his finals #if only he wanted to #bitch you sent him to a school that did not have a special education program #you have been told he has learning difficulties #you didn’t get him diagnosed #you failed at providing him adequate help and tutoring #and yes that was on you because you sent him to a school that wouldn’t do that proactively #on purpose #so they wouldn’t bother you #oh but he is so smart and holds enceclapidic knowledge of d&d and Pokémon in his mind #that doesn’t translate to studying skills and ability to write out his thoughts and you know it #fuck you some things are your fault #and your responsibility as a parent #and now you couldn’t adequately provide education support to your youngest child for three years in a row #even though it’s your fourth autistic kid #you knew the signs damn well #and don’t get me started on dad #he just straight up doesn’t contribute anything to the conversation unless it’s about something that interesting to him #I don’t think you get to do that as a parent?#in the 21 century at least #why the fuck do I never know this man’s opinion on anything except music and fantasy series?#the kicker is those two know damn well you need support to grow in a meaningful way as an autistic child and young person #they were autistic children and young people #they have had support #they have had other people’s input #they had support beside irrelevant literature presented without explanation and advice to check the web #where the fuck did they get the idea that a person related to both of them is able to sit down and study without external support and #or a meaningful structure

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jocelynships · 2 years ago

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I’m trying not to let my bad feelings take over rn but hoo boy I am. Really angry/upset/sad/whatever at everything right now

#Joce.vent #anyways I feel really angry and jealous right now and I hate that I feel that way #I’m angry bc my stepsiblings get all the attention from my parents and they live in completely different fucking states #I’m angry I took this job bc it’s not working out and I regret leaving my last job so much #and I’m jealous of all my friends who got to go back to Disney after they reopened #and I couldn’t because my parents wouldn’t let me a get a car #I’m not angry at them but I do wish I was with them all again #I’m angry my parents held me back so much and continue to hold me back #and now that I can drive I can’t even put an application in because I can’t fucking quality for anything #if they could just fucking open up custodial I could at least get an application in #Universal keeps rejecting me and I don’t fucking understand why #and why the fuck did the two cunts who harassed me and spread lies about me get to go back?#why did they have good things happen to them?#I’m also desperate to get away from my family and I want nothing to do with them #I need a break from everything but I can’t afford to take one #I think if I can get a job at Disney I’m gonna have it where I take a break between this job and that one #just like. a week #so I can gather myself up and be ready #but god. I need something different now and nothing is available

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bilboyagathechickenfootedhobbit · 8 months ago

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“Hi I get my kids names mixed up and I’m not really sure how old either of them are and I *think* one of them has a nut allergy? Or it may be strawberries……or penicillin? Anyway, someone has an allergy to something, I’m sure it won’t matter. After school activities? I dunno, the missus usually brings them home around 5pm, that’s when school lets out, right? Oh, one of them is in band and the other does track? Oh….uh…..huh. They have meets and competitions? Oof….wait, one of them volunteers at the local daycare? And I have to pick them up and drop them off? And the other volunteers at the animal shelter on the weekends and needs me to drop them off and pick them up??? But that’s when I drink and watch sports!!! WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE TO TAKE THEM TO THEIR DOCTORS APPOINTMENTS??? I didn’t even realize they HAD a doctor!!

But yes, I am perfectly qualified to raise my children wholly on my own and should be given all the custody.”

Men cannot complain about women getting custody most of the time while also thinking it's quirky to not know things like where their kid goes to school or what they're allergic to 😭🤚

#I’m really really really glad I didn’t marry one of these dudes #I broke my toe the other day and my husband has had to take over EVERYTHING while simultaneously working from home #he has to take the kid to the dentist today and he knows the dentist and where they’re located and all the kids medical history #he drives him to school and to cheer practice and karate and soccer and art club #yes our kid is way too busy but he loves it #the point being #the only reason I had a child with this particular man was because I knew he would fully commit to being a parent in every way #that I wouldn’t have to memorize all the minutiae by myself #he’s just as involved as I am #I remember one night he and the kid stayed out at his dads and my friends fiancée was BAFFLED that I was okay with it #like????? why would I ever have a child with a man that I could not trust to take care of my kid for one night????#of course I was fine with them staying at grandpas #meant I got the whole bed to myself #and again: why would I have a kid with someone who I couldn’t trust to handle things for an evening?#seems silly to me #pick your partners with deliberation

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the-bluestreak-cat · 6 months ago

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My extremely personal red flag is if you’ve never lived independently.

Do not open tags it’s just a personal vent and I hit the tag limit (30) and that’s never happened to me before ajskdlf

#like not even having to live alone I think living with roommates gets a similar enough experience #and this is a vague blog but not for someone on this site (of course)#plus it is entirely founded on deep jealousy but like #but like man. I don’t wanna live with you if you’ve never had to maintain your own life before! bc it’s not a magic thing that happens #I’ve been ‘on my own’ for years at this point and I still struggle to keep my shit intact. maybe ur just That Good but tbh #I don’t wanna live with That attitude either!#idk man. like. it’s food. it’s dishes. keeping the floors clean. the bathroom clean. making sure you don’t run out of groceries or toiletry #it’s having a schedule of events around you. it’s being able to get places around you. it’s doing shit on ur own without friends #and again. I’m being unduly harsh. lord knows they’re better with their finances than me and that I had a spoiled ass childhood #the kind that spills into adulthood the way I refused to change my own car battery #I get that most of these things are there bc there’s limited space and they wanna care for their family and have a nest egg before moving #and it’s impossible to be mad at them for that bc it makes too much sense to do it. I’d do it if I got along better with my parents #idk. I feel like a shithead for not prioritizing them over other things in my life and it makes me defensive #bc I have to keep my life on track myself and at times it feels like they don’t #and I got frustrated bc I was late to a meetup bc I had to cook dinner and their mom brings them dinner every other day #and again. I get it. god knows I get it. but I also feel frustrated #I’d been considering a trip where we could see a national landmark but we’d have to drive two hours one way. and they’re anxious driving #and like. one time their friends car was shitting itself but that friend still ended up driving. come on dude #it is spoiled kid syndrome and my personal hamartia and I could be infinitely more understanding but #I cannot fathom not going somewhere bc I’m scared. if I want it that bad I figure it out. and sometimes it’s miserable but it’s done #and I cannot see a world where I live with someone too nervous to do things themself #urgh. I think they got into a bad wreck once when they were driving. idk. they mentioned it once in passing but I remembered them mentioning #I feel like a boomer haha.#what’s the plan for the rest of ur life? it has to be finding someone who will take on these for you #maybe not. maybe they’ll actually grow and find ways to be a person by themself but uh. depending on a person changing is bad business #I’m probably just a tightass. I couldn’t handle a roommate on account of being a huge control freak anyway lol #it’s unrelated but I’m sure I feel bad bc their other close friend (car shitting friend) is really good about this kind of stuff #driving them around covered food payments plus gifts vacations etc #hard not to feel like if I were more magnanimous this wouldn’t be a problem. but I’m not #and I shouldn’t feel bad about it but I do? bc friend b is a total star and I’m like. normal lol

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tonycries · 7 months ago

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Madam Zenin - T.F.

Synopsis. There’s nothing that rouses Toji, the infamous head of the Zenin clan, nothing that will make him lose control - until they take what’s most important to him. You.

Pairing. Toji Fushiguro x Reader

Content. MDNI, fem! reader, arranged marriage, clan leader! Toji, kídnapping, the elders súck, Toji goes INSANE, BRÉEDING, talks of an heir, oraI (fem), fíngering, Toji’s powers, FÉRAL Toji, créampie, spítting, overstím, AU if Toji didn’t leave the clan, slight misogyny from Naoya, slight bIood, pet names, swearing.

Word count. 6.2k

A/N. Didn’t realize how much clan leader!Toji made me quake so…Hope y’all have a good day <3

“Who took her?”

“M-master?”

There wasn’t a single individual in the Zenin Estate that didn’t think Toji Zenin wouldn’t kill them in the blink of an eye. Happily, at that.

It was rumored he was cursed, ruthless. And out of everyone - elders, servants, children - not one didn’t look over their shoulder behind every corner of the sprawling Zenin house, flinching at his mere shadow. Broad, towering, wrenching out nothing but hushed apologies and deep bows - they never dared to look into his devastating eyes.

And right now, that pale-faced attendant of yours could only tremble - pray - she won’t be next on Toji’s long, long list of victims when the looming man himself bends to meet her lowered gaze. And oh-

Fuck.

No one ever saw the vicious head of the Zenin clan smile - no one.

Except you.

And here he had the most dangerous grin gracing his features, darkened olive eyes wide - crazed, when they halt on that slightest drop of red sinking into the tatami mats.

“My wife.” The other woman jumps when he loudly kicks your chamber door open. Abruptly barking out a deep, humorless laugh at the disheveled emptiness inside, “Who took my wife?”

---

Young master Zenin - Toji Zenin. Your husband.

It’s only been a few months since your stiff, lavish wedding ceremony to him - part of an arranged deal made between his clan and your own. Your parents practically leapt at the chance to marry into such an esteemed jujutsu name, forgetting all those dark rumors swirling around the young head at the first golden glint of the Zenin family’s massive treasury.

Sure, they promised to treat you well, to prime you into becoming the new madam of their distinguished household. But you knew better - it wasn’t your upbringing or your cursed technique that brought you here, they couldn’t care less - no, it was because of an heir.

The one thing that the Zenin family didn’t have.

And the one thing Toji Zenin refused to give them.

That much was obvious when just minutes after exchanging vows and the ceremonial sake, a group of todgering elders had thrust a heady antidote for conception into your hands, smiling smugly as if they’d just given you the wedding gift of the century. Of course, your all-new husband didn’t even look at you properly on your wedding night - opting instead for a short, husky goodnight and to sleep in a separate bedroom down the hall from the newly-weds’ chamber.

He wasn’t a cruel husband, you think, and he was attractive - painfully so - and felt more like a gruff acquaintance than anything. But the only problem was that he didn’t embrace you, not even a fleeting kiss.

Even when you really wanted Toji to.

“-T-Toji?” you’re breathing shallowly, eyes blinking up hazily at the dim lighting. It comes out small, cracking so pathetically at the end.

“---Toji--even----”

“No use--- had--months---”

“---keep her to myself--”

Instantly, you’re sitting upright in a cold, wooden chair. Heart thumping wildly against the ribs of your body, it bangs at the thickly digging rope wrapping around your body.

Shit shit shit - where were you? The last thing you remembered was chatting with your attendant in your room, and she’d handed you a brand-new perfume to smell- Fuck. Where was-

“Ah, you’re awake.” There’s a high, sing-song voice from somewhere on your right, and your blood runs chillingly cold when you recognize that voice. “Honestly, I hoped you wouldn’t be around for this part but-” Naoya Zenin claps his hands to get the attention of every other elder hunched around the traditional Japanese room. “-that just makes it all the more fun, right?”

With the one tiny lantern being lit overhead, you could make out those scraggly smiles, the sharp glint of the Zenin Clan’s famed katanas. A tear stumbles down your trembling cheek, tasting salty on your lips.

“Aww, not the tears.” Naoya guffaws, “You know m’not good with the tears.” Those ropes pinning your hands behind your back rub raw with your frantic movement, creaking and unstirring despite your best efforts. “Try and try all you want, sweetcheeks, but a failure of the Zenin clan will only be met with the appropriate consequences.”

A failure.

The words would’ve cut deep had they not been the very same ones spat at you at every clan meeting - the exact reason you didn’t accompany Toji to the one today. Toji, you think. Fuck, how you wished you’d have gone just this one time.

Straightening your spine the best you could in this binding chair, you ask - firm, pretending for all the world to be as confident as you’re not. “What do you want from me?”

It’s as if your question is the biggest joke that every scowling man in this room had heard, and they all burst into wheezing, riotous laughter. Some even slapping their knees - even Naoya gives you a cold, leeringly gleeful grin, “Just as mouthy as he is, huh?” He turns back to the elders, “She’s asking what we want!”

You bristle at another bout of cackles, struggling to hiss out a strangled, “Well- well if you bastards just fucking told me-”

“An heir.”

Fuck, you had a feeling it was this.

“What? You pussies get your rocks off by wondering about mine and Toji’s sex life?” you let out shrill laughter, mouth moving before your brain because fuck, if it was all going to end now, might as well spew out everything you’ve wanted to since you walked in here. You shake your woozy head, “Oh fuckin’ grow up, if the man himself wanted an heir then you’d know-”

Eyes enraged, he takes a heated step towards you, “You little-”

“Naoya.” The strained drawl of an elder you’d seen around the corridors stops him straight in his tracks, and Naoya gives the man a hasty, reluctant bow. “Finish it. Before he gets back.”

Those last few words splatter a few drops of panic into your words, and a few more exhausted tears stream down your face.

“Heh, whatever.” he’s taking one last greedy lookover down your rattling figure. “Would’ve taken y’for myself if I didn’t think he’d kill me, sweetcheeks. What a shame.” Trailing off airily, he turns back towards where you spot another spiking glisten in the dark, a metallic twang! rings through the thick, musty atmosphere. “Who knows, maybe his next wife will actually listen to a thing or two.”

Next wife.

You’re not sure why but the thought made your heart clench. And you’re gasping when he turns back around - silver katana in hand - trying to scream, yell, anything for help. But no sound comes out.

Instead, all you can do is gape when Naoya crowds in menacingly closer, you can just hear the smile in his voice when he coos mockingly, “You’re much better when you shut up, doll.” You press your lips tightly together at the same, sullied use of Toji’s nickname for you - wondering how he would react to all of this. Wincing at the cutting whoosh! of the katana being raised up, up, up- “Any last wo-”

BANG!

You’re grimacing at the loud crashing of wood and panels, sliding doors ripped to shreds. And in the hazy cloud of dust you could make out the outline of a tall, heaving figure. Big arms swaying with his choppy breaths, he’s standing still - dangerous.

And even in the soft darkness, your unblinking gaze caught on his gleaming, feral smile, sharp canines bared like some beast. Eyes carnivorous, widened as he assesses the room like a predator lurking in on its prey.

The drop of fear hits you before the realization - Toji.

Letting out a strangled yelp, “T-Toj- mmpf!” Before cold, wrinkly fingers come up from behind to cover your mouth. But even the slightest sound of your voice has Toji’s form jolting - fingers twitching on the handle of his blade, like electricity zapped through his entire body, and you can hear the elder behind you take in an obvious gasp when his eyes lock onto the two of you.

Finally.

Toji’s lips part silently, and abruptly, you’re being let go of as if you burned. “You.”

It happens so fast that you’re not even sure you imagined it, in a split-second, the long, jagged dagger in Toji’s hand is being flung right at his shivering target. .

And you knew he won’t miss - he never will, because you’re not even blinking when a drawn-out groan of pain echoes from behind you. Followed by an echoing thud!

“My wife.” Toji’s rasping baritone sends goosebumps racing down your spine, you’re puffing in a quick inhale at just how close he sounds. Sure enough, when you look up, you’re met with softened sage eyes, and crooked beginnings of a smile. “My wife.” he breathes out, as if he still couldn’t really believe it. But any and all tenderness in his body bleeds away when Toji abruptly looks over his shoulder at the men crowding around the entrance with a thunderous glare, “Next.”

Naoya is the first to dare to speak - to even move. Yelling, “Y-y- do you even know who that- the crime it is to kill one of the elders-”

Fuck, you swear Toji looked elated at that, that savage grin still plastered on his face, he grits through clenched teeth, “Next.”

Next. Next. Next. Next.

It’s all that kept being laughed - laughed - out when Naoya activated his own cursed technique, absolutely nothing against Toji’s rampant ravaging. The thrum of jujutsu makes your head throb, and Toji’s steps sound deafening. Pressurized lunges towards the man himself, and before he can think - before he can even breathe - Naoya’s being pinned face-down on the tatami floor. Face stinging with the force of the stronger man’s foot on his head, pressing it underneath his wooden sandals. He speaks softly - as if talking down to a child - over the strained pop! pop! pop! of joints. “For taking my wife, for insulting the very soul of my soul.”

Toji wasn’t done, he wasn’t even stopping. He was out of control. Ready to kill. To break.

And none of the elders could do anything - in fact, they fall fatally still onto their knees at Toji’s growing smile, the slow turn of his head. All knowing they were on the very brink of death himself. “Who’s next?”

Fatigue and relief hits you like a semi-truck - five of them, in fact. And you can feel your body drooping lower, vision tinging with black at the corners. Over the grotesque crunching of limbs, you think you could hear a faint, gruff laughter of, “Yeah, ya might wanna sleep this one out, doll.”

---

Toji never wanted to let you out of his sight. Never.

And with you so vulnerable like this - dozing off gently on his silken bedsheets, body curling subconsciously into his benevolent hold - he thinks he never will.

Mellow, rounded tips of his thick fingers glide down your skin, sensitive from the hot water and the way he’d washed away every evidence of the blood and pain from just a few hours before.

“I’m sorry.” Toji breathes, hushed, a thumb gliding away a stray droplet of water on the apple of your cheek. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-” He connects his forehead with your damp one, eyes fluttering shut. “I’m sorry. If I hadn’t come to see you early from the meeting- just knew something felt wrong.”

“Sorry for what, Toji?”

Your teasing tone of voice shocks him to his very core, and yet he can’t find it in himself to pull away - fuck, he can’t even dare open his eyes to look. “All of it.” he’s spitting out, tormentingly.

It takes you a while to find the words, “It’s- it’s not your fault.” you nod, a wet hand coming up to comb through Toji’s soft black tresses. “It’s neither of ours.”

There’s a few seconds of silence, in which he’s scrubbing non-existent beads of water off of you. Long strokes - slow, and purposeful - and you have to hold back your sudden yelp when it hits you that this was the first time that he saw you naked.

“But-” he falters, shaking his head - before thinking better of it. And you take the moment to appreciate just how gorgeous he is up close, every spike of pink in his worried lips, dark lashes kissing his high cheekbones. “But it’s over now, you can- you can go back to your clan.” he grimaces, still looking like he wanted to rip something - someone - apart. “The Zenin family is done.”

Done.

“Toji.” you exhale, luring in your face so close to your husband’s. Too close. “Come with me. Fuck this Estate, fuck having an heir- and fuck the elders, if they’re not dead by now anyway.” They were - every single one - bodies piled high in the same room you were carried tenderly out of, you find out later. You steady onto your elbows on that unfamiliar mattress - Toji’s, you distinctly realize. And his brows crinkle upwards into an expression you’ve never seen on him before.

“I…”

“And-” A hand of yours wraps around his throat, nails digging into the racing pulse of his at the side of his milky neck. “-kiss me.”

Then he’s raising his eyes to look at you and fuck-

You were fucked.

You might as well have just signed away your own will because here was the man that was covered in blood not too long ago, here he was with his lids hooded, pupils blown. “My wife.” he repeats that same mantra from before, lips parting like something so dark, visceral, was poked dangerously awake. Like he couldn’t quite believe it. His eyes flicker in a lingering triangle across both of your eyes, your lips. Just a hair’s breadth away. Straining out a raspy, “Oh fuck.”

Depraved - Toji’s lips are so depraved . And he’s drinking you in like all his bloodthirst from before had liquidated into pure need.

You’re mewling when a large palm brushes over to cup your cheek, tilting that pretty head of yours to deepen the kiss. “Toji.”

You shouldn’t have done that - oh, you shouldn’t have done that. Because the sound of his own name in your syrupy sweet tone makes him jolt. Jolt. His entire body rumbles with a deep, wrenched-out growl, followed very closely by a loud slam! of Toji’s fist banging down on the nearby bedside table. Only later will you find that perfectly indented hole in the shape of his hand, splinters scattered across the floor.

Like wanted to keep in control - needed to keep in control. But was failing - miserably.

“F-fuuuuck-” he draws out huskily into your mouth, that tiny scar always at the corner of his mouth catching on your lower lip when he takes it between his. Sucking on that slick-glossed seam harshly, it almost hurt - but it hurt so good. “You have no idea- absolutely no fuckin’ idea how much I’ve wanted to do this.”

And suddenly you’re so painfully aware of the way your robe hadn’t been tied up properly, feeling the cinch of your sensitive nipples against his rich yukata, the warmth of all five of his long fingers splaying out just below the curve of your tits.

You can feel his needy hips rutting into yours - such raw strength in the way he holds your own still so easily. Pushing right into the bullseye between your legs with the outline of his massive, heated bulge. Languid, delicious drags.

“Fuck we shouldn’t-” he cries out when you’re reeling him back in with his plump lip tucked beneath your teeth. “You need to-” Before he’s being tugged back in again. And again. And again and again like one taste of your candied lips and he was addicted. Barely able to choke out a single syllable before mashing them back onto yours. Gruffing out a deep rumble from the depths of his sculpted chest, “Shit- y’know why I didn’t do this sooner? Why I didn’t just fuck you right then and there in front of hngh- everyone whenever I wanted to? Because I knew-”

He cuts himself off with a convulsing shudder, pulling away just enough that you whine disappointedly. “I was gonna fuckin’ ruin you.”

“Couldn’t- hngh-” you’re mewling at the delicate little strings of syrupy spit snapping. Spying down at the way his yukata was disheveled now, displaying such delicious panes of warm skin for you. “Couldn’t have guessed.”

Toji’s brows raise at your slightly bratty tone, lips curling into such a sinful smirk that it makes your cunt throb so hotly, despite the slowly cooling water. His eyes darken - as if something snapped. “Oh- you’re gonna fucking regret that, ma.”

And something did - maybe his whatever restraint he had left, probably you by the end of this.

In an instant, you’re seeing a flash of that man- that monster from before. Baring you the most vicious grin inhumanly possible, if you didn’t know any better you’d have wondered how high the death count would be. The hundreds? The thousands?

He’s worshiping down your body like an apology for all that transpired before, hot, wet brandings of his mouth across each and every inch of skin he could reach. It made you whimper, it made you feel the powerful hum of his strength at his fingertips, it made you need more more more-

All you can let out is a drawling moan when he unapologetically snaps! the hem of your panties onto your heated skin, “Don’t be such a t-tease.”

Oh, you were so weak against the dark head of the Zenin clan, against the way he circles his two hands around your ankles. Easily pulling - hauling you across the plush mattress like some ragdoll.

Not even hesitating before ripping your poor yukata off your body, until you’re left spread so shamefully underneath him, Toji knocking down hard onto his knees before you.

“Well- whatever my wife wants…” the same dangerous grin grows along his face, glinting white teeth bared where they held your flimsy excuse of panties between honed canines. He murmurs the final few words hovering over where you needed him the most, “...no elder or god themself could stop me from giving you.”

RIP—!

It’s the last thing breathed out of his heaving lungs before your poor underwear is being torn off of you by his very mouth, not wasting a moment before spitting them out, and burying his face between your trembly thighs. Not even taking in one last gulp of air, not even thinking because all Toji Zenin knew was that he was going to fucking die if he didn’t taste your sweet sweet cunt right now.

“Oh f-fuck-” he’s musing, sharp tongue stuttering for once in his life. “Fuck fuck fuck- fuck-” You’re yelping when your jelly-like legs are pliantly thrown over Toji’s broad shoulders, digging into the muscles of his deltoids. “Can’t believe you’ve been-” He trails off so deliriously, planting a hot, thick glob of spit on your spread pussy lips once. Twice. Smearing that glistening coat along your puffy folds with the fat of his thumb, “-been holdin’ out on me like this.”

“Shit- s’too much.” you’re whining at the slippery gloss of the mess he’s made down below leaking down your slit. Threading your fingers through his silky locks, “I wasn’t holding out on anything, y’know-”

His wide-eyed gaze was locked on your sloppily winking hole, circling the rim of that needy ring of muscle with his pointed index. “God…” his hot breath fans your dripping cunt, “You might just be my god. Didn’t wanna bring a kid into this family but you’re so- so sweet m’thinking it might not be too bad.”

Those words are barely even registered in your mind before his pretty pink lips wrap themselves around your throbbing clit. Handsome cheekbones hollowing, droopy eyes rolling to the back of his head when Toji sucks. Whirling his tongue erratically around the sensitive nub, such lewd little squelches ring in your ears.

“T-Toji—” your purring moans only make him bury his face even deeper, nose pressing up against the edge of your sopping slit. And each thorough drag of your slobbering cunt down his face makes you knock against the end of his chin, so thirsty with the way he was making out with your cunt. Like he couldn’t get enough - never will. “Y-you were the one-” the heels of your feet move up higher to loop at his neck. “-holding out.”

And you knew that Toji the strongest of his clan - you knew it took more than a mere, barely-lucid tug to have him clashing even deeper into your pussy.

But he does for you anyway.

“Fuck- fuck you little-” Toji’s own heavy tongue betrays him with a throaty moan, and he looks so furious. Seething at the way he was pussydrunk already. Greedy gaze so crazed that you’re back to wondering how high the kill count would be- would they all even fit on the Zenin Estate? “-f tha’s what you fuckin’ want.”

“Wha- oh!” you yelp at the sheer burning stretch of your legs being pushed up, up, up until your knees were knocking against your tits. And Toji takes the shamefully spread opportunity to bully one rummaging finger past your swollen folds. “Oh fuck- you’re reaching so- so-”

“Finish it.”

It takes you a second to realize that Toji’s addressing you, his tone so jagged. Words muffled when he pants them out into your weeping cunt.

He’s pulling out his finger - intentionally curving exactly against all those sweet spots mushed into your velvety walls - only to brand your poor clit with a sharp smack! “Finish that fucking sentence, ma.”

“-deep!” your hips are bucking up at another hefty intrusion, Toji’s fingers relentless inside your elastic wall. Molding out your insides to memorize every bump of his knuckles, every neat curve of his short fingernails. “So so- deep, Toji.” you whine, your shaky hands coming to rest at where you could feel him pumping in and out feverishly into hidden nooks and crannies of your sopping cunt. “C-can feel you right- here!”

This earns you another smack! gifted once again on your awaiting clit, but any and all irritation is swept away when he’s clashing his lips with yours down below in such a messy kiss. Meshing around the bulge of his own large fingers, tongue rolling placatingly over your glisteningly ravaged clit. Flicking, “Yeah- definitely my kind of fucking goddess.” His own free hand dances up to rest about midway up your stomach, pressing down. “M’gonna be in even deeper soon, y’know. Trust me.”

It’s at this moment that Toji’s exploratory fingers find their greedy way to your bulbous g-spot, immediately crashing into it - hard.

There. There there there, you want to say - but you don’t have to, because he could tell. Could feel the vice-like grip of your slicked walls, the way it’s almost difficult to hammer back into your cunt.

“Yeah yeah I got it-” he’s humming cockily, back to dragging his lips all over your clit senselessly all over. “All you hafta to do is- hah-” He’s being cut off by his own ravenous thirst, slurping mouth grinding even faster into your pretty pussy. And all you can hear are those syrupy squelches and the smacking of Toji’s mouth, your whining ah! ah! ah! following with every push of his fingers forming around your gummy walls. Curling deftly to massage all your sweetest spots he’s already mapped out so scarily well. “-ahh fuck- can’t get enough. Would kill them all over again just for a single taste of this. Would kill everyone- burn down this entire fuckin’ city.”

You didn’t doubt it, and Toji didn’t let you - not for a single second.

Because he was almost violent in his approach, bruisingly pushing apart your legs further and further with each sloppy, stumbling second. Looking up at you with his wild gaze, with such a feral grin you could feel along every crevice of your overwhelmed cunt.

“Can tell ya liked that-” he’s huffing out a surprised bout of laughter, “Ohhh- ya like that very much, huh?”

His tongue was alternating between ravaging your clit and brushing against the teasing edge of your entrance now. Over and over. And you’re gifted with another imprinting smack! onto your quivering cunt - and another and another and another until you’re all but sobbing out such a broken, “Toji- m’so close, fuck- m’gonna cum, m’gonna cum–”

“Then cum f’me, my wife.”

It only takes a few more messy rams of Toji’s fingers knuckle-deep into your eagerly swallowing pussy until you’re crashing so aggressively into your high. Wave after wave of white-hot pleasure running down, down, down your spine and into where he was relentlessly stuffing your convulsing pussy.

Fucking you over and over through your orgasm, the pretty sight of you so splayed out and ruined makes Toji’s mouth water. He feels like a damn dog with the way his tongue lolls out, grin widening, he murmurs absent-mindedly, “Yeah- wouldn’t be bad at all. Swear you’re gonna be the end of my sanity.”

Fuck, you shamelessly ogle the way his dark robe falls down his broad shoulders, revealing so many dips and curves of muscle after muscle. He was so large - so meticulously sculpted that your restless legs fasten around Toji’s slenderly toned waist, drawing him close until your bare chests were rubbing up against one another. “Heh- you don’t get to hold out on me anymore, doll.”

It sounded almost like a threat - but your bleary, orgasm-drunk mind only has the chance to wonder what exactly he would do if you did. If you didn’t give him - the one head of the Zenin clan that didn’t get everything he wanted handed to him on a silver platter since birth - the one thing he would kill for. Die for.

You.

So you’re smiling drunkenly, head tilted to one side, “What are you gonna do about it?”

Toji doesn’t answer - doesn’t even bother to. And the only response you’re getting is a strained laugh - delirious almost, like the mere thought of that was enough to shred away whatever was left of his sanity.

And yours - clearly - because in that very moment, Toji lets his throbbing cock finally spring out, smacking against his abs to leave a glisteningly wet smear of precum. So so angry, his fat weeping tip lets out another wave of syrupy precum at the chill of the heady air.

Shit - he was big.

Long, long shaft blending so prettily from a feverish red at his tip to the tan skin behind those tufts of black at his happy trail. Veins pulsing, girthy enough that you’re wondering back to his kill count, thighs twitching nervously to a close.

“No- no no-” you could tell his tone was trying to veer into scolding, but you caught the way it cracks with so much raw need. “Don’t you fuckin’-” His hands just wrench your knees back open, green eyes just aflame at this point. “-dare.”

His pointed smile was so dripping wet with your sweet sweet juices from before, trickling in a sloppy trail all the way from the glossy corners of his lips, down to his chin. And his eyes follow the splattering, thick puddle on your collarbone.

“Oh-” Toji’s mouth falls into a wicked gasp, immediately, he’s surging forward to pool the syrupy mess on his hot tongue. “Heh- guess we really are just now consummating our marriage, huh?”

The movement causes his painfully rock-hard cock to just kiss at your puffy pussy lips, just mashing the fat round tip of his length between your slit. Teasing. So fucking filthy.

“Toji-” you’re wrenching him by his dark hair to pant into his open mouth, like a mantra. “More- need more- fuck I need-”

“More?” His shuddering rap is barely even audible, ringing straight to your very heated core, because he sounded so wrecked. So fucking utterly ruined. Voice a few octaves higher in disbelief, “My pretty girl wants my cock? Fuckin’ want-” And then it’s like all the air is being knocked out of your lungs - literally. Feeling as if you’re being split apart so sinfully so, “more?”

You couldn’t have answered if you’d wanted to - because Toji Zenin was fucking ruthless. Just as mean as those greedily lingering juts of his hips, pushing and pushing his massively rotund length past your first snug channel of muscle.

But that didn’t matter, because your slutty cunt was speaking more than enough for the both of you - or at least that’s what Toji mutters, over and over when he pushes in jutting, unrhythmic jabs to squeeze himself deeper inside you.

“Oh- oh my god–” you’re batting your heavy eyelids open to take in the way your overstuffed pussy just bulges around him. Lips spread so widely it was like they were conforming to each ridge and vein down Toji’s fat cock, beading a glossy sheen down every inch by fucking inch you were being fed. “So much- fuck, don’t know if I can take it.”

Toji Zenin would rather die than not have his pretty wife all overfilled with cock if that’s what it takes him.

And by the way your teary eyes grow wider, he suspects his pussydrunk mind might’ve just babbled that out loud. “Heh…didn’t I tell ya, ma?” His low whisper puffs hotly against your ear, tugging tensely on your earlobe. “M’gonna fucking ruin ya.”

And it’s times like this that it’s so clearly impossible to forget that Toji is inhumanly human - that you are so unfairly nothing in a match up against him.

CRACK!

Because with one, harsh ram of his sharp hip bones smacking against the globes of your ass - every solid inch of his intimidating cock is slammed against your tightly cushioning walls. It’s such a ravaging intrusion and you swear you could feel him everywhere. Feel him thrumming hotly against sweet spots inside you that you didn’t even know existed. Finally, buried all the way to his thick hilt, yet still nuzzling his hips upwards for more-

“S’broken.” Toji muses, and for a second you didn’t know if he was talking about you or the suspiciously sagging bed. “Plan B.”

It takes only two seconds for his beefy arms to pick you up as if you were weightless - god, he was treating you like some object. And the only time he’s not enveloped by your heavenly cunt is when you’re being shoved down like some slut onto the cool mahogany of Toji’s work desk, his firm front pressing up against your arched back.

“Plan C is to just fuck you into the floor until it breaks.” he snorts throatily into your ear.

And you wondered whether it was a joke - you hoped it was a joke. You almost half-believed it until he was back to bulldozing his plump tip back into your briefly-neglected cunt. Stretching the clingy rim of muscle to bend to his round length, fully. Oh, he’ll never get used to this sight.

Yeah, you definitely weren’t making it out alive.

“F-fuck you really are-” One hand of yours scrambles to blindly white-knuckle the smooth wood beneath you when Toji’s bludgeoning your pussy with powerful, long thrusts. Feeling every minute flex of his thick thighs behind your own, shuddering with each forceful hammer of his sweeping cock inside you. “-you really are in so deep.”

As if to confirm, the man himself glides down an open palm to your stomach. Pressing down hard with all five splayed-out fingers until Toji could feel the same incessant slam of his thumping cockhead, the cascading ripple of his heavy, cum-filled balls smacking against your ass.

“Told ya- hah told ya so.” his cocky groans are whirling all throughout your mind, such a hot, melty mess with the sheer fucking stretch of Toji’s cock. “Y’know…I can’t help but imagine just how pretty you’d hngh- look all stretched out n’ swollen as a momma.”

You’re nodding deliriously, and the way his crashing thrusts were just bruising against your spongy cervix, bouncing off onto every sweetly hidden sensitive spot inside your elastic walls. “Shit- ya jus’ got wetter- ya like that? The thought of me fuckin a baby into ya?” he spits, long sloppy tongue coming up to taste the dredges of tears streaming down your face- shit, when did you even start crying?

“Shh shhh- don’t cry–” he’s cooing, rewarding you with another heavy smack! right onto your poor clit. Every steady clash against your over-sensitive g-spot only sends a fresh wave of big fat tears for Toji to kiss at. “-don’t cry, don’t cry. Never f’me, m’never hah- gonna kill off anything that makes my pretty wife cry-” A soft, salty peck on your lips, “-n’ that includes me. If ya asked me to, ma. I’ll give ya anything you ever want.”

There’s a creaking slam! on the wooden surface, and a hasty look over your shoulder shows that Toji has hiked his knee up onto the desk. For a second, you wonder whether it hurt - whether the throbbing shaft of his cock wasn’t rubbed raw by now, whether his abs weren’t just burning with movement. Fucking you so recklessly into the desk.

But oh, you think Toji Zenin would care?

You think he would give a fuck about anything other than rutting riotously into your gripping cunt? Drilling into you again and again until your tip-toes don’t even reach the ground at the force of his pressurized thrusts. The change in angle has his leaky tip glide glossy lines right across the bottom of your dripping pussy and pressing down harshly onto your g-spot. So rough. So mean. You’re scrambling further and further up the desk and-

“Now now-” Toji hoists your weak hips up ever-so-slightly back to him, before pinning you to the desk with his full, heavy bodyweight. “No running away. Heh…how funny would it be if I actually did jus’ hngh- fuck a baby into ya right now?” His fingers get so sloppy on your clit, “Fill ya up- rub an heir right in everyone’s faces?”

“Shit- m’so close- again-” Your ears are popping at the pure saturated stimulation when his hand down below rolls over your clit. Desperate. Depraved. Glossing up the curve of his thick thumb with all the sweet slick beading out with each broken thrust. It’s like he was out of control - losing his fucking mind. And your delirious mind wondered whether you’d be next, that faint cracking of joints certainly not boding well for either of you. “Toji, m’gonna-”

He’s so erratic - sloppy. And so it only makes sense that your orgasm was the same - fuck, you didn’t even realize it at first.

So hard that your vision flashes red and white, breathing raggedly gasping in lungfuls as you rock your sticky hips back into Toji’s so greedily. Your voice is shot - because you’re moaning Toji’s name so loud that it almost felt disrespectful, echoing across the sex-thickened air. “Tha’s right- scream as loud as you want, ma. It’s just us in this house.”

And maybe it was that - maybe it was the feeling of your velvety walls clamping down hard around his achy length - maybe it was just the way you’re whispering out such saccharine sweet, “Cum inside.”

Because Toji’s fractured sanity can only handle a few more unkindly bullying drives into your gushing cunt before he’s cumming and cumming so much he thinks he might die.

Doesn’t know if he can - if he wants to - stop.

“Oh- ohhh fuck- didn’t think I’d actually-” You feel a branding bite inside the crook of your neck as his sloppy white seed splatters at your inner thigh with each rummaging thrust forward. Oozing down in messy, thick dredges. “-hngh- gonna fill you up so good- until you can’t take it anymore.” You didn’t know if you already could - because you felt so full. Toji’s syrupy cum sloshing around with each ram of his hips, coating your walls in a creamy, slick-like sheen on the inside.

“Yes–” you sigh over another splintering crack! from somewhere, “Fuck fuck fuck- need you to- hngh, wanna make you a daddy- give you an heir, To-”

It’s as if he couldn’t bear to hear your swollen lips part with his name, because Toji’s shutting you up with a sweltering kiss. Still mounted and rutting into you so animalistically, “the best- the best momma, you’re gonna be the best momma-” he hushes into your mouth. Pliantly kneading your body into a sinful arch for him, you barely even register it when he’s carrying you away. Two thick fingers pooling his glistening cum, inching them back into your stretched-out cunt - “Don’t waste a single drop now- hngh- fuck, you’ll look so pretty all full.”

Before you know it, you’re being sprawled out so easily on the clean tatami mats below, face down, your hips being propped up by one of Toji’s. And in your bleary peripheral vision, you could just about make out how ruined that desk was - how broken. How the fuck haven’t either of you broken any bones, yet?

Or maybe you have - you wouldn’t even know at this point, because Toji was still slamming into your poor, overspilling pussy again. His harsh grunt puffs out in a feverish breath against your ear, “Told ya I was gonna ruin you, doll. Better get ready-” He’s punctuating each word with a sloppy, sold thrust, pace picking up to fuck you so thoroughly into the floor. “Because I have a Plan D and a Plan E until m’sure you’re givin’ me an heir.”

A/N. Ooo what if I made a clan leader series? Thoughts?

Plagiarism not authorized.

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terrestrialnoob · 4 months ago

Text

Gut Feeling

DPXDC

Commissioner Jim Gordon meets an odd kid in the precinct.

“Come on, you really don’t have a way to directly contact Batman?”

Jim smiled. Kids came to the station and asked that all the time. Usually, it was just curiosity and showing them the signal was enough to get them to sign up for the Junior Police program. This one looked a little older than most, teenagers were often “too old” to believe in Batman, but again, give them a little faith now and they’ll never loose it.

“Lookin’ for the Bat, kid?” Jim asked, knowing he was about to make this kid’s –

Jim froze. The kid turned to face him and it was Bruce Wayne. Not playboy billionaire Bruce Wayne, but freshly a teenager Bruce Wayne. The Bruce Wayne who Jim had checked in on time and again from age eight until he ran off on a globetrotting trip to find himself. The little Bruce Wayne with too pale skin and dark bags under his eyes, and not enough love to make up for all the grief weighing him down. And he didn’t look like Damian either, where Bruce was obviously his father but there were distinct traits from his mother. This was a carbon copy of a boy Jim remembered vividly.

“I am.” He even sounded like teenage Bruce. All business, like he was on a mission.

“I might be able to help you, but it’ll take a while.” Jim said and the officer the kid had been talking too gave him an odd look. He waved her off and told the kid to follow him to the commissioner’s office. Normally, he’d be more dramatic, put on more of a show for the kid, but his gut told him this was different, this was important. He offered the kid a styrofoam cup of water then closed the door behind him. “So, what do you need to talk to Batman for?”

“It’s personal. I need to talk to him in person.”

Jim took a sip of coffee from his cup. “He doesn’t appreciate me calling for no reason in the middle of the day.”

“So you do have a direct line?” The kid nearly jumped out of his seat. “If he’s upset, it’ll be my fault, just call him, please.”

“Who should I say wants to talk to him?”

The kid hesitated. “He doesn’t know me, but I have to talk to him.”

Jim frowned. “What’s your name, kid?”

He swallowed and looked like he wasn’t going to answer for a moment. “Danny.”

“Danny…?” Jim wanted a last name but Danny kept quiet. Jim sighed, “He’s likely not going to show up until sundown.”

“I can wait, as long as you guarantee he’ll show.”

“And you’re not going to tell me why you need Batman?” Jim just got a glare in response. “What about one of the other heroes?”

“Only Batman, no one else can help.”

“You sure about that? Not even Superman?”

“Not unless Superman can get me in the same room as Batman.”

“Why’s it so important that you meet him in person?”

“It’s personal.”

Jim liked this less and less by the minute. “Do your parents know you’re here?”

Danny looked away but right when it looked like he wouldn’t say anything he mumbled. “They wouldn’t care anyway.”

After another moment to give the kid time to reconsider, Jim pulled out the Bat-phone. It was a normal Wayne-Tech cell phone, but Jim had been given very specific instructions on how and when to use it. The phone listed all the Gotham Vigilantes without visible numbers so they couldn’t be copied and handed out. He pressed the one for Batman.

“Stand outside, would you?” The kid gave him a look, but followed the request. Jim could see his shadow in the door’s window, not so subtle eavesdropping.

It rang a few times, and Jim sat there awkwardly with a teenager listening to his every move. Finally, a familiar voice picked up the other end of the line. “Commissioner Gordon.”

“Sorry to call you out of the blue Batman, but I’ve got a kid here who needs your help.”

“Who?”

“Says his name is Danny, that you’ve never met him but you’re the only one who can help him.”

“Why?”

“Refuses to tell me.”

“What’s your best guess, Commissioner?”

Jim looked at Danny’s shadow, it looked like he was straining his ears to try and hear what he was saying. Danny had given him almost nothing to work with. Just his name, that he’s never met Batman but needs to talk with him in person. But Jim was here because he listened to his gut. A feeling like when you see a random rock on your neighbor’s doorstep but you’d never go in without an invitation. A feeling like you know what’s in the present and are preparing your surprised face. A feeling like when you cheated on your wife and you know she knows.

“He looks like Bruce Wayne.”

A beat of silence. “What?”

“Danny looks exactly like Bruce when he was a teenager. Exactly the same.” Jim hoped Batman would get it, feel in his gut what Jim felt.

“And he wont say why he’s there?”

“No, and he demands to see you in person.”

“I’ll be there in an hour.”

“10-4.” The line cut off before Jim had finished saying it. He called Danny in again. “He’s on his way.”

Danny glared at him. “If he’s not, if you called some social worker or something, you’ll regret it.”

“I’m sure.” Jim sighed and downed the rest of his now cold coffee.

The sun hadn’t set, but only just barely. Jim ended up taking Danny up to the roof in the end after all, if only to save his window from being broken into. The kid had a red hoodie on, but he was still shivering in the autumn chill and it was just going to get colder by the minute as the sun made its way behind the horizon.

Jim checked his watch and, at exactly an hour from when he called, he acted surprised when Batman and Robin appeared out of nowhere. “Bats.”

“Commissioner.” Batman greeted but his eyes went straight for Danny. “Danny, I assume.”

“Yeah, I…” Danny hesitated, looking at Jim and Robin.

All it took was four words from Batman. “What do you need?”

The kid held out his hand with a flash drive in it. “I’m your clone. My par- The people who made me wanted to make a stronger version of you, but they got ahead of themselves. My DNA is degrading and I’ll die if I don’t get your DNA to stabilize me.”

Holy cow.

“You don’t expect us to believe that, do you?” Robin sneered at him.

“The flash drive has all the info on it. All the data about the cloning process and the, uh, relevant experiments after that.” Batman gave the kid a look. “I didn’t want to waste time on unnecessary data.”

“If what you’re saying is true, why are you here, alone? Are they working on a different solution?”

Danny’s shoulders hiked up. “I’ve been a failure for a while now, I’m not worth the resources and they’d learn more from an autopsy.”

Oof, kid. Jim looked at Batman who seemed to feel the same… if Jim was reading him right.

“So, you wont object to a DNA test?” Robin asked with a cocky head tilt, at least he was relatively easy to read.

“You can try.” Danny said, and then realized what that sounded like. “I mean I wont stop you, but my DNA degrades faster outside my body. You’ll have to take me to whatever lab you plan on using.”

“Then we will.” Batman said and jerked his head towards where they’d probably parked that ridiculous car of his. But then he looked at Jim with a nod. “Commissioner.”

“Batman.” Jim returned the nod. “You’ll tell me how things turn out, yeah?”

“I’ll give you a report.” Batman joked – Jim could tell, it was gut feeling.

#dpxdc #danny fenton #jim gordon #batman #fanfic #my writing #danny phantom #danny is bruce's clone #batfam #bruce wayne #dc robin #damian wayne

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lvrclerc · 1 month ago

Text

✶ BETTER THAN THE NOVELS

summary: you're a romance novel influencer that has never actually experienced romance. ironic, right? and when f1 driver lando norris accidentally becomes a constant presence in your life, he decides he can't possibly let that slide.

F1 MASTERLIST | LN4 MASTERLIST

pairing: lando norrisﾉf!reader

wc: 11.2k

cw: reader is a ferrari fan and is said to wear feminine clothing (dresses, skirts etc), reader has a race taking place in her home country but it's not precised where, takes place during a fictional season (w the 2025 grid), cussing, inspired by nick and cassie on tiktok, slight angst near the end for plot reason, otherwise just tooth-rotting fluff!

a/n: first fic who cheered! this is so self-indulgent and cliché but who caresss also its a long one so buckle up (editing was hell, ending is a bit rushed too sorry)

THERE WAS NOT ONE day in which @.whoisy/n, book influencer extraordinaire, did not pass her day with her head inside a romance novel.

You always liked reading. The passion struck you in late primary school when you first opened Percy Jackson and before you knew it, you finished the entire series in three days and begged your parents to buy you Heroes of Olympus. There was no going back after that. You couldn’t spend a day without your thirty minutes to an-hour reading session.

Like every girl raised with the idea of being a strong, independent female lead in the novel that was your life ─ at the sweet age of thirteen, dare I be precise ─ you never dabbled too much into romance. If it ended in a book you were currently reading, so be it, but you wouldn’t outwardly enjoy it. Why would you need someone in your life? You were so not like the other girls, you didn’t waste your time on boys or parties or things like that ─ you didn’t even wear pink!

Except that now that you have grown up, at the age of twenty-two, you liked wearing pink and bows, and because you spent most of your life buried in books with this idiotic, sexist idea of the “not-like-other-girls”, you never had kissed or dated anyone. Damn Rick Riordan.

I mean, you went on dates, sure, but they never went anywhere further than a “that was fun!” text and radio silence right after. It made you feel used, sometimes, but at that point, it was just something you expected whenever you took an interest in an individual.

The only thing that stuck with you as you got older was your passion for books. So after you resigned yourself to it, you dived into romances. Bad idea, really, because you started living vicariously through them.

Everything was so perfect: the storylines, the female leads, the guys and the girls and what they whispered into the other’s ear, and when they noticed small things nobody else would’ve noticed, proclaimed their love high and loud in heartfelt speeches, the awkwardness of a first love and the tenderness of a first kiss. A part of you, whenever you tapped your Kindle or rushed through the pages, ached a little in the middle of your incessant giggling. Something that yearned for a story like that - but you’ve learned against your will that nothing in the real world could compare to the stories or the movies.

You were doomed to die an old maid with many, many cats and a thousand bookshelves. It didn’t sound that bad, of course, but come on. You still held hope that maybe, one day, something like that would happen to you. Maybe.

One of your favorite subgenres was sports romance. There was something so romantic about running into someone’s arms after a well-spent game ─ you devoured the hockey ones, the basketball ones, even the football ones. More recently, though, you got into the motorsports ones ─ more specifically, Formula One.

There weren’t many, mainly because of the work that had to be done to dodge plagiarism: you couldn’t use the actual drivers or team, so you had to reinvent everything down to every detail. But for those that existed, you simply couldn’t let them go. You liked Formula One, it wasn’t a proper passion like reading was but it still was a nice pastime: you’d turn on your sketchy website that streamed F1 TV Pro to watch the Grand Prix and became impatient during the overly long summer and winter breaks. While you were more partial to drivers than to teams, you grew very fond of Ferrari as the years went by.

You were very vocal about your interests in your accounts. Obsessing so much over books gave you access to fandoms at a young age and a desire to have your own space within them. You quickly became a staple presence on BookTok, BookStagram, and BookTube after your first posts and videos went public. People found you funny, endearing, and relatable… not to throw yourself flowers, but you were. It’s that transparency about your Sahara-desert dry love life and your contagious excitement about your hobbies that made you so popular, reaching millions around multiple platforms.

People liked you, so people were kind to you. An advanced reader copy of a new F1 romance novel was on another level of kindness, though.

You hadn’t expected it, but it came in your mailbox with a sweet written word from the author, Leandra Moore ─ she was pretty influential and had written multiple New York Times-acclaimed New Adult romances. You didn’t even process everything she was saying, only that she liked your videos and your personality and ‘thought you might like her new work’.

What a stupid question. Of course, you did.

You devoured the 430 pages in a sitting. The sky, awfully bright when you got the package, was pitch black by the time you turned the last page. You were breathless, flushed, and smiling so hard your cheeks were beginning to hurt. “Silver Spring Race” was a wonder of brother’s best friend, secret exes, and second chance rom-com goodness, mixed with the adrenaline of the perfect F1 season, five out of five stars on Fable and GoodReads. You didn't waste any time: tripod, lighting, and you were already filming a review video in your almost ecstatic state, giggling away with the camera knowing full well you were sharing with a few thousand.

It was a simple review as you always did. Yet, it did way, way better than your normal videos ─ so much so that the book had to be released early. So much so that Leandra had the means to host a release party after the goddamn Miami Grand Prix. So much so that she invited you, personally and free of charge, as multiple other book influencers to attend the Grand Prix and the release party the day after.

Someone had to pinch you because holy shit, this couldn’t be your reality. You never confirmed something as fast as you did for that. Honestly, who wouldn’t?

The race had been an exceptionally good one. The sun was bright and hot but the slight breeze made up for the extreme Miami heat. You and your book influencer friends and acquaintances had amazing seats at the Beach Grandstands - some on the North and some on the South. You quietly wondered just how much money did Silver Spring Race generated for Leandra to get those sought-after seats.

There had been a few technical difficulties during the race, causing Pierre Gasly to DNF, and a narrowly avoided crash on Albon's part which cost him to lose standing. Ferrari was going strong, though, which kept you breathless from screaming until the checkered flag. Norris ended in pole position, with Verstappen following suit in P2 and Leclerc in P3. While it was not the outcome you hoped for due to your bias toward the latter's team, you had to cheer when faced with the radiant smile of the first-placed.

Now, the thing was to get out of the stands. That was a harder task, the Beach Grandstands were filled to the brim and before you could process what was happening, the flow of people separated you from your friends. No matter how much you fought against the current you couldn't help but be brought down to wherever they were going: guess you'll have to find a way out by yourself.

By the time people scattered, you were in an unknown setting with multiple staff members, all wearing different colors ─ pink, orange, red ─ and running around. You would have liked to stop one of them to ask where you were, or at least how you could access the parking area from here, but all passed you as if you didn't exist. You couldn't blame them, the Grand Prix had just ended, and they probably had ten thousand other things to do. You were on your own. Great.

You just wandered off and hoped you'd stumble upon a miraculous exit sign amidst the long and confusing hallways.

You definitely didn't expect to crash into Lando Norris.

You didn't realize it was him at first. The only thing you knew was that as you were looking around, finally finding somewhere open from where you could see the stands (but still not anywhere that looked like it could lead you to the parking lot), you back bumped full speed against someone.

You turned around, heart skipping because of the shock. Soon enough, though, your astonishment turned horrific when you gradually noticed the full can of Monster energy drink spilled on an orange tracksuit, staining it deep brown.

It couldn't get any more embarrassing. Until your eyes darted up and you saw a mess of curls and wide, green eyes. That's when your horror became panic. Holy fuck, you didn't just─

“Oh my god!” You exclaimed, after a few seconds of stunned silence. “I'm so, so sorry─ I didn't─ I was looking for the exit and I didn't see─ holy shit─”

You started aggressively looking in your small handbag, hoping─ no, praying, you brought some tissues with you. You spilled an energy drink on Lando Norris. His energy drink. Lando Norris was in front of you, staring at you like you were some wild, erratic animal. He was probably furious. You wanted to bury yourself six feet deep underground. “I'm sorry, I can't find any tissues I─”

He snorted.

You froze in your tracks, interrupting your rambling. A glimmer of amusement shone in the driver's eyes. “It's chill, don't even worry about it. It's not as if that was like, the only suit I owned.”

“Uh─” you started. “I'm still─”

There was something about your expression, maybe the fact you were opening and closing your mouth searching for something to say like a fish out of the water, that made him reiterate. “Really, it's cool. You can stop panicking.” After a pause, he continued, in a more reassuring tone. “Plus I'm already all sweaty and dirty, so not much of a difference.”

He was…? Heat furiously rose up to your cheeks and you couldn't tell if it was because of embarrassment or his words or how painfully aware you were of the situation. “What?”

This time, Lando's face was graced with a shit-eating grin aimed right at you. “From racing and champagne, you know.”

Oh.

Now you wanted to be five feet under. What was wrong with you? “Right.” You took a deep breath. You bump into Lando Norris, an F1 driver you admired for years no matter your loyalty to Ferrari, and spill an entire energy drink on him before accidentally stepping right into borderline sexual harassment. Get a grip, Y/N. “I saw. I mean, I was in the stands. Beach Grandstands. I saw you. Win the race. Congratulations, by the way!”

You sounded like a robot. Oh my god. You couldn't act less natural even if you tried.

Lando arched an eyebrow. “Thanks a lot. But uh, if you were in the stands─ what are you doing in staff quarters?”

Your heart lurched in your chest, realizing the impression you probably gave. “Shit. I promise I'm not a weird fan or anything, I'm not a stalker! Which is definitely what a stalker would say. But I'm not. I was dragged by the mass of people and I couldn't find the exit and nobody would tell me─”

Another laugh from him interrupted you and what surprised you was the absence of mockery: he sounded genuinely amused. You didn't know how to react to the fact he found your distress funny. “Are you always this anxious?”

“See, this whole…,” you made a circular hand gesture, “... situation is not helping my anxiety. So the answer would be maybe.”

Lando chuckled again and this time, an awkward smile found its way to your lips. “I wasn't trying to blame you, it was just a question. You can breathe. But the exit's not there.”

“Yeah, I think I noticed,” you sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose.

“It's through there,” Lando turned around and pointed to a slightly hidden door, but right above was a bright green exit sign. You were blind. “You just go straight and the parking lot shouldn't be that far.”

“Oh, uh. Thanks. I didn't see it,” you simply answered. Dusting off invisible dust from your clothes, you looked at him again. “Again, I'm sorry about the drink. Really.”

“I told you it's nothing, just go before a team member calls security on you, ‘aight?”

You aggressively nodded, which stole another breathless laugh from him that you decided to ignore. Right as you went through the door, the curly-haired driver called: “Hey!” You turned around, frowning in incomprehension.

“Next time you decide to sneak into McLaren's quarters,” Lando said, “at least wear the right colors.”

You quickly glanced at your Ferrari shirt, slightly cropped to go with your jean skirt. That's when the words echoed in your brain. “I wasn't sneaki─!”

Before you could finish your argument, he closed the door on you.

Walking back to your car, the realization of everything that went down the last 10 minutes slowly dawned on you. What the fuck had just happened? Was it real? Did you hallucinate? Did you just humiliate yourself like that in front of Lando Norris?

Most importantly: novels made meet-cutes seem so simple and easy, how did you manage to mess it up that bad?

A day later, you tried to push that interaction to the back of your mind, mainly because of how embarrassed you were about how you acted but also because otherwise, you wouldn't be able to think about anything else.

Once the night had comfortably settled, you confidently walked into the venue Leandra rented. It was an immense room in an even bigger hall, and so elegant you couldn't help but feel a bit out of place. You guessed that’s what you were supposed to expect when you partied at the same place the drivers usually did ─ at least that's what one of the girls told you: it was where they would throw after-parties when they had time after races. Fits the theme, you thought.

The decor was tasteful and themed in a way that didn't feel cheap, which was surprisingly hard to do, as you discovered as you mingled with Leandra Moore and her entourage. The buffet was delicious, the champagne was flowing, and there were professional photographers and signed illustrations of the two main characters of Silver Spring Race, along with a Fairyloot exclusive edition of the book. You could have died right here and there: the details were to die for.

Right as the music was getting louder, the conversations grew more deconstructed and the alcohol less diluted, you decided to step out for some fresh air ─ as much fun as it was, being socially involved for so long was tiring you out. If you wanted to last the night, you needed a little break.

The exit was notoriously hard to find, which gave you war flashbacks from yesterday you had a hard time pushing away, but you didn't spend as long finding it ─ just enough to regret the aesthetic choice of wearing high heels for the night.

By the time you got outside, your feet were aching for freedom. You quickly rushed to the stone stairs leading to the party hall and sat on the first step. The scenery was quite stunning: a fountain throned in the middle of the place leading to stairs, lightly illuminated by the white neons in the water and the warm hall light, and tall trees surrounding the square. You could have probably appreciated it more if you weren't so preoccupied with detaching those fucking straps of your ankles: why weren't they coming off, those little─

“Oof, looks like you need help again.”

Your hand froze on your shoe as the voice and accent hit a familiar spot in your brain. It took you a second to catch up, and around a minute to realize. Your heart dropped and you turned around, slowly, like the main character in a horror movie.

Lando Norris stood before you. Again.

Who exactly was controlling your life? Because the odds of this happening a second time were really, really low.

His hair was usually messy, and yet tonight they seemed more contained and professional. He wore a white shirt, and a few buttons popped open at the collar gave you an open view of a small gold chain around his neck ─ you had to drag your gaze away. Straight-legged black pants finished the look, topped off with black loafers. He looked miles away from the Lando Norris you accidentally ran into after the race. He probably showered.

He looked gorgeous, too. It would be a blatant lie to even ignore it, and that realization slightly took your breath away.

Yet, the only thing coming out of your mouth was a strangled, “I swear I'm not stalking you.”

A pause. You had serious issues.

And still, Lando laughed. Hard and loud, like the ones you saw in a few selected interviews when you were bored and scrolling on YouTube during the breaks. It made you feel slightly self-conscious. He breathed in as he walked toward you, a chuckle still in his tone when he spoke up. “I mean, I'd believe you this time but the coincidence's pretty big.”

An offended scoff escaped you and suddenly, all the thoughts about him being a celebrity, a renowned driver, a trust fund kid flew out the window right into the fountain.

“I'll let you know I was invited to an event here, thank you very much. I have other, more important things to do than follow someone around.”

When you realized what you said, your eyes widened. “Sorry, I didn't mean─”

But Lando was smiling.

“Nah, you did.” Right now, he stood right next to you on the stairs and you quietly wondered if he was going to sit down or keep looking down on you like that. Then you realized that you were, again, in the most improbable situation known to man. Anxiety swirled in your stomach.

“Soo… what event are you attending?”

You squinted your eyes up at him. “...Is this an interrogation?”

Lando simply shrugged. “Can never be too sure.”

Well, you couldn't blame him for that.

“A book release party. The author, Leandra Moore, happened to invite me and other people. She was the one that got us tickets for the race yesterday, too. I just went out to get some fresh air.”

He hummed in response. “Oh yeah, heard something about that. I guess you're legit, then.”

“Yes, I am!” When you looked up again, there was that shit-eating grin. You rolled your eyes to the high heavens.

“... Wait. Is your name Y/N?” He suddenly asked.

Huh?

You never mentioned your name to him. You don't think it was even brought up in the 15 minutes you two talked. A frown scrunched up your eyebrows. “Uh, yes? How'd you know?” Silence. “And I'm the stalker?”

Lando laughed a bit at that. He finally sat down next to you, and the heat of his exposed forearms somewhat close to your own made you panic again.

“Y/N as in WhoisY/N?”

The gasp you let out could have landed you a role in The Young and the Restless. There was no fucking way. Absolutely none. This is where you drew the line. “You can't possibly be watching my videos.” Your tone was resolute.

“Nah, not me. My little sister though, Cisca.” That made more sense than to imagine Lando Norris, McLaren's golden boy, giggling and kicking his feet in front of your last romance review. Still, it felt unreal. “She eats up every single one of your posts. You’re the reason why we have so many cartoon covers at home, that's why I thought you looked familiar at first. The book release party confirmed it.”

You didn't know what emotions you should let transpire first. The fact that you were a celebrity in the Norris family was enough to make your jaw drop, but the mention of cartoon covers added heat to your cheeks ─ you hoped he never opened his sister's books.

“She's so gonna freak out when I tell her I met you,” he said between laughs.

“She's going to freak out?” You asked in disbelief. “You're in Formula 1. She can't freak out because of me. I'm freaking out because of you!”

He didn't point out your statement, thank god, but his eyes didn't seem to miss it. “I'm her older brother, she uses that to make fun of me now. But no, definitely, she's going to freak out.”

“What even is my life right now.”

That, at least, made you both erupt in an unstoppable fit of laughter. When it died down, you finally had the space to ask the question sitting in your mind since he appeared behind you. “What are you even doing here?”

Lando arched an eyebrow at you. “Is this an interrogation?”

“Yes.”

He exaggeratedly rolled his eyes, clearly mimicking you. “There's a race after party in the hall. McLaren special. Also went out to get some air, DJ-ing was becoming suffocating.”

“Oh,” it clicked, and you started thinking out loud. “I guess the girls weren't lying when they said that's where the drivers partied. It makes sense Leandra would rent out this hall.”

“Why?”

You were pretty sure smoke could be escaping from you right now just by how flustered you were. “Uh. For promoting her book?”

“Yeah, I got that, but like… why would our parties have anything to do with it?”

Lando was becoming suspicious again. Somebody kill you right now. How do you keep messing it up? “Because… it's… an F1 romance?”

Blank stare. You were just as red as the dress you wore and ready to go home to cry yourself to sleep. Then he laughed, hysterically, and you couldn't feel more ashamed.

“That exists?” He asked, breathless.

You turned your face away from him. “Yes.”

“And you read that?”

“Leave me alone,” you added, “if she follows me, your sister does too.”

That seemed to make him stop, at least, to your devious satisfaction. “I think I'll need to take a look at her shelves when I go home.”

“For the good of the girl and mine, please don't.”

The cold night breeze brushed your arms and you were now very mindful of how thin the material of your dress was. You shivered, rubbing your arms with your hands. Lando was quick to notice. “Shit, sorry. I don't have a jacket. I would have landed it to you otherwise.”

You don't know what came over you, but you bumped your shoulder with his. “Wow, that was almost gentleman-like.” Where did this familiarity come from, you didn't know ─ you have known the man for no longer than an hour. But there was something about the easy-going conversation, the late night, and the champagne buzzing in your blood that made this scene… just like the ones you read about, in your favorite books.

As soon as that idea slithered into your mind, you forcefully pushed it out. That was another level of delusion, Y/N. Those novels fried your brain.

You got up before Lando could answer. “It's fine, I was going to go back to my hotel anyway. The party drained my social battery and my flight takes off early tomorrow, so it's better if I go to sleep.”

“Okay, sure. Let me walk you to your car at least.”

Oh shit. “... I don't have a car.”

He blinked slowly. “What do you mean? How'd you come here, then?”

“I carpooled with some girls who are not going home right now.” That was a very dumb idea now that you look back on it.

“So… how are you planning to get to your hotel?”

You didn't bring your wallet with you, so no chance of getting a taxi. “... I'll walk?”

“... Yeah, no. No chance. At night? Dressed like that?” He took you in, making you hyper-aware of the high slit and the almost sheer material of your dress. “I'll take you.”

You were stunned. So much for avoiding delusion or further embarrassment. “I can't possibly ask you─ I mean, you have a party─”

“If you think that after-party is going to end anytime soon, you're so wrong,” he chuckled.

In all honesty, you could have argued more, but Lando already seemed settled on his decision. He stood up, not before grabbing the heels you took off during the conversation and decidedly headed toward the parking lot. You hummed and followed suit as he started walking toward his car, your comments dying on your tongue. The improbability of what was currently happening was just too much for you to grace it with a thought, so a sentence would be crossing the limits.

The car ride was spent in comfortable silence as soon as you typed the address of your hotel in his GPS. Your eyes widened when his car came into view: a black 2018 McLaren Senna, with red accents, you hadn't seen so beautiful with your own eyes in a while. You had to bite back a gasp when you got in.

Lando rolled the windows fully down. The wind whipped strands of hair around as you watched the scenery roll by at a dizzying speed, making you wonder if he knew what a speed limit was. Soft bass music played on the radio, one you didn't know the lyrics to, but Lando did as he whispered-sang them. He looked calm behind a wheel that didn't belong to a Formula One car, the contrast was drastic. The driver met your eyes with a smile, and that was only then you realized you'd been staring. You turned your head as he laughed.

When your hotel came into view, you quietly thanked him for dropping you off and stepped out of the car. You didn't know what to do after that. Some part of you tugged at your mind ─ it was too good to be true, those things only happened in books. He was probably waiting for something in return. After a small wave to him, you were ready to disappear behind the doors and leave this night behind.

“Wait!” Lando called out from his opened window. Your stomach dropped. You knew it.

Hesitantly, you turned around.

“You're still wearing the wrong color,” he simply said, “I better see you in orange if you want my services next time.”

Relief washed over you and no matter how hard you fought it, a smile broke your carefully impassive facade. “Next time?”

Lando smiled at you. “Next time.”

And when he drove away, you couldn't help the butterflies in your stomach either.

As you lay in bed that night, you didn't push anything away. You processed what happened, today and yesterday. You didn't know how to feel or what to feel exactly, many emotions were contradictory, but maybe it was alright ─ not to know. To just let yourself feel without having to put a name on it.

When you grabbed the phone in your handbag, an Instagram notification caught your attention before you could even unlock it.

@.lando started following you.

A disbelieving, loud laugh escaped you. He did say there would be a next time.

After that it was safe to say, even though a little wild, Lando Norris had become a staple in your daily life.

The moment you got back home, you had received a DM by the driver himself asking if you traveled safely to which you couldn't help but reply with a “Stalker much?”. He simply answered that there was only a single flight going back to where you lived today, so it was easy to find on Skyscanner. As if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

It made you smile.

The texts continued. What first started as small conversations every two days, reacting to each other's stories or silly tweets with not much depth behind them gradually grew, over a month, into useless life updates, every day with no exceptions.

lando: just ate the biggest fucking sandwich today

lando: [1 picture attached]

lando: scooby-doo type shit

whoisy/n: i'm so hungry actually

lando: did u get sidetracked reading again

whoisy/n: it's LITERALLY my job

lando: go get something to eat you muppet

whoisy/n: yessir

whoisy/n: u'll never guess what happened in my book

lando: he cheated on her right

whoisy/n: …

whoisy/n: you WILL guess what happened in my book

lando: LMAOOO that was so obvious from what you told me

whoisy/n: i had sm faith in him. men!!!

lando: they're all the same

whoisy/n: RITEEEEEE QUEEN

Lando always asked about what you were currently reading. It didn't take a genius or an Oxford diploma to notice how much you loved it, not when your entire social media presence was built around it. You knew it wasn't performative and he enjoyed hearing you talk about it ─ he often sent texts during the week asking about your favorite character, at what page you were, and if they kissed yet. It was harder during weekends due to races. Somehow, he still made time.

Similarly, Lando took the habit of sending you long vocals at the end of his days, explaining what happened, what Oscar and him were up to, and how annoying the different media were. He still refused to tell you much about his team, because your allegiance to Ferrari was simply “outrageous” according to him. You gladly landed a listening ear, chiming with a helping comment whenever you could. The late evenings got later and the vocals longer and longer each passing week, and before you knew it you two were calling almost every night.

It was a normal occurrence. He would get ready for bed and you would drop your Kindle for an hour or two, even longer the rare times he didn't have anything planned the next day. You would talk about anything and everything at the same time ─ sometimes he'd rope you into downloading a game and playing it with him, sometimes you'd just remodel the world until one of you was too exhausted to keep playing God. Most of the time, it was Lando.

Due to its sudden start, this growing friendship of yours quickly attracted the attention of your entire following base as well as his. Lando commented on almost all your new Instagram posts and TikToks with random things that either had a link with what you were talking about or none at all ─ most often alluding to the many inside jokes that stemmed from your conversations. Every interaction succeeded in making everyone crazy, especially your followers: apparently, you were finally getting the sports romance you were dreaming about for years.

The thought crossed your mind, how could it not with the amount of allusions under your posts? The fan edits on your For You page? But you never let yourself linger on it for too long.

You and Lando were friends. Nothing more, nothing less.

The call you got that night was unexpected. Tomorrow was race day, the Canadian Grand Prix more specifically ─ and Lando never called before a race. You understood perfectly, something about being well rested and focused, so you usually sent a good luck paragraph he'd read in the morning and answer after the event. So why did his caller ID light up your phone screen as you were getting ready to go to bed, you didn't know.

You picked up without a second thought. “Everything's alright?”

“What happened to hello?” He chuckled, his voice grainy through the speaker.

“My God,” you sighed. “Hello, Lando. Is everything alright?”

“Why wouldn't it be?”

“You never call before race day.”

Silence. “Hello?” You called. “You're still there?”

“Yeah, sorry. Uh, it's just─ your books are so unrealistic.”

Your heart skipped a bit, and you sat a little straighter against your pillow. “What?”

“I couldn't sleep and I didn't have anything to do, so I picked up one of your F1 romances you recommended in your last video─” No. No, he didn't. “Throttled? By Lauren Asher? And I just─ it's so dumb.”

Your mouth dropped open and instead of letting out words, a small screech left your lips. “You─ you read─? Why?”

“Like I said, I couldn't sleep. Whatever, it's─”

“Embarrassing!” You interrupted Lando. “You read one of my─ oh my god. This is not the family-friendly kind either. And it's F1. Next time just punch me in the face, I’ll be less humiliated.”

A wheeze came from the other side of the phone. You buried your head in your pillows, trying to put out the fire in your face. “Oh yeah, definitely not family-friendly.”

You groaned in response but that didn't stop Lando from continuing. “As I was saying before you rudely interrupted me, it got most of the sport right but otherwise it's so… it took all the competitiveness out! That's, like, the entire point of F1! I thought you were a fan, how can you willingly enjoy that?”

“I mean, I know it's not the most accurate representation of F1,” you flopped on your back, “but it's kinda like Drive To Survive, y'know? Most people watch it for the drama. I read those for the romance plot.”

Lando scoffed at your words. “Even the romance plot isn't that good, Y/N. The whole part in which he throws a race to make her happy? That's such bullshit.”

“How so?”

“If you love her, you win a race for her.”

You couldn't put the words on it once again, but the way he said it constricted your chest with such tightness you had to take a long, calming breath. You had to concentrate to get out your next sentence. “Well, I don't know, it's not like I know anything about romance. I thought that was pretty romantic.”

“What do you mean, ‘don't know anything about romance'? You read this shit all day long.”

You let out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, but that's not the real thing. I've never actually dated or kissed anyone, so actual romantic gestures are like… foreign languages to me.”

A beat. Until you suddenly heard a mess of covers moving around, reverberating right in your eardrums. You hissed, and Lando spoke up again.

“You've never kissed anyone? Or dated?” He sounded stunned, which surprised you. It's not like you've tried to hide it. It grew to be your brand over time.

“Uh, yeah. Never.”

“You're shitting me.”

“No?”

“I can't believe it.”

You rolled your eyes. “Well, jeez, thank you for making me feel so great about being a twenty-two years old virgin, Lando.”

“No! No! I didn't mean it like that,” he screamed at his speaker. “You're just… you're you. You’re too nervous for your own good, true, but your cheeks get darker when you laugh, you fiddle with your sleeves when you don’t know what to say, and you constantly hum songs when it’s too quiet for you. You're smart, you're beautiful, you're passionate, you're funny…” He got quiet before continuing. “I don't get how anyone could pass up the chance to kiss you, that's all.”

Oh. Oh.

The fluttering in your stomach flew its way up to your throat, and for a little moment, you thought you were going to throw up. The silence stretched as you basked in Lando's words, left hanging in the thick air. Suddenly the screen didn't seem like enough space between the two of you.

Lando ended up breaking the stillness. “I just─ I think I should hang up. The race's tomorrow and it's getting─” A pause. You glanced at the time: 00:23. “Shit, the race is today.”

“Don't worry. Go to sleep, get those hours in and win tomorrow,” you answered in a shaky breath.

“Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do.”

Still, neither of you clicked on the red button. “Lando?”

“Mmh?”

“Thank you. For what you said.”

“... I meant it.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” He hung up.

You desperately tried to fall asleep, tossing and turning, fighting with your pillow and covers to get comfortable but the only thing your mind could focus on was the end sentence he uttered, the inflections of his voice a ghostly whisper in your ear. I don't get how anyone could pass up the chance to kiss you.

How did you successfully act as if that call never happened? You didn't know. You never were a good liar, less of a good actress. Maybe it was the way Lando carefully sidestepped the subject every time you nearly alluded to it that made you so good about ignoring it altogether.

It was nothing. You just blew it out of proportion, like you usually did. Maybe you should try self-help books instead of romances for the next few months.

No matter how bittersweet your feelings were about this whole situation, you chose to put them aside, simply because Lando had two free weeks starting today and he chose to put a few of his days aside to fly out to your town. For the first time in almost three months, you were going to see each other face to face. And under normal circumstances! That would be a first.

When he came out of the airport, with a gigantic suitcase for just a few days and his characteristic grin adorning his lips, all questions just vanished into thin air. You resisted the urge to jump into his arms but you didn't miss how tight Lando held you when he initiated the hug ─ you melted into him like snow in the sun.

Lando had rented a hotel room for his short stay, a good thirty minutes ride from you. He used it once before you both silently declared your home was way better than a five-star Hilton. He squatted on your couch and you'd sleep in your bed, the rare times you slept as most nights were spent playing video games and marathoning movies. Most of them were romantic comedies. Lando would complain about the lack of realism and you'd smack him over the head, and the movie would be watched in between snarky commentaries and heartfelt comments on your perception of love, sneaking glances at each other.

You tried not to let the latter get too much to your head.

However, Lando's trip had to end at some point. Too soon, it was the evening before his plane ride home and you were helping him gather the stuff he left all over the place ─ the state of your living room was deplorable, but you could cry about it tomorrow morning. In any case, you had to get ready since Lando established earlier there was no way in hell he was going to go back without going out at least once. You replied by saying you already went out a couple of times but according to him, visiting was not considered “going out.”

A good thirty minutes later, you crossed the threshold of your house, heels clacking on the pavement as you approached Lando. He was waiting next to your own car, black shirt half buttoned and messy curls hastily tamed. You had forced yourself not to stare too much ─ friendship established or not, you were still the same girl he found on the stairs in Miami and he was still undeniably beautiful. His eyes raked over you in silence, his lips parting slightly, and you found your normally confident walk faltering.

You hoped he thought of you just the same.

Then, breathlessly, “Wow.”

That's all it took for fire to flame up your face, drowning the blush you so carefully applied. You graced him with a little spin, which he applauded. “Well, you're not so bad yourself,” you added. Understatement of the year.

You walked to the driver's seat, but Lando's hand on the handle stopped you going further. “Nah, I'm driving tonight. I got a surprise for you.”

“What do you mean, surprise? Weren't we supposed to go to the movies?” You raised your eyebrows, confused.

“We watched, like, 30 movies and I've been there 5 days - I’m starting to overdose. Trust me and get in the passenger seat.”

“... You being so ominous is making it very hard to trust you, Lando.”

“I’m an F1 driver, I can drive your car.” He sounded offended you doubted him, even though you weren’t alluding to his driving skills at all. Still, the tone he employed when mentioning your car was almost offending you. Not everyone had a McLaren salary. “I meant the surprise,” you clarified.

“Ah. Well. Have a little faith in me, c’mon.” On these words, he climbed into the driver’s seat and closed the door on you. The audacity of that man, sometimes you couldn’t believe it. It didn’t leave you much choice than to take the seat next to him and watch the landscape go by. Quiet conversation was made as the sky tinged with dark, navy blue, and before you knew it Lando was parking in front of one of the most reputable ─ and expensive ─ restaurants in your town. It was safe to say you never put a foot in it before.

When you got out of the car, you almost jumped at him. “That’s your surprise?!” You whispered-exclaimed under his amused gaze. “You’re crazy. Downright mad.”

“I’m inviting you!” Like it was the most natural thing in the world, to just indebt yourself by inviting a girl to dinner. The smile he flashed at you was a mix of hesitation and enthusiasm, so bright that any protests and remarks about how you just couldn’t let him pay died in your throat. Instead, you thanked to which Lando answered by giving you his arm. You took it and entered the restaurant.

You couldn’t describe the meal as anything but luxurious, whether it was taste-wise or the plate’s presentation. Your surroundings were gold plated and yet the only thing you could focus on was how hard Lando was trying to make you choke on your food ─ the jokes were flowing just as much as the wine in your glass, any awkwardness you may have felt stepping into this place disappeared into thin air as soon as Lando started occupying the conversational space, like he could sense how tense you were.

Before you could even look at the dessert, he stopped you. “We’ll skip that,” he said. You threw him a strange look. “I have another thing planned, just go with it.”

How many surprises were in store for you tonight? You didn’t know, and your Excel-spreadsheet-on-vacations self was getting panicky. But if there was one thing you learned with Lando was that your incessant worrying was needless, especially with him. You left after he took care of the bill, being very careful about not letting the numbers in your sight, and climbed back into the car. The sky was now an inky black and the air was lukewarm on your bare arms. Lando rolled the windows down like he usually did, but this time let you be in charge of the aux ─ considering it still was your vehicle. Frank Ocean’s “Moon River” resonated in between hushed giggles and the chime of the wind in your hair. Flashbacks of that fateful night, three months ago, crept through your memories. You still couldn’t believe what it had come to.

You drove longer than you did before. This time, Lando parked on a cliff you had no idea existed, even though this was your town. And this time, when you got out of the car, your breath was taken away by just how many stars contrasted with the darkness of the night, the lights of the town too far away to blind them and instead joining them in a faraway source of light.

Marveling in front of the scenery stopped you from noticing Lando’s shenanigans behind you. He was awfully quiet, which wasn’t like him, so you turned around.

You found him on the roof of your car. Literally. With plastic goblets, the half-empty bottle of wine you had at the restaurant, and ─ you weren’t joking ─ a plate of pancakes. Your jaw dropped open, nearly hitting the floor. “What? How─ huh?” No full sentence could come out of your mouth at this moment, no matter how hard you tried.

“Don’t tell me you don’t like pancakes,” he pleaded, “I woke up way too early to make them not be eaten.”

You thought you dreamt yourself climbing on the top of your car to sit next to him, but it was all very real: you were wholly stunned, which he seemed to notice. Sheepish, he prompted a proper explanation, “I just thought I should, uh, properly thank you. For letting me stay at your house and all. This seemed less impersonal than the restaurant.”

“You stole the wine,” was the only constatation you were able to get out, barely. Emotions constricted your throat too tightly for you to utter anything else.

He laughed. “Took it when you weren't looking. ‘S not like they're going to reuse it so I took care of the waste.”

“Such an ecologist soul,” you teased.

“They call me Father Nature at McLaren.”

“How'd you…” Words weren't coming out easily. Your eyes darted from the bottle, to the pancakes he probably woke up at an ungodly hour of the morning to make, and Lando ─ who was waiting for you to speak like you were his saving grace. Nobody ever looked at you like that, you thought, like you meant something more than what you were. “How'd you get this idea?”

Your question seemed to fluster him a little. He ran a hair through his curls, eyes darting to the side. “Uh, that's what he did. The male character in your book. Nothing Like The Movies I think? I thought that'd be something you like, y'know?”

Your heart thumped against your chest like it threatened to burst out of it. He read a romance novel, one of the most recent ones you reviewed. He took note of your favorite scene, in which Wes was supposed to take Liz to a restaurant but ended up eating on the roof of his car. He reproduced it.

For you.

“I…” There was a sentence threatening to spill out that you're not sure you quite mean yet, but you were feeling it so deeply it was hard to keep it in check. “I don't know what to say.”

“Then just eat the goddamn pancake before they get harder than they are. Turns out, they're not really durable.” It surprised a chuckle out of you.

The conversation carried on after that. The slow hum of Frank Ocean's discography escaping from the car made the perfect soundtrack to the vast discussions about racing, books, and life in general. The longer Lando and you went on, the quieter your voice got until they were reduced to a little more than a whisper, almost into each other's ears. Your cheeks hurt from laughing, your pinkie was intertwined with his, and the bottle was empty by the time the clock on your lock screen showed midnight.

“How did you even find this place?” You looked around once more, taking in the city lights, the tall trees, and the numerous stars above you.“I've been living here for years and I never knew you could get such a good view. Plus, it's not like you sneaked out during the night to scout places out. Unless?” You gasped exaggeratedly.

And there it was again, the pinkish tint at the end of his ears and the avoiding looks. “Nah, no sneaking out. I… I mean, what I did was─”

“You…?”

“I googled ‘date idea’ in your city and this is one of the places that came up.”

All of the sudden, the reality of the situation slapped you in the face. How Lando's thumb was lazily drawing circles on your hand, the romantic lyrics of the song playing from the car, the wine and the restaurant and how your eyes have been switching from his eyes to his lips a bit too often ever since you parked.

“Is this…?” You could kiss him right now. According to how transfixed he was by your mouth, you didn't think Lando would mind much.

You leaned in ever so slightly. He never answered your half-question, and even if he did you don't think you could have heard it through the hammering in your ribcage. However, his lips were but a brush of air against your own.

Because a goddamn flash stopped you.

You both jumped in surprise, the harsh light blinding you for a split second. The other half of it was enough to realize what you were faced with. Lando was the first to voice it, in more of a hiss than a sentence. “Fucking paparazzis.”

He got off the car in a jump, but a flurry of hurried footsteps told you that by the time he reached the spot the light came from, there would be no one left. You jumped off as well, dusting off your dress. “Lando?” You were shaking. Somehow, you couldn't tell if it was from embarrassment, panic, cold, or the brutal withdrawal of the high you were in not even a minute ago.

“The fuckers ran away.” His voice betrayed the palpable anger radiating off him. “I should’ve known. They’re always fucking there.”

The mood was gone, replaced by the static of the cold night air and the missing warmth of each other. By a silent, common agreement, you both cleaned up your car’s rooftop and climbed back in your seats soon after. The soft music was gone, the windows rolled up and Lando’s hands were tense on the wheel. When you got home, nothing more but a small “goodnight” was exchanged ─ apart from a glance, as you crossed your bedroom’s door, but it was too dark for you to interpret what it could mean.

When you woke up a few hours later, Lando was already gone.

You knew it was too good to be true. Things like that happened to the type of girls in the novels, not to you. But when Lando wouldn’t answer your texts, or carried on his vacations and his first Grand Prix back without a care in the world, you still couldn’t be asked to describe the terrible ache in your chest. You should have known.

You couldn’t wrap your mind around it ─ that all the late night calls, the comments, the texts, the rooftop of your car and the soft sweep of his breath on your lips was so easy to brush off for him. Not when it was the ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’ of what could have happened that night that kept you up for so many sleepless hours. It left you wondering if any of it was real: the friendship, the sweet words, and everything in between, or if you were just the new mystery girl to toy with and give up when it became too complicated.

The heartbreak and betrayal weren’t even the worst part of the situation. You didn’t expect the photo to come out as quickly as it did, after McLaren had a good PR team and would be able to at least intercept it, right? Wrong. It came out two days later. The picture was slightly blurry but clear enough so you could perfectly see your face and Lando’s, dangerously close to each other, and your hands intertwined together.

The flurry of comments, DMs, and interview requests sent to you after was unbelievable. Your community did the best it could to try and get the tabloids off your back, bless them, but all the other sides of the internet were either begging for more information or calling you names. Still, Lando and McLaren chose to ignore the whole situation. Swallowing your pride and deciding to take the high road, you did the same. You read romance books, you reviewed them, you exchanged a little bit with your followers on social media, you watched movies ─ you carried on with your day-to-day life, even if it was with a little less vehemence and a growing dislike for the romantic genre you adored.

It was the first year a Grand Prix would take place in your city. A brand new circuit, with brand new challenges. Taking place in the middle of the season, you were ecstatic when it was announced a few months back. Now, seeing people walking down your street with bright orange shirts and a number 4 on their back on a Friday morning, the only thing you wanted to do was to close your blinds and crawl back into bed for the weekend.

Your plans were thrown in the wind not even an hour later by none other than Cisca Norris. With an Instagram DM. You started following each other a few days after your friendship with Lando had been noticed by the public eye, but you’ve never really spoken to each other. She looked like a sweet girl nonetheless.

ciscanorris: heyyyy

ciscanorris: ik we never talked

ciscanorris: and that might not be the bestest moment to get friendly

ciscanorris: but heyyyyyyy

Your eyebrows rose at the notification, but you weren’t about to let your situation with Lando get in the way of interacting with his sister ─ who had nothing to do with it in the slightest.

whoisy/n: hey cisca! dw at all, hows it going : )

ciscanorris: great!! hbu?

whoisy/n: tired, but apart from that nothing much

ciscanorris: rest well then!

ciscanorris: i’m going to be honest tho

ciscanorris: i’m not just texting you to ask how you’re doing

It should have surprised you yet it didn’t. The timing was too spot-on to be a coincidence, but you chose to live in ignorant bliss.

ciscanorris: are you going to the race this weekend?

whoisy/n: what do you think

ciscanorris: can’t blame you

ciscanorris: my brother’s an ass

That made you chuckle.

whoisy/n: i was thinking worse

ciscanorris: so am i

ciscanorris: but he wants to make up for it

ciscanorris: really

ciscanorris: he insists you should go to the race

whoisy/n: and he couldn’t text me and ask himself because…?

ciscanorris: doesn’t want to spoil the surprise apparently

ciscanorris: idk what he’s planning

Another surprise. Knowing how the last one amazingly ended, you were a little doubtful. Lando sent his sister to ask you to come as if she was the one racing, and now he had something planned ─ again.

ciscanorris: just check your mailbox and think about it

This was enough to pique your curiosity. You went out immediately, opening the little white mailbox next to your front door. There was only a small, brown letter with your address hastily written in black ink ─ you recognized Lando’s handwriting. There it was: a paddock pass, classic McLaren colors, with your name on it. With it? A note, same brown paper, same handwriting: “Please”.

That’s all it took to convince you to go. After all, you still had to get a proper apology.

This time, you entered the McLaren’s side of the paddock with purpose. The staff member at the entrance knew your name and even showed you the way ─ a sharp contrast with your experience a few months back. You stood above the garage, right in front of the track and near a decisive turn, though the number didn’t come back to you. It was a good spot, excellent even, it could be said to be better than the Beach Grandstands in Miami.

Yet, there was no sign of Lando.

You walked past Oscar in the hallways and the quiet driver just flashed you the tight-lipped smile you give to acquaintances in the street. You walked past his girlfriend, Lily, and you even passed by Lando’s dad, whose eyes widened in recognition but was clearly too busy to offer you anything more than that. Everyone but the man you came to watch the race for. You started to absentmindedly fidget with the bottom of your orange shirt ─ if that was his version of an apology, he was pretty shit at it.

The race started soon after your arrival, and the pit in your stomach dug deeper and deeper as you watched Lando do the formation turn. You suppose you were to wait until the end of the race, which made sense in a way, but you didn’t appreciate being put on standby like greenery on a windowsill.

The animosity dimmed when the sound of motors rang in your ears at lights out.

The circuit was brand new, and two days of preparations were not nearly enough to get acquainted with an entire novel track. Risks were high, and the probability of winning was evened out for everyone, which justified the cacophony of cars bumping into the others during the first lap as everyone found their footing. You believed Lando would have a good chance of ending P1 and snatching a victory in your city ─ it was the type of track and weather that favored him.

But Lando had started on pole position.

From the years you spent watching races and your general knowledge of him, Lando Norris didn’t do well when he started a race on pole. Most often, pressure got to him and he lost one or two places during the first few laps, which made you curse at the TV more than you’d like to admit. Unfortunately, it was exactly what was happening right now: you gripped the railing for dear life as Hamilton passed him, then almost broke your nail on the metal when Verstappen followed suit.

By the last lap, Lando had managed to stay P3 and keep his place on the podium, much to your relief, but the bitterness of pole escaping him was obvious in his behavior: champagne was sprayed all over him by his colleagues but he wouldn’t even look up from the ground, his traits disfigured by disappointment. Maybe some would see it as tiredness, but you knew better.

That’s why as soon as he walked down the podium to head to his team and to his garage, you darted downstairs to meet him.

It didn’t take long to spot Lando. His team surrounded him, clapping his shoulder and congratulating him with a bright smile. He barely returned them, scratching his neck in embarrassment. He was looking around like a lost puppy and you stood there, amidst the mess of elated people, unsure of what you should do or say. When Lando’s eyes set upon you, his expression went from disappointment to remorse in a split second.

He acted before you could. Rushing toward you, his voice was broken when he spoke up, trying to make himself clear above the surrounding noise. “I’m so, so sorry. I fucked it all up. I was─ that was shitty. My race was shitty.”

You blinked. “What?” You couldn’t understand the link to the race and your situation to save your life. “Lando, you’re P3.”

Lando ran a hand through his hair, gripping his curls. His eyes bore into yours, cutting off anything you might have wanted to add. “No!” He continued. “It’s not─ it’s not good enough. I should have been P1. It should have been me, up there. I worked… I worked so hard so I could…” He was breathless now, searching your face for something, even though you couldn’t tell what exactly.

“What are you even talking about?” Frustration elevated the tone of your voice.

“I was supposed to win the race for you!”

That shut you up. Incredulity coursed through you and your mouth, half-opened to say a sentence, couldn’t manage to get out a sound. His words didn’t make sense, and somehow you didn’t need to know more. Lando took your stunned silence as a sign to continue.

“I was supposed to win the race for you. I wanted to give you your book moment. You’re, you’re the type of girl that deserves to get swept off her feet, the grand gestures and all that!” He threw his arm in the air. “When you told me you never had that when we called that night, and the fact I could be the first one to do that for you… I never wanted something, someone, as bad.”

You felt yourself flush. “Everything else failed,” he kept on going, almost erratic, “I tried the heartfelt confessions but bailed right after, I tried to impromptu date but I forgot all about the fucking journalists. So I thought that- that maybe I could give it to you the way I knew best, by racing.”

His words, two months back, echoed in your mind. If you love her, you win a race for her.

“But I had to fuck that up too. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.”

All of it was for you.

The way Lando looked at you, desperate and miserable, the way your feelings were overflowing out of you and him… it was almost too much for you to process. Your mind and heart were an unintelligible tangled mess you couldn’t make sense of, and in classic you fashion, the first sentence that spilled out of your lips was a teary-eyed, broken, “You’re so stupid.”

“I know.”

You quickly wiped the tears that started spilling down your cheeks. “Not in that self-deprecating way you’re thinking of. Don’t you think it would have been easier if you just told me all this instead of ghosting me for almost a month? Making me think nothing about all this was real? Is that why you weren’t texting or answering me, you were figuring out how to go about this circuit?”

Lando nodded bashfully. You let out a dry laugh. “You’re unbelievable. I don’t care about- that! I don’t care that you didn’t get pole position, I don’t care about your ‘failed’ attempts. I couldn’t care less. What I care about is you. If you had told me that instead of leaving…”

“I’m sorry, Y/N,” he apologized again. “I just─ I wanted─ I know I acted like a moron and I should’ve done better but I thought that if I─”

“I understand. I know.” Gently, you took his hands, furiously fisting the pans of his tracksuit, into yours. Apparently, it acted as an ice bucket dropped right on Lando’s head. He stared at you as if it was the first time ─ in a way it was. He was sweaty, dirty, and covered in champagne, his curls falling onto his forehead and you were standing there, almost as surprised as your first meeting. Except everything else had changed, and the man in front of you wasn’t just a guy driving in a fast car you liked watching on Sundays. “But I didn’t need it. You’re plenty enough all by yourself, without the grand gestures and book-worthy moments. I’m not a book heroine. I need something real.”

The space between the two of you suddenly seemed too vast for the emotions inside of you. One of Lando’s hands carefully slithered on your waist, as if to test the waters. The gentleness of his movement, its implication, stole the breath out of you. “How real are we talking?” He was trying to make light of the situation, but the underlying seriousness in his voice betrayed him.

“I think you know it by now.”

And just like that, his lips crashed onto yours.

It was an electric shock as if lightning struck you and spilled in your entire body. When he pulled back, you didn’t waste a second wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him right back in.

If his hands were considerate, never unraveling further than your waist and cheeks, his mouth was the complete opposite: hungry, intense. He kissed you like he had been holding back for so long it pained him not to touch you, and you kissed him back with the same vigor because you had been waiting just as much. He tasted like expensive alcohol and you were drunk on it, on the feeling of his lips on yours, his hands on your body. You couldn’t get enough. You don’t think Lando could either. It was messy, somewhat clumsy, his mouth wet and firm moving in sync against your own in haste and impatience.

But it couldn’t have been more perfect. Not for your first kiss.

“Really, right here? Get a goddamn room.”

You recognized Oscar’s voice, even though you couldn’t see him, which was an acidic reminder of where Lando and you both were. You broke the kiss first, and he let out a breathy laugh against your lips, sending shivers through your whole body. “That… was a long, long time coming,” he whispered.

“Whose fault is that?” He chuckled again. You did too.

You gave each other a bit of space, mainly for some well-needed air but also for the comfort of the staff around you. Still, Lando’s hand went up from your waist to your forearms, taking you in like it was the first time he saw you. His smile, wide and bright, brought the trademark heat to your cheek. “You wore the right color this time.” You were now hyper-aware of the shirt you wore, bright orange with a 4 printed on the back. “Good, I would've hated kissing you while you were wearing red. That equals cheating now, by the way.”

“Oh, really? You know, you still technically haven’t taken me out on a proper date,” you teased. “Don’t think you’re forgiven just yet.”

“Don’t even worry about that, I’ll take you out on the best dates ever. No paparazzis this time. You’ll even choose the movies.”

“Even if it’s a romcom?”

“I kinda grew attached to them because of you.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Before you could get another comment out, a squeal replaced it as you felt the floor give up under your feet. It took you too long to realize Lando had swept you up in his arms, bridal style and was currently heading down a hallway. Your arms went up around his neck, this time for support. “What are you doing?” You asked with a giggle.

“Taking you to the driver’s room.” Even though you couldn’t manage to see his face, you could practically hear his grin, proud and cocky. “Going to give you reasons to forgive me, we can talk date ideas here.”

“What about the interviews?”

“They can wait.”

Playful protests escaped you under the incredulous eyes of the staff members who saw you disappear behind the white door. You didn’t care. At all. Anxiety be damned, as well as everything that held you back before. Because of this, what you had with Lando, felt perfect. Right. It might be too soon to call it love, but you had no doubt it would come to that sooner than later.

Because the way he held you, the way he kissed you, the way he looked at you, was undoubtedly better than any romance novel you ever read. Because it was real.

#lando norris #lando norris x reader #ln4 #ln4 x reader #f1 x reader #f1 #formula one #mclaren #f1 fanfic #lando x reader #lando norris fluff #fluff #lando norris imagine #f1 imagine #ln4 imagine #ln4 fluff #ᯓ my writing.ᐟ

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almadelsur · 6 months ago

Text

💋 The Secrets One Keeps

summary: You're in love with jj but he's with kie, so in moments of pure desperation you often find yourself turning to the person he hates the most...rafe

warnings: some good old angsty pining, very very slight smut if you squint, fem!reader, one or two uses of y/n, plz let me know if I missed anything

a/n: SHE'S BACKKKK, so I've decided to completely reformat and re-post this fic with a few tweaks and editing considering i first wrote this like 3 years ago, and yes for those of you who have been asking, I fully intend to finallly continue this fic....more info on that later ;)

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・

JJ’s eyes change the moment Kiara steps into any room. Immediately his presence is ripped away from your immediate atmosphere, popping the little bubble you'd spent all afternoon crafting as he sprung up to greet the olive-skinned enigma that captured his affections.

“Kie!” The joy in his tone was incomparable to anything he’d directed at anybody else. Nothing could draw out such happiness from the blonde. You hated that about her.

In an attempt at self-defense, your brain shut itself off. Shielding you from processing the scene in front of you, your emotions ran cold like cement pouring down and across your neurons. It was the only way you could survive such a beating to your heart.

You figured that by distancing yourself mentally, you wouldn’t have to raise suspicion and distance yourself physically. In reality, you knew the real reasoning was your inability to stay away from JJ but the facade helped you cope.

“Hey J” she embraced him and his body relaxed around her as if she was the only source of his happiness. The only way he’d find alleviation from what he perceived as a shitty life being through her. “Sorry I’m late my parents had me running like crazy at the wreck today.”

Scattered greetings filled the air from the rest of the pogues, yet you could only focus on the way his eyes fixated on her like she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“Here come sit baby” he offered her the seat he had just previously been place holding. What you thought had been quality time with your best friend, presented itself to you now as momentary attention to pass the time until his actual desire arrived.

Settling herself down and offering you a wide smile, her shoulder bumped against yours gently as a sign of acknowledgment.

“Hey dude” she directed at you, but you didn’t reply. You just couldn’t bring yourself to pretend. Not today anyway. Instead, you offered her a small smile, it was minimal but it was the best you could do under the circumstances.

“Yo" A crumpled tissue paper flew at your head, jj attempting to refocus your attention on him, "didn’t you say you were gonna get some water or something?” He spoke up, the scheme evident in his tone.

“um yeah I guess” You lifted yourself up and took a few steps before jj used the opportunity to slump himself down where you had been sat and sprawled his arms across his girlfriend’s shoulders.

“snooze ya loose sucker” he joked as he turned to Kiara to start up some mindless conversation. Leaving you behind in the dust.

Your teeth gritted as you focused on making your way to the kitchen hoping the distance from the scene unfolding would lift the iron grip on your heart.

You made the fatal mistake of glancing back and you were met with the image of jj nuzzling up to kiara in a picturesque display of love. The lump building at the base of your throat indicated that it was your time to get the hell out of there before you broke down in front of everyone.

“Shit guys, y’know what I just realized I gotta go” You spoke quickly, your tone matching your pace as you rushed to the exit of the chateau.

“You’re still coming to the party later though right?” John B asked, not tearing his eyes away from the screen in front of him.

“Mhm yeah sure” you opened the door ready to depart.

“Shit I forgot about that! Me and jj are gonna be late, we got dinner at the wreck tonight.” kiara added as you stepped out, unable to control the escape of a rogue tear.

“Date night babyyyy” You heard JJ cheer before you slammed the door behind you.

“Is Y/N okay? She seemed a bit off.” Kie nudged JJ as she questioned.

JJ furrowed his eyebrows momentarily. Glancing out the window, he saw you jog away from the house, and a brief flash of worry flashed through his mind. As quick as it came, it dissipated. He shook his head figuring that if there had been something wrong, he’d have been the first to know.

“Nah she’s okay don't worry.” he offered to kie.

Boy was he mistaken.

——————————————————————

“Fuuuck me” you moaned out, sinking into him one last time. You were hot, sweaty, and heaving as you pulled him out of you.

“I thought I just did” Rafe taunted leaning back to lie down, arms crossed behind his head causing his taut abdomen to flex.

You scrambled off the bed, picking up your garments and shoving them back on your body forcefully.

“What, no pillow talk?” He tried again.

“Rafe..” you trailed off. Whenever you’d finish fucking, you’d struggle to even look at him. The self-hatred flooded your body as soon as the orgasm poured out.

“Hey you called me” he eyed you intently but you knew he didn’t actually care. To rafe cameron everything was just a game. At this point it was pretty much common knowledge. “In fact” he moved closer to you so that he could speak directly into your ear “It’s always you that calls me.”

“Don’t be a dick” you stood up and eyed your heels contemplating whether you could face the walk back in them. “You know it makes me feel like shit.” It might have sounded brutal but that’s how things were with rafe.

“Yeah, it’s like you punctuate your orgasms with self-hate.”

“I'm a pogue, rafe.” You argued back as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“So? Kooks and pogues can fuck you know.” You couldn’t comprehend why you were even having this conversation. Why now, why tonight.

“Yeah maybe, not you though.” You didn’t want to tell him the reason explicitly.

“I fuck pogues.”

“You fuck anyone.” The words came out almost instantly and without thinking, yet rafe took no offense.

“Exactly so what’s the issue?”

“The issue is, rafe.” You paused trying to find the words without actually having to say the words. “The issue is that if my friends found out they’d hate me, probably more than I already hate myself.”

He just chuckled, the look in his eyes changing as he figured you out.

“What's funny?” You challenged.

“You don’t have to bullshit me princess.” He looked up at you with a devilish glint in his eye. “You just don’t want jj knowing about your little escapades huh?” Bingo.

“He’s with Kiara.” You shrugged him off.

“Uh huh, you like him but you can’t have him.” Every word he spoke striking a nerve deep within you. “So you’re fucking me to fuck him over.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” You grabbed your heels and shoved them on, wincing as you buckled them up.

“Don’t I?” He threw his joggers on lazily as he stood, the level dynamics changing significantly. The older boy towered over you. “Where are they tonight?”

“Back at John B’s, we had a little get-together.” You crossed your arms. More often than not you usually called rafe after a few drinks left you feeling lonely. “Sorry, your invite must have gotten lost in the mail.” You attempted to jab at him with sarcasm yet he clearly held the upper hand with his line of questioning.

“So all of them are there now?” He stepped towards you.

“Mhm,” You lied.

“Even jj?” Moving closer until your neck was craned upwards to meet his eyes.

Taking your silence as an answer, he reached up and ran his palms across your upper arms, prompting you to uncross them.

“He was uh- him and kie should be getting there soon” You mumbled.

“So would i be wrong in guessing, that might have prompted your call then?” You let yourself be guided by his movements leaning your neck further back as his hand trailed up to your jawbone.

“rafe…” you called out insignificantly.

He leaned in and pressed his lips against your neck, right over where he could feel your pulse, and pressed down.

You couldn’t help the gasp that left your mouth. Because as much as your heart belonged to jj, rafe was just so fucking good at raising your temperature.

“Round two?” He mumbled against your neck.

“Yeah..” you attempted yet it came out as a whisper. He grabbed you swiftly and lifted you, moving you across the room and throwing you down onto his bed, crawling on top of you in a predatory manner as he did so. As your back hit the bed, the ringing of your phone brought you back from the haze he had you under.

“Wait rafe stop stop” you pushed him off and grabbed the screeching mobile, pressing it up to your ear. “Hello?”

“Dude, where are you?” The sound of jj’s voice came through over the pumping sound of music and party chatter. “Me and Kie just got back and John B says no one’s seen you for like over an hour.”

“Oh I’m uh, I had to go do something for my mom” The lie pouring out of your mouth caused rafe to chuckle which was of course met by a slap from you signaling for him to be quiet.

“Oh well, when are you getting back? I have to tell you about this date. You’re gonna be so proud of me I actually think I’m ready to tell Kie I love her” you screwed your eyes shut as he spoke.

“Yeah I- you know what I can’t make it back my mom needs me to stay and help out but uh I’ll see you tomorrow or something.” You hung up before he could even reply, throwing your phone down uncaring of its state.

“What’s wrong? They getting hitched?” Rafe spoke up from behind you.

You turned to Rafe, the fire in your veins pushing your arms to grab him, roughly pulling him back onto you.

“Just shut up and fuck me rafe.”

And fuck you he did.

——————————————————————

The next morning you woke up to the sight of rafe’s bare back. Not much of a cuddler, you figured.

Quietly you pushed the covers off and began to dress yourself back up. As you got to your shoes you sighed and shook your head, as if there was any way in hell you were going to walk home in heels. You scooped up your shoes and your now-cracked phone shaking your head, slightly ashamed at your outburst.

Without even a second glance at the sleeping body you were leaving behind, you made your way over to the door. As you turned the knob and stepped out to leave, a husky voice spoke up.

“I’ll keep my ringer on for you babe.”

You rolled your eyes looking back at him, “Fuck you rafe.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m counting on.” He didn’t even open his eyes as he answered, instead just rustling around in the bed and turning to the other side, once again facing his back to you.

You scoffed as you exited. Your internal rant clouded your vision, body on autopilot with an excellent self-navigation of the Cameron house from the countless times you’d made this exit.

“Y/N?” The gentle voice wiped your thoughts clean as the shock stilled you dead in your tracks, slowly turning to come face to face with none other than Sarah.

“Sarah” you drawled out. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s my house?” Her head was cocked to the side, equally shocked to see you.

“No I just mean- I thought you were spending the night at John B’s.” You forced the small talk, avoiding the topic of why you were here, sneaking out at 8 in the morning.

“He had to work today, did you spend the night here?” She glanced up at the door of rafe’s bedroom.

“Umm-“ There had only been two other instances where you had been at a complete loss for words. The day jj told you he and Kiara were dating, the morning after your first sexual encounter with rafe, and now this.

“Are you sleeping with my brother?!” She whisper-shouted, eyes wide as the realization hit her. Busted.

“No?”

“Oh my god!” She grabbed you by the wrist and dragged you to her room, slamming the door as soon as you were both inside. “How long has this been going on?!” Her tone was loud and her hands wild as she interrogated you.

“Just a little under a year.” You sat on her bed and looked at your lap as you spoke. Reminiscent of a child being scolded.

“A year?! Oh my god!” She repeated. “Who knows about this?!”

With that, you looked up at her desperately. “No one. No one knows so please don’t tell them.” You didn’t have to name names for her to know who you were referring to.

“Are you two like” she paused “together?” She scrunched her nose up, disgusted at the thought of her bully of an older brother dating anyone.

“No god no. It’s just sex” you were just as uncomfortable as Sarah was, having to tell her about boning her older brother.

“Disgusting.” She turned away from you with her arms crossed, looking out the window.

“Look I’m not proud of it okay? Just-“ You sighed “Just please don’t tell anyone” pleading again.

Sarah let out a long sigh and uncrossed her arms. She walked over to you and joined you on the bed, her eyes showing concern mixed with something you couldn’t quite place your finger on.

“I thought you were into jj” she spoke softly, there it was. Pity.

“Yeah well, jj is with kie and instead of sitting around wallowing in self-pity, I decided to do something about it.” As the words left your mouth, you realized how weak the explanation was.

“So you just use rafe to bang the jj out of you.”

“It’s not like Rafe cares, if anything he’s also using me.” You tried to reason.

“I don’t doubt that. But I mean, that’s- It’s not healthy, you’ll never move on if you don’t actually process your emotio-“

“Look Sarah, I don’t need to do any of that shit okay? What I have here works, when I fu- when I’m with rafe, I don’t think about jj.” Tears began to swell in your eyes “Sleeping with rafe helps me forget about everything, even if it’s only for a little while he uh- he makes me feel good.” To an extent, there was truth behind your words, while you and rafe fucked the rest of the world went away. It was only after, that the crippling self-hatred hit you along with the return of your immense feelings for jj.

Sarah shuffled over and threw her arm around you. “That’s not good for you, it’s just momentary. It’s easy and it's a cycle, you’re never going to get better going down this path. Especially not with rafe.”

“Rafe he’s- he’s not that bad.”

“Yes he is. But i bet it gives you satisfaction fucking him knowing jj hates him. Feels like revenge right?” She’d always been so perceptive your Sarah, you hated how she could see right through you.

Tears ran down your cheek silently. “You’re not gonna tell anyone right?” You sniffled.

She gave you one of those classic salt-of-the-earth Sarah Cameron smiles, the kinda smile that would light up any room she walked into. “Takin' it to the grave babe.”

A loud beeping caused both your heads to whip towards the window. “Shit, I completely forgot I was supposed to go on the HMS with pope and jj, we were gonna chill there until John B and Kie finished work.” She rose to her feet and extended an arm towards you. “Wanna come? Or we could drop you home if you’re not up for it.”

With a sigh you took her hand and pulled yourself up, walking beside her as you mentally prepped yourself to face the blonde you desperately pined for.

“Well rise and shine campers.” jj yelled out of the window of the drivers seat.

“Y/N! Where you been dude? you totally bailed last night.” Pope was next to speak as you and Sarah filed into the Twinkie. As JJ began to drive you avoided any form of eye contact in his general direction.

“I had to go help my mom out, blackout at mine again.” You didn’t even look at pope either, instead focusing your attention on the blur of trees and houses pacing by the window as JJ sped down the winding roads.

“Isn’t that what you were wearing last night?” pope, observant as always, pointed out.

“Uh yeah, I didn’t really get any time to change cause…”

“I called her last night when I got home, I was so drunk I don’t think I was ready to stop the party.” Sarah covered for you.

“Yeah I wrapped up helping my mom out and then this one calls me talkin bout a sleepover or something so I didn’t exactly have much time to change.”

Thankfully pope had lost interest as soon as he had asked the question, otherwise, your overcompensating ass would have been caught out straight away. You always had to add to the lie until you felt like you had sold it completely.

Keeping your eyes trained on the outside meant that jj’s frown directed at you through the windscreen mirror went completely undetected. He always knew whenever there was something up with you and right there and then he knew something definitely was.

“Hey, you okay?” He didn’t need to address you explicitly for you to know he was talking to you.

“Yeah just tired.” You shrugged him off in an attempt to distance yourself from him yet again.

He knew you were lying but he didn’t understand why, you never lied to each other. Apart from John B, the pair of you were closer to each other than with anybody else in the group. You’d been best friends since kindergarten, and since then you’d sworn 3 things to each other.

1- You’d always share your snacks.

2-You’d always be best friends even if you argued.

3- You would never ever lie or keep secrets from each other.

Of course, as the both of you grew older the rules became more and more lax. The snack sharing was limited only to when you felt nice enough and sometimes you’d go for days without making up if you had argued particularly badly. Having kept two friendship-breaking secrets from him, the childhood rules seemed pretty insignificant by now.

“Mhm,” he responded, flickering his eyes between you and the road. “Are we taking you home to change first?”

“Yeah, I don’t know if I’ll join you guys afterward though.” You chewed down on your nail anxiously as the tension from being in the same space as jj paired with the guilt from having fucked rafe prior, suffocated you.

JJ made a face as he focused on the road, something was wrong with you and he’d be dammed if he wasn’t going to put his everything into finding out what that was.

#back on my shit #jj Maybank #Rafe Cameron #jj maybank x reader #rafe cameron x reader #love triangle #obx #outer banks #outer banks fic #jj maybank angst #jj maybank smut #rafe cameron smut #rafe cameron angst #jj maybank x you #rafe cameron x you #tsok #the secrets one keeps

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the-thing-inside-your-closet · 7 months ago

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The Feast!

Inspired by this post

Danny, now an adult, works as an engineer and tech developer for Wayne Enterprises. One day, he has to bring his daughter, Ellie, into work with him. Ellie’s school had been temporarily shut down after a rouge attack, and the campus isn’t yet safe for the students to return to.

Danny had been ready to call into work to request the time off he’d need to watch his daughter until the school could be re-opened. However, his bosses seemed to be aware of the situation, and the predicament faced by many of the parents who worked for them. And a company wide email was sent out advertising Bring Your Kid To Work Day! Wayne Enterprises was offering all employees with children too young to be left home alone unsupervised the opportunity to bring their children in to work with them for the week, as that was the timeframe thus far given for when the school would be safely up and running again.

Danny is relieved that he wouldn’t need to take any unpaid time off. Nor try to find a last minute babysitter who’d A: Danny could trust to watch his little star, and B: be willing and able to watch her.

When he tells her about coming to work with him, Ellie is ecstatic! She gets to see where her dad works! And she gets to meet his work-friends! She’s so excited! She wants to make a good impression, so when Danny has gone off to begin cooking dinner, Ellie begins to make plans.

The next day, Ellie has woken up early and already gotten herself ready. She decided to wear a large poofy jacket and a pink too too over the top of her jeans. She has her backpack, filled with things to entertain her.

Once they’ve arrived and Danny has introduced Ellie to a few of his co-workers and some of their own children on the way to his desk. Along the way, Danny and Ellie pass by several offices and a we meeting rooms. It’s in one of these meeting rooms that Ellie spots her first target.

She quickly slips into the room before Danny can notice she’s run off and approaches the young man, teenager?, hunched over some papers reading intently. He’s got bags under his eyes that rivalled Danny’s back when he was still actively protecting Amity. He looks like he’s living off of nothing but caffeine and spite alone, and hasn’t had a proper nights sleep in months.

None of the other various businessmen and women in the room have noticed her presence yet, as she silently wanders up to the sleepy boy-man. She reaches into her pocket and just as she’s about to pull out her little gift, Danny has burst into the room frantically having noticed his child has slipped away. Again.

All eyes are on Danny as he apologises profusely for the intrusion, swooping in to take Ellie’s hand. He’s still apologising, now to the sleepy boy-man who is looking at Ellie in awe, like he couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed her enter the room.

While her dad was still rambling Ellie quickly pulls an orange from her pocket and hands it to the boy-man. He takes it with a curious and perplexed look on his face.

“Ellie,” Danny sighs, “not again.”

Ellie grins and reaches into her jackets to pull out another orange. Danny swipes it before she can hand it to the businessman sitting next to the boy-man. She pulls out another one, and as Danny is grabbing it she slips from his grip and ducks under the table. Ellie runs to the centre of the room and unzips her backpack. She tips it upside down, and what looks to be 20 oranges spill out and roll across the floor.

With a feral grin, Ellie picks up an orange and throws her hands into the air in triumph, and shouts. “LET US FEAST!”

#dp x dc #dc x dp #dpxdc #dcxdp #danny phantom #dc #danny phantom x dc #danny fenton #Ellie Fenton #Tim drake #Ellie is around 5-6 #Danny could be dead as anywhere from 21 or older

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loveanddeepthroat · 8 months ago

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Baby Blues

Pairing - Sylus x f!MC

Summary - In the first two weeks of being new parents, the dynamic hasn’t been quite what you and Sylus expected. He’s eager to be involved, but your daughter doesn’t seem to have warmed to him.

Word count - 2.7k

⚠️Warning⚠️ - Mentions of pregnancy and childbirth. Hurt/comfort, fluff, and a little sprinkle of angst.

Your newborn didn’t like Sylus.

It sounded ridiculous, but you know he was thinking it too. You didn’t have the gall to say it out loud—not that it even needed to be said. The fact was definitely lingering between you both.

You never thought much of why she would wriggle and kick up a storm in your stomach whenever he touched the swell of your belly, but you now had an inclination that it was because she didn’t like his hands there.

It was strange and upsetting, but he didn’t seem too hurt by it so far, only silently helpless as he watched you do everything. You were two weeks postpartum, so your emotions were already all over the place. It seemed as though Sylus was holding his own feelings back to make room for yours, and when you had asked him about it, he simply kissed your forehead and reassured you that he was fine. All while your screaming daughter cried for you against his chest.

Not that he opened up to you all that often. You did manage to get things out of him with a push sometimes, but he was like an unyielding gate, refusing to open to anyone.

Your exhaustion was only adding to the toll on your fragile emotions. The baby only wanted your touch, and sleep was almost impossible for you because of that very reason. Only you could feed her. Only you could soothe her. Only you could touch her.

That was one thing that was really getting to Sylus. The bloodshot whites of your eyes as you rocked the fussy newborn to sleep and fed her at all hours of the morning. The barely touched plates of food that ended up stone cold and in the bin. Not to mention the completely non-existent ten minutes you needed to at least have a wash without having to run out of the shower to her aid.

He must have felt quite useless in the weeks where you should be recovering, but he didn’t want you to worry about his feelings by indulging you in his thoughts.

Your pregnancy had been smooth, ending with a good twenty-seven hours of rather torturous labour, and pushing that went on for an agonising two hours. It had all been worth it, though. Your little bundle of joy with tufts of platinum hair had finally greeted you both with a piercing wail, but eased her protests once placed against your heaving chest.

You just wished she would settle with both parents.

It was another day of desperate wailing, your arms becoming so heavy with the exertion of having no option but to hold her. You tried to put her in her pram for Sylus to push her around for a while, but her cries only increased to the point of her little face turning purple. You couldn’t sit and just listen to it, and you absolutely would not ignore her—no matter how much Sylus pushed for you to go and get some sleep.

“She wants me,” you say for what felt like the millionth time that week.

Sylus was evidently reluctant to stop trying, but he wouldn’t keep you from her. He conceded with a defeated huff, watching your every move as you gently lifted your screeching daughter out of the plush pram. Her screams died down quickly as you placed her against your chest, her ear-piercing wails whittling down to soft whimpers.

“Of all the dangerous paths I’ve crossed and violent challenges I’ve encountered, it’s our newborn daughter who finally defeats me,” he mumbles quietly, trying to make a lighthearted joke about it.

You tried to smile at his attempt to add a bit of humour to the situation, but the comment only made you cry. Hard.

“Hey.” He immediately stepped toward you, rubbing a large hand up and down your back soothingly. You had to give it to him, his patience with you in the last two weeks had been immaculate. “Don’t cry, sweetie.”

You couldn’t stop, your ragged breaths and shaking shoulders refusing to relent. “I d-don’t get it,” you bawl. “What are we doing d-differently?”

Sylus sighed, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. His hand continued to rub soothing circles against your back to ease your upset. “Well, she did live inside you for nine months. Besides, you didn’t exactly like me either when we first met.”

He smiled faintly, tilting his head down to capture your gaze. Despite the obvious tease, he still seemed to be holding himself back. It was frustrating him more than he wanted to admit to you. You knew he was protecting your feelings, but you wished he would just show some sense of vulnerability.

You don’t dare set your sleeping daughter down in her moses basket, knowing full well that she would just wake straight back up. So the rest of the afternoon is spent with your tiny newborn curled up against your chest, a few feeding and changing breaks in between.

Once the day turned into night, nothing in the world sounded more appealing to you than a hot shower, a hot meal, and a hot cup of tea. But letting her scream and cry while you did that was not an option. It wasn’t fair on her, and it wasn’t fair on Sylus.

He didn’t leave you unless he absolutely had to throughout the day. You watched him every time he heard a little whimper from the baby, his hands flexing and twitching. Every time you had to get up to do something for her, he was either at your back or side.

He wanted to help.

The chef brought through a very large bowl of marinated chicken and pasta for you, upon Sylus’s instruction. As soon as the bowl was set on the little table beside your recliner chair, you almost began drooling. You hadn’t managed to eat much at all in the chaos, and Sylus wasn’t amused when you didn’t even get the chance to finish the two biscuits he’d brought you earlier in the day.

You reached a careful hand over to the fork, not even lifting it before your daughter began to wriggle and whine in your other arm. Dropping it immediately, you retract your hand, only making it halfway back to the fussy newborn before long, slender fingers wrapped themselves around your wrist.

“No,” Sylus says firmly. “Absolutely not.”

Your initial response is to immediately go on the defence. “She’s cry—”

“I know she’s crying,” he interrupted tightly. “I know. But you’re going to eat while your food is hot, and you’re going to do it without our screaming daughter on your chest.”

“But—”

“No buts.”

He had that commanding look in his eye, the one that would intimidate most, but was only used on you when he was especially adamant on you doing something necessary for yourself.

You were a little relieved to see him so passionate, if you were being honest. He had been treading on eggshells to not upset you or the baby for fourteen whole days, and it wasn’t good for anyone. You felt the tension on him every time you both managed to get into bed together for more than five minutes. He needed this little outburst.

“This needs to stop now. I’m going to figure her out, and you are going to eat. Alright?” His tone left no room for argument, and the more your daughter protested against your intention to eat, the more hungry and tired you felt.

It wasn’t easy, but you handed her off to him carefully, swallowing a lump in your throat. You couldn’t take your eyes off of her distressed little face as Sylus attempted to cradle her.

You were practically twitching, your legs about to push the footrest of the recliner down to retrieve her in the first thirty seconds she was away from you. Sylus noticed immediately, and pushed it back up with his foot before you could close it down fully.

“She’s not in any danger,” he said calmly, but his whole body was visibly tense. “She’s right here, I won’t leave the room. Just eat, sweetie.”

You wanted to protest further, but he wasn’t going to yield this time. His eyes remained trained on you until you finally sagged back into the chair, and it wasn’t until you picked up your fork that he finally turned away, focusing on the distraught newborn kicking up a storm against his chest.

He held her the way you did, one hand cupped over her head to keep it steady while the other hand softly patted her back. Why she didn’t want to be near him was an utter mystery to you, he wasn’t doing anything incorrectly.

You couldn’t eat while the two most important people in your life were quite clearly in a distressing situation before you. “Are you alright?” You asked him gently, hoping that he would answer you.

“I will be if you eat,” he quickly responded, not looking at you.

Sighing, you stab a slice of the chicken onto your fork, just looking at it for a moment. Your brain had managed to kick itself into gear as you forged a new approach to his silence.

This was an opportunity to head in the right direction.

“I’ll eat if you speak to me.”

Blood red eyes shot in your direction, an eyebrow raised. “Blackmail?”

You quickly shook your head. “You were right, this does need to stop. Starting with you shutting yourself off from me.”

“Eat.”

The forked piece of chicken points straight at his unamused face. “Talk.”

He shook his head a little in clear annoyance, the stress consuming him. Your daughter continued to wail, immune to the warmth and safety of his arms. He was basically trapped after promising to remain in the room with you.

Your bleary eyes held his irises of rubies, neither of you conceding. It was a mental challenge to ignore the fragrant aroma of garlic and fresh basil beneath your nose, but you were not eating until at least one of the two beautiful people before you had calmed down.

Sylus visibly swallowed, finally giving in as he noticed your lack of a bluff. “Do you think she knows?” His voice was quiet, barely heard over your newborn’s cries.

“Knows what?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but shut it again, nodding his head towards the piece of chicken on your fork. You shovel it into your gob, eager for him to continue.

His eyes flicker down to your daughter before he speaks again. “Do you think she knows that I’ve done terrible things? Do you think that’s why she doesn’t like me?”

“I—” you grumble and roll your eyes as he nods to your plate of food again, waiting for you to take another mouthful that you end up having to speak through, “I don’t see how she could. Is that why you’ve been so quiet?”

The corner of his mouth curled upward ever-so-slightly. “Missing my tongue, kitten?”

You couldn’t help your own smile as his shoulders sagged a little from where they were practically touching his ears. It wasn’t often that he opened up to you like this. You almost always had to pry or throw in a proposition to coax him into speaking.

You took another bite of your food, moving the plate from the small table to your lap. “Do you really think she doesn’t like you?”

His smirk faded away quickly, a gentle thumb brushing over your daughter's head. She continued to cry, but the volume had dropped a little. “Do you not think that?” He asked.

You didn’t know how to answer that question. To tell the truth, you did think that, but not for the same reason he was thinking.

“I think she may be a little attached at the moment. We’re very different shapes and sizes. Maybe she feels—”

“Unsafe?”

His tone had dropped an octave—something you didn’t think was possible considering the already bone-chilling vibrations of his voice. Never before had you witnessed him in a state of such vulnerability. He was insecure about this, and it was finally starting to show.

You went to stand up to be near him, but he immediately stepped forward to halt your movement.

“Eat.”

Not wanting to lose this free-speaking Sylus you had barely met before, you did as he said, twirling a fat mouthful of pasta onto your fork for extra brownie points.

You both remained in silence for a few moments, only your fork scraping against the bowl in your lap marrying with the sounds of your baby’s cries surrounding the small sitting room.

Sylus’s gaze didn’t leave the newborn cradled in his arms, a gentle sway in his hips as he tried to keep her moving. All you could do was study his composure, seeing it as it cracked.

After a moment, he looked back at you. “I don’t want to keep failing you.”

You coughed on the mouthful of the creamy pasta at his words, completely in awe of his confession.

Failing you? How did he get to that conclusion?

“You’ve done everything for her,” he continued, not allowing you to immediately reassure him. “I want to be able to do everything, too. For both of you.”

The all too familiar sting in your wet eyes built in intensity by the second, and you quickly found yourself sniffling.

Not only was he insecure about your daughter not feeling safe in his arms, but he felt that he’d failed you both in the past two weeks. It was heartbreaking for you to hear.

“Don’t cry—”

“You’re…fuck, Sylus. You’re not failing anyone,” you tuck your fork back into the pasta with a loud sniffle, ignoring his glare that silently demanded that you continue to eat. “How the hell did you come to that conclusion?”

He looked entirely reluctant to answer, his head dropping back down to stare at his tiny twin. You didn’t want him to stop speaking again, so you quietly picked your fork back up, hoping it would capture his attention.

The silence stretched between you as you made the effort to eat for his sake. Even your daughter's cries became a little weaker—like she was pitying him.

He didn’t look at you as he said, “I’m the bad guy. The boogie man. The kind of monster that parents threaten their kids with visits from in the middle of the night if they don’t brush their teeth before bed.”

“Not in our story, you’re not,” you quickly reassured him earnestly. “You’re the husband and father who keeps the monsters away from your family. That’s the only Sylus she will ever know. The real one.”

He still didn’t look up from the newborn, now almost completely silent in his arms, but you catch a subtle bob in his throat. You didn’t need him to respond to you. You knew you had said the right words to soothe that self-deprecating thought in his complicated mind. You could see it.

“Have I told you how perfect you were two weeks ago,” he asked, knowing full well that he’d told her every day since then.

Your mouth curled into a soft smile. Even after all these years together—after welcoming your first child into this scary, yet beautiful world—Sylus had no trouble giving you butterflies.

“I think you might’ve mentioned it,” you hummed softly.

And on that very note, the baby was fast asleep in his hold for the very first time in two whole weeks. His face didn’t reveal anything, but you knew he was relieved. All he wanted to do was make this easier for the both of you.

Finally, you had managed to figure out what the problem had been all this time.

“You were too tense,” you point out quietly, noticing how openly at ease he now was. “That’s what she didn’t like.”

He hummed in response, unable to tear his gaze away from the sleeping babe in his arms. You didn’t say anything further, letting him enjoy that special moment in peace while you proceeded to enjoy the rest of your meal.

Despite the challenges of becoming new parents, things were going to be alright from that point onwards.

A/N - Hello! I hope you enjoyed this oneshot, thank you so much for reading. Just to let you know, I do take requests ❤️

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