#It chapter 1 imagine

[httpsserene]

1-800-HELP-ME-PARK — 𝐜𝐥. 𝟏𝟔 charles leclerc x fem!bipoc!reader smau (ignore dates on tweets pls). fluff, humor & probably crack adjacent. explicit language. two or three uses of "y/n." charles’ canonically questionable parking. reader goes undercover on f1twt. charles gets cyberbullied /jk. big thx to the twt girlies who had threads of charles' bad parking photos ;p

synopsis: fans notice that charles’ cars are suddenly being parked perfectly. come to find out, his (secret) girlfriend has been parking his ferrari like butter.

༊࿐ ⊹ ˚ this is like mid-level charles leclerc stan knowledge. bro put all of his skill points into racepace and forgot about parking his daily cars😭 enjoy reading, my loves xxx

⌕ join taglist | requests & feedback | upcoming chapters | table of contents ↻

instagram • f1fanpagemonaco

liked by arthur_leclerc, lorenzotl, joris__trouche, and 34,785 others

f1fanpagemonaco the planets must be in alignment because charles leclerc has perfectly parked his ferrari this afternoon 😱

tagged charles_leclerc

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user1 i-i can't believe my eyes 😧

user2 it's only taken him a decade to learn how to parallel park LOL

user3 monaco native here! can confirm- his cars have decreased cosplaying as road obstructions for about three months :)

user4 THREE MONTHS ??!!? how is this the first time i'm hearing about this ???

user5 i don't believe this. did anybody SEE him park the car 🤨🤨🤨

user6 we're going to find out this photo was ai generated in a couple weeks haha

user7 take this down !!! we're supposed to keep this on the dl to avoid jinxing ourselves 🤬

user8 fr, i thought every monegasque was in agreement about staying hushed :(

user9 after almost flying over the hood of his cars TWICE on my bicycle- i'm glad that he's improving his parking skills ☺️

user9 HIS BROTHERS AND FRIENDS IN THE LIKES IS EVEN CRAZIER??! CHARLES STAND UP FOR YOURSELF ⁉️⁉️

user8 didn't you just say that you almost crashed into his (badly) parked car in the comment above ? user9 i fail to see how that's relevant rn

user10 charles woke up saying "i understand it now" and performed the best parallel parking known to man

user11 y'all are getting ahead of yourselves. there's a very high chance that it was valet parking 🙄

user5 this is what i'm saying!!! user12 lol what if he decided to hire a private driver 🤣 user13 charles would neverrrrr—remember how he acted on the start-stop challenge we Carlos 👀 user14 he DOES NOT serve passenger princess ☠️

twitter

imessage • charles -> yn

twitter • @ cl16sleftnipple -> yn's undercover fan acct

imessage • yn -> charles

igstory • charles_leclerc has uploaded !

[caption; she accepts watching sunsets on a yacht as a form of payment 😉]

this story is unavailable. get notifications when charles_leclerc shares a story.

igstory • yninstagram has uploaded to their close friends story !

[caption; if anyone is looking for a chauffeur call me at 1-800-HELP-ME-PARK 😅]

franciscacgomes u have to take me on a joyride the next time i'm in monaco !!!

yninstagram yes! we'll ditch the boys for the day and collect some speeding tickets with the stradale ;p

yourfriend do you do weddings 👀

yninstagram weddings, birthdays, bachelor & bachelorette parties, etc. yourfriend how much do you charge? yninstagram 4 cheeseburger

charles_leclerc i thought i hired you for your exclusivity 😑

yninstagram shh mon amour you'll always be my favorite client xoxo

olliebearman if i get him for secret santa next year, i'm gifting him parking lessons 😆

yninstagram you'd be my favorite child if you did 🛐 olliebearman :DDD

instagram • f1fanpagemonaco

liked by arthur_leclerc, lorenzotl, joris__trouche, and 34,785 others

f1fanpagemonaco charles leclerc posts and deletes a photo of an unknown woman to his instagram story in the midst of a rampant discussion of his suddenly improved parking! it's captioned: "she accepts watching sunsets on a yacht as a form of payment." was this an accidental post of the rumored chauffeur that's behind the perfect parking of his vehicles?

tagged charles_leclerc

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user17 the winky face emoji is making me think she's more than just his chauffeur ����👀👀

user18 we really do need to open the schools :/

user19 bc how do you read the caption and not see that it's blatant confirmation that he's hired a driver?

user20 i don't even have to see behind that champagne flute to know that she's a baddie 😮‍💨

user21 now that i think about it, i think i saw a woman with this exact outfit walking a dachshund that could’ve been leo!!! wish we could see more of her face to confirm ☹️

user22 does anybody else think that this was just meant to distract us from the original issue of charles being unable to park a car???

user23 talk about it!!! user24 i mean it doesn't really matter if he can park anymore now that he's paying somebody to do it for him 🤷‍♀️

twitter • @ cl16sleftnipple -> yn's undercover fan acct

imessage • yn -> charles

instagram • f1fanpagemonaco

liked by arthur_leclerc, lorenzotl, joris__trouche, and 34,785 others

f1fanpagemonaco the plot thickens 😱 the woman rumored to be charles leclerc's chauffer was caught parking his car and taking a photo afterward! this confirms her chauffeur status AND leads many to think that she's also the woman behind @/cl16sleftnipple on twitter. our discord members have hunted down what may be her instagram account too 🧐

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user25 why do i feel so violated!!! his chauffeur has been a double agent the entire time 🤯

user26 tbh charles better be paying her beautifully !!!

user27 iktr bc i would not try to convince everybody on the internet that he can park when it's really me doing all the work!

user28 i think i'm in love with her

user29 who is this diva 💜

user30 next thing you know we're gonna find out she has a tumblr for f1 ff's 😭😭😭

user31 i think somebody is leaking the plot to the next trending netflix original movie 👄

user32 lwk i think i could convince her to drive me around in my prius 🤥

user33 you forget how to speak around hot women and only have $12.32 in your checking acct—you couldn't even convince her to breathe the same air as you bestie 😘 user32 i know you like to think that calling me bestie after reading me to filth will make up for it, but it just makes me want to strangle you even more :)

instagram • charles_leclerc

liked by arthur_leclerc, lorenzotl, joris__trouche, and 34,785 others

charles_leclerc if you're going to reveal who cl16sleftnipple is, at least get her job title correct 😠 she's not my chauffeur, she's my girlfriend and parking princess 👸🏾🤗😘🥰🤭🤤😚

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yninstagram can you believe that he doesn't like when i drive but he BEGS me to park ??? make it make sense 😅

charles_leclerc ma chérie you REFUSE to use the break pedal!!! yninstagram break pedals are 4 losers (i am speed 🏎)

user35 GIRLFRIEND???!!! 😵‍💫😵👻

user36 when you say girlfriend, do you mean that she's a friend who happens to be a girl orrrrrrrrrr?

charles_leclerc orrrrr girlfriend meaning l'amour de ma vie 🥰🥰🥰

user37 two pretty people in a happy relationship? 2025 isn't so bad 😌

user36 maybe the world is healing 🥹 user37 maybe charles leclerc wdc 2025 🫣 yninstagram pls don't jinx it 😩 go knock on wood rn 🫵🏾

user38 why did she go with "cl16sleftnipple" as her username???

yninstagram because it's my favorite one obv 😇 charles_leclerc what's wrong with my right nipple :(((( yninstagram idk it just looks at me weird sometimes... user38 how does a body part look at you weirdly 😀

user39 oh, this baddie is weird? say less, i'm sending her my credit card information rn

user40 charles leclerc core LMFAOOO

user41 waiiiiitttt does this mean she's not gonna use her fan acct anymore :(

user42 aw man i didn't even think about that; i was constantly on twt just to see what funny shit she was saying lol yninstagram if the people want more of cl16sleftnipple who am i to deny them 😌👐🏾

instagram • yninstagram

liked by arthur_leclerc, lorenzotl, joris__trouche, and 34,785 others

yninstagram AITA for saving the citizens of monaco by parking my (25 F) boyfriend's (27 M) cars for him because he's incapable of fitting within two lines without being a road hazard?

comments on this post have been limited

yourfriend TLDR: she lost the plot by starting a fan twt to try and save her bf's reputation (who's notoriously known for his shit parking) it backfired bc everybody thought she was his chauffeur

yourfriend (cont.) now charles has to suffer with the world knowing that he has his gf position his cars AND that he still can't park charles_leclerc this wasn't necessary 😒 yourfriend is that what you said when it was time to learn how to parallel park ☠️

lilymhe reminds me of the time charles blocked traffic picking you up from brunch last year 😆

franciscacgomes i remember when the honks started and yn was like "oh, that probably means charles is here!" lilyzneimer first brunch i went to with the wags and i left with tinnitus from the sound of car horns blaring 🥲 yninstagram sorry little lily! next meet up will be honk free :) yninstagram ...was v embarrassing to get into the car that's blocking traffic 🫠

oscarpiastri NTA 👍🏻

oscarpiastri is now a good time to say that charles almost backed his car into me before padel yesterday? charles_leclerc NO IT WILL NEVER BE A GOOD TIME TO SAY THAT yninstagram mb the electric scooter wasn't such a bad idea…

maxverstappen1 NTA 😹😹😹

lando thinking about how much money charles loses to parking fines 🤣

olliebearman not to pray on his downfall but

olliebearman when his license gets suspended can i get the spider 🥺 arthurleclerc NUH UH 🙅🏻‍♂️ i get the spider and you get the sf90 oscarpiastri i'll take the daytona then 👍🏻 pierregasly i think i can make room for the roma 😌 charles_leclerc yeah this isn't praying, it's PLANNING on my downfall 😒😒😒

© httpsserene — do not reupload. photos used in header and throughout are from pinterest. divider by @cafekitsune.

[spideyjimin]

Bloodlines entwined: I | jjk

⤷ having a baby alone was supposed to be easy. but an accidental twist of fate pulled you into a hidden world of werewolves, and ancient bloodlines. navigating your already complicated life becomes even harder as you uncover your past; one tied to a legacy you never knew existed. and in the middle of this chaos stands jungkook, the werewolf king… and the father of your child. 

—  pairing: werewolf!jungkook x female reader 

—  genre: strangers to lovers, parents-to-be au, royalty au, werewolves au, soulmates au, angst, fluff, and smut 

— rating: 18+ 

—  words: 7,213

—  warnings: strong language, mention of death, mention of murder, mention of loneliness, mention of blood, several mentions of abortion, and crying

—  author’s note: here it is the first chapter of this series! <3 i’m actually very excited about this entire universe, i’ve been working on it for a little while already & i’ve been taking my time to write each part 🤗 the beginning is inspired by Jane the Virgin and the Flash as they are both my favorite shows ✨ i hope you’ll enjoy this part & don’t hesitate to let me know what you think 😊  

taglist is closed!

Chapter I: when worlds collide

SERIES MASTERLIST | next

Sitting in your car, you’ve been looking blinkingly at the windshield, hands trembling against the steering wheel. For ten whole minutes, you’ve been frozen like this as if moving would shatter the fragile sense of calm you’ve barely managed to hold together.

Your life is about to drastically change; you know it deep down.  

“The deed is done,” you whisper to yourself.

You let out a shaky breath, and your reflection in the rearview mirror catches your eye. You look exhausted, your eyes wide and glistening.

For two years, this moment has been building. You have thoughtfully considered having a child on your own. At first, it was just a random thought that crossed your mind, a curiosity born on one of those quiet, lonely moments where life felt both too much and not enough. Then, you deeply thought about it. The idea rooted itself deep within you, anchoring into something raw and tender: a longing to create a family on your own terms. 

After much research and consideration, you decided to go for it.

Many people couldn’t understand your choice, but honestly, you don’t give two shits about others’ opinions. What did matter to you was the support of close family and friends.

Felix, the man who raised you after your parents were stolen from you, proposed to accompany you to the fertility clinic, but you gently declined his offer. This was something you wanted to do by yourself. Well, you just came alone to be inseminated. Other than that, he has been by your side every step of the way.

He helped you to go through the countless donor profiles, and every document needed for this adventure of yours.

The process was a bit long and emotionally draining. The first steps were more like an evaluation, mostly for the clinic to understand your reasons and ensure you’ve deeply thought about all the aspects. Having a kid alone isn’t just about fulfilling your dreams but also about building a life for a child.

Once you’ve successfully completed those steps, you had to choose the donor. There were a lot of choices; it was like going grocery shopping. You were handed a catalog of potential donors with their medical histories and first names. It felt odd to be choosing the progenitor like this. After going through every profile, one of them stood out.

Following the donor selection, your cycles and hormone levels were tracked. When all was good, you’d get inseminated on your ovulation period, which technically is happening this week.  

So, ten minutes ago, you walked out of the clinic after being artificially knocked up.

If your egg is fertilized, in nine months, you’ll welcome your very much desired baby. A tiny human who will call you mom. You already picked the names, one for a girl, one for a boy. You simply can’t wait to welcome a tiny human in your life. Hopefully, the life of your baby will be better than yours.

You lean your head against the steering wheel, closing your eyes as the ghosts of your past surface.

Twenty years ago, your life was turned upside down when a terrible murderer put an end to your parents’ lives. Nobody ever found him or her; it’s like the person completely vanished into the night. That person left behind a little girl with questions nobody could ever answer and scars nobody could understand.  

Since you didn’t have any family left, you were raised by your father’s best friend, Felix. Over time, he became like a second father to you. Even though you were full of anger when he took you over, he stayed by your side and helped you navigate this sad reality; one where your parents weren’t part of anymore.

His daughter, Lexi is your age. You were already so close, and living under the same roof brought you even closer. She’s your super best friend, almost like a sister today. A smile grows on your face as you think of her. Your life would have been a nightmare without her.

Lexi was the first person to be aware of this desire to become a single mother. She even pushed you to do it as soon as you could, and she has encouraged you like nobody else. She also helped you select a donor; she even made fun of the names of some of them.

Your phone buzzes; the name and picture of Lexi appearing on the screen.

“Hi,” you say when you pick up.

“Soo,” she says. “How did it go?”

“Good, I guess?” you say with clear hesitation. “The doctor just inserted a thin catheter, looked at the screen, and said it was done,” you explain. “Now we just have to wait.”

Waiting is now the worst part, especially since you decided not to take any pregnancy test until the next appointment. Meaning, you have to wait two full weeks.

“Let’s hope the donor’s little swimmers are good ones,” she says.

While you always wanted to have a kid, Lexi never wanted one. You and her are total opposites but that’s what helped create such a strong bond between you. “Yeah, let’s hope for that,” you smile.  

Two weeks later

A couple of days ago, you took a blood test, and now, you’re in the waiting room, patiently waiting for the doctor to call you up.

These past two weeks, you’ve been internally battling to take a pregnancy test. It’s been hard to fight the urge to discover beforehand if you’re expecting or not. On your way to the clinic, your heart was beating extremely fast with nervousness. Even the music playing in the car didn’t seem to calm you down.

Even though you’re extremely nervous, a part of you knows. You can’t explain it, but you feel it deep down. Two nights ago, you were lying in bed completely exhausted after an intense day at work. The rhythm of your heartbeat was rocking you to sleep. Amidst the thrum of your own heart, you swear you could hear a faint, smaller, and quicker rhythm.

You instantly opened your eyes, scanning the room. The sound wasn’t coming from outside. It felt like it was inside you. You stayed perfectly still, listening to that tiny sound. That night, you were rocked to sleep by that new rhythm.

The morning after, as you caught your reflection in the bathroom’s mirror, something felt off. Your brows furrowed as you noticed your own scent was different. It felt like it was mixed with somebody else’s scent, but it wasn’t as strong as yours or any other living human. It was extremely odd.

After a little while, the doctor says your name, and with shaky legs, you walk to her office. Your heart is beating at a very crazy pace, ready to burst at any moment. This is so stressful; it feels like time is moving so slowly.

“Hello yn,” the doctor smiles at you while you’re entering the room. “How have you been feeling?” you now take a seat.

“I’m good, thanks,” you smile back at her.

She sits down at her desk and takes a look at her computer.

“So, did you take any pregnancy test?” she asks.

“No, no,” you answer. “I wanted to keep the surprise for today.”

“I see,” she looks again at her screen before taping on her keyboard.

She seems to quickly read something before her smile widens. Your heart is going completely crazy. It really makes you nervous, and you try to mentally prepare yourself to receive the bad news as well. It’ll definitely break your heart but you’ll try again.  

This entire process is quite expensive, but the payment can be spread out over time rather than made in one shot. With this first payment, you have the right to three attempts. If pregnancy isn’t achieved after those attempts, you’ll have to go through another round and pay for additional attempts.

The doctor mentioned that usually, it takes about three to six attempts to achieve a successful pregnancy. Hopefully, you’ll get pregnant within those first three tries. You’re not entirely sure you’ll be able to afford another round of insemination.   

“Well, it looks like it only took you one try to conceive,” she informs you.

And right there, your heart bursts with joy. There’s indeed a little human being growing inside you. You’ll become a mother in nine months. You can’t believe it.

A little tear runs down your face as you hear the good news. It’s such a relief. You won't have to worry about coming back for another round.

“That’s good news,” you clean the tear on your cheek.

“It is indeed,” she says. “In four weeks more or less, we’ll plan an ultrasound to confirm the embryo’s implantation and check for a heartbeat,” she adds.

Well, you’ll still get worried about that because maybe until there, your baby will not survive. But you need to remain positive. No need to start stressing about it; you promised yourself that you’ll try to remain calm the entirety of the process and pregnancy so you’ll offer a great beginning of life to your baby.

“I’m very hopeful everything will go well because both you and the donor are in good health,” she says.

“Let’s hope for that,” you answer.

You then proceed to schedule the next appointment in four weeks. You can’t hide the immense smile on your face. This is the best news you got today. Nothing else will ever be possible to ruin this day.

When you leave the clinic, you instantly call Lexi.

“I AM PREGNANT!” you scream with excitement.

“Yeeeah,” she screams as well. “I’m going to be an aunty!” she adds.

“I’m so relieved that this first attempt was successful,” you admit.

Once you get inside your car, you touch your belly to caress it.

“That baby is so lucky to have you as a mother,” she says after. “And even more lucky to join our family.”

For sure, your family will extremely love this baby. It’s such a desired baby, and everybody has been so excited.

“They’ll be so loved,” you reply.

“There’s absolutely no doubt,” she says. “Dad will be so happy about this news; he’s been so excited to become a grandpa.”

Felix has expressed lately that he couldn’t wait to welcome a baby and become a granddad. This man has raised you for twenty years, and you consider him as a second father. There’s no doubt that your baby will see him as their grandfather even if, biologically speaking, he isn’t.

When you hang up, you stare into the void for a couple of minutes. In this moment, you wish your parents would be here. They would have been so happy to become grandparents, but they won’t be by your side for this new chapter of your life.

They are also the reason why you’re doing all of this. Since they passed, there’s been a tremendous emptiness inside you that even the love of Felix couldn’t fill in. This void stems mostly from the fact that you were left alone when they were killed. You’ve been feeling so lonely since then.

Throughout your life, you tried to fill it with relationships but they all failed. As far as you can remember, you wanted to follow the traditional path to build a family. However, it never worked out. Then, one day, you saw a brochure about single mothers, and you’ve been thinking about it since then.

You’ve seen motherhood as a role that will fill this emotional void you’ve been carrying for years. Plus, you’ve also seen it as a way to finally control your life. Twenty years ago, someone decided for you what your life would become. This wasn’t fair.

And you also want to give your baby the life you never got. You want to give them a loving family that won’t disappear the second the parents die. Outside of your parents, you didn’t have a family. Based on what Felix told you, your grandparents were against your parents' relationship so they moved into another city to live freely and build a family.

Life hasn’t been fair for you, but you want to make it fair for your baby.

Two weeks later

The clinic called you this morning to urgently come in the afternoon, only making you grow concerned during the day. You kept wondering what the reason for such urgency would be. Did they notice something when they did the blood test? Did they get the wrong blood test? Are you even really pregnant? 

However, you’re a hundred percent sure you’re carrying a life inside you. You haven’t had the ‘normal’ early symptoms yet, but you can feel your baby inside you. The faint heartbeat can still be heard, and there’s still that subtle scent interwoven with yours.

For the past two weeks, you’ve repeatedly inhaled this new scent, almost to make sure you weren’t hallucinating. Most of the time, you wondered if it wasn’t something like blood, sweat, or the smell of your new shampoo. It was definitely an earthly one. One that only a human can possess.

Once inside the clinic, you’re instantly installed in the doctor’s room. Your heart is crazily beating inside your chest; you’re so nervous right now. Seconds later, a man joins you in the room.

At first glance, you’d think he is the CEO of a huge company. He’s fully dressed in a black suit with a white shirt underneath, his hands casually placed in his pants pockets. This man is extremely charismatic; something about him draws you in.  

The man looks at you while frowning, his eyes moving from your eyes to your belly. By reflex, you cover your stomach with your hands. He’s making you uncomfortable with his intense stare.

He has a very strong bestial scent, it predominates his cologne. Everything about him is imposing, even the way his heart beats; it’s so calm while yours is completely erratic. The man’s eyes are clued on you.

The doctor arrives right after and closes the door behind her. Her face is quite serious; she even seems concerned.

“Miss y/l/n,” she takes a seat at her desk. “Mister Jeon,” she looks at the man behind you. “Please take a seat.”

The two of you sit down next to each other with apprehension. You can hear his heart beating a little faster, but he remains extremely calm on the outside.  

“There’s been a mistake,” she starts saying.

The words hang in the air, heavy with unspoken implications. The doctor pauses, giving you time to absorb the gravity of the statement. Her tone is gentle, but at the same time professional.  

The sterile, cold walls of the room seem to close in around you as the doctor’s words pierce through your thoughts.

“There was a mix-up with the sample…” your breath is caught in your throat, your hands trembling. “We were supposed to inseminate you with the donor sample you selected. We still don’t know how but you got inseminated with Mister Jeon’s sample.”

Your eyes look at the man sitting next to you. All you can see in his eyes is the same disbelief that reflects your own. So, this is your child’s father.  

Many questions cross your mind, but they remain unspoken, lodged in your throat.

“We truly apologize for our mistake,” she says. “We were totally aware you both wanted to have a child alone.”

You desired nothing more than being alone in this adventure; you didn’t want a present father. That was the whole point of a donor. Now, you know the father of your child, and he’d probably like to be present.

For the past months, you went through a series of questions regarding the fact that you’ll raise your child alone. They asked you many times how you’d explain to your child that they don’t have a father. This now feels like a complete waste of time.

“We understand the nature of this situation. We will refund the totality of the treatment’s costs. We can also terminate the pregnancy if you both wish.”

Those words seem so heavy and yet, they represent the reality of the choice you now have to face. A knot tightens in your stomach at the thought of undoing something you wished for so long. The baby is now growing inside of you, you’ve got used to falling asleep with their tiny heartbeat. The only thought of not having it anymore breaks your heart beyond comprehension.

Right now, everything—your carefully constructed plans, your hopes, the small life growing inside you—seems to be slipping through your fingers.

Mister Jeon is silent beside you, his hands clenched into fists on his knees. He seems as stunned as you, but you can’t help but think that there’s something else there too. Something deeper and darker.

You ignore if he’s thinking the same thing as you, but you can feel it: the strange twist of fate pulling you both into an unknown world, one you both hadn’t planned for.

“You still have some time to decide, of course,” the doctor’s voice is still very soft.

Time seems irrelevant now. There’s a choice you need to make; a choice you didn’t expect to face. You swallow hard, your heart racing inside your chest. Your hands caress your belly through your shirt while you only hear the baby’s fragile heartbeat.

This isn’t supposed to happen. This can’t be real.

Jungkook’s face went pale as the doctor’s words sank in.

“There’s been a mistake,” she starts saying.

Just like you, the room’s white walls feel suffocating, the air thick with a tension he can’t shake. A mistake. His mistake. He tried to avoid this situation. He was supposed to go through surrogacy to guarantee a child that would uphold his lineage. His werewolf lineage, pure and untouched by human blood.

“There was a mix-up with the sample…” the doctor’s words hang up in the air like a death sentence. “We were supposed to inseminate you with the donor sample you selected. We still don’t know how but you got inseminated with Mister Jeon’s sample.”

His eyes quickly look at you, and he notices how much you’re shaking. It seems like you’re in a more devasted state than he is.  

“We truly apologize for our mistake,” she says. “We were totally aware you both wanted to have a child alone.”

Jungkook blinks, trying to absorb what is happening. A human child. Nonetheless, his child. Having children with humans isn’t just a personal choice; it’s a fundamental rule of the werewolf society. The very foundation of his power as the king depends on the purity of his bloodline. To break the rule is to risk everything.

He knows better than anyone what happens to the werewolf-human hybrid kids together with the parents. They are killed by the pack. Being a king doesn’t make him the exception to the rule. If this pregnancy goes to full term, not only will he be killed, but the baby and the lady sitting next to him will too.  

You didn’t ask for any of this. You don’t deserve to die because of a mistake. 

His gaze filled with frustration and panic moves toward you once more as his pulse quickens. He wanted control over the situation. He never intended to father a hybrid child. And now, not only is he involved in this pregnancy, but the child is going to carry his blood mixed with human genetics. God only knows what can happen to this kid, genetically speaking.

“We understand the nature of this situation. We will refund the totality of the treatment costs. We can also terminate the pregnancy if you both wish.”

‘This can’t be happening’, he thinks.

His eyes move back to the doctors, his hands clenched into fists. The thought of the entire werewolf community learning of this is unbearable. And what is his mother going to think of this?

She was the first person to support him in this surrogacy journey. She knew how important it was for him to have a child as soon as possible because he’d been struggling to find someone with whom he’d mate. Having an heir is the first thing a king should do to ensure the legacy.

Now, he’s about to have a child with a human. That’s not possible. This child won’t have a pure bloodline, this child can’t ever be an heir.     

“You still have some time to decide, of course,” the doctor’s voice is still very soft.

The idea of termination seems dreadful, but the possibility of a hybrid child heir seems even worse. His responsibility as king, and the traditions that have been in place for centuries don’t allow for such breach. To raise a kid with human blood would mean instant disgrace, not only for him but for his entire family. How could he even be respected after this?

His entire world is slipping through his fingers. His position as king is now in jeopardy. This baby will destabilize the entire werewolf community. Nobody will respect him and will only see him as weak. Weak for having a human child.

There’s no going back. His mind tries to find a solution to fix this, or how to undo this. The idea of raising a child with a human—no matter how much it is his responsibility—is unthinkable. He never desired this and hasn’t even considered it. He has been so focused on maintaining his bloodline that the idea of a mistake happening never crossed his mind.

Your presence beside him destabilizes him beyond comprehension. He can see the confusion in your eyes mixed with disbelief. You can’t comprehend the extension of this entire problem. You can’t even comprehend the danger of mixing bloodlines, because you aren’t a werewolf.

Jungkook stands in silence for a moment, his mind racing with thoughts. Terminating this pregnancy isn’t something he desires, but having a child with a human is simply impossible. His heart beats too crazily, and he can hear yours beating just as fast. His heart and duty are pulling him in two different directions.

Finally, his eyes meet yours. His voice is soft but it carries a heavy weight. “We need to decide. This affects both of us.”

After what felt like an eternity, you both leave the room completely shaken up by the news you just got. How could this be happening?

As you’re both walking in the clinic in the parking lot’s direction, none of you dares to speak. You’re a complete stranger to Jungkook. All he knows is that you’re a human carrying his child. 

“I can’t have that child,” he finally breaks the silence.

His words cause you to stop.

“It’s too early for me to consider terminating this pregnancy,” you admit. “I need time.”

Jungkook understands your perspective. It’s not a decision you lightly take, especially if you’ve come to this clinic to have a child. It’d be completely absurd to abort after going through this entire process.

“Of course,” he says. “But I want you to know my point of view.”

You nod, understanding his perspective as well. This is such a horrible situation. Jungkook wanted to have an heir while you simply wanted to have a child on your own. On top of that, he doesn’t look like the donor you selected.

“So if I decide to keep it, would you be out?” you ask.

Jungkook considers your words. There’s a possibility that the baby could still exist, but he wouldn’t be part of their life. He’d still be losing because he wants a child, but at least this way, his position wouldn’t be jeopardized, and no one would get hurt or killed.  

“It’s possible,” he honestly answers.

You nod once more. Even though he decides not to be part of his child’s life, he’d still know that he has a kid somewhere. He wouldn’t have any trouble finding you; he already knows your smell, and he has the means to find you.

“Okay,” you say.

Jungkook watches you take a pen and paper from your purse before writing something.

“This is my phone number,” you hand him the piece of paper. “In case you change your mind or take a decision.”

The man takes the piece of paper while you give him a small smile. You start walking away, his eyes following you until you disappear inside a car.

In this situation, he definitely would like to ask his mother for advice, but he can’t. He already knows the answer she’ll give him. ‘This baby can’t exist.’ And she’s right, but he can’t force you to terminate the pregnancy. It’s your body after all.

In the eventuality that you decide to proceed with the pregnancy, he guesses he’ll let you be a mother alone and pretend like this kid doesn’t exist.

You’ve spent the last two days crying in bed. The conversation with the doctor and this mysterious Mister Jeon has been playing over and over in your head. You can still picture everything so clearly; the white walls of the doctor’s room, the apologies from the doctor, and Mister Jeon’s piercing gaze.

‘There’s been a mistake,’ ‘There was a mix-up with the sample,’ the words still echo in your mind.

You’ve been trying to make sense of how such a monumental mistake has happened. But nothing seems to make sense. The clinic did this; the clinic took control over your decision. This chapter of your life was about you gaining control, but once more, someone decided for you. It’s been making you angry.

You’re furious at the clinic and their negligence. You trusted them with your project of building your own family. However, they decided otherwise.  

But underneath that anger, there’s another fury; one directed to yourself. You were so focused on having a child on your own terms that you didn’t stop to consider the what-ifs. You didn’t stop to consider that something might go wrong. And now, you are here.    

You’ve been staring at the ceiling for hours now, your mind trying to find a solution. Do you keep this baby? Do you terminate the pregnancy?

This choice feels impossible. It feels like no matter what your life will completely change.  

But deep down, you somehow feel some kind of relief. Because when Mister Jeon—this intense and charismatic man—said there was a possibility he’d walk away, that he’d leave you to raise this child alone, you felt lighter.

His potential absence is appealing. It aligns with your original choice, to be a single mother. A choice where your child is yours, and yours alone. But then, there’s also a possibility where he stays, or that he comes back later. What would happen then?

You press your hands against your face while a guttural growl leaves your lips. This is so damn frustrating. This should be simple. Because now, you’re left wondering what you want. Do you want to walk away from this and stick to the original plan? Or do you want to embrace this chaos, and see where this might lead?

Your hands slide down to your stomach, caressing it while you hear again the tiny heartbeat. This sound comforts you which makes you close your eyes.

For now, you don’t have any answers to all your questions. You’re not even sure you’ll have them tomorrow. For now, you’ll let yourself breathe. You’ll let yourself feel. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll find the answers.  

The sound of your phone ringing pushes you out of your own thoughts, informing you that you received a message. You sit on your bed before grabbing the phone on the nightstand. You received a message from an unknown number. By curiosity, you unlock your phone to read it. To your surprise, it’s the famous and mysterious Mister Jeon.  

From unknown: hi miss y/l/n, this is jeon jungkook, the father of your child. i’d like to meet you to discuss the matter. would you be free tonight?

Your heart hammers inside your chest, ready to burst at any second. He contacted you sooner than expected. You were thinking that you wouldn’t hear anything from him for at least a week. You thought you’d have more time to make a decision before meeting him. Now, it seems you don’t, and that you’ll have a very interesting conversation with him tonight.

With shaky hands, you start typing your answer.

To unknown: hello mister jeon, we could meet tonight

When you press ‘send’, you stare at the conversation, waiting for an answer. Mister Jeon responds instantly to your message, proposing to meet in a town square. You accept the suggestion and quickly go to your clothes cupboard to pick up an outfit.

The man seems very impressive, and you want to be presentable. He’s after all the progenitor of the life growing inside you.

A couple of hours later, you take the road to the meeting point. Surprisingly, you’ve remained calm for the entire drive. Driving is actually the only thing able to calm your tormented soul. Whenever you go through something very intense, you just drive to clear your mind.

However, since this pregnancy thing, even driving hasn’t been able to help you out. You tried to drive yesterday, but it only made things worse. So it definitely surprises you that you’ve been able to clear your mind before meeting Mister Jeon.

When you arrive, he’s already there waiting for you. He’s not wearing a suit, quite the contrary. His outfit is only made of a grey sweater with a blue pair of jeans. His hair isn’t perfectly pushed back as it was two days ago. It feels like you’re meeting a completely different person.

When he sees you, he stands up. As he does so, you notice he holds a box in his right hand. It’s a small one, but it still intrigues you.

“Good evening, miss y/l/n,” he says.

“Good evening, mister Jeon,” you say back.

His presence is still very imposing, but the fact that he isn’t wearing a suit anymore changes it a bit. He seems more approachable than he was in the clinic.

“Please call me Jungkook,” he offers you a small smile.

It’s the first time you see him smiling, and it feels like a very warm one. Beneath it all and in the midst of the city noise, you can perceive his heartbeat. It’s quite rapid which makes you tilt your head. Is he nervous?

“You can call me yn as well,” you smile back at him.  

“I’ve brought you a box with some pastries,” he hands you the box. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like.”

Your smile grows wider at his simple but heartwarming gesture. This wasn’t expected, but it lightens the mood. Jungkook seems to be a nice person which contrasts with the cold and unreadable person he seemed two days ago.

“Thanks,” you say while grabbing the little box. “You didn’t need to,” your eyes look up at him.

After that, you both sit down on the bench he was on before you arrived. By the way he rubs his hands on his tights, you can tell that he’s a bit nervous. You try not to overanalyze him, because you know your mind will go crazy, full of questions.

“What is happening is really crazy,” he admits with obvious nervousness. “I never imagined things would go this way,” you nod.

Jungkook looks everywhere, except at you. It seems like he isn’t brave enough to face you, almost like a teenager confessing his love.

“As I told you two days ago, I can’t have this child,” he finally speaks. “I really would love to, but I’d put the three of us in danger.”

Your heart starts beating rapidly. What does he mean by ‘putting you in danger’? Does he come from a crazy family? Is he part of the mafia? This is scaring the hell out of you.

“We didn’t know each other up until two days ago, and you don’t deserve to be put in danger because of a stupid mistake the clinic did,” he seems angry when he mentions the mistake. “But I can’t force you to terminate the pregnancy, it’s your body, and it was also your wish to have a child. I can’t take that away from you.”

It kind of surprises you how respectful he is. Any other man in his position could have forced or paid you to put an end to this pregnancy. It’s really admirable.

“In case you want to keep going with it, I just want you to know that I’ll step away, and I will never come back to reclaim a role I refused from the beginning.”

You wonder what the reasons behind his decision could be. This man desired to have a child but is now refusing to have one with you because of a mistake.

“To be honest with you, I don’t know what to do,” you admit.

His piercing eyes finally look at you. For a split second, you can swear that they were red. Red like blood. This destabilizes you, and you furrow your eyebrows. You’re not sure if you’re being delirious or if this is real.

“I wanted to become a mother, but not like this,” you continue, still destabilized by what you just saw. “So it leaves me wondering what I should do. But if you walk away, I’ll be more tempted to keep the baby because, in the end, it’ll go as I planned.”

In an unexplainable way, this man puts you at ease. It feels like you can confess how you truly feel about this situation without being judged by him. This man exudes serenity which draws you even more to him.

“I get that,” he says.

For a brief moment, you only look at him while your heart peacefully beats in your chest. His dark eyes stare right into your soul, and it feels like the world completely stopped. There’s just the two of you. But Jungkook breaks the contact, looking in another direction.

“If you decide to keep the child and need any financial help, I can give it to you,” he speaks.

This man definitely seems like a good guy, and you wonder even more why he’s walking away from this.

“I won’t,” you answer. “I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t have any means to take care of the baby.”

For sure you need financial stability to be a single mother, and you would have never embarked on this adventure without having it.

Jungkook runs his fingers through his fluffy hair, avoiding still your gaze. “Can I ask why you want to become a single mom?”

The question catches you off guard. You weren’t expecting this man—this stranger—to be interested in you.

“I didn’t have an easy life and I grew up without my parents,” you confess. “Motherhood was something I aspired to have in my life since I’m very young, and I’ve desired to give to my child everything I didn’t have. No matter if it was with someone or alone.”

Your eyes shift from Jungkook to the square full of people. It’s never easy to express out loud and to a complete stranger why you embarked on this adventure. Mentioning your parents is actually never easy; even after all this time.

Suddenly, you feel Jungkook’s gaze on you, but he doesn’t say anything. He just stares at you in complete silence. For once in your life, people’s heartbeats and scents don’t suffocate you. You can hear and smell them, but it’s like it doesn’t matter.

For as long as you can remember, you’ve had those developed skills. You can hear stuff from afar, and you can strongly smell people’s natural body’s scent. Since it’s kind of ‘normal’ to you, you got used to it; but sometimes, and especially when you’re in the middle of heavy crowds, it suffocates you. It becomes simply too much.

This is something you never told anyone, too scared to be judged. Undoubtedly, people would say you’ve gone crazy due to the trauma of losing your parents. Not even Felix or Lexi knows about it. They just think you’re agoraphobic.

However, lately, you’ve been trying to go to some crowded place to overcome this suffocating feeling. You ignore why you’ve been doing it, but you’ve been doing it. It’s still too much, but today, next to this complete stranger, it doesn’t feel like it.

“I’m sorry you lost your parents,” he whispers.

You turn to look at him to offer him a little smile.

“Thanks,” you mumble. “Can I also ask you why you’re doing this?” you dare to ask.

Jungkook nods before looking away once more. It definitely looks like it’s hard for him to hold your gaze.

“In my world,” he starts saying. “I have heavy responsibilities, and having a child is one of them. But I can’t have one with anybody. I’m very limited in who is the biological mother so that’s why I can’t have one with you.”

You almost feel offended by his words. In which kind of world can’t you be the mother of his child? It’s completely crazy!

“Oh,” you simply say.

“You could have been the surrogate…” you can hear some kind of chuckle. “But never the progenitor.”

“It’s seems like a tough world.”

His eyes look again at you; you can see that he seems to hesitate with the answer.

“It isn’t,” he finally says. “But it is with me.”

Obviously, he carefully chose his words.

“Well, I hope you’ll find the right mother for your child,” you offer him once more a little smile.

“Thanks,” he smiles back at you.

The two of you look back again at the people walking in the town square. They are walking around you, ignoring totally what you’re going through, what tough decision you have to make. They ignore everything about you, just as you ignore everything about them…  

“I’m sorry about all of this,” he adds.

“It’s not your fault,” you answer. “It’s the clinic’s.”

Jungkook shifts uncomfortably, his gaze fixed on the people walking in front of you. His heart is racing and piercing through your ears. He’s even more nervous than he was before, and it concerns you a bit. But you don’t say anything, too afraid to scare him off if you reveal you can hear his heartbeat.  

“Yn…” he starts. “There’s something you need to know,” his voice is deep and low at the same time. It’s so low that it almost drowns out by the distant chatter of people passing by.

You turn to look at him, your brow furrowing. “Okay,” you whisper.  

Jungkook takes a deep breath, his jaw tightening before he exhales. His eyes don’t meet yours immediately, but when he does, there’s an intensity that makes your stomach twist.

“When I said my world is different,” he swallows with difficulty. “I don’t mean it in a metaphorical sense. My world, my reality is not the same as yours.”

You frown even more, confusion plastered all over your face. You’re definitely incredibly confused. How could his world be different than yours? You live on the same planet, and breathe the same air. How could it be not the same?  

“What do you mean?”

Jungkook gets closer, his voice dropping even lower, barely audible. However, you still hear it perfectly.

“I am not entirely human, yn.”

Your breath catches in your throat, your heart skipping a beat. You stare at him while waiting for him to elaborate. However, Jungkook just stares at you, waiting for your reaction.

“What do you mean by ‘not entirely human’?” you tilt your head.

For a couple of seconds, he doesn’t speak, almost as if he’s scared to reveal his true nature to you.

“I’m a werewolf.”

The words hang in the air, heavy and impossible to ignore. It leaves you wondering if this man is of sound mind. Right now, you’re slightly concerned about his mental health, and the future of your child, if you keep them.

Your first reaction is to laugh, dismissing his words as if it is some kind of twisted joke. But the look on his face tells you that he’s deadly serious. This isn’t a joke.

“A werewolf?” you repeat to make sure you hear it well.

Jungkook nods. He looks tense and he maintains his deep glance on you.

“It’s why I can’t have this child,” he starts to explain. “In my world, bloodlines matter. Werewolf bloodlines are sacred, and the continuation of my lineage isn’t just about having a child. It’s about having the right child with the right kind of mother.”

The weight of his words crashes over you like a tidal wave. You stand up, your hands running through your hair. Your mind is spinning, and your pulse thunders in your ears. This is something you definitely weren’t expecting to hear today.

Werewolves? You’re carrying the child of a werewolf?

This sounds like it comes straight from a fantasy movie.

“This doesn’t feel real,” you whisper to yourself but Jungkook hears it.  

“I didn’t want you to be dragged into this world, but you deserve the truth.”

You keep your back turned to him while you cross your arms against your chest.

“This is something you need to consider if you decide to keep the baby.”

At his words, you freeze. Instinctively, your hands down move to your stomach. Jungkook’s eyes follow your hands.

“Is this…” your voice trembles. “Is this a viable child?”

If you want to keep going with this pregnancy, you need to know if this baby can survive.

“There wouldn’t be any reason why this child wouldn’t survive because of mixed blood,” he stands up and gets close to you. “But as they grow up, they’ll develop werewolf abilities. And, one day, they’ll probably turn into one. It’s pretty unpredictable, though. There’s never been a human-werewolf hybrid before.”

Damn, this is leaving you speechless. How can this be real? Werewolves are supposed to exist in movies, not in real life.   

“This is insane,” you rub your hands on your face. “This can’t be real.”

Jungkook steps closer. His presence is grounding but nonetheless overwhelming.  

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” you demand, your voice filled with panic.  

Before you can blink, he gets even closer to you. He’s in front of you in an instant, his hand gently grabbing yours. Your eyes look down at his hand as you notice it changing. His fingers elongate, his nails sharpen into claws, and the texture of his skin turns into something more beastly. Slowly, your eyes look up, and what you see completely freezes your body.  His eyes glow a deep, predatory red, and there’s something undeniably wolfish about them.

You take a step back while setting your hand free. As you do so, Jungkook shifts back, his hand returns to its normal form, and his eyes fade back to a human form. The transformation is so quick that it almost feels like you imagined it.

“So what happens now?” you ask.

Jungkook’s gaze softens at your words.

“That depends on you, yn.”

Please note that the taglist is closed

[automatic-midnight]

He had known what it was to desire, and to be desired, both by women and by men

[saffusthings]

second chances

mob boss! lando norris x reader

part forty-two: hello? are you there?

word count: 5.7k

warnings: this chapter contains descriptions of violence and gore. reader discretion is advised.

forty-one | forty-two | forty-three

It slipped out somewhere between Oscar raiding the fridge for orange juice and Logan bitching about how Max Fewtrell kept leaving his boots in the entryway like it didn’t pose a hazard, considering they all had an inexplicable tendency to walk around armed more often than not.

“If someone breaks in, Max, what? You gonna throw your fucking loafers at them?”

“They’re not loafers. They’re tactical boots.”

“They’re muddy gym shoes, bro. Move ‘em, man!”

Lando didn’t even look up from the glass he wasn’t drinking out of. He just leaned against the counter and posed a question aloud. “How do you tell someone you’re sorry?”

The conversation stumbled mid-step.

Max F. blinked. “By saying it?”

“No shit, Sherlock.”Lando scrubbed a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I mean, like… how do you make them—y’know…”

“Not mad at you?” Oscar offered.

“Yeah. That.”

“You’re asking how to make someone forgive you,” Max Fewtrell clarified from the doorway, his voice knowingly even. “Which is a very different question.”

For a beat, there was silence. Lando glared at his coffee like it had personally betrayed him.

Then, it was Oscar who spoke up first.

“Time machine,” the Aussie offered with a wry smile, clearly proud of his little joke.

It took everything left of Lando’s willpower not to dramatically roll his eyes. 

“Not helpful.”

“Chocolate,” Max Verstappen offered next. “Expensive chocolate. Or wine. Works on everyone.”

“She doesn’t drink,” Lando muttered, clearly exasperated by now.

“Then just send her the chocolate of course,” Max replied, completely unfazed.

“Or,” Oscar said, holding up a spoon like it was a pointer, “you could write her a letter. A real one. Handwritten. Not just a text. It’s very… Jane Austen. Trust me, girls eat that shit up.”

“I tried that,” Lando said. “I don’t think she even looked at it.”

Logan bit into an apple and spoke around it, his mouth very much still full. “You could try showing up at her work with, like, a sad sign. Y’know, something pathetic. Women love pathetic.”

“She’s not the kind of person who’d be impressed by public humiliation,” Lando replied dryly. “Especially when I’m the one she’d want to humiliate.”

Carlos, who had been silent until now, set his coffee down slowly.

“You want her back, si?,” he asked simply, getting straight to the point.

Lando didn’t answer, looking away. Carlos, of course, took that as a yes. It was no secret that Lando Norris was not a man who was used to asking for help, much less for advice. This certainly could not be easy for a man of his… personality.

“Flowers,” The Spaniard announced. “This is what always works for me.”

Oscar snorted, the sound echoing into his mug as he lifted it to his mouth for a sip. “Of course they did,” he muttered under his breath.

“No, listen,” Carlos waved off the young man and his usual remarks, turning instead to Lando. “You cannot get the cheap ones. You have to get the real ones, hermano. Be, uh, thoughtful, eh? Get her favorite ones. Not these ‘I want you back’ flowers. It must be ‘I am sorry I ruined everything’ flowers.”

Lando blinked, too deep into his new action plan to really be offended by Carlos’s bluntness. He’d have to let it go this time – the idiot was actually making sense for once, it seemed.

“Peonies,” he mumbled aloud.

Carlos nodded, giving the British man a concerned once-over. “Then send peonies. And do not write a note. Let the flowers do the talking.”

Lando blinked. “That’s… oddly specific.”

Carlos shrugged, unapologetic. “I once ghosted a girl for three weeks and she forgave me after one bouquet. I’m just saying.”

Logan narrowed his eyes. “…you’re the reason girls don’t trust men.”

But Lando had already tuned them out.

Always a man of action, Lando was knee-deep in floral websites within minutes. More than happy to let the rest of his men continue whatever it was they occupied their time with, he sauntered off with his phone in his hand, preoccupied with this new opportunity for redemption.

There was a fresh arrangement of flowers on her doorstep by the next morning.

Meticulously planned, Lando made sure that he gave nothing but his best. His best apparently included not just flowers, but arrangements – ridiculous, overdone, hand-delivered bouquets in tissue-wrapped boxes with quiet little cards that never said his name.

The first bouquet arrived with full, perfect peonies in pale pink and cream, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a soft ribbon that matched the color of her favorite sweater.

Of course, there was no note – he didn’t want to write the wrong thing. So he chose to write nothing at all.

He sent one a week later, and then again the next week. Each time, he’d send them in different colors this time in different colors. Some of them had sprigs of lavender tucked inside, others with a bit of eucalyptus. They were always delivered on Mondays.

She’d always said she hated Mondays.

He sent them once a week – always peonies, always without a message. Just to let her know he hadn’t stopped thinking about her. Just to make sure something soft was showing up in her life, even if it couldn’t be him.

He knew it wouldn’t fix anything, but truthfully, he didn’t know what else to do.

The first time, she stared at them for a long time before placing them gently behind the counter at the café. Not quite throwing them out. Not quite acknowledging them either.

The second time, she didn’t even look at the delivery guy. Just nodded, took the box, and walked to the back without a word.

They always arrived just often enough to remind her that she was still on his mind. That she hadn’t disappeared from his world, even if he’d vanished from hers.

For a while, she accepted them.

Once, Logan even told him while they were out on a job — that she had smiled when she saw this week's delivery – a stunning bouquet of stark white peonies in the softest lilac wrapping. As they loaded their weapons back in the trunk, Logan turned to him and put his hand on Lando's shoulder, daring to look him in the air in a rare moment of familiarity.

“Hey, she smiled. Even if it’s just a bit, that’s gotta be worth something, right?”

Lando hated how that simple thought was enough to rekindle the tiniest spark of hope in his chest.

Between the bullshit with having to manually throw out Binotto and the faulty shipment Stella delivered, the Reaper’s Circle was already having a pretty shit week.

Binotto wasn’t the only one of their clients who had started to play fast and loose with the rules. Verstappen had to knock sense into at least three different people who had decided to try their luck with asking for “an extension” on their payments, or just for “a little more time.”

What did they look like, a fucking charity? 

So it was Lando who had to take Binotto and make an example of him, had to rough him up a little. It took a few hours of strategically placed cuts and meticulously calculated fractures to ensure that when he walked out of Jimmy’z, he served as an example for anyone else who felt brave enough to be as stupid as him.

Logan stood in Lando’s office just as this did any other day, more of Sargeant’s weekly updates scattered about the large desk in the form of meticulous photographs. The two of them were going over the surveillance details of the Monte Carlo police, as well as the officers who’s been trying to demand a greater cut over in the Moneghetti district.

“Those bastards aren’t worth half the money we pay them,” Lando snarled. “I mean, what the hell do they even do?”

“Uh, I believe they do… police things, Boss.”

The American winced as he said it, already anticipating the bout of rage he’d just signed himself on to be the target of.

Lando simply glared at him, too preoccupied with angrily pacing the length of the room.

“24 thousand euros, and what do we even pay them for?”

“I can dig up dirt on them, if that helps,” Logan offered eagerly. “There’s actually this new technique with my clip point blade I’ve been meaning to–”

The assassin cut himself off when he noticed he apparently no longer held Lando’s attention. Instead, the leader seemed preoccupied by a slip of paper he was reading, a worn sticky note with distinct scrawl.

Ah, he realized. The pains of young love.

 “She just seems… quieter,” Logan shrugged, clearly hesitant to tell Lando this truth. He offered it in hopes that an update would cheer him up, make him less of… whatever it was he’d been lately. “Like, sure, she’s not really smiling like she used to…” 

“But that doesn’t mean it’s not working!” Logan corrected, quickly realized his mistake. It was honestly a miracle how long he’d survived in this profession. “Maybe she’s playing hard to get? You know, I was tailing this girl one time…”

Logan’s story faded into the background as Lando absentmindedly brushed the pad of his thumb along the familiar grooves of the ink.

“Was she… Was she angry?” Lando interrupted, his voice uncharacteristically soft.

Logan almost felt bad for the guy.

“No,” he responded just as quietly, his expression sincerely sympathetic. Even he had noticed just how much this girl – this apparent stranger – had worked wonders and brought magic into his boss’s life. Hell, he had front row tickets to the whole damn thing.

“She wasn’t angry,” he told Lando honestly, hoping it would make him feel a bit better. “Just… less happy, is all.”

Instead of breathing easier at this information, Lando’s expression only became more forlorn.

Something behind his ribs shifted. It was worse, somehow. Anger meant she still felt something for him. Sadness just meant the part of her that used to feel safe with him was perhaps… gone.

Lando turned away. There was a strange tugging sensation in his chest, he found, in response to Logan’s words. He shouldn’t have been surprised really – Lando hadn’t really left Y/N with all that much to smile about when he’d wormed his way into her life and earned her trust, all while lying right to her face.

But the problem was that Lando knew that smile. The smile that crinkled her nose and ruined his entire week. He was intimately familiar with the radiance of the smile she used when she was pretending not to be proud of herself. His memories held perfect recreations of the exact curvature of the smile she used when she was happy and didn’t know how to contain it.

Lando could never forget the smile Y/N used around him.

Or at least, used to.

He gave it one final attempt.

Some stupid, human part of him that she’d managed to dig up and make living once again pleaded with him to try one more time, to reach out for her once again despite it all. That part of his heart believed that if all the time they’d shared – from haphazard dinners made in her kitchen and movie night where she always fell asleep first to staying at her university’s library at unholy hours of the night – had been worth anything, that then there was still something worth fighting for.

So he arranged for one more set of flowers to be delivered to her place. These peonies were cream and soft pink — the exact shade of the kind she always watered a little extra at the shop, the ones she showed that little bit more love. They used to make her light up in this stupid way, like the whole world had softened just for her.

These ones he’d hand selected from his own garden, carefully the buds that were still barely in bloom – the kind that unfurled slowly over a few days, like they were shy about being beautiful.

He didn’t know all that much about flowers. For all long as he’d lived in this residence, he’d had a gardener who dutifully took care of all his plants, no matter how boring at times it seemed to Lando. Christian likely knew a lot more about flowers than Lando did, but had gone ahead and tried anyway.

He just chose the ones that reminded him of her.

The delivery man came back to the residence with a familiar bouquet and a less-familiar look of pity on his face.

“Didn’t take ’em,” the man informed Lando with a shrug. “Didn’t even open the door, really. Said she doesn’t want ‘em anymore.”

Lando stood in the middle of the foyer, staring down at the rejected bouquet in silence. The petals were still fresh, still beautiful, and yet somehow already wilting. 

That hurt more than she probably meant it to, not because of the money or the gesture, but because it confirmed what he already knew.

Y/N didn’t want his apologies. She didn’t want him. The truth was that no matter how many flowers he sent, Lando couldn’t fix what he broke – not with peonies, not with silence, not with love.

Not anymore.

She had always loved peonies, and now she couldn’t even look at them without thinking of him. Now she didn’t even want them in the same room. Lando finally understood: there were some things he couldn’t buy, or fix, or drown in beauty.

Some damage was just done, and all the peonies in the world couldn’t bring her back.

He didn’t try again after that.

Because if even peonies hurt now, what chance did he have?

Days blurred. Weeks passed. 

The world went on like it always does when people fall out of love — or maybe, in his case, when someone lets the person who loved them see them for who they really are. 

Lando didn’t keep track in any meaningful way. Life had its own rhythm again: operations resumed, meetings were scheduled, threats were dealt with. No one dared mention her name around him anymore. It had faded from conversation the way most dangerous things do.

But even as the months stretched out like fading shadows, Lando still found her in places he didn’t expect.

He had been searching for one of his IDs when A sticky note, curled and fading, pressed between his phone and the case, tucked behind one of his IDs. Her handwriting spelled out some mundane comment, something stupidly her: drink water, don’t die :) 

Another day, it was the origami stars. The ones she used to make when her fingers were too restless to be still, usually while he was telling some story she pretended not to care about. He had reached into the pocket of his winter coat and felt a small, crinkled shape — the tiny origami she’d taught him how to make, gentler hands placed right over his as he did his best to mimic each of the folds he’d watched her do dozens of times.

Another time he found two of them, pale blue and slightly squished, tucked in the front pocket of a he hadn’t worn since winter. He had never noticed how many she’d left behind. Some days, it made him feel like she’d never left at all.

That was the worst part of grief, he found – the way it hid, the way it waited.

He would find them by accident now, like landmines. Every time he thought he was fine, something else would come along and remind him of her, making it impossible to breathe.

He hated it.

He didn’t mean to think about her.

But that night, when the house was all quiet and there was nothing more to do, he couldn’t help but think of her. Even Lando Norris, the Reaper of Monaco, couldn’t stop the reel of old footage his brain kept playing back. On nights when sleep felt more like punishment than rest — she came back in whole memories.

It was worse on the nights he drank.

Not the reckless kind — not anymore. But the kind that made his head buzz just enough to knock the edges off, to make the memories less sharp and the guilt a little warmer.

He was already a few drinks in — not drunk, just loose around the edges — when it happened. Sinking into the large wingback chair, he let the darkness drape itself around him as he reached under the table to grab a different bottle, seeking something stronger.

If he focused just enough, he could spot her silhouette in the mirage of spotted lights reflected across his glass wall, the distant flecks of color blending together to remind him of the evening at the little Chinese place before Brazil.

Under the hanging lights, her eyes shimmered.

The lighting then had been dim but golden, all soft bulbs and reflections in window glass. He remembered watching her chew the end of her straw like she always did when she was pretending not to smile. Remembered the way she looked across the table at him — chin in her hand, laughter still blooming in her throat — and how the world had felt still for a moment, like it paused just to give him that memory in perfect detail.

She’d been radiant.

He remembered the warmth of it, the way the lights caught in her hair, the soft flush on her cheeks when she laughed at something dumb he’d said. She’d worn that dark green sweater he liked — the one that made her eyes look almost unreal under the amber glow.

God, she’d looked unreal under those lights — hair a little windblown, cheeks warm from the cold, eyes lit up with some joke he didn’t even catch all the way. Later that night, she’d reached across the space between them and took his hand gently, so gently, and asked him to stay still.

“Give me your hand,” she’d asked softly.

He’d frowned but obeyed, watching as she pulled a thin, threaded bracelet from her bag. It wasn’t fancy – nowhere near the caliber of the multimillion euro watches he always wore. It didn’t seem to matter to her — she’d still tied it around his wrist like it meant something sacred.

Now, when he thought about it, he couldn’t remember ever having taken it off. He still wore it, tucked beneath sleeves and suits and the rest of the life he kept moving forward in. He still wore it, even after everything.

He tried then, inspired by the flash of anger that seared through him, to tug the stupid thing off. It was only a couple of stupid threads woven together, after all – how hard could it be?

Hooking his fingers under the braided string, Lando tugged with a mighty grunt. The skin of his face burned hot with shame, with frustration, with something when no matter how hard he tried the damn thing didn’t come off. He tugged and twisted and yanked on it until his fingertips were red and raw from all his failed efforts.

Stupid thing.

He told himself he’d cut it off the second he could get his hands on something sharp enough, but after too many drinks and not enough distance from his own thoughts — he found himself holding that thread between his fingers like it might answer something.

Sometimes love didn’t end in shouting or closure. Sometimes it just lingered like a thread around your wrist – fraying, but still tied.

A few more drinks later he found himself in his personal bedroom, pulling open one of the locked drawers in the back of the too-large walk-in closet. 

He breathed a sigh of relief. The ring was still right where he’d hidden it, wrapped in a receipt and tucked beneath a box of spare cufflinks. Reaching for it, he stumbled to the ground more than he sat down with any amount of grace, the black velvet box smooth under his fingertips.  

He hadn’t bought it for a reason. He hadn’t planned a proposal or imagined some cinematic moment with rose petals and violins. He’d just seen it in a market somewhere in Italy, or maybe Portugal, he can’t even remember. It reminded him of her, simple and delicate. A pale, iridescent stone — quiet and beautiful, just like her. He remembered seeing it and thinking that’s hers – not would be, or should be – just hers.

So he bought it, tucked it away and never told her.

He’d never gotten the chance.

He hadn’t planned on proposing. If he was being honest, he hadn’t even known what the future looked like. But he’d bought it anyway, because he’d wanted to – because he loved her.

He missed her.

Not just the version of her that had loved him — but her. All of her. Her stubbornness, her sarcasm, the way she threw napkins at him when he made a dumb joke. The way she used to hum when she studied. The way she’d fall asleep with her cheek pressed to his shoulder like she didn’t even realize she was safe there.

He missed the life they never got to have.

He turned it over in his fingers now, the weight of it a little heavier than he remembered. It was almost the only proof she was ever real, that he hadn’t dreamt her up. That he was real when he was with her. 

Maybe she’d been a fever dream in the middle of the violence, a soft thing his brain made up to protect him from the rest.

This ring was nearly the only proof he had ever cared about her enough to dare to think that she could someday be his.

He held it between his fingers for a long time and let the metal sit against his palm as he tried to imagine how her hand would’ve looked wearing it. He also tried not to imagine what her hand might be holding now – if it wasn’t his.

Maybe I’ll finally stop thinking of her, he told himself, if I can just see her once.

What Lando wanted to know, deep down, was that she still smiled sometimes. He wanted to be certain that despite his Midas touch, he hadn’t ruined Y/N entirely. He wanted to see with his own eyes that she was okay, that she was safe. He needed her to still be able to smile, to still be building the life he watched her dream about. He didn’t need to talk to her or even approach her – just needed to finally confirm that Y/N had moved on.

Just to see. Just to know. Just to remember what it looked like to love something without touching it.

Perhaps then he would finally be able to let go of this godforsaken guilt festering in his chest.

So on that late Thursday night, Lando propped himself up until he was steady on his two feet, grabbed his coat, and headed out into the night.

The streets were quieter at this hour, the city breathing in its own way — hushed murmurs of distant cars, the occasional flicker of neon signs reflected on the rain-slick pavement. The neighborhood was mostly empty by the time he made it to the block where Brews & Books sat, still gleaming faintly under the warm light of its storefront. The leftover light spilled through the windows, cutting faint patterns into the pavement.

The café was tucked into the corner of the street like always, windows glowing soft and golden against the dark. Brews & Books — the lettering still intact, still the same warm serif she had chosen for the sign herself. 

It looked exactly how he remembered it.

Outside, it wasn’t freezing — just cold enough to cut through his jacket in that way that made everything feel sharper, more real. He welcomed it, letting the wind bite at his hands and cheeks like it was a punishment. Or maybe a penance.

He kept his head down as he walked.

For once, Lando Norris wasn’t dressed nicely. Instead, he wore jeans and a hoodie and that same worn coat with the thread bracelet still tucked under the sleeve. If she saw him, he didn’t want her to think he was trying anything. He just… wanted to see her.

That was all.

He’d timed it carefully — picked a night he was fairly sure she’d be working, when the café usually stayed open late for evening study hours. He’d walked by enough times before to know the rhythm of her schedule. The soft hum of her days.

So when he got there — the familiar corner glowing faintly in the dark, window fogged from the warmth inside — he let himself hope, just a little.

With his gaze locked on the glass storefront, he waited for a glimpse of anything – a silhouette in motion, a flash of her in a messy bun, the curve of her smile as she handed someone a drink. All his attention focuses itself, seeking out the sound of her voice rising faintly through the door. Her laugh — god, her laugh.

He would’ve taken anything, even just her reflection in the glass. So he waited.

One minute. Then two. Then five.

He shifted from foot to foot, tucking his hands deeper into his coat. Then, he kept glancing back at the window like she’d appear any second, but she didn’t.

He didn’t go in, didn’t even get close enough for the security camera to pick up more than his silhouette. He just stood across the street with his hands in his pockets, the ring burning a hole in his coat.

Watching. Waiting.

His hands were stuffed in his pockets, his fingers brushing the frayed bracelet on his wrist. He just stood there — across the street, in the dark, watching the life that might’ve been his… if he hadn’t ruined it.

Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen. And, finally, the truth started to set in.

She wasn’t there. She wasn’t coming.

And the thought hit him harder than he expected: she used to love this place.

She used to light up in here. He remembered that night he showed up soaked from the rain, and she’d dragged him behind the counter just to dry him off with the sleeve of her cardigan. She used to hum while she organized the books. She used to sneak extra whipped cream into his drink and then pretend she hadn’t. She used to live here, in that warm way that he had never really seen her take up space anywhere else.

Now? Even this felt empty.

Did I ruin it for her?

Had he taken the one place that was hers and turned it into something she couldn’t stomach?

His jaw clenched as he looked away from the café window and swallowed hard.

“Fuck,” he muttered to himself, under his breath. 

He shouldn’t have come out here like an idiot thinking she’d still be where he left her. He should’ve asked Logan before coming here. He should’ve checked if her schedule had changed, should’ve done anything other than walk out here like a complete idiot expecting some kind of… moment.

Because now he just felt stupid.

He stayed a little longer anyway — because some part of him still hadn’t caught up with reality. Some insane, idiotic part of him was still half-convinced she’d come around the corner any second and look at him like she used to. Certainly there had to be a reality where he got to see her one more time, got to witness one more time the way she used to light up when she would realize that it was him who had walked through the door.

But that didn’t happen

Frozen in place by some unknown power, Lando felt the rest of the world go quiet as he let himself miss her, just for a moment. For a moment, he let himself love her, quietly and from a distance. For a moment, he told himself that maybe, from now on, that this was what love had to look like.

So Lando stood alone in the cold a while longer, with a bracelet on his wrist and a ring he couldn’t give to anyone.

It took him longer than it should to realize something’s off.

The lights were on. The sign beside the door was still lit — OPEN in neon, flickering letters. The usual warm glow still poured from the café windows. He hadn’t noticed it at first, too busy watching for her, but now that he was really looking, the whole place was… awake, still thrumming with the faint hum of electricity.

That was the first thing.

The second thing was the music. Something played low, an acoustic track with a familiar rhythm that was barely audible from the street.

Yet no one was inside.

There were no customers, no baristas. In fact, there was no movement at all.

Instead, each booth and table and chair lay empty, devoid of even a single soul. From here, he could still spot a mop bucket abandoned near the center of the floor space. One of the chairs was left pushed back like someone had stood up quickly and never sat back down.

Lando squinted through the window. There was no sign of her – or of anyone else, for that matter.

There was a pressure in the air, a certain amount of wrongness that his body recognized before his brain caught up. His stomach tensed, the muscles tightening subconsciously to the unease he now felt creeping through his whole body. The sensation was faint at first, like static on the back of the neck. He hadn’t survived this long by ignoring a gut instinct like that.

That was the third thing — the bad feeling. 

His hand drifted automatically to the inside of his coat. The leather of the concealed holster there was familiar, the weight of it comforting. 

Just in case.

Worst case scenario, he told himself, this’s nothin’ more than a simple misunderstanding. It was more than likely that some barista had stepped out for a smoke break or someone with the closing shift merely forgot the lights on. 

But Y/N wouldn’t do that.

The thought nagged at him.

Immediately, he stepped forward and crossed the street, barely looking on either side of the pathway before making his way over to the familiar entrance. When his hand went to press against the glass door, it gave way immediately. The door wasn’t locked.

That was the fourth thing.

He pushed it open slowly, the bell above it jangling with the same cheer it always had. The sound made his chest ache with something akin to grief for this place he’d somehow developed fondness for. 

He stepped inside, and Lando’s eyes narrowed. His palm instinctively brushed the inside of his jacket, where the holster sat snug against his ribs. his long fingers still curled near the handle of the gun, but with the index finger still pressed up against the safety lock on the side of the barrel. There was no need to draw it yet.

Huh.

Lando’s eyes narrowed. His fingers instinctively brushed the inside of his jacket, where the holster sat snug against his ribs. He didn’t draw it — not yet — but the tension settled across his shoulders like a warning. Years of training and muscle memory kicking in without being asked.

He rounded the side of the first booth, his eyes flicking over everything now. The register appeared to be closed somewhat haphazardly, its security latch visibly loose. On the countertop sat a single transparent cup, likely intended for some drink, only to be abandoned with the now-melting ice cubes as its sole content. He also noted a blueberry muffin on a plate, untouched. From where he stood, Lando could also spot the familiar sight of a note stuck to the side of the shelf, clearly in Y/N’s handwriting: restock oat milk!!

He was just in the middle of attempting to identify what it was about this scene that was so disconcerting when–

The loud, shrill ringing of a phone interrupted his train of thought, nearly startling him in the process. The stillness of the place had lulled him into a sense of ease, one that was disrupted the longer the ringing went on.

Isn’t anyone going to get that?

It rang again and again, going unanswered. Despite the fact that the sound seemed to emanate from behind the swinging door that led to the backroom, Lando could hear it clear as day, even out here. 

Why won’t anyone answer it?

He moved slowly now, eyes scanning, every step heavier than the last. Each step followed the same heel-to-toe rhythm his body had long since memorized, his body working on autopilot as he continued to scan the room in an attempt to figure out what was going on. 

"Hello? Are you there?"

Not paying enough attention to where he placed his steps, Lando’s shoe squealed against the tile. The floor behind the bar must have been slick with something, the rubber of his boot catching on it slightly.

He looked down to see what it was.

A spray of fresh, red blood.

Instantly, his gun was out, his finger hovering over the trigger now. He moved faster now, stepping past the edge of the bar counter and through the swinging door into the workspace. His body moved before his brain could even finish catching up.

And that’s when he looked down. His breath caught, and time slowed.

Crumbled on the tile like the air had been knocked out of her, one of her arms was outstretched, the soft skin of her palm open towards the door. The deep burgundy of blood rapidly stained her abdomen, with even more dribbling out of the side of her mouth. There was enough of the thick liquid for it to just begin pooling beside her, the floor beneath her soaking fast. Her body twitched weakly, like she was still trying to move.

Her eyes met his for the briefest, most agonizing second.

She tried to speak. All that came out was a wet, choking sound — like the air was catching on itself, like her lungs were filled with something thicker than breath.

Blood.

“Y/N!”

a/n: so...

[lavender-vixen]

What would Henry do if he found out his crush was one of the losers’ older sister? Let’s go with Eddie’s older sister. ALSO I love your most recent story, please do more! 🫡

"You’re a Kaspbrak?" (Henry Bowers x Eddie’s Older Sister!Reader)

Henry didn’t believe it at first. He heard the name. Kaspbrak. He felt it in his mouth, muttered it under his breath, let it sit on his tongue like something rotten, something wrong. It didn’t fit you. Didn’t fit the way you stood, weight shifted to one hip, all confidence and sharp smiles and that way you looked at him. Like you weren’t afraid of him. Like you weren’t supposed to be afraid of him. Now it was clear as day.

Now he was staring at you in the dim light behind the school, cigarette burning down between his fingers, heart hammering like a drum. And he felt sick.

"You’re a fucking Kaspbrak?"

You just blinked. Like it wasn’t a big deal. Like this wasn’t the most humiliating thing that had ever happened to him. "Uh. Yeah?"

Henry let out a sharp laugh. Shook his head. His stomach churned. His jaw clenched. Because this wasn’t just some random girl. This wasn’t just some pretty thing he could fuck around with, mess with, toss away when he got bored.

This was Eddie fucking Kaspbrak’s sister. That pathetic, whiny little freak. That useless, pathetic waste of space. Now Henry wanted to put his hands on you? Now he wanted to kiss you, touch you, maybe even keep you? Now he wanted to let you get away with shit no one else could?

No. Fuck no. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t. Then Henry was a joke. And Henry Bowers was nobody’s joke.

Days passed. He avoided you. Tried to. Didn’t work. Because you were always there. Like you were daring him. Like you were waiting for him to make a move.

When you finally cornered him behind the bleachers, hands on your hips, eyes narrowed, lips pursed. "Take it easy on my little brother."

The words hit him like a train. Henry scoffed. Flicked his cigarette. "What, you got some kinda death wish? You think you can just ask me that?"

You didn’t waver. Didn’t blink. "I know I can."

Henry hated that. Hated that you weren’t scared. Hated that you had the guts to tell him what to do. Hated that he didn’t want to shove you off him, tell you to fuck off, end this right now.

Instead, he found himself gritting his teeth, exhaling slow, muttering—"Yeah. Fine. Whatever."

And then he stormed off before you could see just how much he hated himself for saying it.

His boys didn’t buy it. Patrick was the first to speak.

"That was bullshit, right?"

Henry didn’t answer.

Patrick smirked. "C’mon, Bowers. You’re really gonna go soft ‘cause some girl with nice tits told you to?"

Henry shoved him. Hard. Patrick laughed, but he shut up. Because Henry was dead serious.

But he wasn’t soft with you. Not in the way they thought. Not in the way he thought, either. Because yeah, maybe he quit smoking around you, because you told him it made you sick. And yeah, maybe he didn’t go out of his way to trip Kaspbrak in the halls anymore.

And yeah, maybe he let you sit in his car, let you talk about whatever you wanted, let you take up space in his head. But he didn’t take you home. He didn’t let you see Butch. Didn’t let Butch see you.

Not even when Butch asked. "Where you been sneaking off to, boy?"

Henry just shrugged, didn’t answer, didn’t even look up from the dinner table. Butch didn’t like that. Didn’t like it when Henry kept things from him. Didn’t like it when Henry had things of his own. But Henry wasn’t giving this up. Not for him. Not for anyone.

Henry laughed anyway. If he didn’t, he might actually have to deal with the fact that you meant something to him. And that was a nightmare.

And if Henry was going down for it, then he was taking you with him.

Eddie knew. He had known for weeks now. Had known since he saw you climb into Henry’s car, since he saw the way Bowers looked at you, since he heard Patrick Hockstetter crack some disgusting joke in the school parking lot.

Had known and had been praying—praying—that it wasn’t true. Tonight, Eddie had finally had enough. So when you slipped back into the house late, sneakers barely making a sound on the carpet, thinking everyone was asleep—Eddie was already waiting.

Sitting in the dark, hands clenched into fists, voice shaking as he spat—"How the fuck could you do this to me?"

"Eddie—"

"Don’t."

His voice was sharp, angry, unlike anything you’d ever heard from him before. He was breathing fast, his little chest rising and falling too quick, like he was about to have a panic attack.

"Do you even know what you’re doing? Do you even know what kind of person he is?"

You sighed, ran a hand through your hair, tried to keep calm. "Yeah, Eddie. I do."

That was the wrong thing to say. Suddenly, Eddie was on his feet, shaking, screaming at you—"Then you’re just as fucking crazy as he is!"

Henry could see it from a mile away. Could see Eddie losing his shit, could see the way you looked shaken, could see the way you hesitated before walking into school the next morning.

Henry didn’t like that. Didn’t like Eddie talking to you like that, didn’t like you coming to school with that look on your face, like maybe you were thinking about ending this, like maybe you were thinking about leaving.

So when Eddie Kaspbrak walked past him in the hall that day, eyes burning with pure rage—Henry grabbed him. Hard.

Shoved him up against the lockers, held him there, leaned in close. "You don’t tell her what to do, Kaspbrak."

Eddie gritted his teeth, his tiny hands balling into fists at his sides. "You don’t fucking deserve her."

Henry just laughed. "Yeah? Well, I got her anyway, so what the fuck does that say about you?"

And when Eddie tried to swing, tried to throw a punch that barely even grazed his jaw, Henry just grabbed his wrist, squeezed way too hard, grinning as Eddie yelped in pain.

"Try that again, little man, and I swear to God—"

"Henry!" Your voice cut through the hallway, sharp, panicked, furious.

Henry let go. Only because you were there. Only because he didn’t want to scare you off. Not yet. Not when he was this close to having you for real.

That was the same week his father found out. Henry knew it would happen eventually. It was so much worse than he expected. It happened in the worst way.

Henry didn’t think his old man knew shit. But he did. And that made Henry furious.

It happened in the living room, same as always. Butch sitting in his recliner, smoking, bottle of whiskey half-empty on the table, the static drone of the TV filling the silence. Henry had barely gotten through the front door when Butch spoke.

"I know about the girl."

Henry froze. Fingers curling into fists at his sides. "What?"

Butch took a long drag from his cigarette. Didn’t even look up. "The Kaspbrak girl. The one you been sneakin’ around with. Don’t be stupid, boy."

Henry snorted. "Right. Thanks for the advice, Dad."

Butch kept going. "Don’t you dare get her pregnant. You hear me?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever—"

"No. Not whatever." Butch finally looked up, eyes dark, dangerous. "You knock her up, you’re out of my house. Done. You figure your own shit out. I ain’t dealin’ with it."

Henry felt something snap. "Like I’d give a fuck."

Butch exhaled slow. Then he stood up. And before Henry could blink, before he could mouth off again—Butch grabbed him by the shirt. Shoved him hard, back slamming against the kitchen wall. Not enough to really hurt. But enough to make a point. Enough to remind him who was in charge.

Henry saw red. So he did what he always did. He fought back.

The fight was short, ugly, pointless. Henry threw a punch. Butch blocked it, shoved him again, barked something about ‘respect.’ Henry spat on the floor. Then he grabbed his keys and left.

Didn’t look back. Didn’t care. He just got in his car. And drove. Because there was only one place he wanted to be right now.

It was late. Your house was quiet, lights off, everyone sleeping. Henry parked on the street. Sat there for a minute, breathing hard, gripping the steering wheel. Then he climbed out. And up.

Your balcony wasn’t hard to reach. He’d done it before. And when he knocked—sharp, impatient, needing—You were already awake. Already at the window, looking at him with wide, confused eyes.

"Henry?"

"Come with me."

Your stomach tightened. "Where?"

"Just come." His voice was low, rough. Begging, but in that Henry Bowers kind of way.

You didn’t ask questions. Didn’t argue. Just grabbed your jacket. And followed him.

The car ride was silent. Tense. Henry drove too fast, too reckless, hands gripping the wheel like he wanted to strangle something. You watched him. Waited. Didn’t push.

And when he finally pulled up to the quarry, killed the engine, just sat there—breathing hard, staring out at nothing—You knew. Something had happened. Something bad. And you knew exactly how to get his mind off it.

It started fast. Fingers gripping. Mouths crashing. Teeth, tongue, heat.

You barely got the words "Henry, are you okay?" out before he was pulling you into his lap, hands sliding under your shirt, voice all low and rough and desperate.

"Just shut up, baby."

So you did. You shut up. And let him take. Because that’s what he needed. That’s what you both needed. And in the backseat of Henry’s car, windows fogged, bodies tangled, breathless and wanting, nothing else mattered.

Not Eddie. Not Butch. Not this town. Just this. Just him. Just you.

After, it was quiet. Not awkward. Just quiet. You curled up against him, head on his chest, his arm slung lazily over you, the smell of sweat and cigarette smoke thick in the air.

Henry was distant. Eyes staring out the window, lost in something else. You traced slow circles on his skin. Watched him.

"You okay?"

It took him a second. Then he exhaled. Long. Slow. Ran a hand through his hair. "I just can’t wait to get the hell out of Derry."

His voice was flat, tired. But then he glanced down at you. And smirked. "With you."

Your heart skipped. You realized he meant it. Henry meant it. That scared you more than anything. Henry Bowers didn’t make promises. Now he was making one.

And if he meant it, then you were in way too deep.

[foxlorests]

𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐒

CHAPTER ONE: PRELUDE, IN THE RAIN

♫⋆｡♪ PAIR: Harry Castillo x Younger!Original Female Character

♫⋆｡♪ WC: 4k

♫⋆｡♪ CHAPTER TAGS: Age Difference, Slow Burn, Yearning, Fluff, Smut (in later chapters), Soulmates, romcom propaganda

♫⋆｡♪ CHAPTER SUMMARY: Before the mess of Lucy, before the heartbreak and the embarrassment, Harry met a young cellist on the outskirts of Cold Spring, New York.

Ao3 | Wattpad | Spotify Playlist | Youtube Music Playlist | Poster/Masterlist

The story starts before the storm. The storm of Lucy and John and Harry, and all the messy things in between. Funny enough, another kind of storm, a literal storm, was brewing outside the gala. 

Harry was unaware of it.

He didn’t pay attention to the weather. He rarely did. Weather was for people who planned picnics or took walks without purpose. Weather was for people with time. With softness. With someone waiting for them at home to say, “You’ll need a coat.” Harry didn’t have that. He had a driver who knew his calendar, made by a private assistant who knew his whole being better than he did, and a closet of coats that still somehow made him feel cold.

But tonight, for some reason he couldn’t name, he left the gala on foot.

It was stupid, maybe. The car had been idling by the curb. The doorman had opened the door like muscle memory. But Harry kept walking. Past the pillars, down the steps, away from the light and chatter and clink of glasses. He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked as if he had somewhere to be. He didn’t.

Maybe the reason for poor judgement was the wine. He felt drunk, which made him lonelier, which could be cured by walking. Or at least, that’s what the article he read this morning said to him. The New York Times had a way of convincing him he needs more out of life. Maybe he should consider that matchmaker nonsense too. His brother certainly did.

By the time he reached the end of the block, it started raining.

Not politely. Not a drizzle. The kind of rain that meant it. So hard it pricked his skin. The kind that soaked you fast, punished your shoulders, ran into your eyes, asked if you still wanted to be here. He kept walking.

It was almost laughable—him, in a suit worth more than some people’s rent, wandering the city like he’d lost something. Maybe he had. He wasn't sure when it had happened, but somewhere along the way, his life had become one long executive summary. PowerPoints. Projections. Value. Worth. He liked it, but he needed more in his life. Such is the way of a rich person. They always want more.

It was after a minute of walking that he regretted his decision. It was very cold, and he hated wet clothes.

He stopped under a dim streetlamp, pulling his collar up, trying to keep the worst of it off his neck. His mind spun with things he’d rather not think about—board meetings, fractured deals, the ache of feeling empty despite everything.

Then, out of nowhere, she ran past him—a flash of movement against the gray wash of rain. Her coat flared behind her, damp hair plastered to her face, and strapped across her back was a cello case, seeming impossibly delicate for this storm.

She didn’t hesitate. No words, no pause. Just a quick glance, sharp and bright, before she reached for his wrist and tugged.

He barely had time to blink before she was pulling him forward—splashing through puddles, weaving through empty sidewalks. His suit soaked through, his expensive shoes squelching, but he followed without question. There was something in the way she moved, urgent but light, like she belonged to the rain, not the other way around.

They ran until the city noise faded behind them and they slipped into the shadow of a weathered bookstore, its awning stretched wide like an old friend offering refuge.

They stood side by side, catching their breath in the sudden stillness. Thunder rolled distantly, rain pounding the streets beyond their shelter.

She turned to him then, and for the first time, her eyes met his fully—unflinching, alive.

Her lashes held tiny droplets. Her smile was soft.

“Expensive things shouldn’t be wet,” she said quietly. “Like this.” She reached back to the cello case, fingers tracing the leather strap. “Or your suit.”

He laughed, surprised by the sound—short and dry but real. She watched him, clearly pleased by the reaction.

“You looked like you were having a moment out there,” she said, voice calm but curious. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

He shook his head, still smiling a little. “You interrupted it anyway.”

“True,” she said, completely unbothered. “But now you’re marginally less soaked. You’re welcome.”

He glanced down at himself, dark fabric clinging to him like second skin. “Did you really drag me in here just because of the suit?”

“Partially.”

“It’s already ruined.”

“I figured. But I thought I’d spare it the final blow. There’s something tragic about wet suits.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Tragic?”

She nodded, peeling damp curls off her cheek. “Custom tailored suits aren’t supposed to be caught in storms. Like cellos. Or tailored men.”

He huffed out a small laugh. “Right.”

“Plus,” she added, with a shrug, “I have a soft spot for sad-looking old men standing in the rain like they’re in a French film.”

He looked at her, then out the window, where the storm still blurred the city in streaks of silver. “That obvious?”

“A little.”

A beat passed.

“We’re the same, you know,” she said, voice softer now. “Alone in the rain. It's a bit pathetic, really.”

“Depressing’s generous,” Harry said, leaning back. “I’m more of a walking tax bracket.”

That made her laugh. “Let me guess. Finance?”

“Private equity,” he admitted, bracing for the usual judgment.

But she just nodded like it confirmed something. “Nice.”

He smiled—just slightly.

“You from New York City, kid?” Harry asked, glancing between them. “I just figured since you have the cello. Artists don’t really thrive here, not like the city anyway—”

“Yeah, I’m from the city. Well, I moved there a while ago, at least,” Catherine said. “Just past Morningside Park.”

“Ah.” Harry nodded. He hesitated, then added, “Tribeca.”

Catherine raised an eyebrow, a teasing grin playing at her mouth. “That fits you.”

He huffed a quiet laugh.

“So,” she asked, folding her arms loosely, “you live there with your family?”

“Uh, no. Never married. No kids.” He said it all dryly, like a checklist he was tired of hearing about himself.

She didn’t respond with pity or interest. Just nodded, like that too made sense. Then she gave a thoughtful little hum. “That explains the suit. And the watch. And the slightly tragic look in your eyes.”

“And here I thought I was being subtle.”

She smiled at him, something softer now. “You’re not. But that’s fine. A lot more in life than just that.”

“What are you doing in Cold Spring?”

She was about to speak again when a noise behind them made both their heads turn—a soft creak of hinges and the clatter of something metallic hitting wood.

An old man stood at the doorway just behind them, peering out from the shadows of the dimly lit store. He looked like he belonged to the shelves themselves—stooped, with a long cardigan that nearly brushed his knees and spectacles that magnified kind eyes.

He glanced between the two of them, then to the puddle they were unintentionally forming on his porch. His face twitched—something between surprise and amusement—and he said, in a thick, lilting accent Harry couldn’t quite place, “Well, you two planning to swim out here all night, or shall I put on the kettle?”

She blinked, then grinned. “Sorry, we didn’t mean to—”

“Ah, nonsense,” the man waved her off, already turning back into the store with the slow assurance of someone who’d been around a very long time. “Come on in before you catch a fever. Storm like this isn’t one you wait out on porches.”

Harry and the girl exchanged a look. The kind that asked, do we? The kind that didn’t really need an answer.

They stepped inside. It smelled of paper and dust and something herbal—maybe dried mint, maybe age itself. The lights were dim, yellowish and uneven, casting the place in the kind of glow that made you whisper without meaning to.

Books filled every crevice—stacked on tables, leaning against chairs, crammed into crooked shelves. There was a coat rack by the door with only one item on it: a faded scarf that might’ve once been red.

“Take your time,” the man called from somewhere in the back. “I’ll be in the kitchen. Don’t touch the Emersons, they’re organized by resentment.”

The girl gave Harry a side glance. “Organized by what?”

Harry smiled and shrugged.

She wandered a few steps ahead of Harry, her eyes skimming the shelves as if trying to read every spine at once. She turned toward the voice calling from deeper inside the shop.

“Your accent,” she called lightly, voice echoing off books and beams, “Liverpool?”

There was a pause—then the sound of something clattering, like a teacup being set down too hard in surprise.

“Scouse, aye,” came the reply, tinged with a kind of pleased defensiveness. “Sharp ear on you.”

“I had a roommate from Wavertree,” she said, smiling toward the dark hallway at the back. “She used to curse me out with words I didn’t know existed.”

A bark of laughter echoed back.

“You poor thing,” he said. “She teach you how to survive, at least?”

“She taught me how to argue over washing up. That’s close enough.”

Harry watched as something seemed to shift in the air. The old man emerged again, this time with a dish towel slung over his shoulder and a plate of buttered toast in one hand. His guard was down now, cracked open like a familiar book.

“Well,” he said, offering the plate with a nod, “if you had to survive Scousers, might as well come warm up with one. I’ve got soup on and too much of it.”

She took the toast with a soft laugh. “Thank you. We really didn’t mean to intrude.”

“You didn’t,” he waved a hand again. “I saw you two on the porch. Looked like one of those old records, y’know? Lonely man in a suit, beautiful girl in a worse mood than the weather. But no, you looked pretty happy to me,” He chuckled, then looked at Harry. “You looked a bit... ruined.”

Harry didn’t answer. He wasn’t quite ready to yet.

“Come on then,” the man said, already turning. “Place is falling apart, but the kettle still works. You can sit by the heater.”

They followed him into the narrow back kitchen—old, mismatched tile underfoot, stacks of books even here lining the corners, as if the shelves had spilled and nobody bothered to stop them. There was a small table set for one. The man reached for two more mismatched bowls from a cupboard above the sink.

“Name’s Jim,” he said.

“Catherine,” she answered easily.

The girl nudged his side.

“Harry,” he finally said.

The soup was hot and surprisingly good—potato, leek, maybe something else neither of them could place. They sat around the small table, bowls in hand, steam rising between them like soft fog.

Catherine did most of the talking. Jim had taken a clear liking to her, leaning in over his mug of tea, asking questions like an old friend, utterly delighted by her presence. Harry watched it unfold quietly, spoon paused in midair as he listened.

“So what’s a girl like you doing out in this god awful weather with a big violin?” Jim asked, eyes twinkling with suspicion and curiosity.

“Cello,” Catherine corrected with a grin. “Came from a gathering. Friends, sort of. Mostly strangers. I was trying something new.” She stirred her soup absentmindedly, then glanced toward the cello resting safely by the wall. “I’ve been thinking about putting together a small studio. Back in the city. A place for artists, musicians— Anyway, they seemed interested. And I came with my cello to prove that I am one of them.”

Jim sat back, visibly impressed. “A bold girl with a plan. Now that’s rare.” He looked around the room, as if picturing the ghosts of old songs and stories.

Jim pointed at Harry with his spoon, finally acknowledging him. “And your fella didn’t bring a car? Och. What kind of knight are you, eh? An American, in America, without a car.”

Harry wanted to say he not only had a car, but a driver too. He didn’t though. He sensed that he had to explain why he was in the rain in the first place if he brought that up.

Catherine almost choked on her soup, laughing. “Oh—he’s not my fella. We just met, actually.”

Jim blinked, then nodded slowly, like something had clicked into place. “Ah, now that makes more sense. You’re just too young and lovely. Couldn’t imagine you settled yet. Not with that old man.”

Harry gave him a look. He didn’t like this Jim person very much, to be honest.

Catherine tilted her head, eyes narrowing playfully. “Oh, what? And what’s wrong with an older man?”

Jim raised a brow, bemused.

She gestured across the table. “Harry is a handsome man. Not as handsome as you, obviously, Jim, but close enough.”

That made Harry laugh—actually laugh, sudden and genuine. He shook his head and looked down, hiding the grin tugging at his mouth. For the first time that night, the chill of the storm seemed far away.

Time passed unnoticed, like warmth slowly spreading through chilled limbs. The bowls were scraped clean, mugs refilled, and the room thick with the soft hum of conversation and scotch. Harry, who was so often surrounded by people that talked too much and said too little—gallery girls, men with names you had to Google, women who called his car “cute” like it was a pet—now found himself flanked by two strangers whose personalities filled the room to its edges and back. Jim and Catherine were wildly, effortlessly themselves, and somehow that made everyone else from the past decade seem like background extras. Forgettable silhouettes. These two? They were vivid. Full.

The storm still howled outside like a drunk looking for a fight, rattling the glass with every gust. Catherine stood, brushing the wrinkles out of her damp dress—some delicate black thing that clung to her like melted ink—and pulled her soaked hair into a makeshift knot with a pencil she found on the windowsill. She looked like someone from a photograph you’d find in an old bookshop: timeless, a little ruined, but unforgettable.

“I’ll pay for the soup,” she said, gently tightening her cello’s bow. “With a song.”

Jim laughed, already pouring another round of scotch. “That’s the best currency I’ve heard all week.”

Harry didn’t say much. He never did, not in places like this. He felt oddly like a child again—watching magic unfold from the edges, unsure whether to be part of it or protect it from himself. Because this wasn’t his world. Not really. He was used to neat conversations and quiet transactions. Art as decor. Music as background. People as curated choices. But this? This felt real in the way storms were real—loud, inconvenient, alive.

“I’m not gonna play my original yet. This one is by Piero Piccioni, and it’s called ‘amore mio aiutami’. I adjusted the arrangements because it’s–”

“Hurry up, lass. We don’t care what you’re playing as long as it’s pretty.”

“Don’t mind him, kid. Go on,” said Harry. 

Catherine giggled and continued.

She settled into Jim’s old wooden chair, the one that wobbled with every shift, and rested her cello between her knees. Her fingers, pale and long, curled around the strings like she was holding something sacred. Then she played.

The room stilled—two men, decades apart, leaning in as if listening to a language only she spoke. And maybe she was. Something old and aching and gentle filled the air. Even Harry, whose thoughts never stopped moving, forgot them entirely.

Catherine played the cello like it was an extension of herself—too free, too effortless, too perfect for some local artist just starting out. Every note breathed as if it had been living inside her all along, waiting to be spoken. Her fingers moved with a quiet grace, delicate but sure, each shift and stroke precise yet fluid, like she was telling a story only her cello and she understood. It was intimate, personal, and completely unstudied—an organic dance between soul and instrument.

Harry, still tipsy from the gala and the long night before, suddenly sobered as the music pulled him in. He stopped chasing thoughts and distractions, letting the melody sink into every corner of him. He savored it—this memory, this moment—as if engraving it into his mind forever. Because Catherine wasn’t some polished act or curated performance. She was real. So real it hurt, a sharp ache behind his teeth he couldn’t ignore.

She looked like she belonged in the music: her green eyes—bright but shadowed—held a secret light, flickering gently beneath the soft pull of her small, almost shy smile. A dimple appeared at the corner of her mouth, like a tiny signature she forgot to hide. Freckles scattered lightly across the pale skin of her neck, subtle as dust motes in a shaft of afternoon light. Her dark blonde hair, more honeyed, caught the flicker of the low lamp, falling loose in soft waves that framed her face. And then there were her hands—dainty fingers curved around the cello’s neck with such tender familiarity, it was as if the instrument had grown from her very bones.

In that room, with the storm raging outside, Catherine’s music wrapped around them like a spell—intoxicating, unyielding, and utterly hers.

When the music stopped, the silence that followed felt like a velvet curtain falling. None of them spoke right away. Even Jim sat unusually still, the usual sparkle in his eye subdued, mellowed into something softer. Catherine smiled, a little shy now that the song was over, brushing a stray hair behind her ear as if the applause she received—two stunned men and a creaking floorboard—were too much.

After that, time didn’t quite return to normal. It lingered in that strange, slowed haze—the kind that settles after a heavy rain or a dream you don’t want to wake from. They stayed at the little table longer than expected, the cheap scotch softening the edges of their words. Catherine curled into the couch, barefoot now, long legs tucked under her, her hair loose and still damp at the ends. Jim had returned from the back with a wool blanket for her shoulders and a second bottle of something stronger. They talked like old friends who’d only just met.

She asked Harry about the gala—what it was for, who it was honoring, if he actually cared.

“Not really,” Harry had said, swirling the scotch in his glass. “The music wasn’t even good. Not a fraction close to what you played.”

“Well that’s because artists who perform at galas usually have a strict set list. They can’t play anything too distracting, or else it would cover the important conversations being held, isn’t that right? I’m sure you didn’t pay attention.”

He shrugged, trying not to smile. “True.”

“I know it’s true.”

And that’s how it went. Catherine poked at things like she was pulling threads—his likes, his family, what it meant to be surrounded by people but still felt unbearably alone. The conversation became too smooth and she seemed so interested that Harry couldn't help but open up.

He told her about his annual trip to Zurich, a funny story about his friend who wanted to retire early and begged him to do it too. He didn’t mind that it made him feel old, because she looked like she enjoyed his stories. 

She talked about the kind of studio she wanted to build, “somewhere warm, and loud,” where artists and musicians could just be without having to sell pieces of themselves to survive.

Jim, in the middle of it all, refilled glasses and told stories from the war, about a woman he once loved in Marseille, and how the rain back then didn’t feel so different. “Except now,” he muttered, “I’m slower, and my knees hate me.”

“We still love you,” Catherine told him, squeezing his hand.

Harry just watched, half-drunk and completely sober at once, folded into this odd scene. It was quiet and human and so unlike the nights he usually had.

Eventually, the storm outside softened into a steady drizzle. A faint hush blanketed the city beyond the fogged windows, and Harry knew he had to leave. He had a flight tomorrow. Back to the hotel, back to his driver, back to the cold marble world he was supposed to live in.

When he stood to go, he hesitated, then pulled a card from his pocket. It was damp around the edges, smudged, but he carefully pressed it into Catherine’s hand, making sure his number was still there. He didn’t know why he gave it to her. She was younger—probably still a student—but something tugged quietly at his heart. Maybe it was wishful thinking, or a hope that this unexpected night wasn’t the last.

Catherine looked at it for a moment. Her expression unreadable, but not unkind. There was a tug at the corner of her lips.

“You’re probably a brilliant prodigy slumming it for fun. But, uh—there’s my number. In case you… ever need it. Maybe you need an investor for your studio?”

Catherine giggled. “I got that covered, thanks. But I’ll take this card. Because you’re my friend.”

He started toward the door. The air had a bite to it now, the scent of wet asphalt rising.

Then, as if the scene was written by fate themselves, her voice said the words he’d long to hear since he started this damned journey into the storm in the first place:

“You’ll need a coat.”

He turned, struck. His heart was beating. His breath hitched. He could remember praying for that just moments ago. Of not having anyone to say those exact words to him. That was funny, he thought.

She was holding her coat out for him to take, a faded olive green trench with worn buttons and sleeves too long for her arms.

“Here, have mine,” she said.

Harry stared at it, at her. He wanted to laugh it off, say it wasn’t necessary, say the drizzle didn’t matter. His suit was already ruined anyway. But instead, he took it. Quietly. Gently. Because something in him wanted to.

He slipped it on. It smelled like rain and cello rosin and something sweet he couldn’t name.

Catherine gave him a look, one part smile, one part mystery.

“Goodbye, Harry.”

He stood in the doorway for a second longer than he should’ve. The rain fell around him like applause.

That was years ago.

He had waited for her call—maybe not right away, but someday, when she was older, when she had built the studio she talked about. Maybe he’d hear from her with an invitation to a classical concert, a small private gathering, something fitting for the girl with green eyes and a cello. But it never came. And over time, that night became a sweet memory, wrapped in nostalgia, folded carefully into the back pocket of his life. He had thought, more than once, about looking for her. But he didn’t. Some memories were too perfect to touch.

So he lived his life as if nothing had changed. As if that stormy night had only been shelter and soup. As if the freckled girl with the honeyed hair hadn’t quietly shaken something loose in him. He returned to his world—of business suits and curated smiles, of gallery openings and glass-walled meetings. He played his part. Well. Efficiently. But something had shifted, even if he didn’t let it show. There was now a quiet ache where something new had once flickered to life.

Then came Lucy.

The matchmaker. The woman with ambition in her eyes and a plan for everything, including love. He had liked her. Truly. She was intelligent and quick, and he admired how much she wanted to be right—for herself, for him. She had a list of things she wanted in a partner, and Harry ticked enough boxes to make her try. And maybe he had wanted to be the man on someone’s list, just once.

He had told Lucy about the storm once. Briefly. Skimming the surface. He mentioned the bookstore and the cello and the odd magic of it all, calling it “the realest moment” he’d had in years. But he didn’t say how it made him feel. That part he kept for himself. He knew Lucy wouldn't care anyway. Not for an odd story about strange people and drenched thousand-dollar suits. He couldn’t explain that it wasn’t even about romance—that it was something quieter, more sacred. Something that had made him feel seen.

And then came that storm. The one he didn’t like.

The one Lucy brought with her, and the one he brought himself. The whirlwind of trying to make two puzzle pieces fit when the edges had already worn down. The one where it made sense in the head, but not so much the heart. It had started fine, even pleasant—until it’s not. Lucy’s ex-boyfriend showed up. Looming, present in every silent pause between them. Harry had felt it the moment he met him—that sense of unfinished business. And from there, the storm only grew. The love triangle turned into a typhoon of messy truths and repressed wants. He could laugh at it now, in the way people laugh at their worst decisions, but at the time, it was excruciating. Embarrassing. He had stayed too long, said too little, and ignored too much.

It was a well-needed lesson, in life and in love.

But it was, thankfully, a finished story.

STORY WILL BE UPDATED EVERY WEEK

[happyhauntt]

a touch of colour — eddie diaz.

writing masterlist | askbox

─── summary: eddie and chris' home is freakishly empty. you decide to redecorate a little.

─── pairing: eddie diaz x reader.

─── warnings & notes: fluffy fluff. no use of y/n, this was just supposed to be a short drabble but it ran aay from me and eddie might seem a little ooc but i don't even care it's so cute.

─── word count: 2.7k.

     “BUCK, CAN I BORROW YOUR KEY to Eddie’s place, please?”

     Your arrival at the station house isn’t preceded by any warning, and though it isn’t your intention to sneak up on Buck, he doesn’t seem to hear you coming. A panicked shriek tears itself from his throat as he drops what he’s holding, and the spray bottle full of cleaning fluid clatters to the floor at your feet.

     An amused smile curls at your lips as he tries to play it off, ducking his head to hide the embarrassment blossoming in bright red spots across his cheeks.

     “Uh, hey.” The words stumble out of Buck and he coughs, trying to recover what remains of his dignity. “You know, sneaking up on people isn’t good for your health. What if I’d panicked and thrown a punch or something?”

     You quirk an eyebrow at him. “You did panic, Buck. Seems like it’s worse for your health than mine. Key, please?”

     “Eddie’s just up in the loft, I can grab him if you want.”

     It’s your turn to look a little sheepish. “Please don’t. It’s a surprise. Or it will be a surprise, if you let me borrow your key. I’ll return it tomorrow, I promise, and I’m not going to let a bunch of raccoons loose in there or anything━”

     Buck blinks. The hint of a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, just enough to let you know that he’s teasing. Mostly. “I wasn’t worried, but now I am.”

     “I’m saving the raccoons for your apartment, actually,” you tell him, and now you’re not even really asking anymore, know that Buck will inevitably break because you’re Eddie’s girlfriend, and he actually likes you, and most importantly, his insatiable curiosity will not allow him to deny you. Hand outstretched, you wiggle your fingers expectantly. “Key, please.”

     He huffs at you as if you’ve asked him to scale Mount Everest in nothing but swim trunks, rather than the perfectly reasonable request you’ve actually made, and makes a show of tugging the key to Eddie’s house off the keyring before passing it along to you.

     “I have only one condition,” says Buck, a mischievous gleam in his eye as he presses the key into your palm.

     You watch him warily. You’ve been dating Eddie, and subsequently been acquainted with Buck, long enough to recognise that look. “What?”

     “Whatever you’re doing, make sure you film his reaction. I’ve got a funny feeling he’s gonna freak out.”

     A nervous laugh bubbles in your throat, and you can’t help rolling your lips together as you pocket the key. It doesn’t take a genius to know that Eddie Diaz isn’t overly fond of surprises, but… fuck, you hope this one goes down well.

      “I’ll keep you posted, Buck.” You offer him a two-fingered salute and turn on your heel, hurrying out of the firehouse before Eddie catches you sneaking around.

      What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him, right?

     Here’s the thing.

     The first time Eddie invited you back to his place, you hadn’t really seen it. A euphoric haze had clouded all rational thought in your brain, because this brilliant guy you’d fallen head over heels for was so obviously guarded, and you’d been so happy the day he’d kissed you and invited you back to his place for coffee.

     You’d been dating for three months by that point, and you’d wandered in and out of his house without really seeing anything except for him.

     Meeting Christopher had gone much the same way. On the drive over you’d been rattling with nerves so much that you’d had to pull over on the freeway and shake out the cramp in your hand after white-knuckling the steering wheel. Your heart had thudded so hard in your chest that you worried Eddie would be able to hear it from the other side of the room.

     There had been nothing to worry about, in the end, and almost a year on, you’re certain that neither of these boys can be pried out of the space they’ve created in your heart. Somehow, without really noticing, the pair of them have made a home there, built on a foundation of blood and muscle and all the love in your body.

     You’re not sure your heart would know how to beat without them now.

      And you love them, you love them, you love them both with everything you have…

     … but this damn house is driving you insane.

     There’s nothing wrong with it, in particular. It’s small and functional, perfect for the little family it shelters. Beige walls, basic furniture, sparse decorations that Eddie definitely had nothing to do with, and that’s sort of… it.

     Now, you’re not an interior decorator, and you’d managed to miss it the first few times you visited, but now it’s like the blank walls are mocking you. Now you’ve seen it, you know, and the stark bleakness of this house has become a glaringly obvious problem that you’ve finally decided to tackle.

     Unlocking the door with Buck’s key, you manage to nudge it open with your hip, hands and wrists weighed down with Target shopping bags that you dump on the floor the moment the door is closed. Tucking Buck’s key back into your pocket ━ Eddie gave you a key almost six months ago, but you’ve managed to lose four of them since, so it’s widely agreed that it’s best you borrow Eddie’s or Buck’s or Carla’s whenever you need to ━ you turn to the sparse open space of the kitchen/diner.

     Hands settling on your hips, a slow breath escapes through your teeth as you survey the house. Christopher’s room is the only one with any personality, and you wouldn’t dare intrude on his privacy in that way anyway. Eddie’s room, similarly, feels off-limits.

     But the rest of the house? Fair game.

     When Eddie stumbles through the front door at the end of his shift, he doesn’t notice it right away. Not your bag hanging on a hook by the door, or your shoes tucked neatly against the wall. His head feels like it’s filled with cotton after a twelve-hour shift, and he’s simply grateful that Carla offered to drop Christopher off later, rather than have Eddie come pick him up after his shift.

     He doesn’t notice you lingering in the kitchen with a bottle of beer in your hand until you clear your throat, and then he looks over, and a tired smile spreads over his face.

     “That for me?” he asks, as hold out the beer bottle towards him, drops of condensation soaking your fingers.

     “It’s definitely not for me.” You wrinkle your nose playfully as he accepts the drink, and you lean over the counter to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. You hand over Buck’s key, and with it, all the anxiety you’ve felt since it first landed in your possession that morning. “Give this back to Buck for me? If I lose another one, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

     Eddie chuckles and tucks the key into his pocket. “Buck didn’t mention you came by the firehouse.”

     “I asked him not to.” Your voice wavers, just a little. The way you’re picking at a loose bit of skin near your thumb lets him know you’re nervous, and he reaches out with his free hand, curling rough fingers around your own. Unable to help yourself, a deluge of words start to babble out of you. “I did a thing. And I’m aware that you may not like the thing, and it almost certainly wasn’t my place which I’m realising now, but it seemed like a pretty harmless idea at the time?”

     “Baby━”

     “And if you hate it, I can take it all away! We can pretend I never did it, it’s just that your walls were driving me freaking insane, like which decorator decided that beige was a good base colour because I would like to have a word━”

     “Hey!” A gentle squeeze of your hand grabs your attention, and when you look back at Eddie, the sight of him knocks the breath of you. You never knew eyes could be so big and brown and full of love, and even though there’s a little humour glinting in there at your expense, you still find it a little difficult to breathe.

     Fuck, you love this man.

     “What am I supposed to hate, exactly?” There’s a lilt of laughter in his voice, a gentle quirk to the corner of his mouth.

     You want to kiss him until it blossoms into a full-blown grin. You hope you’re lucky enough to make this man laugh forever.

     The look on his face helps to ease the tension in your shoulders. Slowly, you reach out and take the beer bottle from his grip, setting it on the counter. Instead, you replace it with your own hand, threading your fingers through his, a little chilly where the bottle pressed against his skin.

     “Let me show you.”

     Guiding him by the hand, you lead him through to the living room, and at first, he’s not sure what’s changed. There’s still the couch, and the TV, and the coffee table he knows you’ve always hated because it’s glass, and who has a glass coffee table, Eddie, you're a firefighter and this feels like a recipe for disaster!

     (You’ve seen way too many movies where characters end up crashing through a glass coffee table but you still think it’s a valid point.)

     And then he sees them.

     He spots the first one next to the television; a picture of Chris from a few months ago, the first time all three of you went to the beach together. He’s grinning at the camera and there’s a dab of ice-cream on his nose from where you swiped him just a moment before. Eddie remembers taking this and sending it to you.

     It wasn’t the first moment he realised he loved you, not by a long shot, but he hadn’t said it yet, and that day on the beach had cemented your place in his heart even further.

     The picture is small, sitting in a quirky silver frame that you’ve glued a few seashells to.

     The next two are over on the mantel. A photograph of the 118 in Bobby and Athena’s backyard last summer; Bobby’s frowning in the foreground, having been bullied into wearing a Kiss The Cook apron by Buck and Hen, while the rest of them are howling with laughter behind him. The other is a picture of Christopher and Shannon cuddled together beneath the Christmas tree.

     Tucked between them, bizarrely, is a little wooden figurine of a runner duck wearing galoshes. This one, he knows, came from your personal collection.

     Eddie’s heart stutters in his chest as he turns, finally, to the big thing. The wall behind the couch has always been depressingly bare, a dull expanse of beige paint that he’s always sworn he’d do something with, eventually.

     Hell, the whole house is bare. And depressing. This, he’s ready to admit, even if the reason for it used to sting a little bit.

     Before now, the only personal touches in his home belonged to Christopher. Report cards and drawings stuck to the fridge with kitschy magnets from tourist spots. An ever-changing pile of video games stacked on the floor next to the TV. A dinosaur-print throw that was dragged from Christopher’s bedroom on a lazy Sunday that hasn’t quite managed to migrate back there yet.

     It was never that way on purpose. At first, he thinks, it was a reluctance to put down roots. Life was hectic enough, with his work schedule and Christopher switching schools. Before Carla, Eddie hardly had a moment to breathe, let alone think about decorating their home beyond the bare minimum required to get by.

     And then, he thinks, it might have been guilt.

     He doesn’t dare to dwell on that for too long. He feels your hand in his own, steady as a rock, and stares, glassy-eyed, at the wall you’ve managed to transform into something… something that feels like home.

     A collage of wooden picture frames are scattered over the surface of the wall, in varying hues of warmth that contrast nicely with the beige that peeks through the cracks. A beige that, formerly, kind of made him want to scratch his eyes out. He hadn’t quite realised that until now.

     Dozens of smiling faces peer down at him. A handful of memories he holds most dear, and each of them sends a flush of warmth through his chest.

     There’s the day Chris was born, and he’s staring at this tiny baby in his arms as if he’s holding the sun and stars themselves. There’s Buck and Chris at the zoo, posing near the penguin exhibit. There’s Eddie, on the day he was certified as a full-fledged member of the LAFD, shaking Bobby’s hand. There’s even a picture where he’s fallen asleep on the couch, and his sisters are brandishing Sharpies like the little demons they are, drawing a moustache and beard that took days to properly fade away.

     It’s such a little thing, really. They’re just pictures. But his throat feels tight and his eyes are wet and it doesn’t feel little to him. Not at all.

     “You thought I’d hate this?” He’ll never admit that the words come out a little choked up.

     You shrug. “You’re not a fan of surprises.”

     “I might be now.”

     And you both know it’s not true, that Eddie will never be that guy, but this is fine. This is perfect, and he’s damn sure it might be the nicest thing any girlfriend’s ever done for him.

     He turns to you, a thousand more questions on the tip of his tongue, when he notices you’re holding your phone up with your free hand. A confused furrow appears between his brows.

     “Buck,” you tell him, and it really doesn’t require further explanation, but still you add, “He thought you’d freak out. Asked for evidence.”

     “Ah.” Eddie nods. You put your phone away as he winds his arms around your waist, pulling you close enough to kiss the tip of your nose. “I’m not freaking out.”

     “I noticed.”

     “Thank you,” he says, and kisses you again. This time his mouth slides against yours and lingers there for a few seconds, slow and gentle. “I can’t help but notice you’re not in any of the pictures.”

     Your cheeks turn a rosy pink. “That would have been a little presumptuous of me, Mr. Diaz. And I was already hijacking your home for my own selfish agenda, so…”

     “Wanna hijack it some more?”

     The question slips out without any warning, and you blink up at your boyfriend in bewilderment. “Uh?”

     Eddie smiles, wide and wonderful, and even though it’s not possible to fall more in love with him, you think you do.

     “I talked to Chris about it a while ago,” he tells you, his thumb rubbing slow circles against your hip. “I was just waiting for the right time to ask you. And then you went all House Flipper anyway━”

     “I did not go all House Flipper!”

     “━ so it feels like the right time to ask.”

     You watch him for a moment, all soft at the edges. “You want me to move in with you?”

     “I think you’ve got a tartan throw that would look great in here,” he says teasingly, “and that little duck is part of a collection. He might get lonely.”

     “He might,” you concede with a hum.

     There is enough space on that mantel for the whole family.

     You feel like there’s a tiny sun in your chest, like you might honest-to-God be glowing from the inside out right now, and when you pull Eddie down so you can kiss him again, you know without a doubt that the answer is yes.

     There are a hundred things to figure out. You have a lease to get out of, and an apartment filled with enough clutter to furnish ten houses, and you’ve really got to figure out a solution for the key situation, because it’s getting ridiculous.

     But in this moment, none of that matters. It’s you, and Eddie, and Chris, and a bare apartment suddenly filled with a lifetime of potential, and you just know everything is going to be fine.

     And you hope, for a moment, that he’ll let you replace the couch next.

[bengals-barnesbabe]

Ch. 1 - Just Some Fun

Joe Burrow x Black Reader / Ja'Marr Chase x OC!Danielle Chambers

Des: Everyone's had some time to cool down and really think about what's going on. Surely it was "just some fun" like they said- well like one of them said. Also, this current timeline is set for 2024.

TW: 18 + | Language, Implied Smut, Jealousy, Cheating, Not-Lying Lying, anything else i forgot lol.

JB Masterlist | WTTJ Masterlist

<<< Prelude ~ April 2044

April 20th

April 23th

A/N: i think it's time to get someone else's opinion... on both sides.. Part 2 >>>

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I hope to work on *all* of these ideas eventually; this poll is to see what excites people the most!

[chleem]

Flashing lights #1

Series; actor Drew x actress reader

Summary: Drew gets involved in the worst scandal of his career. One way to solve it? Proving to the whole world that he’s the sweetest lover to exist. Who better to help than the one person he can’t stand? You, an A class actress with an alcohol addiction. So, will Drew clear up his reputation, or leave with a bigger mess to clean up?

Genre: fake dating, enemies to lovers(?, slow burn, angst, smut,

Warning: mentions of alcohol, swearing, mentions of k!lling oneself, mentions of rape & sa, mentions of drug usage, smoking & vaping, (read at own caution

⋆.˚ please dont copy/ translate my work

⋆.˚ this is entirely fictional, if uncomfortable then don't read

♡⸝⸝ prologue | index | chapter2

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Late February 2024

Is that five, or six bottles in front of you? 

Your vision is burry, head feeling twisted, and your limbs feel as if they weight a hundred kilograms each. “Shit,” you curse, your hands reaching over to your bag. 

In attempt to reach it without standing up, you fall, and you laugh. Alcohol was able to make that fall feel painless. Getting up however, felt like the hardest task ever, but you manage, and you rummage through your bag for your pack of cigarettes. 

You find it; but no cigarettes to be found in it. 

“Fuck!” You yell, throwing your empty pack across the trailer. Good thing your makeup staffs gone, and no one to see your about-to-erupt tantrum. Reaching for your phone, you call your manager, Laura, only for it to go straight to voicemail. Wow. What are managers even for? 

Gotta do everything by yourself. You throw your phone onto the couch, and walk out of your trailer. You didn’t care whether anyone saw you; you just cared about getting a smoke. 

The afternoon sun is blinding to you, the effects of alcohol making it even more unbearable. Is there a convenience store around? Fuck, maybe you should just ask the staff for a smoke. 

You keep walking along the other trailers, feeling some eyes on you. Well, usually at a filming set everyone is busy with their own business, but you’re Y/n. You grab attention by simply breathing. Others might love it, but growing up in showbiz, you just wish to get away from it. Even if just for a second, you would love to be an invisible person. 

You keep walking, hoping to spot anyone with a cigarette in their hands. But your legs beg to stop, and you feel extra dizzy when you bump into a hard…wall? Well, it was hard, but soft at the same time. 

Warm hands wrap around your waist just as you’re ready to fall onto the ground. Even your drunken state knows that you should be clinging onto something if you’re about to fall, and in this case, you were holding onto the person’s biceps. 

You look up, feeling as if this person was 200 centimeters. Shit. He’s tall. 

His hat is low, but you could see blue circles staring down at you, and although his face was attractive, his expression was mean. As if wanting to murder you. Well, he probably does, since a stranger fell into him. 

“You-“

His cologne hits you, and the urge to throw up hits. 

Vomit splatters on his entire shirt, and just like that, you pass out, still in his arms. 

——

Woah. Even getting up slowly triggers the muscles in your brain. 

You blink a few times, adjusting to the lights in your trailer. What time was it? Did you already finish filming? A million questions enter your head as you look around you, and you notice the five large empty liquor bottles on the table. 

Right. No memory whatsoever. 

A wet towel is on your forehead. Weird, you think, as you throw it to the side. 

But then you hear the trailer’s bathroom door open, and you immediately feel uneasy. Who the fuck could be in here other than you? 

The stranger walks out, and he’s half naked. 

And attractive. 

But he’s half naked! 

You quickly check yourself, and yes, you’re still in your clothes. 

“Who… who the fuck are you?” You say, feeling really unsafe right now. You had no gun, no weapon of any kind, and you were terrified. This stranger was extremely fit and tall, and he was standing just a few feet away from you. 

He’s staring at you with his blue eyes, and honestly, you can’t tell what he’s thinking. Is he gonna kill you? Rape you? 

“You have no idea who I am?”

“Yes, you fucking creep. Get out of my trailer before I yell,” you threaten. 

His eyebrows furrow as if you were in the wrong, and he crosses his arms, leaning against your vanity across from you. Woah. His arms. It looks very delicious-

What. “Seriously. Get the fuck out,” you point over to your trailer door. 

He throws his head back, an annoyed groan escaping him. 

What’s his problem? You think, eyebrows furrowed. Okay. That uneasiness, has transformed into anger. “Fuck- get the fuck out, your weirdo. I’m…you know what, I’m calling the fucking cops.”

You look around for your phone, but see it charging on the vanity beside him. 

“Drew Starkey,” he finally says, and you look at him, confusingly. Never in your life have you ever heard that name. Were you even suppose to remember or know this person? He groans again, not even hiding his annoyance at you. “Wow. You’re such a bitch, you know that?”

The audacity- “you’re in my fucking trailer right now. You’re in the faults here. You can’t come in half naked, and act annoyed at me. You fucking cunt-“

The door to your trailer opens, and you squint at the light coming in. 

It was your manager Laura, and she’s holding a bottle of water, a pack of cigarettes, and a folded t-shirt. 

“Laura! A fucking pervert in my trailer-“

“Here you go, Drew. Again, so sorry,” Laura ignores you, handing the man, who apparently, is called Drew, the clean t-shirt. The name he just told you, it was his name? Why did he act so offended earlier, when he said it? Is he like some kind of, celebrity? Impossible; you've met almost all the top actors in showbiz, you would've known him.

“What the fuck,” you voice out, chuckling to get the anger and confusion out of you. You watch as the stranger puts the shirt on, enjoying the way his muscles flex and relaxes is… kind of arousing. But you pull away, feeling embarrassed and egoistic to admit you’re attracted to this rude stranger. 

Laura comes near you, placing the cigarettes and water on the table and sniffs you. “Yeah, you’re still a bit tipsy,” she comments, before grabbing perfume and mints from your bag and sitting down. “Can you still film?”

“What time is it?” You ask, while grabbing the pack and lighting a cigarette up. You breathe it in, and smoke out, immediately feeling more relaxed and in your element. 

“4:20.”

“What time was I suppose to be there?” You giggle, breathing in your cigarette. Oh, it felt so good to smoke. All the energy booster you needed. 

“2:30,” Laura says, sighing. 

“Oh shit,” you laugh, putting the cigarette between your lips. You forcefully spray the perfume on you, knowing the cigarette is probably going to cover the smell anyways. You take another blow of the cigarette, before putting it into Laura’s mouth. She groans angrily at you, and you just chuckle, looking over to the stranger now. He’s not shirtless anymore, and has a hat on. He’s staring at you, with a mean expression now. “What are you still doing here?” You rudely state. 

“Y/n, he’s gonna be here for a long time,” Laura replies instead, and you turn around to her. You look at her with furrowed eyebrows, confused by what she meant. Laura also stares at you with an amused expression. “What, you guys didn't talk?”

You frustratedly throw your arms around and stomp your foot. “What am I supposed to talk about to a half naked guy in my trailer? Laura, use your fucking brain.” 

You turn around and the stranger is now sitting on the couch. You ignore him, turning back to Laura. “Is he my new manager or something? Laura, who the fuck is this?”

“Drew Starkey. You honestly don’t remember him?”

“Am I suppose to?” You reply, reaching for the pack of cigarettes, hoping to bring it with you to set. But ‘Drew’ stops you, his hand, which is surprisingly very warm, wraps around your wrist to stop you. You glare at him, telling him with your eyes to get his hands off you. But he doesn’t. So you verbally express it to him. “Get your fucking hand off me or I’ll chop it off for you.”

“You can’t even walk in a straight line, Y/n.”

Annoyed, you yell, “Get your fucking hand off me."

He does, but he quickly grabs the pack out of your reach, stuffing it into his pocket. Wow. What a jackass. And who is he to care? To take away your stuff? You pray that he gets explosive diarrhea the whole day tomorrow. This asshole deserves it. 

“Whatever,” you say, walking over to the door of your trailer. And he’s right, because you trip over yourself on the way there. You laugh under your breath out of frustration and embarrassment, and turn back around, pointing at ‘Drew’ and looking at Laura. “Get this jackass out my trailer. I don’t care what he is, he better be out of my sight.”

You don’t even bother hearing what her response is, and you leave towards your set. Now, you’re in a worse mood than before. All thanks to the stranger named Drew.

——

Everyone knew you were a good actor. You’re one of the best. And to make it even more astonishing, you’re only 25 years old. Meaning, your acting could get better. But it’s already the best of the best. Maybe its your pure gift, or maybe because you’ve been doing this since you were 13. Either way, you were a fucking good actor. 

The director specifically appointed you to star in his film, which is about the world coming to an end. Director Ravens was quite famous in showbiz, so who were you to decline? Besides, your co-star was Hugh Jackman, a brilliant actor, who you've also grown to admire while filming. 

Your character was a girl in her twenties, who had fallen in love with a stranger despite knowing that the world was getting destroyed within a week. A tragic love story, yet it was beautiful. 

This scene, is your solo one. Your character finds out her brother is dead, and cries with feelings of sadness, regret, and happiness. It’s a scene that would be hard to portray, but you do it well. 

Although you were almost three hours late to set, you make up for it with your acting. One take and the director informs you that it's perfect. And no one disagrees, and the complaints about your tardiness disappears, once they rewatch the scene. You must still be tipsy, because you swear you saw some of the staff shed a tear. 

You don’t offer to watch or reshot the scene, since you wanted to be out of here as soon as possible. But director Ravens insists on another one, hoping to get it from another angle. And you do as he pleases, since, well, he’s the director. 

Wow. One of the most important scenes in the movie only took you twenty minutes to film. 

Director Ravens gives you a break before the next scene, and you walk off before he wants to give you compliments. You didn’t need to hear what you already knew. 

But as you walk over to your seat, someone already occupies it. Drew. 

“You’re still here?” You scoff, crossing your arms. 

You want to rip his blue eyes out to get him to stop staring at you. Why does he like to stare at you so much? 

He pulls a random chair close to him, perhaps wanting you to sit. “Wow. So you can remember faces.”

“Yeah, if they’re as ugly as you,” you lie, because, his face is so damn attractive, that you can’t forget it even if you wanted to. You sit down on the chair, looking ahead of you. “I thought I said I want you out of my sight?”

“You can’t decide that,” he replies. “Who are you to order me around?”

“And who are you to sit in my chair? If anything, you should be kissing my ass right now.”

“Why should I?”

“You’re seriously asking me that?” You scoff. “Look around; that’s what everyone else is doing.”

On cue, a staff member hands you a bottle of water, and you take it without saying thanks. 

“And they’re fucking idiots,” Drew says, and you turn to look at him. He’s still staring at you! Crazy. 

“Shut up. As if you didn’t enjoy the show,” you say, referring to your acting just then.

“I did.”

You scrunch your nose in disgust, “good thing you’re not an actor. You’re horrible at lying.”

“I am.”

‘’What? A liar?”

“No; I’m an actor.”

The fuck? Suddenly, a different staff member interrupts the conversation, a girl holding her phone out to the both of you.

“Can I take a selfie with you?” She shyly asks. 

Of course it’s directed to you, so you simply reject her. “Sorry, but-“

“Yeah, sure.”

Your jaw is probably on the floor right now. The girl wasn’t asking you; she was asking Drew. He stands up and takes a selfie with her, and then hugs her goodbye. 

So… he’s famous? No way, because you’ve never heard of him you entire life. Probably a newbie that got famous by luck. 

You look away from him once he sits down, embarrassed to even face him. You just thought he was some staff member that the company had assigned to serve you. But he’s actually an actor? 

“You were saying?” His deep voice interrupts your thoughts, and you feel your ears go red. Holy shit. You need a smoke real bad right now. Fuck that, you need some liquor in you right this instant. 

Director Ravens saves you, yelling that its time for the next scene. So, you hurry and throw the water bottle at Drew, who catches it as though he’s not surprised at all. 

And he smirks, lifting his hat a bit as if to get a better look up at you. “What’s this for?”

Flustered, you walk off without another look back, partly embarrassed and angry. And you busy yourself with getting into the emotions of the character, and soon, Drew is forgotten as if he never existed. 

-------------------------------

word count: 2.3k

ִ ࣪𖤐 a/n: so...what's your impression of y/n so far?

hope you enjoyed chapter one, i had a blast writing this...although, chapter four was the funniest one yet. btw, i am not joking when i wrote slow burn in the warnings, so pls be patient! and i setted this story to start in february, to match the time of real life events. other than that, rest are fictional!

elevator | other | index | prologue | ch2

[httpsserene]

bed head — 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐜

˖♡ - ̗̀ ⇢ saw this tt about how these two toddlers shared their dad's notoriously rough bed head and this post when i opened tumblr last night and had to write smth for it! sorry, for the baby content 💀 i'll get back to writing y'alls requests now xxx

the careful messiness of brunette curls has been charles’s signature hairstyle for ages. it suits him, and when paired with his dimples and green eyes—it’s no wonder why every italian and monegasque prays for his success on sundays. well, maybe bleeding rosso corsa and winning two championships driving the famed red car are the proper reasons.

if only they knew that the artful styling of his curls is nowhere to be found after he sleeps. when he wakes, his hair is in absolute disarray—the deep brown ringlets are clumped together as they stick straight upwards and yet they manage to point in every direction possible.

when you first moved in with charles, you convinced him to buy a satin pillowcase to combat the bed head. it didn’t help, and neither did the bonnets you tried to have him wear. no matter if the ties were knotted, buttoned, or even velcro-strapped tightly, the bonnet would end up by the foot of the bed and his hair was in it’s usual disordered state by the early morning hours.

so, your morning routine begins with taming charles’s severe case of bed head. he awakens slowly as your fingertips gently untangle the deep brown ringlets, moaning lowly and nudging his head into your hand like a large cat when your nails glide along his scalp. you carefully guide each curl back into their assigned positions, tutting disapprovingly at the one strand that never seems to stay in it’s place.

charles’s chest shakes with a chuckle at your slight irritation and he shifts to meet your eyes, tenderly directing your hands away from his now orderly hair to his lips, pressing kisses to your fingertips before pulling you forward to cuddle into his chest.

you didn’t expect to have to deal with more than one head of messy hair. unfortunately, it seems like your daughter inherited her father’s bed head.

your mornings now consist of charles climbing out of bed at the first crackle of noise through the baby monitor, rushing to scoop the 9-month-old from her nursery and have her join the two of you in bed. he crosses the doorway with your daughter cradled to his bare chest and leo yipping at his feet—she stares up at at him, a perfect reflection of the sea green pools of his eyes, the absence of a bonnet, and the chaotic sprawl of his brunette curls. you’ve never been bothered with the fact that she’s an exact replica of her father, as some tried to tease that your genes didn’t do more than deepen her complexion. however, you always joke back that it means that she’s been blessed to be as beautiful as charles is.

she coos and babbles up at her father and he dutifully responds in french as if he understands her baby gibberish. he sits in bed with her on his lap and she beams, her little arms and grabby hands reaching towards you. you smile back widely, stealing her from his lap and greeting your babygirl with a flurry of kisses pressed all over her cute little face. her giggles ring through the air as you pull backwards to watch her laugh and, there’s another trait she shares with her father; deep dimples decorate her chubby cheeks and you can’t help but press your thumb into them with adoration.

charles picks up his first baby, plopping the mini dachshund in bed, and leo bounds forward to press his own kisses to your daughter’s socked feet.

addressing charles’s wild bed head will have to wait as you settle her back in his lap. you rest your head on his shoulder, apologizing for interrupting the clearly important conversation the two were having. you start fixing the jumbled ringlets on her scalp with the softest touch of your digits and she nuzzles up into your hand the same way her father does. he continues from were he left off, asking your daughter if she thinks a one-stop strategy is too ambitious for the next race and she babbles back to him in reply.

charles nods in agreement, promising her that regardless of a one-stop or two-stop, he’ll bring back his third championship trophy for her.

© httpsserene - do not repost. photos in header from pinterest. divider by @cafekitsune.

[gummysaccharine]

i need these blue skin white hair royalty themed twinkwhores to kiss eachother

[keelt9]

CHERRY I

Masterlist

A/N:  Nervous about this one, please be gentle with me. 🥺

“It’s a mess.” Harriet said, sucking her lollipop. “Come one Y/N you must be joking.”

The old church of the town suffered a tragic accident. 6 years ago the intense rains of the season caused a landslide in the mountain range at the back of it, producing severe damage all over it and in the gardens that border it.

It's a small town surrounded by big mountains and a river at the limits; the life there is based on one thing: community support, everyone knows everyone and everything, with small houses and a lot of nature; the big fancy buildings and expensive houses are the most unnecessary things.

Y/N scoffs taking out her sunglasses. “That's why we're here.”

With years and a few government support all the mud and rocks were clean, but the damage was done. The church that dates to the XIX century is now a dark shadow of the brightest days.

“Jesus! Well, where is it?” Ron asks, looking around the sad view that Harriet points at. “Please, you're joking.”

Y/N shakes her head waiting for Mila to reach them. “No, it's not, let's go.”

With bags over the backs and lanterns they walk inside where full darkness and a strong smell make them cover their nose.

“Listen, Y/N, I got it, the thing about a new project of searching calmly, but here?” Harriet asks, pointing the broken glass around.

After years of working in the city making art restoration or traveling around for long seasons for the same reason; Y/N needs a urgency to breathe, she is getting tired of the rush and the noise, plus the third wedding of her mother two weeks ago made her feel she was suffocating every second.

“It's an adorable place.” Y/N sees what years ago was the entrance to the back gardens. “I was born and raised here.”

She hasn't to turn around knowing all the eyes are on her, big open as their mouths.

When she told her team about taking a break from the city and working in a calm place, they instantly offered to wherever she needed it. 

Like Mila said, “We're a team, you're dreaming if you believe you're going to do this alone.”

“You said a small village.” Ron grabs her hand as she climbs a rock. “This is a tiny little one.” 

“I know.” Y/N smiles. “Add one to the list of the wonderful things around here.”

Among what it supposed to be the benches Harriet said. “It's hard to imagine Lennox around here.”

Y/N giggles because she couldn't be more wrong, in fact Lennox as her other two older brothers; Holt the oldest, Lennox the second, Kilen the third and the little one, Y/N; loves that place. If they could come every weekend, they would definitely be more than enchanted.

“Yeah, Lennox seems the picky one.” Mila said somewhere in the altar.

The girls are wrong Lennox isn’t the picky one.

“Speak now or never.” Y/N said observing the big black wall where an impressive mural must be. “You can leave any time.”

Ron sighs. “Leaving you here swimming in mud.” Y/N rolls her eyes. “I won't miss that for anything.”

Mila sees among the altar what it looks like a holy chalice. “It's going to be an interesting months, I'm in.”

Harriet lift and old book cover by mud. “You mentioned free coffee, right?” Y/N laughs. 

The owner of the coffee shop is a good friend of her father. “Yes I did.”

“I am where the free coffee is.” 

It was the third or the fourth time Max and Cameron crossed the same street with the same red rose bush “You idiot!” Max said, sitting on the ground.

Walk? No problem. Long distance? Sure. Walk in the sun long distances searching for a place he heard? Yes, he's mad and tired.

“Dude…” Cameron was about to complain but Max interrupted him.

“It's for me.” Max drinks what it remains from his water. “It's me to follow you and you didn't even know where the hell we were supposed to go.”

After a rollercoaster season, plus the last medical check ups, Max doctors were clear, or he took a few months away or his issue of eyesight would get worse.

Resulting in his friend's recommendations about a lovely town in the mountains far away from the city and all the noise, sounds perfect besides he or his friends doesn’t know where that place is.

Cameron laughs sitting next to him. “My girl's best friend has been there, I just follow the directions.”

“Terribly wrong.” Max jokes, seeing the blue clear sky, at least he has such a beautiful view.

After announcing to the team he will miss half of a season, probably a little by more plus an energetic discussion about being reckless and weak, he confirmed he just needs to get out.

The skid of bicycle wheels calls for their attention. A kid with a cap and bag at his back with different colours of flowers, stops next to them.

“Need some help” The kid asks to see two grown up men defeated next to the rose bush.

“We're looking for Che Creek town or something like that.” Cameron said, seeing the kid smirk.

“Lucky day, that's where I live.” The kid went down to his bicycle. “Let's go, the walk is 10, maybe 15 minutes from here.”

Untrust Max and his friend observe the kid who is waiting, such a small kid could know where to go?

“Or you can stay here and I will send someone to pick you up.” 

Max shakes his head, he is reluctant to spend another hour waiting, he stands up following the kid.

They remain silent most of the path until Cameron questions him about the flowers in his backpack.

“Oh, I'm trying to approach a beautiful girl.” He smiles, carefully looking at his back. 

“How old are you?” Max is genuinely intrigued by this kid.

“10, next month 11.”

The conversation was interrupted by a bigger roses bush next to the road and an old structure that rises above the ground. The banner is damaged because trying to see the name is impossible.

The kid waves his hand to an old man who's driving along the path. “We're here.”

A few metres ahead, Max and Cameron understand the reason for the fuss about this place. 

In the distance, mountains surround the small village that makes it almost invisible, still among them you can see a clear sky as the wind brings the sound of waves.

“Waves?” Cameron asks as they start to see multiple houses and small businesses.

“Yeah, 1 hour from here is the ocean.” He keeps walking ahead of them, grabbing his bicycle. “You can hear it like it's at the other side of the mountain because it is, but the path is long.” 

“David!” A woman rushed, blonde as him. “It's getting late, let's go.”

The woman narrowed her eyes seeing the two men standing behind him. 

“Who are you?” The woman ask pulling David to his side.

“Mom, he's Max Verstappen!” The kid, now known as David, said, rolling his eyes. “A champion! And his friend.”

Max laughs hearing the switch of excitement in David's voice mentioning Cameron.

“They were lost searching the town. I'll give him a hand.” David proudly looks at his mother.

“We're sorry, he would be here earlier but.. well we didn't bring our bicycle.” Cameron said, extending his hand to introduce.

David mom nods, shaking both hands. “I guess you'll be looking for a place to stay right?”

Both men nodded exhausted but relieved of being able to witness such a beautiful view.

A couple of blocks after they arrived at a small guesthouse where a nice man offered two rooms and a hot dinner, before leaving; apparently the village had a reunion where all were invited.

For the rush of the things they didn't have a chance to thank David and his mother, they’ll make sure to do it tomorrow when they walk around the village.

The morning is simply enchanting, the soft ocean breeze cools the weather but the sun comfortably warms you; the bird song as soft mumbles of people is almost like a lo-fi song.

The owner of the guesthouse, Rupert, said David's family is the owner of the small store 5 blocks away from there, so that's the first thing they did after having breakfast.

Max was expecting eyes and cameras around him but for the town his presence is imperceptible just for the fact they're new there.

5 blocks away they found David feeding a cat white outside of the store.

“David!” Max said, waving his hand as the kid raised his eyes, smiling.

“Max, morning.” David stands not before serving more milk on the cat's plate, giving him a soft pat on his head.

“We forgot to thank you for what you did for us yesterday.” Cameron said, raising his hand for a high five with David. “Thanks.”

“Oh no problem, I'm sorry for leaving but a lot of things are happening here lately.” David smiles. “Amazing things.”

“Hey, is there any chance I could find a red bull in your store?” Max asks to see the bottles of soda inside.

David laughs, the city people and they're strange requests start to become normal.

“Probably, let me see.” 

Inside of the store another man is laughing with a man as he picks all the things over the shelf.

“Thank you Mr. Becket, I'd better go or my boss will rip my head.” The man said, closing the bag. 

Mr. Beckt laughs at the words of the young one.“Tell her I'm sorry but her chocolates are hard to find.” 

“I'll do, but I better go, she's literally hanging off the wall.” The man said running out of the store. “Bye David!”

He said running as he said goodbye to David.

“Dad, he's the guy I talked to you.” David exclaimed, walking to the other side of the shelf. “Guys, this is my dad David Senior.”

David Senior smiles and greets the outsiders, wondering who’s the man that made David feel so happy to meet and make it impossible he stop talking all the dinner. 

“They wonder if we had…” He saw Max and his shirt. “red bulls.”

“Yeah, in the fridge, they arrived yesterday.” 

Max sighs in relief walking to the fridge, finding a line of red bulls, at ease for having his vital liquid.

“Can I ask why you are here?” David's father asks. “Don't get me wrong this place is incredible but there is nothing tourist around here.”

Cameron giggles seeing Max adopt his usual posture, in one hand a RB, the other hand over his waist. 

“We heard this place is kind of healing.” Cameron answered, curious about the products at the store. From power chilli to a German beer, so varied for being a small village.

“I don't say healing just, pure, keep it basic.” David senior answered seeing his kid walking back from the room of the store, bag in hand taking a bottle of water and a bag of chips.

“I'm leaving dad.” He said to make sure the lantern, boots and tools are in his bag.

Max moved his head wondering in which moment David disappeared and came back with a lot of things on his hands.

“Careful David, remember to listen to the guys.” His father warned his son with a smile.

David bumps his fist with the outsiders man. “See you later.”

With the sun and wind moving the branches of the trees, David goes riding his bicycle disappearing in the distance.

“Anxious?” Max asked with a smile on his face.

David Sr. smirks, scanning all the things they take with them, as the two young men finally lose David when he turns in the next street.

“Excited, the old church is under restoration. The first days, just the expert people were there, and a few people who could help them, with the days volunteers started to go; they reached the point where they had to divide people in groups, and in a few days install small tents.”  

Witnessing was impressive, beginning with a group of 5, now are 6 groups with 10 people going one day at the time helping with all they could. 

The rumour about the old church being restored starts as a dream with time and the arrival of the expert as the end of the first month ends, people turn enthusiastic and offer hands to help them. Maybe just give them food or water, bring supplies, offer cars, trucks, etc, for carrying things or simply a comfortable talk after a long day.

“Church?” Cameron asked, as he paid for the things.

A long talk and some snacks later, the boys knew about the story of the church, sowing a palpable curiosity on Max.

He questions if he plans to spend some time here, maybe he could do something for help.

She almost forgot how wonderful this could be.

Her family wasn't so religious besides her mother, yes, they used to go to church every Sunday but more for pleasing her mother than for a actually strong conviction.

After the mass, she and her brothers lay in the grass, seeing the clouds as they bet a faded away race, pick a cloud and the one who fades away wins. Holt has a talent for that.

Then, at home a lovely lunch took place in the backyard followed by endless hours of playing and of course a couple of hours of homework.

Until their parents decide things need to change…

“Every single time, every single time.” Harriet said, sitting next to her cover in dust. “I thought I reached the floor or the wall but hey! It's more dry mud.”

Y/N chuckles crossing her legs. “I told you, that landslide was terrible.”

“This place have something special for you?” Harriet asks to see her friend with a strange enthusiasm. 

“No, it's just…” Y/N turns around seeing how Mila is talking vividly with David about some insect in his hands.

David is a red-haired boy who is strangely cheered up by the restoration of an old church that probably he doesn't remember but he came every weekend to help, well, talk with them or light some things in the ground, with more questions every day.

“Complicated?” Harriet asks, seeing her conflict to be open about something private.

Y/N giggles. “A little bit.”

“Well, we’re working hard and even from time to time this only makes us look like we're doing nothing.” Harriet said, extending her one of her lollipops. “We’re bringing this to life.”

Y/N shakes her head, she’s not that into candies, chocolates that’s her weakness. 

“Any trace of considerable damage?” She asks her, everytime Harriet is so optimistic about work. 

“Just need one to remember all can be healed.” Harriet said walking back where Ron joins Mila and David laughing and screaming by a lizard that just ran away from their hands. 

“It’s the right choice.” Y/N whispered to herself seeing the sky. “Slow down a little bit.”

Mornings are always such funny moments, between making breakfast as preparing the things they could need and receiving the last result of whatever they sent the previous days the team and her barely are able to finish their breakfast in one place; they could begin having breakfast in the kitchen and finish one in the studio. another in the dining room and probably the other in one bedroom.

“RON! Where is the bread?” Y/N screams from the kitchen, searching for the sandwiches of the day

Ron closed his eyes, he forgot to mention they ran off yesterday. “Hm, in the store?”

“In the store?” She closes her eyes, knowing the one who goes to the store must do the daily grocery store; arriving with a flat bag for leaving with a rock.

Mila was crossing in the moment with a toast in her mouth and a computer in her hand shaking her head. Harriet who is hearing all front the studio scream. 

“YESTERDAY WAS MY TURN!” Y/N takes a deep breath, that means she must go.

“I’ll see you in the church!” She screams taking the keys of the jeep, yes, she will go but that means, they will have to go on foot to the church, uphill. 

“Genius Ron, genius.” Mila said, searching for her bag to shove all her stuff.

It’s not that she dislikes going to the village, it's just she feels so overwhelmed by all the attention around her; without her brothers being the little girl, she could just go for a couple of things and go back with four bags with different items and a lot of praising and love words. 

“Mrs. Becket” She said entering the store, it’s the middle of the week, so David must be already in the school. 

“Y/N we start to miss you.” Mrs. Becket said with a smile, opening the door. “Your chocolates are here.”

“Really?” Her excitement is visible but she’s craving for one of those since the moment she runs off. 

“My husband will give it to you.” She said giggling while still watering the plant outside of the store.

Inside Mr. Becket is talking vividly with the guys who apparently are preparing from a little excursion besides the big bags over their backs, the supplies on the shelf looks for an army.

Waiting for her turn she goes and picks up all they need; bread, sodas, lollipops, milk and well, a bottle of whiskey.

Standing behind them, one of the guys hasn’t noticed her because he takes a step back.

“Ouch, that’s my feet.” Panic, the man turns around, and feeling she goes backwards as wanting to avoid a fall, he tries to grab her hand carefully, but to the opposite a touch of their hands feels like thunder goes through them.

“That’s my hand.” When she saw an open can she only thought of the worst scenario. “Please don’t let that fall on my face.”

Lucky it wasn’t in her face…is in her shirt.

[myokk]

Eloise🥹💓

[saffusthings]

second chances

mob boss! lando norris x reader

part forty-three: y/n

word count: 5.5k

warnings: this chapter contains descriptions of violence and gore. reader discretion is advised.

forty-two | forty-three | forty-four

“Y/N—”

His knees hit the tile hard.

There was no time to think. There was no protocol or logic. There was just instinct — vicious, blinding instinct — as Lando dropped to his knees beside Y/N, already reaching for her, already trying to stop the bleeding with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking.

She was on her side, curled in on herself like her body was trying to hold in what it couldn’t. There was blood — not a lot at first, but more now. It soaked through her shirt in thick, wet patches and smeared across the floor from where she’d moved, or at least tried to. Her fingers were clumsy where they pressed against her own side, slipping and twitching with every shaky breath she tried to take.

This isn’t happening.

There was also the sound. It wasn’t a scream or a cry. Instead, it was just a wet, desperate wheeze. Her body jerked with each gasp — shallow, wet, choking sounds that made him feel like he was suffocating too.

“Hey. Hey, look a’ me.” His voice shook. He grabbed her face too quickly, too rough, trying to tilt her towards him, but he didn’t know what else to do. “Stay with me. Please.”

It hurt worse because she was trying. 

He could see it in the way her mouth moved, like she was trying to say something. His name, maybe. Or help. Or hurts. But all that came out was more blood — red against her lips, down her chin, too bright.

His stomach turned.

“Fuck—what happened?” he asked, not really expecting an answer. “Who– Who did this? What the fuck happened—”

He was interrupted when her body jolted slightly and her hand clutched at his wrist and she was coughing again, harder now, the blood bubbling from her mouth and dripping down her cheek.

He froze.

Then panic ripped through him like lightning.

Somewhere in the back, the phone kept ringing.

“Help!” he screamed, his throat raw. “Somebody fucking help me! Please— please, she’s— someone call an ambulance!”

He could barely breathe. His whole body felt wired and numb all at once, like he was floating above himself watching it happen.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed how her hands were still pressed against her stomach, but they were losing strength — fingers twitching, slipping, losing grip. He pressed his palms over hers, harder than he should have, trying to add pressure, to stop the leak, to fix it somehow, but the blood kept coming, dark and too much and too fast.

“You’re okay,” he said, his voice thin, breaking. “You’re alright, yeah? I’ve got you. You– You’re okay. You’re— fuck, what happened?”

In response, she could only look at him. Everything seemed to blur around the edges, including the outline of the man now holding her. Her eyes were wide and wet, dark pupils blown and drifting. 

This isn’t happening.

Her lips moved but no sound came out. There was only more blood.

“No, no, no, no—fuck!”, he muttered under his breath, clearly frustrated. He grabbed her more tightly now, easing her onto her back as gently as he could. “You’re okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you. Just—just breathe, alright? I know it hurts, I know, but you have to stay awake, okay?”

Instinctively, he still looked to her for a response. Maybe it was some desperate hope that she’d do something, make a gesture of some sort – that she’d do anything that she was aware, that she was here with him now.

It was only then he noticed the way she was shivering, the tny tremors wracking her weakening form. He didn’t know if it was fear, or shock, or from the blood loss — probably all of it. Her whole body was trembling against him and her eyes were unfocused now, lashes fluttering, her gaze slipping somewhere just past his shoulder.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck–,” Lando swore loudly. His eyes darted to her side, where her hands were trembling against her stomach, barely pressing now, too weak to hold their grip. Immediately, he moved to take over, desperate to do anything to help as he pulled up her shirt just enough to see the wound.

The moment he saw it, all the oxygen escaped his lungs at once.

This isn’t happening.

Just where the cartilage met the bone of some of her ribs was a single, deep puncture wound. The incision was clean, even beneath the mess of fresh and dried blood that decorated its entrance, more blood spritzing weakly each time she attempted another shaky inhale.

Lower right lung.

Clean.

If it nicked somethin’ in there–

Lando couldn’t afford to think like that. So instead of thinking, he pressed down hard against the open flesh wound. Y/N let out a strangled cry, but at least it was sound. 

She can’t do that if she’s dead, he had to remind himself. That means she’s still alive.

She’s still alive.

Keep her alive.

Soon enough, even his hands alone weren't enough to stop the never ending flow of blood. Desperately, he spun his head around, looking for anything he could use, anything that could help. Anything even remotely useful was too far for him to reach without letting go of her, to far to reach without getting up. 

Wild eyes flitted in every direction, hoping to find a miracle. Eventually, when all else seemed to fail, Lando remembered the sweatshirt he’d been wearing.

I can use that. I can use it like a bandage and it’ll buy her time. It’ll buy her time so that she can–

So she could what?

Physically shaking the thought from his mind, Lando quickly pulled his sweatshirt over his head, before wadding it up and pushing it into the wound. As the fabric soaked up the fresh blood, rubbing up against the injury, Y/N cried out in pain again, the fabric’s brush causing her wound to burn. Her brown eyes widened with pain, her breath hitching and rattling.

“Y/N,” he called out, this time louder, hands shaking as he tried to steady her. Scrambling to find new patches of the fabric that hadn’t already been soaked in her blood, he explained, “I think– I think you’re bleedin’ into your chest. Shit—shit, I think ‘s your lung or somethin’, fuck, fuck—”

Her eyes were unfocused, her skin pale.

There was no way for him to know what was making it worse and what wasn’t, certainly not when his mind was blank and filled with static the way it was then. All he could do was hold her tighter, his palms pressed to her side as he tried to keep the warmth in. He pressed harder with little regard for her discomfort, because he would happily apologize for the rest of his life if he could just manage to keep her alive, if he could just manage to keep the cold tinge of death from creeping further up her fingertips.

“You’re okay,” he lied, smiling up at her. It was a warped, terrified quirk of his lips more than anything, but he put everything he had into making it as convincing as possible. Y/N deserved at least that much.

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you. You’re okay, Y/N, you’re fine. ‘M right here.”

Below him, in his arms, the girl blinked slowly, like even that small action took too much effort. Her fingers twitched beneath his as blood leaked between them. Her legs twitched weakly once before going still again.

What? No, that can’t—

“Hey, hey, hey, stay with me,” Lando begged, his voice breaking completely. He’d begun to rock ever so slightly without realizing it, as if trying to soothe her to rest. “Don’t close your eyes. I swear to God, don’t fucking do that to me—”

Her eyelids fluttered anyway, as the colors only began to fade more feom view. Y/N tried desperately to focus on anything — the beaming overhead lights, the color of Lando’s eyes — but to no avail.

Oh, she realized distantly, trying to force herself to sort out her muddled thoughts. Lando’s here.

It was hard to know if she had managed to smile, since everything was so hard and Y/N was so very tired. But what she did know was that if Lando was here, he wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

As if triggered by that very thought, the singing pain in her side began to lessen, an odd coolness beginning to spread in its place. It was now significantly less uncomfortable, enough that she could finally allow herself just a moment of rest—

“No, no, don’t— shit, HELP!” Lando screamed, the sound so raw it scraped up his throat. The cry seemed to reverberate in the empty of the store. “SOMEONE HELP ME— SOMEONE FUCKING HELP ME, SHE’S DYING!”

No one answered.

With shaking hands and blood-slicked fingers, Lando managed to pull out his phone and dial the emergency number, snapping at the dispatcher so fast they had to tell him to repeat himself. How could barely recall anything he’d actually said — their location, that she was stabbed.

He’d told them she was dying.

That he remembered.

By the time he ended the call, she was barely conscious.

“Hey. Hey, don’t fucking do this t’ me.”

He cupped her cheek with one hand, the other still pressing hard against her wound. His hands, his forearms, his clothes – everything was covered in her blood. His jeans were soaked through. Her breath was uneven, sharp and hitching.

It felt like hours passed before her eyes fluttered. Her lips parted in another attempt to speak, but all that came out was another choke. Blood bubbled at the base of her throat.

He nearly lost it then.

Hazel eyes met hers as he searched her face once more, looking for any sign she was in pain. But where there was once a grimace, now there was nothing. Nothing except familiar brown eyes, now wide with terror.

With his hoodie still pressed to her side in a futile attempt to put pressure on the bleeding, Lando was finally at a loss of what to do. There was no trick, no plan, no scheme that would whisk them away from this nightmare. There was only them, waiting on the faith that help would eventually arrive. 

As they waited, there was nothing he could do to take that look off her face. So he did the only thing he could still do for her.

“You’re gonna be fine,” he lied, his forehead pressed to hers. He had to force himself not to flinch in response to how cold her skin was against his. 

She’s not supposed to be cold. She hates being cold, always wants socks or a blanket or to lay next to me so she isn’t cold.

She’s not supposed to be cold.

“You hear me? You’re okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you, promise.”

It might have just been his own wishful thinking, but Lando almost could’ve sworn he heard her try to mumble his name. But when he looked at her eyes, they began to flutter shut.

“No. No. Stop it, stop it. Don’t– Please, sweetheart—”

The phone clattered to the ground beside him, forgotten. If the dispatcher said anything else, Lando certainly didn’t hear it. Even as he gently tried to shake her awake, her eyes continued to slip closed. 

“No, baby, hey—hey.” 

He leaned in, voice cracking under the weight of panic and heartbreak. “Stay with me, okay? I know you hate me. I know. But don’t—please don’t leave me like this.”

She didn’t answer him. 

Her lips barely parted with each dwindling breath, but that was the only sign she’d ever been breathing at all. Her lips moved, but there was no sound now. Where there once was muffled coughing or gurgling or even just weak wheezing, now there was no sound at all.

“Somebody help!” he shouted once more, one final hail mary attempt from a boy who was watching the one thing he loved fade before his very eyes. “Please— SOMEONE HELP ME!”

Nothing happened. 

No one came.

There was just the sound of her ragged breathing. Just the music still playing softly in the background, some lazy instrumental track that suddenly felt cruel. There was just the blood on the floor, warm against his knees.

As he sat there, swathed in artificial lighting and surrounded by a puddle of darkening red, Lando Norris finally broke. He cried like his chest had split open, because for him, it had. He cried until his shoulders shook and his tears fell to the tiles like a sorry attempt at washing away the damage that had already been done.

Lando Norris cried like a little boy. 

Even in his despair, his fingers curled tighter around her, holding her closer the way he used to as they laid on her couch not long ago. This time, however, his hands shook as he pressed harder. Her blood had now soaked through every layer of his clothing. He could feel it stain the skin of his knees, the fabric of his sleeves, could feel it dry into the crevices under his fingernails.

“You’re okay,” he continued to ramble quietly, his free hand searching frantically for some place where he wouldn’t somehow make it worse, where he wouldn’t somehow reap the soul from her body any faster than he already was. “You’re gonna be okay, I’ve got you. You’re gonna be fine.”

As her body held on to the last tendrils of consciousness, Lando finally heard a faint sound in the distance.

Sirens.

He could hear them approaching closer, growing louder as they neared. But even then, they still sounded too far away.

Brushing the hair out of her face, Lando tried to give her a watery smile. His free hand reached for one of hers, squeezing it in an attempt at reassurance as tears streamed silently down his face. The sirens continued to grow louder as he curled himself around her further, like he was putting himself between her and the rest of the world, as if he was afraid someone would take her away from him.

He leaned his forehead against hers and whispered shakily, “Don’t go where I can’t follow, okay?”

Y/N didn’t answer.

Even when the ambulance finally arrived, his hand never left hers.

Not once.

While the EMTs rushed to prepare the ambulance to take her, Lando appeared to be lost in his own world. The rest of the world faded into the background as he kept all his attention on her, nothing more important to him when every second she was in her arms could be her last.

He cupped her cheek with one hand, the other still pressing down on the gash in her side, and gently brushed his fingers against her cheek in soft strokes.

But she was so still now.

So quiet.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he whispered. “You hear me? You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna get through this, and I’m gonna tell you m’sorry a thousand fucking times, and you’re gonna roll your eyes and make fun of me for crying. You’re gonna tell me I’m being dramatic and tell me to shut up and maybe— maybe even let me kiss you again someday.”

Y/N’s eyes finally slipped closed.

Panic consumed Lando like a tidal wave inside his chest. “No. No. Y/N—open your eyes. Please.”

The ambulance lights hit the windows as they finally drove away: red, then blue, then red again.

Lando didn’t remember walking through the doors of Princess Grace Hospital.

He could only vaguely recall being in the ambulance, muttering things under his breath, his words only soft enough for Y/N to hear. He remembered being upset about something…

But about what?

It took effort to recall the details with any level of clarity. As he strained himself to remember, he was suddenly overwhelmed with the chaos of the emergency department as the main doors swung open before him.

One medic was already haunched over her, checking vitals and shouting numbers. Another was holding pressure on the wound — not his hands anymore, someone else’s hands. That shook him more than he’d expected. She was bleeding out under someone else’s hands now.

Forcing himself out of whatever haze threatened to cloud over his mind, Lando rushed to keep pace with the rest of the medical personnel as they transferred her from one stretcher to another. 

He followed them as far as they let him.

“Sir, you can’t come past this point—”

His brows furrowed, immediately upset. “She’s my— I’m with her!”

Still, Lando wasn’t allowed past the double doors. He barely got a glimpse of her being wheeled away — her face slack, lips blue, oxygen mask pressed too hard against her skin. He tried to follow, tried to push his way after her, but someone — a nurse or a security guard, maybe both — held him back by the shoulders.

“Sir, you need to let them work.”

He nearly decked the guy, but he couldn't conjure the strength to. It was as if when she had left through those doors where he couldn’t follow, his strength had left him too. Instead, he just stood there shaking, covered in blood that wasn’t his.

Lando stood there for a moment. Just stood.

Someone said his name — maybe one of the nurses.

But the hallway started to stretch. His ears rang. His vision blurred around the edges, the sterile overhead lights casting everything in too much white.

As a nurse ushered him into a seat, his leg bounced. His fingers wouldn’t stop twitching. The front of his shirt grew stiff with her blood — and no one had asked him to change yet, probably because no one could even look him in the eyes.

Once he was seated, that was when they proceeded to ask him her full name. He gave it without hesitation. They asked her date of birth — he knew that too. 

But medical history? Allergies?

He didn’t know.

He didn’t fucking know.

He’d memorized the sound of her laugh. The rhythm of her breathing when she slept. The exact way she liked her coffee down to the swirl. But he didn’t know what kind of blood ran through her veins, or whether she could take O-negative, or if she’d ever had surgery before.

Something like anger burned in his throat at the mere suggestion that Lando didn't know her. Who the hell were they to even think that? They were’nt the ones who had to know what it felt like when your heart lives outside of your chest. They weren’t the ones that had their hands stained red with her blood. They weren’t the ones who had to listen for the faintest sound of her breathing after knowing what her heartbeat sounded like when she slept. They weren’t the ones who had to watch her go still before their very eyes.

They took her into the OR, and he was left in the waiting room.

He hadn’t moved in hours.

He hadn’t taken a sip of the vending machine coffee someone handed him. He hadn’t gone to the bathroom. Hell, he hadn’t even breathed right since the EMTs took her from his hands.

Now he just sat and waited. When he got too restless, he forced himself up onto his feet and paced. Back and forth, back and forth — near the entrance, then the vending machine, then the desk. Then he sat. Then he stood again. Then he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes like that would stop the image of her from flashing over and over in his mind — her on the floor, her blood in his hands, her fingers slipping from his grasp like the whole world was tilting.

She’d been in surgery for three and a half hours.

The nurse at the desk had said they’d update him.

They hadn’t.

When it felt like time had slowed to a glacial pace, he’d gone to the front desk and asked if they could tell him anything — how deep the wound had gone, what organ had been hit — but they just kept saying they were doing everything they could. That she was in “good hands.”

Lando didn’t give a shit about good hands.

He just wanted her.

He wanted her yelling at him, telling him to go home. He wanted her brushing him off, rolling her eyes, pretending she hadn’t missed him even though he could always tell when she had. He wanted her awake. Breathing. There.

Yet as the clock ticking menacingly on the wall of the waiting room never let him forget, she was somewhere behind a wall of double doors, split open on a table, while strangers stitched her back together and tried to keep her from bleeding out entirely.

Lando pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes.

He wasn’t crying.

He refused to cry.

He’d cried enough already.

Instead, the endless hours left him with ample time to play it all over and over again in his mind, like horror film he never wanted to see. Scrunching his eyes shut, his ears echoed with the memory of when the paramedics tried to pull him away from her. He’d screamed at them. 

Don’t touch her. Don’t move her. Don’t take her away from me.

They hadn’t listened.

In the ambulance, he just kept whispering to no one: “She has to be okay. She has to.”

Somewhere around hour five, his breath started catching in his chest again. His hands felt like ice. He leaned forward in the chair, elbows on knees, trying to steady himself.

One of the nurses nearby seemed to notice the way Lando was hyperventilating as if the walls were closing in on him. She tried to get him to eat, to get some rest. 

Lando wordlessly waved her away without answering.

The truth was that he was stuck. He was stuck in the moment he saw her eyes start to close, in the way she’d tried to say his name but couldn’t, in the way her hands slipped away from his and her body went so, so still.

He remembered thinking, This is what it looks like when someone dies in your arms.

And he hadn’t realized until just now that he was still holding her weight, even when she wasn’t there.

Physically, Lando Norris was sat in the emergency room of one of the best hospitals in the world, armed with a soft paper cup of lukewarm coffee that he wasn’t drinking, squinting every time the doors swung open just in case it was someone with news. However, in his mind, Lando was still on that café floor, still whispering to her through the blood, still begging her to hold on.

��Are you here for Y/N Y/L/N?”

Lando instantly bolted upright. “Yes. Is she—?”

“She is still in surgery,” a nurse said calmly. “We just wanted to inform you. It is… taking a while.”

“What does that mean?” he asked, voice too rough to sound like himself.

The nurse hesitated. “It means she lost quite a lot of blood. And her body isn’t responding well to the transfusions.”

That news marked the beginning of hours of pacing and stopping and pacing again, of every clock tick feeling like a needle to the back of his spine. He’d already asked the nurse’s station a second time too — no update. She was still in surgery. The damage had been extensive. The blood loss alone would’ve been enough to kill her if they’d gotten there even five minutes later.

What do you even say to that?

It was hour six when a surgeon finally emerged, just after 4 a.m. He looked middle-aged, and weary-eyed, rubbing at his face like the surgery had aged him in real time as he approached where Lando sat in the waiting room.

“She made it through surgery,” he stated first. “But it was close.”

That word didn’t leave Lando’s head.

Close.

“She lost a significant amount of blood,” the doctor went on, voice calm but firm, like this was just another case. “The stab wound punctured her lower lung, missed a major artery by about a centimeter. We had to do an emergency thoracotomy and abdominal exploration to control the internal bleeding.”

“She’s had two transfusions already,” the doctor added. “Her body’s reacting slowly. It could be the stress, could be the shock. Maybe also she was on the floor for longer than anyone realized.”

Then hee paused, as if trying to decide how much to say.

Lando only stared.

“They’ve had to go very slow with the replacement as she is rejecting some of it. It’s not uncommon. But it is dangerous. And the wound was… close. It missed her major artery by about two centimeters. We had to transfuse more than we expected — her body’s not accepting the new volume as quickly as we’d like. We’re monitoring for signs of organ stress.”

Lando’s mouth was dry. “But she’s alive?”

A beat.

“She made it through surgery,” the doctor said. “The blade missed several critical nerves by millimeters. But she’s still in critical condition. We need to see how she responds.”

Lando nodded once. Truthfully, it was about all he could manage. All the exhaustion of the day caught up with him at once, every muscle and joint aching as if he had spent the whole day sparring or running. Everything felt weaker, more fragile somehow.

“She’s being moved to ICU,” a woman came to inform him afterward. “She’ll be monitored for the next twenty-four hours. Those will be critical. If she stabilizes by tomorrow morning, her chances go up. If not…”

She didn’t finish the sentence.

She didn’t have to.

They didn’t let him see her right away. “ICU protocol,” they’d explained.

But through the small window of the door, he could see the outline of her body beneath the thin white blanket. Tubes in her arms. Wires on her chest. The hiss of a ventilator helping her lungs do what they should’ve been able to on their own.

She looked nothing like herself.

She looked… small.

He pressed a hand to the window, even as it smeared blood across the glass. He didn’t wipe it off, content with finally being able to see the steady rise and fall of her chest, if even from afar.

They let him in around 3 a.m.

The nurse didn’t say much — just nodded toward the hallway and told him to keep it quiet, and please don’t touch any of the monitors. He didn’t answer, just followed the linoleum path past doors that weren’t hers until he reached the right one.

When they finally did let him see her, he wasn’t ready.

He’d thought he was. He’d spent hours pacing that waiting room, rehearsing what he might say, bracing for the worst, calculating how many apologies he’d need to string together just to deserve breathing the same air as her again.

But when he stepped into that sterile, humming room and saw her lying there, he was startled by how pale she was. It confused him to see her, to see the girl he loved hooked up to more machines than he could count. Her skin appeared faintly clammy under the pulse monitor’s clip.

Looking at her, the words left him entirely.

He hadn’t spoken since they let him in. Instead, he just watched her, just let his eyes move over every inch of her like he was memorizing her face all over again. Her lips were chapped. Her knuckles scraped. Someone had cleaned the blood off her hairline, but he could still see the faint trace of it, like something haunting the edge of her skin.

It was too quiet inside.

Machines hummed softly. One beeped — slow, steady. The fluorescent lighting had been dimmed to a low twilight glow, casting shadows on the walls like ghosts that refused to leave. It only made her look more pale, highlighting the way her lips parted just enough to see the breathing tube. Her arms were tucked with wires and tape and bruises blooming beneath the skin.

Lando sat in the stiff plastic chair at her bedside, elbows on knees, head bowed like he was in prayer. He wanted to reach for her hand, but he flinched when he found that her arm was hooked to an IV line, fingers limp against the starched sheets. A compression cuff hissed softly every few minutes. The bruises on her ribs were starting to surface now — angry, blue and blooming like ink stains.

At least she’s alive.

His elbows braced against his knees. His hands folded in front of him. His eyes didn’t leave her.

“Hey,” he said quietly, because anything louder would’ve felt wrong. “You look terrible.”

He waited for a beat, but there was no laugh or eye roll or snarky comeback about his own disheveled mess. In the silence of the room, there was just the soft hiss of the ventilator, the steady beep of the heart monitor.

Something about the sounds irked him. Slowly, he rubbed a hand down his face, cleary tired beyond just what anyone from the outside could see.

Y/N would’ve been able to see.

He missed her.

“I never meant for this t’ happen,” he muttered. His voice sounded too loud, even though it was barely more than a whisper.

“I was going to let go,” he added, quieter. “I wasn’t going to bother you anymore. I just… I just wanted to see that you were okay. That you moved on. That you—”

He swallowed, jaw tightening. 

“But I ruined everything,” he finished, his voice wavering.

He looked down at his hands, still tinged red no matter how hard he scrubbed them raw. He looked down at the hands that had done everything they could to try to keep her alive, only for her to end up like this.

Of course you couldn’t keep her alive. 

He was The Reaper, after all. And everyone knew that Reapers could only take lives, not save them. And Lando Norris had never known how to hold anything without killing it.

He stared at her. The only part of her that moved was the slow rise and fall of her chest — mechanical, borrowed, a rhythm not her own.

“I don’t know how to make this right,” he said after a long moment, almost to himself. “I thought I could keep you separate. Like maybe if I loved you hard enough, it would cancel everything else out.”

He let out something like a laugh, but it didn’t sound quite right.

“But it doesn’t work like that. You can’t love someone enough to undo what you are.”

His eyes burned, but he didn’t cry. He never cried when it mattered most. He just sat there, with hands that didn’t know how to be empty and a silence that felt like penance.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he whispered. “I’d take it if I could. Every drop of it. Every minute.”

He reached for her hand, then hesitated, then folded his fingers around hers gently – like if he was any less careful, he might truly break her beyond repair.

Her fingers didn’t move. The machines went on ticking, reminding him that time was still passing — still moving forward, even if he didn’t know how to follow it anymore.

He didn’t let go. The thread bracelet was still around his wrist. It was half-soaked with blood, but still there. He looked at it now, turning it over between his fingers. It was proof that she would always be a part of him, long before she’d even known the truth.

“I don’t even know if you’d want me here,” he murmured, voice rough from too many hours without speaking. “If you knew I was sitting here like this.”

Out of habit, his thumb traced mindless patterns over the back of her hand. It reminded him of warmer times, of simpler ones. Lando would give anything he had to go back to then.

“I used to think the worst thing I could do was lose you. But now I’m starting to think it was letting you know who I really was. Like if I’d just stayed Liam a little longer… you might’ve never looked at me like that.”

He swallowed, hard.

“I don’t want to be the reason you stop loving anything. Not this place. Not your work. Not people.” He shook his head. “But I ruined it. I fucking ruined it. And I would trade everything I’ve ever built just to go back and not—”

He let his eyes fall shut for just a second.

That single second was just long enough to miss the sound of the door creaking open. It was just long enough not to hear the footsteps behind him.

The sound of a safety being turned off was unmistakable, the quiet click of it echoing in the silent room.

Lando didn’t even need to turn around to know what it was. The cold metal pressed to the back of his skull was confirmation enough.

He froze. 

A beat passed. 

Lando didn’t breathe.

“I knew I’d see you here, Norris,” the man behind him whispered. Alex Albon leaned in slightly — just enough for Lando to feel the weight behind the gun now.

“You’re so fucking predictable when it comes to the people you love.”

a/n: ...

[caroljoky]

𝒞𝓊𝓇𝓈𝑒𝒹 𝒷𝓎 𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒢𝑜𝒹𝓈

CHAPTER 1: 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔅𝔯𝔬𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔰' 𝔗𝔞𝔩𝔢

Prologue's here !

Caracalla x female!OC x Geta

Summary:

How did the Emperors gain power? What was their past like? What made Caracalla a madman?

Lucia Galeria Aurelia is the forgotten daughter of Lucilla and Maximus. One day her life changes forever when her path crosses with the young Caracalla. She starts to take an active part in the life of Rome, captivating not only the Roman people but also someone fate condemned her to - certain red-haired rulers.

Warnings: english is not my first language(!), alluding to sex, suicide, mentions of concubines, alcohol, swearing

AN: I really dig through history with this one. One of Severus's quotes he actually told in real life, not gonna spoil it tho!

Trope: enemies to lovers (duh)

Word count: 2.9k

At night, the two young people were led to a large chamber, unlike the one little Lucia was used to. It was an almost-hall, which had been the chamber of imperial marriages since the time of Nero, with large windows and a beautiful vault depicting Eros leaning towards Psyche, who sees her husband for the first time, with fear and uncertainty but also love painted on her face. Something that Lucia wanted to feel very much. She thought quickly, on their way to the chamber she managed to imagine the next years, the future of Rome, which she had to start taking care of. She glanced at her new husband's father from one side and at her mother from the other. She did not look past her, even though she felt the eyes of everyone following her, 'guiding' the newlyweds to their wedding night. She felt bad, the worst. She could only look at the back of her husband, who was walking in front of her, he had a certain posture and broad shoulders, but there was something funny about him, too funny. She tried to find the humor in the situation, she smiled to herself. “That’s my husband,” echoed in her head. They stopped. Two praetorians and Severus entered the chamber. In the middle stood a large bed with silk sheets and velvet pillows on which lay the heads of great rulers. Lucia wondered if all the young Roman brides felt as she did. 

-Listen, young ones - Severus broke the deathly silence - Today you begin your marriage. You also start to play your role, as husband and wife, emperor and empress, woman and man. The gods gave you the ability to give life. You are here because it was given to you, and you should not end it without giving it to the next generation. Such is your task. 

Only now could the girl see the true, obsessive face of the ruler of Rome. A ruler who knew that his days were numbered, a ruler who wanted his family to survive, more than anything in the world. Even if he had to sacrifice his son's happiness, sacrifice himself. He wanted everything to happen quickly, preferably here and now. The strange thing was that Lucia was not afraid. She was not afraid of this older, red-haired man, who, despite the large wreath and the storm in his pupils, was not dangerous to her at all. He looked almost pathetic to her, his desperate efforts to keep the throne. But only to her did he look like that. When she looked to the side, the purest form of fear was drawn on her husband's face. Maybe it was because his father had his eyes fixed on him the whole time, as if the future of Rome, the world, rested on his shoulders. His lips, still slightly stained with the cherry color of Lucia's lip cream, trembled before that stern look. 

- Do you understand, son? - he asked, grabbing the young man’s hair - Now is your time for this. You will give me a descendant of your own blood, you will maintain our family, right, son? - he pierced his son with his gaze, who could only nod slightly. 

As he left, he locked them in the room alone, probably leaving the praetorians behind them. For the first time, she could talk to him. She opened her mouth hastily, but he did the same at that moment.

- Let's just get this over with - she whispered as they sat on either side of the bed. It took some time before she took off her tunic, stola, and palla. When she did, only her long curls, shimmering in the light of the sad moon, fell on her body. After a long, rather awkward moment, she touched his fettered face a little timidly. Caracalla was afraid, afraid of his father, afraid of Rome and afraid of power. Although he was never really afraid. Even during the wedding, he was not afraid, he was angry. Pissed to the bone, he devoured his barbarian father with his eyes, imagining him on the noose. His father, his whole life, had not treated him like this. He felt betrayed. Looking at his beautiful wife, he felt only regret. He only nervously bit his cherry lip, the color of which mixed with blood. She took his face in both hands as if she wanted to wake him up from this trance of emotions.

- Just do it, Geta - she whispered, hugging him

- Geta..? - his first word since the wedding rang out

- Just do it!

- I’m Caracalla!

- What? - she stopped the embrace to look at him

- Caracalla the Gladiator?

- What? - he said like an echo

- Geta was supposed to be the emperor..

- What are you talking about..

 After another long moment of looking at each other, the girl burst into uncontrollable laughter. Caracalla, surprised by the whole situation, expressed perhaps a shadow of amusement, but with his whole body confusion. How could he possibly know how the girl found out about the twin rulers? 

 A while earlier, one day when she first snuck out of the chamber and found Macrinus, he showed her the gladiators' weapons. He presented her with each item and she absorbed the knowledge like no one else. She wanted to take one of the smaller swords, for warriors of smaller stature, but there were none. Maybe because of adversity, maybe because young Caracalla stole swords for his chamber, swords that probably fascinated him as much as Lucia. 

- Sorry, kid. It seems like another young gladiator was faster than you. This little, red-haired one, Caracalla. I'm telling you, when I live to see his reign, I'll give myself freely to the hands of the Gods - Macrinus told her, laughing. 

Lucia had heard stories about people waiting for a new ruler, who was supposed to be Geta. They hoped that he would end the tyranny and break the curse of his family. Maybe she believed in those fairy tales and maybe that was why she was so calm.. Until she found out that it wasn't her husband.

  The laughter died down a bit, the boy continued to look at her with a blank stare, as if begging her to leave him alone or at least explain what was going on.

- Do you even want to be an emperor?

- Not with an empress like you.

- Ouch, spare me Geta - her innate cynicism was revealed for the first time as she leaned back on the pillows with playful eyes, now in all her glory as a beautiful empress. Caracalla was calmer, his fear diminished when he noticed he had no enemy in her. For the first time, he smiled, showing his teeth, some gleaming gold.

- Where did you even come from?

- I hatched from a shell like Venus - she giggled, stretching.

- Fair enough..

There was silence again for a moment. Caracalla liked to stare, piercing everything with his gaze. He looked silly to her, maybe even sweet. She wasn't sure if he had the face of the future emperor. They looked at each other, she turned her head slightly to the side, for the first time she actually saw him, without the shadow of his tyrannical father, just him, the 18-year-old boy Caracalla. After all, they were in this together.

- So…What’s it like to have.. a brother?

- I dunno.. I guess good, as long as your wife doesn't confuse you with him - the echo of a boyish chuckle spread through the large room. Lucia was curious about this, she had never met any peers, only heard once or twice about her brother, who was alive, but not present. Who probably didn't know that there was someone like her, someone who wanted to see him more than everyone else. The girl wanted to feel at least a drop of brotherly love, to hear about it.

- No, I'm serious. Do you love him?

- We do everything together. I'm condemned to him like.. To you

- Condemned? He's your only brother! - Her gaze was fixed on his now-turned head. A moment earlier they had covered themselves in their marital robes, the future emperor now curled up on the large bed, hiding his face in his hands. The girl probably wouldn't understand what he was feeling, even after reading all her grandfather's philosophical books and using up all of her intelligence.

- Don't you understand that I'm standing in his way? He won’t admit it, but it's true. I'll give you a child and he'll get lost in the shadows, forgotten. Do you understand? He's so.. good. An ideal emperor.

  Caracalla was a child whose exceptionalism was acknowledged from an early age. People criticized him for his ridiculous attitude, but they admitted that he had bravado. Bravado that an emperor needed. The boy was not virtuous, he was against all virtues. He admired Commodus, Alexander the Great, heck, he ordered his statue to be placed in his room, he ordered a sword to be forged for himself with the date of the Macedonian ruler’s birth and death. Caracalla absorbed the history of wars and empires, he wanted to fight. When he was ridiculed for his small stature, his brother used to step in. Their relationship was, however, changeable, beyond understanding. Geta felt every resentment towards his brother, one could say from birth, for being the first to emerge from his mother's belly, for always being the first for no reason. Caracalla always had a certain difficulty with emotions. His love was obsessive, it came in waves, randomly. It changed. He couldn't talk about it. He was healthy his whole life, he didn't struggle with any illnesses, unlike his father. That was one of the reasons his father chose him as emperor, an ideal tyrant, leading conquests, winning wars. However, Caracalla fell into a spiral of debauchery. Wine and concubines tempted him from childhood. Maybe because his father surrounded himself with them all the time, and convinced him that he was an authority. Women could give the old emperor the power that he felt he was losing. Power over his sickly body, power over Rome.

  Her warm breath tickled his ear. She embraced him, what a strange feeling. He never wanted pity, he didn't want to feel weak.

- I’m..

  The door to the chamber was opened. A sonorous voice could be heard.

- You’re a noble pair, dear brother and sister. You look.. truly serious

Indeed, their faces did not express the bliss that the wedding night was supposed to bring. Lucia moved away from her husband, quickly and silently dressing. The tension was clearly felt between the brothers.

- Geta…

- Caracalla!

  The taller red-haired boy with funny eyeliner embraced his brother in his marital robe, kissing him on the forehead. The kiss seemed brutal, full of brotherly rivalry. Everyone except Lucia guessed that this rivalry was about her. The moment of silence between the brothers looking at each other was interrupted by the praetorian entering.

- The emperor invites the couple for breakfast.

- That's what I wanted to tell you - Geta replied, watching Lucia dress from the side - the night passed quickly, didn't it?

  Caracalla nodded again in a way she knew. It seemed the only thing that was weighing on him was the matter of this marriage. It looked like she had awakened an unusual side of him that no one but her had seen.

✦ ⎯⎯ㅤִㅤ୭ ୨♡୧ ৎㅤִ  ⎯⎯ ✦

  The table was huge, filled with all sorts of wild dishes, in honor of the newlyweds everything was soaked in wine, both bread and roast, and finally large carafes of drinks were brought which sparkled as poured into large goblets. Two places of honor at the end of the table were waiting for the young couple. All eyes were turned towards them, waiting for the feast to begin. Lucia also waited for Caracalla to stand up but his eyes wandered over individual people, not focused on the current moment. He leaned towards his brother to whom he whispered something. Geta waved his hand and patted him rudely on the shoulder. The boy stood up together with his wife, biting a piece of wine bread made of wheat as a sign to start the feast. Conversations immediately drowned out the solemn silence of the Golden House, you could hear a roar of clinking glasses and eating, laughter and shouting. The only people who seemed to be absent were, of course, the newlyweds. Lucia said nothing but listened attentively. Next to her sat Macrinus with the Senate, telling the wildest stories from the arena. 

- Rome has something that the Egyptians, the Persians, and the Hindus have not achieved. We have a great Colosseum and games. We have honorable men for whom fighting is life, devoted to Ares, loyal to the Thunderer. Barbarians will never achieve what Rome has, we are the nation closest to the fullness of life, Socrates can laugh in his grave as much as he wants, but it is true.

- But aren't these honorable men brought from barbarian nations, from far across the sea? - a soft female voice broke through the applause of the older men, for a moment as if deafened by her interference.

- These matters should not bother your noble head in any way, dear Lady, I am sure that..

- She is right, Marcus, they are not Romans. That is why my task is to convert and train them, which as you can see gives me so much remuneration that today I am sitting right next to the future empress. - Macrinus interrupted the senator with a certain smile, glancing into the eyes of the clever Lucia.

  On the other side of the table, however, the conversation was not going so smoothly. Caracalla was as nervous as ever. The pink powder on his cheeks was nothing compared to the blushes on his face, the blushes of anger and shame. 

- Where the fuck is he? Isn't it time for one of his damned speeches? Besides, he’s sick as hell! 

- He is celebrating in a brothel, as usual. Relax, brother. You have more important things to worry about. I'll send to look for him - Geta whispered with furrowed brows to his leaning brother, who nervously played with his rings, looking at the whole room with fear. He didn't know any of these people.

  It was true that Caracalla was always the first to seek out his father when he was roaming around Rome with a hood covering his face. As has already been mentioned, he chased women. And his son chased after him. He woke him up, led him home, maybe in a way he looked after him, worried about him. Maybe that was why he was so concerned about his father’s every word. Because, after all, he was close to his father. 

  The Praetorians did not search for long, his father was walking with unsteady steps to the dining hall. When the large doors opened, they revealed a drunken Septimius Severus. Despite everything, the man had a hard head when it came to alcohol. Regardless of his lung disease, he maintained the form of a functioning alcoholic. Coughing mercilessly, he caught everyone's attention, standing exactly on the opposite side of the abundant table. Only a murmur of whispers remained in the hall because no one valued the emperor very much, certainly not as much as his sons. He raised a large, filled goblet.

- You see, you sent him to us - Geta said with embarrassment, raising the wine to his lips, trying to block out the humiliating sight from his field of vision.

- Sons! You are in the prime of life! Grown, handsome, your whole life lays open before you, like the legs of a cheap whore! - The murmurs died down as it seemed that the only thing that could be heard was the father's laughter and the son's gnashing of teeth. - So I have one last fatherly demand. Live in harmony, enrich the soldiers, and apart from that.. You can despise everyone. Just remember... remember the family - the old man's voice trembled uncontrollably because no one took him seriously. 

  Even the sons hid their faces in their hands, awkwardly glanced to the sides, cursing their father in their thoughts. 

  Maybe they subconsciously sent what was to happen to him. Severus was dressed in a long black robe, in which he demanded many pockets, so it looked unique and unusual. From one of the pockets by his hip, he pulled out a small sword, bearing small images of Caracalla and Geta as young twins embraced by their mother with her eyes closed. This old man stubbornly clung to his miserable life as a failed emperor, even when he knew that his years of conquest were behind him as if he wanted to fulfill some task. It turned out that the task was his sons and their rule. When it was fulfilled, he went to have one last night of fun, then returned in the morning to say goodbye to his loved ones. He quickly ran the blade across the fold of his neck, from which the soul of the old ruler flew away, whose body then fell onto the rich table, onto the great roast and onto the goblets of wine. People stood up as if scalded, women screamed as if they had been skinned, Emperor Geta stood up to run towards his dead father - and Caracalla, Caracalla was sitting, and in his eyes was smoldering the flame with the embryo of madness, which had been awakened by unbearable pain, the pain of death and everything he had experienced.

@doodle-with-rhy

thank you all so much for your support! Comment if you want a continue