#which as a writer is absolutely essential
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No. I wasn't missing the point of most criticism. Literally, I saw post after post of people saying they wished the characters could be mean to each other. Some posts were more specific, like "I don't like Taash," (and I'm sure you can imagine what THAT'S about) and some were more ambigious but cited DA2 and how everyone was bitchy toward each other.
I honestly don't care where you work and what you do, because hopefully most of us after the age of 30 have experienced an adult job where we have to be reasonable with our coworkers, even if we strongly disagree, or outright dislike them. I had the suspicion that most people who think that there is "no conflict," or "low conflict" or "bad writing" in this game haven't experienced this kind of setting in any capacity. What I'm now hearing is that you might have, but you didn't absorb any of the dialogue, or switch out your party to listen to banter, which is an essential function for picking up information in any DA game.
I walked around Arlathan with Lucanis and Harding, and they have a whole ongoing conversation in which she threatens him with one of her special arrows. And he agrees that if Spite should take him over, she should do something about it. Harding isn't frightened, because Harding isn't a pushover, but she's not taking any shit either. Did you walk around with just the two of them right after recruiting Lucanis? Did you frequently visit the rest of the companions so that you could see just how much Lucanis and Davrin *didn't* get along? Neve mentions what sounded like a knock-down drag out fight.
**Just because this isn't explicitly mentioned to you doesn't make it bad writing - it means you haven't had the time we had with Inquisition to play the game over and over and switch out your party so you can see everyone's interactions with each other. You will actually have to play the game multiple times and switch your party out a fair amount in order to see these interactions. Or wait for people to post them to tumblr. You can complain about how unfair this is, or remember that Inquisition has 10 years on this game, and it's been out for just shy of a month.**
Why in the absolute fuck would Davrin manufacture conflict between himself and someone he could easily conjecture isn't pro-slavery based on the fact that within five minutes he could find out she's from Dock Town, she's a private investigator working with the Shadow Dragons, and LITERALLY WHEN YOU GET ONTO THE DOCK WITH HIM, her first priority as she's running back to Minrathous is to say "if the dragon wrecks havoc, the Venatori will take over." Davrin isn't an idiot, he could pretty well surmise that she's not "pro slavery" with only the barest of interactions and Rook saying "yeah Neve's cool."
Why would Neve yell at you? Why is it bad writing for the writers to give Neve a personality you don't agree with, because you're uncomfortable with how she reacts? Neve's an adult who is used to working on her own and people not showing up for her - she says this MULTIPLE TIMES - it's actually a large arc of bonding with her, as a friend and a lover. She's not going to scream at you, she's so far past the point of being loud about disappointment, she's on the other side, for one, and for another, she does in fact understand that the entire North of Thedas is on fire and blighting Treviso is pretty fucking bad when it has no major defenses. Rook doesn't endlessly apologize. She came back after a short pause and while I didn't have her healing abilities after that, it didn't take long for me to boost my bond with her back up and feel like we were friends again.
This honestly feels like you're having a personal reaction that you need to examine, and it's not something to do with the writing, since the game mechanics and the dialogue don't actually bear out what you're putting down here.
All of the companions who have conflict initially have to figure out how to trust each other and it sometimes takes most of the game for them to do that. If you didn't spend the time listening to their banter as they work their way through it, that's not Bioware's problem. That's you. And...I don't want to have repeated conversations where I go into Emmrich's (my romance) room and "vent"? I didn't do that with Cullen. I didn't do that with Anders. Why would it suddenly be a thing here? But if you listen in to people's conversations, they do express dismay and doubt and fear about the various quests they've been on. Again, it feels like you didn't spend the time eavesdropping or taking people out and listening to banter.
I have no idea what you're talking about with flirting. I flirted with every companion at first even though I knew I was running for Emmrich, and all of them responded according to their personality. I romanced Cullen in Inquisition, and he was pretty quiet initially, until you get to Skyhold, and similarly, most of the companions here retain a certain reticence until the game progresses. But if you're looking for people who get flustered - Lace and Bellara absolutely do! And Emmrich isn't flustered, but he's taken aback a few times before he collects himself and flirts back - though whether you'd actually recognize it for flirting, I'm starting to wonder. The fact that you can't tell with Neve is actually making me tilt my head at the screen, and I say this as a self-confessed disaster who is very very bad at knowing someone is interested. Even I can tell what's going on in DA romances.
This is probably a lost cause, but I urge you to either spend time playing the game again, or watch someone else who really loves DA (and is Veilguard positive) play so that you can watch without being in the thick of it, and hopefully experience more dialogue and different choices.
No, I'm not done yet, I'm house sitting and she left me snacks and soda and not even god could keep me from venting my spleen at this point.
"I wish the companions were meaner to each other in this game, like in DA2."
While I think there's a larger argument to be made discussing the similarities between DA2 and Veilguard, I need everyone to get so close to me right now about a glaring difference:
DA2 involved a ragtag group of assholes with their own agendas coalescing around Hawke's personality or exchange of favors. There was no larger "goal," except maybe Varric's expedition - everything else is encountered as circumstance. You wend your way through your companions' stories while a city winds ever tighter into itself, a spring about to literally explode.
There's zero reason for these people to be nice to each other. They have no point in being around each other except Hawke. They can bitch at each other all they like.
Rook becomes Varric's second in command (I've seen one post say it's about 6 months before the events of the game) with an explicit purpose: find and stop Solas. Harding and Neve are recruited as experts in their respective fields for this particular goal. When it all goes to shit, Neve recruits another expert, Lucanis, to deal with the fallout, and Harding finds Davrin, *also* an expert in his field (monster hunting). When Rook has to make a particularly consequence heavy decision, two more are added to the crew: Emmrich (Fade expert) and Taash (dragon expert). All of these people are extremely competent, and know from the jump that they have one particular goal in mind.
They join ready to work together on Day 1 because if they don't, there's simply no other alternative. It's lights out. Even when they mistrust each other, the direness of the situation is not lost on them. Infighting serves no purpose. That's why the struggle is directed inward: clean up your own house, so we can move as a single unit.
Honestly the fact that what people took away from this game was "I wish my friends were meaner to each other" and not "wow, I wish we all worked together to keep evil dictators from taking over" is fucking mindblowing when I sit back and reread this.
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Re-skimmed through a bunch of Dune Messiah last night because why not and now I am having thoughts:
The thing that sticks with me most is the tone. It's melancholy, it's eerie, it's unsettled and weird. Cannot think of a more pitch-perfect director for it than Denis Villeneuve. He's gonna nail it.
There is...not that much...actual story? Denis has referred to it in interviews as "a small book" and I'm like my guy it is 350 pages. But there are actually not that many plot beats. It's just that every. single. scene. is WILDLY overwritten. The real challenge of adapting Dune is not the giant worms or the dense complicated worldbuilding or the fact that actors have to say the name "Duncan Idaho" repeatedly with a straight face. It's that there are pages and pages and PAGES of internal monologue that have to be externalized somehow for film.
After a re-skim my gut instinct for "how much story goes in a feature film" is that if you just wrote out the dialogue and action that happens in every scene in the book in screenplay format you'd end up with...maybe about an hour of material? Which is great, actually, because it means there is room to add stuff. Like a whole new independent plotline for Chani if they decide to do that.
It may seem insane to add things to an adaptation of what's notoriously one of the wordiest series in classic sci-fi but it's worth remembering that they added quite a bit to Dune Part Two. Most of the first hour of the movie--almost everything before the worm ride except for Jessica drinking the Water of Life--is stuff that isn't in the book. And it's the best part of the movie essential to making the movie work as well as it does. Yes, they also cut elements from both parts (the dinner scene, the whole plotline where Gurney thinks Jessica is a Harkonnen spy, Thufir Hawat's fate, Leto II the Elder, murder toddler Alia) but I understand why each of those elements was cut or changed in the service of cinematic storytelling.
There's an interview (can't remember which one) with Jon Spaihts, the other co-writer of the scripts along with Denis, where he talks about how Dune is like a stage play, with so many of what would be the big action set pieces happening off-page. I kept thinking about that comparison while reviewing Dune Messiah because in addition to the scenes that do exist being wordy and internal as fuck, an absolutely insane list of major events/reveals/emotionally significant moments happen off-page. The list of things that we don't actually see in the main action of the story, that we're only told about after they happen, includes:
Chani finding out Irulan has been secretly dosing her with birth control for YEARS
People trying to capture a sandworm and take it off planet
Chani and Paul finding out Chani is pregnant after 12 years of trying to conceive
Paul flying an ornithopter carrying his extremely-about-to-go-into-labor partner while blind
CHANI DYING (first time reading I did NOT know this was coming and damn near threw my Kindle across the room at the way the information was delivered)
Alia executing a bunch of people including a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother
Paul walking into the desert at the end
You could add all these moments into a scene-for-scene film adaptation of the book and probably still have room to add more material.
The other thing that jumps out is that Paul doesn't really...govern...much. Like there's this whole subgenre of post-Dune/Dune Messiah-era fic that's just some combination of Paul, Chani, Irulan and sometimes Feyd traipsing around the palace having feelings while vague politics happens in the background, but I forgot that Dune Messiah is actually kinda like that??
There is a whole thread of Paul feeling kind of abstractly bad about being Space Hitler but he does not, in fact, actually do anything about it. And like yes both bureaucracies and religious movements can grow to have a life of their own that seems beyond the control of any one person. But also my dude you are the Emperor of the Known Universe. Someone is signing those space checks for the Endless War budget. You are not powerless here.
The one thing that really, clearly drives Paul to actively do things in the plot is not feeling guilty about having unleashed catastrophic religious war on the universe. It is protecting his family. Chani, Alia, his unborn children, and you could probably throw in Duncan by the end. That is what motivates him to act at key moments, and to want to hold on to power. And hey, y'know, if I'd experienced almost everyone I'd ever known getting murdered in a single night, I would probably get a bit intense about that too! It makes sense from a character point of view!
I'm very curious to see how these threads interweave with each other in the film, because the Villeneuve films put a lot of emphasis on Paul's agency and the fact that he may be constrained by shitty circumstances thousands of years in the making, but he still makes choices within that context. I can't see the narrative allowing film!Paul to get away with the same Poor Little Dictator routine as in the book. There are a few ways they could play this but I think the most interesting one is kinda the way they started going at the end of Part Two. Which is that as soon as you start reaching for that kind of power, then power becomes its own end and you will end up doing increasingly horrific things to maintain it. I think it would be quite interesting if the film shows us Paul not just being like "woe is me" but actively choosing to make the world worse because his trauma-driven fear of losing the people he loves makes him cling ever more desperately to power for its own sake.
If they went this route I think it would make Paul's decision at the end hit even harder. FWIW I actually really like Paul walking off into the desert at the end of the book. I think it brings things full circle with his relationship to the Fremen and creates this beautiful arc going back to the duel with Jamis. He first won a place among the Fremen through respecting their customs even though he really did not want to fight and kill someone he had no beef with. And by respecting the Fremen custom of the blind walking off into the desert, he proves himself to be fully Fremen and protects his children not by making them heirs to the throne but by making them Fremen.
And yeah, to a modern audience here on Earth it can look like "Paul conveniently fucks off and doesn't have to raise his newly-motherless children." And we can have a whole discussion about the unexamined ableism of the idea of someone who's gone blind voluntarily choosing death so as to "not be a burden" on their community. But neither of those readings is really the point here. Within the logic of Fremen cultural values, where the survival of the group as a whole is more important than the life of any one individual ("your water belongs to the tribe" etc.) Paul's choice is a willing and intentional self-sacrifice (see also: fedaykin) that wins him huge respect. There's a line in the book about Paul that's like "He would be one of them forever now" and damn if that didn't give me shivers. Like!! The political-symbolic implications!!! Which maybe I'm particularly attuned to because I just wrote a whole fic about what does it mean for an outsider to become Fremen but hmm something something Paul's final* act not being an exercise of Imperial power but an expression of kinship with an oppressed group and that being the thing that's needed to keep his family safe even if he is not physically present with them...IT IS RICH SYMBOLIC TERRITORY.
(*Yes yes I know about events in the next book. Shush.)
This kind of stuff is why I tend to think Chani may start out in a very different place in the story but the end will still be pretty close to what's in the book. It's too thematically powerful and tragic to go any other way.
But also...if they change things around enough that she is still alive at the end of the movie...I won't be sad about it.
#dune#dune messiah#story structure#adaptation#paul atreides#chani kynes#umm#dune messiah spoilers#i guess??#is this really necessarily for a 55 year old book idk
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do you literally ever think before you post? youâve got some pretty decent takes but the king boomario take was dog shit. your qualities gone way down hill and its honestly sad :P
âSharing a cool idea for hypothetical angst before bed and waking up to several comments and an ask saying that Iâm Dumb and Wrongâ admittedly wasnât in my November 2024 bingo.
#Iâm sincerely sorry and can see how I didnât consider the nuances of kbâs approaches but also like#I feel like Iâve committed some sort of sin?? I know I screwed up but I didnât think it was that dire#but I do know now that itâs best to triple-check Iâve got everyoneâs characters down pat before sharing dumb takes#which as a writer is absolutely essential#so Iâll call this a learning experience đ
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about 30 hours into veilguard and while I have an essay worth of my problems w the game and how this is absolutely not ten year's worth of developing I do want to say what I do like. the maps (visuals/progression/exploration), combat, and the companions (only five of them. neve and taash annoy me and I would absolutely not recruit them if this game didn't force you to)... overall it's all right on its own but it's no dragon age game.
#i dont want to pass final judgement until i finish the main story but#trying so hard to not talk about everything i hate about this game#my main thing is how your choices do not matter. the three dialogue choices are essentially the same thing#absolutely no roleplay and no replay value aside from what. making a new character to look at and who to romance#which is fine i suppose but they should have said that this game is more linear instead of lying#dragon age 2 had more choices and that game was shit out in less than a year . embarrassing lol#i haven't really played origins properly so when i say this i mean the main four companions#but in every dragon age game ive liked all the companions. there were only very very few i didn't care for#but neve and taash bore me to death and i hate that you have to be nice to them especially when theyre being unfair#also i don't mean to be obnoxious when i say its no dragon age game . i genuinely felt like i was playing a ubisoft game#the dragon age identity has been stripped since the original writers were cut off thats just a fact#can i even say im disappointed when i never even had expectations to begin w#in the end the cons outweigh the pros and this game failed miserably to be a dragon age successor or whatever. its a complete sanitization#this franchise has always been a mess#dragon age veilguard#datv spoilers#bioware critical#six speaks
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4,300 words in one fucking sitting, lads. I am so back
#take that writerâs block! fuck off and Stay fucked off until youâve fucked off and then fuck off more. or words to that effect#itâs literally because i realised i was being stupid by trying to write ~marketable~ stories people would want to read#rather than just writing the story which is in my head which is essentially a very long running sitcom about gay werewolves#no iâm not writing it with stage directions or as a script or anything like that lol#right now iâm just writing about scenes and characters that are sticking in my mind. just trying to get all the canon (such as it is)#down on paper. i named my scrivener doc âmind palaceâ because thatâs essentially what this is#itâs just me getting down everything about my ocs and all the stories i tell myself before i go to bed every night down on paper#because truly thereâs no point writing down any story that entertains me less than this one does#i genuinely feel ready to take on the world. i know the possibility of putting together a novel or anything anyone would want to read#from what i have in my brain is pretty slim but this is still really fun#it just feels great to be writing again. even though i should absolutely have spent more time working today#fuck it thereâs still time. i can catch up#personal
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if barton tried hard enough, he thought, imagining himself being literally anywhere else but the warehouse right then was easy. this place was never meant to be lived in for an extended period of time after all; despite the fact that it had appliances that you might see in an every day home like a fridge.
it put him on edge instead of at ease, and it certainly didn't better barton's mood when he stayed in it either, after all. but so long as he was allowed to dream within it to some degree... it was tolerable. plus, he had company here, courtesy of nico, jack, and barton also supposed jervis counted. nico had complicated feelings towards the doctor, though, and spending time around jack whilst in it thus far gave barton an unfortunate impression; which was that his own son was made nervous by him.
and the irony of it all was, barton only gathered that because he could feel cognitive empathy towards him. something that didn't include feeling but reasoning. therefore, the hopes of him somehow patching that up with jack someday were drastically decreased. barton vaguely listened to jervis respond to what he'd said about him being in the warehouse solely because of them; all of the words but one not quite having any actual impact on him, this being 'nightmares.'
the smell of the yuja tea that jack prepared for jervis, as fragrant in the air that it was, seemed to be the one thing keeping him from being sucked down a unpleasant train of thought. for someone who didn't feel human half the time, barton sure as hell experienced his own fair share of seeing 'ghosts' from the past and mourning the way some things had gone in his life. and regret, as well as sorrow, were practically intertwined in every single 'normal' person's life that he'd known.
speaking of regret, once he'd closed the curtains, something from the small cabinet hanging on the wall next to them fell to the floor. barton picked it up and was immediately reminded of why he kept this photo here instead of at his home. hiding it away helped alleviate the pain of not only loving someone and losing them, but also knowing that at the time it was taken, everything seemed fine.
'my 19th birthday party - spent right, with my handsome fiancĂŠ!' was written on the back in marcy's handwriting. barton felt like screaming and smashing something simultaneously. the photo was instead placed in his pant pocket, whilst he dragged his hands down his face and thanked his lucky stars that jervis wasn't exactly expecting any big conversations from him. barton's hand flexed by his side before he was changing his shirt, wondering just what the hell he was supposed to do after seeing that again.
grief was a thing he'd never been able to pend down how to deal with 'appropriately,' unfortunately. from marcy, to the momentary blink of an eye that felt like his bittersweet friendship with yves, to his son julien's death - barton thought he'd be destroyed by all of those losses for the longest time. but he supposed he was still here, god willing, or laughing at him more like if such a being did exist. barton noticed the fabric that was splitting on the blanket and how jervis very much appeared to be in his own world.
it was at that moment that he reached for something in that same cabinet he'd opened to change his shirt, finding that sewing thread and needle he'd stored in there long ago. barton kept it there because the shirt he was wearing had actually torn at some point and he'd fixed it. though, he had no use for it now, so he decided to put it on the edge of edge of the cabinet if jervis wanted it. but he didn't really know what he wanted. that night seemed to be a series of gut punches now as the other touched upon how jack was a good person and barton should be proud of him.
he blinked several times as he felt this sensation like something ugly was swirling within him. jack had always kind of gotten the short-end of the stick, and for what? â ahh. well, sometimes i've found myself practicing behaviors towards him that my father used to use on me... but i try to stop myself when that happens. jack has come a long way, as the first time i met him, he was a scared two year old who was on his own with his brother. but now jack's a young man and very brave, despite maybe still being scared sometimes. â barton cleared his throat then, â that's normal though. so yeah, i am proud of him. â
barton turned his attention back to jervis and tilted his head at the other's sluggishness. being vulnerable like that surprisingly didn't feel too nerve-wracking, as he added just a bit more to the equation. barton gave the iv bag jervis was hooked up to a good squeeze, â hmm. are you still in pain, jervis? or are you just tired? â he observed the other silently and looked down at the cards before the both of them. that is, before barton heard jervis approve of him reading his fortune.
he drifted a hand along the cards then. choosing one that felt 'right' came without much difficulty to barton, and when he did, the reversed 'wheel of fortune' card for jervis's past. the next card he chose was the reversed 'six of swords' for jervis's present. barton flipped the last one for his future and was greeted by 'the sun,' which made him let out a soft 'huh' and smile a bit. â well... i hate to start off with the past when you got this card, but i guess we have to. â he was about to start interpreting jervis's fortune when jack came back into the room with the breakfast he promised the other. well, talk about convenient timing.
Jervis merely rolled his eyes at Bartonâs remark, fingers biting into the fabric of the blanket as he pulled it around his shoulders like an old shawl. The plush material was a little threadbare at the corner; a tear disrupting the otherwise seamless fabric.
Sea-green and white plaid. Utilitarian, impersonal.
It sufficed perfectly; his thin frame was almost terminally intolerant to the cold. 27 years in Gotham had failed to inoculate him against the frigid rains and bone-chilling air sweeping off the harbor.
âTrust me, Iâm well aware where I would be, if it werenât for you both. I see enough of the place in my nightmares⌠so I donât require any reminders.â He flexed his fingers around the teacup, feeling the warmth seep into his hands as he cautiously tipped the liquid into his mouth. It had a strange, but not unpleasant consistency, like warm, thin honey that slid smoothly over his tongue in a tangy blend of sweet and sour. Tiny bits of softened citrus peel floated in the syrupy mixture.
Bartonâs IV pole scraped slightly along the concrete floor, a sharp metallic sound that mingled with the sudden rasp of the curtains being jerked shut. The room was clean and sparse, a sterile space designed to be free of clutter, yet a faint, telltale mustiness clung to the airâa lingering scent of damp fabric and stale dust that disinfectant alone couldnât quite mask. Beyond the makeshift partition, the rest of the warehouse stretched out in vast, dark emptiness. The floor was cold, unpolished concrete, marred with cracks that split like spider webs. Dim, flickering fluorescent lights cast a harsh, uneven glow, barely cutting through the haze of dust that swirled in the air.
But, of course, beggars couldnât be choosers when it came to hideawaysâespecially when youâve learned to take shelter wherever you can find it. Or when you were part of the criminal element.
How far heâd come and how little had truly changed.
Jervis glanced across the room at where his coat, shirt, and gloves rested neatly on the desk, carefully folded with almost surgical precision. He flexed his hands again around the teacup, feeling the phantom prickle of sensation where the wool-lined leather should beâan exposed vulnerability that gnawed at him, made his skin itch with invisible grime.
He sank his teeth into a particularly broad piece of yuja peel, the bitter tang releasing as he bit down; meanwhile, Bartonâs voice drifted in one ear, out the other like the static hum on a faulty wireless. He chewed slowly, savoring the rind as he turned his attention back to the small tear in the blanket. Nodded intermittently.
Jervisâ callused, scarred fingers found the frayed edge; the fabric was worn thin and splitting, and he traced it absentmindedly, feeling the uneven fibers beneath his touch. For a moment, his thoughts shifted to the sewing kit buried somewhere in his bag, imagining the small spool of thread and the thin, glinting needles; each one ready to pierce the fabric and pull it back together.
As if stitching this small wound would make any real difference, he thought bitterly; like it could somehow soothe the cold reality pressing in on them from all sides⌠It was a small, pointless task, a flicker of control in a situation that felt like it was slipping away, unraveling faster than he could sew it back together. He knew it wouldnât ameliorate anythingâwouldnât solve the problems looming larger than this tiny, frayed corner. And yet, his fingers lingered there, desperate for something tangible to fix; something he could make whole again, if only for a moment.
Jervis gave no reply as Barton moved to change his shirt; blinking hard as he gazed down at the floor, but the darkness behind his eyelids refused to stay empty. Flecks of indigo light bloomed in the black, shifting like dust motes that twisted with each beat of his heart. The room swam as he opened his eyes again, the ceiling blurred and murky like the styrofoam cup Alice stored her wet paintbrushes in. He scratched absently at the IV in his arm, feeling the tug of the thin plastic embedded in his skin but barely registering the discomfort. The bright pinpricks danced at the edges of his vision, trailing like little comets whenever he turned his head.
âYou ought to be proud of him, I imagine. Your son⌠he seems like a good lad.â Jervisâ voice was a wisp of silk, smooth and thin, like it might unravel into nothing if he spoke too loudly. He tilted his head slightly, almost resembling a marionette on a slack string, the hint of a smile touching his lips but never quite reaching his eyes. He ran a finger along the rim of his teacup, the motion delicate and deliberate as he pondered Bartonâs final query.
âHmm⌠can you?â Gray eyes blinked slowly, the lids heavy and sluggish, further dragged down by fatigue. The question lingered in the air, softly innocuous. He glanced over at the tarot cards Jack left behind on the deskâarranged in a rough, careless spread, but somehow feeling deliberate, as though the cards had fallen exactly where they were meant to. The edges were worn, curling slightly; the images esoteric, half-familiar symbols. Stars, sun, moon, cups and swords, animals and human figures rendered in faded colors.
He paused, gaze narrowing, subtly curious despite the exhaustion that weighed down his expression. For a moment, his hand tightened around his teacup; twitched like he might reach out and touch them, as if by brushing the surface he could glean some hidden answer buried beneath the painted ink.
âWhy, they're only a pack of cards, after all.â
His grip on the blanket slipped momentarily, fumbling at the worn edge before he reached for his collar instead. He dug beneath the charcoal fabric of his T-shirt, searching with a practiced motion until his fingers found the tarnished silver chain again. He drew it out slowly, the weight of it comforting against his skin as he absently ran his thumb over his and Sylvieâs rings, threaded side by side on the links.
The metal was dull, no longer shining with the luster it once had, but it carried a certain softness now, smoothed by years of worry. His eyes dropped for a second before he let the chain slip back beneath his shirt. âBy all means, if it tickles your fancyâŚâ Jervis gave a short, rough half-shrug, the motion stunted as though his shoulder couldnât quite decide whether to follow through.
#divingdownthehole#tw: grief.#tw: mentions of death.#tw: mentions of child death.#tw: negative thoughts.#OOH you used a quote from alice in wonderland in here? that is epic NGL though i don't think i know which one you used ahahhh#and AWW well gosh... you're going to make me blush now <33 but thank you so SO much for saying so + i just want you to know#that i enjoy writing with you a lot myself! but yeahhh i feel as if barton is a lot more quote unquote 'subdued' here than usual#but it kind of makes sense because this man hates being in the warehouse probably just as much as jervis honestly (': and with#everything that went on regarding the picture he found. all i can say to that is GAHHH but you're good!! don't even worry about it#i totally understand as i know i took a bit to reply to this one though that's just 'cause i want to give you the best quality reply#possible + sometimes i don't have much time to sit down and write but i did today tehe!!! but really? oh my gosh thank you VERY much-#for all of your kind words! it really means a lot to me that you not just like the little things i've put into his character but love them#;; like i don't even know what to say besides that makes me feel so happy!! but geezzz you're making me turn bright red like a tomato over#here now and simultaneously going to make me hashtag cry in the club. just the fact that he's fascinating to you is like... everything a#writer like me could dream of y'know? and i return the same feelings ten-fold because jervis is just SO interesting that i feel#like i can't get enough of roleplaying with your version of him (': but JSJSJ well alrighttt i'll try not to worry about the muse versus mu#thing then since you're being so sweet. and i thank you once more for that BUT đ THIS IS ME RN because you're also my bestie and-#being called a ray of sunshine is? possibly one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me?? so i'm giving you a big hug right now-#and letting you know i think you are an incredible human being. but yeahhh there's a UHHH whole terrible story behind that-#unfortunately but i'm just going to boil it down to: yves died and barton sought to essentially make him be a 'part' of him because#he actually has no idea how to healthily move on from... most relationships đŤ so he decided to do something TOTALLY normal-#and replace one of his arms with yves's (sarcasm) but TBH i have to say i wouldn't even blame you if you weren't joking about that-#because this man is seriously WILDING for that. like barton is absolutely 100 percent not okay no matter what he tries to tell other#muses đ
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Hi- er, this is my first-ever writer's strike, how does one not cross a picket line in this context? I know how not to do it with things like Amazon and IRL strikes, but how does it apply to media/streaming?
Hi, this is a great question, because it allows me to write about the difference between honoring a picket line and a boycott. (This is reminding me of the labor history podcast project that's lain fallow in my drafts folder for some time now...) In its simplest formulation, the difference between a picket line and a boycott is that a picket line targets an employer at the point of production (which involves us as workers), whereas a boycott targets an employer at the point of consumption (which involves us as consumers).
So in the case of the WGA strike, this means that at any company that is being struck by the WGA - I've seen Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Warner Brothers Discovery, NBC, Paramount, and Sony mentioned, but there may be more (check the WGA website and social media for a comprehensive list) - you do not cross a picket line, whether physical or virtual. This means you do not take a meeting with them, even if its a pre-existing project, you do not take phone calls or texts or emails or Slacks from their executives, you do not pitch them on a spec script you've written, and most of all you do not answer any job application.
Because if this strike is like any strike since the dawn of time, you will see the employers put out ads for short-term contracts that will be very lucrative, generally above union scale - because what they're paying for in addition to your labor is you breaking the picket line and damaging the strike - to anyone willing to scab against their fellow workers. GIven that one of the main issues of the WGA are the proliferation of short-term "mini rooms" whereby employers are hiring teams of writers to work overtime for a very short period, to the point where they can only really do the basics (a series outline, some "broken stories," and some scripts) and then have the showrunner redo everything on their lonesome, while not paying writers long-term pay and benefits, I would imagine we're going to see a lot of scab contracts being offered for these mini rooms.
But for most of us, unless we're actively working as writers in Hollywood, most of that isn't going to be particularly relevant to our day-to-day working lives. If you're not a professional or aspiring Hollywood writer, the important thing to remember honoring the picket line doesn't mean the same thing as a boycott. WGA West hasn't called on anyone to stop going to the movies or watching tv/streaming or to cancel their streaming subscriptions or anything like that. If and when that happens, WGA will go to some lengths to publicize that ask - and you should absolutely honor it if you can - so there will be little in the way of ambiguity as to what's going on.
That being said, one of the things that has happened in the past in other strikes is that well-intentioned people get it into their heads to essentially declare wildcat (i.e, unofficial and unsanctioned) boycotts. This kind of stuff comes from a good place, someone wanting to do more to support the cause and wanting to avoid morally contaminating themselves by associating with a struck company, but it can have negative effects on the workers and their unions. Wildcat boycotts can harm workers by reducing back-end pay and benefits they get from shows if that stuff is tied to the show's performance, and wildcat boycotts can hurt unions by damaging negotiations with employers that may or may not be going on.
The important thing to remember with all of this is that the strike is about them, not us. Part of being a good ally is remembering to let the workers' voices be heard first and prioritizing being a good listener and following their lead, rather than prioritizing our feelings.
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sacred monsters: part one
pairing: lee heeseung x f reader
genre: academic rivals to lovers, vampire au, slow burn
part one word count: 19.3k
part one warnings: swearing, blood and all sorts of other vampire-y things, semi graphic descriptions/depictions of violence, I don't know anything about publishing and wrote about it anyway, not quite as much in this part, but I want to forewarn you that while there is still nothing explicit, we do get a little ~sexier~ than most stllmnstr fics
note/disclaimer: I have been itching to write an enha vampire fic for ages because hello? the material is RIGHT THERE!! this is a story I'm super excited about, and it's definitely gotten me out of my comfort zone. in order to help build this world, I did draw from some outside sources. primarily, a lot of the vampire lore and some plot elements are inspired by the dark moon webtoon series. I did also pull some things from twilight and other well-known vampire myths. lastly, there is a section with "poetry" in it. these "poems" are translated lyrics from still monster, chaconne, and lucifer by enhypen. some are in their original form and some I altered slightly. everything else is straight from yours truly! as always, happy reading âĄ
soundtrack: still monster / moonstruck / lucifer - enhypen / everybody wants to rule the world - tears for fears / immortal - marina / supermassive black hole - muse / saturn - sleeping at last / everybodyâs watching me (uh oh) - the neighbourhood
â.Ë⥠࣪ Ëâ.Ë⥠࣪ Ëâ.Ë⥠࣪ Ë
A literature student in your third year of university, youâve been dreaming of having your writing published for as long as you can remember. With a perfect opportunity dangling at your fingertips, the only obstacle that stands in your way comes in the form of a ridiculously tall, stupidly handsome, and unfortunately, very talented writer by the name of Lee Heeseung. Unwilling to let your dream slip out of reach, you commit to being better than the aforementioned pain in your ass at absolutely everything.
But when a string of vampire attacks strikes close to your city for the first time in nearly two hundred years, publishing is suddenly the last thing on your mind. And, as you soon begin to discover, Heeseung may not quite be the person you thought he was.
â.Ë⥠࣪ Ëâ.Ë⥠࣪ Ëâ.Ë⥠࣪ Ë
The last sip of your coffee tastes bitter on your tongue. Acidic, like it was left to brew too long. Or maybe not long enough. Your limited knowledge of coffee extends to its effects on your alertness and little else.Â
Taste has always been an afterthought, something of little consequence. Besides, some bitterness is to be expected when you take your coffee black.Â
Suppressing the small wince that always follows your final sip, you set the reusable thermos down on your desk. Next to your open notebook and favorite ballpoint pen, it settles in nicely with your other class essentials.Â
Call it poetic or romantic or unbearably pretentious, but you actually do prefer to take your notes by hand. Partly because it feels more fitting for a literature major and mostly because your laptop is on its last leg and between tuition and rent, you donât exactly have the funds to shell out for a new one.Â
Frowning at the bitter taste that still lingers on your tongue, you feel another pang of regret for forgetting to pack your water bottle this morning. But no matter. Today is a day for optimism. The bitterness now only means that your imminent victory will taste that much sweeter in comparison.Â
Because today is the last day of the fall semester of your third year. Which means that this is the last morning youâll be sitting here in this lecture hall in the minutes preceding 9 am.Â
Which means that today is the day of your professorâs long awaited announcement. You still remember the day, nearly four months ago, when he first told the entire room of undermotivated, overcaffeinated students about it.Â
A publishing opportunity. A real, actual publishing opportunity. Something most literature students would sell their soul for.Â
Because Professor Kim, while a rather mediocre professor who prefers to dish out criticism and bite back praise, has an excellent eye for great writing. So much so that nearly twenty years ago, he founded his very own publishing house.Â
Known by the name New Haven Publishing, itâs a small operation that deals mostly in short pieces that are marketed more for niche literary circles than mass public appeal. Being published by New Haven may not be a straight shot to the New York Timesâ Best Sellers List, but itâs still professional publishing.Â
And a week into classes, he announced that for the first time ever, he would be choosing one of you to not only intern at New Haven the following semester, but also to publish an original piece of short fiction with them.Â
Youâve been fantasizing about it for months now. You can already imagine it. A piece of your very own, marketed and edited by professionals. Published and complete with Professor Kimâs stamp of approval.Â
Itâs what youâve been craving ever since you decided to switch paths and pursue literature studies at the end of your first semester. Itâs everything youâre sure you need. Validation that your writing is good, that your words are worth reading.Â
Hell, maybe it will even earn you the approval of your parents.Â
And, perhaps most satisfying of all, you will have officially beaten Lee Heeseng once and for all. You donât want to speak poorly of the rest of your classmates and their writing abilities, but this has always been a competition between you and him.Â
Or, at least, it has been for you.Â
Itâs the last day of the semester, and honestly, you wouldnât be surprised if Heeseung still had a hard time remembering that the internship was even happening. Then again, you wouldnât exactly be shocked if he couldn't remember your name, either. Â
And if you were hard pressed to choose only one thing, that would probably be what annoys you the most about him. Not the way his hair is alway somehow perfectly mussed. Not the way his writing is painfully beautiful and poetic that you swell green with envy just thinking about it.Â
No, the root cause of your infinite ire when it comes to Lee Heeseung is how damn aloof he is. Like his classmates and professors and even his greatest rival arenât worth the effort of remembering.Â
And itâs not like itâs because heâs got some kind of crazy social life outside of academics. Other than mandatory discussion groups, youâre not sure youâve ever seen him so much as talk to anyone.Â
But thatâs just the way he is, you suppose.Â
Perfect Heeseung with his perfect hair and his perfect writing and perfect attendance record doesnât need anyone but himselfâ
Wait.Â
Perfect attendance record.Â
Glancing at the clock mounted high above the front door of the lecture hall, you can hardly believe what youâre seeing.Â
8:59.Â
Thereâs no way. Thereâs no fucking way that the universe is rooting for you this hard, that the stars are aligning this perfectly.Â
Despite your doubts, the second hand continues its onward march. You suppress the sudden urge to bounce your leg in a matching rhythm.Â
He has five seconds.Â
Four. Three. Two. One.Â
And itâs official. A ridiculous amount of pent up tension drains from your shoulders as your spine straightens. You canât believe it was that easy.Â
A semester of agonizing over every word, every sentence, every assignment you handed in for this class. A semester of panicking over missed buses and waking up way too early just to make sure you always beat the clock.Â
But today is the day where everything comes to a head.Â
And Lee Heeseung is officially late.Â
Professor Kim, at the beginning of the semester, had only two pieces of advice to offer his students that were suddenly all gunning for a shot at being published:
One: âDonât make me read awful writing.â
And two: âDonât be late to class. I have zero tolerance for tardiness.â
Heeseung has just broken a cardinal rule. One row down, nine seats to the left from where you sit. Itâs the place that would usually be filled with an annoyingly broad set of shoulders and distractingly sharp jawline. In fact, Heeseung usually beats you here most days. Not that youâre keeping track, of course. And not that it matters.Â
Because this morning, this fateful morning, that particular seat, his seat, is glaringly, gloriously empty.Â
Your eyes flicker over to it again without your permission. But you canât help it. Youâre so antsy now, teeming with self-satisfied excitement. Itâs almost unbelievable actually. A golden stroke of luck that he chose today, of all days, to be late.
In fact, you think the more you stare at the empty seat, Lee Heeseung is such a reliable presence that the entire lecture hall suddenly seems a bit off kilter. Tilted too far in some precarious state of imbalance.Â
Your smugness is still there, yes, but now thereâs also a heavy feeling beginning to settle at the bottom of your gut. Why on earth is Lee Heeseung late?
Youâre so distracted by his absence, the endless loop of possibilities and explanations running through your mind, that you almost miss the second abnormality of the morning.Â
Because now the clock reads 9:04, and Heeseung isnât the only one missing.Â
All at once, your attention is on the podium at the front of the lecture hall. Itâs empty, too. And Professor Kim may be a hardass, but heâs no hypocrite. Never once throughout this entire semester has he ever begun a class even a millisecond late.
Frowning, you pull out your phone to confirm that the clock on the wall is not playing tricks on you. Maybe there was a power outage or something, and maintenance hasnât had time to correct it yet.Â
But your phone screen lights up, and 9:05 is the time that stares back at you.Â
Glancing around, no one else seems too particularly bothered by this. There are a few titters, a few annoyed grumbles that sound like hypocrite and double standard where they reach your ears.Â
But still, the clock ticks forward.Â
The minute hand has fallen another two notches when the front door finally opens, Professor Kim striding in unhurried. Despite his lateness, his steps are steady, even. Thereâs nothing frantic or apologetic about the way he sets his briefcase down next to the podium, pulling out his laptop and a small stack of notes before clearing his throat.Â
As the students around you fall silent, class begins as it always does. Other than the time, nothing is out of the ordinary.Â
But your spirits are still high, and you figure you can cut your professor some slack. Maybe he ran into a bad bit of traffic or spilled coffee all over his shirt. Maybe heâs too embarrassed to draw more attention to his error and has decided that not acknowledging it at all is the best course of action.Â
Oh, well. Itâs no use ruminating on it now. Settling back into your seat, you do your best to focus your attention on the front of the room and not that damn empty chair. But the distraction isnât necessary for long.Â
The clock is just striking 9:12 when a second late arrival draws the eyes of the class to the front door of the lecture hall. Like your professor, Heeseung maintains a certain air of composedness as he makes his way towards his seat wordlessly.Â
Thereâs a moment, a fraction of a second, where Professor Kim pauses, letting a sentence drift into silence.Â
Twelve minutes late. Itâs a rookie mistake. For a fleeting moment, you almost feel bad for him. Because surely Professor Kim is about to make an example of him. No one walks into his lectures late and leaves unscathed.Â
Wincing, you remember a handful of weeks ago when a poor girl that sits a few rows behind you arrived late. Not only had Professor Kim stopped the entire flow of his lecture to draw attention to her tardiness, he had also assigned her an extra short story for homework. One on the merits of punctuality.
But the ebb in the lecture begins to flow again, the moment passing as soon as it comes. Heeseung settles into his chair. Your professor resumes his sentence.Â
For the remainder of the class, you do your best to pay attention, but youâre having trouble finding a point. Itâs not like he can assign homework or an exam or a discussion on the last day of the semester.Â
Like you, most of your peers are fully zoned out, just waiting for him to get to what everyone has been dying to know for months.Â
Whoâs interning at New Haven? Whoâs getting published?
But distractions in this class have never been hard to come by. More than once, you find your wandering gaze drifting to the back of Heeseungâs head. Usually, youâd be bitterly admiring how soft his hair looks. But today, thereâs only one question that plays in your mind as you stare.Â
What on earth happened that made perfect Lee Heeseung late?
Your thoughts are only interrupted by the sudden shuffle of small movement around you as everyone sits up a bit straighter in their seats.Â
âAh,â Professor Kim glances at the time. âThat wraps up our semester, then. As promised, I would like to announce the student who will be interning with New Haven Publishing this upcoming semester. And, of course, the student that will have the opportunity to publish an original piece with us.â
He pauses for a moment, looking down at his notes. You wonder if the people sitting close to you can hear the way your heart pounds in your chest.Â
Please be me. Please be me. Please be me.Â
The rushing in your ears is so loud that you almost miss it. But not quite. Because the sound of your own name is something youâd recognize anywhere.Â
Because it was your name that he said. Not anyone elseâs. Not Heeseungâs.
You. You did it.Â
Youâre officially going to be interning with New Haven. Youâre going to be published.Â
When he asks you to stay a minute after class to discuss the details, itâs all you can do to nod. Butterflies are still scattered in your stomach.Â
As the rest of the students begin to file out, you pack up your materials with hands that shake slightly. It doesnât feel real. It feels too good to be true. You poured your everything into this all semester long, and now itâs actually happening.Â
Your mind is a mess, and an erratic movement almost sends your empty thermos flying. Luckily, you snap out of it long enough to catch it before it hits the ground. With everything packed back into your bag, you make your way down to the podium on slightly unsteady feet.Â
A handful of passing classmates congratulate you on their way out, and you smile in return.Â
Youâve almost made it to the front of the lecture hall when a body blocks your path. It takes a moment for your brain to register the identity of the offender. And once it does, it spits his name with venom. Heeseung.Â
Oblivious and self-centered as always, he nearly knocks you over. Rolling your eyes, you move to step around him. Apparently whatever gift he was given for writing doesnât extend to his spatial awareness or consideration for others.Â
But as you lean to the left, he follows the movement, still in your path. Your gaze snaps up, eyebrows raised when you find him already looking at you.Â
Oh. So itâs not a spatial awareness problem, then. Heâs in your way on purpose.Â
As always, his expression is infuriatingly blank. You canât get any sort of read on him, and it unnerves you. Irritates you. Here he is, blocking your path, and the only thing he has to offer you is an empty, silent stare.
You could just say excuse me, force your way around him, and be done with it. You should. The semester is over, your professorâs decision is made, and you have no stake left in this game.Â
But youâve been biting back snarky comments and masking irritated expressions with mild indifference for months. The nerve he has to block you. The utter gall of it all. To physically stand in your way when heâs been your metaphorical obstacle to success all semester.Â
When every time you look at him, you still remember that one sunny afternoon, early in the semester. The time you tried, actually tried to be his friend. When he waved you off like a buzzing fly that was nothing more than a nuisance.Â
You inhale, weighing your options. His head tilts slightly at the movement, and itâs your last straw.Â
Thereâs poison in your voice when you bite, âOh, what? Now that Iâve proved myself, you can spare some time out of your day to talk to me?â
Heeseungâs eyes widen, lips parting slightly. Itâs the most emotion youâve ever seen from him, and heâs wasting it on shock. As if he canât quite comprehend why the girl heâs been giving headaches for months might not want to stop and have a friendly chat with him. Not that you imagine heâd even be capable of that if you tried.Â
Already, you regret your comment. In a perfect world, you wouldnât have said anything. Youâd be just as detached and cold and aloof as he was on that day you hate to think about. You still remember it like it was yesterday. Without your permission, the memory floats front and center to your mind.Â
It was warmer, then. The last clutches of summer were still holding on tight. Sunlight was bright in the sky, and it felt like a good time to breach the barrier of your comfort zone.Â
Class had just ended. Usually, Heeseung was one of the first to leave. You had to pack up abnormally quickly just to catch him in the quad right outside the lecture hall.Â
But you did catch up to him.
And in a voice braver than you felt, you asked, âHey, itâs Heeseung, right?âÂ
Youâd been brighter, then. Still full of an energy you havenât been able to muster since midterms. Not yet burdened by the weight of assignments and rejection, your disposition was as sunny as the sky above.Â
Heeseung hadnât bothered to dignify your question with an actual answer, but he had at least stopped walking, and that seemed like an invitation at the time. Now, with the power of hindsight, you wince. You should have spared yourself the regret.
You remember watching as he pulled out his earbuds, tucking them back into his pocket before turning his attention to you. Or at least half of it. Even then, you never felt like he was truly looking at you, hearing you. His mind always seemed off in the distance, preoccupied somewhere you could never quite reach.Â
You recall being nervous, heat in your cheeks as you tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. His eyes tracked the movement like a cat tracks a ray of sunlight. Lazily, intently. With an energy you werenât quite sure what to do with.Â
Instead, you had stuttered, âI, uh, I wanted to tell you that I thought your analysis today was brilliant.â The worst part is that it really was a brilliant analysis. Although youâd never admit that today, and much less to his face.Â
Instead, you cringe just thinking about it. You should have taken his blank stare as a sign. You should have just let the one-sided conversation die there. With at least a little dignity and some of your pride left to spare.Â
But you hadnât.Â
âI never thought about the use of sunlight as a metaphor for life. I mean, now that youâve pointed it out, it seems kind of obvious.â The memory of your nervous giggles settle like rocks in your stomach. âAnyway, I feel like Iâm rambling, but if you ever want to get together and look through assignments or review each otherâs analyses, Iâd love toââ
Youâd heard his voice before, of course. In class discussions and presentations. But never this close. And never directed at you.Â
He kept it short, his interruption, his response to your shaky offer.Â
âIâm busy.â
And that was it. Two words. Two fucking words. And not even an explanation or an Iâm sorry or a sheepish expression to go along with them.Â
With that, youâd watched, a bit helplessly, as he pulled his earbuds out of his pocket, put them back into his ears and turned away from you before you could realize just how thoroughly youâd been rejected.Â
With a sudden haze in the air and hope dying in your heart, your friendly smile slipped into confused dismay as you watched him track a steady path across the quad.Â
If your cheekbones felt warm before, you were sure they must have been aflame by then. After all, it was your bodyâs natural response to the crushing weight of the embarrassment and thoroughly bruised ego heâd left you there standing with.Â
Fine then, youâd resolved after walking as quickly as you could in the opposite direction, sending a prayer to the heavens that no one from your class had just witnessed the most mortifying interaction youâve ever had. If Lee Heeseung wanted nothing to do with you, the feeling could be mutual.Â
In fact, it was probably for the best. You were vying for that internship and if the past class discussions were anything to go by, Heeseung would be your only real competition. If he was too busy for you, then you would just have to be too busy for him.Â
Too busy perfecting every assignment and acing every exam. Too busy drowning in dictionaries and thesauruses and reference materials to make sure everything you submitted was perfect â no, scratch that â better than perfect.Â
Too busy to attempt another conversation or interaction or do anything but nod along politely whenever he did make an unfortunately great point in class.Â
So, no. Heeseung doesnât get to dictate your time or attention or conversation now that youâve actually been awarded with a publishing opportunity, now that all of your efforts and dedication and late nights have paid off.Â
If Lee Heeseung wants a bit of your attention on today of all days, at this moment of all moments, then youâre just going to have to be too busy to entertain him.Â
Standing in front of you, still blocking your path to the podium, Heeseung has the nerve to look confused. As if you have no reason to give him the cold shoulder. As if youâre the one being unreasonable here.Â
His brow furrows further. âWhat?â Itâs the third word heâs ever spoken directly to you. It makes your blood boil. âNo, IâŚâ he trails off. You can practically see the gears running in his mind, like this wasnât the conversation he expected to be having. Like he has no idea how to navigate it now. âI was just going to say that you should maybe reconsider.â
Your voice is ice when you ask, âReconsider what?âÂ
âWellâŚâ Heâs treading in dangerous territory, and he seems to realize it too. âThe internship,â he clarifies, and itâs the second most insulting thing heâs ever said to your face.Â
You screw your eyes shut. Cold and detached. Blank and aloof. All the things you should be. But youâve always run a little hot. And end of the semester exhaustion finds you more willing to throw caution to the wind.Â
âYou have got to be fucking with me.â Eyes reopening, youâre met with that same expression of mild shock. Brows raised, lips parted. And god, he even looks good like that. âYeah, right. Let me guess, so you can do the internship and publish a piece of your own? If all you came over to do is insult me, then save your breath.â
âWhat?â He still looks so damn confused. âNo, Iââ
You donât want to hear it. âI have nothing to say to you.â If he wonât get out of your way, youâll just have to go through him. The shoulder check is maybe slightly more intense than it needs to be as you shove your way past him. He barely stumbles back an inch. It makes you want to rip your hair out. âBesides,â you add, not bothering to turn back to look at him. âIâm busy.â
Itâs a dig at him, yes, but itâs also true. You are. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, and Lee Heeseung is not about to ruin it for you.Â
To your unending gratitude, he doesnât try to intercept you again. Your path to the front of the lecture hall is clear, and Professor Kim is just tucking his laptop back into his briefcase when you reach the podium.Â
Ultimately, itâs a watered down version of the million times youâve imagined this moment in your head. Even coming on the tail end of the most annoying interaction youâve had in months. Professor Kim congratulates you again, and hands you a printed schedule of when youâll be expected at the publishing office for the first time.Â
There are also submission dates. Deadlines for you to submit drafts of the piece that youâll be publishing. You take it all in with a beam and enthusiastic nods, mishap with Heeseung from minutes ago all but forgotten.Â
That is, until Professor Kimâs gaze lands somewhere over your shoulder after he tells you heâll also send you a follow-up email with all the information you need.Â
You watch as his expression shifts, something uneasy, distrustful entering his gaze as he looks beyond you. âSomething I can help you with, Mr. Lee?â
Following his gaze, you turn to look behind you. The lecture hall is empty, students cleared out from the class that dismissed nearly five minutes ago. All except for one, that is.Â
Gone is the shock from Heeseungâs delicately sharp features. Instead, he wears his mask of indifference again, betraying no emotion. You must be imagining the way it looks almost strained this time, as if heâs forcing his expression into neutrality instead of it there of its own accord.Â
Wordlessly, his gaze shifts to you.Â
And now itâs your turn to be confused, but you wonât let it last long. At least not outwardly. Youâre quick to match his gaze with nothing but pure ire, venom dripping seeping from every inch of your glare.Â
Is he seriously still trying to ruin this for you? So much for being busy.Â
âNo, sir.â Heeseung shakes his head. Heâs addressing your professor, but heâs still looking at you. A muscle ticks in his jaw, betrays a hint of tension. âI was just on my way out.â
True to his word, he begins a steady descent towards the front door.Â
Your professor clears his throat, turns his attention back to you, resuming the wrap-up of your conversation.Â
Youâre extra grateful for that follow-up email now, given the way movement in your periphery distracts you from Professor Kimâs last few statements. Instead, your focus hones in on the even footsteps that carry Heeseung to the door, allow him to slip through it silently.Â
It must be a trick of the light, must be a figment of your overworked, over irritated imagination. But you swear you see him linger there, just on the other side of the small glass window carved into the door.Â
Professor Kim says his parting words, and you thank him one final time. If thereâs an unnatural quickness in your footsteps as you turn to leave, you tell yourself that itâs because youâre excited to get started on your draft, not because you have the sneaking suspicion Heeseung is still standing just on the other side of the door.Â
But you swear thatâs his silhouette you see as you draw closer, shrouded in shadows but distinct all the same. Youâre debating the merits of shouting at him or maybe accidentally shoulder checking him again as you pull open the door handle, a little more roughly than you intend.Â
But the only thing that greets you on the other side of the door is a nearly empty hallway, save for the pair of students bent over a laptop a few paces away. You ignore their twin expressions of shock as you let the door fall closed behind you, much more calmly than you opened it.Â
âŚ..
The blank expanse of your notebook stares at you accusingly.Â
Youâd stare back, if that would somehow make words appear on the page. Sighing, you reach for your long forgotten cup of tea sitting on your desk. Taking a slow sip, you realize itâs gone cold.Â
That just makes you double down on your frustration. How long have you been sitting here, waiting for inspiration to strike?Â
People always talk about the merits of a change in scenery, but ever since you started your first semester of university three years ago, your favorite place to write has always been here, at the small, simple desk that sits in the corner of your bedroom.Â
Back then, writing was a hobby. Something to do when the last of your biochemistry homework was finished. A way to release pent-up stress and tension from long days in the university lab and long hours feeling like you were drowning between all of the extra study sessions, TA workshops, and office hours.Â
At first, it had been worth it. You maintained high grades and high spirits. Mostly because of the small sprinkles of support your parents showered you with.Â
Every little You got this! that lit up your phone screen on dreary afternoons and We believe in you! that made your evening lectures a little more bearable felt like tokens of your parentsâ affection. Something tangible to show for the care they held for you.Â
Most of all, you cherished the Weâre proud of you messages. You canât remember the last time you received one.Â
And itâs not like they were mad, exactly, when you told them you wanted to change majors. They did their best to be supportive in the ways that they knew how.Â
For your father, that was concern. âAre you sure? Literature? What do the job prospects after graduation look like?â
And for your mother, that was letting you know that she thought you were capable of more. Of better. âItâs not that literature is bad, sweetie. Itâs just⌠Well, youâve always been such a smart girlâŚâ
You get it; you really do. All the questions and prodding comments that felt like criticism were wrapped in nothing but love. But that didnât do much to soften the sting.Â
In the end, it was this desk that made you follow through with your change in major. Slumped in your hand-me-down chair late one Friday night, half finished lab report sitting untouched in your bag, the threat of tears burning at the corners of your eyes, all you wanted to do was write. Â
To put into words the feelings and emotions and fantasies and frustrations that you could never seem to express otherwise. To commit a piece of your soul to paper and wonder if maybe, just maybe, there was someone else out there who would read it and find a sense of solidarity, of common ground.Â
You submitted your official change request the next morning. You never regretted it once.Â
But your parents still make comments, still share their concerns. And for the last three years, you havenât had anything to show for it except for empty promises. But now, you have something. A real something.Â
Publishing a story of your own is the exact validation that you need that your choice was the right one. And itâs the proof you need to assuage your parentsâ fears, to show them that pursuing literature was the right call. That you can carve out a life for yourself with it.Â
Youâve fantasized about this for years. For the chance to have your voice heard, your words read. There are a million half-baked thoughts and partially written drafts scattered in your notebooks and digital documents and on the corners of takeout napkins that have been lying in wait for a moment just like this.Â
But no matter how hard you stare at the page in front of you, the words just wonât come. The more old drafts you scour, the more amateur your writing feels. The more you feel like maybe Heeseung should have won the internship over you.Â
Itâs a miserable cycle your brain works itself into. The less you write, the more you criticize, the more you wonder.Â
What if he hadnât been late that morning? What if Professor Kim was hoping to choose him instead? What if the reason he didnât say anything when Heeseung finally arrived in class was because he was so disappointed that his first choice wasnât an option anymore?
Groaning out loud to an empty room, your head falls on your desk with a muted thud.Â
Itâs there, facedown on your desk, where an idea strikes you. If you canât manifest a draft out of thin air, maybe you just need some parameters. A general guide to get the creative juices flowing.Â
Lifting your head back up, you push your notebook to the side and reach for your laptop. Opening a web browser, you navigate to New Haven Publishing Houseâs homepage.Â
Itâs a simple website, reflective of its simple namesake. Chin in one hand, you click the link that reads Recently Published.Â
The list that pops up is modest. Unlike a larger, more corporate publishing house, your professorâs self-made enterprise is churning out new releases at a slower rate and smaller volume.Â
Perusing the titles and descriptions, you note that the vast majority of the works are short form fiction. There are very few full length novels. The majority is made up of essay and poetry collections, short stories, and memoirs.Â
Scanning the list again, a title close to the top catches your eye.Â
The Thirst for Revenge: An Analysis of Contemporary Vampire Activity. It was published less than a month ago.Â
Your cursor hovers over the link, brow furrowing. It strikes you as odd that something so⌠archaic would be published so recently.Â
Professor Kim has always come across as a discerning man. Someone that prides himself on his well curated taste.Â
But vampires⌠thatâs hardly a headline worthy topic these days.Â
While most people still practice caution walking down dark alleyways at night and some even go so far as to carry charms infused with garlic cloves, monsters of the night are by and large a thing of the past.
The entire species of bloodthirsty, ravaging immortals were hunted to near extinction almost two hundred years ago. Those that survived relocated to remote areas. Some adapted to life in the countryside by learning to enjoy the taste of animal blood. Others found humans willing to donate small portions of their own blood intermittently. You wonât pretend to understand, but you suppose itâs preferable to the alternative. Â
Some still hunted in the traditional way, of course, but vampire attacks on humans are few are far between these days. After all, vampires, as a means of survival, have all but forsaken major urban areas. Population density spells demise for their species.Â
Youâd have to confirm through research, but if you remember correctly, the last recorded vampire-related death in your city was nearly two hundred years ago.Â
Without bothering to click on the link, you continue scrolling down. Honestly, it was probably just a fluke. After all, who knows? Maybe thereâs some niche circle out there that enjoys analyzing vampire literature, regardless of how outdated it is.Â
The next title seems a bit more promising. Shadowless Nights. The brief description marks it as a short story published half a year ago.Â
You click on it, take a sip of room temperature tea while the page loads.Â
Night was my favorite time of day, the first line reads.Â
I loved the stillness of it all, the all encompassing serenity. With the moon in the sky and stars in my eyes, every moment felt like a secret between me and the universe. Something we alone shared.Â
I whispered secrets to the earth and held hers in return. My days felt like dreams. Distant, blurry, faded. It was only then, in the distinct stillness of midnight, that I truly came alive.Â
Interesting, you think. Itâs a bit more melodramatic than you expected, but maybe your professor prefers a poetic touch.Â
In the night, I earned peace. And in the night, I learned fear.Â
It came slowly at first, that sinking feeling of dread. The horrible suspicion that made the hair on the back of my neck feel sharp, the air in my throat feel shallow.Â
But if I have learned anything of monsters, it is that they revel in that fear. That sickeningly overt reminder of mortality, of humanity. The way I couldnât help the racing of my pulse, the darting of my eyes.Â
He enjoyed it, toying with me from the shadows. Watching me become desperate, watching me become weak.Â
But it paled in comparison, Iâm sure, with what came next. Every story has its climax, and every beginning has its end. For him, it was the sweet, clean taste of my blood.Â
Wait. Another vampire story? One was strange enough, but for the last two published works at New Haven to be vampire related doesnât feel like a coincidence. Especially since the more you read, the more you realize itâs not as much of a story as it is thinly veiled anti-vampire rhetoric.Â
The dramatized descriptions of a weak, innocent female lead being victimized by a faceless, bloodthirsty monster. It just feels⌠strange. Outdated. Irrelevant, even.Â
Clicking back to the list, you scan over the next five entries. All of them are more or less the same. Some are more metaphorical than others, abstract in their rhetoric, but the topic is always the same. And the conclusion always affirms the immense, inevitable, irredeemable blight that vampirism is to the world.Â
Itâs just bizarre. Especially considering that Professor Kim never once had you analyze any anti-vampire propaganda throughout the entire semester. In fact, you were never assigned to read anything vampire related at all.Â
If this type of literature is so central to his professional career, it doesn't make sense to you that he wouldnât incorporate it into his class. Especially considering the fact that he was awarding an internship at New Haven to one of the students.Â
You take another long sip of cold tea. Well⌠you could try to come up with something that aligns with the current profile of New Havenâs recently published works. Itâs not like youâve ever written anything related to vampires. Maybe you just need to think of it as a writing exercise, a challenge of sorts. Producing a piece that feels relevant and fresh even if the central topic is a bit out of style.Â
According to the revision schedule Professor Kim gave you, your first draft issue in a week and a half. The same day that youâre set to go to New Haven for the first time and tour the office youâll be interning at once winter break is over. Itâs an ambitious timeline, but he did specify that heâs looking more for a solid concept than a well polished draft. But something in you wants to have more than just a concept. You want his approval, to impress him.Â
So you have a week and a half to come up with a draft that will catch his attention, that will convince him that you were the right choice for this opportunity. Not anyone else in your class. Not Heeseung. You.Â
A concept that will excite New Haven Publishing Houseâs usual reader base, that will maybe actually earn you some commercial success.Â
A story that will prove to your parents that literature was the right choice for you. That your words do matter, that you can make a name for yourself with your writing.Â
Well, you think, suppressing an internal groan, it looks like you have your work cut out for you.Â
âŚ..
Despite your admitted lack of vampiric knowledge, once you have your topic, the words start to flow. Youâre not sure if itâs your best work. Youâre not even sure if itâs good. But it feels a hell of a lot better than staring at a blank page for hours.Â
This afternoon finds you in the corner of your favorite coffee shop. Mostly because they offer half priced lattes on Wednesdays. As you make a dent in yours, the pen in your other hand continues to fly over the pages of your notebook, occasionally stopping to scratch out a word or rewrite a sentence.Â
The bare bones are there. Just like in the handful of stories you perused on New Havenâs website, your plot features a young woman. Itâs a historic setting, mostly because you still canât quite bring yourself to write vampires into the modern day when the reality is so starkly different.Â
And itâs not a vampire story. At least not at first glance. Instead, you weave an enduring metaphor to symbolize a parasitic relationship between two lovers.
The woman in your draft is young, full of life and energy and optimism. And she dreams. Vivid, brilliant dreams that she clings to in order to escape the harshness of her reality as a lower class woman in the countryside.Â
Her husband, however, is a brute. Older than her and with a decidedly less sunny disposition. When he learns that his health is failing, he discovers that he can heal himself temporarily by stealing these dreams from her.Â
So, no. Itâs not overtly about vampires. But it does fall into step with some of the more abstract anti-vampire tropes you came across in your preliminary research.Â
Crossing a dark line through the word you just penned, you sigh.Â
This is the fastest youâve put a story together in ages. Itâs cohesive, and the writing is solid. Your use of metaphor is strong and concise, and the prose feels true to your identity as a writer.Â
But something in you withers a bit with every new word you commit to paper. Itâs not that you hate your topic. If anything, itâs just that you have no stake in it at all. It doesn't feel innovative or exciting or representative of your creativity.Â
No matter how easily the words flow out of you, something about it just feels⌠flat. One dimensional.Â
You need something new. A different angle or an alternative perspective or⌠Or a fresh set of eyes.Â
Struck with a sudden idea, you pull out your phone, plan taking form in your mind. The literature club at your university hosts bimonthly peer review sessions, and you havenât taken advantage of them nearly as much as you should. Theyâre a chance for any writer, literature major or otherwise, to come together and workshop any piece of writing of their choice.Â
Tapping your finger impatiently on the table, you wait for the page to load. The fall semester did end almost a week ago, so it may be a long shot. Youâre not sure if the club typically holds sessions over winter break. But as you pull up the clubâs calendar of events, a small smile tugs at your lips.Â
Luck seems to be on your side this time. Itâs written there in plain, bold font that there will be a session this upcoming Friday evening. That means that if you attend the session and get some solid ideas for revision, youâll have exactly five days to refine your draft before you present it to Professor Kim.Â
The idea of having not only a topic, as the schedule outlined, but an actual complete, well-written draft to show him next Wednesday, turns your small smile into one that overtakes your features.Â
Energized with a new vigor, you reach for your pen again. It doesnât have to be perfect, you remind yourself, even as a turn of phrase makes you cringe. Even as a piece of punctuation feels out of place. It just needs to be written. You just need to have as much content as you can to share on Friday.Â
Besides, youâre sure that a second opinion will help you fine tune this story into something youâre proud to share, something youâre excited to attach your name to.
The afternoon is quick to blur into early evening, and youâre still bent over your favorite corner table. Coffee long drained, youâre full of a new confidence. The thought of proving yourself suddenly doesnât seem like such an unachievable, out of reach task.Â
And when you do finally gather up all of your belongings and make your way back to your apartment for the night, youâre sure that this is the exact boost you needed.Â
That same stroke of self-assuredness carries you all the way through a finished first draft. Itâs rough and messy and littered with loose ends, but itâs tucked away in the bottom of your tote bag with a smile as you haul it to classroom number 105 in the university liberal arts building Friday evening.Â
You pause at the door to the classroom, only for a moment. The inhale you breathe in is deep, full. Nodding to yourself once, you push open the door.Â
You havenât been to one of these workshop sessions since the second semester of your first year, back when you had just switched to a literature major. You remember being wide-eyed and incredibly protective over your work. It was hard to part with it, to let anyone else read over the sentences you were so unsure of. The writing you had little confidence in.Â
But your partner had been kind. Another girl in her first year, she had nothing but gentle feedback to give and reassurance that your writing was worth reading. Honestly, it was such an overwhelmingly positive experience that you would have come back for more sessions if you werenât constantly struggling to find minutes to spare in the day.Â
Youâre hoping that tonight will be just as rewarding as you enter the classroom, tote bag in tow. But as you survey the space around you, your face falls flat, easy going smile dropping from your lips.Â
You werenât expecting a big crowd, considering that it is winter break and most students are deliberately avoiding campus right now, but you were hoping thereâd be more than one other person in attendance.Â
Well, you think, deciding to look on the bright side of things. At least youâre not the only person.Â
The other attendee is sitting in the far corner of the room, occupying a desk near the front of the classroom. At the sound of your entrance, they turn to face you.Â
With that, your small disappointment is quick to snowball into an intense wave of exasperation. Because why is the universe so hellbent on playing games with you?
Your mouth drops open without your permission. âHeeseung?âÂ
Your sudden outburst fills the room and lingers long into the awkward silence that follows. You hadnât meant to say anything, but really, what are the god forsaken odds?
If heâs bothered by your reaction to seeing him, Heeseung doesnât show it. Instead he looks strangely⌠relieved. It makes absolutely no sense for him to feel any sort of relief at the sight of you, but itâs hard to put a more apt descriptor to the way tension drains from his shoulders, crease between his brows softening as he looks at you, scans you from head to toe.Â
A moment of stilted silence passes between the two of you. Another. Your heartbeat feels too loud in your chest.
You exhale, a cross between a scoff and a laugh so humorless it could freeze a flame. Weighing your options, the most tempting by far is to just turn on your heel and exit the way you came.Â
Heeseung seems to read your intention before you can commit to it.Â
Breaking the heaviness in the atmosphere, he acts as if youâve greeted him like an old friend, not as the source of all your recent headaches.Â
âHi,â he nods, so tentatively you almost want to let your jaw drop open in shock. Almost.Â
Because what the fuck does he mean by âHi?â This has to be some kind of mind game, some way to get in your head and ruin this for you.Â
âRight.â Your lips pull into a tight line. You donât bother to return his greeting. âIâm just gonna go, then.â Hiking up your bag on your shoulder, you turn to do just that. Your first draft will just have to be unpolished. Oh, well. Youâre sure Professor Kim will have better feedback for you than Lee Heeseung ever would anyway.Â
Once again, Heeseungâs voice cuts across the classroom. âWait.â Thereâs a command in his voice. Gentle, but firm. Insistent. So pervasive that you find yourself following without really meaning to.Â
Mind made up and dead set on leaving, now youâre just annoyed. What a waste of a Friday evening.
âWhat?â You turn back to him. Youâre not sure if thereâs more venom in your voice or your eyes.Â
And Heeseung, who commands a classroom with quiet grace, with his steady, unwavering presence, suddenly looks so damn unsure. As if tormenting you is uncharted territory. As if heâs never once left you in the cold with flaming cheeks and a thoroughly shattered ego.Â
âIâŚâ he trails off, not quite meeting your furious gaze. âDidnât you come here to get feedback?â
âRight.â You scoff again. âBecause Iâm sure youâd love nothing more than to tear my writing to shreds. Forgive me, but Iâm not interested in being the butt end of your joke tonight.â
âWhat?â If you didnât know any better, the ignorance he feigns would be rather convincing. âThatâs not why Iâm here.â He shakes his head. âI brought something I want reviewed too.âÂ
Your brow arches. He canât be serious. âEven if I did stay,â you counter, âyouâre actually the last person I would want to read my work. Feel free to be offended by that, by the way.â
For a solid minute, Heeseung just looks at you. He wears that same damn deer-in-the-headlights expression he had after you brushed him off when he intercepted you in class the other day. He pauses, weighing words on his tongue. âLook, ____.â The sound of your name on his lips strikes a strange chord in you. Until now, you were certain he didnât even know it. âDid I do something to offendââ
And no. Absolutely not. No way are you rehashing that day in the quad with him now.Â
âYou know what,â you interrupt. You need to go. Now. You need an out. âIâm actually, like, super tired. I think Iâm just gonna head back, andââ
But then itâs his turn to cut off your train of thought. âItâs your piece for Professor Kim, isnât it?â Heeseung takes your silence as confirmation. âPublishing is a big deal. A second set of eyes will only make your work stronger. And if you hate my feedback, itâs not like you have to use any of it.â
You hate it. You despise the way his reasoning matches your internal monologue nearly word for word. The way your thoughts align exactly.Â
You pause, a decision weighing heavy on your mind. He is an excellent writer⌠There would probably be substance to his feedback. Real, actual, good substance that you could use to make your writing bloom into something truly amazing. He could be the exact spark you need to make your story come to life.Â
You purse your lips. âWhatâs in it for you?â
Heeseung smiles, a nearly imperceptible quirk of his lips. He knows heâs won. âLike I said, I brought something Iâve been working on.â Thereâs an intention you canât quite read behind his gaze when he adds, âI want to know what you think of it.â
Hook, line, and sinker.
With a grumble, you take reluctant steps towards where he sits on the opposite side of the classroom. And if you slide down into the seat next to him with a little more force than necessary, well, itâs just because youâve had a long week. No other reason. None at all.Â
âFine,â you relent, reaching to pull your notebook out of your bag. âYou get twenty minutes.â
âThatâs not nearly long enoââ
âThirty,â you concede. âAnd donât push it.â
Sensing your disdain, Heeseung doesnât respond. Instead, he accepts the notebook you reluctantly hand him with an outstretched hand and an open palm. The transfer between the two of you is gentle. You have the distinct sense that heâll treat your work with care, in more than one way.Â
Still, something in your heart seizes at the thought of letting your work be read. Of letting him be the one to read it.Â
In return, he offers you a notebook of his own. Bound in brown, aged leather, itâs certainly much more refined than yours. Of course.Â
He hands it to you still closed. Staring down at the cover, you ask, âWhat page?â It feels intrusive to start flipping through his writing uninvited.Â
âThereâs a bookmark.â Heeseung nods his chin towards the small piece of paper sticking out of the top edge that you missed at first glance.Â
And then the transfer is complete. A piece of your heart is spread open on his desk, and a piece of his soul is in your hands.Â
Ignoring the way your fingers tremble with a slight shake, you delicately open his notebook to the bookmarked page, letting it fall open on the desk in front of you.Â
At first glance, the writing strikes you as odd. The paragraphs are strange lengths, ending at random junctures instead of extending all the way to the margins. And then it hits you. Theyâre not paragraphs. Theyâre stanzas.Â
Poetry. Lee Heeseung writes poetry.Â
You sneak a sidelong glance at him out of your periphery. Heâs already engrossed in the pages of your notebook, pausing occasionally to jot a note down on a scrap piece of paper. His brow is furrowed, and thereâs a tension in his jawline that only makes it sharper.Â
Still, the image of his profile is shrouded in a distinct sort of softness. The kind of effortless beauty that feels like it should be reserved for intimate moments in the dead of night, secrets passed between lovers. Itâs wasted under the fluorescent lights and patchy, beige walls of an underfunded classroom, but you waste another minute staring at him all the same.Â
For a fleeting moment, itâs not hard to imagine those hands, those long, delicate fingers maintaining an even grip on a ballpoint pen to write something as romantic as poetry.Â
Shaking your head, you clear the errant thoughts. Instead, you turn your focus back to the page in front of you and begin with the first poem. Forcing your eyes to focus, you read.Â
As if nothing happened,
She looks at me
With shadowless eyes.
But it is me who has beenÂ
Forgiven and reborn countless times.
You inhale. Exhale. Short and succinct with a distinct twinge of tragedy. That was⌠not what you were expecting. Pushing forward, you move onto the next entry.Â
Even the stars in the universe
Will close their eyes one day.
Underneath their watchful gaze,
All of these moments are precious.
For memory, for regret,
I will carve them
Into the repetition of the moment.
Again, you pause, taking a moment to breathe. Itâs so⌠melancholy, so poignant in its evocation of pain, of regret. While youâve been familiar with Heeseungâs ability to analyze the hell out of a novella, this was not something you thought youâd find in his repertoire. And the more you read on, the more you realize these arenât flukes. This is his identity as a writer, or at least a significant part of it.Â
The world that abandoned us
Slowly turns to ash.Â
But I donât feel the pain.Â
I only feel the cold.
My god. You nearly close the notebook on instinct. Without your permission, your eyes flick ove to the desk next to you. The broad set of shoulders that fill the seat. What has this boy been through? Why is he letting you read this?Â
Heeseung looks up. Not at you, but the movement is enough to startle you out of your staring. Returning your eyes to his notebook, you read the last entry on the page.Â
A shaded castle with no sun
The thick scent of dying roses never fades.Â
In a broken mirror, I see myself.Â
And my reflection whispers, âMonster.â
The breath you release is long. Audible. Youâre overcome with the urge to run your fingers over his words, to feel the indents his pen made as he carved pain into the page. His writing is gorgeous. Itâs beautifully, tragically haunting. Of that much, youâre certain. But you have no idea what to do with that information.Â
His words feel too raw, too terribly intimate. Like something that was never meant for your eyes. You canât understand what on earth possibly possessed him to let â no â to encourage you to read these.Â
You canât fathom any kind of feedback you could offer him. These feel like pieces of his soul, not something to be commodified or commented on in a writing workshop. Discussed in the cold, unfeeling walls of an old classroom.
Despite the discomfort that lingers with each passing stanza, his writing has an almost addictive quality. Over and over, you find yourself rereading each brief poem. Youâre searching for meaning, for clarity, for something hidden between the lines that you missed on your first handful of reads.Â
Thirty minutes pass in a trance, and Heeseung, true to his word, is the one to break the silence when your half hour is up.Â
Mind still reeling, you realize with a sinking feeling that you have absolutely no feedback to give him at all.Â
Instead, you turn to face him. Throwing a meaningful glance at where your notebook still lies open on the desk in front of him. Doing your best to not look too hopeful, you ask, âWell?â
For a moment, Heeseung just looks at you, an unreadable expression on his face. Tension pulls at his temple, his jaw. Frustration seeps from beneath his skin, and you canât tell where itâs directed.Â
âOh, come on,â you prod when his silence extends even longer. âI know youâre dying to spill the gory details of how grossly incompetent I am and how horrifically amateur my writing is, so donâtââ
Heeseung wastes no fanfare. âThis is awful.â
Your lips flatten. âOr just cut right to the chase.â
Heâs quick to clarify. âBut not for any of the reasons you just listed. I mean, sure, there are some craft issues here, but even those seem like a result of your concept.â
âWhatâs wrong with my concept?â The edge of defensiveness in your voice escapes without your permission.Â
Heeseung just levels you with a look. Returning his gaze to your notebook, he reads from your draft verbatim, â...Stashing away the light from her life. Tucking it into his back pocket like extra change just for the satisfaction of temporary happiness. It was never love that bound him to her, but the promise of a never ending fountain of life. Of wishes and thoughts and hopes and dreams that he could use to sustain himself as long as he subjected himself to the numbing pleasure of existing at her side.âÂ
He raises an eyebrow, turns back to you. âI mean, really, ____? Iâve read some nauseatingly vitriolic vampire pieces in my life, and this just about has all of them beat. Besides, the whole vampire thing just feels so⌠irrelevant. Do people still read this stuff anymore?â
Your first instinct is to defend yourself, your work, even if his thoughts mirror your own. Before you can, Heeseung is pressing on. You donât have the space to get a word in sideways. âI mean, what happened to the writing from that piece you presented back in September? I donât remember all the details, but there was something about watching birds land on water and connecting it to the feeling of belonging but never truly fitting in.â He looks at you again. Thereâs more emotion, more glittering life in his eyes than youâve ever seen from him before. âThat was a fresh take and a well done metaphor.â
Your mind is reeling. Itâs far too much information to take in all at once. But something stands out amongst the rest. Because that almost sounded likeâÂ
âWas that a compliment?â It seems unlikely, but you canât find another way to take his words. âYou paid attention to my presentation?âÂ
You liked it? You donât ask that question out loud, but the needier parts of you crave his answer anyway.
âYeah, of course I did. Peer review was a mandatory component of the course.â Heeseungâs cheekbones remain the same, even, honey-tinted tone, but you swear you see a flash of embarrassment in the way he averts his gaze.Â
âWell, yeah.â Itâs not a justification that holds much weight in your mind. âBut you donât exactly seem like the type to really pay attention to other peopleâs stuff. Especially if you think itâs not worth your time.â
âI just told you your presentation was good, didnât I?â
You arch a brow. âYeah, right after you finished calling my draft horrific.â
Heeseung shakes his head. âI didnât say it was horrificâŚâ
âOh, please. Spare us both the semantics. Thatâs what you meant.â Youâre not sure why your mind always goes back to that day in the quad, but you find yourself still sore from his rejection, his new assertion of your work poking at old wounds. Picking at poorly healed scabs. âAnd itâs not like you were jumping for joy at the chance to review my work back then, either.â
Heeseungâs brow furrows. You can practically see the gears turning in his mind. Youâre not sure if it makes you feel better or worse, the fact that he doesnât seem to remember that day at all.Â
In the end, you decide to spare him the effort of empty recollection. With a sigh, you spill your shame. At least this time around, youâre the only two that will bear witness. âThat one day in class. Back at the beginning of the semester. We had to present our analysis of that one short story. You remember, the one about planting seeds in bad soil.â Heeseung nods, but thereâs no spark of realization. Not yet.Â
Continuing, it only pains you slightly to admit, âYour analysis was brilliant, and I gushed about it in front of the whole class. Laid it on thick with the compliments. And then after class, I stopped you in the quad.â Something flickers over Heeseungâs features. A memory tugging at the back of his mind. âWhen I asked if you wanted to review each otherâs pieces for the next assignment, you completely brushed me off.â
Brow still pulled downwards, Heeseung is thinking back to that day, too. But it doesn't seem to hold the same awful, leaden weight in his mind. âI didnât brush you off,â he argues. âI think I said I was busy.â
It takes a lot of willpower not to let your jaw drop open. âThatâs brushing someone off!â Your voice is too loud for the near empty classroom, for your close proximity. âLike literally the textbook definition. Everyone knows that âIâm busyâ is code for âleave me the hell alone.ââ
Almost imperceptibly, Heeseungâs features soften as he watches yours strain. The fluorescent light bulbs that fill the room suddenly donât seem quite as harsh when he says, âWell, that's not what I meant. I was busy.â
Itâs hardly a satisfying answer. But you suppose it makes little difference. If he wants to stick to his story, youâll continue to feign indifference. âWhatever. Itâs not like it matters now anyway.â
And then your mind is back on his poems. His beautiful, tragic, gorgeously phrased stanzas scribbled in his handwriting. Fragments of vulnerability that he handed to you without hesitation.Â
Itâs like comparing apples to oranges in a way, but there is no doubt in your mind that between the two of you, the writing he brought tonight is better. Better than your story, better than most things youâve ever written, probably. The imagery is evocative, striking in a way youâve never quite been able to achieve no matter how many seminars and workshops and lectures you attend.Â
Not for the first time, your brain dangles a dangerous thought in a place where you canât avoid it. What if Professor Kim chose wrong? What if Heeseung hadnât been late to class that day? Would you be sitting here with a mediocre draft and a raging inferiority complex?
Youâll never know, not really, but you find yourself asking anyway, âWhy were you late to class that day?â
As soon as the words leave your mouth, you wish you could take them back. Itâs not like his answer will change anything. And itâs invasive. Far too personal to ask someone you barely know. That up until thirty minutes ago, you actively avoided.Â
But maybe the universe is on your side for once. Maybe you got ridiculously lucky and he didnât hear you, despite the fact that itâs dead silent in this classroom. Maybeâ
âWhat?â
Or not.
Well, youâre committed now. âThe last day of class. When the winner for the publishing opportunity was announced,â you clarify. âYou were late. Honestly,â you add with a wry smile, âyouâd probably be the one writing overdramatic vampire slander right now if you hadnât been.â
Itâs a self-deprecating joke. It might land poorly, but youâre hoping it will lighten the atmosphere.Â
A dark shadow crosses Heeseungâs features. âTrust me, ___. You winning had nothing to do with me being late that day.â
If he thinks flattery will get him anywhere, heâs wrong. You can feel your frustrations bubbling in your throat, clawing at your mind. You won. You beat him. So why doesnât it feel like it? Why doesnât it feel like anything you do is ever good enough?
âCâmon, Heeseung.â He doesnât deserve your anger. At least, not now. But he gets it anyway. Insecurities and inferiority and frustration all wrapped in rage. âYou were practically a shoe-in, and everyone knows it.â
Heâs just as insistent. Leaning towards you slightly, he looks anything but aloof now. âNo I wasnât. Professor Kim chose you to intern with him. He read both of our submissions all semester and chose you to publish with his firm. I told you, your writing is good. Really good.â Glancing down at your notebook, he adds, âEven if this one is a bit⌠uninspired.â
A compliment and a slight. His version of the truth, wrapped up in a bow and delivered right to your waiting ears. You donât know whether to be furious or overjoyed. Maybe it would be best to feel absolutely nothing at all. It scares you, just how much weight his opinion holds.Â
But approval from him has its way of feeling like a long sought victory, and now the air feels fraught with something delicate, fragile. Precarious, even.Â
Itâs early evening in a threadbare classroom. The most neutral territory imaginable. But itâs the two of you, alone, secluded. And suddenly, that frightens you.Â
âRight.â You wonât tell him âthank youâ for the compliment or âgo fuck yourselfâ for the criticism. Both options feel like you would be revealing too much.Â
Instead, you take a glance at the clock. Itâs not late, but itâs an excuse. âI should probably get going.â
Heeseung exhales. Leans back in his seat. âOf course,â he concedes easily, reaching to hand you your notebook.
You do the same with his, almost sad to watch his poetry pass from your hands to his. Itâs odd, the way his words already feel like something youâll miss.Â
You realize then that he hasnât asked you for your opinion on his work. For your advice on how to make it better. In all honesty, youâre relieved. You havenât the slightest idea what you would say.Â
So instead, you busy yourself with repacking your tote bag. In your haste, you knock your pen off of your desk. The sound it makes as it strikes the thinning carpet canât be loud, but it feels thunderous in your ears.Â
As you reach to pick it up, Heeseung does the same. Thereâs a moment, fleeting but unmistakable, when the skin of his hand brushes against yours.Â
Instantly, Heeseung recoils as if youâve burned him. His hand is back in his own space at a speed so fast you nearly miss it.Â
It was an accident, a tiny blip with no real consequences, but the way heâs looking at you with those damn eyes makes you feel like you should be apologizing.Â
âSorry.â The severity of his reaction stings like rejection. Itâs not like heâs exactly your favorite person either, but at least you have the common decency to not look repulsed at the thought of touching him. At the accidental brushing of your hands.Â
Heeseung frowns. Shakes his head slightly as if to clear his thoughts. âNo, IâŚâ he trails off, letting his words hang in the air for a moment. âIâm sorry,â he concludes, but it feels disingenuous. And he doesnât bother to elaborate. Looking over your shoulder, he reads the clock on the wall. âItâs getting kind of late. Where are you parked? I can walk you to your car.â
His hands are busy putting his notebook back in his back. Itâs a considerate offer, but coming on the tail end of everything else, it doesnât hold much weight with you. His words donât match his actions, and you decide youâd be a fool to take them at face value.Â
âDonât bother. Iâm walking home, not driving.â
Heeseung freezes, hand still inside his bag. Heâs not looking at you, but you feel the weight of his attention all the same. âDo you need someone to walk with you?â
The way he phrases the question makes you feel like a burden. Heâs asking if you need someone to walk with you, not offering because he wants to. A subtle difference maybe, but the last thing you want is to feel like you owe him any favors.Â
âNo, Iâll be fine.â
âAre you sure?â He does look at you now, concern painted across his features. âItâs getting dark earlier these days, andââ
His words are wasted on you. Youâre already halfway to the door. âIâm sure.â But before you leave, you decide one more hit to your pride canât worsen the damage thatâs already been done. At least this time, it will be by your doing. Standing under the doorframe, you turn back to him. âThank you for your feedback. It was good to hear an honest opinion.â
Your words sink into the air. Linger for a moment.Â
Heeseung nods. Something in his jaw tightens. âYou know, if you do decide to change topics, Iâd be happy to read whatever you write.â
It almost sounds like another compliment. Or maybe another insult. Either way, youâre sure that even if you figure it out, youâll still have no idea what to do with it. You nod, only once, and then your back is turned again before you can linger too long on any of it.Â
But his words, the sweet ones this time, replay in your mind the entire walk home.Â
Maybe if you werenât so distracted by the ghosts of compliments, youâd have noticed the pair of quiet, even footsteps that trailed after you in the distance. That only retreated once the front door to your apartment was pulled shut and locked tight behind you.Â
Then again, maybe not. Heeseung has always had a knack for going undetected.Â
âŚ..
You wake up the next morning with Heeseungâs words replaying in your mind.Â
Awful. Irrelevant. And of course your favorite, ânauseatingly vitriolic vampire piece.â
In the faded glow of morning light, you groan out loud to your empty bedroom. The worst part of it all is that heâs not even wrong. But itâs Saturday morning, and your first draft is due on Wednesday. The thought of starting a new story from scratch and writing it to completion within that time frame is enough to make you want to curl into a ball and screw your eyes shut until you can pretend the world outside your bedroom is nothing but a figment of your imagination.Â
So no, you donât think you can start over entirely. But maybe, just maybe, you can rework things. Tweak the narrative to feel less cliche, less outdated. More true to you.Â
Part of you wants to abandon the vampire concept entirely, convinced itâs whatâs holding you down. The other part is hesitant to do so based on New Havenâs list of recently published works.Â
And while Heeseungâs criticism was the confirmation you needed that your story needs reworking, itâs not like he gave you any ideas as to what you should change. What direction you should take.
Nauseatingly vitriolic vampire piece. That seemed to be Heeseungâs biggest problem with your draft. Not that it alluded to vampirism. No, you think he disliked that it was a tired and rehashed propaganda piece on the inherent evilness of vampires.Â
Everyone knows that vampires were monsters. Writing about it, no matter how many metaphors and symbolic phrases you wrap it up in, just isnât interesting.Â
Thatâs the route youâll take, then, you decide. You donât have to invent a new concept out of thin air. You just need to find a way to bring something new to the table. Something worth reading. Climbing out of bed, you switch your pajamas for clothes more acceptable in public.Â
And then you make your way to the university library.Â
Just as you suspected, itâs essentially empty. Between long rows of meticulously shelved books, vacant study rooms, and community computers, the only other person you see is the librarian that greets you as you arrive. Even her eyebrows raise in mild shock to see someone else during the break, and on a weekend at that.
Heading to the second floor, the first section you peruse through is historical records. But between old newspapers, reports, and journals, the content itself is quite cut and dry. Detached descriptions of vampire attacks that only contain details of the date, time, and death toll arenât exactly riveting. And you donât think theyâll do much for your feeble draft.Â
Before long, you move away from the nonfiction section. Navigating to supernatural fiction on the third floor, you start browsing titles. Vampire stories make up a rather small portion of the texts, and from what you can tell, the vast majority align with what you found on New Havenâs website.Â
From Demons of the Dark to Left in Cold Blood, you doubt that most of what you find will offer any kind of new perspective. But on your third, slightly desperate scouring of the shelf, you make a discovery.Â
Itâs a small, nondescript book. The muted tones and faded lettering on the spine go easily undetected amongst the much flashier copies of anti-vampire propaganda itâs nestled between.Â
Pulling the book out from the shelf with a delicate touch, you flip the cover face-up in your hand.Â
Sacred Monsters: A Collection of Essays on the Origins of Immortality
It piques your interest. At the very least, it seems different from all the other novels.Â
Book in hand, you make your way to a nearby desk. Once youâre settled in, you pull out your notebook, opening to a new page with the intention of taking notes.Â
The book you lay on the desk next to your notebook seems like itâs lived a long life, the old scent of dust and aged paper and time all contained within its pages. Flipping open the front cover, you look for an author or publication date. But thereâs nothing there, not even a title page or a table of contents.Â
Glossing over the slight oddity, you decide the beginning is as good a place as any to start.Â
The Taste of Blood, is the title at the top of the page.Â
And the first sentence begins:
It is neither sweet nor particularly savory. There is no distinct aroma, no compelling flavor profile, nothing that appeals to the eye or excites the taste buds. The only merit is the fact that it is necessary. For even those blessed with immortality know what it means to survive. And even those cursed to live forever know what it means to die.Â
Frowning, you flip back to the cover, as if that will provide any clarity for the strange passage you just read. But nothing is different. Nothing new stands out. Just the same, faded title. No author or indication of any kind of publication date.Â
Intrigued, you turn back and resume where you left off.Â
Some are said to enjoy the act. The purity of release, of giving in to the instincts that can be convinced into domesticity but never fully silenced. I have never found such relief. The ghost of my humanity has always been stronger than the voice of the monster, even as he screams with unbounded ferocity.Â
Without it, I feel incomplete. With it, I feel irredeemable. Even now, I dodge the truth, omit the profane. I have seen many moons, enjoyed their silver glow. I have stolen the very same pleasure from countless others. And yet, I struggle to call it by name. I cannot reconcile the battles waged in my bones, the war fought in my mind.Â
There is no winner in either. All that remains in the taste of it. Lingering on my breath. Haunting my waking dreams. That which I cannot name.Â
The taste of blood.Â
In my fervor, it soothes like honey. In my regret, it turns to ash.Â
And still, nothing changes. And still, nothing remains the same.
-- Anonymous
Well, if you were looking for something different, you found it. Because what the absolute fuck are you reading? If you didnât know any better, youâd think it were written from the perspective of a vampire.Â
Then again, shelved in the fiction section, you suppose itâs plausible. Actual vampires may have housed little room in their consciousness for anything outside of bloodlust, but it is an interesting idea to think of vampires as conflicted. Haunted by the brutality of their innate instincts.Â
Youâre not exactly sure how or if this will be able to influence your own story for the better, but something about it makes you want to keep reading.Â
Alone, tucked amongst the dusty shelves of a neglected section of the library, you lose yourself between the pages of the mysterious book.Â
As the title indicated, itâs a collection of essays. Most are quite short, around the same length as the first one you read. And none are claimed by an author. All are signed off with the same boldface type that spells Anonymous. There are subtle differences in the writing though, stylistic choices that make you think that more than one person wrote these essays.Â
Despite that, theyâre all woven together by a common thread. The first essay, as you discover, was not a fluke. Every single one is written in first person from the perspective of a vampire.Â
The writing is compelling, humorous in places and deeply upsetting in others. It seems odd to you, just how much humanity is captured within the pages, within each turn of phrase.Â
You feel inclined to root for the narrator in some stories and abjectly horrified by them in others. But never once does the writing make you think that vampires are incapable of self-actualization, of reflection, of morality.Â
In all honesty, aside from Heeseungâs poems, itâs the most interesting thing youâve read in ages. So much so that by the time you realize youâve finished the last essay, the winter sun is teeming dangerously close to the horizon, and the library is nearing its closing hours.Â
The notebook page you intended to use for notes, to jot down points of inspiration, is still woefully blank. But as you make your way back to the front of the library, the small, strange book comes along with you.Â
Stopping at the front desk to formally check it out, the librarian frowns when she enters the number from the spine into the system. She clicks around on her computer for a moment longer before handing the book back to you.Â
âIâm sorry, but the book isnât coming up in our system for some reason. Would you mind writing down your student ID number for me? Iâll have to enter the information manually.â
You oblige her request, tucking the book into your bag before you leave.Â
Itâs chilly outside, the cold clutches of winter gaining a full grasp on the crisp, frigid air. After a long day in a stuffy library, the freezing air is almost soothing. Tucking your hands into your pockets, you turn towards the direction that will take you home.Â
Youâve barely taken five steps when a voice calls your name from behind. Pausing, you turn to find the source of the sound.Â
âHeeseung?â But thereâs no mistaking it. That is most definitely Lee Heeseung, currently jogging towards you on the otherwise empty sidewalk in front of the university library.Â
He catches up to you easily, no sign of perspiration or even a hint of breathlessness when he asks, âWhat are you doing walking alone at night?â As if youâre the strange one in this situation.
You give him a once over. The loose jeans and dark winter coat he wears are nothing special, but he wears them well regardless. You suppress the urge to sigh. âI could ask you the same.â
âFair enough.â His tone is too light, too casual. Like heâs forcing it. Like heâs hiding something. âAre you headed home? Iâll walk you there.â
And if you werenât suspicious before, you sure as hell are now. Why on earth would he want to walk you home? âIâm fine, thanks.â You turn away from him, heading in the direction of your apartment and hoping heâll take the hint.Â
Your wish goes ungranted. He matches your pace easily, even as you try to quicken it. âItâs after dark, ___. And there are a lot ofâŚâ He trails off, searching for the right word. âstrange people out at night these days. Iâm not letting you walk home alone.â
Lips tight, you donât bother looking at him. The idea of Heeseung letting you do anything makes you want to throw things. âIâll be fine.â
But heâs persistent. Heâs all smiles and a strange amount of desperate when he says, âEither you let me walk you back or Iâll just follow you at a weird distance, which will be far more uncomfortable for both of us.â
That makes you stop in your tracks. And now you do turn to look at him. âWell, when you put it that wayâŚâ
Heeseung nods, âExactly. Soââ
You arch an unimpressed brow, crossing your arms over your chest. âIt sounds like youâre the strange person at night I need to stay away from.â
Heeseung sighs, matches your eye. A strand of hair falls into his eyes, and he pushes it away with long fingers. âAre you gonna start walking or are we gonna stand here and argue a little longer?â
âYou donât even know where I live.â
âWhat a great night to find out.â
You stare at him a moment longer, lips tight. You donât want to be the one to give in, to hand him any kind of victory, no matter how small.Â
But it is getting late. The walk from campus to your apartment is never one thatâs made you uneasy, but it never hurts to have someone at your side. Besides, you think he was serious about following you. Heâs made it clear that heâll be tagging along one way or another.Â
âFine,â you huff, arms still crossed over your chest. âBut only because the streetlight a few blocks away is out.â
Heeseung inclines his head, a minute acknowledgement. Thereâs a hint of movement at the corner of his lips. âNaturally.â
You resume walking, and he falls into your pace with a practiced ease, hands in his pocket, eyes on the stars. Itâs a cloudless evening. The sky above you feels vast, immense as the last rays of daylight lie to rest on the distant horizon.Â
With a slight shiver, you pull your jacket tighter around your body. Heeseung notices the movement. Parts his lips as if he wants to say something. Changes his mind. Closes them.Â
Youâve just reached the far edge of campus when he breaks the steady silence.Â
âHowâs your draft coming?â
âItâsâŚâ You trail off, not sure how well honesty will serve you here. It feels vulnerable, like a blatant weakness to admit that youâve got nothing. But something about cold air and the vast expanse of night has you wanting to tell the truth. âNot great.â
Heeseung lets your response settle. Turns it over in his mind a few times. Youâve noticed that about him. Heâs careful with his responses. Weighs his words before breathing them to life. âStill looking for inspiration?â
âI donât know if itâs inspiration I need.â Itâs easier to talk to him like this, when your eyes have something to focus on, when your body has the constant repetition of steps to occupy part of your mind. Without little distractions like these, Heeseung has a way of becoming all consuming. âI feel like I backed myself into a corner with the vampire concept. Iâm not sure if there's really anything there to explore that wonât feel outdated and irrelevant.âÂ
âMm,â Heeseung muses. Itâs noncommittal, neither an agreement nor an argument. âMaybe. You said it yourself; vampires are nothing but bloodlust. Riled completely by instinct. Nothing left of their humanity.â
Frowning, your footsteps almost falter. âI didnât say that.â
âForgive me.â If thereâs a tinge of bitterness in his tone, you suppose it must be because of the cold. The fact that heâs wasting his Saturday night walking you home. âHeavily implied it.â
âHonestly, the only reason I even wrote that story was because there were a lot of similar ones on New Havenâs list of recently published works.â Your reasoning feels almost stupid when you admit it aloud like this. Youâve always prided yourself on your originality, your commitment to staying true to yourself as a writer. But when push comes to shove, you let your desire to impress your professor get in the way of that. âI wanted something that would align with their usual publications.âÂ
Youâve admitted a weakness, a poorly made choice. Youâre expecting ire, more of that haughty contempt. But Heeseungâs mind is going in an entirely different direction.
Heâs not questioning your abilities, not even alluding to them at all when he asks, âWhat do you think of vampires, then?â
His question catches you off guard. Why on earth would he care about that? âWhatâs it to you?â
âMy bad. We can just walk in awkward silence if you prefer.â
It takes a ridiculous amount of your energy to swallow the laugh that bubbles in your throat. Since when did Heeseung crack jokes? Since when did you have to fight the urge to giggle at them like a schoolgirl with a crush? You suddenly find yourself grateful for the cover of night, the way shadows make the heat on your cheeks undetectable.Â
But his question still lingers. Ruminating on it, your mind flickers to the small, odd book currently sitting at the bottom of your bag.Â
Sacred Monsters.Â
It feels like a strange combination of words, two concepts that shouldnât fit together.Â
âI think itâs more complicated than that,â you breathe. You donât know if it could possibly be true, the idea that creatures of the night have a high level of consciousness, the ability to moralize, to feel conflicted. But it certainly makes for a more interesting story.Â
âI mean, vampires had to have some level of base cognition, right?â Youâll never know for sure, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense. âThey were hunted to near extinction, but they put up a good fight. They hid. They fled. They tried blending in as humans. Some resorted to drinking animal blood. I guess thereâs no way of knowing, but that doesnât feel like pure biology or an evolutionary response alone. It feels like⌠something a human would do.â
âWouldnât that be worse?â Heeseungâs voice is low. If the faint hum of faraway traffic were any louder, you might not hear him at all. âFor them to know what it means to be alive and still make the choice to take that away from someone else? To exist as a parasite.â
âIt would certainly be tragic.â The words of the first essay come back to you.Â
For even those blessed with immortality know what it means to survive. And even those cursed to live forever know what it means to die.
âItâs a fatal flaw, a cruel design. They need blood to survive. The very thing that their bodies used to create on their own. Itâs parasitic, yes, but that doesnât make it animal instinct. I canât imagine the horror of having to experience that with the burden of human consciousness.âÂ
You feel the weight of Heeseungâs gaze on the side of your face. âItâs still evil, is it not?â
His words feel heavy, weighted under moonlight. Though you canât imagine why, you have the distinct sense that your answer is important to him.Â
âLike I said, I think itâs more complicated than that. Taking someoneâs life is evil, yes, but that was never unique to vampires. Is a vampire that chooses animal blood still evil just because theyâre a vampire? Is a human that chooses to kill another absolved of their crime just by virtue of being human?â
Your words settle into the space between you.Â
âThat,â Heeseung finally breathes, âwould make a much better story than the one I read last night.â
This time, you do laugh, a light airy thing. It feels easy, lighthearted as some of the tension drains from the atmosphere.
âUnfortunately, Iâm not so sure Professor Kim would agree. Based on everything New Haven publishes, he seems to have some weird anti-vampire vendetta.â
As you round the corner, your apartment comes into view. Nodding toward the staircase that leads to your front door, you tell him, âThis is me, by the way.â
Heeseung glances at the stairs, then back at you. He shoves his hands into his coat pockets. âWhen is your draft due?â
âUgh, donât remind me,â you groan. âWednesday.â
âMm,â he winces, an offer of understanding. âWhat time?â
âIâm supposed to be at New Haven by three, soââ
âWhat?â Heeseung cuts you off, expression suddenly tense, voice suddenly sharp. âYouâre going to the publishing office?â
âYeah.â You nod slowly, unsure why that would possibly warrant such a strong reaction. âIâm dropping off my first draft and getting a tour. The internship starts right when spring semester does, so he told me I could come in person to familiarize myself with the space first.â
âRight.â Heeseung nods. The tension in his jaw doesnât relax.
Itâs all so strange. He always seems to be speaking in riddles, dealing with invisible problems you canât detect.Â
Youâre tired and confused, and the moon that hangs above you doesnât feel like a remedy for either of those things. In fact, it might be making things worse.Â
Because despite the way you feel like youâll never quite understand him, bathed in the shimmering glow of moonlight, Heeseung looksâŚÂ
He looks like all the things youâve been trying to avoid calling him for the duration of the semester. Ethereal. Beautiful. Maybe even kind, at least when he wants to be.Â
After all, youâre standing at the base of your staircase with company, and it wasnât due to any insistence on your end.Â
The silence lingers. A string somewhere is pulled taught.Â
Youâre standing still, and youâre still a little breathless when you tell him, âI should go.â You donât want to. Youâre not sure why.Â
Again, Heeseung only nods.Â
The movement sends shadows dancing over his features. The bridge of his nose. The plane of his cheek. The line of his jaw. Things youâve never let yourself linger on. Things youâre having a hard time looking away from now.Â
 But heâs seen you home safe and sound, and even nights under the stars have their inevitable end.Â
It occurs to you then that you have no idea how he plans to get home, or even how far away he lives.Â
After he walked you home,itâs the least you could do to offer, âDo you live far? I could help you pay for a cab or something ifââ
Heeseung shakes his head. He smiles, but it doesnât quite reach his eyes. âIt wonât take me long. Besides, I like to walk at night.â
âOkay.â It feels strange, trading these bits of kindness. Youâre craving some normalcy, something unwavering. So with a final wave and a small goodnight, you climb the stairs to your door.Â
You couldnât say for sure if his eyes follow you on the way up. You feel the heat of them, the weight of a steady gaze on your spine. But itâs a fickle sensation and youâve been wrong before. And you canât quite bring yourself to turn around and look.Â
The door closes behind you. Surrounded by the stillness of an empty apartment, you release a long held exhale. It drains out of you audibly. You hadnât even realized you were holding your breath.Â
âŚ..
Dawn breaks Wednesday morning and carries with it a certain kind of dread.Â
Despite your efforts, and there have been many, your draft remains far too close to its original state for your satisfaction. No matter how many times you pour over Sacred Monsters, you can never quite seem to find a way to make your submission more interesting while also staying true to New Havenâs general themes.Â
If anything, the book has been a distraction. Long hours that you could have spent editing or revising or rewriting were instead dedicated to detailed web searches with a variety of keywords and spellings that never seemed to bear any fruit.Â
It doesnât matter which search engine you use. It doesnât matter which database you browse. Other than the copy sitting on your desk, Sacred Monsters doesnât seem to exist.Â
But the annoying, wonderful, awful thing about time is that it passes. Time doesnât care that you havenât found it in yourself to produce a draft youâre proud of. Time doesnât relent just because you always feel like itâs slipping through your fingers.Â
And Wednesday morning turns to Wednesday afternoon with the same steady predictability as always.Â
Youâd like to think that you know the area around your university quite well, but New Havenâs main office is in an entirely different part of the city. Youâll have to leave now if you want to catch the bus with a little cushion of time to spare. The last thing you want to do is be late to your first day. Especially since the draft tucked neatly into your bag isnât one you can hand over with confidence.Â
To your relief, the bus is relatively empty. You tuck yourself into a seat and thank your lucky stars that you missed the afternoon rush.Â
Popping your headphones in, youâre searching for something to fill the time. Thereâs the draft sitting in your bag, of course, but the last thing you want to do is spend the next thirty minutes agonizing over it. For now, it will just have to be the mess of mediocrity that it is.Â
Instead, you reach for your phone. Maybe some mindless scrolling will be what you need to put your nerves at ease.Â
But when the app loads, the first post you see doesnât have you giggling or rolling your eyes or scrolling on without a thought at all. Instead, your spine straightens, shoulders suddenly tense.Â
Because the words youâre reading are not something you ever expected to see in your lifetime.Â
Three dead in suspected vampire attack, the latest headline from your local news reporting channel reads.Â
Clicking on the article, the details are hazy, but that does little to lessen the grip of fear that makes a sudden grab at your throat. Fragments of sentences capture your attention as you scan the page.Â
Three bodies found near the riverâŚ
Bite marks on their necksâŚ
No trace of recent animal activity in the areaâŚ
Eyes widening with every new piece of information, fear claws at your throat.Â
Bodies completely drained of blood.
Two hundred years. Two hundred years of the belief that vampires have all but been eradicated. Shattered in one fell swoop.Â
And in your city, of all places. At the river. Somewhere youâve been. Somewhere you wouldnât think twice about going. Itâs not particularly close to your apartment or university, but itâs not exactly far enough away for comfort.
You shudder, suddenly grateful that Heeseung was there to walk you home last night. Not that he would be able to do much if you did stumble across the path of a vampire, butââ
Oh god. Oh god.Â
Heeseung.Â
You have no idea if he made it home safe after parting ways with you and you have no way of checking. He hadnât made any indication as to where he lived before saying goodnight. For all you know, he could have been heading in the direction of the river. He could have been at the river. Right when the attacks occurred.Â
Doubling down on your phone, you scour the article for any information you can find on the victims. Objectively, itâs probably a good thing that theyâre described only vaguely. Probably an intentional choice to protect the privacy of grieving friends and families.Â
But âthree victims, two men and one woman, all in their early twentiesâ does very, very little to assuage your terror. In fact, it only heightens it.Â
Blood pounding in your ears and dread pooling in your stomach, thirty minutes passes in the blink of an eye, you nearly miss your stop. But as you get off of the bus, youâre spiraling. Should you even be here? It feels wrong, leaving such a terrifying loose end untied.Â
But then you think it through a little further. Even if you got back on the bus, rode it all the way to the stop by your apartment, you have no idea where youâd go from there. You may have shared insults and confidence and a moment under the moonlight with Heeseung, but you donât know anything about him. Where he lives, where to reach him, where he could possibly be right now.Â
But Professor Kim might. Youâre sure that student information is strictly confidential, but if you explain the situation to him, he might be understanding, might just be willing to bend the rules a bit for you.Â
So with a heaviness in your heart and fire in your footsteps, you double check the address of New Havenâs office and start walking away from the bus stop. Your surroundings are not a primary area of your focus, but it does strike you as odd how deserted the whole area seems.Â
Other than a few residential looking buildings, the street you walk is mostly empty lots. Abandoned houses. Not the kind of place you would consider ideal for any business.Â
Despite the cold morning sunshine, the afternoon has brought a cover of clouds. Squinting towards the distance, you wonder if you should have brought your umbrella, just in case. It almost looks as if itâs going to rain.Â
When you do finally find the building, you have to stop to double check the address. Not only is there no signage, but New Havenâs supposed headquarters looks just as run down as all of the other buildings in the area.Â
Frowning, you reread your email. The address does match the faded numbers next to the front door, and Professor Kim seems too meticulous to make a mistake like an incorrect address. Then again, he also seems too well off to run his publishing company out of a decrepit building far away from any of the cityâs major business centers.Â
But you wonât bother worrying about it now. Even your dreary first draft feels like an afterthought at this point. Who cares if the buildingâs not what you expected, if the location isnât ideal? Right now, you need to focus on finding Heeseung, on making sure heâs okay.Â
Because the alternativeâŚ
No, you refuse to let yourself spiral there either. But the pressure of grief borrowed from the future is already pressing firmly against the backs of your eyelids, blurring your surroundings.Â
As you approach the front door, you notice a small, faded placard.Â
New Haven. Well, at least that confirms that youâre in the right spot. Even if it is a bit odd that they left off Publishing.Â
Standing at the door, you hesitate. Should you knock? Just walk in? You take a sidelong glance at the window, scanning for any sign of movement. But thereâs nothing there. In fact, it looks as if the lights are off.Â
Dark, quiet, desolate. Strange, yes, but not something youâll waste time ruminating on now.Â
You knock once. Twice. The sound echoes; the only response is the whistling of the wind.
Deep in the pit of your stomach, a sense of unease begins to build. It feels off, like something is wrong. Senses on high alert, you force the feeling aside. You need a way to find Heeseung, to make sure heâs okay. Besides, the lingering unease is probably just the anxiety of not knowing if heâs safe.Â
Steeling your resolve, you reach for the door handle, twisting it tentatively. It opens slowly, the hinges groaning in protest. As if the building itself doesnât want you there. Stepping inside does little to shake the feeling. Dark and devoid of any decoration, the interior is nearly as gloomy as the sunless sky outside.Â
And even the layout of the building is strange. The front door opens to a long, dark hallway with no lights on. Itâs eerily quiet. Too quiet. Too empty. You werenât expecting a welcoming party by any means, but itâs hard to imagine anyone, much less Professor Kim, even being here.Â
âHello?â You call, clutching your bag a little closer to your body, suppressing the shudder that licks at the base of your spine. âProfessor Kim?â You wait a moment, but sustained silence is the only response.Â
Forcing your footsteps forward, you tread tentatively down the hallway. After all, you didnât come this far just to turn around. Especially now that Professor Kim might be your only way of finding Heeseung.Â
Taking slow steps down the dark hallway, you pass two doors, both of them pulled shut. The end of the hall opens into a larger room, still empty of any furnishings. It certainly doesnât look like a publishing house. It doesn't look like much at all. At the very least, thereâs a bit more visibility here, faint traces of faded daylight streaming in through the half drawn blinds on the other side of the room.Â
Turning to your left, you see another door. This one is also pulled shut, but thereâs a name placard on the front. Drawing closer, you read your professorâs name. It still doesn't feel right. Ducking down slightly, you check the gap between the bottom of the door and the hardwood floor for any sign of light, of movement. But itâs just as dark, just as quiet as the rest of the strange building.Â
As you stand back up to your full height, you raise a hand to knock. Just before your knuckles make contact with the door, you see it. An odd array of crimson stains near the handle. Peering closer, your brow furrows in a combination of disgust and confusion.Â
If you didnât know any better, youâd almost think it looked like blood.Â
But that doesnât make any sense. None of this does. You wonât pretend to know Professor Kim, but heâs never shown up to a lecture with so much as a hair out of place. Why on earth would he run his publishing company out of a building thatâs nearly falling apart? Why would there be strange, suspicious looking stains on the door to his office? Why would it be empty at the time he asked you to come present your draft and tour your future internship location?
You have no idea what to do. Opening the door to his office and letting yourself in would feel like an inappropriate invasion of privacy, but youâre at a loss. This entire thing is so strange.Â
Before you can decide how to proceed, you hear something. A faint noise, barely there, but distinct from the wind that still whistles outside. Itâs disjointed, arrhythmic like the sound of hushed voices. Overlapping. Arguing, maybe.Â
Inclining your head, your brow creases further. It sounds like itâs coming from your professorâs office, but how could it be? The noises are too muffled, too distant to be coming from right in front of you.Â
You lean closer. Deciding youâre past the point of maintaining decorum, you press your ear to the door, careful to avoid any of the suspicious looking stains.Â
For a moment, you hear nothing. Half convinced the voices were nothing but a figment of your overactive imagination, you almost pull away.Â
But then you hear them again. Still muffled, still indecipherable, but undoubtedly louder than before. Which means they must be coming from behind the door. The voices pause, suspend you in silence once again.Â
And then you hear another noise, different this time. Less like a voice and more like movement. Scuffling, maybe. Feet dragging against the floor. Itâs punctuated by a strange gurgling noise. Something wet and thick and throaty. The kind of sound that makes you wince in a subconscious reaction.Â
And then a sudden thump has your bones jolting beneath your skin, everything muscle in your body tensing as you suppress an uninvited gasp. Because that didnât sound far away. It was loud, too loud to be anywhere but right on the other side of the door.Â
Mild unease is quick to transform into sheer panic as you stagger backwards on shaky footsteps. You need to leave. You need to leave now.Â
Youâll find another way to get ahold of Heeseung, to make sure heâs okay. And maybe thereâs a rational explanation for all of this. Maybe this is an old New Haven office and Professor Kim forgot to send you the new address. Maybe thereâs an email in your inbox now, and heâs apologizing for the oversight and rescheduling your draft meeting. Maybe heâsâ
The sound of the front door you walked in through minutes ago slamming shut kills the train of thought. This time, you canât bite down the noise that crawls up your throat.Â
Itâs stupid, from a logical perspective. A fatal flaw of human nature that your first instinct is to scream. To alert whatever danger surely lurks nearby of your exact location, the precise depth of your fear.Â
But the terror that leaves your lips is muffled. It comes from behind, the palm that covers your mouth. The outline of a body that presses into your back, forces you into submission with a hand around your wrist. Â
You thrash against the ironclad grip to no avail. Dig your heels into the ground but find little purchase in the hardwood floor as youâre dragged backwards, every nerve in your body singing with terror as youâre forced into a dark room. Even with your elbows flailing and head jerking, the grip on you remains steady, firm.Â
In the end, itâs a bite that frees you. The hand that covers your mouth drops away as soon as you sink your teeth into the flesh of your captorâs fingers. Thereâs a muffled grunt of pain in your ear as you spin on your heel.Â
Again, itâs stupid. You should be running, sprinting in the opposite direction, but everything in you is begging to know. To gain some sense of control over the situation. Eyes still adjusting to the dark and blinded by fear, you turn to findâ
âHeeseung?â Your mind is spinning a million miles a minute. There are too many thoughts, too many emotions to keep up with. Relief. Fear. Confusion.
Relief, because heâs okay and heâs here, butâ
âWhat are you doing?â You have a million questions that demand answers. âWhy are you here? Why did you grab me like thââ
âAre you okay?â Heeseung takes a step closer to you, reaches his hands out as if to grab you again. Thinking better of it, he lets them fall back to his side with a slight shake of his head. Thereâs terror in his eyes too when he clarifies, âYouâre not hurt?â
âNo, IâŚâ What the hell is going on? âIâm fine, butââ
A flash of relief makes itself apparent on Heeseungâs features before theyâre morphing again, regaining all the urgency, the fear that was there before. Heâs serious, gravely so when he tells you, âWe have to get out of here.â
âOkay,â you stumble forward as he reaches for your wrist again, intent on tugging you behind him. âBut I donât understand. Whatâsââ
âIâll explain everything later.â Heâs frantic, you realize. Desperate. And so terribly afraid. Emotions youâve never seen him wear. Not in the cool, calm mask of indifference he had in class. Not in the faint flickers of vulnerability from stolen moments under moonlight. This is different. This is so much worse. âBut we have to go. Now.â
With that much command in his voice, that much fear in his eyes, youâre putty in his hands. But in the end, it makes little difference. The door to the room heâs dragged you into opens with a resounding bang before the two of you can make your escape. The sound is so loud, so frightening that you feel reverberations in your marrow as the door collides with the roomâs interior wall, no doubt leaving a sizable dent.
And standing there, shrouded by the gray tones of sunless winter daylight, your professor blocks the roomâs only exit.Â
Instinctively, you take a step closer to Heeseung. He does the same, pulling you towards him, behind him, until half of your body is covered by his. Peering over his shoulder, the sight that greets you is one that will haunt waking nightmares for a long time to come.Â
Professor Kim, who always prided himself on maintaining a neat, clean appearance couldnât be further from that now. His clothes are ripped, hanging from his body at odd angles, adding an element of disfigured monstrosity to his silhouette.Â
And his eyes. His eyes. Bloodshot and so wide they must hurt, they dart around the room, narrow in on you and Heeseung like he doesnât see humans. Only targets. Enemies. Prey. Mouth open and snarling, you swear you see a glint in his mouth, the shape of a tooth far too long and pointed to belong to any normal person.Â
But even those things you could force yourself to forget.Â
What horrifies you the most is the blood. Even in the shadows, the unnaturally potent shade of crimson is unmistakable. It stains him, covers him, drips from him. Seeps from his clothes and his skin and his mouth.Â
Panic clawing at your throat, you suppress the urge to vomit.Â
âGet behind me,â Heeseung whispers, low. âNow.â
But a split second of averted attention is all your professor needs. Professor Kim, lover of literature, beacon of taste, a role model youâve looked up to since the first time you stepped foot in his class a handful of months ago, pinches a tiny object between his long, bony, blood-covered fingers. And then he throws it.Â
With startling precision, it whistles through the air, races through a hazy cloud of confusion and panic before it strikes its target true.Â
It doesnât hurt, not really. The hand that flies to the side of your neck is instinct, more than anything. But the fingers that linger on your pulse point donât find the smooth expanse of your unblemished throat that they usually would.Â
Because thereâs something there now. An object lodged just beneath your jaw. Delicately, you draw your hand back in front of your face. Thereâs no blood on your fingers, but that doesnât stop them from shaking.Â
As you look over Heeseungâs shoulder, the world starts to blur around the edges. Darken, as if your eyes are closing of their own volition, against your will. You see him retreat, the terrible ghost of your professor. In the dark, he looks almost forlorn. Regretful.Â
âFuck,â Heeseung whispers. He doesnât see the way your professor spins on his heel, runs in the opposite direction. His attention is trained fully on the space beneath your jaw. âFuck.â
âHeeseung?â Your voice sounds strange to your own ears. Distant, muffled as if youâre submerged beneath water. You have so many questions.Â
But itâs suddenly so cold. And youâre so tired. Wouldnât it be nice to just lay down? Rest for a moment? Surely that couldnât hurt anything.Â
Your legs are wobbly beneath you, and you would collapse to the floor in an ungraceful heap if it werenât for the two hands on your waist, supporting your weight.Â
âIâm here,â he tells you. Cold. When did it get so cold? Your eyes try to focus on Heeseung, but your vision is swimming. You wonder if he would be warm. âIâm right here. Just⌠fuck.â
Gently, he eases you both to the ground. The floor is hard beneath you, but it feels like a reprieve. Youâre tired of holding the weight of your body upright. Your blinking is becoming slow, lethargic. Your head is suddenly far too heavy for your neck.Â
Slowly, Heeseung removes his hands from your waist, relocates them to either side of your jaw. With the care of someone well versed in patience, he delicately maneuvers your head to the side, exposing the length of your neck.Â
Whatever he finds there must be displeasing. You canât imagine why. You canât think much of anything. The world has taken on a sort of dreamlike quality in which everything feels loose, fluid and unburdened by the laws of any physics.Â
âFuck,â he whispers for the fourth time. The curse scatters over your cheekbone like a kiss.Â
Pulling back slightly, he meets your half-closed eyes. âIâm sorry.â It sounds like a prayer. âThis mightâŚâ he swallows, something in his resolve wavering. âThis might hurt.â
Pain. You can barely conceptualize the sensation. It feels like a distant memory.Â
And then heâs tilting your head to the side again. His face draws closer, overcomes the last of your remaining senses, demands the full attention of whatâs left of your consciousness.Â
You think he might kiss you. Whatever desire remains in you almost wishes he would.Â
Your eyes flutter shut, lips parting slightly as your eyelashes fan against the tops of your cheeks.Â
But his mouth never finds yours. Instead, you feel the soft caress of his lips against the side of your neck, a fleeting touch against the sensitive skin just beneath your jaw. Inhibitions whittled to nothing, you shudder against the sensation, release the airy ghost of a sigh.
He was wrong, you think. With his mouth on your neck, pain is the last thing you feel.Â
You feel his lips part against your skin, chasing away some of the cold that has only seeped deeper into bones, into the very essence of your being.Â
And then you feel it. Whatever capacity for sensation that remains all focuses on the sudden flash of agony as his teeth pierce the skin of your throat.Â
The tiny moan that escapes your lips is pitiful. Your ability to think, to rationalize, feels like something thatâs dangling in front of you, just out of reach. Your body is too heavy, too weak to respond to the flash of searing pain as your skin is pierced deeper.Â
He canât speak, but you feel the shallow vibration of a hum against your neck. Soothing, calming. His hand that doesnât bear the weight of your head moves to push a stray strand of hair from your forehead. Itâs gentle, reverent. In complete opposition to the war he wages against your neck.Â
Mouth still full of you, a groan escapes him. Itâs heady, throaty, and you feel it travel the length of your spine, settle in the pit of your stomach. Sensation is the only thing tethering you to this world, and you canât quite tell if this is pleasure or pain.Â
He pulls back, the absence of his steady heat leaving your jaw vulnerable to the chill in the air.Â
âHold on,â you hear. You canât pinpoint where the noise comes from. Sound surrounds you, washes over you in a strange uniformity. You feel the ground fall away, something warm and solid behind your shoulders and under your knees.âWeâll be there soon.â
Floating, you think. You must be floating. Itâs hard to tell. Moments are bleeding into one another too quickly for you to keep up.Â
Eyes closed, body molten, you relax into the steady grip that carries you.Â
And the last thing you hear before reality loses its hold is the fervent, whispered sound of your name.Â
â.Ë⥠࣪ Ëâ.Ë⥠࣪ Ëâ.Ë⥠࣪ Ë
CONTINUED IN PART 2 (which can be found on my masterlist!)
â.Ë�� ࣪ Ëâ.Ë⥠࣪ Ëâ.Ë⥠࣪ Ë
note: THANK YOUUUUU for reading!!! this is pretty different from what I usually write plot wise, so I hope it made for a good read. vampire heeseung and this oc are near and dear to me, and I'm excited to continue their story. the rest of this fic is fully plotted and partially written. I'm actively continuing to work on it, and hearing your thoughts/theories/screaming/feedback/etc. is great motivation! as always, I love know what you're thinking. âĄ
#heeseung fanfiction#heeseung x reader#heeseung fanfic#enhypen fanfic#enhypen x reader#heeseung x you#enhypen x you#enhypen imagines#enhypen scenarios#heeseung scenarios#heeseung imagines
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About your language brainrot. I see your "Reader's writing can't match tyvat's long and flowery writing" and bring you "Tyvat isn't used to books over 50 pages long so a short story to the Reader is a whole dictionary to tyvat readers".
Seriously, have you seen how thin the books are? They don't wrote novels, they write short chapters formatted in the way really old stories are. As in, summarizing all the events down into one smooth story then adding a few quotes. Fanfiction writers are insane. They will willingly sit down and write hundreds of words at a time. To them, a proper modern day story of maybe, oh 10k words or so, would probably be like the Oddessy itself.
If we were to combine the two headcanons. It would end up as many historians being intimidated by this insanely long written scripture in the language of the forgotten.
I'm going to take this a step further and say that if the creator asked some people to proofread their things, it would establish a hiarchy of who is able to actually finish the book the creator read and who isn't.
NOW THIS, THIS IS MY FUCKING JAMMMM
I'm so sorry this is so old!! u probably all know this by this point that I've really slowed down as the year has gone on, but I graduated university and then got my first job so its been pretty crazy!
Sun:Â Reader (you/they/them)
Orbit:Â Headcanons-ish
Stars:Â dash of all the book/nerds of Genshin, heavy on Sumeru?
Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: Cussing, 16+ Mature Audiences, Spoliers for Sumeru Archon Quests/Scaramouche, & Trigger Warnings: mention of shipping/characters shipping themselves with you.
Comment if any missed, please.
â
FULL STOP.
THE AKADEMIYA, FONTAINE RESEARCH INSTITUTE, HAVE BEENÂ WAITTTINNGGGGÂ ON YOUR ASS LMAO
You fall from the fucking sky like a 5 star, or pop out of the Irminsul or whatever
and immediately are mobbed by scholars. LMAO jkjk (not really, bc that's what itâd feel like)
can you even imagine the dread older stories(âthe classicsâ to them), that was instilled in the poor students around Teyvat??
id like to think ur works are the most preserved over the thousands of years of Teyvat archeologists excavating them, in comparison to other authors (teyvat just likes you more, suck it William Shakespeare)
also, bc I cant resist language differences/world building I'm sorryyyy đ đ
the vocab of Genshin lang vs. ours, has significantly less vocabulary like their actual dictionary is 1/3 the size of ours type of energy
(Omfg all ur fanfics being considered like insanely long realistic romantic classics or tragedies like Jane Austen-level, and only the richest and biggest play companies put on plays about ur stories bc the script goes on for hours)
(ur plays only get put on for rlly big events bc of this, like Lantern Rite or like a Summer/Winter festival/your birthday, which is, yes, an international holiday)
dude the sheer power move of anything youâve written being essentially âJourney of the Westâ to them, like Damnnn.
endless like adaptations, plays, Teyvat-short stories condensing it, (THEIR OWN FANFICTION ABOUT UR STORIES)
the power is, in fact, going to your head every time another scholar both deflates at how long ur stuff is, but also lights up bc they get to read it
speaking of scholars⌠you know who snatched you up first. you know. you donât even need to read the next line.
Alhaitham.
sneaky bastard he is, absolutely manipulated, mansplained (and manwhored bc he knows heâs handsome, cheeky little shit) his way into getting you to sit down with him and interview you about both translating other classics, your own, giving your own analysis of others works and ur own, and picking ur brain apart of how/why you wrote urs, etc. its fucking endless,
Kaveh had to come rescue you bc u were starving to death after getting stuck with the Haravatat scholar in his office for nearly 7 hours of interrogation discussion about literature
and Alhaitham wasn't even nearly done, heâd informed you as you left that he already had another appointment for later conversation scheduled (how?? you don't even know ur own schedule??? you have a schedule???) and was looking forward to more of your âcreative and enlightening inputâ :)))
(youâre never going to escape him, not even Nahida herself can save you from his stubborn ass)
On another note, Xingqiu is quaking when you agree to autograph his copy of your stories (of which he has all hard covers of the first edition translations)
Zhongli/Rex Lapis is known for having a near-lifelong passion for searching for your works specifically, and learning how to translate them better into Teyvatian vernacular
like the same way he can absolutely speak on Rex Lapis facts/rocks/adepti info, is the same confidence he speaks about knowing ur work lol
(yes he did also ask for several autographs and another sit-down talk about the works, tho a lot more sneaky then Alhaitham bc he just casually gets u guys into it during dinner)
Barbatos/Venti has written some of the most famous songs based on your stuff, he has his favorites too,
but he always claims the best songs are any that have been written in the story, like either when a character sings something, or there are like quotes from songs ur fanfics are based on lol
(he also demanded to hear what they actually sound like from you, yes, you have to sing them for him lol)
Venti also can surprisingly drunkenly ramble the entirety of at least one of ur stories, like, word for word lmao
(Diluc gave in and did give him a drink on the house for that one, just once, Venti doesnât remember it lol)
(I forgot to mention, u guys still speak the same language, just like, different versions of it)
ur works being one of the few things all the Archons can freely talk about with each other, like itâs neutral ground bc theyâre all fangirling about it lmao
Furina and Neuvillette have had like,, fierce debates over the decades about character dynamics and the general drama of ur stories, theyâve gotten into it enough theyâve stopped talking to each other for a couple days a few times lol
Albedo, Sucrose, Kokomi, Yae Miko, Ei, Raiden, have read every single work theyâre gotten their hands on in Teyvat (it took them like a literal year or longer)
Albedo drew you fanart for every single story, bc heâs hyperfixated on everything related to you ngl,
Kokomi had commissioned smaller pocket versions of ur works (which later got popular thanks to Yae Miko) both the OG and the Teyvat shortened versions
THE HARBINGERS ARE THE MOST DOWN BAD LMAO
Childe has literally tried to recreate battle scenes from ur works lmao
and gets especially riled up about fighting someone who resembles any characters from them (esp villains, what a cutie)
You cannot fathom the amount of research throughout Teyvat that has been secretly or indirectly funded by Pantalone/Tsaritsa
from the experts to analyze them, to funding play companies to act them out, to actually excavating places to get more of ur stuff unearthed
(the Harbingers absolutely are the first group of people that got to read several of ur stories first bc of this, like the worldâs most exclusive secret book club lol)
Scaramouche used to clown on Childe all the time about how he was too impatient to even âsit down and read the Kingâs classicsâ, and he was downright insufferable when he found out about Tartagliaâs habit of recreating battle scenes/that being what motivated him to fight sometimes lol
that being said, Wanderer surprisingly never forgot ur stories.
Even when his memories were wiped for a bit, he found comfort in these fantastical epics still sticking around, even when his old names did not
(he mayyyy or mayyy nottt have secretly namedhimselfafteroneofthetragicprotagonistsherelatesto- )
oh btw, Nahida also found joy and comfort in ur stories when she was trapped, they also helped her literally grow as a person bc she had ur stories to help her sort of process the world/what life was like outside of her dreaming prison đĽşđâ¤ď¸âđŠš
â
OMFG
ANYWAY FULL TONE SHIFT LMFAO-
the ABSOLUTE SPIRAL-RED-STRING-CONSPIRACY-THEORY-BOARD ENERGY IF THIS WAS A BLUNT LANGUAGE AU LMAOOOO
like specifically how Teyvatians like to give all the context ever thru their words, but older deities/beings like you just do simple phrases that can have deeper meanings (whereas teyvat just explains all the meanings behind their words)
STOP thereâs like an official display at the Akademiya and Fontaine Institute of red string theory boards đđ (look what youâve done to themmm LMAO)
for like every story of urs, INCLUDING THE FANFICS STOP
IMAGINE THE SHIPPING WARS IF U EVER WROTE ONE THAT WASNT EXPLICIT OR LIKE ONE OF THE MAIN ROMANTIC INTERESTS HAD CHEMISTRY WITH OTHER CHARACTERS HAHAHAHAA
that's actually what Akademiya scholars argue about the most viciously, itâs like politics you canât just bring up ships from ur stories casually in regular convos đ
(poor Cyno has to deal with a shipping war once a year bc someone always makes the mistake of reading ur work for the first time (without being told to not talk to others abt ships lol) and it starts an all out brawl in the cafeteria every time LMAO)
Also yes.
Cyno is a fanboy.
(he has read Creator x Reader-insert fanfiction.)
(As have most of the characters mentioned, and those not lol)
âŚ
(I'm gonna make a whole Creator x reader fanfic post one day i stg lmao)
â
an iced coffee? for me?? :0
ok but real talkâŚ
wtf do you guys wanna see for new years!!
i didn't do a inktober/october days thingy bc i felt too unprepared (and bc id wanted to post that 1000+ followers eldritch au for Halloween)
but now i kinda wanna, at least for a few days :o
ill post a poll in a minute, so check it out!! but still, please feel free to comment some ideas here! :)
Safe Travels Deafening Dreamer,
đâ
If you wanna join a taglist, DM me what for! "Pspspsss, please tag me for [All SAGAU posts, Only SAGAU Language AUs, diff fandom, etc.]!"
(If you ever wanna drop, just DM me! "No more taglists/[specifically this AU/fandom] please!")
âĄthe belovedsâĄ
@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist /Â @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche / @chocogi / @fallen-starr / @areaderofbooks / @devilangel657 / @esthelily
#this looked a lot longer on desktop#fuck it#anyway sorry if im slower again guys!#i got sick again :(#my voice was completely gone for days#im onyl just recovering#so finally felt decent enough to write more#check out my other posts for the poll btw!#genshin sagau#genshin impact#sagau#genshin isekai#genshin imagines#genshin impact sagau#aqua asks#genshin x reader#self aware genshin#genshin self aware#more like isekai heavily but this does rely on u understanding they could/have had ur stories for years in their world#so kinda#<3 u guys but DO NOT TAG AS YANDERE/DARK#bc its not <3#gonna start putting that reminder in the tags
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Things I Liked About the Agatha All Along Finale - Initial Thoughts
Wooooo boy. Hey look I'm a bleeding heart shipper but I'm old and have been in enough fandoms. Let's process shall we?
Alice! Alice echo-ing what so many fans are saying about her lost potential. Rio actually being kind in reminding Alice her death did have purpose. "You're a protection witch, you protected someone."
The development of Billy's extremely complicated relationship with Agatha. Kid's not loyal to Agatha, he's understanding her, or starting to at least. He sees her being a relationship with Death and he's curious about the story there. He cares enough to connect the dots and see Agatha as a full person. And we see that developed as the finale goes.
"That's it? That's all the time that I get?" The show reminds us that death sometimes just happens â "Sometimes boys die" â I wonder if one of these writers is a Sandman fan because I immediately clocked a parallel to Death of the Endless taking a baby's life in her first comic appearance.
Death of the Endless is of course much kinder than Rio is with her (iconic) reply to that eternal question. "You lived what anyone gets... A lifetime."
That whole convo we got in the preview clip. And then them just sitting down and talking more? Albeit with layers of manipulation but y'know that's them.
Agatha telling Rio that she'll hand over Billy if Rio leaves her alone: essentially making Rio once again choose between her duty and her feelings towards Agatha. The deepest cut Agatha could make â which we see echoed with "If you do this I'll hate you forever." They know each other and the best ways to hurt each other.
I laughed waaaay too much at Agatha ragging on Jen's last vegetable name.
Jen's unbinding ritual was powerful and a fantastic moment for the character. She recognised and embraced her power. Agatha's mask slipping a little at the end as well. Amazing. Sasheer killed it.
The whole scene with Agatha working with Billy to bring Tommy back was beautiful and emotional and well put together and showed the side to Agatha that cements her as a great mentor (when she's not being the biggest murderous asshole).
Agatha using what she learnt from her Alice and Jen â and what Lilia told her â to hold her ground with Rio... okay it lasted like 10 seconds but it was a nice callback! Agatha's such a shameless survivor.
Incredible kissing. We knew Hahn and Plaza would deliver and they did. When it comes to kissing women, these two absolutely go for it.
Rio looking absolutely gutted with having to take Nicky away. Plaza really delivered with Rio's pain in these eps. Agatha calling her "my love", cursing and then begging.
Rio being soft about Nicky despite her job. Nicky willingly going with her with no fear, no hesitation â suggesting that they did bond somehow? Nicky knew she was a friendly face and trusted her. It was really a good death, all things considered. He wasn't sick, he wasn't in pain, he wasn't scared he simply fell asleep and just went.
Rio reminding Nicky to kiss his mom goodbye. She cares so much, as much as a personification of death can. It's funny how some people thought Rio was going to be this manipulative big bad but no, Agatha's the more toxic one in this relationship.
Okay like imagine Agatha finally dying and just straight up BOOKING it before Rio pops up. Rio hates ghosts. The number of times Agatha deliberately pissed her off this finale was amazing.
"I'm sure he'll forgive you for... whatever you did." Aw Billy is a good kid. Just like Nicky was. Agatha needs that reminder, that anchor to not be the Worst.
Chemistry aside, Agatha and Billy being mentor-pupil makes a ton of sense because these Maximoffs do the most fucked up shit (unintentionally) with their magic and Agatha's got the knowledge, charisma, cynicism, and the morals of a spinning compass to support him.
Alright when are they announcing the sequel / spin-off? I know there's a rumour of it happening. Rio's got 2 abominations and one endlessly aggravating ghost of an ex to deal with now.
#agatha all along#agatha all along spoilers#agathario#agatha harkness#rio vidal#tv: agatha all along#aaa meta#we actually got a bunch of great things y'all
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the pilot - Pretty Woman
slow burn poly!wolfstar Pretty Woman (1990) au: established wolfstar, escort!reader, side jegulily, eventual dorlene, political heist-type situation, depictions and descriptions of sex-work
I // II
cw: discussion of experienced transphobia, discussion of someone else's homophobia, the Black Family, writers poor understanding of UK politics, mature themes and discussion of full service sex work [3k words]
link to series masterlist
âAbsolutely bloody fucking not, are you out of your mind?âÂ
âCas, please.â You begged as you followed your roommate out of her room and into the kitchen.
âYou have plenty of bags, why do you need to borrow mine?â She grumbled as she flicked on the kettle.Â
âThe room is booked at the Ritz, Cas; I cannot walk in with my fraying duffle.âÂ
Her movements paused as she turned to look at you incredulously. âThe Ritz? Fucking hells, babe, whereâd you find this guy?â
You shrugged your shoulders helplessly. âHe found me.â
âBlimeyâŚif he has enough money to throw around for a casual stay at a hotel like that and-â
âMe.â You finished for her. âI knowâŚI- Iâd like it to go well, in caseâŚâ
âIn case he decides to book again.âÂ
You nodded solemnly at Dorcas who continued staring at you, only looking away when her water came to a boil.Â
âFine. FineâŚokay, you can borrow my Prada bag.â
You squealed as you hugged your friend from behind as she prepared her tea, ignoring her grumbling on account of the pleased smile she had on her face.
âThank you, Cas. ReallyâŚthisâŚ.this could be good for us, yeah?â
Her face softened as she turned to look at you as you backed towards her bedroom to retrieve her bag; guilt, grief and hope intermingling in her eyes as she nodded at you.Â
*ŕłŕź.ŕłŕż
Your cheap heels clicked across along the marble floor which reflected the lights like diamonds under the many crystal chandeliers hanging on the high ceilings. You were wearing your most expensive jacket, but you still felt horribly out of place; you werenât exactly wearing a whole lot underneath it (everything was going to be coming off shortly anywayâŚ), and you were delusional enough to feel like everyone in the lobby was somehow onto you.
This late into the evening, most guests were dressed to the nines as they made their way to casinos and orchestras; cocktail dresses and more than a few tuxedos painting your vision in every direction you looked. You couldnât get to the elevator quickly enough, though you were forced to spend the ride up staring at your reflection ad infinitum on account of the parallel mirrors in every direction.
Fifth floor, room 522.Â
The room itself had its own miniature chandelier hanging above the room number illuminating it in the hall. You looked back at the text on your phone to confirm you were at the right place.
Great! Looking forward to seeing you: room 522 on the 5th floor
Youâd had high paying clients before â men who could afford to spend their money on sex â but not like this, never like this.
You suddenly felt incredibly nervous and hoped you could make a good impression; if he was pleasant, youâd be more than happy to have him as a repeat client.
Youâve been through worse.
You took one last look through your borrowed bag to make sure you had your essentials, as well as your ID and taser in case of emergencies, before taking a deep breath and knocking gently; cautious of the hall of other rooms who may be winding down for the evening and not wanting to draw attention to what was very clearly an escort.
Please let this go well.
âOkay, so, explain to me again why you couldnât just hire an actress or some theatre student?â James asked as he rubbed painfully at his temples.
Sirius groaned and threw his head back. âBecause James; an actress will have a portfolio â a history - that my family can dig into. Theyâll also have dreams of pursuing other acting jobs after this one. I need someone nondescript, unheard of, and not going anywhere so that my mother and her cronies canât poke holes into our story.â
âSame reason he canât use a friend.â Regulus added from his place on a tufted chair in the luxurious hotel room currently being paid for by his and Siriusâ family.
âRight. Mother and everyone will know if Iâm using a friend, or an acquaintance and it will point back to this larger scheme.â Sirius agreed readily.
âBut wouldnât it make more sense if you had met your new fiancĂŠ through a friend?â Remus questioned.
âSure. If my friends werenât the two of you, Lily, and Marlene.â Sirius added simply.
âI just donât understand how we jumped straight to prostitution.â James muttered.
âLook,â Sirius levelled, âIâve thought about this long and hard. Iâve also discussed this with Andromeda and our Uncle Alphard, and they both agree this is the best way to go. Our family wonât have any reason to have met our prostitute unless they themselves have hired a prostitute, and this girl is supposed to be from the opposite end of town, so I doubt thereâd have been any overlap anyways. She also wonât have much of a background for them to dig into â and sheâd be hard to get to if they tried.â
âWhy would she be hard to get to?â
Remus grimaced and answered James for him. âProstitutes often have pimps, James. Men that...organise the contact for the girls. Sirius would have had to go through one to find this girl.â
âI thought that was a myth?â Regulus interjected, but Remus shook his head.
âItâs estimated that approximately 65-85% of prostitution is pimp-dominated.â
âSo, some guy sold her to you?â James asked incredulously.
âSort of...I guess.â Sirius admitted.
James groaned and looked at the ceiling âI hate this.â
âThis is the beginning of the end, James. Weâre taking the Blackâs down once and for all; they wonât be able to hurt any of us ever again.â Sirius lamented, his eyes moving from James towards his younger brother at the end of the sentence.
Regulus nodded at his brother before there was a gentle knock on the door.
âWell boys, show time.â James said as he stood from his seat and moved to answer the door.
Sirius wrung his hands nervously as he heard James greet you at the door, sharing nervous looks with Remus and Regulus who both sat up straighter.
â-get you anything? Thereâs a full bar here, you can help yourself to whatever you want.â James was saying, though Sirius could almost hear your grin and polite shake of your head.
âIâm alright thanks, Iâm not-â
But the second you stepped into the suite's living room you fell silent and looked at the three boys in horror; Sirius realised what heâd done wrong too little too late.
Both Remus and Regulus stood to greet you, and you pulled your bag into your chest and stepped back so quickly that the picture frame on the wall you slammed into shook.Â
âItâs okay, we-â
âWhat is this?â You whispered overtop of Sirius, eyes darting nervously between the four men now all standing with their hands raised in placation, though Sirius felt as though it likely had the opposite effect.Â
âFuck this looks bad, doesnât it?â James muttered nervously.
âShut up, James.âÂ
âWhat is this?â You repeated a little louder.
âY/N, right? My name is Sirius, love. Iâm the one you spoke with on the phone.â Sirius offered as calmly as he could muster. âIâm sorry we surprised you, but I promise youâre okay, this isnât what it looks like.â
âWe just want to talk.â Remus added, and you let out a hysterical laugh.
âYou hired an escort to chat?â You deadpanned, and Siriusâ noticed your eyes turning glassy in your panic.
âOkay, okay. Hang on, justâŚâ Sirius started, moving in slow motion as he stepped towards the side table his wallet was sitting on whilst holding your eye contact the entire time. âLook, this is the price we agreed upon, right?â He asked, only breaking your eye contact to count the bills out in his hands as he inched closer to you. âYou can take this right now and leave if you want, but-â he continued, fanning out the rest of the cash heâd withdrawn, âItâs tripled if you stay and just hear us out.â
You looked at him in pure discombobulation as he placed the agreed upon sum in your hand and closed your grip around it for you before backing away slowly.Â
âSit, please; we can order room service, you can help yourself to anything from the bar. JustâŚhear us out.â Remus offered as he gestured towards one of the wingback chairs.Â
You swallowed thickly and let your gaze drift over the four men again; Remus who was looking at you pleadingly, Regulus who looked very pained on your behalf, James who looked very embarrassed by this whole misunderstanding, and Sirius who was looking at you like you were his only hope.Â
âThisâŚitâs not-?â
âNo. No, thereâsâŚno. No sex, nothing funny, justâŚa sales pitch.â He offered awkwardly.Â
You scanned the room again, and though your knuckles were no longer white, you were still hugging your bag tight against your body.
âCan I take your jacket?â James offered, taking a step towards him. You simply looked at him before your gaze fell to the rather informal clothes everyone else was wearing.
âDo you have something more comfortable to wear in your bag?â Remus offered, obviously reading your worry for what it was as you nodded at him.Â
âThe washroom is right there, if you wanted to change? OrâŚif you wanted to call a cab.â Sirius offered. You nodded at him before disappearing through the door and locking it behind you.Â
âFucking smooth, Sirius.â Regulus muttered as he sat back down with a dramatic sigh.Â
âWell I donât fucking know, Reg! Iâve not exactly done this before, either.â
âThat could have been bad.â
âWell we donât know if sheâs going to agree or not so it still could be bad.â Remus countered.
âI donât think I can stomach having to hire another one.â Sirius muttered as they heard the door to the bathroom click.Â
You exited, still looking nervous but you were no longer wearing your jacket which Sirius took as a good sign.
You were wearing a pair of well fitting jeans and a black turtleneck with a pair of black heeled boots - classic and nondescript. You looked put together enough, but like you wouldnât draw attention to yourself. Though, Sirius figured a girl as pretty as you was likely to garner a few stares regardless of what you were wearing.Â
That was probably good for business, which reminded Sirius why you were here.Â
âAre you hungry? Do you want to order something to eat? Anything to drink?â
âNo, thank you.â You replied as you accepted the chair Remus was gesturing for you to sit in. You allowed James to take your jacket, but kept your bag in your lap.Â
âWater?â Regulus asked, and you finally managed to make eye contact with one of them.
âI have a bottle of water, thank you.âÂ
That seemedâŚfair, Sirius supposed. He guessed you were used to spending time in the company of rather predatory men.
âOkay, so, Iâm really sorry about the confusion, but the reason I hired you is that I was hoping for your help.â Sirius said as he hooked up his laptop to the TV and started his slideshow.Â
âYou did not actually make a presentation.â James snorted, causing Sirius to look at him nonplussed.
âOf course I didnât.â He responded simply, blushing only when he turned to notice you were looking at him with one raised eyebrow. âRegulus made it.â
âSomeone had to.â
âThis really is a sales pitch?â You asked almost disbelievingly; the ghost of a smirk on your lips.Â
âOkay, well, if everyone would shut up, Iâd get on with it.â Sirius chided with a smile, glad that you were relaxing enough to at least chuckle lightly at his expense.Â
And Sirius told you.
He told you that his name was Sirius Black, that he came from the rather ignoble Black dynasty that had their claws (and more importantly, their heavily lined pockets) deeply entrenched in the rightwing government; currently backing the particularly problematic Tom Riddle who was running for Prime Minister. He explained that heâd run away from home at only 16 to live with James and his family due to the abuse and hostility his parents held, and how he could not support what they stood for. However, when his younger brother came out as trans to his parents - his parents who were now relying on their only remaining child to continue their legacy and help paint a picture of themselves as the proper, wholesome political family they pretended to be - they were desperate to play damage control.Â
They promised to leave Regulus alone - theyâd have nothing to do with him, but they wouldnât publicly shame him - if Sirius played nice. Nice, meaning living a respectable, traditional lifestyle. This meant that Sirius and Remus had been dating behind closed doors for almost eight years now whilst Remus worked as Siriusâ personal assistant, and Sirius pretended he wasnât in contact with his younger sibling should the press ask.Â
His parents folded at Siriusâ friendship with James and Marlene, simply because no one would be able to explain away Sirius and Jamesâ nearly lifelong friendship (heâd lived with his family for Christâs sake), and even the Blackâs understood the power in having ties with other wealthy and powerful families like the Potterâs and MacKinnonâs, even if their politics didnât align with their own.Â
âHow does this all involve me?â You asked then, surprising Sirius out of his well rehearsed schpiel to find your eyes trained on him.Â
âRight, soâŚmy parents are tired of my bachelor lifestyle.â
âIt doesnât paint a very traditional picture to have the heir to a powerful family pushing 30 and still living in a bachelor pad with his unmarried mate and employee.â Remus offered dryly.Â
âThey want you to find a girlfriend.â You deduced.
âThey want me to find a wife.â Sirius corrected.Â
âAnd thatâsâŚme?â You asked around a chuckle, your smile falling when you realised no one was laughing with you. âOh my godâŚâ
âIâve told them Iâve been seeing someone for quite some time now, but didnât want to bring them into this world until I was sure about them - until I was sure they werenât âjust after the family moneyâ.â Sirius explained solemnly. âThey want me to make it official, and they want me to start bringing you around.âÂ
âAroundâŚâ
âEvents; galas, fundraisers, press opportunities. The likes.â Regulus explained flippantly.Â
âRightâŚâ You offered in monotone. âAnd you want to show up to galas, fundraisers, and press opportunities with a hooker?âÂ
James turned to give Sirius a look that seemed to read âsee?â, but Remus responded first.
âWellâŚwe were sort of hoping he could show up with you.â Remus corrected gently. You seemed surprised and more than a tad confused at Remusâ apparent defence of you.Â
âTheyâre terrible people, Y/N.â Sirius blurted. âThey are terrible and they stand for terrible things. They put all of their money into anti LGBTQIA+ propaganda and organisations, they actively work towards harming a large portion of UK citizens, they want to reverse any progress the country has made in reproductive healthcare and womenâs rights, theyâre trying to ban fucking childrenâs books, I-â
âThen why play along? Why play nice, as you said? Marrying an escort seems like a very dramatic way to keep your brother out of the limelight.â You argued.
âClever girl.â Regulus murmured as he leaned further back into his chair.Â
âFamily inheritance.â Sirius offered plainly. âI have access to use family money, but do not have access to direct family money. Not until I fulfil the requirements of my inheritance.â
âThe requirements being an approved heterosexual wedding.â James filled in.Â
âRegulus is no longer entitled to his sum of the inheritance after my parents disowned him.â Sirius continued. âBut that means that, should I be successful, I would inherit both of our portions.â
âWhich would make Sirius the primary shareholder in the Black estates.â Regulus continued.Â
âMeaning youâd have final say over allocation of fundsâŚâ You finished for him.Â
âYou are clever.â Remus agreed with Regulusâ earlier sentiments. You turned bashful and looked down at your lap to avoid having to look at any of them, Sirius found himself smiling at the top of your head.Â
âAnd I justâŚplay along?â You asked then.
âYouâll be paid - handsomely - any time youâre with any of us. And once I have access to the estate, youâll be given a portion of it.â
âItâs no small sum, either.â Regulus assured you.Â
âI will make sure it is well worth your time, Y/N.â Sirius promised.Â
He let that sit in the air as he moved towards the bar and poured himself a drink before picking up his wallet. âAnd here.â He added as he handed you the other portion of the cash heâd taken out for you.
âWhat?â
âI promised you triple if you heard us out; youâve heard us out.â He responded simply as he took a seat beside Remus.Â
You fanned out the bills in front of you like you couldnât believe your eyes; you werenât counting them, necessarily, but proving to yourself it was real.Â
âTheyâre terrible?â You asked then, but when Sirius looked up, he could see you were asking Regulus.Â
âAwful.â Regulus murmured, eyes staring unseeingly at the coffee table in front of him as James placed a comforting hand on his knee. âHonestly, IâmâŚscared; not necessarily for myself, I mean, I know Iâm safe and have people in my corner, butâŚthere are so many people out there like me who donât andâŚâ
You nodded in understanding as Regulus trailed off.Â
âOkay.â You whispered as you folded up the money as best you could and put it in your bag before standing.
âOkay?â Sirius asked as he stood, too; quickly followed by Remus, James, and Regulus.
âOkay.â You repeated, nodding once to yourself before meeting Siriusâ gaze. âIâll do it, IâllâŚIâll help.âÂ
Sirius felt a smile take over his face as he looked at you - his dame in shining armour for all intents and purposes - as you accepted your jacket from James.Â
âTell me what you need me to do, and Iâll do it; Iâll help.â
#marauders era#marauders au#marauders fanfiction#reader insert#self insert#remus lupin#sirius black#wolfstar#wolfstar x reader#wolfstar x you#poly!wolfstar#poly!wolfstar x reader#poly!wolfstar x you#pretty woman#Pretty Woman au#escort!reader#poly!wolfstar imagine#poly!wolfstar blurb#poly!wolfstar fic#poly!wolfstar ficlet#poly!wolfstar fanfic#established wolfstar#fem!reader#ellecdc fics
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Heeey I'm back! It's finally time for the full Cakeverse analysis gang!
Ok, so, for a refresher:
There's the Forks, the Cakes and the Plates (normal people), and it goes like this:
Plates are just normal people, the majority of the world population, nothing new here.
Forks: Can't taste and sometimes can't smell either, sometimes they used be able to taste but lost it with age; either way, they can only ever taste cakes.
Cakes: Basically normal people except that they're delicious, everything from them (flesh, tears, saliva, etc) tastes like cake (or other foods if you want). You can't tell who's a cake or not unless you're a Fork that's tasting them in some way.
Now, I have to add some stuff that's really interesting and that the og author said, that we'll be getting into today.
⢠Forks go absolutely bat shit insane when they taste the Cakes most of the time, that can lead to a lot of things, cannibalism, sex, or (if you're cultured) both.
⢠Both Cakes and Forks suffer from their own societal plights. Cakes die a lot, and Forks when discovered are instantly pinned as murderers, criminals and perverts, even if they haven't done anything wrong yet.
⢠Cakes can derail a Fork's entire life, and Forks are like sin and temptation to Cakes.
Now, I want to talk about these because they absolutely fucking vexed me and now I want to make this all of y'all's problem.
ăThe First Tasteă
It's essentially a common rule as said by the author that the Forks go insane after feeling the taste of a Cake, now, let's talk about: Why?
See, Cakeverse is technically an Au based from the likes of Omegaverse, which you can see by the structure being similar to Alpha/Beta/Omega with the three types of people out there. But, in ABO the Alphas going insane is due to a specific event, heats, which are there specifically for reproduction and are said to bring out animal instincts out of people's control, while Forks are based on simply taste, food, and not something as biological.
Of course it's up to the individual writer to an extent, but my interpretation of why Forks lose it when they taste Cakes is more psychological when compared to Alphas in the Omegaverse.
Imagine that you are completely unable to see color, never once have you seen one, you grew up hearing all about how wonderful colors are, you saw others compliment the colors of several works of art, you heard all about the colors of the world around you, but all that you see is beige and grey. Now, imagine that one day you bump into someone, and suddenly you're able to see all the colors, for the first time ever in your life, you can finally experience blue skies and green grass, you can see the same way the rest of the world sees, something that was fundamentally missing from you is finally gifted to you by this stranger on a silver tray.
You're finally complete.
That's the reality of what Forks go through, years of eating tasteless food, seeing people enjoy food wholeheartedly and rant about the tastes, hearing about the differences between expensive food and cheap food, and then suddenly finally tasting cake. Of course they go insane and fixate on it, it's like the final puzzle piece finally sliding into place, something that they've been missing this whole time being manifested with only a taste.
Before, eating was a chore, something simply to survive there was no joy in it, no fun to be found in desserts or snacks, but with only a single kiss the Fork finally feels what it is like to crave food, to want food for the taste.
Cakeverse in nature is oddly psychological, playing with the concept of taking away something extremely core to the human experience, taste. It's inherent and everyone has it, you'd probably feel like a freak of nature if you didn't have something while everyone else has, right?
That's what Cakes bring Forks; normalcy, joy and purpose, it's basically like a shot of endorphins all at once straight into your bloodstream, there's a good chance it'd hit like a truck and fuck you up majorly.
Forks acting rashly probably looks different than when Alphas do the same, because the motive is inherently different, but the desperation is arguably more raw.
A lot can be written on what that reaction would be:
Immediately trying to taste the Cake (kissing, licking, biting), trying to play cool only to strike later (potential kidnapping, manipulation, planning and scheming in general), the Fork can try to resist temptation or maybe the Cake can notice the extreme reaction and run away, maybe the Cake can instigate and bait the Fork to take a bite.
It could lead to fluff, to relationships starting, relationships ending, it could smut, it could be gory cannibalism, hell, it could be both.
Either way, the sheer amount of character study that could be made out of this tidbit alone is insane, and the story concepts don't stop there!
ăWe Do, In Fact, Live In a Societyă
Cakes don't know who they are until it's too late, but I can imagine that in society they'd be treated with a lot of extra care if they are known beforehand, as they are constantly in risk of dying.
Imagine that they'd also be majorly babyfied, the "nooo poor babies that can't do anything wrong, poor helpless and weak Cakes, they clearly can't take care of themselves, they're so vulnerable, don't worry I'll speak for you to protect your honor" would be insane. Any Cake that consensually and willingly gets with a Fork will be doubted if they truly wanted to do it, think nosy people pulling them aside to ask if they're ok and pressing to see if they're abused, think people immediately thinking that Cakes can't consent to anything with a Fork on principle despite them being grown adults.
Online discourse would definitely have people saying "Cakes are minor coded" or some shit, mark my words.
While Forks would be instantly persecuted for everything. Because of something they didn't choose, that was inherited at birth, they now are fully seem as murderers, kidnappers, rapists and just the lowest of the low. People will gossip, people will get defensive, people will cower any time you slightly raise your voice, you're seen as a predator, treated no different than a wild bear. To society at large, you're an unruly dog, and all eyes will be on you forever, watching, waiting for the day that you take a bite.
In a sense, it's almost like any Forks that do commit crimes instantly have a justification to do so, it's expected, really, you're a Fork, of course you'd snap one day. It's both maligned and normalized, everyone expects it and it almost gives Forks a reason to do so. Forever a self fulfilling prophecy.
Now I'm sorry that I'll keep bringing the Omegaverse up, it's just that it's really handy for comparison, but I find it fascinating that in a way, the societal effects of this are a mish mesh of the societal views seen in ABO, but like, in a way that doesn't make me want to vomit.
Can I be so fr with you guys right now? I don't like the societal parts of the Omegaverse, ever since I was a kid in the early hay days of the internet, that always made me uncomfortable, and it's also a bit lazy in a way. The problems in society with the Omegaverse are basically just Sexism, it's misogyny with mpreg, and a lot of fics end up feeling like a Handmaiden's Tale with mpreg. Replace Alphas with men and Omegas with Women and you get the Omegaverse, though it gets a bit interesting since there technically is a built-in "fuck or die" and aphrodisiac system with heats/ruts, but very few writers do something interesting with it.
My problem is that it's always either uncomfortable or outright boring, very little fics do it well and most of the time authors simply choose to side step it altogether, which I completely understand and actually prefer at this point.
I bring all this up because Cakeverse actually brings a lot of interesting concepts up in it's consequences on the world at large, the nature of Forks and Cakes mirrors a lot of real life concepts, but leaves enough fantastical elements that there's still intrigue in what could be explored and seem from authors writing certain details of it.
Would there be Cake support groups? Would there be Fork rights activists? Would there be people who are both Forks and Cakes, like a hybrid type? What are different relationship types seen as in the eyes of society as a whole?
It's all so complicated and the problems are different between the both of them, also, they're evenly split, which is a breath of fresh air.
Now, it's time to get even deeper into this, what are exactly Forks and Cakes relationship with each other like?
ăWould You Still Love Me If I Was Cake?ă
According to the author, Cakes can derail a Fork's life and Forks are temptation to Cakes. Now, why is that?
Imagine you're a Fork, living your life trying to do what you can with what's been handed to you, probably being discriminated against if you haven't been able to hide it well, when suddenly you taste someone (kiss or by accident, like a shared water bottle), and next thing you know you lose your mind. Your entire world falls apart, thoughts of dreams, future, your own sense of morality, it all melts away like sugar in water because you just experienced heaven and now it's all you can think about.
Someone completely normal beforehand, suddenly driven to obsession with just one moment, an entire life detailed into the unknown because they just had a taste of cake, thoughts being all about one person and their taste, the inability to stop even you're desperate to do so. It's madness, and almost like a tragedy, doomed by their own personal narrative of Fork meets Cake, the Forks turns into a starving beast whether they want to or not.
But Cakes? Imagine you have someone you love, and they want you so badly it drives them mad, imagine kissing the same lips that want to be stained with your taste, imagine putting yourself in the way of jaws that any of these days can close down on you and swallow you whole. You're constantly in contact with someone that could just straight up eat you, consume you whole and leave nothing behind, but your heart aches for them, you present yourself in a silver platter again and again.
Maybe you want to be eaten, to be consumed. Maybe you like being wanted, maybe you enjoy providing something to to others, you made them so happy that it doesn't even matter to you that they are taking chunks out of you, you'll gladly let yourself be torn apart if it means someone else is satisfied.
It's all about the usage of "Cannibalism as a Metaphor for Loveâ˘", it's all about loving someone but constantly wanting to eat them into non-existence, it's about to struggle between your brain heart and stomach.
It's about having your cake and eating it too.
The themes, the metaphors, the opportunities are endless and frankly I'm driving myself insane just imagining all of it, the angst also would be utterly fucking insane, imagine you live someone and you eat them, wouldn't you be upset? You loved them and you killed them yourself, with your own hands, their taste is on your lips and you licked your plate clean.
I'm screaming and crying and throwing up as we speak, the number of things you can do here are endless, soooo. . . Let's talk about some of my ideas!
ăAll My Fanfiction Titles Are Just Songsă
Last post I basically tagged a bunch of fandoms that I wish would use this trope (I'll also be doing that with this post), so now I'm going to showing some of the ideas I had for this AU that I might or might not write in the future, all of which you guys are totally free to use as prompts as well (just tag me on them lmao)
So, going ship by ship:
ăLoveită: Dead Plate fanfic, Vincent x Rody, Fork!Vincent and Cake!Rody. I imagine that the moment Vincent finds out is during the Best Served Hot ending, after biting Rody's ear, his reaction would show instantly on his face and Rody would notice right away. After that it can lead to a lot of things, fighting, smut and cannibalism galore, their relationship would only get more complicated after such a discovery. Hell, you can even have Vincent find out earlier, if you truly want more juicy drama, maybe Vincent will attempt to make Rody into the meal instead of Mason this time? For funsies you could even reverse it, Rody as a Fork would be fascinating to see, him bonding with Vincent that he also can't taste anything, only for him to find out later that he can taste Vincent himself, holy shit the intrigue.
ăEat Youă: Death Note, Lawlight, Fork!Light and Cake!L. Imagine Light both having to hide the fact that he's Kira, but also having to hide the fact that he's a Fork, imagine the never leaving stain that being a Fork would be on his own self-perception of perfection, imagine the so called god that punishes criminals also being considered a criminal by default in society's eyes if he's ever found out. Kira selling out his own kind because most criminals would likely be Forks (whether they were rightfully convicted or not), and then comes in L, a detective, a nuisance, Light's equal and a Cake. Maybe Light would find that out later on, maybe while they're playing as friends in college or while chained together, and now L had effortlessly thrown another wrench in his life yet again by default, like they're meant to be opposed by fate itself, where Kira is a Fork L is a Cake. L would likely goad Light on, trying to bait Kira out, by any means necessary, even if it means being eaten.
ăEat You Piece by Pieceă: Hear me out, Batjokes. Fork!Bruce having to hold himself back from breaking his own morals due to finding out Joker is a Cake, Fork!Joker only getting deeper into his Batman obsession after tasting a Cake!Batman, Both Forks bonded by not having taste, maybe both are Forks that differ on how they react to Cakes (Joker regularly eating them while Bruce retains his morals and chooses to not hurt them), maybe both Cakes that got here because they were almost eaten (different Batman and Joker origin stories?). The opportunities are all intriguing and promptly end in bloodshed, expect angst and discussions of what is moral, also just so much angst holy shit this shit hurts.
ăI Eat Boys Upă: Dungeon Meshi, Labru, Fork!Laios and Cake!Labru. I'm thinking post canon by accident, maybe something like sharing utensils, and I'm going to be so fr with you right now, this story coming from me would be a lot of romanticism through food metaphors and unending smut, feral Laios is my equivalent of heroin and I could imagine him describing Kabru's taste in detail to him while eating him out. But if smut isn't your jam, exploring how Laios and his monster obsession, especially in the form of food, as someone who can't taste would be intriguing, in a story so closely tied to food, you have to wonder how it would all change if the main character couldn't even taste. Also, I doubt Kabru would take the knowledge of him being essentially prey well, so there's that bag of worms to go into if you want.
ăBlame Gluttonyă: This one is purely self indulgent but like, Re:Zero with any ship, Cake! Subaru and Fork!anyone else. Imagine Subaru's world doesn't have this Cakeverse nonsense at all, but the world he's transported to has, imagine how scary it would be that one loop he suddenly finds out that he's essentially universal prey here (maybe in the second loop with Elsa), imagine the weight of all the things that already are trying to kill him along with the fact that he's also got a new thing to worry about? Maybe instead of just the rabbit loop, there's now multiple loops where Subaru is eaten alive, maybe there's loops where his dear friends themselves are eating him. Can you imagine if Emilia was a Fork? If he found out after the kiss of death and she commented on the taste of his lips as he was dying, if it came up again after their kiss, Subaru having to tackle with his love and heart belonging to someone that would one day eat him whole. Imagine the witch not longer just wants to touch his heart or kiss him, but she also bites him when he tries to tell the secret. Imagine maybe Rem is also a Fork, imagine that his death by her hands also involved her tearing into him chunk by chunk. What if Otto was a Fork, what if Reinhard was one? Seriously all the opportunities are equally traumatizing and I'm living for it!
Honorable mentions include: Persona Shuake and Shuada (Fork!Protags and Cake!Detectives) for the optimal mutual murder extravaganza, Okegom DSP Satanivlis (Fork!Ivlis and Cake!Satanick) for a rare case of role swapping, South Park Kyman (any way works tbh) for mutually assured destruction, Slay the Princess (Fork!Princess and Cake!Birb) because themes, Soukouku (Fork!Dazai and Cake!Chuuya) for making canon even worse than it already is, frankly any investigrave game would be peak here, Hannigram for obvious reasons.
But that's all I have for now, so, what have we learned here?
We learned that: I'm mentally ill and you need to write about the Cakeverse NOW.
#natsuki subaru#re:zero#shuada#lawlight#bingjiu#batman#death note#kyman#sp kyman#batjokes#shuake#rody x vincent#dead plate game#dead plate#hannigram#hannibal nbc#satanivlis#mogeyona#deep sea prisoner#cakeverse au#cakeverse#writing prompts#nuzi#murder drones nuzi#bingqiu#soukoku#labru#butchlander#writing prompt#writing inspiration
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Getting this off my chest:
Back from a small fanfic hiatus, and I am absolutely flabbergasted by all of the fic authors now practically begging their readers to READ THE TAGS.
Iâve been seeing this warning written in summaries, in authorâs notes, highlighted in all caps in the actual tags. Iâve read so many apologies written by authors in the comments in response to people chastising the author for writing what they wanted to write, for what they tagged correctly â for what essentially comes down to nothing more than having had other people actively ignore their tags or read despite them.
And there seems to be this bizarre, somehow largely accepted idea that it is the creators job and responsibility to beseech their readers to âuse cautionâ and to âstay safeâ, to âbe mindful of their healthââŚ
I am beyond confused here.
Since when??? did exercising the most basic form of common sense and acknowledging oneâs personal yeas and nays, likes and limitations, become some other random strangerâs burden rather than oneâs own? And especially a random person who tagged their work correctly??? Does no one remember how to harness their own powers of discernment and self-regulation???
This little jaunt back onto ao3 has been unlike any that Iâve ever experienced before. What. Happened?????? Who is this new, apparently severely emotionally unstable and obstinately tags-reading resistant audience everyone has come to focus on?
It all feels so out of touch. The basic concept of ao3 is for the reader to seek out what they want, not what they donât want. And to actually read. But there seems to have been an extremely strong shift away from reading. On ao3. A site built specifically for reading and writing. (And other fandom artistic pursuits, but not my focus, atm; though Iâm sure whatever this is has crept steadily into all spaces there.)
Plummeting reading comprehension must be somewhat to blame; the popularity of fanfic amongst younger and wider audiences, as well. But⌠young people have always been there, as far as my own experiences go, and it was never like this. Itâs as if too many readers donât know how to make good or even practical decisions for themselves anymore, that theyâve lost the skill of choosing, and now believe that they must consume everything that passes before them; â that they have, for some reason, adopted the belief that any turmoil or dislike or discomfort felt within themselves is harm purposely being done to them by the author.
Idk. Idk, idk, idk. Itâs just such a bummer to see how much nervousness and distress has entered the community. Authors notes and comments used to be hilarious fun, or a peek into someone elseâs real-life world, used to be casual and full of personality, whereas nowadays, there seems to be an underlying hesitancy and distrust, a sort of growing divide between writers and readers, groups which, until recently, very much were not mutually exclusive.
--
Idiots have been around forever. The more you cater to them, the more entitled they get. It's best to shut that shit down fast and use no warnings that indicate a willingness to entertain stupid complaints.
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Tashi is the eldest child of her family. We know for a fact that she has two younger brothers; we see them with her parents at the Adidas party. We also know her family was very supportive of her, and that Tashi is described by Zendaya as family-oriented.
But what about Art and Patrick's families? Here's what I think.
Patrick 100% has siblings! My take is that the only reason his parents didnât care about him throwing his life away and being a disappointment, is because they already had another child perfectly trained and poised to take over the family business and carry on the Zweig name proudly. A boy, the eldest. And just in case the eldest failed, a backup, another boy, or a girl. The heir, the spare, and Patrick.
He was un unruly child, I'm sure, so they just sent him away to boarding school to be raised by someone else. More trouble than he was worth. His rejection issues (possibly) come from his parents always preferring his siblings over him. Abandoned and overlooked. The wound reopened, ugly and festering, when Art and Tashi married each other instead of him.
If Patrick were an only child, there is absolutely no way his parents would have allowed him to just fuck off into the sunset to play tennis. In my opinion, Patrick gives middle child energy, though he could be the youngest as well. That being said, he's obviously not close to his family at all. Given his current lifestyle, it's evident that at one point his parents either, cut him off, or he stopped accepting their financial support.
It's worth noting that, while Tashi's family was present at her match for the 2006 US Open (and quite supportive, complete with signs and video cameras), the families of Patrick and Art were nowhere in sight. Which brings us to:
Art. He's a tricky one cause, in my opinion, not only does he give strong "Only Child Syndrome" energy, but also "divorced parents" energy. His grandma clearly adored him and doted on him, but his parents were very much absent from his life. And no, I don't think they're dead. On top of Art's boarding school expenses, we know his grandma was in a nursing home, which are also very, very expensive. So who was paying for all of this? An uncle? Possibly, but I don't think so.
It seems to me that his parents divorced, but neither of the two wanted to deal with the living, breathing reminder of their failed marriage, so they shipped him off to boarding school. I suppose it's possible that he could have step-siblings from either of his parents remarrying, but they probably didn't want him anywhere near their new families. Lonely and unwanted. Aside from his codependency issues, this could be an extra motive to his complete aversion to separating from Tashi, despite his clear misery. He doesn't want history to repeat itself with Lily. Divorce brought nothing but pain for him, after all.
I've encountered people depicting Art's family as middle-class, but that's incorrect. WASPs usually come from old money, and we can tell that this is the case with Art. The sheer size of the rock on Tashi's finger, which belonged to his grandma, speaks for itself. The writer has also explicitly said both guys came from money, but were essentially abandoned by their families.
Before Tashi, they really had no one to rely on but each other. Which makes their fall out all the more tragic.
#challengers#patrick zweig#art donaldson#tashi duncan#tashi donaldson#challengers thoughts#artashi#artrick#patashi
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has yet to pass â´ď¸ cs55
centre image by tony belobrajdic
genre: exes to lovers, slow burn, fluff, humor, slight angst, yearning, some sexual tension
word count: 12.5k
Four years after an angry breakup, the universe is bored enough to nominate Carlos Sainz for GQ Sportsâ Man of the Year and assign you to be the writer of his profile.
notes... internet translated spanish lol
auds here... requested, this fic is long! i hope you all like it apologies for the inactivity </3 exes to lovers we have a very love/hate relationship but this was a pleasure to write
Youâre half sure your head is about to pop out from how annoyed you are.
At the office, mornings move slowly in the very corporate-desk-job kind of way, but today is notably slower. Your boss had called you in an hour earlier to discuss important matters, and this is your third hour waiting already. Either your boss is a dumbass, or you got the wrong email, which both essentially mean the same thing anyway.
The time on your Panthère tells you youâre curving into the three-and-a-half hour territory, and right as youâre about to get up to get a glass of water, the large wooden door swings open and your name is called through the crack in it. Suddenly the irritation dissipates into nerves, and because Jonathan didnât specify anything in the email, you realize you could be wading into anything right now. Termination. Promotion. A brick to the head.
âMorning,â you offer once the doorâs been shut behind you.Â
âSorry for the wait,â he says politely. âWeâve been in discussions with GQ Sports all day. All night last night, too. Itâs all proper boring.â
You nod, remaining fairly quiet and waiting for him to break the news to you. He clears his throat, places his hands on his hips and exhales.
âRight, so this is all related to GQ, actually. Theyâre doing a Men of Sports segment and they asked us to assign one of our writers to an athlete. Youâre our best right now, reallyâyour article turnout last year was absolutely stellar. So, thereâs, ah⌠thereâs tennis, yeah, thereâs footie, obviously, andâunder usual circumstances, youâd get to choose one of either. But we actually really wanted to cover racing this year.â
The cloud above your head carrying the dreams of interviewing Leo Messi or Roger Federer pops dismally.
âRacing.â You repeat curtly.
âItâs gotten proper viral this year!â He smiles, gestures to nothing to prove his point. âEvery teenage girlâs got a crush or other on a driver. Anyway, we set you up with the racing category, and the segment comes out in around six months.â
âIâve got a tiny bit of a qualm about thââ
âSo itâs decided. GQâs going to pick out the driver for you, and youâll be introduced at a gala next week.â
âWaitââ you laugh uncomfortably. âIâm thankful for the opportunity, and wow, thank you for choosing me, really, but do I not get to pick my own driver?â You clear your throat. âI mean, Iâm spinning the story.â
âI know,â he sighs. âBut this deal moved pretty quick, so a majority of the leverage goes to them. Donât worry, thoughâa lot of the drivers will have great stories, Iâm sure. Youâve got Lewis, youâve got the Verstappen guy, youâve got the Rosberg fellowâŚâ
âRosberg retired in 2016.â
âOh, fuck, seriously? Well. Hit me with a brick then.â
â
The gala is a fundraiser to celebrate the season kicking off, you realize when you step outside the car and read the navy blue banner across the entrance to the carpet. Itâs all fancy fonts and table placements, but One look at the watches and earrings in this place will tell you thereâs more than enough funds already. You digress, anyway, walking inside to find the only one person youâre familiar with in the world of racing.
âLewis,â you mutter when you locate him, voice dry with dread (and lack of alcohol), âkill me now.â
âOn the off chance youâre seriousâIâm actually willing to do so.â You slap his arm and he scowls.
âIâm supposed to meet the driver Iâm writing about tonight, but the GQ guy hasnât texted me. Christ, I hope itâs you. At least I have yearsâ worth of blackmail on you to really sell the profile.â
He only laughs, guiding the both of you to a champagne tower and offering you one. You down it in seconds, suffocated by nerves and the curiosity blooming inside you. âYou donât think itâsâŚ?â
âI think they keep track of those things,â he replies, but his voice is only half-sure. âConflict of interest and that. But Jonathan did say it was a quick deal?â You nod. âSo itâs not impossible, I suppose.â
Big help, you chirp sarcastically, eyes perusing the large room. There are tables populated by celebrities, by politicians, and of course, by drivers. You keep scanning, squinting to chisel your search further, but itâs cut off by a tap of two fingers on your shoulder.Â
âHi. Iâm Nick, the GQ rep, and I believe you and I have a meeting,â says the man behind you with an excited smile. âWhy donât weâŚ?â
He gestures to the expanse of the room and you nod, falling into step beside him. He introduces the article, the concept of shadowing the athlete to achieve a more immersive piece of work as a result, something novel and innovative.
Heâs right in the middle of talking about Jonathan when he stops at one of the cocktail tables and stations the two of you there. âOkay. Youâre one of the biggest names in sports journalism right now, so it means a lot for you to want to represent racing. Especially because both Neymar Jr. and Nadal expressed bids to get you to write their segments!â
âThey whââ
âRight, here we are. Meet your shadowâor, subjectâfor the next six-ish months.â He places two hands atop your shoulders and wheels you around, so your eyes meet those of, ââŚCarlos Sainz Jr.!â
Yeah. This is fucking rich.Â
Nick is talking but none of it falls right on your ears. Everywhere in your mind, alarm bells ring at full volume, alerting you to the danger present, almost. You plaster on a fake smile to acknowledge his presence, but his outstretched hand goes unnoticed. Clearly picking up on the tension, Nick gives a sheepish giggle and ducks out of the exchange, leaving the two of you woefully alone.
âCarlos,â you say politely. âWhat a nice surprise.â
There is a limited amount of phrases that are considered acceptable to say to an estranged ex of four years. Thereâs oh, what a surprise!, didnât expect to see you here, you look well. Itâs limited because nobody ever thinks to run into their estranged ex of four years, and even then, any sane person would do well to avoid interaction at all costs. So youâre really the luckiest son of a bitch in the world to be situated with a stuffy public interaction, under the guise of professionalism, with your ex-boyfriend.
Your history is heavy in the air. The last time you saw each other, things had been a lot different, but now youâre two professionals. Really. You really are professional.
âI refuse to be within ten metres of the guy,â you say, on your third martini. Lewis faces you with poorly hidden concern, and beside him, roped into your lovelorn matters, so does Sebastian Vettel. âTen metres. Actually, no. Make it twenty. How can I be arsed to write an all-over-him feature about a guy I absolutely hate and havenât seen in four years?! I had it all sussedâget assigned to Lewis, write the best feature, then restore his eighth world title.â
ââSheâs joking,â coughs Lewis.
âOh, but now? Now, itâs get assigned to my ex, write like shit, never get recognized for a good piece, and die hungry and alone on the streets of London. You know, I should just call Jonathan and tell him I donât want this. Iâd rather go back to writing normal articles.â You pry your clutch open but a hand stops you before you can.
âDonât.â Sebastianâs voice is gentle, but firm. âThis is a test of character, donât you think? More than thatâitâs a test of how good you are as a writer.â
âTrue,â interjects Lewis, chewing on a quiche. âIf you can write a stellar profile about an ex, I meanâyouâre just proper talented. But itâs also about how strong you are now, morally. Emotionally.â
âIâm perfectly fine emotions-wise, thanks,â you retort. Both men shrug, backing off, and you feel like you should be smug about itâbut your mind is stuck on the topic even as the night passes.
You end up deciding when youâre kicking your heels off in your flat a few hours later, giving Jonathan a ring despite the late hour. It takes a while for the man to pick up, but he does eventually, with an excited tone colouring his voiceââHowâs my star writer? Sainz, huh? Real eye candy.â
âAbout thatâŚâ you start, walking over to your bookshelf and chewing your lip, trying to think of the right way to decline the offer. Your eyes land on one of the several awards youâve garnered in your professionâin fact, the very first one. Most Promising Journalist, it reads, embedded into the frontâs frosty surface.Â
Four years ago. And youâve proven it since, if the crowd of glass around it is anything to go by. Why let a petty ex destroy what could potentially be one of your biggest gigs yet? Your segue outside of sports journalism?
âEarth toâyeah, hello? About what?â Jonathanâs voice breaks you out of your thought train.
â⌠I just, uh,â you say, nodding, âI wanted to say Iâm really excited.â
âÂ
Carlos Sainz Jr., 27, is on the rise as one of Formula Oneâs most talented drivers⌠(add more infoâŚ) His smooth driving style and charm has led him to become one of the most popular figures in the sport, both on and off the paddock. He is also a huge, absolutely irritating, cannot for the life of him be humble!!!, SON OF A BITCH, PRICK, ASSHOLEâAND THE BIGGEST WANKER ON PLANET EAR
âThe team will be here in just a minute,â says the lady whoâd ushered you into this meeting room in Maranello. You half-shut your laptop in fear sheâll catch sight of your brief Word document meltdown, but she doesnât seem to notice, setting a glass of water beside you and you stare idly at it while waiting for the rest of the room to enter. Youâre expecting Nick, Carlos, Mattiaâthe bossâand Charles, his teammate. Jonathanâs already beside you playing Candy Crush on his phone, as per boomer law.
This meeting is pointless. Youâve already exchanged the bare minimum pleasantries with Carlos, anyway, and you cannot for the life of you decipher why there needs to be a whole new corporate clash just for this. But here you are anyway, awaiting your ex-boyfriendâs arrival into the room and back into your sweet life.
He enters with everybody else, his hair half-damp and his eyes meeting yours almost immediately. You clear your throat and turn away, standing to shake hands with Mattia. Heâs pleasant about it, expressing excitement for the final output and commending your earlier work as a writer. You offer the polite small talk back, discussing plans for the article and the release date.
âOver at GQ Sports, weâre really trying to make this concept as immersive as possible. That requires the writer to shadow the athlete at almost all times, maybe taking a couple days off if needed. That might mean she gets a paddock pass, and things like that.â
âThatâs no problem,â Mattia says. âAnything for the article.â
You end up being introduced to Charles, tooâCharles Leclerc, who wears a contagious smile and wonât stop letting his eyes frolic in between you and Carlos, like he can sense the history. You suspect Carlos brought him up to speed, anyway, but itâs still a bit amusing. While the meeting carries on, Charles chips in with a joke. âHey, if you find this guy irritating, you and I are going to get along.â
You laugh a bit, but remain mostly quiet for the sake of being professional. You miss the way Carlosâ eyes linger on you a second too long, focusing on the tail-end of the meeting so you can, for lack of better word, get the fuck out of here.
Of course, though, youâre stopped in the middle of the parking lot by Carlos himself, whose apologetic face is the first thing you see when you turn around with a huff. Youâd already known it was himâhe was calling your name loudly as he jogged over to youâbut itâs still a sour surprise.
âWhat?â
âLetâsââhe pauses to take a breathââtalk. Listen, I know it must be an imposition for you to write about this, about me. Let me make it clear that Iâm 100% okay if you choose to switch athletes. And if you needed any background information, Iâll be willing to give you that.â
âI donât care what youâre okay with,â you say blankly. âAnd Iâve got Google.â
âRight.â He stares. âUm. Okay, well, letâsâcan we agree, then? To be civil, for the period of time this article will be written?â
You consider the truce. As much as youâd like to be snarky with him and make your disdain all the more clear, youâre also not interested in making a scene or causing any type of fuss around hisâand yourâcolleagues. The glass awards on your shelf flash through your mind, and you inhale softly. âOkay.â
He smiles. This seems a bit more difficult than you thought, for reasons you didnât even consider.
âForget anything ever happened,â he says when your hands meet. Something jolts through you.
Yeah, youâre fucked.
â
Your introduction to the actual sports part of the profile goes well, with a flurry of chaos in Bahrain.
Despite Jonathanâs texted reminder from Friday morning (Stick to Sainz the whole time), you find yourself staying in your comfort zone, ergo following Lewis around nearly the entire weekend. Granted, you are itnroduced to a few more driversâMick, Esteban, Alexâbut also Lando, one of Carlosâ closest friends on the paddock, who makes dirty jokes from the get go.
Still, even Lewis has to remind you you have another driver to actually cover, so you reluctantly detach from him on the race day and begin your search forâ
âCarlos,â you utter, breathless from exhaustion when you finally locate him inside his room at the motorhome, which you swear you checked twenty minutes ago. Either heâs avoiding you or heâs truly impossible to find. He adjusts his suit and looks at you with an unreadable expression.
âYes?â
âI need a couple of words from you.â You smile politely, taking a seat on the couch armrest. âLike, pre-race nerves, jitters, routine. Anything?â
âI have a playlist,â he says, humming. âI like to call family, have a talk with the engineers.â He says it like en-yi-neers, but you already anticipated it. Youâve known en-yi-neers for years. You know how he talks, pronounces everything. âAnd I say a prayer, trust the car.â
âTrust the car?â You type the last few words onto your laptop, which youâd been toting around all day. It balances on your lap. âAny follow-ups to that, considering thereâs been some chatter around the car this year and its supposed faultiness?â
âI just do what I do best,â he replies, steadfast. âThe rest is a gamble Iâm willing to take.â
âPerfect.â You finish. âThat was a great line. Thanks so much, really.â Itâs your reporter voice, the one you use for just about everyone else on the paddock. He nods in response, and the room ebbs into silence again. Itâs awkward, when you excuse yourself and exit, already planning exactly how youâre going to tell this to Lewis. Halfway out the door, you purse your lips, turn, and then:
âGood luck, by the way.â Your voice falls soft.Â
He looks up, momentarily surprised. âThank you.â
You nod a little, smiling as you shut the door.
Carlos ends up getting second placeâyouâre beside a zealous Ferrari engineer when it happens, walking along the pit lane. Compared to your stoic smile, their reaction looks like the pinnacle of human emotion. Your turmoil is all inward, a melting pot of emotion for the driver. Would it be weird, you think, to feel proud? To feel happy? When things have ended?
Much later, when youâre wrestling for comfort in the throng of cheering Ferrari engineers, you squint to find Carlos on the podium.
Youâre aware there are photographers everywhere, with high-def cameras that rival your natural eyesight, even, but still you tug your phone out and snap a few shitty zoomed-in pictures of him in second place, smiling and sprayed with champagne. You think of the profile, of the words youâll use to capture this moment, the season kickoff. But most of all you think of the way his eyes seem to search for something specific in the mass of people, or the way you wished for them to meet yours.
â
Sainz, a self-proclaimed music lover, loads a pre-race playlist that changes every few locations. He names some of his favorite artists and songs as sources of motivation.
You climb into the passenger seat of his Golf when you finally find him, after a half hour of asking around everywhere. First, it was âin the motorhome,â then it was âin a meeting,â then it was âhanging out with Charlesâânone of which ended up being true, anyway. He doesnât question your presence (he hasnât much, lately), just lets his eyes wander over to you briefly before you begin asking questions.
âFavorite song?â You get straight to it, stressed over the article. Jonathan has been on your ass about missing a deadline and causing the third world war in the process, or something or other. You sigh when you settle into the seat.
âNot even a hello or a buenas noches,â he says as he pulls out of the parking lot to drive the both of you to your hotel. âWhatâs this for?â
âYou already know,â you say, humming as you sift through notes. âListen. You did an interview before with Toro Rosso, right? Where you said your favorite artists were Muse, Kings of Leon, and The Killers. Right?â
âWhat theâyou are a serious stalker.â He laughs out loud, eyes still on the road ahead.
âItâs kind of my job, Carlos,â you say, smiling and gritting your teeth. âJust answer.â
âSĂ, sĂ. Yeah, I like that genre. I like rock, I guess⌠rock, indie, 80âs. Youâd be surprised how little of an effect music has on my pre-race routine, though, even if I have a playlist.â
âTell me more,â you muse. Your laziness to retrieve your laptop results in you scribbling soundbites onto your notebook instead.Â
âMusic is an escape for me, you know? I like it a lot. So as long as something gets me going, Iâm good with it. It doesnât have to be by a favorite artist, or a famous one, or a Spanish one. Though I have been listening to Shakira a lot lately.â Obsessively listens to Shakira, you write. âItâs just release. Lately, Iâve been listening to the same few ones on loop.â
âCare to share?â Music = release. Same songs looped.
He presses something onto the centre console, and music flows throughout the car right after. âThis.â
Baby Iâm Yours by Arctic Monkeys, you write, and then, all at once, you slowly realize exactly what youâre writing. You stare at the scrawled-on words, the song bleeding into your ears and saturating your brain. Youâve always thought of this song with a weird feeling, one in between nostalgia and hurt, and now itâs on full blast. In Carlosâ Golf, no less, which happened to be the venue for many of your listening parties back then.
Back thenâwhen nobody knew much of this song and it hadnât yet become an indie anthem. It was just another cover by your favorite band in 2015. It became your song, the song for kitchen dances, the song for long car rides, the song for the red lights, the song for the morning routine.
But now itâs just a song.
âCarlos,â you say. Itâs supposed to sound strict, firm, even a little angry. But youâre so affected, it leaves you quietly instead, weakly almost. âCome on.â
âDo you remember when you first showed me this song?â He responds instead, the volume still loud. You allow yourself to smile a little, leaning your head back and watching the cityscape of Bahrain whir past. In a foreign city, you think, you feel more at home than ever.
âYeah,â you profess. âOn my iPhoneâwhat was it then? iPhone 5, or something.â You both laugh a little. The dam has broken, it seems, and topics of your past relationship seem to now be open to discussion. But it doesnât feel alien, or weird, or uncomfortable. Carlos laughs, makes fun of your old lockscreen, and all is well.
A lot of memories have unwittingly attached themselves to this song. Itâs the kind of song where, even in the opening notes, youâre already stunned with the myriad of them. There are the obvious ones: first finding the song, first dancing to it. But it trickles down into the smaller, more niche ones.
The time you got a busker in London to perform it for you both, and danced like idiots at ten-thirty in the evening, while some onlooking geriatric couple watched with mild entertainment. The time you got him a vinyl record of this EP, and left it in the cab before you were supposed to give it to him, leading to you crying on his sofa while he cuddled you and fed reassurance into your ear. The time he attempted to learn the chords to it and broke the string of your decorative guitar.
Like always, Carlos drives one-handed. Heâs usually responsible, but if heâs cruising, or driving at a relatively slow pace, he likes to lean back and use his left. His right lays, unmanned, on the centre console of the Golf. You donât notice itâs there until you finish writing a sample line on your notebook and you lower your left hand absentmindedly, brushing a finger against his in the process.
Your instinct is to jerk away, but Carlos is calm, humming to the song and reading road signs. So you let it rest there, in part to show yourself youâre capable of relaxing, butâand it feels like a heavy thing to admitâalso because you like the feeling.
So your hands are there, just shy of each other, barely touching. His pointer finger twitches, almost like heâs trying to hold it back from inviting yours to wrap around it. You let yours brush over them a little bit, pulling away. Then he coughs, and lifts his hand to make a right turn, so you resume writing, eyes downcast.Â
â
Youâd spent the Saudi weekend less with Lewis (in a bid to follow his advice) and socialized a bit more with Lando and Charles, who both proved to be pleasant company. They played table tennis with you and even shared a good chunk of grid gossip.
âPierre and Yuki have soooo done it,â whispers Charles, scandalized, sipping a G&T from a decorative polka dot straw.
âShut up!â You clap a hand over your mouth. âI mean, I had my suspicions. But really? Theyâve shagged?â
âOh.â He pauses dumbly, scratching his head. âI meant theyâve done marijuana.â
âDamn it, Charles,â bemoans Lando. âYouâre a sodding buzzkill. Weâve all done weed, this is not news. The gay sex wouldâve been.â
The afternoon progresses into night, and you seem to be on a roll with the sports componentâCarlos gets to P3 in Saudi Arabia. You travel to his motorhome room after the debrief, where you hope heâll be, and find him packing shit up inside.
âGood work out there,â you say, and when he looks up he finds himself meeting your eyes in the mirror. He fumbles with the zip of his suit and you walk a little closer.
He huffs out a polite thanks, tugging on the zipper harder. The clothâs eaten it, a problem thatâs been plaguing his race suits as of lateâa problem, according to his engineer, easily solvable if heâd just be more patient with tugging it downward to loosen. A problem youâre familiar with as well, from his Toro Rosso days of ranting to you about zippers and sewing.
You lean against the wall and maintain safe distance. âIâm going to ask you about the race later.â
âAlright. What specifically?â He begins the mental Spanish-English translation in advance.Â
âWhatever you can give,â you reply, nonchalant. âMaybe more on the feeling while racing. The different perspectives of P3? Sort of likeâyeah, youâre on the podium, but itâs not P1.â
âThanks for the reminder,â he laughs a little, a bit embarrassed he hasnât fully undone the zipper yet. âUm, sure. Iâll meet you outside afterward.â
âThanks. Andââ You stop yourself in your tracks, still facing him in the mirror. His eyes find yours again, eyebrows raised from the unfinished sentence. ââBe patient with the zip.â
He chuckles, memories surfacing like bubbling lava. âRight. Bueno.â He turns and throws his hands up, looks like heâs surrendering almost. âHelp me out?â
Youâre incredulousâitâs a highly compromising position.
But heâs not really smiling, and he seems to be seriously asking you to please help zip him up, so you nod. Nod once then twice, walking slowly over to him and placing two fingers on the zipper. You donât notice how shaky your grip is until you see the way your hand trembles.
Slowly, you tug. Upward, then downward, then upward again, to loosen the stubborn thing. Your eyes move until they meet his, and you realize how close together you are. From here you can see the faint pink indents on his face from the balaclava, and you wonder almost how itâd feel to stroke over it with your thumb. It twitches on the zip and you remember to yank it again.
âJust give me a second,â you say, but youâre not even paying attention to the zipper.
Just him. Just the proximity. The thoughts of what ifâwhat if you leaned closer, right now? Closed the gap, shut your eyes, let your finger trace over the shape left behind by his balaclava, zip forgotten?
âTake your time.â His voice is deep, gentle.Â
His eyes pierce yours, the tension growing in between you until you can barely breathe.
You pull and finally, it gives, unzipping the whole way. You blink, breaking eye contact and stepping backwards so fast you almost trip. âIâll be outside.â The door is shut, the noise damning behind you as you finish an entire cup of water in what you genuinely think to be record time.Â
â
âFine. Fifty euros.â
âFifty?! Cheap trick. Make it two hundred.âÂ
âIf youâre in the hundred territory, might as well make it five hundred. Turn this into a serious thing.âÂ
âDeal.â The Brit and the Monegasque clap their hands together in a firm handshake. âLetâs talk terms.â
Charles recites his end of the bet, as clearly as he did when this was first wagered just ten minutes ago. âShe and Carlos will start dating before the article is even published.â
âTheyâre exes, innit?â Lando laughs. âYouâre wrong, Charl-ito. They will never date, ever again. Exes donât date.â
âUnless theyâre soulmates,â he reasons.
âPsh, what do you know about soulmates?â The younger raises a condescending brow. âYou dated a girl and then her best friend.â
âBack off,â insists Charles petulantly, watching Lando messily write down the evidence of their wager on a small slip of paper. For proof, heâd said, before slipping it into the back of his opaque phone case. He waves it around. âWe shall see.â
âYou will definitely be paying me up,â Charles says proudly. âJust you wait.â
â
âCare to listen to me?â You hoist yourself onto the stool of this hotel bar, ordering yourself a martini.
âAlways,â says Lewis, immediately facing you. Heâs always been one of the kindest, most genuine people in your life. Heâs known you forever, and heâs the only person here who really knows the extent of your history with Carlos, all the layers, all the fights, all of it.
You sigh and lean against the backrest, deflated. âCarlos and I⌠I donât know if this is going to work.â
âThe article?â
âBeing with him.â You pause to reword it. âAround him.â
âI see. Hasnât it been, whatâfour years now, though?â
âYeah, butâŚâ But why does it feel like you both want those four years gone? The car ride with the song, the eye contact, zip situation after Saudi. You lick over your lips and sit a little straighter.
âLew, itâs justâand you should know thisâwhen you break up with someone, youâre forced to unlearn all the things you knew about them.â You sigh. âAll the⌠just all of it. The habits, the quirks, the favorite words, the way they like their toast and eggs. And if you canât, then fine, itâs still okay, because why would you ever need it again? But I havenât forgotten anything, and now heâs back in my life.â
Lewis stares, with eyes that convey solemnity and a little sadness. He seems to understand, watching you intently, the way your eyes are glassy with unshed tears.
âSo now I see him, and it feels like heâs likeââyou inhaleââthis sounds⌠bad, but like⌠Iâm⌠like heâs a lover, kind of. In disguise, a little bit. I donât know. Like, I have to pretend I know nothing about him, like every little fun fact is a new thing for the profile⌠but I know everything.â And what a heavy burden it is.
âIâm sorry,â he says quietly.Â
âNo, donât be. Iâm pretty sure this is all one-sided.â You take a long sip. âThatâs the price to pay for ending on bad terms, I suppose.â
âJust think,â he muses out loud. âWhen this is all over and youâre accepting your Pulitzer, you wonât even be thinking of him one bit.â
âRight,â you say. Carlos, Carlos, Carlos. Heâs the only thing on your mind. âRight.â
You find a working title for the article later. Carlos Sainz, it reads on your Word document. On racing, gracious defeat, and lifeâs driving forces.
â
Like every other sport, Formula One drivers have their share of bad competition days. Sainz recalls a time his car failed and caused him to DNFâracing vernacular for âDid Not Finish,â a damning phrase for any driver on the grid.
A double kill vibrates through Carlos.
Itâs a consecutive hit thatâs both professional and personal, and greatly affects the momentum of the profile youâre busy writing. In Australia heâd been reserved, eyes stormy, walking alone but not angry. Heâd congratulated Charles and everything, even offered a few words for the article. The last you saw of him was with a beer, brows knitted together.
Tonight youâre in Imola. Heâd been okay after the race, the usual silence that comes with a bad result.
No hard feelings, heâd said. This is the business. Hugged Danny, excused himself; nobody said anything. Itâs a normal response to a shit day. You spend the post-race buzz with Lewis and Sebastian this time, but you manage to congratulate Lando on the podium finish when you catch sight of him.
âMaaate!â He cries gleefully when he sees you. âWhereâs the muppet?â
âMourning,â you drone. âReasonably so, I guess.â
âTough crowd,â he says, kissing his teeth. âBut, yeah. Heyâshots on me!â
âTempting offer.â You eye the bunch of tequila on the table. âBut I think Iâll retire early. I need to send a draft pretty early tonight.â
âAll good. Have fun being a loser,â he says, watching you leave. Â
The hotel, it turns out, is not nearly as fun as the party. Which is common sense.
You spend time writing and rewriting a few paragraphs of the article, stuck on the title of it and honestly wishing you were with Cuervo and vodka right now. You suppose you donât need one just yetâthey usually come to you late, anyways. Jonathan sends you three follow-up emails regarding a draft, so you send him the latest version and read over the file, reciting favorite lines under your breath.
In the middle of reading on the Bahrain P2 and a little segment on Sainzâs favorite Ferrari moments, somebody knocks on your door.
Itâs a surpriseâyou donât spend much time with people on the paddock, and only few of them know your room number, which leads you to narrow down the person on the other side to a select group. Thereâs Lewis, most likely of them all. Charles, who youâd grown much closer to as of late. Level with him is Lando. Then maybe, just maybe, Sebastian, to offer late night advice.
It couldâve been any of them, but itâs not. Itâs somebody else.
âIâm sorry.â His voice threatens to break. âI didnât know who else I could talk to.â
âCarlos?â You blink.Â
You usher him in after, and you hope his mind is anxious enough that it doesnât pay much attention to your hideous pajama situation (old hoodie, souvenir L.A. pajama pants). You end up on your balcony, both of you facing the frigid nighttime air. It freezes your cheeks, casts your hair backwards. Your eyes slide to his stoic figure, the way even his hair is blown back by the wind.
Heâs quiet, but more relaxed, less stiff. âSorry, again.â
âSâokay.â
You duck back inside and return with two cigarettes and a lighter. âWanna?â
âAwful habit.â But he accepts it anyway, sticking it in between his lips. It bobs as he speaks, still unlit. âI need this, though.â
âI donât do it regularly,â you defend, pressing the flame to the cig. He exhales. âSome situations call for them.â
âThis definitely does. Bit of a slap to the face, you know?â You nod. âIâm sorry.â The apology carries more weight than it should, and you know why.Â
Like itâs the most difficult thing in the world, you breathe a few times before you respond in a hushed tone. With your words comes a huff of smoke. âDonât beat yourself up over it. You gave it your all, took a risk, it went to shit. But you gave it your all is what matters in the end. You put heart into it, which is something not everyone does in sports these days.â
âI feel⌠complimented.â You both laugh at the lack of good phrasing, so he rewords it. âI meant, I feel, how you say? Touched. It means a lot to be praised by you.â
âDoes it?â Smoke again, another whiff of it.
âThey only ever want to praise the podium finish, the P1, the title holder.â He lets the words fizzle. âBut here you are praising a driver who finished like shit twice in a row. More people should be like you, paying thanks to the underdogs.â
Itâs not the underdogs, you think. Itâs just because of you.Â
âMore like the shit drivers,â you say instead, in a low rumbling voice. He laughs, calls you stupid in Spanish, and itâs a dead issue.
Later, before he leaves, when the roomâs much darker and less bathed in moonlight, you whisper goodbye to him through a small crack in the door. He smiles a bit, and you catch it even with the lack of lighting.
âThank you.â He says. He means it. You catch his perfume when the door swings closed. It smells like wood.
â
Sainz has off-grid hobbies, one of the most notable of which is cooking. He claims to have a good hold over the kitchen, and cooks several of his favorite dishes on the rare weekend off. Blah blaaahhhh, cooks well. Usually wears funky apron. WRITE THIS PROFILE ALREADY STOP EATING PASTA YOU DIPSHIT
Lando had invited you all to an Airbnb owned by a friend in Umbria, a two-ish hour drive from Imola.
With two free days, youâd followed a small group of driversâCarlos includedâto soak in the rest of Tuscany. Charles and Lando, however, left as soon as you arrived, to check out the last few hours of the farmerâs market. Alex had met Lily at the Eurostar station and theyâd gone biking together.
This effectively left you and Carlos alone, which was not an unusual occurrence, but still proved to be a bit tense. With the kitchen free and the fridge stocked, Carlos suggested he cook for you both. Despite your best efforts, you ended up at the island writing and taste testing sauce, chicken, anything he slid over to you on a saucer with a tiny fork beside it.
âYouâre going to give me cholesterol problems,â you quip. âThis pasta is too good.â
âCacio e pepe.â He twirls some onto a fork, straight off the pan, and shoves it into his mouth, a low mmmm leaving him once he gets to chewing. You laugh, a stifled sound through the noodles in your mouth at the exaggerated show of delicious food.
âAny favourite food you think is notable enough for the profile?â You type again, backspacing your harsh reminder. Makes a mean cacio e pepe (look up translation later). âLike, food you cook yourself, or even other recipes.â
âThis,â he says, pointing to the pan. âThis is fuel.â
âAmen.â Loves cacio e pepe.
âAnd itâs good with chicken.â He points to the oven, where heâs been baking chicken for a bit now. The kitchen smells of it, of the rosemary and oregano and pepper. âOh, and put that I cook with music on. Let me connect my phone.â
Cooks w/ music. âWhy do you need to mention that?â
âLadies love a chef,â he says simply, letting a familiar song thrum into the woody kitchen. âAnd I love ladies.â
âOkay, slag.â
âFuck off!â He begins shimmying all across the kitchen island, cranking open the oven mid-dance to check on the chicken, then continuing to clean the counter. Still he dances, and not very well, eitherâhe always claimed singing was a stronger suit of his, so you allow the fool to be a fool.
Back when you two were still together, Carlos already had a preference for 70âs disco in the kitchen, saying it brought out the dancer in him. Nothing seems to have changed in that department, and you smile with mild embarrassment and amusement watching him dance across the kitchen, using the kitchen towel as a prop and swinging it around.
Loves dancing to The Communards while baking rosemary chicken. âLet me taste the chicken, by the way,â you ask when you finish typing, hopping off the stool and walking to the oven. He continues dancing, hips cocking poorly from side to side to the old song. He retrieves a fork and cuts a piece of chicken, reviewing its doneness briefly before turning with a piece of it stabbed into the utensil.
âOpen,â he says. âItâs hot.â
Itâs too natural, the way he slowly feeds you the piece. You donât even realize it until youâre chewing, and by then heâs back to dancing to the song thatâs now reaching its end. âIt, uh,â you stutter, a bit nervous, âitâs really good.â
âOf course, I cooked it,â he says smugly. You grab a lime from the fruit bowl and throw it, hitting him in the back of the head in retaliation. He turns slowly, still dancing, lips stretched into a challenging smile.
Lando and Charles walk in ten minutes later to Carlos and you, yelping and chasing each other around the wide counter, chicken left atop it and forgotten in favor of the tag game. Charles, toting bags of fruit, faces Lando with a victorious expression. Pay up, he mouths, cocky.
â
Itâs much too hot in Miami, but you appreciate the heavy beach culture and the even heavier nightlife.
You work on the profile until your fingers hurt from typing, sending Jonathan another draft for approval. Charles joins you on a cocktail taste test at the open bar until your tongue tastes like gin and your head is a bit spinny. Both Ferrari drivers end up having a shitload of pictures of you sleeping on the leather couch, enough that Lewis ends up getting ahold of them, too.
Itâs a 2-3, in the end, with P1 going to Max. The latter throws a party at some place along the beach strip, invites you in one of the only conversations youâve ever shared with the guy so far. He seems a bit unfriendly, but when you walk into the exclusive club later that night, you find him doing a handstand in front of a beer keg, so thatâs that.
FUCK YEAH! Max hollers, following it with a howl so happy it reverbrates in your ears. Itâs crowded everywhere, and youâre pretty sure Lewis isnât here, so you spend a few minutes roaming around, getting a good grip on the vibe of the place.
Itâs Carlos who finds you in the middle of the dance floor, nursing yet another drink to aid your lack of social skills. His voice is rough in your ear and it smells like a Jägerbomb, a low laugh escaping it right after. âAll alone?â
âUnfortunately,â you tease, turning to face him. âMan, I thought guys were confident in Florida.â
âCuidado,â he warns, smiling. âThis dress is pretty difficult to resist.â His tongueâs definitely been loosened by shots, his eyes half-lidded and looking you up and down. You laugh, raising one eyebrow at the sudden flirty tone, but welcoming it nonetheless, depositing your now empty glass on whatever cocktail table is nearest. Who said you were sober?Â
âNobodyâs inviting me, so why donât you and I dance instead?â
He licks over his lipsâhe never seems to keep his tongue in his mouthâand winks, nodding.
And here in Miami, through the strobing purple lights of this ridiculously expensive club, you wrap your arms around his neck and dance to whatever Calvin Harris song is blaring through the bass.
His hands are all over you, loosening your stiff stature; they wring into the fabric of your obejctively too-short dress, raking it up a bit. You lean back and he leans forward, following you, drawn into you, your noses pressed together and your eyes meeting. Your breath heightens, holds, your fingers moving to his long hair and holding him close to you.
His hand moves over your ass, pulling you in. He smiles, pokes his tongue into his cheek, and you giggle, almost causing your lips to touch. Your mind is haywire from the alcohol, but you canât really bring yourself to care. The warmth grows between you, closer and closer, the dynamic easyâ
And then someone spills their drink on both your feet, causing you two to break apart and laugh off the tension instead. Youâd almost fucking kissed. However youâre going to tell this to Lewis, you donât even know.
And youâre not entirely sure, you think as you rinse whiskey and bile off the tip of your heel in the bathroom, how it sounds like to write Sainz and I almost made out in public on the GQ profile.
â
Nick emails you directly to ask if Carlos can do some test shoots in Miami for the profile cover.
You convince him to agree, even if he thinks heâs no good in front of a camera, and you two show up to a mostly empty warehouse studio. Thereâs a white backdrop situated toward the back and a tiny-sized crew of people working.
âHi. Is this for GQ?â You ask the photographer. âTest shots?â
âOh, hi.â He stands and shakes your hand. âIâm Luke. Big fan of your work, by the way. So the concept today is just plain shirt, long hair, gorgeous face, white background. Good?â
âBueno,â Carlos says behind you with a smile.
You sit on a chair a few metres behind Luke while he works, watching the shots pop up on his screen every time the shutter clicks. As it turns out, Carlos is a brilliant liar, because every single shotâeven one where he was fixing a wrinkle in his teeâlooks perfectly usable anyway. Sainz is a natural stunner, you jot down.
Itâs a bit awkward to admit you canât help but stare, but his face is undeniably handsome, especially when heâs in front of the camera. Thankfully for you, and heavily owed to Carlosâ natural skill for modeling, the ordealâs over in less than thirty minutes, and you begin preparing your stuff to leave.
âOh, crap. I forgot I had to do a test bridal shoot for R&Bâs wedding anniversary in September.â Luke sighs, clicking through the photos rapidly.
âR&B. The⌠music genre?â You ask, confused and toting your bag on your shoulder.
âSilly! Ryan and Blake. As in, Reynolds and Lively? They plan their photoshoots way in advance, and they always need sample poses to choose from.â
âOh, I get it.â You smile. âWell, weâre sorry for keeping you.â
âYouââhe stops both you and Carlos, pacing in frontââyou two wouldnât⌠mind, would you?â
âMind⌠mind what, now?â Your eyes flit toward Carlosâ and you both laugh nervously.
âBeing my mannequins for the bridal shoot!â
Both of you balk, making up all kinds of excuses, but as fate would have it, Luke is very convincing and youâre against the backdrop after five minutes of persuasion. He directs you into different silly, quirky posesâa piggyback ride both ways, smiling goofily, the like. Carlos canât stop laughing every time the shutter clicks, at how silly the two of you must look.Â
Luke plays some music to get you both looser, and directs you into a few mocking dance poses. Then he directs you in a partners-in-crime pose, which you love the outcome of. Okay, last one, newlyweds, he says. Carlos, why donât you get behind her and wrap your arms around her waist?
You clear your throat, letting him do so anyway, his hands big around your frame. âCareful,â you whisper when heâs right behind you. Luke raises an inquisitive brow behind the camera, watches your chemistry unfold through the viewfinder. Your breath hitches a little, but you swallow the nerves.
Look into his eyes, Luke says. So you do, meet them, force yourself not to look away for once and just stare. Itâd been easy to do this, because you could just as easily break the stare, but now itâs different. Your eyes flutter, and his stay unblinking.Â
Itâs like that for a minute, just staring, like all the things you want to say can communicate themselves through eye contact alone. Another twenty seconds pass before Luke coughs, breaking the moment.
âI said we were good like a minute ago, guys,â he says knowingly, packing up with a smirk.
â
Lewis advises you to avert your pent up âromanticâ tension to another boy. Itâs difficult, but you challenge yourself to find somebody anyway, maybe outside of racing, to use your extra paddock pass (courtesy of Mattia) on. The guys in your DMs are all skeevy, or youâve unfortunately ghosted them, so theyâre all out.
After some searching, you end up using your extra pass in Spain, and for James, a Sky Sports sound editor for streamed football games. Heâs British and a huge Tottenham fan who you met during drinks with a few reporters the month prior. Not bad, but not necessarily your type; at this point, though, youâll take anybody above the bare minimum. And James is above itâa gentleman, kind, funny in the quaint English way. He could be taller, but you find him charming enough.
Noise flows through the paddock, chatter and cheering and interviews. âThis is so cool,â says James animatedly. âI feel like a regular Schumacher.â
You give a phony, flirty laugh and enter the Ferrari hospitality, raking your hair backwards. âIâm going to get something real quick, okay? Stay putâŚâ You point at a lone chair. âOver there.â
âAlright,â he says with a smile. âI canât roam arouâ?â
âNo!â You say, a tad too quickly. âI mean, sorry. Donât. Just. Iâll be back really quickly.â Before you can even retrieve your phone charger from Carlosâ room, the owner himself walks into the area, squirting water into his mouth and furrowing his eyebrows together when he sees you standing beside a stranger.
âHi,â Carlos says, a bit bluntly. His eyes are darting everywhere but at you, lingering a bit too distastefully on Jamesâ timid figure. âYou are?â
âHer date,â James says with a nervous laugh, pointing a thumb towards you. âJames. Huge fan of you. Of the team.â
âSure.â He offers a tight-lipped smile, hand meeting Jamesâ outstretched one to form a polite handshake.
Itâs awkward, is what it isâawkward and stuffy and Carlos wonât look at you. He clenches his jaw a little, smiles, looks up and down. âYou, uh⌠how long have you guys beenâŚ?â He waves a finger in between the both of you, almost fearfully, like the answer will cast him into ashes.
âNotânot long, really.â James laughs again to relieve the tension that seeps across the room. âA month?â
âA month?â Carlos repeats, arms crossed.
âWe havenât even, like, had seââ
âThatâsââ you cut in, sharp and apologetic, âwow, thatâs plenty. Thanks, James. Could you get us some drinks? Iâll have a beer.â
âItâs one-thirty,â he says.
âYeah,â you respond. âA beer.â
He leaves you both alone sheepishly, and you turn to face Carlosâ intense expression.
His arms are crossed and he rakes a hand through his hairâbut he doesnât say anything. Why should he, anyway, he thinks to himself, staring at you. You wore your hair in a ponytail today, so he sees more of your pretty face. Oh and so does James. Pendejo.
âAre you okay?â You ask, even if he knows you know whatâs up.
âTotally. Muy bien.â He shrugs, drinking water again. âShould I not be?â
âNever said that,â you say, raising both eyebrows.Â
âOkay. Well enjoy the beer.â
So heâs jealous. Fine, sue him. Heâs jealous of the British gangly guy you thought was good enough to invite onto the paddock. Barely even made a lasting impression. He gives a small, phony smile and walks back, meeting Charles along the way.
âYou look like youâve just seen a ghost, mate,â says the younger, slinging an arm over his shoulder. âMaybe the ghost of James?â He flicks the guyâs forehead, laughing.
P4, it ends up being. Not nearly good enough. But James is the first to say, âCongratulations, hombre!â in a God awful accent, so it becomes ten times worse, really.
â
âAlright guys, Carlos and I here today with some members of our team, and weâre going to play some fun trivia games.â Charlesâ eyes read from the signboard behind the camera, his amusement wholly unscripted as he looks from you to Andrea and back to Carlos.
You honestly donât know why you agreed to this. It might have been Lewisâ gentle persuasion or your bossâ overenthusiastic persistent voice, or the sleepiness thatâs been wearing you down and boggling your mind lately, orâand itâs probably thisâthe fact that James ghosted you after Spain, because you âclearly have a thing with Sainz, and I donât wanna be a homewrecker.â Whatever it is, youâre apparently a guest on the C² Challenge segment.Â
Today is a trivia game against Charles and Andrea, and youâve all been given a general guide to what the questions entailâmath, music, general knowledge, and one scripted Ferrari question at the end. The structure is fairly basic; each team member gets to answer one at a time, both contributing to overall pointsâand no coaching allowed, for some odd reason.
Charles is a little shit, so heâs made an off-camera bet: loser should treat winner to a round of shots at the next afterparty/get-together. Andâwho are you kidding, reallyâCarlos is also a little shit, so heâs game for the bet and has fired you both up to win, spouting Ferrari trivia in your ear should it come up.
âI got it,â you say snappily when he hasnât stopped pestering you for five straight minutes. âI got it.â
âOh, did you got it?â He asks sassily. âOkay. When did Ferraââ
âWeâre starting in three,â says the cameraman in Spanish, Italian, then finally English.
He holds three fingers up and you hug your tiny dry erase board closer to your torso, readying your camera smile. The videoâand the gameâstart off well enough, a quickfire competition developing between the two teams that infects you and Andrea quickly.Â
âStay calm and collected,â Carlos proclaims, lips stretched into a proud smile. âOur team motto.â He elbows your side and you roll your eyes with a smile, teasing.Â
âI think itâs, ah, alwaysâalways cheat, mate,â Charles protests, pointing an accusatory finger.Â
âYou are sooooâtch, I propose we kick Charles for poor sportsmanship,â retorts your teammate, laughing. The force of his laughter shakes the stool he sits on and you bite back a smile, remaining relatively quiet like youâve been since the start of the video.
The remainder of the game passes with Carlos and Charles neck and neck, you and Andrea working overtime to make sure your teams donât lose the bet. Eventually it boils down to one question, which Carlos is in charge of answering. Behind the camera, the producer raises a signboard and reads it out: We all know C². What is eight squared?
What a relief, you think. Theyâve basically handed the win to you and Carlos on a silver platter. You wait, bumbling in your seat and raising an L sign toward Charles, who sticks his tongue out in response. Excitedly, you watch Carlos cheer for himself and finish writing, turning the board inch by inch until you all see the answer he has written on it.
Everyone stares. Then: âTeam Charles wins!â
âQue?!â Carlos blinks, scandalized and a bit amused. He stares at the question then at his answer then, as if dreading the laser eyes, at you. Your eyes narrow, disappointed.
âCarlos. What is eight squared?â
âEight squared. Eight, and you take another eight, andâitâs right here.â A tan finger points firmly at the number written messily, square in the middle of the whiteboard.
16
âEres un tonto,â you quip, remembering bits of teasing youâd used on him years before. âCarlos, itâs 64. Eight times eight, not eight times two.â
âAy, putaââ He shuts his eyes and laughs. âLo siento! Sorry, sorry. Sorry! I cost us the win.â
Across you, Charles is coaxing a much more begrudged Andrea into a childish victory dance, pulling his arms up and down to convey the joy of winning. You sigh exasperatedly, but smile . For what it was worth, you had a great game anyway. The noise grows, and you watch the producers pack up, the cameraman parting from the camera for a moment to converse with one of them.
Left alone with you for a bit, Carlos lets his voice slip into a quieter one. âSorry again. I forgot.â
âForgot?â Your brows furrow, confused. âWhat?â
âThat, you knowââhe points at the lonely 16 on the whiteboard he holdsââitâs supposed to be 64.â
 âOh.â You laugh, a light sound. âWhaaat?! Itâs not that deep, Carlos. Seriously, donât worry about it. It was all fun.â
âWell, Iâm glad you had fun,â he says softly, smiling.
âYeah, me too,â you say, unable to hide your smile. You stay like that for a bit, something blooming in the pit of your stomach you canâtâand refuse toâname.
â
You get two days off, and Charles had suggested you all go to Paris before you go to Cannes, where the Ferrari team is apparently expected for a meeting before Monaco. Youâre the one whoâd said yes first, even if Carlos seemed to hesitate; he had asked why, to which you responded youâd never been before.
Youâd read about it, watched about it, and like every other human on Earth, seen pictures of it. But youâd never been to Paris; work placed you mostly in London, sometimes South America, other times Italy. But Paris was never a destination. So Carlos allowed the greenlight and you flew, with Lando, Pierre, and Esteban tagging along for shits and giggles.
âIâve waited my whole life for my Eiffel Tower moment,â you say, not even trying to hide your wonder. Carlos got the best room for himself, but invited you in, for the view. He doesnât tell you he went through hell and back to get precisely this room, so you could peek inside and see the tower.
âWell, youâre here now.â He wedges the hotel balcony door open and walks toward the railing. You follow suit, arms crossed over your torso, eyes stuck on the view. âHow is it?â
âItâs as beautiful as I imagined it to be,â you confess honestly, eyes still stuck on the tower, the way it stands alone and glittering against the black of night. ClichĂŠ as it is, you feel like youâve checked one huge box off your bucket list, staring at the landmark like itâs going to evaporate into thin air.Â
Beside you, Carlos hums in agreement, but his gaze is stuck on something else. âI know.â
âOh, do you?â You laugh. âAre you in the business of admiring beautiful things?â You tease, looking up at the stars.
Sensing his eyes on you, you slowly avert your gaze until your eyes meet. The light reflects in his eyes, and they meet yours blindingly, beautiful, luring you closer. The joking tone of your words is caught in your throat, desert dry, your lips parted to spout words youâve now forgotten, lost track of.
Your silhouettes dance against the lights of the city below, two figures admiring the other. His eyes flicker down to your lips, linger there a second too long. You stumble closer, your foot touching his. ââŚParis.â The words struggle to leave but they do, quietly, an admission of guilt. âItâs always reminded me of you.â
 âNot Spain?â He asks, leveling your volume. Youâre closer, so close you feel his breath fan soft against your own face. His voice is deep, accented so thickly, the way it is when he talks with you because he falls into a familiar rhythm of knowing youâll decipher whatever he has to say.
You giggle, a low, breathy sound. A barely there shake of your head. âI⌠love it so much, is why. Always have.â
Had there been a pedestrian across the street who looked just a few floors upward, they wouldâve found the both of you there, smiling foolishly, blanketed by the night sparkles of the Eiffel Tower and the rest of the city. They wouldâve seen the way Carlos leaned in, his eyes on yours and then on your lips, the way you nodded in silent, warm invitation. Come closer, you seem to say. Donât stray any further.
A lock of your hair touches his jaw, from how close you two are. So close. Everything smells like him, like the musky woody perfume he wears, the detergent he uses. All of that, and everything underneath. The scent of him. Just him.Â
You hold your breath when you both lean in, eyes fluttering shut and waiting, waiting for his lips to meet yours.
The door shakes with several knocks, Landoâs voice seeping from the other side of it. âMate, weâre gonna be late for dinner!â He says boredly, letting his fist collide with it a few more times for good measure.
Instantly, you and Carlos separate, both of you clearing your throats, rushed flimsy excuses escaping your mouths at the same time. Youâre warm all over, the excitement, the nerves, tapering off into nothing as you walk back inside the room, busying yourselves with anything. Oh, I need to check if Jonathanâs emailed me. Oh, let me go answer the door.
Lando is waiting, expectant, on the other side when Carlos pries the door open. âMate! Dinner! I texted you like twenty minutes ago and yâoh.â He spots you sitting at one of the lounge chairs in the room, and immediately his brows raise. âHey, dude. Youâre here?â
âYeah, to, uhâto get Carlos to OK some edits,â you say with a smile, hoping your nonchalance isnât too shaky. âI needed to get a draft in by three hours ago, so.â
âOh. Right, obviously.â His eyes narrow a little, but he doesnât relax much, gaze suspicious and a bit beguiled. âWell, if youâre not busy, weâre having dinner?â
âIâm good,â you decline, a touch too quickly. âItâs getting late.â
âAlright, well it was a courtesy invite, you dipshit,â Lando teases, and everything feels a bit more normal. You just flip him off, and Carlos retrieves his coat, eyes still not meeting yours when you all exit at the same time. Lando makes up for the hole in the conversation, droning on and on about the restaurant theyâre going to, and how good it seems to be.
The elevator ride is equally charged, and you spend it humming and interjecting Landoâs words to come across as unfazed, even if youâre so totally not. Once youâre alone you finally let big exhales leave you. You donât know if itâs from the anxiety of almost being caught, or the anxiety from the kiss unfinished.
â
LOVE the latest draft, Nick & I both. Could we get a deeper angle? Something re: regrets? Would really tie it together! Best, J
âHuh. Do you have any regrets?â You ask, tearing your eyes away from the short email. Next to you, Carlos nods his head slowly. Youâre on the beach in Cannes, taking time off before the meeting and people-watching. Charles had joined you for a good half hour before leaving to sleep in the hotel instead, leaving you two to bask in the now setting sun.
âEveryone does, no?â He stretches a bit. The topic is tense. âBut yes, I have some specific ones.â
âLike?â You ask weakly.
âI was stupid when I was younger. More immature, more forgetful. You grow older and you think of all the things you couldâve done right, years too late. Thereâs a proverb I heard once that goesâcamarĂłn que se duerme se lo lleva la corriente. It means toâto stay alert. Donât let things pass you by.â
âAnd do you think you followed that advice?â
His eyes meet yours. âDo you?â
â
Itâs quiet when Carlos walks inside your flat, and already his heart begins to drain, filling with guilt.
He steps over the creaky floorboard, notices your car keys on the table, your jacket haphazardly slung over the rack, your Chanel bag half-open on the dinner table beside an empty wine glass and a sweaty bottle of Cheval Blanc. The bedroom doorâs half-open, light bleeding into the dark rest-of-the-place, and when he gently pushes the door to get in, the sight he faces is crushing.
ââŚEstĂĄs bien?â
You face the window, your back to him, in a beautiful, beautiful black dress. Your hair had been up, but itâs unpinned now, falling in loose, messy waves. You hiccup, and then tense. Feigning nonchalance, you croak out, âYeah, yeah.â
âIâm sorry,â he says honestly. âI didnât know the thing was earlier.â His eyes hover to the glass award on the bed, one youâd hoped he would watch you receive tonight.
âI said Iâm fine,â you say. âJustââyou sniffleââitâs fine, Carlos, just get out.â
Youâre standoffish, and cold, but Carlos knows youâre incredibly hurt. In an attempt to try and coerce a conversation, he stays. âLetâs have dinner tomorrow,â he suggests in a low voice. âOn me. Right? To celebrate.â
âLeave me alone, Carlos.â
âI wanted to go,â he insists. âI had a meeting that ended late, andââ
âIt doesnât fucking matter,â you assert, turning. Youâve clearly been crying hard, your face flushed and shiny, a few rogue tears still on your chin. âJust go.â
âI know how much this mattered to you.â
âAnd yet you didnât go.â You sniff, wiping fruitlessly at your face. âCarlos, justâŚâ Your voice sounds thin, heartbroken, worn with pain and real tiredness.Â
âCut me some slack.â Carlos argues softly.
âNo, I just⌠I donât even know how things got to this point, Carlos. We used to be so much happier. But now, itâs like I have to demand for your time like everyone else does. Now, IâI cook, I plan dinner, I put my own career on the back burner so I can spend more time with you even if Iâve gotten calls, promotions that you donât even ever⌠ever ask about, just everything. I donât think⌠I donât feel you love me that way. Care for me, that way. Youâve never shown it, not lately especially.â
âYou shouldâve told me,â he says, hurt.
âThis kind of thing, itâŚâ you shake your head, wiping your clammy hands on the black silk. âIt doesnât need to be said.â
âLet me make it up to you.â He steps closer but youâre quicker, almost stumbling in your rush to avoid him.
âNo,â you protest, âjust go, Carlos, just go. Get out and close the door.â
âCariĂąoââ
âGo,â you say, voice hard with contempt. You refuse to meet his pleading eyes. âGo, Carlos.â
So he does.
He passes by, again, your handbag, with the sleek travel-sized bottle of Santal 33 you keep with you always peeking out, and the Cheval Blanc heâd bought you a few months prior, and the jacket youâd bought with his approval almost a year ago. He lingers in his car for a minute, the rain pelting the Golf noisily.Â
He drives off, wiping tears from his own face.
And maybe, had he stayed a little longer, he wouldâve seen you tearfully emerge from the elevator, into the lobby, then out into the rain, still in your black dress, and let yourself get soaked waiting for him to come back, refusing to believe heâd even let himself leave you so broken.
â
You play Uno to pass the time, your last night in Cannes.
Heâs won two games in a row at this point, and youâre almost 100% sure he has a plus four card in his hand, so you play a bit more deliberately, eyeing him with a challenging glint in your eyes. Youâre a bit watered down by your earlier conversation, but you feign nonchalance anyway.
Blue 2. Blue 5. Green 5. Then finally, he slaps it onto the deckâa plus four card. âOh, come on, Carlos,â you say, almost actually irritated.
âIâll kiss it better,â he says. Suddenly overwhelmed, you push yourself off the counter and storm out.
He follows you, stumbling into the empty balcony and softly shutting the door, voice still colored with laughter. âIâm sorry! I didnât know youâd be so upset about theââ
You barely hear the rest of his clearly half-hearted, humorous apology. It doesnât matter to you.
What does matter is everything from the years past crashing on your shoulders like debris, like rain, finally giving under the weight of being so close to him again. Everything. The tangled fog of your relationship, the start, the middle, the terrible end neither of you wanted. You pulsed with want, with yearning, with sadness.
So you ask yourself why? Why? Why? Why couldnât he have come back? More importantlyâwhy did he let you go so easily?
The truth is, youâve drowned yourself in work so long youâve forgotten what itâs like to feel, to be felt. And if Carlos is doing this, all this, all the touching and the tension and the debris and the rain that crash on you like a bruising, torrential storm, for his own pleasure, like this is all a game, then youâve yearned for nothing.
âThis isnât about the game, Carlos!â It heaves itself out of you in a half-sob, carried by the wind.
He stopsâstops walking, stops smiling. Just stops and stares, brows knitted with concern. You refuse to look at him, staring instead at the skyline, arms crossed. The view blurs with tears, lights meshing together prettily.
He stutters your name out in a feeble response. Itâs mortifying, the way you start to cry when it leaves his mouth.
You turn then, willing your lips to stop quivering. âGood for you,â you say shakily, âyou canâyou can fool around, kiss me like itâs nothing, pretend like we never even mattered so you can make jokes about how weâve ended up here again, back, together.â You inhale, but itâs no use; youâre crying even as you speak. âAnd Iâll laugh, because it can be funny, you know, fuck it. But⌠Iâm soââ
The wanting shows, in moments like this. Wanting love, wanting comfort, wanting warmth, an escape from work and stress and life. You know how it feels, to be loved. Youâd been familiar with it, at some point. You want it again, the ache, the kiss, the pain of it all. More than that, you want him. For just a moment. But all this wanting is so exhausting.
You want this profile to be over. You want to pull him close and tell him how proud you are, but also how hurt you are. You want Spain. You miss Paris. Everything, everything, every memory, every single painful loving thing bursts inside you.
ââtired.â You nod your head, licking tears that have perched on your lip, smiling humorlessly, shrugging. âIâmâIâm tired, and lonely, and being around you makes it worse. Being around you hurts me. It hurts you. This profile was a bad idea, and I shouldâve trashed this the moment I learned Iâd be covering you. Because I knew then it wouldâve turned to shit, and I was right.â
He stares, unmoving. He remembers, too. Heâd tell you everything if the words clicked just right. But they never do; they tangle like cotton balls in his throat before he can kneel and name everything he remembers, everything he loved about the two of you. CariĂąo. Just be mine, tell me everything, tell me you love me.
You wipe a hand over your face. âLetâs just let this go already. You know, we really were good for a while. This⌠this is maybe just one of those things where we made it in another life, but not this one.â
At his returned silence, you nod, then walk quietly past him and back into the room.
Itâs just as empty as youâd left it, dim and lit only by the warm light above the kitchen counter. Your forgotten Uno game lies on the same spot, beside the two empty wine glasses. You stare for a second. Life had been different when heâd lay down his cards just minutes ago.
A coat is tugged from in between couch cushions, your heels from by the door hastily pulled on. Every movement feels heavy, like sandbags are tied to your limbs, your tongue, your eyelids. You turn, one last time, to see the moment suspended in timeâand you meet his eyes. Even across the room you feel like youâre drowning in them, dark and solemn.Â
âWait,â he says, and even with just one syllable heâs managed to stop your world from turning again. âYouâre right. Everything you said. When Iâm around you, I hurt. Iâm reminded of how awful I was then. Itâs painful to be together.â
Eyes meet, eyes blink, eyes close.
âBut you didnât trash the feature. And I still enjoy your company. You could be covering Rafael Nadal or whoever right now. I could be in a jet to Japan. But you and I are here, are we not?â
Only you. Itâs only you.
âIâve missed you.â It rips through him. âI want to be here with you. I want to make the pain go away, so let me.â
âItâs useless,â you protest, tearily. âThis wonât work. Iâll get mad, youâll get fed up, Iâll get bored, youâll put work before us.â
âOkay.â He paces toward you, nearer and nearer, closing the distance between you both. âIâll make it work.â
âCarlos,â you weep, âI donât know why you donât get it. Life sucks. And all we get are little moments where things are⌠are good. So donât waste the moments like this. Letâs not waste the moments on this.â
âYouâre not a waste,â he saysâand you crumple into his arms, worn, exhausted.
A knot in your heart is slowly unraveling itself. Youâve waited, yearned for so long, and finally youâre in his arms again, with the kind of quiet resolution only he would understand. You left the lights on for him. Youâd do it again, but you donât have to.
You bury your head in his chest, a chorus of apologies leaving him. Iâm sorry, he says. Iâm sorry, I love you. Iâm sorry. Iâm sorry. Everything.
I love you, you say weakly. I love you, thatâs enough. I waited for this to leave, but all it did was hide. The love has yet to pass. It never will.
â
âYours really is the best selling one!â Nick pulls you in for a hug. âWe have Nadal and CR7 on the roster, but Sainzâs is selling like crazy. Your writing is justââ He kisses his fingers. âYou are amazing.â
âYou flatter me,â you reply gracefully, letting him pull you into another embrace but prying him off a bit faster. You donât need another Jonathan-esque freakout in the middle of the room.
The GQ party, six months later, almost a mirror of the fundraiser just a few months ago. Only this time, youâre not tacked onto Lewis, and youâre not buzzing with nerves (as much). You had run into Lewis when you entered, and Charles too, and Lando when he spotted you, but none of them are your plus ones to this event.
Your profile is the talk of the journalism scene. Nobody can shut up about it, and it thrills you, excites you, to be witnessing your work be recognized beside Carlos himself. He brings you a glass of champagne and presses a kiss to your cheekbone, smiling against it.
Neither of you notice Lando and Charles behind you, watching like hawks. The elder cackles, presents his hand like a sacrifice and turns to the Brit. âAha.What did I tell you, chat?â
âFive hundred euros,â moans Lando, slapping a bunch of bills onto it. âYouâre an intuitive prick.â
âThose two are soulmates.â They stare at your foolish figures, smiling like idiots, high-fiving even. âThe kind thatâll always, always find their way back to each other. Always.â
Lando shrugs. âHey, honestly, for once, Iâm glad I lost a bet.â
âI look great on the cover,â Carlos says, both of you staring at the screenâs display of it.Â
âShut up,â you smile, interlocking your fingers. âWell, my writing looks great inside.â
âReally does,â he says. âIâm so, so proud of you, cariĂąo.â
âProud of me?â You tease, staring up at him. âYou made the last minute title change that caused fans to go crazy.â You both turn to stare at it displayed on the screen, smiling fondly.
Carlos Sainzâon racing, gracious defeat, and refinding love.
#f1#carlos sainz#carlos sainz drabble#carlos sainz smut#carlos sainz imagines#carlos sainz fanfic#f1 x reader#carlos sainz x reader
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Do you have any advice for writing with adhd? I can craft these elaborate storyline in my head, but the minute I try to write any of them down I get bored. (Or is that just regular writer block?) It's really discouraging, because I feel like my mind is moving faster then my head, and any time I try to bring any of my ideas to life it just disipates.
Writing with ADHD: 5 Game Changers for Me
Here are some things that have been game changers for me as a writer with ADHD: [Edit: everyone's ADHD is different. This is just what works for me. It may not work for you...]
Planning: It's different for everyone with ADHD, but for me it's essential to spend time planning my story before I start writing. I like to flesh out as much as possible concerning plot, timeline, setting, world, characters and arcs, subplots, and themes.
Summary, Outline, and Scene List: Three items that are critical for me to have in hand before I sit down to write are a beginning to end summary of the story detailing all plot events as far as I know, an outline loosely based on the story structure template/s that feel right for the story (for example, I may use elements of Save the Cat! and some elements of of the Six-Stage Plot Structure), which helps me navigate my plot and hit the relevant plot points. And finally, I need a detailed scene list/timeline combo which lists chapter, scene, date/time, POV character, location, and a one to two sentence summary of what happens in the scene, including the character's goal in the scene, the scene's conflict, and the scene's resolution or how it carries into a later scene.
Gamifying: When I'm struggling with a particular time period or project, it can help me to gamify things. You can do this using a game board strategy, the Yahtzee Method, making a list of bench marks that serve as "levels," race against yourself by trying to bet the previous day's goal, etc. The key to gamifying is to set reasonable benchmarks and give yourself periodic rewards. Rewards can be anything from buying yourself a boba, watching a favorite TV show episode, an hour of playing your favorite game, or going to a movie. Some people like to go to the dollar store and buy a lot of small fun things and use those as rewards. Whatever works for you! Sometimes, turning it into a game with tangible progress and rewards can keep you motivated.
Setting Up a Routine: Although I have my general daily routine, I am without a doubt more productive when I can stick to a more specific routine that includes writing time. For me that works out to writing early in the day before other distractions start ramping up. When I put on my music, sit down with some coffee and a snack, and pull up my manuscript, my brain knows it's time to get to work. That doesn't always mean the work happens, but it's much more likely I'll get something done.
Minimizing Distractions: Anything that can be a distraction when I write is problematic. For that reason, I only listen to music without words and advertising. I turn off my phone or leave it in the other room. If possible, I try to use placeholders for things I need to look up. If I absolutely have to look something up and I get distracted by headlines, interesting articles or videos, or other things, I bookmark them in a special folder and immediately close the window. That way, I know I can go back to them later (I almost never do...) And, for me, as much as I love Scrivener and the ability to organize by chapter, have quick access to character profiles and photos, toggle between scene cards and my story... it's just too distracting for me. I'll sit down to write a chapter, then decide I need to re-do my scene cards, or cast characters, or do mood boards for every location in my story.
For that reason, writing in Word works best [for me] It's simple and there's nothing to distract me. Any story references I might need while writing, such as character profiles and photos, mood boards and aesthetics, setting inspiration photos, etc. are all organized in a special folder, categorized into sub-folders, so I can go straight to the required reference.
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