#How to Make Corner to Corner Graphs

[darkwood-sleddog]

If you have a deep fascination with sled dog genetics, breed split, and sled breed histories this is a very interesting study.

[sixeyesonathiel]

nerd!satoru who yaps nonstop about the multiverse while you’re just trying to eat your lunch, waving his hands around dramatically as he explains the concept of alternate dimensions with half a rice ball in his mouth and crumbs stuck to the corner of his lips. who pokes at his food with a mechanical pencil because he forgot his chopsticks again, and then insists with wide eyes and a mouth half full, “technically, pencils are just wooden utensils for intellectuals.” he gets giddy over a new graphing calculator update like it’s a new iphone drop, tapping the screen like it’s a baby animal, and once dragged you into a 40-minute rant about ant communication hierarchies while you were just brushing your teeth, half-asleep and mouth foaming with toothpaste.

he has no less than ten tabs open at all times—reddit conspiracy theories, physics forums, a paused youtube video on quantum tunneling, a spreadsheet titled “do cats defy newton’s laws?”, a google doc labeled “reasons why kissing might be a form of molecular alignment,” and none of it has anything to do with the assignment he’s supposed to be doing. he zones out during lectures, doodling black hole spirals, equations shaped like hearts, and cats in lab coats in the margins of his notes. once, he drew you holding hands with a worm in a bowtie and captioned it “me and my universe.” somehow still manages to get top marks every single time, even though he once turned in an assignment with a greasy fry stain in the corner because he used it as a napkin in the library mid-cram session.

he mutters the weirdest things under his breath like “i feel like a misaligned proton today” or “the moon’s energy was too sarcastic last night” and you just blink at him like🧍‍♀️while sipping your drink. he wears mismatched socks on purpose and says, “it’s a metaphor for duality.” has five alarms labeled “wake up genius,” “ur gonna flunk,” “your girlfriend will leave you,” “pls satoru,” and “EMERGENCY: CUTE, PRETTY AND SCORCHINGLY HOT GIRL WAITING” and still manages to sleep through all of them unless you call him. his glasses? perpetually smudged, held together with washi tape. his notebooks? an unholy fusion of complicated theorems, grocery lists, pressed flowers, cat doodles, love notes to you, and a page just titled “top 10 reasons why my girlfriend is cuter than entropy.”

his laptop is a biohazard—dusty, overworked, full of files like “time_is_an_illusion_final_FINAL_reallyfinal_actuallyfinal.pptx” and “uRwrong_iMright.docx.” the case is covered in anime stickers, tiny equations, stars drawn with glitter pen, and a wrinkled polaroid of you sticking your tongue out that he keeps taped on like it’s a sacred relic. he listens to lo-fi while studying and pauses every few minutes just to sigh dreamily and whisper, “this part sounds like you looking at me for the first time.”

and yet… he’s so fine it’s borderline illegal. tall, messy white hair that sticks up in all directions and defies every known force of nature, ice-blue eyes that melt when they look at you, and a cocky little smile that makes your chest hurt even when he says things like, “do you think our cells are spiritually linked?” he doesn’t even try to be charming—he just is, like he spawned with a flirt trait.

you fw it. you fw him. every unfiltered ramble, every hyperactive explanation about wormholes or why he thinks bees are secretly time travelers. the way his voice speeds up when he’s excited, and how his hands start waving like he’s conducting an invisible orchestra of nerdiness. you don’t even bother trying to follow every word—you’re just watching him, heart doing somersaults, because he’s so beautiful when he’s passionate. and the fact that you never laugh at him? only ever smile and let him go on? yeah. that cracked his emotional firewall a long time ago.

so now he’s all sunshine and sparkles around you. a literal bundle of joy. grinning at his phone like a middle schooler when you text him “lol ok.” kicking his feet while giggling, voice memos full of stuff like “what if we held hands inside a particle accelerator 😳👉👈” sent at 2:13 a.m., followed by three minutes of him wheezing into a pillow. he calls you his “favorite constant,” even if you don’t get the joke. and if you do? he twirls his hair, blushes, and stares at you like you just split the atom and made it cute.

he makes playlists named “gravity got nothing on how hard i fell for you,” draws you in lab coats saying “ur the thesis to my hypothesis,” keeps your photo in his pencil case and shows it to random people like “this is my girlfriend. she understands my quantum jokes.” if they blink weirdly, he’ll just smile and say, “it’s okay, not everyone gets theoretical perfection.”

being loved by you makes him goo. makes his neurons do the macarena. you make all his bizarre little pieces light up like neon signs. you walked into his strange little world and said “yeah, i’ll stay,” and now he’s rearranging every cosmic thread to make sure it’s perfect for you. adds fairy lights. labels his notebooks “our theories.” buys matching pens. you made his chaos feel like a cozy little planet. he buys you plushies shaped like atoms and puts your name in the acknowledgements of his lab reports. tells people “she’s the reason the data graphs came out prettier.”

nerd!satoru who’s helplessly, hopelessly, tooth-rottingly in love with you. who grabs your hand mid-ramble just to feel you close. who brings you hot cocoa and explains entropy like it’s a bedtime story. who kisses your forehead and tells you “you’re my favorite anomaly in this whole universe.”

and he thanks you—not in grand declarations, but in the quiet moments: when he scoots closer to you without saying a word, when he tugs on your sleeve with glassy eyes after a long day, when he looks at you after an hour of nerding out like you built the whole galaxy just to hear him talk.

his world was spinning way too fast. then you walked in and gave it gravity. and now he orbits you—and he’s never been happier to revolve around anything in his life.

[jj-one]

RAW, NEXT QUESTION !

letting your loser boyfriend hit it raw for the first time at a party turns out better than you’d both expected.

pairing: nerd!han jisung x popular!f!reader, established relationship genre/tags: college au, smut, sub!jisung, oral (m. receiving), jisung being a professional yapper as always, unprotected s*x, an ass slap or two, creampie, overstim words: 2.9k

[ note. ] — last fic upload before i leave for vacayy, hope u guys fw it. also i’m going to be posting all my fics in lowercase from now on for aesthetic purposes <3

you can read the other parts i’ve previously made here and here but this could be read as a standalone !

it’s always the same.

he’ll start talking about his newest little hyperfixation, voice notching an octave or two higher, words tumbling over each other, eyes lit up behind those too-big glasses that never sit quite right on the bridge of his nose. he fidgets with the drawstring of his hoodie while he talks, tugging it tight, then loosening it again, as if he’s trying to keep his own excitement from spilling out too fast.

and you’ll just be sitting there across from him, all pretty and patient, thighs crossed in your tiny skirt, chin resting in your hand, pretending to care. you try, you really do. but the longer he talks, the harder it is to focus, not on what he’s saying, but on him.

because he’s just so fucking cute when he rambles, way too animated and overly passionate. his hands always gesturing in wild, uncoordinated circles, one knee bouncing like he’s trying to burn off the excess energy. he talks super fast, stumbles over words, corrects himself mid-rant, and whenever he gets something right, like some equation or probability he’s been chewing on for hours, he glances at you like he’s hoping you’re proud, like he wants a gold star for being smart.

his lashes are thick behind the lenses, his lips are pink and plush and chapped at the corners, his voice isn’t that deep or confident— it’s soft, a little scratchy, but so full of warmth.

“so if you run the stats for the gacha drop rate and multiply it by, like, uh, thirty-two? you get this number, right? and then you compare that to the JP version’s old banners, and their pity system was actually better than what the global servers offer now, which is total bullshit, ‘cause mathematically it just doesn’t track when you- uh, wait, let me show you..”

he’s flipping his phone around to pull up some cluttered spreadsheet, thumb swiping too fast through endless tabs filled with numbers, graphs, and notes like he’s been preparing for this conversation all week.

you get a little closer, nodding slowly. not because you understand, but because just he looks so goddamn sweet when he’s talking like this. the way his cheeks are flushed from excitement, the way he’s sweating the tiniest bit under the collar of his hoodie, and how he’s so wrapped up in his own little world and still wants you to be part of it.

“baby,” you interrupt, reaching under the table to brush your freshly manicured fingertips along the inside of his thigh, slow and light.

he falters mid-thought. whole body stiffens up and his lips part in a soft little gasp. his glasses slip down a bit and his thumb freezes against the slightly cracked screen, looking up at you like he’s just remembered you exist and realized where he is.

“you’re so cute when you talk like that,” you smile at him, giggling sweetly like you weren’t thinking about jumping his bones right then and there.

jisung blinks, blushing immediately, making a little sound that even he couldn’t describe what it was.

“i-i wasn’t trying to be.. i mean, it’s just numbers. sorry, i was rambling again, wasn’t i? i know it’s boring…”

you shook your head, “not boring,” leaning in even closer now and never breaking eye contact with him, “just makes me wanna fuck you even more.”

he’s full-on glitching now. mouth half open, eyes wide and cheeks so red you can feel the heat radiating off him. his leg jerks under the table and his fingers clench around his phone, nearly dropping it.

“wha—” he squeaks, “you- you can’t just say that. we’re- this is a party, there’s people—”

he’s whispering now, but frantically. internally panicking. looking around like someone might’ve heard you, even though there’s absolutely no one paying mind to either of you.

you lean in some more, all slow and smug, until your lips are practically inches away from each others.

“there’s an empty closet down the hall.”

his breath hitches audibly.

you see the way his adam’s apple bobs, how fast his hand shoots up to adjust his crooked glasses, his thighs shifting under the table, voice caught somewhere between disbelief and arousal.

he’s already hard, you know him well enough to know the telltale signs. tenting his grey sweats, twitching against the fabric as you slid your hand higher. he doesn’t even try to stop you, just sits there, jaw slack, watching you with big eyes like you’ve cast some kind of spell.

maybe you have, because the thing is— jisung doesn’t really do parties. he wasn’t invited to shit like this before, not until you came into the picture.

he was always known as the weird kid in STEM. the one who played rhythm games in the library and forgot to eat lunch when he was coding. he wore sweatshirts in summer and muttered to himself and would gett teased by the lacrosse team. so he never really expected to be dating the prettiest girl he’s ever laid eyes on for nearly three months now, the one who wears expensive lipgloss and wears matching juicy couture tracksuits with her friends who stared at him like he’s an alien.

but you love and adore him in a way that still feels surreal to him. you’d hold his hand in public, kiss his cheek in the hallways, wait for him after every class, sit in his lap and call him baby, not caring if people swap odd locks about such an unlikely pair. it lowkey terrifies him, but he’s obsessed, because he’s yours.

and the fact that you want him this badly? it blows his mind. every. single. time.

your fingers drag up his thigh and he twitches again, a shaky moan falling from his lips before he bites it back. he’s warm, already leaking, probably. you can feel how sensitive he is, how badly he wants it.

you tug him up by the sleeve, smiling, your tone soft but firm.

“don’t make me ask twice.”

by your words alone, han jisung knows that he’s already done for.

+

the second the closet door slams shut behind you, he wastes zero time to be all over you— not in a confident way though. it’s messy, too eager, full of stifled sounds and nervous fingers, as if he’s afraid if he doesn’t kiss you now, he might never get the chance again.

his lips move over yours too fast and sloppy, his hands everywhere all at once, gripping your waist, your hips, your sides like he can’t decide where to touch first. his nose accidentally bumps against yours when he tries to kiss you deeper and you giggle into his mouth, gently slowing him down with your palms at his jaw.

“easy, baby,” you whisper, barely parting from him.

“s-sorry,” he breathes out, already so out of it. “i just.. you look so good tonight, and your skirt- fuck- i’ve been thinking about it all day, i couldn’t focus when you sat on my lap after class, i was so close to cumming—”

“ji,” you interrupt sweetly, brushing your knuckles over his cheek. “you’re rambling again.”

he shuts up immediately. blushing.

you lean in to press a soft, lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth, then his jaw, going down even further until your knees coil down to the floor, right in front of him.

he could literally feel his heart beating out of his chest.

“w-wait,” he stammers, his back already hitting the wall. “baby, you don’t have to- fuck..”

his words fall apart the minute you tug down the waistband of his sweats, his boxers go with them, and his cock springs free in front of you— flushed a pretty shade of pink, tip already leaking delicious precum, and twitching where it rests against his stomach. so thick, so heavy, so obscenely hard. you don’t even touch it before he moans.

you look up through your lashes, watching the way he presses the back of his head to the wall, lips parted like he’s trying to remember how to properly breathe.

then you lean forward, slowly dragging your tongue from the base to the tip.

he shudders so hard his legs almost give out.

“jesus christ,” he bit down on his lip harshly, “your mouth.. shit, feels too good, i can’t—”

his thighs are trembling, and his hand reaches out instinctively to cradle your jaw, anchoring himself to feel something.

you smile around the head of his cock before wrapping your lips around it, sliding your head down. soft, warm suction, just enough pressure to make him gasp. you suck deeper, taking more of him in your mouth as your hand strokes the rest in slow, steady pulls. spit runs down your wrist, the sound is wet, vulgar, echoing off the walls of the cramped space.

he groans again, louder this time. one leg shifts to stabilize himself.

“oh my god,” he gasps, “oh fuck- baby, baby- shit—”

his voice breaks on every moan, hips twitching forward, but he doesn’t thrust. he never does. he’s too good, too well-trained.

but he literally can’t stop shaking.

“you’re so good,” he whimpers, praising you to no end. “you’re so fucking good at that, i’m not gonna last.. ’m gonna- fuck, you’re ‘bout to make me cum—”

you pull off with a soft ‘pop’, your hand still stroking him agonizingly slow.

“you better not cum yet,” you warn, pressing your tongue under the head and dragging it gently along the slit. “you haven’t even been inside me.”

his whole body jolts. eyes going wide, almost scared, like the idea of fucking you now might actually break him.

“then let me—” he blurts out, hands twitching at his sides. “pleasepleaseplease. fuck, i need to. i wanna be inside, please baby, can i fuck you now?”

you smile and finally stood up, turning around to face the wall.

“fuck me like this, ji,” you whisper, hiking your skirt up and wiggling your ass against him. “fuck me raw.”

he’s completely frozen, his breath stuttering in his throat.

“wha- are you serious? wait- y/n- no condom?”

you glance back at him with half-lidded eyes, giggling.

“you wanna feel me, right?” you ask, no hesitation detected in your words. “you wanna cum inside?”

he nods so quickly its almost embarrassing, his hands are moving faster than his brain can form a thought.

“yes. fuck. please,” he choked out desperately, already fumbling his cock into his hand.

his grip is shaky, you feel the blunt head brush your folds once, twice, then he finally lines up right and sinks in— real slow and careful, bracing himself as he slides in every inch. his moan is strangled, like hes unsure of whether he’s dying or dreaming.

your wetness takes him easy, your pussy already clenching around him with need, swallowing him so greedily he loses control of his rhythm for a second. he bottoms out with a deep, gasping groan, cock buried to the hilt, your walls pulsing around him.

“holy shit,” he breathes out, practically shaking. “you’re so warm.. s-so tight.. baby.. oh my god—”

you barely have time to process the stretch before he’s stuttering forward with a broken whimper, hips twitching.

two thrusts. that’s all it takes.

you feel the sharp jerk of his cock, the way his whole body tenses up, and then the sudden warmth flooding you deep inside….

he cums early. too hard and way too fast.

you smirk, turning your head slightly, “oh no,” you murmur. “you didn’t just cum, did you?”

jisung lets out the softest, most wrecked noise you’ve ever heard and hides his face against your back, the tip of his nose pressed between your shoulder blades.

“fuck,” he groans. “’m sorry.. i couldn’t help it! fuck, it just felt too good, your pussy’s too perfect, i didn’t mean to—”

you clench around him, tight and deliberate.

his knees nearly buckle.

“you’re not pulling out.”

he gasps again, panicked and overwhelmed.

“b-but i already- baby, wait, ’m sensitive—”

you simply drown out his whines and start rolling your hips back, slow and deep, grinding against him, and he whimpers.

“then cum again,” you demand sharply.

his hands slid down the slope of your waist, fingers gripping tightly, mentally preparing himself for the next round. even though he’s overstimulated, his cock never softens. still rock hard inside you, still twitching, still leaking.

your pussy’s so wet now it’s sinful, every roll of your hips drawing a filthy squelch, your slick and his cum mixing into a hot, messy slop between your thighs. it’s dripping down his balls already.

“you’re milking me,” he whines, voice high and sweet. “fuck, fuck.. i can’t- ’m gonna cum again- already- baby, please. s’too much—”

“you can do it,” you breathe, forehead pressed against the wall. “you’re doing so good, ji. fuck, feel so full.. love your cock so much,”

he moans like it hurts.

his pace picks up, just a litttle. short thrusts. clumsy and deep.

your ass bounces back against his thighs with every movement, and he can’t stop watching it. can’t stop staring at the way your body moves for him, the way you take him. he reaches around and grabs a handful of your tits, squeezing greedily, fingers slipping under your top like he’s desperate to feel your skin. you’re bouncing in his hands with every thrust and he whimpers against your shoulder.

“you’re so beautiful,” he pants. “so fucking beautiful. your tits, your ass. god, your pussy’s made for me- i swear—”

you feel it again. the sudden twitch of his hips, the quickening pace, and then he slaps your ass once.

you freeze and so does he.

“…did you just slap my ass?” you say, trying not to laugh.

“i-i don’t know,” he stammers behind you. “i didn’t mean to.. i mean- i did, but also i didn’t- fuck, it just happened..”

you giggle and push back against him, grinding your ass into his hips.

“do it again.”

he moans and gives you another gentle, shy little slap.

“’m sorry,” he breathes. “you’re just so hot. your ass jiggles everytime i move, it’s driving me insane- i love you.. i love you so much—”

his arms wrap around your middle, pressing his lips to the back of your neck, kissing softly, over and over. each one messier than the last, wet and open-mouthed and desperate.

“i wanna stay inside you forever,” he mumbles into your dewy skin. “wanna keep fucking you like this, raw, every single day. wanna wake up buried in your pussy- cum in you before breakfast, again before bed—”

your whole body trembles. the heat’s unbearable now, your orgasm building sharp and tight in your belly.

“‘m gonna marry you,” he rambles again, “make you mine- fuck, i love you, love you, love you—”

you clench down and he cries out. hips stuttering.

his cock throbs inside you, deep and messy, and he cums again— hot and thick and endless, spilling into your cunt like he’s trying to fill you up completely. you feel it leak around him instantly, dripping down your thighs, making a mess between you.

your walls flutter and you go with him. body shaking, legs unsteady, your orgasm crashing over you like a wave.

you squirt. hard.

you feel it spray out around him, and he groans so deep it turns into a moan that curls into a whine. he’s still inside. still twitching. and your pussy’s squeezing every last drop from him.

you both go limp, falling forward against the wall, panting, soaked in sweat and cum, but fully in love with each other.

his arms stay looped around you. his lips trail down your spine, kissing every inch of skin he can reach, mouth whispering shaky little “i love you’s” in between labored breaths.

you’re still dripping. still stuffed full of him.

you feel him kiss your shoulder again, going up to your neck. his hands are still cupping your tits like they belong to him.

“you’re my favorite person,” he mumbles, voice dreamy and thick. “you’re so good to me. you’re everything.”

you laugh breathlessly. your legs are barely holding you up.

“you’re insane,”

“and you let me fuck you raw,” he says, smiling against you. “so who’s really the insane one?”

you snort and roll your eyes, tugging your skirt down. your thighs are all sticky and your knees are a little wobbly.

he pulls his sweats back up, still swaying on his feet. glasses fogged, damp strands of hair sticking to his forehead, lips red and puffy from kissing every part of you.

you’re about to open the closet door when he tugs you back in and kisses you— deep and passionate. nothing controlled. just all lips and tongue and the faint taste of sweat.

“was it… was it good?” he asks shyly, eyes wide and searching.

you grin, still panting. “ji, you have the best dick i’ve ever had.”

he whines, hiding in your neck like he can’t handle hearing such high level of praise coming from you.

“you’re so fucking lucky to have me,” he mumbles into your skin.

you roll your eyes. “you literally came in two thrusts.”

“okay, but it was two raw thrusts. that’s different!” he attempts to defend himself.

he has a point. kind of.

you both sneak back into the party a few minutes later. jisung’s face is flushed, hair a mess, his walk wobblier than usual. your thighs are still slick and your lipgloss is ruined.

if anyone notices they don’t say anything.

but jisung doesn’t let go of your hand for the rest of the night.

[st4rofeden]

Phainon flirts like he's been hired by the stars to make you swoon before dinner. he'll stop mid battle just to say something like, “If I die today, let it be known it was after seeing the angle of your smile. Tragic, but worth it.” He says things like “My heart trembles like a violin every time you breathe,” and he's not kidding. every sentence is dripping in sugar and sin, but beneath the playful glimmer in his eyes is a heat that makes your throat catch. he'll twirl a flower into your hair without warning, then press his forehead to yours and whisper, “I’d let kingdoms fall if you told me it made you smile.”  half the time you're laughing, half the time you're too stunned to reply, complimenting him with a smile— he'd gasp when you flash a subtle smile to him, like he had been shot and approved by Mnestia, now he's the one swooning over you. and if he ever thinks he's losing your attention? he'll kneel infront of you while holding your hand like its a sacred duty and say, “If I must compete with the world for you... then let the world prepare for war.”

So yes. Phainon flirts like he’s writing poetry during an eclipse.

And somehow—it works.

Anaxagoras flirts like a man who read six romance novels and decided to try a thesis on them. he hands you a graph titled “Increase in Heart Rate When You’re Nearby” and genuinely believes this is romantic (…it kind of is). you'll be sitting together quietly, and he'll murmur:

“There is a gravity to you. Like celestial orbit. I find myself returning, again and again, no matter how far I calculate escape vectors.” you laugh. he looks mildly concerned. "That was a metaphor. Did it… fail to translate?" he'd be memorizing the exact angle you tilt your head when curious , bringing you three types of tea just to test which one best stabilizes your mood patterns, staring at you like you're a philosophical riddle he never wants to solve. and sometimes… just sometimes… he stammers. when you look too pretty. when you call his name. when you kiss the corner of his mouth.

“I—ah. Yes. That… was also... emotionally significant.”

you're pretty sure the next paper he submits to the Grove will be titled about “Love As Quantum Entanglement.”

Mydeimos doesn’t mean to flirt half the time— but he's stupidly good at it. he'll hand you a drink and say, “Eat something. You skipped lunch. Again.” like it’s a threat and a love confession. is there the word 'flirting' in the kremnoan language? soon. for now he just… protects. offers you the bigger portion of food. ghosting his hand on your lower back in crowds, giving death stares for as long as possible to anyone who dares interrupt you looking at the cafe menu, even when you've been staring for almost 10 minutes, the waiting line is already long yet he stares sharp, but when you turn your attention to him, he's already looking at you like a lion cub. he ruffles your hair when you take the petal off his face. but every action towards you is deliberate, lowkey, intimate.

like he's memorized your habits in no time. his voice is always low, steady. It's not about what he says— it's how his smile curls sideways, his hand faint but lightly lingering on yours. if you tease him, he'll raise an eyebrow, while muttering something like “don’t start,” but the tips of his ears go pink. it’s devastating. soft and low, one sentence while you're half-asleep against him, “I’d tear the world apart if it meant you’d sleep safe.” that's Mydeimos flirting. by being your shield—and daring you to fall for him without ever asking.

[georgebbwbush]

that "homestuck demystified" post is really funny because like on some level it is correct (homestuck isn't actually that long - source: someone who still hasn't finished Umineko) but you really can't go around telling people it's good lmao. like it is good but you have to immediately add the caveat that it is also very bad kjskdhsndb

[hanniebaeee]

Clueless: Wrong Chat?

Hyunjin x fem!reader

Warnings: None!

Genre: Best friends to lovers, flufffff, texts

Summary: Hyunjin, your best friend, drops you off for a coffee date with your colleague Mingyu. It's not a date at all, but Hyunjin thinks it is. And he rants in the wrong group chat - completely jealous and unhinged.

a/n: Wanted to make a Clueless series! Thoughts?

Clueless Masterlist

Hyunjin sighs dramatically as he flops onto the couch in his apartment. He's been pouting ever since he'd dropped you at the cafe where you're meeting Mingyu, your colleague for coffee.

Hyunjin: I’m actually losing my goddamn mind.

Hyunjin: She’s out with him. With. Him.

Felix: Hyunjin, it's just coffee.

Hyunjin: OF COURSE IT'S NOT JUST COFFEE, FELIX.

Chan: Oh no🙄

Minho: Here we go. Someone hold his leash.

Hyunjin: This is NOT good. Mingyu is - he’s like…

Jeongin: Are you okay bro?

Hyunjin: I AM NOT OKAY.

How is he supposed to be ok when you, the love of his life is out with some guy for "coffee"? Jisung had taken a girl out for coffee a few weeks ago, and now she's his girlfriend.

Hyunjin sighs. He couldn't think of you being anybody else's. You're his girl. And he's gonna win you over.

Meanwhile, you are sitting across from Mingyu, discreetly checking your phone as it buzzes repeatedly with notifications. You freeze when you see the texts. 

Oh, so this is why Hyunjin was in a bad mood the whole morning, you think. He barely said a word to you as he drove you to the cafe. 

Changbin: Dude, calm down. It’s just coffee.

Hyunjin: COFFEE LEADS TO DINNER, DINNER LEADS TO NETFLIX, AND NETFLIX LEADS TO YOU KNOW WHAT. ASK JISUNG.

Jisung: HYUNJIN.

Felix: 😳

Minho: Jisung you sly dog.

Chan: Hyunjin, touch some grass.

Hyunjin: I CAN’T, CHRISTOPHER. SHE IS MY GRASS.

Minho: Let it all out. Keep going.

Chan: Hyunjin. Deep breaths. IN through your nose, OUT through your mouth. 

Hyunjin: I SWEAR TO GOD IF HE LAYS A FINGER ON HER

Changbin: I don't think he's laying anything on her. 

Felix: Okay, Hyun, you need a time-out.

Hyunjin: No, what I NEED is for Mingyu to trip over his stupid perfect legs and fall face-first into a compost bin.

Mingyu smiles at you across the table, gesturing towards his laptop as he speaks. You are trying so hard to focus on the ideas he's laying down in front of you - the startup ideas that you two have been talking about forever. You smile back, nodding, while trying not to choke on your laughter.

Jisung: Stupid perfect legs? Hyunjin, why do you even know what Mingyu’s legs look like?

Hyunjin: Because I have eyes, Ji. I pay attention to the threat level.

Hyunjin: He's like 6 feet tall.

Jeongin: Threat level: Sexy. 

Hyunjin: THANK YOU, JEONGIN. No one asked you.

Chan: You're tall enough

Hyunjin: Not enough apparently

Felix: Hyunjin, calm down.

Hyunjin: No, because LISTEN. Who does he even think he is. Asking my girl out. How dare he. 

Hyunjin: SHE’S OUT THERE WITH HIM WHILE I’M JUST

Changbin: Lonely and deranged?

Hyunjin: EXACTLY.

Seungmin: Someone hose him down 

You are trying to concentrate on the graph Mingyu is pointing to now, but seriously, who are you even kidding. Your cheeks are warming up with the second-hand embarrassment from what's brewing on the group chat.

Hyunjin: And do you know what really sucks? She’s probably looking AMAZING right now. Like, how does she do that? How does she leave the house and make everyone fall in love with her?!

Hyunjin: And doesn't even realize that I love her? She obviously doesn't! Like I'm right here.

Jisung: Why don't you just corner her in the supply closet?? Omg I never thought I'd get a chance to give that back to you 🔪

Hyunjin: Bro. She's my best friend. It isn't the same.

Jisung: Excuses excuses

Felix: Oh SHIT. 

Felix: 🚨 STOP 🚨

Jeongin: Wait, what chat is this 👀

Hyunjin: What do you mean what chat?

---

Hyunjin goes quiet for a second.

---

Hyunjin: Wait.

Hyunjin: WHAT CHAT IS THIS???

Chan: You absolute clown.

Felix: I tried. 

Minho: LMAO

You: Hyunjin.

Hyunjin: Y/N. Baby. Light of my life.

Y/N: Here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re picking me up in 20 minutes. And we're gonna talk.

Hyunjin: Ok. Yes. Ok.

---

Hyunjin was still typing and you were about done with this. 

---

Y/N: Baby. Stop typing. 

Hyunjin: Shutting up now.

Changbin: She really did put a leash on him.

Felix: This is why I love her 😁

Y/N: And Hyunjin?

Hyunjin: Yes, angel?

Y/N: I love you too. 

Hyunjin: 😳😳😳😳

Hyunjin’s heart literally stops when he reads your text. You love him back. You love him back!!! He feels faint, his hands are shaky and he just needs to see you. Right now. 

Hyunjin: Picking you up now.

Y/N: Ok baby.

---

And finally, it was all calm again.

---

Chan: Well, at least we get a little peace and quiet now.

---

As you step outside, you spotted Hyunjin’s car pulling up, his face twisted in a mix of nervousness  and relief. His gaze immediately locks onto Mingyu, who waves goodbye. Hyunjin behaves just so that he can show you that he can be a good boy when he needs to.

You grin as you get into the car, and pull on the seat belt. When you look up at him, he's watching you eagerly, well he does look a little scared - like a child waiting to be scolded for doing something wrong.

“You ok, Jinnie?” You ask.

“Perfect. I'm perfect.”

You raise an eyebrow, fully aware of the effect you have on him.

“Is that so?” you purr, and Hyunjin gulps, as he nods.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, looking away. 

“You know,” you said with a sly smile, “if you had said something sooner, we wouldn’t have had to go through all this.”

Hyunjin’s face turns a sweet pink, and he can't help but smile a little.

“Can you say it again?” He asks. 

“Say what?”

“That you love me?”

You feel your own cheeks heating up as you your eyes meet. 

“I love you, Hyunjinnie. I have for as long as I can remember.” You whisper, and Hyunjin's head falls onto the steering wheel as he does his best not to scream out in joy. 

You giggle at his reaction and he looks at you again.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks shyly. 

“Yes please,” You say and that's that.

---

Hyunjin: Guess what, losers?

Hyunjin: WE KISSED.

Chan: Wow. Congratulations?

Minho: Was it a pity kiss? Be honest.

Changbin: I'm sure she did it to shut you up.

Hyunjin: It was magical.

Hyunjin: She looked at me, leaned in, and BAM. Fireworks.

Hyunjin: It’s what poets write about.

Jeongin: Or she just felt bad for you.

Hyunjin: NO.

Felix: Seriously, if you keep this up, she’s gonna see this and run the other way.

Hyunjin: She won't!

Y/N: Hyunjin.

Y/N: GET OFF YOUR PHONE.

Hyunjin: Ok bye.

Chan: Jokes aside, we're happy for you both.

Jisung: Of course we are

Minho: Y/N, sweetheart, get your man a collar

Y/N: Noted.

Divider by @saradika-graphics

Tags: @moonchild9350 @velvetmoonlght @eastjonowhere @pixie-felix @sailor--sun

[kxsagi]

Salutationsss, hiii, I'm the same anon that sent a request, something abt a nerd readerr, I'm sorry for requesting when you weren't taking at the time! I didn't see 😔. But could I req that same trope again?? Thank so much you for your time!

“𝐞𝐫𝐦 𝐚𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 🤓☝️”

a/n: hiii you’re all good, but unfortunately i don’t have that request anymore so i’m not sure what specifically you requested

bc of that, i turned this into headcanons and i hope you don’t mind! 

ft. isagi yoichi, itoshi rin, itoshi sae, kaiser michael, mikage reo, nagi seishiro, shidou ryusei, karasu tabito, bachira meguru

isagi yoichi

yoichi thought he was smart until he started dating you. like sure, he knows tactics, he’s got game IQ, but you? you’re out here solving riddles on a whiteboard like it’s nothing. 

he once asked if you wanted to watch a documentary with him and you said “only if it’s narrated by joe dispenza or has a plot twist at the 30-minute mark.” 

he genuinely thinks you have a superpower. how else do you know this much random stuff? 

"you know how many stars are in the milky way galaxy?" you ask. "no," he says. "good. neither do scientists. but i will ruin your sleep schedule by explaining dark matter." 

yoichi gets this glazed-over look when you go off, like he’s watching god speak through you. 

“bro, how do you know all this?” he whispers in awe as you explain entropy using a sandwich. 

he’s not even mad when you correct his grammar in front of people. in fact, he gets a little flustered. "did you just… teach me something in public? … hot. whatwhosaidthat." 

itoshi rin

rin fell for you after overhearing you quote dostoevsky and then immediately say “but also, the scooby-doo gang was gay-coded.” 

he will die before admitting how hot he finds your brain. like, he’ll glare at you when you start infodumping about the history of the guillotine, but that glare is just him trying not to fall for you. 

you send him 20-slide powerpoints at 3 AM about why light yagami was right, and he reads every single one. he’s unwell. 

once he saw you organizing your bookshelf by theme, subgenre, and emotional damage, and he just… stood there. watching. blinking. 

“you okay?” you ask. “… can i kiss you right now or is that, like, a breach of the fibonacci sequence or whatever.” 

he has an entire notes app folder full of weird phrases you say. once you said “i want to kiss you under the fluorescent lights of an abandoned lab” and he had to take a walk. 

god help anyone who tries to outsmart you because rin doesn’t even jump in to help. he just steps aside like, “yeah, go ahead. she’s got it.” 

itoshi sae

sae met you once and immediately started saying “shut up, nerd” in the most loving tone imaginable. 

like yeah he acts unbothered, but if you stop talking about your interests for five seconds he’s like “… why’d you stop?” 

you once brought a clipboard and a graph to explain how his sleep schedule is ruining his skin elasticity. he hasn’t eaten sugar since. 

he’s obsessed with how you argue. like, someone will say, “i didn’t really like that movie” and you’ll go, “well actually, the entire point of the cinematography was to mimic isolation, so your brain’s just too small for the themes.” 

and sae’s in the corner nodding proudly like “yeah. eat ‘em alive, baby.” 

he won’t ever admit it out loud, but if you ever stopped being smart? he would simply perish. 

also: he absolutely starts fights on twitter just to screenshot them and send them to you like “babe, look what this idiot said. go ruin him.” 

kaiser michael

oh he lives for this. the way you ramble about history and sprinkle in “violence”? he is down BAD. 

kaiser will interrupt you mid-rant just to be annoying. like you’re explaining molecular structures and he goes “explain it to me like i’m five… and make it sexy.” “the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.” “well then i am the powerhouse of this relationship.” “please stop talking.” 

if you cosplay? he is fully in character. fake accent. dramatic monologue. he once spent $200 on a fake sword just to match your anime aesthetic. 

calls you “my little google doc” or “professor schatz” in public and refuses to stop. 

he 100% cheats off your notes if you take a class together. 

also once used your obsession with linguistics as an excuse to kiss you mid-sentence: “wait wait, how do you pronounce lo–” smooch “oops. distracted you. guess i win.” 

you're the only person on earth that can out-argue him. and he loves it. even when you humiliate him in a debate club meeting in front of six people. especially then. 

mikage reo

rich. nerd. simp. this man once bought you a whiteboard wall so you could explain conspiracy theories and niche film symbolism uninterrupted. 

he funds your hobbies like it’s a government project. need 72 highlighters in pastel? boom. got ‘em. a limited edition sailor moon notebook with gold foil? already shipped. “i just need this for journaling, reo.” “you mean world domination. say less.” 

he loves pretending he doesn’t understand what you’re talking about just to hear you explain it like a teacher. 

he’ll sit there all wide-eyed like, “woah, tell me more about black holes.” 

you once built a 3D model of the solar system for fun. he walked in, saw saturn, and said, “hey babe. just like saturn, i’ll adorn you with the most beautiful rings in the universe.” 

he once got jealous because you were paying more attention to your manga than him. “you’ve been reading for three hours.” “i’m at the part where they confess their undying love, you can’t interrupt now–” “… i’ll confess my undying love right now if it gets me eye contact.” 

nagi seishiro

nagi doesn’t understand a single thing you’re talking about, but he loves the way you talk. 

you could be explaining the lifecycle of a parasite and he’d just go “cool... say that again but slower. it sounded pretty.” 

he gets very attached to your reading time. you’ll be curled up with a book and he’ll just drape himself over you like a weighted blanket and nap while you whisper lore. 

you tried to teach him a game strategy once using chess pieces and he got bored halfway through and started kissing your neck. “sei, focus.” “i am focused. on the smartest person i know.” 

he secretly loves it when you make schedules, take notes, organize everything – he feels calmer with your brain leading the way. 

you once said, “i’d choose you even in a logic simulation.” and he got so flustered he forgot how to hold his phone for five minutes. 

shidou ryusei

you are the one person on earth who intimidates him. not because you’re loud, but because you’re smart and savage. 

he’ll say something like “gravity’s a myth” and you’ll deadpan, “so is your personality.” 

he flirts with you just to hear what kind of insults you’ll hurl back. 

you’ll be like “actually, that’s a misinterpretation of the theory of relativity” and he’ll be like “wow. you wanna kiss me or correct me harder, nerdzilla?” 

he once called your bookshelf a “nerd shrine” and you kicked him out. he came back with snacks and a post-it that said “i’ll behave if you teach me about the holy trinity”. 

he thinks it’s hilarious when you use big words. starts repeating them wrong on purpose. “you’re being extremely cacophonous right now.” “aw, thanks. i try.” 

he says he doesn’t care about your trivia. but the next week, he quotes you during a fight with a ref. “well actually, statistically speaking, you’re 73% more likely to suck.” 

karasu tabito

karasu walked in on you doing sudoku while eating spicy ramen and watching a documentary and went, “yep. that’s my girl.” 

he teases you constantly but don’t let that fool you – he brags about you to everyone. “yeah, she solved a murder mystery in two minutes. sexy, right?” 

he once found your annotated copy of crime and punishment and was like “damn, she’s not just a menace, she’s an educated menace.” 

he makes fun of your color-coded calendar, but then uses it religiously. 

calls your bookbag your “bat-nerd utility belt.” 

you once said “i organize chaos with knowledge” and he choked on his water because how are you both terrifying and hot at the same time. 

he 100% made you a trivia quiz as a date activity and cried when you got a perfect score. 

“i can’t even spell aesthetic,” he sniffled. “but you… you're a weapon of intellect.” 

bachira meguru

bachira thinks your brain is the eighth wonder of the world. he stares at you when you talk like you’re casting a spell. 

he mimics you when you start nerding out. “so actually, the evolution of language–” 

“babe, are you possessed again? blink twice if you’re still in there.” 

he brings you weird niche books from secondhand stores and is like “i got this because it looks cursed. i knew you’d love it.” 

he once watched you do a sudoku puzzle and got jealous of the numbers. “why are you smiling at that box like that.” 

loves playing study music and drawing you while you read. your “reading face” is his favorite thing ever. 

he doesn’t get half the things you say but if someone else calls you a nerd? he’s biting ankles. no hesitation. 

© 𝐤𝐱𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐢

[leo-in-the-pitt]

On Your Own

Part 2 out now! Lace and Lies

Pairing Jack Abbot x Female Reader

Summary: You’re a second year resident in the Pitt who’s been working on a research project since you started intern year. The San Diego Emergency Medicine Conference is right around the corner. But when Robby has to cancel on the trip, you’re forced to go at it alone. But are you actually there alone?

Warnings: beginning is all fluff but the end is something else, Jack Abbot is a flirt, strong language, sexual tension, unprotected p in v sex, fingering, handjob/blowjob, all the dirty stuff tbh 

Word Count: 5.9k

Tuesday

The fluorescent lights at the back nurse’s station flicker just enough to make you squint. You’re slumped in your chair sipping your lukewarm coffee. Your tablet’s screen glows with the final draft of your presentation slides—months of work on resident burnout in the ER, distilled into bullet points and graphs. The numbers are grim: 60% of ER residents report severe burnout by their second year, 40% consider leaving medicine entirely. 

You’ve lived those stats, felt the weight of 24-hour shifts and patients you couldn’t save. This research is your lifeline, a chance to make a difference, and the Emergency Medicine Research Conference in San Diego is where you’ll present it.

Robby leans against the counter, his arms crossed, his face etched with exhaustion. “Bad news, kid,” Robby says, his voice low, like he’s breaking it to you gently. “Hospital execs are coming end of the week. Budget reviews, staff evals, the whole circus. I can’t leave.”

Your stomach drops. “What? Robby, we’ve been planning this for months. We’re supposed to fly out Thursday.”

He sighs, rubbing his temple. “I know. I’d rather be in California than kissing up to suits who think ‘trauma’ is a line item on a spreadsheet. But if I’m not here to defend the department…” He trails off, letting the implication hang. 

You’ve seen the understaffing, the broken equipment, the nurses pulling double duty. If Robby doesn’t stay, the ER could take a hit.

“So the conference?” you ask, though you already know the answer. Your palms are sweaty, and you wipe them on your scrubs.

Robby meets your eyes, steady but apologetic. “You gotta go alone, kid. I got the tickets last second—snagged you a window seat, but no way I’m stuck in the middle, so I was gonna take the aisle two rows up. Now it’s just you.”

The words land like a gurney hitting a wall. You’re 29, a second-year resident, competent enough in the ER’s chaos, but you’ve never traveled solo. Not once. Family vacations as a kid, college road trips with friends, even your move to Pittsburgh—you always had someone. The idea of navigating airports, hotels, and a high-stakes conference 2,500 miles away without anyone’s guidance makes your chest tighten. A window seat sounds nice, but it doesn’t dull the panic of flying alone.

But the research—your research—is too important. You spent your intern year interviewing residents, crunching data, and fighting for every scrap of insight into why ER doctors burn out. Second year tightening it all up. This conference is your shot to get it in front of experts, the best of the best ER physicians, to maybe change how hospitals treat their residents.

“I’ve never done this alone,” you admit, voice quieter than you mean it to be. “What if I screw it up? The presentation, the Q&A—”

“You won’t.” Robby cuts you off, his tone firm. “You know this data inside out. You’ve lived it. You’re ready for this, whether you feel it or not.” He softens, offering a half-smile. “Besides, you’re not totally alone. You’ll have colleagues there. Network, make connections.”

You nod, trying to believe him, but the anxiety churns. You glance at your tablet, the slide deck mocking you with its polished charts. 

Robby claps a hand on your shoulder, a rare gesture from him. “Get some rest before you fly out. And don’t let the airport coffee scam you—it’s worse than ours.”

As he heads back to work, you’re left with the hum of the break room fridge and a sinking feeling. 

Three days to San Diego. Alone.

————————————————————

Wednesday 

The next morning, you’re in the ER locker room, shoving your stethoscope into your bag, when Abbot appears in the doorway. 

His silver hair is mussed, his scrubs slightly untucked, like he just woke up in the on-call room. You’ve seen him on night shifts, moving with a quiet intensity that makes him a legend among residents. His past as a war veteran, his steady hands in a crisis—there’s something about him that always catches your attention.

“Heard you’re heading to California solo,” he says, voice low and gravelly. “You nervous?”

“Pretty sure I’m going to crash and burn.”

“And here I was thinking you were gonna win the whole thing.” He shrugs.

You pause, zipping your bag, a flicker of doubt surfacing. “You can’t possibly even think that. You haven’t even read my research.”

Jack’s eyes meet yours, steady and sure. “I know you. That’s enough to know you’ll be okay on your own. You’re gonna kick ass there. Bet you’ll look good doing it too.”

Your cheeks heat, and you roll your eyes to cover it. “Flattery won’t help me survive San Diego alone”

His smirk widens. “Maybe not, but it’s true.” He pushes off the doorframe, giving you a nod. “Knock ‘em dead kid.” He’s gone before you can respond, leaving your heart racing, his words a quiet spark in your chest.

His words linger, simple but heavy, like a promise. Maybe you can do this after all.

————————————————————

Thursday 

The hotel room in San Diego smells faintly of lemon cleaner and ocean air, a stark contrast to the ER. You drop your backpack on the stiff queen bed, the generic beige walls and stiff carpet doing little to ease the knot in your stomach. The flight was a blur—crowded airports, a window seat next to a snoring businessman. Now, alone in this room with a view of a parking lot, the reality of tomorrow’s conference presentation hits hard. Your research on resident burnout—your life’s work for the past year—feels like a fragile thing, and you’re not sure you can carry it alone.

You pull out your phone and text Langdon, your best friend and senior resident. If anyone can talk you off the ledge, it’s him.

You: Landed in San Diego. In my hotel room. Freaking out. This was a big mistake.

Your phone buzzes almost instantly.

Lang: Yo, you made it! Solo travel champ! Stop spiraling, you’re gonna crush this.

You: Easy for you to say. I’m presenting to a room full of attendings tomorrow. Alone. What if I choke?

Lang: You won’t. You know this burnout stuff cold—lived it, breathed it. Those big shots are gonna eat it up. Take a breath, champ.

You flop onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. The conference doesn’t start until tomorrow morning, leaving you a free day to…what? Wander San Diego alone? The thought makes your chest tighten again.

You: I’ve got a whole day here before it starts. No clue what to do. Never been to California.

Lang: Dude, it’s San Diego. Sun, beaches, tacos. Go explore! Get outta that hotel room. You’re not chained to your slides.

You: Explore? By myself? I barely survived the airport.

Lang: You’re a badass ER resident. You’ve handled codes, psych patients, and that time I spilled coffee on your charts. You got this. Hit the beach live a little. Doctor’s orders.

You smile despite yourself, picturing Lang’s mock-serious face. He’s right—you need to calm down. But the thought of navigating a new city alone, with the weight of tomorrow’s presentations looming, feels like too much.

You: Fine. I’ll try. But if I get lost, I’m blaming you.

Lang: Deal. Send pics of the ocean. And don’t stress—tomorrow, you’re gonna make us proud.

You set the phone down, Lang’s words echoing faintly. The presentation slides are on your laptop, ready for one last review, but the idea of a free day in San Diego tugs at you. Maybe you could step outside, feel the sun, shake off the nerves. Or maybe you’ll just stay here, triple-checking your data until your eyes blur. Either way, tomorrow’s coming, and you’re on your own.

—————————————————————

Friday - Conference Day 

You barely slept. The San Diego hotel room, with its too-stiff pillows and faint hum of the air conditioner, offered no mercy. Yesterday, you wandered downtown alone, the sun too bright and the streets too unfamiliar. You grabbed a burger and a margarita at a crowded taqueria, hoping the drink would dull your nerves, but it just left you buzzed and restless. 

Back in your room, you sprawled on the bed, scrolling through TikTok—endless loops of dance challenges and ER skits that hit too close to home—trying to relax. It didn’t work. 

Your mind kept replaying your presentation slides, the stats on resident burnout, the stakes of today’s conference. By 3 a.m., you were still awake, staring at the ceiling, heart racing like you were running a code.

Now, it’s 5:30 a.m., and you’re rushing to get ready in the hotel bathroom, the mirror fogged from a quick shower. You pull on a tailored navy blouse and black slacks, professional but practical, your hair yanked back into a messy bun, still damp. A swipe of mascara and lip gloss is all you manage, your hands shaky from nerves and lack of sleep, your reflection showing the frazzled edge of a resident facing a make-or-break day. You check your phone one last time—Lang’s texts still glowing with encouragement—and grab your backpack, the weight of your laptop and handouts grounding you as you head out.

Now, it’s 6:30 a.m., and you’re at the San Diego Convention Center, one of the first presenters let in. The hall smells of fresh carpet and coffee, its high ceilings amplifying every sound—clattering carts, murmured setup instructions, the squeak of your shoes. Your table is a small island in a sea of posters and displays, your laptop open, your printed handouts neatly stacked. A foam board behind you screams your research title: Burnout in Emergency Medicine Residents: Prevalence and Pathways to Resilience. The numbers—60% burnout rate, 40% considering quitting—are bolded, impossible to miss. You adjust the board for the third time, hands shaky from lack of sleep and too much hotel coffee.

You’re here to pitch your work to anyone who stops by, from curious residents to stone-faced attendings. Somewhere among them are the judges, anonymous faces deciding the top three projects for research grants. Those grants could fund your next study, maybe even change how hospitals support their residents. The pressure feels like a vice around your chest. 

You’ve never done this alone, and without Robby’s steady presence, every glance from a passerby feels like a judgment.

A young doctor in a UCSD badge pauses at your table, skimming your handout. “Interesting topic,” she says, her tone neutral. “What’s your intervention model?”

You swallow, launching into your pitch. “We surveyed 200 residents across five ERs, found 60% report severe burnout by year two. Our proposed intervention focuses on structured debriefs and flexible scheduling to reduce emotional exhaustion.” You point to a graph, your voice steadier than you feel. She nods, asks about sample size, then moves on. 

You exhale, but there’s no time to relax—another researcher stops, then a group of residents, each with questions you scramble to answer. Are the judges watching? Is that gray-haired attending with the clipboard one of them? You can’t tell.

Between visitors, you check your phone. A new text from Lang.

Lang: You at the conference yet? Bet you’re killing it.

You: Barely slept. At my table, talking to randos. No clue who the judges are. Freaking out.

Lang: Chill, kid. You know this stuff cold. Just be you—smart, badass, saving the ER one slide at a time. You got this.

You smile faintly, but the nerves don’t budge. Another attendee approaches, this one with a conference organizer badge, and your heart skips. “Nice setup,” he says, eyeing your board. 

“Burnout’s a hot topic. Got any preliminary findings on interventions?”

You dive in, explaining your data, but your eyes keep scanning the crowd. Every face could be a judge, every question a test. You’re alone in this, carrying the weight of your research and the hope of a grant that could make a difference. Jack Abbot’s words from Pittsburgh echo faintly—“I know you. That’s enough.”—but right now, it’s just you, your table, and a room full of strangers.

————————————————————

It’s 12:30 p.m., and your stomach growls loud enough to rival the convention center’s hum. You haven’t eaten all morning, too wired to think about food. Your iced coffee sits melted at the back of your table, a sad puddle in a plastic cup, next to a barely touched water bottle. You haven’t sat down, haven’t stepped away to check out the other projects—just kept talking, pitching your burnout research to every passerby. 

The latest group, a mix of residents and an attending, just left, their questions about your intervention model still ringing in your ears. You’re wiping sweat from your brow when a slow, deliberate clap starts behind them.

You turn, and your jaw drops. It’s Jack, standing there in sharp black dress pants and a crisp white button-up shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, his silver hair catching the convention center’s light, a roguish grin on his face as he keeps clapping. 

You’ve only seen him out of scrubs once before, at last year’s residency year-end party, nearly a full year ago—the next one’s set for two weeks after you’re back in Pittsburgh, to celebrate the end of the residency year and the start of the next for all the ER interns and residents. 

The polished look, not quite a suit but close, makes your pulse skip, his presence as commanding as ever. “Really solid work,” he says, voice low and warm. “Knew I was right—you’ve got a good shot at winning this thing.”

You blink, mouth still open. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugs, stepping closer. “Well when Robby found out he couldn’t make it, he asked me. Couldn’t pass up a couple days off. And I guess seeing what all this research is about anyway.”

“Oh, so you’re not here for me, you’re here for a free vacation?” you shoot back, half-teasing, half-stunned.

Jack’s grin widens. “Two things can be true.” His eyes flick to your melted iced coffee and untouched water, then back to you. “Think I’d be right in assuming you haven’t eaten today?”

You smile, sheepish. “Uh well no but, I’m fine. I swear.”

“Let’s go,” he says, tone firm but kind. “You need a break. Pretty sure walking away for a bit won’t get you disqualified.”

Your brow furrows, a flicker of worry. “I didn’t think being disqualified was even a thing here.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Your research is about resident burnout sweetheart, yet you’re standing here burning yourself out. Let’s go.”

You hesitate, but his steady gaze wins. The “sweetheart

You grab your phone and follow him downstairs to a convention center café, where you snag a turkey sandwich and a soda. 

Over the small table, you spill everything—the terrifying plane ride, the restless night scrolling TikTok, the dozen times you’ve pitched your research today.  He listens, really listens, his eyes locked on you, no trace of the usual ER chaos between you. It’s different from work, where he’s all business and quick quips. Here, he’s present, his quiet nods and occasional smirk making you feel seen in a way that steadies your nerves.

After eating, you both wander the conference floor, checking out other projects—trauma protocols, AI diagnostics, rural ER studies. Jack points out a flashy poster, muttering, “All style, no substance,” and you laugh, tension easing. Back at your table, he grabs a chair behind you, hyping you up between pitches with a quiet “Nailed it” or a teasing “You forgot to mention you’re a rockstar.” His presence is a lifeline, keeping you grounded as the afternoon drags on.

By 5 p.m., the presentation session ends, and there’s an hour wait before the awards in the main room. Jack tries to nudge you toward the front, but you insist on the back, sinking into a chair. “No way I’m sitting up there,” you mutter, nerves spiking again. He relents, sitting beside you as the ceremony starts, specific awards handed out first. Then, the big ones: the top three grants. Third place goes to a researcher from New York. Then—

“Second place: Burnout in Emergency Medicine Residents, Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center.”

You freeze. Jack glances over, grinning. “Hey, think that’s your name they just called. Told you we should’ve sat up front.” He nudges your arm.

You stumble to the stage, heart pounding, grateful there’s no speech required—you’d probably puke on the front row. After quick photos with the other winners, you weave through the crowd back to him, slow-clapping again, eyes twinkling. “Knew you could do it.”

“Abbot, I’m actually puke,” you say, half-laughing, half-serious.

He chuckles. “At least the worst part’s over. Come on, you’ve barely eaten all day. Now that it’s done, you deserve a nice dinner. Maybe a drink or two. My treat?”

“Yes, please,” you say, relief flooding you. He grabs your sweater from the chair, slinging it over his shoulder, and leads you outside, the San Diego evening air warm and promising.

——————————————————————— 

He taps his phone, calling an Uber as you step into the San Diego evening, the air warm and tinged with salt from the nearby ocean. The convention center’s lights fade behind you, and the buzz of your second-place win still hums in your chest, mixing with exhaustion and something lighter—relief, maybe, or the thrill of his unexpected presence.

“Where are we even going?” you ask, glancing at him as you walk toward the pickup spot.

He smirks, slipping his phone into his pocket. “You don’t like surprises, do you?”

“I don’t think I hate anything more than surprises,” you say, half-serious, your nerves still raw from the day.

“Guess you’ll just have to deal with it tonight,” he says, his voice teasing but warm, his eyes catching yours in the streetlight’s glow.

The Uber pulls up, and you slide into the backseat with him, the driver weaving through downtown to a restaurant that’s equal parts fancy and casual—exposed brick walls, soft lighting, and a bar lined with craft bottles. You settle at a corner table, ordering a glass of wine and a plate of seared salmon, while Jack goes for a whiskey and steak tacos. The food is incredible, the wine smooth and heady, but it’s the conversation that hits harder. 

Away from the ER’s chaos, Jack’s different—not just the war-veteran-turned-legend with steady hands and sharp quips. He talks about his early days in medicine, the desert sunsets from his military tours, the music he listens to when the night shift gets too heavy. You share more than you planned—your fear of failing at the conference, the way Pittsburgh’s gray winters weigh on you, even a dumb story about a TikTok trend you tried to follow last night. He laughs, really laughs, and you see a softness in him, a side the hospital rarely lets out.

The conversation turns deeper, past casual. You talk about burnout—not just your research, but how it feels, the weight of patients you couldn’t save, the nights you questioned why you chose this life. Jack nods, his eyes steady, sharing his own stories—moments from the battlefield that still wake him up. It’s raw, unguarded, and you feel a pull, a connection that’s new and terrifying and good.

The restaurant empties out, and a server’s voice cuts through: “Closing in ten.” You glance at your phone—midnight. Only one other table remains, their laughter faint across the room.

Jack leans back, smiling. “Didn’t even realize what time it was.”

You laugh, a little dazed. “Me neither.” It’s almost midnight. He grabs your sweater from the chair, holding it out to help you slip it on. His hand grazes your shoulder, sending a shiver down your spine—not from the cold, but from the warmth of his touch, electric in the best way.

Outside, you walk to a street corner to wait for the Uber, the city quiet around you. The silence between you isn’t heavy, just full, like the moment’s holding its breath. You break it first. 

“Thank you, Abbot. I really needed this tonight.”

He steps closer, his voice soft. “We’re not at work. Call me Jack.” His eyes hold yours, steady and sure. “You deserve all of this. Never seen a resident as incredible as you.”

You’re face to face now, inches apart, your heart pounding harder than it did on stage. Thoughts race—he’s your boss, this is a line you shouldn’t cross—but they blur as his hand lifts, brushing a strand of hair from your face, tucking it behind your ear. His fingers linger on your cheek, warm and gentle, and your breath catches. His gaze drops to your lips, and your pulse spikes, louder than the day’s nerves.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks, voice low, almost a whisper.

You don’t speak, just nod, your eyes locked on his. His lips meet yours, soft, gentle, a quiet promise in the way they move. Your bodies press closer, the world narrowing to the warmth of him, the steadiness of his hands. It’s brief but endless, until headlights flash beside you, the Uber pulling up.

—————————————————————

The Uber drops you off at the hotel, the neon sign casting a soft glow over the entrance. Jack’s hand rests lightly on your lower back as you walk through the front door, his touch steady and warm, grounding you in the buzzing aftermath of the kiss. 

The lobby is quiet, just a bored clerk scrolling on his phone and the hum of an ice machine. You head toward the elevator, and just before the doors slide open, Jack’s hand slips from behind to find yours, his fingers intertwining with a gentle squeeze that sends a spark up your arm.

Inside the elevator, you glance at him, his profile sharp under the fluorescent light. “What floor you on?” you ask, voice quieter than you mean it to be.

“Four,” he says, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. “You?”

“Same,” you reply, a small smile tugging at your lips. The elevator dings, and you step out, still hand in hand, the hallway carpet muffling your steps. You realize his room is right next to yours—417 to your 418. He stops at his door, but as you start to walk toward yours, he tugs you back, your body pressing against his again, close enough to feel the heat of him.

“Wanna come in?” he asks, his voice low, eyes searching yours with a mix of mischief and something deeper.

You bite your lip, nerves and want swirling in your chest. “Sure,” you say, the word slipping out before you can overthink it.

He unlocks the door, and you step inside, the room a mirror of yours—beige walls, stiff bed, a single chair by the window. His lone book bag sits on the floor, unzipped but barely touched. You laugh, nodding at it. “Wow, you travel light, don’t you?”

Jack grins, locking the door behind you with a soft click. “Here for less than 24 hours, flight back’s at 8 a.m. No point unpacking my three outfits.”

“That’s cute,” you tease, laughing as you meet his eyes.

He steps closer, his hands finding your waist, pulling you in. “Don’t know if I’ll be needing clothes to sleep in tonight though,” he murmurs, his voice a low rumble that sends heat pooling in your core.

You lick your lips, boldness rising. “Oh, so you sleep naked, huh?”

He laughs, a rough, warm sound. “Don’t actually plan on sleeping tonight.” His eyes darken, holding yours with an intensity that makes your breath hitch.

“Oh yeah, what exactly you got planned then, Jack?” you challenge, your voice teasing but edged with want. His eyes darken, holding your with an intensity that makes your breath hitch, your hands resting on his chest, feeling the steady thud of his heart.

“Why don’t I just show you,” he says, his hands sliding around your back, tugging your sweater off in one smooth motion. You kick off your shoes, sending them skidding across the room, and your fingers fumble with the buttons of his shirt, pausing at his belt. He yanks your top off, quick and sure, then pops the button on your pants. His lips find your neck, hot and deliberate, grazing the sensitive skin as you shiver.

He pulls back, eyes locked on yours. “You sure you wanna do this?” he asks, voice rough but careful, checking in.

“God, yes,” you breathe, cheat heaving, need drowning out any doubt.

He unhooks your bra with one move, his shirt falling open as you shove it off his shoulders. You shimmy out of your pants, and he pushes you back onto the bed, taking his pants off while standing over you before pinning you under his weight. 

His hands trace your thighs, slow and teasing, as his mouth moves to your chest, lips closing over a nipple, sucking hard enough to make you gasp. You feel him, hard and straining through his briefs, pressed against your thigh. “Already so hard for me,” you tease, voice breathy, running a hand over his bulge, feeling him twitch.

His tongue slips into your mouth, hungry and deep, as his hand slides into your panties, finding you slick and ready.

“Fuck, you’re dripping for me,” he growls, his lips trailing to your jaw, then down your neck, each kiss searing your skin. “Tell me what you need, baby. Say it loud.”

“I need you, Jack,” you moan, your head tilting back to give him more access. “God, I need you so bad.”

“Love hearin’ you beg like that,” he says, voice dark, peeling your panties off and tossing them aside. He kisses you again, hungry and deep, his fingers circling your clit, teasing with just enough pressure to make you writhe. “Gonna make you feel so good,” he promises, sliding two fingers inside you, slow and deep, curling perfectly as you cry out, hands fisting in his hair.

“Jack, fuck!” you scream, hips bucking against his hand, the pressure building hot and fast. “Don’t stop, please!” His thumb rubs tight circles on your clit, and you come hard, moans echoing off the walls, body trembling as he works you through it.

“That’s it, darlin’, cum for me,” he murmurs, licking a slow path down your stomach, his fingers still moving inside you, drawing out every shudder. 

“Gonna taste you now, make you scream louder.” His mouth closes over your clit, tongue hot and relentless, lapping and sucking hard as you jerk against him, hands tugging his hair. “Fuck, you taste like heaven,” he growls, pinning your thighs to the bed, his tongue circling faster, driving you wild.

“Jack, oh God!” you scream, voice raw, hips bucking as another orgasm builds fast. “You’re too fuckin’ good!” He sucks harder, fingers sliding back in, curling just right, and you come again, louder, cries filling the room as your body shakes uncontrollably.

He kisses his way back up, lips slick with you, eyes dark with hunger. “You’re fuckin’ unreal,” he rasps, settling over you. You push him onto his back, straddling his hips, and tug his briefs down, his cock springing free, thick and heavy against his stomach. You spit into your hand, stroking him slowly, feeling every vein pulse. Leaning down, you kiss the tip, then suck the head, tongue swirling as he groans, hips twitching.

“Fuck, sweetheart, that mouth,” he growls, voice strained. “Keep suckin’ me, baby, just like that.” You moan around him, taking him deeper, hand squeezing his balls gently, making him thrust into your mouth. “Shit, you’re gonna make me lose it,” he gasps, voice breaking.

“Cum for me, Jack,” you tease, pulling off to stroke him with both hands, feeling him throb. “Wanna taste you.”

He grabs your hair, tugging lightly. “Get that pretty mouth back on me, darlin’,” he growls. You dive back in, sucking hard, tongue working him until he comes hard, spilling into your mouth with a loud, guttural moan. You swallow, licking your lips, wiping your chin with your thumb and sucking it clean as he watches, eyes wide with awe.

“Fuckin’ hell, you’re incredible,” he pants, voice raw. “Gonna ruin me.”

“Need a second?” you tease, crawling up to face him, your body buzzing with need.

“Not a fuckin’ chance,” he growls, flipping you onto your back, his body pinning you. His hands roam, squeezing your breasts, then sliding down to grip your hips. “Need to be inside you, now,” he says, voice thick, reaching for his bag, then pausing, cursing softly. “Shit, didn’t plan for this. No condom.”

You grab his wrist, breathless. “I’m on the pill. It’s okay. I want you—want to feel all of you, Jack.”

His eyes flare, a low groan escaping. “You’re sure, darlin’?” You nod, pulling him closer. “Fuck, you’re gonna kill me,” he mutters, kissing you hard, teeth grazing your lip. He positions himself, dragging his cock through your slick folds, teasing your entrance. “Ready for me, baby?”

“Fuck yes,” you moan, legs wrapping around his waist, voice loud and desperate. “Give it to me, Jack, please!”

He pushes in, bare, slow and deep, the raw stretch intense, filling you 

completely. “Goddamn, you’re so fuckin’ tight,” he groans, bottoming out, hips flush against yours. “Feels so fucking good inside of you.”

“Oh, God, Jack!” you scream, nails raking his shoulders, the raw heat of him overwhelming. “You’re so big, fuck!”

He smirks, pausing, eyes locked on yours. “You okay, babygirl? Can take it slow if you need.”

You grimace, adjusting to his size. “Just… you’re huge. Not used to it.”

He chuckles, low and dirty. “Don’t worry, darlin’, I’ll make it good.” He slides out almost fully, then back in halfway, letting you adjust, his lips kissing your neck softly. “Tell me when you’re ready for more.”

You nod, hands gripping his face. “I’m ready. Want it rough, Jack, please.”

“Fuck, you’re my kinda dirty,” he growls, approval thick in his voice, thrusts speeding up, hips slamming into yours, the bed creaking loudly. The wet slap of his balls against you fills the room, mingling with your moans. “This pussy’s mine tonight, takin’ me so fucking well,” he rasps, fingers finding your clit, rubbing fast, tight circles, making you tremble.

“Yes, Jack, fuck!” you scream, voice echoing, body shaking as he hits that perfect spot. “Love how you fuck me, don’t stop!”

“Keep screaming my name, babygirl,” he growls, lips at your ear, thrusts relentless, headboard banging. He shifts, pulling your legs over his shoulders, going deeper, making you cry out louder. “Fuck, you’re so tight like this, squeezing me so good.”

“I’m gonna cum, Jack!” you scream, body tensing, orgasm building fast. 

“Please, harder!”

“Cum for me, darlin’,” he rasps, thrusts brutal, fingers working your clit in sync. “Wanna feel this pussy milk me.” You shatter, screaming his name, clenching hard around him, legs jerking as the orgasm tears through you, raw and intense. He groans, thrusts stuttering, “Fuck, babygirl!” his body shaking as he buries himself in you.

“I want you in my mouth again, Jack,” you pant, voice raw, still trembling. “Need to taste you.”

He pulls out, slick with you, and moves to your mouth, stroking himself. You take him in, sucking eagerly, catching every drop as he cuts, moaning your name. “Fuck, you’re perfect,” he gasps, eyes locked on yours.

He collapses beside you, both of you slick with sweat, the room heavy with the scent of sex. You grab the sheet, pulling it over your naked body, legs still twitching. He laughs, breathless. “You okay over there, darlin’?”

“Fuck, that was…intense,” you say, catching your breath, turning to face him., your face red, “You wanna go again though?”

He shifts, propping himself up, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. “Hell yeah, babygirl.” You crawl under the sheet, straddling him, grinding slowly as he hardens beneath you. “Goddamn, you’re gonna drive me fuckin’ insane,” he growls, pulling your hair back to kiss you deeply, hips rocking up to meet yours.

You guide him to your entrance, sinking down, crying out as he fills you again. “Jack, fuck!” you moan, riding him hard, his hands gripping your hips, guiding your pace. “Make me cum again,” you beg, voice loud and desperate.

“Anything for you, darlin’,” he rasps, thrusting up, hitting deep, making you scream. You come undone, body shaking, moans echoing as he follows, spilling inside you with a low groan.

You collapse onto his chest, his hands finding your hips, both of you panting. “Goddamn, you’re something else,” he murmurs, kissing your forehead. 

“Don’t think I can walk back to my room after that.”

“Then don’t. Stay here with me.”

You turn to him and nod gently.

“Let me clean you up.” He grabs a towel, wiping you gently, his touch lingering, making you shiver. “Got a shirt and boxers if you wanna sleep in ‘em,” he says, tossing the towel aside, grabbing clothes from his bag. You nod, taking them, and head to the bathroom, pulling the door shut.

Leaning against it, your heart races. Holy shit, I just fucked my boss. My mentor. The thrill of it—his hands, his voice, the way he made you scream—mixes with a cold wave of panic. He’s your supervisor, the ER legend you’ve admired for years. What the hell did you just do? 

Your phone sits on the counter, 20 unread texts, eight missed calls—Langdon, Robby, Dana, co-residents, all congratulating you. You want to text Lang, spill everything, hear his dumb jokes to calm you down, but you stop. What would I even say? ‘Just slept with Jack Abbot, oops’? No, he’ll come knocking if you stay in here too long.

You slip into Jack’s shirt and boxers, the fabric smelling faintly of him, and step out. The room’s dark except for his nightstand lamp, Jack in just his briefs, sprawled on the bed. “Look better in those than I do,” he says, smirking, but, there’s a flicker of something else- concern, maybe, or hope.

You chuckle weakly, crawling under the comforter, avoiding his gaze. He pulls you close, lips brushing your forehead. “I’m glad we did this,” he whispers, voice heavy with meaning, but there’s a question in it, like he’s testing the waters.

“Yeah,” you say, voice flat, mind racing. He’s my boss. We’re flying back together in hours. What does this mean? The 5+ hour plane ride looms, a confined space where you can’t escape him—or this. “So, what time do we have to get up for the flight?”

His eyes flicker, like he wanted more from you, a hint of disappointment crossing his face. “Flight’s at 8. Uber by 5:45, latest. Up at 4:30? Gives you time to shower, pack.”

“Sounds good,” you say, voice distant. “Think I’ll skip breakfast. Nervous stomach for the plane ride.”

“Oh… okay,” he says, voice soft, sensing your shift. He grabs his phone, setting the alarm, and turns off the lamp. You feel his hesitation, like he’s debating asking if you’re okay or what this night means, but he stays silent. 

You roll over, pulling the comforter tight, facing away from him, your coldness a wall between you. His breathing slows, but you know he feels it—the distance you’ve put there.

You lie awake, mind spinning. He’s right there, inches away, but you can’t face him. The weight of crossing that line, of what it might mean back at work, presses down. You want to say something, to bridge the gap, but the words won’t come. The room feels too small, the plane ride too long, the future too uncertain.

The alarm blares at 4:30, sharp and jarring, less than two hours since you collapsed beside him. Your stomach twists, and you keep your back to him, eyes fixed on the wall, unwilling to turn and face the man who just changed everything.

Woo Woo, haven't posted in like 3+ weeks but, I'm back now! Let me know what you guys think of this one! Already have a rough draft of a part 2 ready for you guys!!

[listentoace]

Being a European into feederism, I literally fetishize America for how bad your food situation is. Not only is junk food way more common and normalized there, it's actually even worse than in Europe, having even more carbs, sugar, and saturated fats. Almost all food you can buy is processed in some way. If you want to buy whole, natural foods, they're usually much more expensive, so you're being financially encouraged to buy whatever is bad for you. Pretty much anything you buy has added sugar. It's all absolutely bursting with calories. But it's not just the food itself. Food delivery is so much more common, and takeout obviously has more calories than a home cooked meal. You go everywhere by car, barely moving. There is a fast food place around every corner, begging you to eat their food. The industry is even literally studying your behaviour to make food even more addicting. With each year, your mean BMI increases. Just look at this graph. You're living in a country that's designed to fatten you up, whether you want it or not. It's an absolute dystopia, but I just love watching you get fatter with each year passing. So don't even fight the system, you'll lose. Order some takeout, make yourself comfortable, and just keep growing.

[makis-eyebrows]

Request: 🍓

One Page At A Time

Exam stress is something Lily and Oscar never want to see from their daughter. So they do what they can. They help her.

The house was quiet — not peaceful, but tense.

Upstairs, the only sound was the furious scratch of a pen on paper, the occasional frustrated sigh, and the muffled thud of a textbook being slammed shut.

Y/n Piastri-Zneimer sat hunched over her desk, hair piled into a messy bun, eyes darting over formulas and facts that refused to stick. Her room looked like a war zone — colour-coded notes scattered across her bed, flashcards stuck on the wall like battle plans, and a half-finished mug of tea that had gone cold hours ago.

It was exam season. The final exam season.

The one that decided her future.

University applications were around the corner, and her grades this year would carry the most weight. And though Y/n had always been a steady, self-motivated student, the pressure had started pressing in on all sides like a slow tide. Her highlighters were running dry. Her sleep was inconsistent. And she hadn’t smiled — not really — in days.

Oscar had noticed.

So had Lily.

They had heard the small, tired voice from behind her door whenever they checked in. Had seen her rubbing her temples at breakfast, eyes still glazed over from late-night revision. Oscar had even found her dozing off on the couch with her physics notes stuck to her cheek one evening after a study break turned nap.

That night, as Lily stirred pasta in the kitchen and Oscar leaned against the counter with a quiet frown, they exchanged a look.

“She’s going to burn out,” Lily said softly, voice laced with concern.

Oscar nodded. “I keep telling her to take a break, but she won’t listen. Says she doesn’t have time.”

“Then maybe we make the time for her.”

Oscar raised an eyebrow. “Operation Parental Intervention?”

Lily smiled. “Exactly.”

It started small the next morning.

Oscar brought her breakfast in bed — toast, berries, and a soft-boiled egg with a silly little smiley face drawn in sharpie.

Y/n blinked at the tray. “Dad… what’s this?”

He shrugged casually. “Brain fuel. Straight from the Piastri pit crew. You’re the car, exams are the race, and you can’t win if you don’t refuel.”

Y/n laughed softly despite herself. “That was so cheesy.”

“I aim to please.”

Later that afternoon, Lily walked into Y/n’s room with a stack of hot chocolate, fluffy socks, and a candle that smelled like vanilla and old libraries.

“Okay,” she said, clapping her hands. “Five-minute breathing session, followed by a twenty-minute reset walk with your very stylish mum. No negotiation.”

“But I have—”

“Y/n.”

Y/n looked up and saw the gentleness in her mum’s eyes. The kind that didn’t push too hard, just held space. Slowly, she closed her textbook.

“…Fine. But only because I’m starting to smell like exam stress.”

They walked around the neighbourhood, talking about everything but school — their dog barking at leaves, the colour of the sunset, how Lily once fell off a Segway in front of a busload of tourists.

And just like that, some of the weight fell off Y/n’s shoulders.

But the big move came the next evening.

Y/n was hitting a breaking point with her maths exam. Graphs and derivatives blurred together, and nothing made sense. Her hands trembled from too much caffeine. Her chest was tight.

“Stupid curve,” she muttered, eyes burning. “I don’t get it, I just… don’t get it.”

A knock sounded on her door.

Oscar poked his head in. “Hey, I need you for something.”

“Dad, I’m really not—”

“Y/n.”

She sighed, standing reluctantly.

But when she followed him downstairs, she blinked in confusion.

The living room had been transformed.

A blanket fort — a giant one — took over the couch, twinkly lights draped along the top like constellations. A projector lit the wall with her favorite movie’s opening scene. Popcorn sat in a bowl shaped like a racing helmet. On the floor was a handwritten sign:

“NO EXAMS ALLOWED BEYOND THIS POINT.”

Lily popped her head out from under the fort flap. “Come on in, Professor. Time to shut off that brain.”

Y/n stared, eyes wide. Then she let out a choked laugh.

“You guys are ridiculous.”

Oscar beamed. “And you love it.”

She crawled inside, curling up between them under a mountain of pillows. Her hand found Oscar’s and squeezed.

“Thanks, Dad.”

He squeezed back. “One page at a time, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

That night, after the movie ended and Y/n had fallen asleep against her mum’s shoulder — breathing finally even and calm — Oscar looked down at her peaceful face and smiled.

She’d be okay.

Because she didn’t have to carry the pressure alone.

Not when she had them in her corner, cheering her on — no matter the grade, no matter the result.

Just like he’d always wanted to be for her.

Another piece of work done :)

I'm heading to bed now. I can't wake up upset or anything or I'll miss the bus, since I have school and all.

That's Gang Gang out!!!!

[khuzena]

The Perfect Notation

𐙚 PAIRING: Phainon/gn!Reader

𐙚 SUMMARY: In a modern AU, a reserved, math-obsessed student (you) prepares for the prestigious Nationals math competition, slowly forming a quiet, unexpected bond with the ever-cheerful yet enigmatic Phainon. And while your world revolves around formulas and precision, Phainon watches you from the sidelines—curious, drawn in, and gradually learning to understand you through the language of numbers. As the competition nears, tension builds. You begin to ease your strict routines, letting Phainon into your life, unaware of how much he’s learning—not just math, but you.

𐙚 C.W: Depression, Academic pressure, Kinda happy ending, Angst

𐙚 A/N: Hi!! I'm so fucked. I crammed this so bad................. I onl wrote this as an offering for Phainon. Idk man. Goodluck to me. WE WILL ALL GET PHAINON AD HIS LC!!!!!!!!!! MANIFEST MANIFEST!!!

𐙚 W.C: 8.5k

Anaxa didn’t even glance up from the monitor when he announced it.

“Top rank. Regional champion. You,” he said, sharp and almost lazy. “Congratulations. Nationals is in two weeks. Don’t embarrass us.”

There was a scattered beat of applause from the others—half-hearted, short-lived. Not because they didn’t respect you. They did. But you’d won too many times already. You didn’t smile. You never did. Just gave a small nod and turned your eyes back to the problem set you’d brought with you, already thinking ahead. Everyone else looked relieved that it wasn’t them expected to carry the weight of Nationals.

Phainon clapped a little longer than everyone else, even if he did it mostly out of instinct. Maybe also to see if you’d look up. You didn’t. You just adjusted the mechanical pencil between your fingers and started writing. No celebration. No smugness. Just a clean transition from victory to preparation, like your mind had already sprinted two weeks ahead without you.

He waited until the others filtered out of the room before sliding into the seat next to yours. Your notes were out, as usual—lined graph paper, faint sketches of triangle spirals in the corners, a few barely readable side equations that looked like your personal shorthand. You were midway through a set of recursive relations, flipping your pencil over and shading tiny regions of an imaginary shape you hadn’t finished sketching.

"You’re incredible, you know that?" he said, keeping his voice soft. Friendly. That usual tone that never quite gave away how hard his heart hit the inside of his ribs when you were this close.

You didn’t glance over. Just mumbled, “There’s still nationals.”

“That’s not a denial.”

You pressed the side of your pencil against your temple. “I didn’t study to impress people.”

“Good,” he said. “Because then I’d be very, very out of my league.”

That got him a brief exhale—almost a laugh, maybe. He smiled quietly to himself. It was always like this with you. No dramatic sparks, no confessions in the hallway, no big rom com moments. Just subtle shifts. Only barely there smiles. There's this slight change in your voice when you explained something and thought he was actually paying attention

He was. He really was.

"You’re still doing number theory this week?" he asked, nodding to your notes.

“Number theory, and complex optimization. The nationals committee has a history of using constraint based problems in the first round. And… including linear programming with edge cases. I’m trying to account for unusual variables.”

“You make that sound fun.”

“It is.”

There was something gentle in the way you said it, even if your tone didn’t change much. He liked hearing you talk about math more than he liked math itself—maybe that was the problem. You were fluent in this language. You thought in it, breathed it. And he didn’t. He was still stuck in the shallow end, watching you swim through vectors and primes like it was nothing. In his eyes, you were something else entirely.

But he was trying. You didn’t know that. Maybe it was better that way.

Later that night, in his room, he stared at the scanned copy of one of your old solution sets. You’d let it slip into his notes by accident. Maybe on purpose. He didn’t know. The paper had your name scribbled in the corner in small block letters, and the answer space had margins filled with diagrams no professor would ever require: loops within loops, a staircase of ratios descending inwards. Not just working out the solution—mapping it emotionally, too.

There was something about the way you thought that felt like art. You once solved an entire probability challenge backward just to demonstrate a flaw in its framing. He didn’t even understand the flaw. But he remembered how calm your voice was as you explained it to the class, as if you weren’t constantly carrying the pressure of being everyone’s expectation.

He wasn’t sure when it happened. When the fascination turned into something heavier. When your quiet concentration became something he’d seek out in every room. When your silence started feeling warmer than most people’s words.

Phainon didn’t tell Mydei about it. Not really. But Mydei knew something, of course—he always did. Once, when they were walking back from the library together, Phainon had grumbled something about being “math fucked” and “losing brain cells over logic gates.” Mydei had just looked at him, unreadable, then muttered, “You don’t like math. You like them.”

Phainon hadn’t denied it. Just kicked a pebble on the sidewalk and said, “What’s the difference if I’m learning for the right reason?”

Right now, the right reason was sprawled in the library’s farthest corner, buried under mock test printouts and three different pens. You were tracing something across the page—he couldn’t tell what from this angle. He hesitated by the doorway before walking over.

“Hey,” he said, keeping his voice light.

You didn’t startle. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Says who?”

“You’re not even in the nationals roster.”

“I’m studying vicariously,” he offered, flashing a grin.

You gave a small sigh, but didn’t ask him to leave.

He sat across from you, watching as you marked a value in red. Constraint minimization, he realized—probably some kind of modified simplex method. You liked visual cues, always highlighted in different shades. Red was for discardable outcomes. Blue for fixed values. Green for hypotheses. He’d memorized the palette without trying.

“You know you don’t have to do this,” you murmured, still focused on your work.

“Do what?”

“Follow me around. Pretend this is your thing.”

He hesitated. The grin faded a little.

“I’m not pretending,” he said finally.

You stopped writing. Not looked at him yet, but still.

“I don’t care about the numbers the way you do,” he admitted. “But I care about why they matter to you. And... that’s worth trying to understand.”

That got your attention. You looked up slowly, not angry, not even surprised. Just quiet. Tired, maybe. Tired of people trying to get something from you. Tired of always being the brain, the standard, the benchmark to beat.

He wished he could explain it better. That he wasn’t trying to win anything. He wasn’t chasing your answers. He just wanted to be near the questions that made you come alive.

“...I used to think people only noticed me when I solved things fast,” you said, almost too low to hear. “Like I didn’t matter outside of that.”

“You do.”

You blinked at him.

“I notice you even when you’re not solving anything,” he added, a little softer.

For a moment, neither of you said anything. You just stared at him, pen still between your fingers, like you weren’t sure how to factor this variable in. Like you hadn’t expected honesty to be part of the equation.

You didn’t say thank you. You didn’t have to. You just turned back to your notes and pushed a blank page toward him. Handed him a pen.

“Try this one,” you said. “I’ll walk you through it.”

And you did. Quietly. Carefully. Like you actually wanted him to stay.

He didn’t solve it perfectly. Not even close. But you didn’t correct him harshly. You just crossed out one step, rewrote it, and said, “Closer.”

Closer. He could live with that

Twelve days before the competition, you stopped staying for lunch.

Phainon noticed it gradually—first the empty seat, then the unfinished water bottle left behind, then the absence of your voice during roll call. You were always quiet, but you were never gone. Now, you disappeared between periods, emerging only for tests and drills, vanishing again like a scheduled ghost.

He caught sight of you once in the third-floor study room. You were sitting with your hoodie drawn halfway over your head, glasses fogged slightly, hair pushed back in a way that looked unintentional. There were seven books stacked beside you, two calculators, three different notebooks open to wildly different problems. Your eyes didn’t even blink between lines. You were writing in loops, as if time itself bent into circles around your wrist.

He stood by the door for maybe thirty seconds before turning away. He hadn’t meant to interrupt. Hadn’t meant to hover. But you were so deep into it—into your world of vectors and bounds and proofs with ugly constants—that he didn’t dare step inside.

That evening, Mydei said, “They’re going to burn out.”

Phainon looked up from the practice sheet he’d half-filled with mistakes. He hadn’t realized Mydei was paying attention. Then again, Mydei always paid attention to things no one else bothered to watch.

“I know,” Phainon muttered. “I just don’t know if I’m supposed to say anything.”

“You’re not,” Mydei said, and went back to his own book.

Still, he couldn’t shake the image of you hunched over the desk, barely moving except to flip pages or change pens. It was the kind of focus that was a little frightening. Not because it was obsessive, but because it was clearly the only thing keeping you anchored. You didn’t trust the world, not entirely. But you trusted a good equation.

The next day, he brought a small coffee to the study room and left it by the door. Nothing fancy. Just the kind you always ordered—plain, warm, no sugar. He didn’t write his name on it. You probably knew it was from him, but if you didn’t, that was okay too. He left it anyway.

You didn’t acknowledge it when you passed him in the hallway two hours later, but you also didn’t throw it away.

That counted.

By the tenth day, you looked like you were made out of pencil lead and fraying patience. Your eyes were slightly red from staying up too long. You had a cough. Your posture had changed—slouched inward, like your spine had curled into itself to conserve energy. When you walked past the windows, you didn’t even glance up at the light. Your hands were always busy, twitching slightly when you solved problems mid-step, mouthing integers like incantations.

Phainon watched you from across the room during study hall. He wasn’t subtle, but you weren’t paying attention. He always saw when you were working through something—something with matrices, maybe, or Lagrangian optimization. You crossed out two full lines, rewrote them, circled a variable twice, then pressed the heel of your palm into your eyes like the numbers were starting to hum behind them.

It was as if he wanted to say something. Not something dramatic. Not some big motivational monologue. Just—you can breathe, you know. You don’t have to prove it all the time. But even that felt like too much.

Instead, he passed by your table on his way out and dropped a small eraser beside your book. You always borrowed one. Always forgot it. This one had a tiny sun drawn on it with a blue pen. You didn’t say anything, but you moved it closer to your notes and kept using it.

The next few days, he kept studying on his own. He didn’t bother pretending he liked it anymore—he’d moved past that phase. He liked understanding parts of it. Not the math itself, maybe, but the logic. The way you treated problems like puzzles, always finding the most efficient path from question to solution. He kept a folder now, filled with problems you’d solved in front of him. Sometimes he redid them with your steps beside his, trying to see where his mind wandered and yours didn’t.

He also started noticing your habits. You tapped your pencil three times before starting a proof. You wrote every square root without simplifying, unless explicitly told. You skipped the final boxed answer until you double-checked the sign of every constant. When you got stuck, you tilted your head to the left—not right, never right—and frowned as if disappointment were just part of the process.

He wondered if you even knew how many systems you carried in your head at once. How many variables you managed, even outside math. You rarely spoke unless asked. You never sought help. You moved through school like someone who knew how fragile time was and didn’t want to waste a second pretending to be someone else.

Eight days left. Phainon joined your review session by accident—or maybe it wasn’t an accident, but he pretended it was. Anaxa raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, which was either mercy or mild curiosity. You were already there, surrounded by open binders and highlighted theorems.

He asked one question. You corrected him quietly, barely glancing up. But then you passed him a page with an easier version of the same problem. No comment. Just... passed it to him like it wasn’t a big deal.

He kept that page.

Six days before the nationals, it rained. He found you sitting near the vending machine, hair damp, hoodie too thin for the wind. You had a small bag of crackers beside you and your notebook flipped open to a new page. This time, no spirals. Just equations. Dense ones. Partial differentials and strange notation. The kind that hurt his head if he looked too long.

“You’re going to get sick,” he said, handing you a dry napkin.

You took it. “Didn’t bring an umbrella.”

“You okay?”

“I have to finish the integration methods tonight. That’s the only thing I keep slipping on.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

You didn’t answer, but your jaw tightened slightly. The crackers stayed untouched. Your hand shook a little when you wrote something—he couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or from exhaustion.

“Can I sit?”

You shrugged.

He didn’t say anything after that. Just sat with you while the rain hit the windows and the world outside got blurred into noise. You solved two problems. He solved one and a half, badly. But you didn’t mock him. You just corrected a sign with your red pen, circled a line, and nodded.

“Closer,” you said.

He felt warmer after that.

Not because of the math. Not because of the rain.

You sneezed. Quiet, quivk, like you were trying not to draw attention to it. Your pencil paused mid equation, fingers curling tighter around it. Then another sneeze followed, this time a little sharper, less contained. You didn’t say anything, but your shoulders tensed slightly, and your hand brushed under your nose before you kept writing like nothing happened.

Phainon watched you from the corner of his eye. You didn’t look sick, not exactly, but you were definitely running warm. Your hoodie was bunched at the sleeves, collar loose, and there was a slight pink flush at the tips of your ears that hadn’t been there yesterday. It wasn’t dramatic—just off. And that was enough.

“You okay?” he asked quietly, voice light.

“I’m fine,” you said, and that would’ve been the end of it, if you hadn’t swayed a little when you leaned back to check your notes. Just a blink’s worth of hesitation. Your hand moved to steady your balance, fingers briefly flattening against the desk before you continued writing like nothing had happened.

“You’ve sneezed three times,” he added. “Statistically, that’s a pattern.”

You rolled your eyes, but didn’t argue. Another sniffle. You finally lowered your pencil and pinched the bridge of your nose like it was starting to hurt.

“I don’t have time to get sick,” you mumbled.

Phainon leaned his chin into his hand. “Pretty sure your immune system doesn’t care about your schedule.”

He saw it—the falter. The hesitation in your lips before you pressed them together. You were tired. Bone-deep tired. The kind of tired that caffeine doesn’t touch and focus can’t compensate for. Your notebook was filled with clean solutions, but the eraser marks had gotten more chaotic lately. Your last proof had a correction line that ran through four variables like a frustrated scrawl.

You looked like you were trying to hold the world together by sheer force of will. Phainon had no idea how you hadn’t collapsed already.

“Let’s go out,” he said suddenly.

You blinked at him. “What?”

“Come on. Just for a bit. Stretch your legs, walk, grab a snack. There’s a convenience store two blocks down.”

“I have to review,” you said automatically, already glancing back at your notes.

“You’ve been reviewing for seven straight hours.”

“Exactly.”

Phainon tilted his head. “You’re burning out. Your handwriting looks drunk. You just sneezed into your own shoulder. I am—scientifically—concerned.”

You stared at him. Not offended, not irritated—just confused, like you didn’t understand what he was trying to get out of this. And maybe you didn’t. Most people left you alone. Phainon hadn’t.

You rubbed your eye with the heel of your palm. “I’m not in the mood to hang out.”

“It’s not hanging out. It’s tactical energy recovery.”

You raised a brow.

“I’ll buy you a snack,” he offered. “Any one.”

That made you pause. Not because of the snack, probably. Maybe because it sounded easy. Normal. Like something someone who wasn’t constantly calculating would say.

“I’m not changing out of this,” you said, gesturing to your hoodie.

“Didn’t ask you to.”

You stared at him another few seconds. Then, finally, with a long, quiet sigh, you capped your pen and closed the notebook. You stood without a word. Phainon followed.

The wind had gotten colder since earlier. You pulled your sleeves down and kept your hands in your pocket, head ducked slightly. Your steps weren’t fast, but they were steady. Still, your shoulders moved a bit more than usual, like you were trying not to shiver.

“Your nose is pink,” he said gently.

“So is yours,” you shot back.

That made him laugh, surprised. “Wow. You do have a bite.”

You sniffled again. Didn’t reply. But you didn’t walk away either.

The convenience store’s lights buzzed softly when you stepped in. It smelled like microwaved curry and floor wax, comfortingly familiar. You wandered first, gravitating toward the drinks aisle with a slow shuffle, while Phainon trailed behind, hands in his coat pockets.

“You like those jelly cups, right?” he asked, nodding toward the bottom shelf.

You didn’t answer right away, just crouched slightly and picked one up. Held it in your hand like you were deciding whether it was worth it.

“Get two,” he said. “You can pretend I earned it.”

You looked at him then. Really looked at him. Your eyes were dull from the fatigue, but there was something flickering just under the surface—confusion, maybe, or something softer. He wasn’t sure.

“I feel kind of hot,” you muttered, half to yourself.

“You’ve probably got a mild fever,” he said. “Here.”

He stepped closer. Not too close, just enough to reach out, hand slow and open. You flinched, barely, but didn’t move away. His palm touched your forehead, fingers brushing against your temple. He expected to feel awkward. He didn’t. Just warm. Human.

You were, indeed, running warm.

He let the contact linger for a second longer, then lowered his hand.

You looked off to the side. “I should be reviewing.”

“You can review tomorrow.”

You shook your head, but it was weak. Your fingers squeezed the jelly cup just slightly.

He walked toward the checkout. You didn’t stop him.

He paid for both snacks, plus a bottle of ion water, and handed them to you outside. You took them, slowly. The sky had gone from pale blue to soft orange—late afternoon bleeding into early dusk. Your breath fogged a little when you exhaled.

“Just one night,” he said. “Don’t solve anything tonight. Don’t even open a notebook. Just... recharge.”

You looked down at the bottle in your hand. Read the label. Then, with no ceremony, you opened it and took a long drink.

“You act like you’re not smart,” you said.

He blinked. “Sorry?”

“You figure me out fast,” you added, quieter. “That’s not easy.”

He smiled. Not widely. Just enough. “I study you more than math.”

You exhaled through your nose, a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh. But the tension in your shoulders loosened slightly. You walked beside him all the way back without pulling away, even when your sleeve brushed against his.

He didn’t say anything else. Didn’t ruin it.

You didn’t either.

That night, when you got back to the study room, you didn’t open your notebook. You just sat there, hood over your head, sipping your drink slowly. Phainon leaned back in his chair and let the quiet settle.

One night off.

The table’s surface was warm from the overhead light. Your arm pressed against it as you leaned forward, eyes locked on the scratchpad. The problem had three variables and an error margin no greater than ±0.05. So this was the kind of equation meant to eat hours: a balance model with variable-bound inequalities.

(your messy notes)

 x₁ + 0.6x₂ + 1.4x₃ = 42,  where 8 ≤ x₁ ≤ 14,  x₂ ≤ 2x₁,  x₃ ≥ x₂ – 3.

You’d written that down ten minutes ago and hadn’t spoken since.

Phainon shifted beside you, eyeing the margin of your notebook. There were no doodles this time. No arrows or metaphors or messy little tangents. Just the problem. Just you.

You’d stopped talking much three days ago. You still showed up, still reviewed, still scribbled on his printouts without asking. But your answers came slower. Less confident. Less sharp.

He didn't say anything about it. Not yet.

You pressed your palm to your forehead and muttered something under your breath. The pencil in your right hand twitched.

“You want to test boundary values?” he asked.

You didn’t look up. “What’s the point? It’s unstable no matter where x₁ lands.”

“It stabilizes at x₁ = 10,” he said. “If x₂ = 18 and x₃ = 15, the equation balances at—”

You were already writing it.

 10 + 0.6(18) + 1.4(15)  = 10 + 10.8 + 21.0  = 41.8

He saw your jaw twitch.

“Too low,” you muttered. “It needs 42 exactly.”

“Try rounding x₂ up to 20.”

You scribbled again.

 x₁ = 10, x₂ = 20, x₃ = 17  → 10 + 12 + 23.8 = 45.8

“Too high.”

You exhaled sharply and sat back. The chair creaked beneath you.

Phainon didn’t speak for a moment. He watched you crack your knuckles, flex your neck to the side. You were tired again—he could tell. Not the kind of tired that could be fixed with a snack or a nap. The kind that settled under the skin. The kind that had you burning out in silence.

He looked back at the numbers. “Hm… Try interpolating? Let’s find x₂ that fits given x₁ fixed at 11, I think.”

You hesitated.

He nudged the pencil toward you. You didn’t take it.

“What’s the point if I’m just guessing?” you muttered.

He sat straighter.

“Hey,” he said, more level now. “You don’t guess. That’s not what you do.”

“I used to not guess,” you said. “Now I’m just throwing numbers until it fits. That’s not solving, that’s flailing.”

You didn’t raise your voice, but it was the most emotion you’d shown all week. And it settled between you like heat.

Phainon tilted his head, frowning faintly. “You’re still solving. You just don’t trust yourself when it’s slower.”

“I don’t have time to be slow.”

That silence again. The kind that dared someone to argue.

He didn’t. Not directly.

Instead, he pulled the notebook toward himself and began testing values. Small, controlled substitutions. Not to prove you wrong—but to try what you wouldn’t let yourself do. Try without crumbling.

 x₁ = 11  x₂ = 17  x₃ = 14  11 + 0.6(17) + 1.4(14) =  11 + 10.2 + 19.6 = 40.8

Closer.

“Try x₂ = 18,” you muttered suddenly.

He adjusted.

 x₂ = 18 → 0.6(18) = 10.8  x₃ = 15 → 1.4(15) = 21.0  Sum = 11 + 10.8 + 21.0 = 42.8

“Over,” you said. “Lower x₃ to 14.5.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re allowing floats now?”

“It never said integers only.”

Phainon adjusted again, writing as you dictated.

 x₃ = 14.5 → 1.4(14.5) = 20.3  11 + 10.8 + 20.3 = 42.1

“Almost.”

You took the pencil from him. This time, your hand didn’t shake.

 x₃ = 14.2 → 1.4(14.2) = 19.88  Sum = 11 + 10.8 + 19.88 = 41.68

“No,” you whispered. “Too low again.”

He watched the way your brows furrowed. Not in frustration—but focus. Like the real you was re-emerging, inch by inch, from a long, silent retreat.

You scribbled one more:

 x₃ = 14.4 → 1.4(14.4) = 20.16  Total = 11 + 10.8 + 20.16 = 41.96

Phainon leaned closer. “That’s within the error margin.”

“±0.05,” you echoed, eyes narrowing. “That’s close enough.”

The tension in your jaw didn’t release. Not right away. You just kept staring at the page, calculating again. Double-checking. Reducing. Making sure you weren’t wrong.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “That was a good solve.”

You exhaled, still not smiling. But your grip on the pencil eased.

Phainon didn’t push the moment further. He didn’t say anything reassuring. He just leaned back in his chair and looked at you—not expectantly, not with pity. Just... looked.

He’d watched you shift like this for days. From sharp precision to burning out. From holding yourself too tightly to finally slipping. Not in a way that made you fragile—just quieter. And he hadn’t realized, until now, how carefully he’d started tracking it. The rise and fall of your moods. The way your sleeves drooped past your wrists when you hadn’t slept. The way your eyes moved faster when your confidence returned.

He hadn’t meant to notice so much.

But he had.

And now, with the answer in front of you and your hands stilled, he didn’t know how to look away.

You finally broke the silence. “I haven’t studied properly in days.”

He nodded once. “I know.”

You stared at the solution again.

“You going to tell me I’m screwing up?” you asked.

He thought about it. Then: “No. You already know when you are.”

You looked at him. And for once, didn’t look away.

The silence wasn’t awkward. It wasn’t kind, either. It just was.

Eventually, you stood. Packed your things slowly. Left the notebook open on the table. Phainon didn’t move, didn’t speak. He waited.

As you reached the door, you paused.

Then you left.

And he watched the half-solved page for a long time after, hand twitching once over the final line of the equation you’d both earned.

The day before nationals, you were staring at problem seventeen.

The question wasn't hard. Just dense. It was a nested inequality, no diagrams, three lines of conditions, and you’d already seen the structure before—maybe two sets ago, maybe last year’s regional finals. But your hands weren’t moving.

Your eyes dragged across the page. Back. Then again.

Nothing stuck.

Not the phrasing, not the shape of the functions, not even the constants. Every time you tried to scan it, it broke apart into noise—like reading with cotton in your ears. Like thinking through static.

The solution was probably two steps. Three, at most.

You couldn’t even start.

Someone knocked.

You didn’t look.

The knock came again—softer this time, a kind of hesitation behind it. Then the door clicked, and you heard it open anyway.

You didn’t have to turn around.

“Don’t,” you said, not even loud.

There was a pause.

“I’m just—”

“I said don’t.”

A beat.

Then footsteps.

Not retreating.

He stepped into the room anyway. Phainon, silent. Probably still in that same hoodie he wore when he didn’t want to draw attention. You didn’t turn your head. You just stared harder at the paper, as if concentration could be forced by spite.

“What do you want?” you asked flatly.

He didn’t answer.

The silence stretched too long. You hated it.

“You think showing up is helpful right now?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Your pencil scratched a line across the page, but it was aimless. More like a heartbeat line than math. You flipped to the next page.

Blank. Just grid lines.

You tapped the pencil three times, then pressed it to the paper again. No questions. No prompt. You just drew a symbol. Something meaningless. A circle with a line through it.

Your jaw locked.

“Go home, Phainon.”

Still nothing.

“You think being here does something? That it makes me feel less like I'm falling apart?” You laughed, hollow. “If you’re waiting for some last-minute wisdom to come out of this, don’t bother.”

“I’m not.”

“Then what?”

Nothing.

He just stood there, behind your shoulder.

You grabbed your binder and closed it, too fast. The snap echoed.

“Look, I don’t want to talk. I don’t want eye contact. I don’t want you sitting there acting like your presence is comforting. It isn’t.”

“I know.”

Your throat tightened.

“You think I didn’t notice?” you said, still not looking. “How everything slowed down the past two weeks? How I stopped keeping up with my logs, stopped doing three sets a day, stopped treating this like it mattered?”

“That wasn’t—”

“I let myself breathe, and now I can’t focus. I’m sitting here and I can’t even move past a two-line problem. Nationals is in the morning, and all I want is silence.”

Your voice was low. Sharper than you intended. But honest.

And you meant it.

Phainon shifted. A quiet inhale. Then nothing.

For a second, you thought he might say something. Some vague, clipped version of comfort dressed up as logic. Something he could pass off as neutral.

But he didn’t.

Because you’d made it clear you wouldn’t hear it.

You stood, moved to the far side of the room, pulled open your bag with fingers that wouldn’t stop twitching. You took out another mock set. Unopened. Pages pristine.

You didn’t sit. Just held it like it would matter.

Phainon hadn’t left yet.

You said, with your back turned, “I’ll delete your messages if you send any tonight.”

Silence.

And finally—finally—you heard him step back.

Then the door clicked shut behind him.

No goodbyes. No dramatics.

Just quiet.

Too quiet.

You didn’t cry. Didn’t scream. There wasn’t time for that. You sat down and opened the mock test like nothing happened. Like you weren’t seconds from snapping. Like tomorrow wasn’t the only thing waiting for you, bare-fanged and watching.

The first question blurred. You blinked. Read it again.

Then started solving.

Because that’s all you had left.

The bus ride was too quiet.

You’d brought your binder. Everyone did. Open sets, annotated diagrams, clipped formula guides taped to the back of laminated ID cards. You used to do the same. You used to flip pages just to feel sharp, to stay in rhythm. But today you just held it in your lap. Your thumb brushed the edge of the cover, but you didn’t open it.

Someone laughed two rows down. Probably a teammate. The coach said something about breathing and pacing yourself and trusting what you already know.

You didn’t hear most of it. Your ears buzzed. Your head was full, but not of numbers.

You blinked and the venue arrived. High ceiling, clean rows of chairs, dry ass ac that immediately made your eyes sting red. In the room, they had labeled placards on the desks and printed IDs with barcodes. Everything looked exactly like it had last year.

You were in the front row this time.

Not that it mattered much.

You sat, hands on your lap, knees stiff. Your legs wouldn’t stop bouncing. Your pen was already uncapped. You kept uncapping it, then recapping it again. Five times. Six. You didn’t notice until someone tapped your desk to hand you the test envelope.

You said “thank you” without making eye contact.

Then it started.

Booklet flipped. Timer started. You read question one.

And felt nothing.

It was combinatorics—one of your favorite categories. The kind of problem you used to eat for warm-up. The first half was trivial: inclusion-exclusion, pigeonhole principle, standard case count. But your brain tripped on the wording.

You read the same paragraph twice.

Then a third time.

The logic was familiar. The numbers weren’t. You tried sketching something, but your pencil felt heavy. The lead snapped halfway through your first diagram. You paused to sharpen it, fingers tight, breathing shallow.

You looked at the clock.

You’d spent nine minutes on the first item.

You flipped to number two. Then three.

Then back again.

The room was silent—pages turning, pens scribbling, the occasional cough.

Your pen hovered above the paper. You wrote half a line of working for problem one. Then scratched it out.

It wasn’t even wrong.

You just couldn’t focus.

Your stomach churned.

By the time you finished the first page, it had been twenty minutes. Your hand hurt. You weren’t writing fluidly anymore. You weren’t even calculating. Just stumbling between guesses and second-guessing every instinct you used to trust.

Problem four was geometry.

It was clean. Symmetrical. The kind of shape you’d usually smirk at.

Now it made your head throb.

Midway through the proof construction, you forgot why you were solving it. You blinked and realized you'd written a congruence that didn’t apply. Your triangle labeling was inconsistent. You had to rewrite half the setup.

Thirty-five minutes gone.

Only two questions answered—poorly.

You wiped your palms against your pants. They were damp. You hadn’t noticed.

You looked around.

Everyone else was working. Focused. Calm.

You stared back down at your paper and told yourself to just breathe.

One step.

You just had to think.

Just had to trust your training.

Just had to—

Your vision blurred for half a second. Not from tears. From sheer cognitive fatigue.

You closed your eyes.

This isn’t me.

That voice sounded distant. Like it belonged to a version of you that hadn’t already spiraled.

You used to feel alive during competitions. You used to get high off the logic. Used to finish before the timer. You’d lean back and double-check the whole thing just for fun. You used to walk out of the room with a grin.

Now you couldn’t even lift your head.

You wanted to quit.

Not the competition—just the moment. Just stop existing here. Just vanish from the desk and leave the half-scratched paper behind. You wanted to crawl out of your own body and sleep for a week.

You looked back at the clock.

Fifty-eight minutes left.

You hadn't solved more than two problems.

Your hands shook.

You flipped to the next page anyway. You didn’t want to—your body just moved on instinct. A functional equation. Weird domain restriction. You could see what it wanted you to do. Transform. Isolate. But the working wouldn’t come.

You wrote a line. Crossed it out.

Wrote a second. Scratched over it.

You felt your chest tighten.

This is a joke.

You stared at the ceiling, not blinking, not breathing. Then you looked down and forced yourself to pick up the pen again.

It didn’t matter how slow.

You weren’t going to leave it blank.

Even if everything felt like it was slipping sideways, even if you knew—knew—you’d fumble this set, you couldn’t walk out knowing you hadn’t tried.

So you solved.

Not well.

Not fast.

And then, the announcement came four hours later.

They posted the results on the auditorium wall, in clean rows under the school banners. It took less than a minute for the cluster of students to gather. Someone whooped when they saw their name. Another dropped to the floor in disbelief, grinning at their teammates

You didn’t move.

You stood farther off, half in the shadow of the hallway, arms crossed too tightly across your chest.

You already knew.

The one with the modular constraint and inverse evaluation. The one that was practically made for you. You'd caught the structure immediately—cyclic groups, reduced residues, classic residue pairing. It was clean. Direct. Elegant.

You’d known before they even collected your paper.

You knew the second you circled back to problem nine.

But you hadn’t notated your base step.

You skipped it.

You proved the process but didn’t state the root value.

No mark.

You lost five points for that.

Five points.

You walked up to the sheet anyway. Just to see it.

The margin between first and second place?

Five.

Your name was there. Clear as day.

National rank: 2nd Place Total: 91 / 100

People were already murmuring. A few were surprised. A few weren’t. Some were still talking about how you "looked out of it" during the morning set, how you’d "sat still for too long" during the first page.

First place had 96.

Third had 89.

You didn’t respond.

You’d never placed second before.

You read the number again.

Ninety-one.

Not once.

Not since the beginning.

You weren’t angry. You weren’t even crying.

You just stood there, tired. Your legs ached. Your hands felt like they weren’t fully yours.

You heard someone approach behind you. The footsteps were familiar. Lighter than Mydei’s. Too careful to be Anaxa. You didn’t turn.

Phainon stopped beside you.

He didn’t say anything.

You didn’t either.

For a moment, the results just... existed between you.

It should’ve been perfect.

That one line.

That one symbol.

That one stupid omission.

The logic was right. The reasoning was solid. It was the kind of solution they’d print in post-competition reviews. But it was incomplete. Technically correct, formally flawed. The judges hadn’t been harsh. Just consistent.

You exhaled, slow.

“You already knew?” Phainon asked, voice low.

You nodded.

“I left it blank.”

“You didn’t leave it blank.”

“I left it unanchored.”

Silence.

You didn’t want consolation. Not even from him.

Because this wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t a failure.

It was worse.

It was that knife’s edge between greatness and flaw. The kind of mistake you can’t even be mad at. Just live with. Just swallow. Just remember when you look at your own name in second place next year and wonder how much tighter your grip has to be.

Someone asked to take a photo with the medalists.

You didn’t move.

Your hand twitched slightly when your name was called, but you stayed behind until the crowd thinned.

Phainon stayed with you.

Still silent.

It wasn’t a terrible ending.

You still placed.

You still qualified.

But when you finally walked outside—medal in your pocket, sweat dried cold on your back—the world felt too loud. The cars too sharp. The sunlight too white.

You’d done almost everything right.

Except the part that counted.

You didn’t wait for the team photo.

You stepped down from the auditorium steps, medal still boxed in your pocket, shoes hitting the concrete too hard. The sun was brutal. The wind made the sweat on your neck feel sticky. You crossed the street with no destination—just motion. Just away.

Someone called your name. You didn’t turn.

You heard the footsteps speeding up behind you. Rubber soles scraping pavement.

“Wait—” Phainon’s voice, breath catching.

You didn’t.

You kept walking until your throat started burning from how tight it was clenched. Until your fists were hot from how hard you were holding onto nothing.

He caught up anyway.

Of course he did.

“Can you—can you just stop for a second?”

You did.

But not for him.

You stopped because your legs were shaking.

You spun around.

“What.”

His mouth opened. Then closed.

You didn’t wait.

“No, really. What do you want, Phainon?” you snapped. “To say it’s okay? That I still did great? That I should be proud of second place?”

His expression shifted. “I wasn’t going to—”

“Because I don’t want to hear it.”

You stepped closer.

“I don’t want your version of understanding. I don’t want your... your weird quiet ‘I’m here’ look like that does anything for me. You know what I want?”

He didn’t move. Just stared.

“I want to go back two hours and slap myself for being so goddamn stupid.”

Your hands were shaking. “I missed one notation. One. You know how easy that base statement is? It’s mechanical. It’s an instinct. And I missed it because I was so fucking fogged I forgot how to write.”

Phainon said nothing.

You hated that.

You hated that he still wouldn’t argue.

“You knew,” you accused, voice low. “You saw me falling apart this week and you said nothing.”

“I tried—”

“You watched me. You followed me. You sat in that room and you knew I wasn’t in the right state, and you still didn’t stop me from spiraling.”

“I wasn’t going to control you.”

“Maybe you should have!”

It echoed off the buildings.

You took a shaky breath, but your lungs wouldn’t fill right. You swore your heart was in your throat.

“I don’t lose,” you whispered. “I don’t.”

Phainon’s brows knit. “It’s one mistake.”

“To you.”

“Not just to me.”

“Well, I’m not you!” you snapped, voice cracking.

Pedestrians crossed the street behind you. None of them looked your way.

“Do you know what they’ll say?” you asked bitterly. “That I choked. That I got distracted. That I got lazy. That the math kid finally cracked because they stopped grinding and started... I don’t know. Socializing.”

Phainon flinched. Barely.

Your breath caught.

And then, softer: “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

You stepped back, blinking hard, jaw locked.

“I was supposed to win. Cleanly. Not because I’m gifted, not because I’m smart—because I fucking worked for it.”

Phainon’s voice came quiet.

“You still did.”

“Don’t,” you warned.

You weren’t ready to hear anything from him. Not validation. Not warmth. Not that irritating, careful silence he kept bringing like it was supposed to help.

You didn’t want him to understand.

You wanted him gone.

So you said the one thing you knew would stick:

“I can’t stand being around you right now.”

He froze.

You didn’t take it back.

You turned.

You walked.

And this time, he didn’t follow.

It had been a week. Maybe longer.

You didn’t care. You didn’t count anymore. The calendar with Nationals circled in red was still on the wall, but you hadn’t looked at it since the results. You kept the lights dim. Didn’t open the window. Didn’t answer your messages. You couldn’t. Every ping made your skin crawl. The medal was still in its case, unopened. Your fingers had touched it once, briefly, by accident when reaching for a pen, and your body recoiled like it was hot iron.

You didn’t deserve to hold it.

You sat hunched over your desk again, notebook open to the same damned problem—the same sequence from that day. That warm-up with Phainon. The one you couldn’t solve cleanly. The one you laughed about, once.

You hated that memory now.

You ran through it again.

You hated how close you’d been.

You hated that it showed up again. You hated that you froze. You hated that you had been the one to say “it needs 42 exactly” out loud—and still blanked.

 x₁ = 11, x₂ = 18, x₃ = 14.4  11 + 10.8 + 20.16 = 41.96

Almost.

You wanted to punch something.

But you didn’t. You just kept tapping the lead of your pencil to the desk. Over and over. Like that would make the numbers change. Like if you rewrote them enough, your score would shift backwards in time and undo the second place.

Your door creaked.

You didn’t look.

You already knew who it was. He kept doing this now—once a day, maybe twice. Quiet steps, paper bag rustling, some drink left on the corner of your desk. He didn’t say anything. You liked that. No words meant you didn’t have to scream.

But this time was different.

Phainon didn’t leave.

He sat beside you.

Not at a distance. Not lingering behind you. He sat—right there—on the edge of the desk like he belonged, like you weren’t halfway to a breakdown, like he wasn’t the last person you wanted to see right now.

You didn’t tell him to go.

You just snapped.

“I fucking had it.”

Your voice cracked on the first word. You didn’t care.

“I solved this. Two weeks ago. I said the answer out loud. I knew the spread. I knew the constraint.”

He didn’t speak.

“I said 42. I said it needs 42 exactly. I even adjusted the values with you. We got 41.96 and laughed because we were close, remember?”

You stared at the paper.

“You know what I got in Nationals?” You didn’t wait. “A time warning. I blanked. I hyperfocused. I optimized the wrong case, and then—then I panicked, Phainon. I panicked.”

Your throat clenched.

“I missed five points. Five points I could’ve solved in my sleep.”

The pencil snapped in your hand.

You stared at the broken lead, then the paper, then your own shaky fingers.

“I don’t get second place. I don’t choke. I don’t choke. I was the kind of person who didn’t choke. Who wrote the neatest notation. Who finished with five minutes to spare. Who got asked to coach others, because I was always sharp, always clean.”

You bit your lip.

“And I blew it. Over one question I’d already seen.”

The silence pressed against your ears.

“I ruined it.”

Still no reply. Just breathing. Just presence.

Your fingers curled, trying to keep steady.

“I hate this. I hate being this person. The person who peaked early. The person who was promising and then lost.”

Your voice dropped.

“I hate that it’s me.”

You felt your chest cave in a little—like air was too much to take in.

“And I can’t stop going over it. I can’t stop. My brain won’t shut up. I wake up thinking of equations. I stare at the ceiling and count backwards. I solve this problem again and again and it never changes.”

You let the pencil fall.

“I lost. I lost. And I can’t even scream because I don’t want anyone to hear how broken I sound.”

The tears came hot. You didn’t wipe them.

You closed your eyes. “I don’t know who I am if I’m not winning anymore.”

Then—

Warmth.

Not words. Not footsteps. Just arms around your shoulders, sudden and too human, too solid.

Phainon pulled you in.

No announcement. No breathy confession. No stupid I’m here for you monologue.

Just a silent, firm hug like the air had decided you’d had enough and finally let you collapse.

Your fists clenched weakly against his sleeves.

You wanted to scream again.

You didn’t.

You just stayed there, held in a silence you didn’t know how to break, shoulders trembling, breath stuttering, eyes blurry, voice too small when it came again:

“…I’m still solving it.”

And he said nothing.

Just held you tighter.

You stared at it for so long you forgot to breathe.

You’d seen the variables before. The shape of the function, the weighted coefficients, the margins for error. You’d memorized every possible spread that week before Nationals. Burned it into your skull, dreamed of the numbers like they were prophecy. You knew the bounds. You knew the behavior. You knew what was optimal.

And yet you’d missed it.

Your finger hovered over the line again:

 x₁ = 10.3, x₂ = 18.6, x₃ = 14.7  10.3 + 11.16 + 20.58 = 42.04

Exactly what you needed. Balanced. Minimal error. Clean notation.

You swallowed.

This was what it looked like when someone else solved your problem.

Not the kind of problem written in a book.

The kind of problem that defined your life.

You didn’t say anything at first. What was there to say?

That he used your notation?

That he probably went through your old scratch paper?

That he even wrote like you now—left margin wide, decimals aligned, iterations clearly marked?

That the one thing you hadn’t gotten right, the one thing that shattered your momentum and your pride and everything you thought made you worth something—he solved it in your language?

You pressed your palm to your face.

The tears didn’t come this time. Just heat. The kind that made your eyes sting and your ears burn.

You weren’t angry at him.

You were angry that it still mattered this much.

He said nothing.

You finally spoke.

“…You used my margin system.”

A pause.

Then, low and hoarse: “It made the most sense.”

Your hand trembled as it dropped to the desk.

“I gave up on this.” You stared at the page like it was some kind of curse. “And you didn’t.”

“I didn’t have to perform in front of a panel,” he said.

You bit your lip.

“I still blanked. Even though I knew the spread. Even though I had this. I still choked.”

Silence.

“I don’t choke,” you muttered again, voice smaller.

Phainon didn’t argue. He just sat beside you, fingers loosely laced in his lap, expression unreadable.

You hated how quiet he was being.

You hated that he wasn't trying to fix you.

You hated how real it made everything feel.

“I thought I could… I don’t know. Rebuild it,” you muttered, eyes flicking across the page again. “Like if I solved this, just this one… if I got it cleanly, then maybe I could forgive myself.”

He glanced down.

“I didn’t solve it for that,” he said quietly. “I just… kept seeing you staring at it.”

You laughed under your breath. Not amused. Not even bitter. Just tired.

“It’s so stupid.”

“It’s not.”

Your voice cracked. “It is. It’s one number. A decimal shift. And it’s been clawing at me like—like the loss means I’m less. Like if I didn’t get it, I don’t deserve anything I had before.”

The words slipped out before you could stop them.

“Everyone says I’m gifted. That I was made for this. That I was ‘born for precision.’ But what kind of genius blanks on a number they said out loud two weeks before the exam?”

He turned his head, just slightly.

“You.”

You froze.

Phainon’s voice didn’t waver. “You did. You blanked. You panicked. You lost.”

You didn’t move.

He continued, gently:

“And you’re still you.”

That pierced deeper than any sympathy would’ve.

Because it wasn’t comfort.

It was truth.

You looked at him for the first time.

He didn’t look triumphant.

He looked exhausted.

Like he’d carried the weight of that number for days—not because it was hard, but because you were.

Because watching you disappear into yourself was worse than not knowing the answer.

You didn’t realize how tight your grip had gotten until the edge of the paper started to crumple in your hand.

You set it down.

“I still lost,” you whispered.

“I know.”

“I hate it.”

“I know.”

The tears stung again.

“I hate that I care so much.”

He didn’t respond this time. Just leaned back slightly, letting the air between you return. Not out of cruelty. Just space. Like he knew you needed it.

You glanced down at the scratch again.

There it was. Your ghost of a victory. Written in handwriting that wasn’t yours. Solved by someone who wasn’t onstage. Who wasn’t panicking. Who hadn’t been trained for this the way you had.

“I was supposed to be better,” you muttered. “Than them. Than this.”

Phainon tilted his head. “Than me?”

You looked away.

“No,” you admitted. “Than myself.”

The words fell flat, bare, real.

You stared at the final boxed answer. The clean, round 42.04.

“That’s the score I needed.”

“It is,” he said softly.

You ran a hand through your hair, trying to gather something like breath.

Your chest still felt tight.

But not crushed.

You weren’t okay. Not even close. But your hands had stopped shaking.

And for the first time in over a week, you weren’t reciting the question in your head. You weren’t counting factors on your fingers. You weren’t spiraling through iterations.

You were just sitting. Still. Quiet.

Beside someone who had gotten there, when you couldn’t.

Beside someone who didn’t offer forgiveness, because they knew you weren’t asking for it.

Phainon shifted, about to speak—

—but didn’t.

You reached forward.

Picked up the paper.

Folded it once.

Then tucked it into the corner of your notebook like a scar.

A reminder.

A truth.

The perfect notation you forgot, and someone else remembered.

a/N: BEFORE YALL COME AT ME YES THIS IS LINEAR WEIGHTED OPTIMIZATION. THE IDEA AROSE WHEN I REMEMBEERED THE GUY I LIKED AND I WANTED TO LEARN MATH BS HE MADE IT SOUND FUN:((. This ENTIRE formula was something I did wayyy back. Idek remember the process but when I dug my old notes, I saw my tiny comments step by step. If the math is wrong.......... feel free to tell me. pls bro I based this off an old scratch paper GIVE ME A BREAK. WE ARE ALL GETTTING PHAINON. I'm so sorry if this was rushed dawgggggggggggggg

Written by @khuzena. Likes, reblogs and comments are always appreciated. ♡ 

[bumpen-underbeds]

It's a university, everyone's doing something or someone, but what if there was a bet on who could do you? And let's be honest, he was more of a puppy than a dog to most people, but that didn't mean he wouldn't act like an animal if given the chance.

This is the first part of my little multi-chapter story that I had planned, the reader in this is stated to have afab genitals but nothing else is specified.

The Dog hybrid is named Oli in this.

Part Links: Introduction | Werewolf | Vampire | Demon | Bunny Hybrid | Satyr | Dog Hybrid

The Dog hybrid in your project group is truly not cut out for this class; he is an art-focused kinda guy, nothing outside of his art theory and practicals can draw his attention. There's also the fact that he doesn't seem to have a lot going on in his mind, despite how eager and excited he is about this project and getting to work on it with you.

He's very sweet, but the last thirty minutes of this impromptu 'study' session have been spent trying to get Oli to understand that this is a project, not a presentation, and that there won't be a slideshow or speech that he can give or read from. He's now pouting and lying with his head against his arms on the library desk, tail hanging limp and lifeless, unlike a few moments ago when it was wagging so fast that the papers on the table had been moved from its little wind gusts.

"So I can't make slides, and there's no speaking at all? Then what's the point! I'm no good at anything else..." Oli whines loudly, and there are a few sets of eyes that turn and glare at the two of you for disturbing the soft quiet in this part of the library, placing a hand on his shoulder and rubbing it softly as you comfort him, telling him there is still things that he can help with, offering to let him pick the graph colours and styles so that they look the most pleasing.

It's a small thing, but the moment the words are out of your mouth, his tail is wagging again, eyes bright and ears perked up as he nods eagerly.

From there, he was hovering over your shoulder, watching as you entered the data into the correct areas for the diagrams and graphs, letting him have control after you were done typing so that he could spend a good ten minutes choosing between the pie chart or the plain graph format and then another twenty on the colours, mumbling about making sure they don't clash.

It would be cute and endearing in a way, if you didn't already know that he was using these sessions with you to try and win a stupid bet. It's okay, though; you have a plan of your own to ensure neither he nor the werewolf, Xavier, wins the bet.

Watching Oli as he focused, you could understand why it would be easy for him to win, had you not known there was a bet; he was sweet and quite cute when he acted like an excited puppy, rather than a slathering mutt. There had been a few times you had watched him through a reflection out of the corner of your eye, rutting against a couch cushion or rubbing his hand across the front of his pants as you did something or other, he did seem genuinely interested and attracted to you in a way, even if it was just a FWB situation.

He had made several attempts at getting you to come over to his dorm, offering to kick out his roommate so you could study there instead of the library, only to end up on the familiar plastic seats, pouting as you made him help you with putting the project together.

It was late, much later than your sessions with the group you had been dumped with usually ran, sighing and rubbing your eyes as you tried to fight off the exhaustion of dealing with this group of right neanderthals. Each one thinking their sly as they try to single you out or get you alone with them, each attempt making your skull throb and fingers ache with how you had tightly gripped your own to keep from throwing something at one of them.

Leaning against a wall as you try to ease the tension headache that has steadily built a place behind your eyes for the last thirty minutes, you can help the yelp you let out when a cold hand comes to rest on your shoulder, Oli loomed over you tail wagging slowly as he tilts his head at you.

Bless the dog hybrid as he simply sits in front of you as you groan and dig through his satchel for a painkiller, offering you the sealed tablet pack and his water with a little whine.

Once the meds kick in a little, you thank him, unconsciously reaching out to pat him on the head, running your fingers through his hair and scratching his scalp a little as you do, watching his eyes flutter closed and lean into the touch. He is quite cute, as you keep petting him and enjoying the carefree way he enjoys it, you ponder an idea and settle on a course of action, inviting the dog hybrid to your dorm the following day to hang out, offering to feed him as thanks for the meds and comfort.

However, it's not a traditional meal that you're going to present to him as a thank you; he won't be considered a winner of his bet if he doesn't get to knot you after all.

The following day, Oli is outside your dorm bouncing on his feet, tail going a mile a minute as he watches the people come and go from the dorm, his hair a mess of red moving side to side as he looks around. Opening the door and waving him in, you sign him in as a day visitor before taking him up to your room, having been very lucky in scoring a solo dorm for the semester.

Getting him into your room is easy, but getting him to stop touching all your stuff is hard. Shirts, socks, and even a pair of underwear have to be rugged out of his hands as he follows smells and curiosity openly in your room, getting him to sit on your bed feels like a real triumph, and getting him to trust you when you tell him to lay back and close his eyes feels like winning a whole ass war.

Even if you have to shake your head as he buries his face into your pillow and groans openly, rocking his hips into nothing on instinct.

The moment he is lying down, you work fast, pulling off your comfy pants and underwear, it's harder to crawl up the bed and settle in a way that doesn't frighten him too much but reaching down to sink your fingers into his hair as you scratch behind his ears and make him take a deep breath as he whines, the spook he gets doesn't seem all that bad.

There is a single long moment of suprise and then hunger, for all the puppy like features Oli has being presented with your cunt as a meal reminds you his is just as much a mutt a the other dog hybrids you have met in your life, his arms wrap around your thighs and pull you down onto his face, broad wet swipes of his tongue mix with panting growls as he makes messy work of eating you out.

Tail thumping against your bed as you keep your hands in his hair, holding and supporting his head as he trys to push his face further against your folds, making disgustingly loud slurping and sucking noises as he presses his tongue against your clit, working to make more and more of you fill his mouth. One of his hands stays heavy against your thigh, pushing down and keeping you seated on his face as the other scrambles to push his pants down and wraps around his cock.

Saying he was a messy eater is an understatement, his chin, nose and cheeks are smeared with slick and sweat, the few times you had made to pull away, he growled, a deep rumbling noise that was followed by a sharp nip to your inner thigh, he was not done eating yet not by a long shot.

Letting him waste the day away between your legs, jerking himself raw and making a mess of himself with wasted cum, sweat and your slick was the perfect way to make use of this stupid bet without actually giving him the win.

[lxndonorris]

expectations - Isack Hadjar

Y/N x Isack Hadjar

Theme: Fluff

Isack has high expectations of his performance and is easily let down, your turn to make him smile x

word count: 1650+

taglist: @cloud-55 @game-set-canet

open for requests! :)

The Florida sun had already begun to dip into the horizon, casting a warm orange glow across the paddock at the Miami Grand Prix. The scent of burned rubber and hot tarmac still lingered in the air, a scent you became familiar with since you joined your boyfriend, Isack, during race weekends.

It was the end of qualifying day, and the usual energy was crackling around the venue—fans yelling, journalists scrambling, engines cooling down. But inside one of the many motorhomes, it was quiet. Almost too quiet.

Isack sat on the small sofa, elbows resting on his knees, hands laced tightly in front of his mouth. His dark hair was still damp under a baseball cap turned backward, and his pink race suit was unzipped to his waist. The inner fireproof layer clung to his torso, his chest still rising and falling with the adrenaline that hadn't quite left his system.

You watched from the kitchenette, leaning lightly against the counter. You'd been there through every step—every karting win, every junior formula heartbreak, and now his first Formula 1 season. This was supposed to be a moment of celebration. He had qualified P11, an incredible result for a rookie in a midfield car.

But it wasn't enough for him.

Not in his eyes.

He stared at the floor as if it had insulted him.

"You're being too hard on yourself," you said softly.

He didn't look up.

"I locked up into Turn 5. Lost two tenths right there."

"And still outqualified your teammate," you replied, walking over and sitting beside him. You brush your hand along his arm, but he didn't react.

"That doesn't mean anything if I left time on the table. I should've been in Q3."

You exhaled, watching his profile—tense jaw, narrowed eyes, a thousand thoughts racing through his mind like the telemetry graphs that lined the engineers' screens.

This wasn't just frustration. It was disappointment woven with doubt, the kind that starts to fester if left alone too long.

You knew how much this weekend meant to him. Miami was a high-profile race, a flashy, glamorous circus that most drivers wanted to make an impression at.

And he had—but he didn't feel that way.

"I made something for you," you said after a moment.

That got his glance, just a quick flick of his eyes.

"Oh yeah?"

You reached into your bag and pulled out your phone.

"Actually... I filmed something earlier today. Thought it might be a surprise for after the race, but I think now's a good time."

He hesitated.

"What is it?"

"Just watch."

You held the phone out, pressing play before he could refuse.

The screen lit up with a shaky shot of his side of the garage, taken from just behind one of the screens where you'd been hiding. The voices of his mechanics filled the motorhome.

"That's it, Hadjar P11, baby!"

A cheer erupted in the video. A mechanic clapped another on the back. One of them even jumped up in the air, punching the sky like a kid celebrating a goal.

Another voice chimed in. "You see that Turn 5 entry? That was genius."

Someone else added, "Let's go get him some damn points tomorrow."

Isack didn't speak, but you saw his eyebrows twitch, the corner of his mouth move a millimeter. You nudged the phone a little closer.

The last part of the video zoomed in on the pit wall. His race engineer, usually so stoic, turned to someone off-camera with a rare smile, nodding encouragingly.

You turned the phone off.

"See?" You said, setting it in his lap. "You're not the only one who sees it. They're behind you. They believe in you."

Isack stared at the screen a long time, not replaying the video, not even moving. Just breathing. Letting it in.

"You recorded that?" he finally asked, voice low.

You nodded.

"I wanted you to see it. I know you're always inside the helmet, inside the cockpit. You don't get to see what happens when you climb out. But they care, Isack. They are proud of you."

He rubbed a hand over his mouth. "They didn't say that stuff just for the video?"

"No. I didn't even tell them I was recording."

A long silence passed.

Then something shifted. He leaned back into the sofa, exhaling fully for the first time since he returned from the garage. His shoulders relaxed slightly, his gaze softer now.

"I keep thinking... if I don't prove myself fast enough, they'll drop me. F1 doesn't wait for anyone."

You slid closer, your knees touching.

"But you're proving yourself every time you get in the car. Not just with results—attitude, work ethic, feedback. That's why they are cheering."

You nudged his leg lightly with your knee, drawing his eyes back to you. They're warmer now, the storm inside them easing, but there was still a trace of disbelief—as if he couldn't fully accepts what he'd just heard.

"You know..." You said softly, your fingers brushing his wrist. "I watch how you handle everything. Not just the driving—which is already insane—but everything else. The media scrums, the debriefs, the pressure. You don't see it, but you carry yourself like someone who belongs here."

He tilted his head slightly, a skeptical look passing over his face. "I don't know. Half of the time I feel like I'm faking it."

"Well, you hide it well," you said with a small grin. "You've got this casual, funny thing going on in front of the cameras. Like you've been doing this for years already. You belong here. I can see it."

He blinked, his lips parting slightly—but you weren't done.

"And..." you let the pause stretch just long enough for him to look curious, "you look so pretty in that pink suit this weekend."

That did it.

His face flushed in an instant, blooming with warmth that crept from his neck all the way up his ears.

"You think so?" he said, trying—and failing—not to sound shy.

You grinned wider, leaning in just a little. "Are you kidding? The bright pink with your dark hair, the way it fits you, how it catches the light when you walk down the paddock... so damn hot."

He laughed under his breath, cheeks still very pink. "Hot, huh?"

"Devastatingly hot," you teased. "Like unfairly hot. You made even the Red Bull guys do a double take."

That earned a proper smile, his dimple peeking through.

He reached out then, hand finding yours and lacing your fingers together. His thumb brushed along the top of yours as he looked down, bashful but pleased.

"You always know exactly what to say."

"Maybe," you murmured, resting your head against his shoulder. "Or maybe you're just that easy to adore."

He squeezed your hand in a silent reply.

A moment passed, then you felt his hand tug at yours gently, not pulling you anywhere—just a quiet grounding. His thumb continued brushing slow, absent-minded circles across your skin.

His smile hadn't faded, though his cheeks were still dusted pink, a contrast to the dark shadows cast across the room.

"You really think the pink suit looked that good?" he asked, a little smirk tugging at the corner of his lips now.

"I think," you said, shifting so you were facing him properly, "that they should make it your permanent race suit. Honestly, I'm starting a petition.

"Please do," he chuckled. "If I get more of these compliments of yours."

"Oh, I already got a dozen signatures. Half the grid wants that suit to stay." You said. "Really, you wore it like it was designed for a fashion shoot. Walked into the paddock like you were about to walk a runway in Monaco."

He narrowed his eyes playfully. "Are you complimenting me or roasting me?"

You shrugged, innocent. "Why not both?"

He lunged in mock offense, grabbing your waist and pulling you onto his lap in one swift, ungraceful movement that made you squeal.

You ended up straddling him, knees on either side of his thigh, his arms loosely wrapped around you now, as if you'd just walked straight into a trap—which you had, happily.

"Say that again," he teased, eyes narrowed but gleaming. "About the Monaco runway."

You bit your lip dramatically. "You're the show, Hadjar. Cameras love you. I love you."

He blinked once, twice, thrown just slightly off guard by the last line. His arms tightened a little around you, and the teasing smile softened into something more real.

"You do, huh?" he asked, voice quieter now.

You leaned in, resting your forehead against his. "Of course I do. Even when you're a grumpy, self-critical perfectionist. Especially then."

He let out a soft, shaky breath that turned into a chuckle. "That's probably more often than you signed up for."

"I like it," you said, fingers playing with the collar of his race suit. "It means you care. It means you want this so badly. But sometimes, I just need to remind you..." You kissed the tip of his nose, then his cheek, "that you're already doing better than fine."

He grinned again, that boyish grin you'd only ever seen when it was just the two of you. No cameras. No pressure.

"Remind me again," he murmurs, tugging you closer.

So you did—one kiss at a time. Soft at first, teasing and slow. He tasted like mint and adrenaline, still warm from the inside of his helmet.

His hands slid up your back, deliberate and gentle, anchoring you to him like you were the only thing keeping him grounded.

The noise outside faded—the music, the footsteps, the radio chatter. All that was left was the soft rustling of fabric and quiet breaths exchanged between words and laughter.

"I love you too."

He broke the kiss just long enough to whisper, "This... you... it makes all the pressure worth it."

You felt his fingers draw lazy circles on your back.

[wordsofwhimsy]

【Ｏｐｐｏｓｉｔｅｓ　

Ａｔｔｒａｃｔ】 - Part Five

Pairing: Mohawk!Mark Grayson x f!Reader

Warnings: None

Tags: Fluff, slice of life, kinda minor threat of violence

Word Count: 2,553

Chapter Synopsis: College acceptance letters are supposed to be exciting. Yours? Comes with questionable test scores, a glitter-sneezing frog, and a surprise admission that definitely wasn't secured through legal means. But hey — you're in. (Invincible may or may not have strong-armed a university dean into making it happen.)

a/n: had to drop this early – gonna be gone all weekend. hopefully i can post the next part late tomorrow night but we shall see

Part Four

If joy had a sound, it would be your shoes slapping frantically against the floor as you sprinted down the hall toward Mark’s door, paper waving wildly in your hand, voice already halfway to a yell.

“MARK!!”

The door didn’t even have time to creak before you barreled through it like a one-woman marching band. Somewhere in your backpack a stuffed octopus squealed in protest as it smacked into the doorframe.

Mark looked up from the fridge with a spoon in his mouth. “…Did you bring a hurricane with you, or…?”

You didn’t answer. You were too busy jumping up and down, waving the now-crumpled letter like a victory flag.

“I GOT IN!” you screamed. “I ACTUALLY GOT IN!!”

You tripped over his rug and face-planted onto the couch, your triumphant yell muffled by a cushion. The letter fluttered out of your hand and landed on the floor.

Mark blinked, still holding the spoon. “…To what, exactly?”

You popped up, hair askew and cheeks bright pink. “College, you troll! I got accepted!”

You leapt to your feet like you hadn’t just eaten rug seconds earlier, spinning in place like your whole body couldn’t contain the joy. “I thought I bombed the math part. I literally drew a picture of Séance Dog in place of a graph because I panicked. Like. A full picture. With the cape and everything.”

Mark chuckled, low and easy. “Classic.”

“I spelled ‘existential’ wrong in my essay three separate times and then crossed it out and just wrote ‘big feelings’ instead.”

“You’re a menace.”

“I thought for sure they were gonna laugh at it and throw it in a shredder or something!”

Mark watched you quietly, that faint smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. Your voice buzzed around the room like electricity, too fast, too loud, too much—but it was also kind of perfect.

Still, his eyes drifted to a memory.

Two Weeks Earlier…

He didn’t even have time to scream.

Someone dropped into the office in a blur of motion—tall, sharp-lined, dressed in a sleek black-and-blue suit. No mask. No emblem. Just him.

The dean scrambled back in his chair, glasses crooked, mouth flapping like a stunned goldfish.

“I want her accepted,” Invincible said evenly, voice devoid of any real emotion.

“I—I’m sorry, who exactly are—”

“Seriously?” Invincible cocked his head, giving the man a look of exaggerated disbelief. “No mask. Blue suit. I flew through your window. You’re really gonna make me say it?”

The dean paled. “Y-You’re Invincible.”

“Good. Saves time.” Mark strolled closer like he was shopping for cereal, expression casual and bored.

“I want her accepted.”

The dean’s confusion was loud and clear.

“[Y/N],” Invincible added with a roll of his eyes. “She applied a month ago. You probably got her test scores last week. Short, talks to her backpack, a walking glitter bomb. You’ll know her.”

“I-I’m sorry, I don’t know who—”

“She drew Séance Dog on the math section,” Mark added, like that sealed the deal.

“…I—oh,” the dean breathed, recognition dawning, along with a rising tide of anxiety. “Her.”

“Yeah. Her.” Mark’s voice sharpened like a blade. “She’s smart. Creative. Smarter than half the morons on your roster.”

The dean tried to hold firm. “H-Her scores were highly irregular—her background is completely unverifiable—”

“I’m not here to debate paperwork.”

He stepped closer. His boots hit the floor with a soft thud, the kind of sound that made you suddenly aware of how breakable bones were.

“You’re going to admit her.”

“Mr. Invincible, I—I can’t just—”

Mark tilted his head, voice going high and whiny as he mimicked, “‘Mr. Invincible! Mr. Invincible!’” Then his tone dropped, flat and cutting. “You sound pathetic.”

The dean’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.

Mark slammed his palm down on the desk — not hard enough to shatter it, but enough to make the surface creak and buckle. The dean flinched, eyes darting to the groaning wood beneath his hand.

“If you don’t,” Mark said calmly, “I’m going to pick up this desk — and drop it, with you still in it — off the roof.”

The dean went rigid. “I—this isn’t—this school has rules, and—”

“Do I look like I care about your rules?” Mark’s voice turned razor-sharp. “You’re going to admit her. You’re going to push the paperwork through and act like it’s completely normal. And you’re not going to make it weird.”

The dean stammered, trying to form a sentence, but Mark leaned in slightly — just enough to make sure the message landed.

“Let me be clear. This isn’t a request. This is me doing her a favor. And if you make this hard, I’ll come back and make your life hard. So? What’s it gonna be?”

The dean swallowed. “She’s in. I’ll make the call.”

Mark straightened, satisfied, and turned to leave. But as he stepped over the broken glass, he glanced over his shoulder.

“Oh. And if you ever tell her about this?” His expression stayed pleasant — but his eyes? All warning. “I’ll know. And we’ll have another conversation.”

Then he was gone — straight out the broken window with a sonic boom, leaving behind shards of glass, a trembling administrator, and one slightly crumpled admissions file.

Back in the Present…

You were still rambling, utterly unaware that your college dreams had been made real by a threat of high-altitude violence.

“—so I guess the moral of the story is if you fill your essay with enough nonsense and borderline emotional distress, sometimes it works out!”

You bounced on your toes, face glowing like you’d swallowed a sunbeam.

Mark leaned back against the counter, arms crossed. “You earned it.”

You gasped. “Did you just compliment me?”

“Barely.”

“Still counts!”

He tilted his head, letting your ramble continue — full of excitement and overthinking and color-coded move-in day plans.

He just let you go on.

Move-In Day

By noon, you were sweating through your shirt and losing a battle with a flat-pack dresser when Mark showed up.

“Is this you?” he called, dropping a suspiciously upscale mini fridge at your door.

You popped out of a half-open box like a jack-in-the-box, glitter in your hair and a plastic fork stuck in your hoodie string. “Mark! Oh thank God. This dresser is trying to kill me.”

He eyed the upside-down frame. “You built it backwards.”

“…It was an ambush.”

Mark hauled it upright like it was made of feathers. “Why are you already this chaotic? It’s barely noon.”

“I wanted to get here early! Beat the crowd. Make a good impression.”

He glanced around at the peeling washi tape, the glitter on your cheeks, and a sock with pipe cleaners sticking out of it that just rolled past him.

“Yeah,” he said. “Nailed it.”

You beamed. “Thanks!”

Over the next hour, Mark turned into a one-man moving crew. He hauled in a deluxe bean bag, a top-tier desk chair, and a literal rainbow’s worth of fairy lights.

You sat on your suitcase, eyeing the pile suspiciously. “Where are you even getting this stuff?”

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Garage sale.”

“This is a $400 bean bag.”

“Fancy garage.”

You squinted at him. He squinted back.

One of your plushes — a knitted frog with a googly eye stuck to its foot — let out a muffled sneeze of sparkles from inside a box.

Mark blinked. “Was that you?”

“No,” you said quickly, grabbing the frog and stuffing it into a drawer. “He’s shy.”

Mark stared, then raised a brow. “Maybe you should stop bringing stuff to life. Just a thought.”

You blinked. “What?”

He gestured vaguely toward your drawer. “I mean, what if that frog goes rogue? What if your toothbrush starts doing taxes?”

“Okay, first, the frog is very sweet. Second, I’m still workshopping the toothbrush—he’s going through a weird phase.”

Mark snorted. “Yeah, I bet.”

—

Once everything was mostly in place — minus the cursed dresser, which had now claimed three toes, a finger, and a sliver of your pride — you collapsed face-first onto your new bed.

“College is exhausting,” you groaned into the pillow, your voice muffled but full of drama.

“It literally hasn’t even started yet,” Mark said from somewhere behind you, his tone dry but amused. He sat down at the edge of your bed, the mattress shifting slightly beneath his weight. For a second, he hesitated, then shifted the bag that had been slung over his shoulder into his lap and began rummaging through its contents. After a moment he pulled out a slightly crumpled bundle wrapped in newspaper and set it down beside you.

He gave you a brief, almost distance glance. “Here.”

You lifted your head, eyeing the package almost suspiciously. “What’s this?”

“Something I found.” He shrugged like it was nothing, like it didn’t matter. “Thought you’d like it.”

Your fingers worked quickly, curiosity piqued — until the last fold of paper peeled away and your breath caught in your throat.

It was a glittery lava lamp, shaped like a smiling dinosaur. Ridiculous. Bright green. Cheesy in all the best ways. It shimmered like magic.

Your jaw dropped. “Wha—?! I saw this forever ago! I told you it was my soulmate!”

You looked up at him, eyes wide, heart thudding strangely hard. He wasn’t even looking at you — just casually leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fiddling with your tangled fairy lights like he wasn’t the most thoughtful person alive.

Mark shrugged again, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Must’ve been fate.”

You stared at him, still holding the lamp like it was made of gold. Then, slowly, a grin crept across your face — teasing, warm, just a little bit soft around the edges.

“…You were thinking about me,” you said, nudging his arm with your elbow. Your voice came out light and sing-songy, but there was something beneath it — a glimmer of surprise, and something a little closer to wonder.

Mark didn’t look up. But his ears turned a little pink.

“I know,” he said after a beat, and kept working on the fairy lights with exaggerated concentration — like maybe if he focused hard enough on the wires, you wouldn’t see the flicker of a smile threatening his face.

You watched him for a long second. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, hoodie dusted with glitter from your overenthusiastic unpacking. There was a smudge of dust on his cheek, and a faint, perpetual crease between his brows like he was always one snarky comment away from a sigh. His expression was calm — maybe even unreadable to most — but beneath it, you saw it clear as day:

Kindness. Quiet, unspoken, unconventional kindness.

You hugged the lamp to your chest and smiled.

Later That Night…

You sat cross-legged on the floor, cup ramen in hand, slurping noodles with a contented sigh as Mark stood nearby, staring down the cursed dresser like it owed him money. His arms were crossed, posture rigid, and every now and then, he’d give the dresser a glare that seemed like it might burn holes into it.

A sock-doll with mismatched button eyes peeked over a box like a tiny supervisor.

“This place already feels like home,” you sighed, your voice barely louder than a breath. You set the half-eaten ramen aside, your gaze softening as you looked around your new room, still a bit of a mess but full of the little touches you’d added to make it yours. “Honestly, I really didn’t think it would.”

Mark didn’t speak immediately. His eyes flicked toward you, just for a second, before his attention shifted back to the dresser, still standing in defiance. Then, his voice, quiet but certain: “You should get used to it. You got this knack of making any place feel like home.”

The words hit you like a surprise gust of wind. You blinked, a little caught off guard, before your expression softened. “I—thank you. For… all of this. The stuff. The heavy lifting. The… mysterious bean bag.” You lifted your hands as if presenting the absurdity of the situation, a small, awkward laugh escaping you.

Mark shrugged, his lips pulling into a near-imperceptible smile. His arms stayed crossed, his body language still giving off the air of casual detachment, but the faint curve of his mouth betrayed him. “Don’t mention it.”

“No, seriously.” You sat up a little straighter, eyes widening with mock seriousness as you continued, “I feel like, morally obligated to bake you cookies or something.”

Mark glanced over at you, one brow raised skeptically as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “Cookies, huh?”

“My baking’s questionable, but I can promise they won’t kill you,” you said matter-of-factly, being sure to add on the last part for good measure.

He crossed his arms again with a slow, thoughtful look that said he was still unconvinced. “Yeah, I think I’m good. Not looking to eat something that might come to life in my stomach.”

You blinked, the playfulness fading for just a second. “Wha—you think I’d do that you?!”

Mark shrugged, his gaze never leaving you, a smirk creeping onto his face as he leaned back against the wall. “I mean, they’d probably taste like cardboard. Or glitter. And then I’d end up with a weird, sentient cookie army trying to stage a revolution in my spleen.”

You stared at him, mouth slightly open in disbelief. “My creations would never!!” You defended vehemently.

He held up his hands defensively, his expression as if to say don’t kill the messenger. “You’ve got a frog that sneezes sparkles. Anything’s possible.”

You huffed, picking up a bottle of Elmer’s glue and chucking it at him. “Wrong, because that is in fact impossible.” His movement was barely perceptible as he tilted his head to the side just in time for the bottle to whiz pass his face and hit the wall behind him.

He grinned, as if excited by the way you were getting riled up. You shook your head, the frustration melting into a fond smile that you couldn’t quite suppress.

With a sigh Mark stretched his arms above his head, rolling his neck to the side. “Alright. I gotta head out.”

You paused, feeling a wave of disappointment at his announcement, but quickly swallowed the feelings realizing he’d spent the better part of his day there with you. You stood with him and trailed a few steps behind as he moved to the window – his personal entry and exit. Before he could leave, you reached out, tugging gently on his sleeve. “Hey… thanks again. Really.”

His gaze softened just for a moment as he looked down at your dainty fingers curled into his sleeve. His body became almost rigid as he looked away, closing his eyes in an attempt at nonchalance. “Don’t sweat it.”

As he placed one foot on the windowsill, ready to take off into the sky, you called after him, unable to help yourself from one final tease. “Garage sale, huh?”

He glanced over his shoulder, smirking in a way that seemed to suggest there was definitely more to that story. “Craziest one I’ve ever been to.”

And with that, he was gone — vanishing into the dark while you and the sock-doll supervisor cheered him on from the dorm.

———————

Part Six

———————

Taglist! @maddyb-rapps | @sweet-3-whispers | @moradogreen | @rayaaa4444 | @luvvcharxo | @byteme05 | @rivalriotrenegade | @1abi

[ghostedgwen]

all by design | p.parker [part one]

notes : I am back to writing for peter parker of course because before anyone else - this blog was created originally for him, my originally muse - that somehow fits well into this fic lol - reqs are open <3

warnings : college au - no superpowers, no spider-man, dorky peter parker who's an introvert, reader is a mastermind pulling strings, cute working on project stuff - photography shit I pretend I know things about

You only signed up for photography to dodge a boring science class, but somehow ended up choosing Peter Parker as your muse — soft-spoken, brilliant, and criminally overlooked. He’s awkward, you’re accidentally obvious, and a late-night project might just turn into something a little more.

I laid the groundwork and then, just like clockwork, the dominoes cascaded in a line. . .

Peter Parker always sits in the third row.

Same grey hoodie. Same battered notebook, filled with stickers - so very random. Same cheap black coffee in a reusable Stark Expo travel mug that he never seems to finish.

You notice, of course. You notice everything about him - in a maybe not-so creepy way.

It’s hard not to, when you’ve been quietly, shamelessly harboring a thing - not a crush, you insist, because that feels juvenile - for him since week three of Intro to Photography.

Not that he talks much. He’s the type to melt into the corners of the classroom, to let others raise their hands and perform their answers like auditions. But he listens, scribbles tiny notes in that notebook of his, mouth quirking when something makes him laugh - a soft, rare thing that you’ve started cataloguing like your own private gallery.

Photography, for the record, wasn’t supposed to be your thing. You picked it to duck out of another semester of mandatory econ electives - something about composition sounded better than graphs. But then Peter Parker sat three rows ahead of you, quietly fascinating, and just like that: you had a muse.

Not that he knows. Of course he doesn’t. You’ve only submitted one piece with him in frame - his silhouette against a window, mid-laugh - and titled it “Unnoticed Light.” Langley gave it an A. Said it felt honest. You couldn’t exactly say "thanks, I’m secretly in love with the boy who never finishes his coffee.”

Most people overlook him - they don’t see past the hoodie, the fading bruise on his jaw from god-knows-what, or the way he keeps his head down when he walks. But you do. You see how he flinches at loud noises, how his fingers twitch like they’re always itching to fix something.

You see the careful, considerate way he offers to carry the overhead projector without being asked. You see how he lingers by the windows for better light when photographing portraits - how the shots he turns in are always somehow achingly human.

You wonder if anyone’s ever looked at him that way. You doubt it.

You do, though. From behind your camera lens. From across the quad. From the third seat to the left, where you’ve started sitting every Tuesday morning. Two rows back. Just close enough to hear when he mutters his answers under his breath.

You’ve spoken to him exactly three times. Once during critique week (“I liked your framing”), once at the vending machines (“They’re out of pretzels, by the way”), and once when your professor handed back graded papers and he’d gotten a B. You saw the way his shoulders slumped and told him, softly, “She grades hard. That’s basically an A in Langley-speak.”

He looked at you like he hadn’t expected kindness.

You remember that look too well. It's the reason you’re about to make this project pairing very conveniently work in your favour.

But that comes later.

For now, Peter Parker’s in the third row again, fiddling with the strap of his camera bag like it’s a nervous tic, and you’re trying very hard not to smile at nothing.

You overhear Langley mention the project pairings two weeks before she announces them.

She’s in the hallway, talking to one of the TAs - something about how she “might just let them pick their own partners this time. Less hassle.”

You’re not proud of what happens next. Scratch that - you’re exactly proud of what happens next. Because it’s not cheating if you’re just. . . influencing the environment. Like the weather. Or the Wi-Fi. Or even better - fate.

It starts with small things. Like moving your seat up one row so you’re just behind Peter now - not that anyone noticed as the seats in class were never fully occupied.

Laughing just a little louder at his dry jokes when the professor asks for class discussion.

The first time it happens, you’re not even subtle. Langley makes some sarcastic comment about how half the class probably doesn’t know what ISO stands for, and Peter mutters under his breath, “In Spite Of everything, I’m still here.”

You snort before you can stop yourself.

He glances back, startled, and you catch the flicker of a smile tugging at his mouth like he hadn’t expected anyone to hear. You almost neglect to note how perfectly matching his hair and eyes were, a rich shade of brown - might be worth something later.

“You get this stuff?” you ask him after class, tapping your camera. “Because I’m faking it at an award-winning level.”

Peter shrugs, bashful - hiding his surprise at your approach. “I mean, mostly I just mess around until it looks right. Which. . . I think is technically a method?”

“That’s what I’ve been doing, too,” you grin. “We’re either geniuses or complete frauds.”

He laughs - a low, surprised sound - and runs a hand through his curls like he’s trying to hide behind them. “Honestly? I’ll take either.”

You start leaving class at the same time he does. Linger a beat longer by the vending machines. Let your shoulder brush his once in a while when you lean over to look at a picture he’s editing on his laptop.

And okay - maybe you start timing your exits so you’re walking next to him through the quad. And maybe you offer him a gummy worm from the bag in your pocket one afternoon, and he acts like you handed him a priceless family heirloom.

“Wait - are these sour?” he says reverently.

“The best kind.” you give him a toothy grin.

He grins. “Okay, you’re officially the coolest person in this class. Sorry, Langley.”

When Langley finally announces partner selection, she lets people volunteer first.

Which is when you strike.

You wait exactly four beats after Peter glances around the room, clearly hesitant to make the first move.

You raise your hand, smile easy, and say, “Can I work with Peter?”

Langley nods, scribbles your names down. Peter looks up, slightly surprised, but doesn’t question it.

“Uh - yeah, cool,” he says, blinking behind his glasses. “That works. Definitely works.”

There’s a faint flush on his cheeks. You don’t know if it’s from attention or from you - you enjoy it anyways.

You don’t ask.

You just tuck the moment away like a lucky penny, warm in your pocket, and look forward to what comes next.

“So,” you say, casual as you can manage. “I was thinking. For the project. I want to photograph you.”

Peter blinks. Stares. “Me?”

You nod. “Yeah. You’d be perfect.”

He fumbles with the zipper on his backpack like it just forgot how to function. “Uh - I mean, I thought we were supposed to do something, like, theme-based?”

You lean back on your hands, legs folded on the library carpet, and look up at him with a little grin. “Exactly. And I think you’d be perfect for the concept I’m going for. It’s about presence. Softness. The way someone’s energy fills a space. I want to capture someone who doesn’t realize they’re being seen. Someone. . . quietly magnetic.”

Peter swallows.

“Magnetic?” he echoes, a little too cutely for your poor heart.

You nod again, and oh, you’re really laying it on now, aren’t you?

“Yeah,” you say, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You have that face people want to look at. Even if they don’t realize it right away.”

Peter’s mouth opens like he wants to argue, but he just sort of… makes a noise. Halfway between a breath and a squeak.

You bite your lip to keep from laughing. It’s not mean-spirited - you’re just so fond. It’s hard not to let it show.

“And your eyes are insane,” you add, like you’re checking off a list. “They catch light like no one else’s in this class. You’ve got that kind of timeless thing going on - a little bit James Dean, a little bit boy-next-door.”

Peter is frozen. Absolutely shellshocked. Like he cannot compute being complimented this much in one sitting.

“. . .You’ve definitely thought about this,” he says eventually, voice a little hoarse.

You shrug, suddenly aware of your own heartbeat. “Maybe. A little.”

There’s a beat of silence.

Peter scratches the back of his neck, and for a terrifying second, you wonder if you’ve ruined everything - if you came on too strong, if the room has tilted a little too far in the direction of intentional.

But then he smiles.

It’s a tiny thing. Just the curve of his lips, shy and secret and so unbearably sweet - so Peter.

“Okay,” he says quietly. “If you’re sure you want to. I mean, I’m not very - photogenic. Or model-y. Or whatever.”

“You’re perfect,” you say before you can stop yourself - nevermind the fact you're still yet to confess the submission you previously made of him.

Peter flushes deeper. Looks at his hands. Smiles harder.

You pretend not to notice - you could almost get a degree for that.

You give him directions to your place later that night.

It’s a short walk from campus - tucked above a trendy cafe and across from a laundromat that always smells like jasmine detergent and cheap cologne.

Your aunt signed the lease for you before you even applied to uni, saying, “Every artist needs a sanctuary.” The space is way too nice for a student. Hardwood floors, big windows, blackout curtains, high ceilings with exposed beams. A dream for any art student, really.

Peter looks around when he arrives, clearly trying not to be impressed.

“This is yours?” he asks, dropping his camera bag by the door.

You nod. “Technically it’s my aunt’s. She travels a lot. But yeah. Mine for now.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You live here alone?”

“Yep.”

“That’s. . .” He spins in a slow circle, taking in the space. “Kind of incredible.”

You flash him a grin. “You’re welcome any time.”

He snorts. “My roommate would kill me if I tried to turn our dorm into a studio. He thinks personal space is sacred. Meanwhile, he clips his toenails without a care for where they end up.”

You laugh, motioning for him to sit. “Okay, yeah. You’re banned from trying this in your own place.”

He sits down on the little velvet couch, awkwardly tucks one leg under the other, and glances around like he’s waiting to be told what to do.

You set up the lighting as naturally as you can, trying not to show how giddy you are about this. About him, here, in your space, letting you see him like this.

When you look through the viewfinder and frame the shot - Peter in profile, warm lamplight brushing his cheekbones, sleeves pushed up to his forearms - you think, Yeah. This was always going to happen.

Even if he doesn’t know it yet.

“Okay,” you murmur, adjusting the tripod slightly. “Just relax. Don’t think about the camera. Think about. . . like, what you’d do if you were alone. Not sad alone. Normal alone. Like. . . chilling.”

Peter raises an eyebrow. “That’s incredibly specific and somehow still not helpful.”

You snort. “You’re doing fine. Just - don’t pose. Or, like . . . do. But make it look like you’re not posing.”

Peter gives you a look. “So. Be naturally unnatural.”

“Exactly.”

He huffs a laugh and leans back against the couch again, arms loosely crossed, head tilted like he’s considering something far off in the distance. It’s candid. Or close enough. His expression softens when he exhales, and you click the shutter without thinking.

“Better?” he asks, eyes flicking toward you.

You glance down at the preview on your camera screen and nod slowly. “That’s a good one. You’ve got a very - contemplative face.”

Peter mock-gasps. “So I do have a face worth photographing?”

“Oh my god, I’ve been saying that for weeks.” you say feigning shock.

He grins, and you snap another shot.

Then he shifts slightly, arms raised to run a hand through his hair - and the motion hikes his pullover up just a little, revealing a sliver of lean stomach, the faint outline of muscle.

You blink.

And, well.

You’re only human.

“Okay, wait,” you say, squinting as you lower the camera. “Why are you, like. . . secretly ripped under there?”

Peter freezes. “What?”

You gesture to him, accusatory. “You look like you code for twelve hours a day and live off granola bars and Red Bull, and then - bam! Surprise abs?”

He splutters, desperate to deny your words. “They’re not - abs. It’s just lighting.”

You tilt your head, smug to have caught him in such a predicament. “Is it?”

He covers his face with his hands. “You can’t just say stuff like that.”

You laugh, unapologetic. “I absolutely can. I’m the artist. I get to be pretentious and weirdly flirty. It’s in the rules.”

Peter peeks at you through his fingers, blushing like crazy. “Okay. But for the record, I am not ripped. I’m. . . jacketed.”

You blink. “What?”

He drops his hands, now grinning. “Like. . .I’m not shredded. I’m cozy. Secretly jacket.”

You laugh so loud it echoes a little off the brick wall.

“God, you’re stupid,” you say fondly - his nose crinkles at that.

“Thank you,” he replies, mock-solemn.

You take three more photos while he’s still laughing.

After that, it’s easy.

You trade the high-watt lights for the soft glow of a desk lamp. The vibe settles - less photoshoot, more afterglow. You both move through the space without talking, cleaning up wires and lenses, folding backdrops, checking batteries. It’s comfortable. Not quite domestic, but something adjacent to it. Something you don’t have a name for yet.

Peter hands you a lens cap without being asked. You unplug the extension cord and wrap it neatly over your arm. Somewhere outside, a car honks, and someone yells about fries.

You stretch your arms over your head, then glance at him over your shoulder.

“Wanna go get burgers?”

He pauses, halfway through packing his camera, and looks at you like you just offered him front-row tickets to a space launch.

“Like. . . now?”

You shrug. “Unless you’ve got somewhere better to be.”

He considers you for a beat too long. Then smiles. It’s a little crooked. A little shy. Unreasonably cute.

“Burgers sound perfect.”

It’s nearing 12:30 by the time you stumble into the diner - one of those charming, grease-stained spots that’s open 24/7 and never quite empty. The fluorescent sign outside flickers with effort, casting pink and blue across the sidewalk like a hazy, nostalgic film scene.

Peter holds the door for you, his camera bag slung over one shoulder, and the warm smell of frying oil and vanilla milkshake syrup hits instantly.

You both slide into a booth, you facing the window, Peter across from you, cheeks still pink from the cold night air.

The waitress doesn’t bother with a menu.

“Two burgers, two fries, two chocolate shakes?” she asks with a raised brow, pen poised.

Peter blinks. “Wait, how did you - ”

“You two look like the type,” she says flatly, then walks off without another word.

You grin, biting back a laughter in the case she takes it the wrong way. “She gets it.”

Peter gives you a mock-scandalized look. “Do we have a type?”

You lean back, stretching lazily in your seat. “Apparently we do. Chocolate-shake-at-midnight type.”

He smiles at that. “Not the worst reputation to have.”

By the time the food comes, you’ve already kicked your shoes off under the booth and Peter’s talking with his hands like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. The diner’s mostly empty except for a guy asleep by the jukebox and a girl aggressively typing on her laptop in the corner.

The conversation shifts easily once you start asking questions. Like you’re in your own little bubble.

“What made you pick computer science?” you ask, tearing a fry in half, dipping it in your milkshake and eating it. He watched you in mild amusement.

Peter shrugs, sipping from the milkshake. “I’ve always liked puzzles. Logic. Building stuff from scratch. It’s. . . satisfying, I guess.”

You nod. “You seem like someone who enjoys solving things.”

He blushes a little, then grins. “Okay, my turn. Why photography? You’re too cool to be doing this just for credits.”

You laugh, throwing a half fry at him which he barely dodged with a chuckle. “Flatterer.”

Peter raises his milkshake in a silent toast.

You consider your answer. “Honestly? I started it because it got me out of a required science elective. But then it kind of… stuck. I don’t know. Something about freezing a moment - turning it into a story. I liked the control of it. The quiet.”

He looks at you like he understands. Like he really gets it - he studies you for a moment.

“That makes sense,” he says. “You take it seriously. You see stuff other people don’t.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Like what?”

He glances down at his fries, then up at you again, his voice quieter now. “Like me.”

You go still for a second.

But you’re not ready to crack open that door yet, so instead you lean in with a crooked smile and deflect like a pro.

“Back to the game, Parker. Favorite color?”

He laughs and says, “Blue. Like - not sky blue. Like hoodie blue.”

You blink, surprised. “That’s specific.”

He shrugs. “I know what I like.”

You twirl a fry between your fingers. “Okay. Favorite movie?”

Peter looks thoughtful. “I’m gonna say The Iron Giant. It makes me cry every single time and I’m not even sorry.”

Your heart clenches a little. Of course it does, it is so like him - ever the softboy.

You smile. “That’s a solid answer. Top tier sad-boy comfort flick.”

He grins. “Alright, your turn. Most irrational fear?”

You pause dramatically. “Birds.”

Peter blinks. “What?”

“They’re twitchy. Beady-eyed. I don’t trust a creature that can fly and still chooses to steal fries off the sidewalk.”

He’s laughing before you finish the sentence, full-body and warm. You sip your milkshake just to hide how proud you are of that laugh.

The questions keep coming, softer now, more personal.

Siblings? No - just you. Just Peter.

Favorite smell? His is old books. Yours is rain on pavement.

Do you believe in soulmates?

You both pause on that one.

Peter looks at you, eyes darker in the dim light, fingers stilling around his straw - chocolate milkshake all drained from the 50s diner style cup.

“I think. . .I used to,” he says. “Then I stopped. Then I started again. I don’t know. It’s complicated.”

You hum. “That’s fair. I think I believe in . . .finding someone who feels like home. Even if it’s not fate. Even if it’s a choice.”

He nods, like that sits right with him. “That’s a good answer.”

You smile. “I’ve got a lot of those.”

“I know.”

And he says it so soft, so genuine, that you forget how to chew for a second.

It’s past 2AM when you finally wander back out into the night, bellies full, fingertips salty, the streetlights casting halos around you.

“Thanks for tonight,” Peter says, voice warm.

You bump your shoulder against his. “Anytime.”

And you mean it.

You’re not in love. Not yet. But something about tonight feels like the first chapter of something that might be worth writing down.

to be continued. . .

part two | masterlist

[pneumaticshift]

pls can we have batlantern confession butmake it cringe ^..^

Oh buddy, I can do cringe. I thrive off cringe. I am the cringe.

———

The annoying thing about Spooky was that he existed. 

That was the core issue, really. Bruce Wayne existed. If he didn’t, Hal’s life would’ve been a helluva lot simpler. 

Because if Bruce didn’t exist, Hal wouldn’t have to deal with the constant feeling of being outplayed. He wouldn’t have to put up with the fact that no matter what he did, no matter how far he flew, how hard he hit or how clever he was, there would always be this blob of blackness lurking in the background to aggressively judge his every mood. 

If Bruce didn’t exist, Hal wouldn’t have to deal with that look. The one where Spooky narrowed his eyes, pressed his lips into that grim, disappointed line, and somehow managed to communicate all the power of justice, vengeance, and at least forty years of unresolved emotional baggage in a single glance. He wouldn’t have to deal with the fact that Bruce could vanish mid-conversation just to be dramatic. He wouldn’t have to deal with the way Bruce always seemed to know things, things Hal hadn’t even figured out about himself yet.

If Bruce Wayne didn’t exist, Hal wouldn’t be freaking out because he fell in love entirely without his consent. 

And now he was existing in proximity. Standing in the Watchtower common room, pouring himself a cup of coffee like it was normal, like he was normal. Like he was just some guy. Entirely unforgiving of the fact that Hal realised he had fallen in love with him three days prior and was now suffering the beginnings of a really fun existential crisis because of it. 

Because Hal was Hal and because he couldn’t be normal about anything, as soon as Bruce glided into the room, all tucked up in his big dumb cape, he froze. Odocoileus virginianus. Wide eyes, locked joints, brain empty, headlights on. His entire life flashing before his eyes. Not even the good parts. The stupid parts where he tripped on air, or the time he gave a presentation in college with his fly undone and he had been wearing his girlfriend’s underwear.

He was being dramatic, maybe, but he thought he earned the right to be dramatic when the object of his very reluctant affections was the type to unironically wear a cape and flounce about punching things in the moonlight. 

It was, however, a wildly ineffective reaction when faced with a man who was widely considered to be the World’s Greatest Detective. Which, in Hal’s opinion, was a dumb title. 

“You’re quiet,” Bruce said, because he noticed things like that. Of course he would. Bruce noticed everything. He probably had folders on everyone in the League and kept track of how many words each of them said in a day. Probably had charts and graphs, too. Loser. 

“I’m quiet?” Hal repeated. Then, because he was the type to acknowledge an opportunity to make things worse for himself and leap towards it, he added, “I’m never quiet. You’re the quiet one, ever think about that? Can’t a guy take a second just to, like, sit here and exist? Is that really such a big deal?”

Spooky leaned against the counter and took a sip of his coffee. He was still wearing the cowl, but his expression probably wouldn’t have changed even without it. There was a really specific feeling that came with being stared at judgmentally by Batman. Usually irritation. Now, Hal realised, it was accompanied by a very unwelcome flip in his stomach. 

“I suppose not,” Bruce said. 

This was exactly why Hal had plans to avoid Bruce for the rest of his life. Or at least until he got a handle of this new light he was seeing him in. Without saying much of anything, Spooky was already on his way to backing Hal into a corner. It wasn’t even intentional. It was just the way he was. Just the way he goddamn existed. 

So, after a moment of staring awkwardly at Bruce and hoping one of them would just disintegrate or something, Hal made the totally rational decision to bolt.

“Okay, great talk!” he announced, clapping his hands together and immediately heading for the door. Like a coward. He’d never live it down. 

Bruce, to his credit, didn’t stop him. He just stood there, stock still. Creepy, really. Hal didn’t know why that did it for him, but it sure fucking did. But while Spooky didn’t move, he did decide to speak instead. “Jordan,” he called. “Are you trying to avoid me?”

Yes. Yes, Batman, Hal was definitely trying to do that. He was already committing to his hasty escape, but he automatically turned back. As much as he was being a little baby bitch and running away with his tail between his legs, he didn’t appreciate being called out on it. 

His brain malfunctioned, he was pretty sure he temporarily lost his mind, and his mouth decided to betray him in real time. 

“What? No. That would be insane. Why would I avoid you? I love you. Shit.”

The silence that followed wasn’t deafening, but it was mortifying. 

Hal turned to stone. Just fully froze in place. Bruce didn’t react. Didn’t so much as blink. He just kept on looking at Hal with that same, neutral, horribly patient expression. Almost like he didn’t even need to react. Almost like he was just waiting to see what Hal would do next. 

Which was unfortunate, because Hal really had no idea what to do next.

There was a full second where he debated trying to play it off. Slap him on the shoulder, haha, love you, pal, buddy, chum, friend, and then saunter off like he meant to do that. But his body had seized up in horror and his instincts were helpfully ordering him to abort. 

So, naturally, he did the only thing he could do.

He turned on his heel and walked straight into the doorframe.

Which wasn’t cool. Like, at all. 

The impact was pretty catastrophic. Both for his poor nose and his dignity. A sickening thud, the crunch of something not meant to be crunched, and then — oh. Oh no. That was a lot of blood. 

Hal staggered back, hand flying to his nose, and when he pulled away, yeah. Absolutely wrecked. A flood was gushing down his face, dripping from his chin and mixing with the green of his Lantern suit until he was Christmas colours. He tried to catch it in his palm, and it stained the white of his glove red. 

Spooky was still incapable of reacting like a normal person. He just watched in mild interest. No exclamation of shock, no gasp or startled movement. Just a slow blink, as if he were mentally processing the exact physics of how Hal had managed to do this to himself.

"Ow," Hal said belatedly, because his nerve endings had finally caught up to the disaster. "Shit, ow."

With a contemplative grunt, Bruce set his coffee down. That was when Hal knew he was doomed. Not because Spooky looked all that  concerned, but because he was moving toward Hal with the quiet efficiency of a man about to take charge of the situation.

"Sit down," Bruce instructed, and Hal, in the midst of blood loss and panic, did exactly that.

The bat-utility belt had a lot of useful shit in it, and Bruce pulled out a wad of gauze to press against Hal’s tender face. "I think I broke my nose," Hal said, only because he felt the need to contribute something to the moment. It came out like ‘I thig I broge by dose’. Which was humiliating, naturally. 

Bruce hummed, tilting Hal’s chin slightly to assess the damage. “It’s not broken.”

“Good. Great. Awesome,” Hal muttered into the gauze. “Did it look cool? It felt cool.”

Of course, Bruce didn’t reply for a moment. He was too busy applying pressure and ignoring how social interactions were supposed to go. Then, with absolutely no warning, he said, “You love me?”

Hal choked. Almost literally, because he inhaled wrong and the blood situation immediately got so much worse. Bruce just waited, patient as ever, as Hal just stared and bled in his direction. “You’re asking me that now?”

“You’re the one who said it.”

“I was panicking,” he snapped back, a little frantic. “It was trauma-induced. You can’t hold people accountable for things they say when they’re hemorrhaging.”

Bruce mercifully didn’t mention that Hal definitely wasn’t bleeding when he blurted out his fucking undying love for all things Spooky. He just held the towel firmly in place, gaze steady, unreadable, waiting for Hal to pull his head out of his ass.

And Hal, still actively leaking from the face, realised he was probably going to have to answer. 

He did search for an escape route for all of three seconds, but there was none. Bruce had him locked in place with the sheer force of presence. One hand firm against Hal’s saw (strong, sexy), keeping the gauze in place like he knew Hal would try to run if given even a moment of leeway. 

Which, you know, fair. Hal absolutely would have thrown himself out of the nearest airlock if he thought it would get him out of this conversation.

Instead, he was stuck. Bleeding, horrified, and, worst of all, subject to Bruce staring at him with the kind of scrutiny that peeled a person apart and rummaged around their insides for something raw and real to fall out. It was a small mercy that he couldn’t see those blue eyes. That would’ve finished him off. 

Hal swallowed. His nose throbbed. His entire life throbbed.

“Okay, listen,” he started, fully prepared to embark on a desperate campaign of damage control, but he faltered. 

“You love me.”

Not a question this time. A statement.

Hal made a noise that came out really ugly because of the whole nose situation. “You gotta stop saying it, man.”

Spooky continued to just look at him. 

God, there was no getting out of this. There wasn’t even an inch of plausible deniability there to hide behind. Just him, his big dumb mouth, and Bruce Wayne looking at him like he was something to be figured out. 

Fine, whatever. Hal had bounced back from worse things. This was mid-tier at best. Just mild, horrific, soul-crushing vulnerability. No big deal. 

“I mean, yeah, obviously, I love you,” he grumbled, his words a little garbled because of all the blood and gauze. “You’re an asshole. I trust you. I wanna punch you. I respect you. And yeah, sometimes I wanna make out with you really bad, but that’s not weird because most people want to do that with you because you have, like, a really nice face, which is frankly unfair—”

“Hal.”

He shut his mouth immediately. He recognised that tone. Patient, firm, Batman tone. It had shut him up in a crisis before, and apparently, it worked on this kind of crisis too.

Bruce let the silence stretch for a moment. Probably because he was kind of a dick. Then, without preamble, he said, “I already knew.”

Hal could’ve strangled him. “Oh, you’re an asshole.”

“You’re not subtle.”

“I’ll give you subtle, you goddamn—”

“You really thought I wouldn’t notice?”

“Honestly, I was banking on you respecting my privacy for once, but maybe I set the bar too high. I can’t believe you. You’re such a dick. Can’t let a guy pine in peace.”

Spooky shrugged. “I thought you’d eventually say something.”

“Buddy, you overestimated me so hard—”

“I was right.”

Hal groaned so hard his soul tried to escape his body. He also conveniently ignored how Batman was implying he had known for a long time, while Hal had only figured it out three days ago. That sucked. “Stop being so— so smug about it! God, you’re such a douche.”

Bruce, because he was the worst and Hal was apparently into that, had the audacity to smirk. Just slightly. Just enough for Hal to know it was there. And that right there was really playing dirty, because Hal was already compromised. His brain was melting, he was actively dying (having a nosebleed) and now Spooky was looking at him like that? 

Unacceptable. Absolutely unfair. 

But then Bruce did something worse. So much worse.

He reached up and tugged the cowl off. 

It wasn’t just that Spooky was obscenely attractive under all the doom and gloom. It was the way he did it. Like he was peeling off a formality, stripping down from Batman to just Bruce. All casual, all intimate, and for some godforsaken reason, he’d decided to do it right in front of Hal. 

And Hal, brilliant, composed, intergalactically renowned Green Lantern that he was, reacted by making a tiny distressed noise in the back of his throat. 

"Okay!" he yelped, scrambling to stand. "Time to leave.”

Spooky exhaled something that might have been a laugh in the right light, and caught Hal’s elbow to steady him. “Sit down before you hurt yourself again.”

Hal grumbled under his breath but did as he was told. Mostly because his options were limited and he was pretty sure his blood supply was dangerously low at this point. Bruce unravelled a fresh roll of gauze to help soak up the blood that kept on coming. 

And then, because if Hal hadn’t suffered enough, Bruce said in the most infuriatingly casual tone possible, “Let me know when you’re ready to talk about that ‘make out’ part.”

Hal promptly decided that bleeding out might actually be the preferable option.