#difference between Social Media and Social Computing

[reiderwriter]

◇ The Fake Relationship ◇

Part two of The Romantic Comedy

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Summary: Realizing you've put your foot in your mouth, you desperately try to backtrack as Spencer desperately tries to help.

Warnings: fluff, future chapters will be 18+ though, reader is an erotica romance author, and is already thinking somewhat impurely about hands

A/N: This one was very trope-y and a bit cliché but we're finally through the set-up so now onto the more fun chapters next week! Let me know what you think in the comments!

Masterlist

Stepping back for a moment, you realized you’d finally reached peak exhaustion.

Neither your writing job nor your role on the BAU was a particularly restful career. You’d balanced week-long cases with midnight writing time, burning the candle at both ends.

Now whatever was left of your wits after expending your last half an hour writing was desperately clutching Spencer’s shirt, haunting the man with your desperation.

The emergency lights flicked on as you came back down to reality.

“Sorry!” You squeaked out, putting as much space between you as possible. Which admittedly wasn’t a whole lot.

“No…no. Not at all. What-”

“I should go,” you shouted again, fully aware you were at least thirty seconds from passing out from sheer embarrassment. You grabbed your bag quickly, hard shut down your computer, quickly saving your first chapter, and tried to run away.

Tried being the operative word.

“What do you need me for?” Spencer stepped in front of you again, steadying you with a hand by your elbow to make sure you couldn’t fully dodge him.

“It’s nothing. It’s a stupid idea really. Not appropriate.”

Not appropriate was exactly how you would describe the thoughts that popped into your head when he was straddling you earlier, too.

“In this scenario, I think I can define what is and isn’t inappropriate. Sit down and talk me through it,” he said gently, walking you back to your seat.

“Okay,” you nodded quickly, trying to avoid the many different scenes from books popping into your head as he pulled your chair out for you and sat you down.

“Your writing was good, Y/N. It’s for your book, right?”

“Yes,” you said, almost embarrassed to respond in more than one syllable. But Spencer let the silence rest and waited for you to do or say anything else, so you had to pull your big girl pants back up and communicate. Effectively.

“Yes. I have a book due to my editor in a couple of weeks - I signed a four book deal after my first one was modestly popular online. Social media really blew it up so they wanted to lock me in for a few books,” you started, sinking back into the chair as you explained the fluke that was your writing career.

“Anyway, I’ve been here for a while now so romance isn’t exactly on the brain. I haven’t written in months and so my editor… So I need to start writing.”

Spencer sat so silently, you’d be so sure he was asleep if his eyes weren’t locked directly on yours.

You were so used to Spencer fidgeting - moving, reading, playing with a pencil between his fingers, drinking coffee - that this sudden rush of attention wasn’t immediately comfortable. “Spencer, you’re staring.”

“Sorry, sorry. Um, so you just needed to find something to write?”

You nodded and continued again.

“Yeah, I needed to find something to write about. And I don’t really want to lean into the whole serial killer romance thing.”

Spencer nodded along with you, finally nodding and moving again, and you let out a sigh as you watched him think.

“Okay. Okay, I’ll help you.”

Surprised, you looked up, once again making almost uncomfortable eye contact with Spencer Reid. You wished, too, that you had a notebook at that very moment to help you remember the exact feeling of your heart beating out of your chest.

A scene where you jumped straight into his lap and started twirling your fingers through his hair came to mind. Focusing again, you pushed it away.

“Help me with what?”

“I’ll help you write your book.”

“Oh! Oh no…” you stood and grabbed your bag again. “You really don’t have to do that.”

“I know.”

“Okay, great, glad we are in agreement. Now let’s never talk about this ever again.”

You stood and grabbed your bag, but a firm grip on your wrist tugged you right back down. Instead of your own chair though you found yourself in Spencer’s chair.

Or more realistically speaking, in Spencer’s lap.

“You have got to be kidding me,” you mumbled under your breath.

“I know I don’t have to help you, but I want to. It sounds interesting.”

“Interesting?”

“Yes.”

“You have three PhDs, and a number of other accolades, an IQ of 187 and an eidetic memory. Helping me write a romance novel that will be, at best, a good beach read, is interesting to you?”

Spencer seemed to consider for a moment, and then leaning in slightly, whispered his answer. “Yes.”

You would have shivered had your body had the energy for that.

“Sure, Spencer. Okay. And how exactly are you going to help me?”

He took another moment to think about his answer. You took that as your opportunity to leave, quickly jumping up again after a too comfortable moment in his arms, and quickly left the office.

For two days after you avoided even thinking about Spencer, or your book, or writing about Spencer in your book.

Two whole days. A wonderful weekend away from what was becoming a real puppy crush. You found yourself inexplicably looking up Spencer on any platform you thought he’d have a presence on (not a single social media but a number of child prodigy articles from newspapers in Nevada from a handful of years ago.)

Then you found yourself back at work, facing a stack of books and the most confrontational version of Spencer Reid you’d ever been acquainted with.

“The Love Hypothesis, The Spanish Love Deception, The Unhoneymooners, The Deal, The Kiss Quotient - did you know that fake relationships are often ranked as readers second favorite romance trope?”

“Spencer what are you- Spencer our coworkers will be here soon, put those away,” you gasped, quickly rushing to push each and every book into some nook or cranny of your desk.

“This is the FBI, Spencer, what has gotten into you?”

As you moved each book, you realised that, though they appeared to be new, there were cracks in each book's spine. There were some tabs sticking out randomly, the type you’d seen in Spencer’s paperwork before, and you found yourself almost more exasperated.

“You read them? All of them?”

“ I wanted to help,” he shrugged, taking a few out of your hands and stuffing them back in his satchel. “Besides, some of them were pretty good.”

“Okay. Okay, Spencer, since we’re both acting a little bit out of character today, I have to ask: why do you want to help me?”

Finally, the man fidgeted uncomfortably. He tugged at the collar of his shirt once, then twice and finally looked back at you.

“I want… I want to practice,” his voice was barely a whisper as the tips of his ears reddened. “There’s… there is a girl I like, and… I’m not exactly the most experienced at romance.”

You tried to stop yourself from feeling disappointed at his admission. Your sudden burst of interest in Spencer was only due to his helpfulness. It had been three days, it wasn’t enough for you to feel truly disappointed that nothing could start with him.

And he was your coworker, too, and that would be a nightmare. And you realized quickly that he was still talking, and you’d accidentally tuned him out for half a minute at the least.

“I read your books, too. The first two. They’re not exactly instructional guides I can follow, but it would be fun to get some ideas about y- about what girls like on dates. You know?”

Letting out a sigh, you sat down at your desk.

“So you want to do this?” you asked, holding up the nearest book to you.

“I want to do this.”

You nodded and thought it out for a second. You needed the help. You needed to write, and though apparently clueless about women, he was courteous and handsome, and most importantly consenting.

“Fine.”

“Fine? Really?”

“Don’t make me regret this, but yes. Let’s try it out.”

Spencer’s smile warmed your heart. It genuinely warmed your heart. Handsome men really needed to be stopped, you thought, nearly regretting your decision. But, as you had been before agreeing to many relationships with men before in the past, you were desperate.

“So we need to do the contract thing and the ground rules thing, and then-” Spencer started, flicking through one of the books for quotes and places to start.

“Vetoed and vetoed. We’re just doing research for a book, right Spencer? Why should we put rules down? We’re profilers. We know what is too far, and more importantly, we know how to communicate.”

Spencer nodded along with your points.

“Then, we should just shake on it?”

You hesitated for a second, thinking about where your mind would evidently go and thus had already gone if you got even a glimpse of his hands. You knew they were veiny.

“We can shake on it, sure.”

With that, his hand - yes, veiny - grabbed yours and you found yourself in an agreement of mutual destruction.

Spencer was going to help you write your book, and you were going to stop yourself from thinking about wrapping your legs around him until you were satisfied.

And with that you found yourself a fake boyfriend.

[cynextgen]

Difference Between Social Media and Social Computing

In today’s digitally connected world,Difference Between social media and social computing are two powerful concepts shaping how individuals and businesses interact online. While both terms may appear similar, they serve distinct purposes in the digital ecosystem. Understanding the differences between social media and social computing is crucial for businesses looking to optimize their online presence—especially those offering Website Design Services.

What is Social Media?

Social media refers to platforms that allow users to create, share, and exchange information and content in virtual communities and networks. Well-known platforms like Facebook, Twitter (now X), Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok fall under the umbrella of social media. These platforms are primarily focused on communication, content sharing, and engagement among users.

Social media empowers users to express themselves, interact with others, follow trends, and engage with brands. It’s widely used in digital marketing, public relations, and personal branding strategies. Businesses use social media to build customer relationships, share news, offer promotions, and enhance brand visibility.

What is Social Computing?

On the other hand, social computing is a broader concept that refers to the use of computational systems to support social behavior and interactions. It includes a wide range of technologies like collaborative filtering, online communities, wikis, blogs, forums, and recommendation systems.

Social computing focuses more on how people collaborate and interact through technology, often involving user-generated content and collective intelligence. It’s not limited to just social networks but extends to platforms like GitHub (collaborative coding), Wikipedia (collaborative knowledge), and even e-commerce review systems.

Key Differences Between Social Media and Social Computing

Let’s break down the main differences:

1. Purpose

Social Media: Primarily focused on communication, content sharing, and entertainment.

Social Computing: Geared towards enabling collaboration, problem-solving, and data-driven social interaction.

2. Examples

Social Media: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn.

Social Computing: Wikipedia, Reddit, GitHub, collaborative workspaces like Slack or Trello.

3. User Interaction

Social Media: Mostly one-way or two-way communication. Users follow, like, comment, or share content.

Social Computing: Involves more complex, multi-user collaboration and community-driven knowledge creation.

4. Business Application

Social Media: Used for marketing, branding, customer engagement, and advertising.

Social Computing: Used for project collaboration, knowledge sharing, customer feedback integration, and community support.

5. Technological Complexity

Social Media: Generally simpler interfaces with features focused on user-generated content.

Social Computing: Often involves more sophisticated systems including algorithms, collaborative platforms, and data analytics.

How Website Design Services Relate to Both

For businesses offering Website Design Services, understanding the distinction between social media and social computing is essential. A well-designed website must integrate elements of both to provide a user-friendly and engaging experience.

Social Media Integration: Adding social sharing buttons, feeds, and user login through platforms like Facebook or Google is essential for driving engagement.

Social Computing Elements: Integrating comment systems, forums, live collaboration tools, or product recommendation systems can enhance user interaction and build a sense of community.

By combining both social media and social computing features, website designers can create platforms that are not only visually appealing but also functionally rich and interactive. This blend improves user retention, satisfaction, and overall business outcomes.

Conclusion

While social media and social computing often overlap, they are not the same. Social media is about sharing and connecting; social computing is about collaborating and solving problems. Both play crucial roles in the digital landscape and must be understood clearly—especially by companies in the tech and design sectors.

If you’re in the business of Website Design Services, leveraging both social media strategies and social computing features can significantly enhance your value proposition. From marketing to user experience, the synergy of these tools helps in building better, more interactive, and user-centric web platforms.

[ilium-ilia]

kiss the skin that crawls

john price x fem!reader | the surrogate au | masterlist

part one: help wanted

It starts with the shattering of iron. 

Manmade structures can only withstand the test of time for so long before nature swallows what was once hers. Arms growing, invading, reclaiming what was stolen. You’re very much aware that you are the problem as you stand in your bathroom, eyes glaring at your clogged shower drain, yet you only pity yourself. 

Tree roots, the plumber says. Common with these old houses, an old cottage just on the fringes of nowhere and somewhere, something that was bequeathed to you when your granny passed. Its charm is quaint, though far from opulent, you took it in a heartbeat, excited to start your life as a true adult. Yet, after all these years, you’ve yet to find a partner to settle down with, or a job that pays you well enough to travel the world, and now you’re footed with a bill that reminds you just what it means to be an adult. 

You pick up more hours at work—as many as you can from a remote position, anyway. Tapping away on your computer, trying not to shiver too much from your drafty windows, you chip away at the cost bit by bit. Eating away decay. Willing it away in an attempt to have your dream home. You tear down the floral wallpaper in your office and coat it with a shade of green that reminds you of old copper—a patina that lingers on your fingertips—all while pretending that the bathroom sink isn’t leaking half your wells worth of water. You pretend that your drops in the ocean make a difference; a ripple large enough to feel. 

Of course, something else shatters. 

Ancient windows crack. The gap between the front door and its frame is too big. Electricity and gas blows through your bank account worse than groceries. You’ve cut your hands on the logs you tried to chop for the fireplace. When winter bleeds into spring and summer, the heat is unbearable—stuck in a furnace that cooks you, tender flesh and all, you are dying in this home. Alone, working to fix every chip that cracks from the stones that build your house; you need something more. A breakthrough, a promotion, a favor. 

Salvation presents itself to you on your third hour of browsing online forums and social media for odd jobs. Mind rotten from pyramid schemes and near slave labor, you almost miss the post entirely. Her name is Kate Laswell, and she has—perhaps—the oddest job of them all; a need for a surrogate for her and her wife. 

Initially, your eyes gloss over the post. Pregnancy is exhausting, and with the state your home is in, the last thing you need to do is get pregnant—lumbering around, swollen like a balloon, attempting to make renovations on your dilapidating cottage. If you were at any other time in your life—more settled, steadier—maybe you’d seriously consider it. 

All your qualms dissipate the moment you read the foot of the post. 

Compensation starts at £100,000.

The zeros are almost more than you can count—more than you can comprehend. It burns into your eyes, urging your fingers to twitch. How anyone could afford to pay this much is beyond you, but you suppose children are expensive either way; certainly it’s nothing to this woman and her wife. 

With that type of money, you wouldn’t even have to do the renovations yourself. 

After an evening of deliberating, you blindly decide to shoot off a private message to Kate Laswell. Her profile is odd—void, and blank. No pictures, hardly any posts. You tell yourself it’s likely a scam, and you’ll receive some sketchy link back from her during some odd hour in the night, if you even get anything in response at all. Yet when you wake in the morning, that pictureless account has sent you a message in response: 

We would like to speak with you in person. When can you meet? 

Stupidly, you meet with Kate and Lottie Laswell the following weekend deep in the heart of London in the cozy embrace of a coffee shop that does nothing to settle your nerves. Caffeine is thick in the air, nestling in the weaving of your clothes, sticking to your hair and skin. Though you’ve never seen Kate before, you recognize her instantly. Her stern, straightforward gaze beams at you from beneath her mousy brown fringe the moment you walk through the door, prompting you to awkwardly wave in greeting before she motions you over to the table. 

If Kate Laswell is the moon, then her wife, Lottie, is the sun. Her bright blonde hair scintillates, and it only grows in intensity in the sunlight that seeps through the perforated curtains drawn over the window on her right. Pale blue eyes framed by florid cheeks crease as you take your seat across from them, and you note the way she buzzes in her seat, hands politely folded on the table, manicured nails tapping against the wood grain at her fingertips. She tilts her head to the side, soaking you in, and her smile only widens. 

“It’s so nice to meet you.” Her voice is pitchy—draws long and soft. She’s American, you realize. Southern, you think. Blinking in surprise, you return the gesture. 

Though Kate is kind and cordial, she is much more business oriented than her wife. Once curt introductions are out of the way, she gets on with her questions. Her low, even tone and keen eyes have you sweating—this feels more like an interrogation than an interview. She asks everything about you, prodding the deepest part of you, poking your skin just to see how far she can push before you wince. Her questions about your health history and sex life come blunt, and it pairs oddly with Lottie’s airy giggles, but as the questioning drones on and you see more nods of approval from Kate, you find your nerves slowly mending themselves back together again. 

Eventually the questions fade into something softer—easier to spit out. Tastier to swallow. They ask you about your life; the hobbies you partake in and the work you do. How your family is, and if you’ve been well. You tell them about the garden you attempt to keep in the flowerbeds lining the cottage, and the administrative tasks you do and the office you just painted. You try to avoid the topic of your home—the isolation, the exhaustion, the yearning—so you slap your life with buttercream frosting and pray it doesn’t melt under the heat of the conversation.

They indulge you when you ask questions about themselves, too. Lottie stays at home—has been dreaming of a child to dote after for ages—but she bakes for shelters and spends time volunteering at their local retirement home. It fits her, you think. Her bubbly attitude, the bright sheen in her pale eyes; a literal princess among mongrels. The patience of a saint, but with a wit sharper than most tongues you’ve seen.

“I work for an intelligence agency,” is all Kate says when the conversation points towards her. It’s stiff—firm enough for you to not question any further. 

“So, what made you interested in being our surrogate?” Lottie cuts in, saving you the grief of backpedaling. 

“Oh,” you chirp. Your explanation gets caught in your throat as a rosy heat settles at the base of your neck. Embarrassment. Evil, vile—you hate begging. Crawling, groveling. “If I’m being honest, really, it was… well, the payment…”

Kate nods in agreement, hands curling around her coffee mug, though the liquid has long since gone cold. “There’s no shame in that. It’s a big favor that we’re asking for, and we have the means to compensate accordingly.” 

She reads you like a book, and despite all your flaws, welcomes you. It comforts you knowing how strictly professional this is—you have no skin in the game. Nothing to hold on to. You’re simply being a good person. Doing a good deed. Helping their dreams come to fruition. In turn, they help you with yours—an equal exchange. 

“So, what made the two of you come to England?” you prompt, leaning back in your seat. “Sorry, it’s just that I’ve noticed the accents. Did you two move here recently?” 

“What, oh no,” Lottie giggles, hand floating in the air, waving as if pushing away the very notion. “Oh no, I don’t think I could ever leave Georgia.” 

“The donor lives here,” Kate explains simply. “Figured it would be easier to coordinate with a surrogate who lived nearby.” 

You nod, but it’s not enough to knock the confusion free from your brain. It’s visible on your face—your question. How you place two and two together; why would you need to be close to the donor? 

Before your mind can wander too far into that hole, Kate interjects. “We like meeting everyone in person. To ensure that it’s done right.” Then, her hands release her mug. “But he’s an individual I’ve worked with several times before. He’s a good man. Someone I trust.” 

“I imagine trust doesn’t come easy for someone in your line of work,” you quip. 

Kate cracks the first real smile you think you’ve seen from her this entire interview. “You’d be right.” 

“Oh, John’s such a great man. He’s been nothin’ short of sweet to us,” Lottie chimes in. As if suddenly remembering something, she begins to rustle through her purse until she successfully fishes out her phone. “We’ve been staying in a rental while we’re here—a beautiful thing—but we had some issues with the sink and cupboards and look! Fixed them right up for us, good as new!” 

She turns the phone towards you, revealing the kitchen and attached dining room that lies in their rental. Scrolling through a few pictures, you spot the before and after of their mini house project, and you try not to turn green with envy. Unhinged cupboards quickly screwed back into place, water damage mopped clean and patched up, good as new—almost every issue that’s been plaguing you in your cottage has come and gone within a blink of an eye for them, all while you’ve struggled to gather the means and the skills to bestow such a fortune like that upon yourself. 

Then, you see it—

—him. 

There, in the back, leaning against the granite countertops, blue jeans sitting on his hips, this donor—this John—wipes his hands off on a tea towel with a tight lipped smile. Thick patches of dark, coarse hair line his arms in hatch marks, thickening towards the swell of his forearms as he dries his thick fingers off with cotton. His head is lowered as if in prayer, crows feet on display, obscuring the color of his eyes, but you see the way his trimmed beard lines his jaw and upper lip, how it blends into the inky locks of his hair. 

He’s a large man—you note the way his iliac crest rests on top of the counter rather than beside or below it, a towering creature with a soft smile that stands out against his broad frame. Swelling biceps, flexing fingers—

“Such a beautiful rental,” you comment before your mind can wander any further. 

The sharp corners of Lottie’s cupid’s bow flattens as she clicks her phone off, lips curling into a near-smirk. “We’re having dinner tomorrow night at our place with John. Just a little get together is all, but we’d love it if you joined. Might be easier to flesh out all the details with everyone together. I promise I’ll cook you up the best chicken pot pie you’ve ever tasted.” 

Something tickles the back of your mind. It unsettles, wiggles, writhes where it shouldn’t. You feel how it crawls around on the inside of your cranium, slices through your brain and prods at the back of your tongue—it’s incessant. It urges you to speak before you can even think of the words. Meeting with donors—having the donors meet together... 

Then your mind thinks of that number. The zeros make your head spin, jumbles it up enough that you don’t even bother to question the circumstance or terms and conditions before you’re nodding. 

“Dinner sounds perfect.”

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[bedupolker]

How are you so good at art and comics and characters but it's not even a professional profession of yours? (can it be that hobbies and skills don't necessarily need to be monitized?)

Thank you! I still feel like I have a lot to learn, haha. I did study animation in college but that's not really my calling, I can't spend 40 (or more!!!) hours a week in front of a computer. As I get older I don't regret it. I'm a little guilty of overworking in certain contexts, but I'm not sacrificing my health or social life for a tiny shot at storyboarding for The Minions 6. (And if I did dedicate myself to that, I almost definitely wouldn't be spending my free time drawing.)

I remember I had some kind of portfolio development class and the professor made a comment telling us to like, stop going to parties and playing video games and just to dedicate ourselves to our art. Maybe that kind of advice to just lock in is helpful for a certain kind of person, but if you're an artist/writer, especially someone who might be young, if you're able, maybe also consider:

Engage with eclectic interests outside of the type of art you want to make. If you want to make an action-adventure comic and your only source of inspiration is Fullmetal Alchemist and Spiderverse, yes those are very good stories and it's understandable they could be a source of inspiration to you, but honestly, most people would probably just go and read/watch Fullmetal Alchemist or Spiderverse. Now if someone wanted to make an action-adventure comic and they had a weird amount of knowledge about technical canyoneering or Korean horror movies or vintage cars or emo-rap music or cubist art or endangered birds endemic to new zealand, now I kind of want to see what that's all about.

Researching the sources of inspiration of art you love is a good jumping off point too. A lot of great stories are more grounded than you'd think, and going out and looking for new things that interest you keeps it from feeling too "incestuous" for lack of a better term.

Try and connect with different kinds of people you wouldn't meet otherwise. Most people are nicer than you think, most people like talking about themselves, and everyone you'll ever meet knows something you don't.

Frankly between social media and living through the covid years, I just think it'd be good for a lot of peoples' mental health to realize there's a world outside of whatever hyperspecific fandom or internet mirocosm or whatever you find yourself falling into.

Try to have a new experience every week. You don't have to blow tons of money and free time to throw into climbing Everest or partying in Barcelona or whatever, just walk home a different way, try volunteering for an organization that you care about, listen to a weird genre of music, hop onto youtube and try some yoga or calisthenics or something. You don't even have to like it, just give it a shot.

Find beauty in the mundane... birds, bugs, alleyways, the light fixture section at Home Depot, it's all there.

Done is better than Perfect

Maybe it's easy for me to say as an artist who has a pretty decent sized following but FR FR don't do just things because you think they'll get popular online!!!!! You don't have to broadcast every single thing that you do. Some art/writing is just for experimentation or self indulgence, that's all good too.

[lvrclerc]

✶ STRANGER, DANGER AND VANILLA SWIRL

summary: the night you met franco colapinto involved stealing, melted ben & jerry's, blunt honesty, and kissing a complete stranger, because you were pretty sure you were never going to see him again. except, by morning, you do see him again, and he looks way more familiar this time around.

F1 MASTERLIST | FC43 MASTERLIST

pairing: franco colapinto x journalist!f!reader wc: 6.5K cw: meet-cute, tooth-rotting fluff, stealing, reader doesn't know anything about f1, like one suggestive joke, slightly ooc franco note: requested here! i think you healed my writer's block with this request actually because it was so much fun to write, and it's been a whileeee since i had fun writing. hope u like it <3

BEING A JOURNALISM major wanting to step into the world of sports implicitly meant that one had to possess few unofficial prerequisites: unwavering neutrality for the times the players you so heavily supported got royally screwed over by the game, a rabid competitive edge for the mere opportunity to write half a column in an outdated magazine because you topped the class, mastering the ability of a poker face when thrown in a den of sexist, castrated cats—not to confuse with lions.

Nowhere on that imaginary list was lying with practiced ease. And yet, as the last student in your year without an internship for the final semester, you’d reached an inevitable conclusion: desperate times called for desperate measures. What harm could one tiny fabrication really do?

Staring at the empty white of your document screen-burning your already hyperventilating computer, the title blinked at you smugly as if it knew better: INNOVATIVE F1 QUESTIONS FOR DRIVERS AND STAFF. See? That one little white lie was already taking you places, as you’d somehow landed an internship at a motorsport-based social media company. 

Your only problem was that you didn’t know a single thing about Formula One, or motorsports, or racing. At all.

The ad popped up as you were wasting away your time on social media, a pathetically common occurrence when procrastinating for your finals. It was a golden opportunity, you weren’t dumb enough to let it slide— they were looking for temporary staff to help cover the Imola race, whatever that was, and you were looking for anything that might convince the administration that your academic year hadn’t been a total joke. Unfortunately, you were dumb enough to believe it could actually work.

They were sending you, along with a small team, to interview drivers and staff alike. Being the intern, and supposedly in training, meaning expandable, you’d been put in charge of coming up with questions—original ones, at that: no ‘What’s your favorite track?’ nonsense, they precised. 

You learned the difference between the Driver’s Championship and the Constructors Championship yesterday. You usually covered hockey, the NHL, a real punch-in-the-face sport. There was no way you could go beyond asking them what shade of tires they were using unless they decided to do a 180° and start racing on ice.

So here you were, in your rented Italian apartment with decaying paint, a squeaky couch, and the muffled chorus of your snoring colleagues. Your laptop screen buzzed diml,y and the void of your thoughts stared back at you as the clock crept dangerously close to one in the morning. Ten sentences, that was the goal: ten measly, coherent, original questions. The cursor blinked at you like it could see right through your sad attempt at powering through your lie. You rubbed your eyes with the back of your hand, your body aching for sleep, but you couldn’t allow yourself the sweet deliverance of unconsciousness until you’d typed something. Tiredness, you told yourself with misplaced pride, was not an option.

However, ice cream was.

Five minutes later, you were half-dressed for crime in an old hoodie three times too big for you, sleep shorts honoring the adjective, and the great fashionability of flip-flops with sports socks, slipping out the front door with the grace of a goblin. The streets were mostly quiet, save for the occasional whir of a moped in the silence, and you could feel the cooling asphalt beneath the plastic sole of your shoes. The flickering fluorescent glow of the 24-hour convenience store, growing more intense the longer you walked, called to you.

You didn’t know what you were looking for exactly, whether it be comfort, an escape from racing cars and your withering GPA, or a much-needed sugar rush, but you were pretty sure it came in pint form.

You entered the store under the obnoxious screech of a bell. It didn’t seem to faze the cashier, who was fully slumped behind the counter, head tipped back in a mouth-breathing slumber. If someone walked in to rob the place, you had a feeling they wouldn’t be met with much resistance apart from the occasional belted note from the ambient europop.

Tempting.

You shuffled further inside, wandering among the empty aisles in search of the frozen section, and physically recoiling when the temperature dropped a certain amount of degrees as you reached it. The freezers hissed and cracked, the strip lights illuminating the stacks of sad frozen meals and desserts. You dragged your feet along the tiles, arms wrapped around yourself, eyeing the glistening line of tubs in front of you. You needed something sweet, vaguely comforting.

Your heart finally settled on the Ben & Jerry’s Half-Baked pint, your favorite and, as fate would have it, the last one left. You smiled to yourself, already imagining the therapy-like comfort of vanilla, brownie chunks and cookie dough it would bring you. You reached out for it.

But so did someone else, and your fingers brushed.

You flinched, instinctively yanking your hand back a little too dramatically. You hadn’t even heard him walk up, he just appeared at your side in a strange warmth, his palm colliding with yours on its way to reenact the world's least romantic meet-cute. 

Your eyes finally snapped to the intruder. He looked just as startled, if more amused, brows lifted in mild apology. He was tall, a good fifteen centimeters above you, and his tousled dark curls were half-hidden by the hood pulled over them, accentuating the drowsiness in the darkness of his eyes. The sleeves of his hoodie were pushed halfway up on his forearms, and a slight redness flushed his cheeks, which might have been from the cold or eventually the awkwardness of this exact moment.

“Sorry,” he said, an accent you couldn’t quite place swirling around the words. “Didn’t see you there. Didn’t expect someone to also be craving ice cream this late, either.” He offered you a lazy grin, and your stomach did something deeply irrational. He was objectively good-looking, for a stranger.

“You’re alright, don’t worry,” you answered, voice light but guarded. You were tired, unarmed, which weren’t ideal conditions to spar with a man, even though you wouldn’t expect someone who looked like he belonged in a mildly expensive cologne ad to come to fists in the middle of a convenience store.

His eyes dropped to the pint of ice cream, still sitting in the open freezer. “Half-Baked, huh?” he asked. “Strong choice.”

“It’s the best one,” you shrugged.

He tilted his head, as if considering. “Eh… debatable.”

Nonchalance thrown aside, and any desire of survival with it, your jaw detached from your body along with your carefulness. Debatable? “I won’t even dignify this slander with an answer.”

“It’s not my favorite,” he answers, looking far too entertained. “But I respect it. Like… top five material.”

“Top five? You’re insane.”

The smile he already wore on his lips widened and—great—now, he was laughing. The disbelieving sound pleasantly echoed around the quiet store and empty aisles, leading you to cross your arms on your chest as if the gesture could protect you from the charming presence of the stranger. 

Somehow, the pint was still sitting between you, dangerously unclaimed.

“Soooo,” you dragged off, cutting the brown-haired man short in his semi-mockery. “By that logic, you wouldn’t mind letting me have it.” 

His head tipped back just slightly, studying the flickering lights as if wisdom might descend on him and save him from this moral dilemma. “No,” he ends up saying after agonizing seconds. “I want that one.”

“You don’t even like it.” You stared at him, incredulous.

“I do,” he countered. “It’s just… not my favorite.”

You groaned,dragging a hand down your face. Frustration rose through you like molten lava, enough to make the frozen rows next to you melt. “Listen,” you start, as calm as you could muster, “I had a shitty day. I’m having an even shittier evening. If you had even an ounce of decency in your body, you’d let me walk out of here with my favorite ice cream and my last shred of will to live.”

You reached for the tub. You weren’t even surprised that his hand followed, yet you had to fight the urge to scream. Now, your fingertips were dueling on the cardboard.

“Big talk about dignity from someone wearing flip-flops with socks,” the stranger retorts, that shit-eating grin growing wider by the minute.

This time, you were actually offended. It was one in the morning, you were getting a subjective necessity, not walking the Met Gala. The fact that he, out of all people, had the nerve to make fashion commentary in his wrinkled basketball shorts and downright ancient sneakers was next-level ridiculous. “Oh, please,” you snapped. “Big talk from someone trying to steal ice cream he doesn’t even believe in.”

“Oh, so we’re believing in ice cream, now?”

You stab your finger in his chest. “This is about morals.”

“Right,” he hums, nodding. “You’re the one trying to emotionally blackmail me with your tragic backstory.”

The daggers you were trying to stare at him with didn’t seem to reach his back nor his smugness. The two of you were still standing in the middle of the aisle, each with a hand on the poor tub of Half Baked. The bright, white lights above you were becoming more overwhelming the longer you spent underneath them.

“So we’re really doing this?” you asked. “Neither of us is backing off?”

The stranger leaned closer, and the slow movement had you pausing at the soft delicateness of his features. The maddening smirk tugging at the corner of his lips sobered you instantly. “You’re admitting defeat?”

You scoffed, inching your grip tighter on the ice cream. “In your dreams, maybe.”

He held your gaze for a long moment, amused and searching, before finally tilting his head with a tired sigh, giving the impression he was oh so generously offering the solution for world peace. “... We could share it.”

You frowned in confusion. He rolled his eyes, gesturing toward the pint with a nod. “There are plastic spoons near the register. We could do split custody— ten bites each, top.”

“There’s literally other ice cream. Like, so much,” you said, gesturing vaguely to the frozen aisles around you. You paused, then added with a pointed look,  “Also, I don’t know you?”

“Well, I’m Franco Colapinto,” he replied with a lopsided grin.

He laughed. It was an easy sound, coming out low and deep from his chest that rumbled more than it echoed. It sent an involuntary flutter up your spine, which you firmly blamed on your lack of sleep and not the stupidly attractive curve of his lips.

The name tickled something in the back of your brain. It was somewhat familiar, even though you couldn’t quite pinpoint in what way. Frankly, you were too tired and too emotionally invested in your current argument to attempt to dig deeper in the drowsiness of your memories. “I’m Y/N Y/L/N,” you said cautiously, unsure of the reason why you were even entertaining him.

His smile widened. “Great. Now we’re not strangers anymore.”

“That’s… not how it works.”

“Sure it is,” Franco nodded, serious. “I know your name. You know mine. We’ve shared an argument, introductions… that’s practically a friendship. What’s an ice cream after that?”

Your eyebrows shot up to high heavens, though your mouth still tugged up at the corner in the semblance of a disbelieving smile. This entire interaction felt like a fever dream, and Franco Colapinto might have been the strangest man you'd ever met, which explained why the two of you now stood side-by-side at the front of the convenience store, facing the soundly snoring clerk, both patting down your respective pockets.

A curse escaped you when you hit the bottom seam of your hoodie pocket and found nothing: no wallter, no leftover coins, not even a crumpled receipt. Nothing. Franco glanced over, two pathetic white plastic spoons in hand, with his brows raised in a silent question.

“Uh…” you started, wincing. “I may, or may not, have… forgotten my wallet. In my apartment.”

One second passed. Another. Before you knew it, Franco was trying his very best, which was to say, not at all, to hide his snorting. He was doing so openly, no longer bothering to attempt to cover his amusement. His shoulders shook with the force of i,t and the only thing you could do was stare at him, dead-eyed.

“Oh my God, good thing we decided to share, huh?” the brown-haired man managed through a laugh. “Just imagine if you were alone in there, broke as hell.”

You threw your very empty hands in the air. “You act like you’re about to save the day!”

“I am,” Franco taunted, a mock heroicness in his voice as he patted his shorts’ pockets with an exaggerated flourish, only for the performance to crumble when his face fell. He patted again, and again. “Oh shit.”

Words couldn’t possibly be put on the satisfaction rising inside you. You crossed your arms, a smugness usually unknown to you dripping from every word. “Don’t say it.”

“I left my wallet in my hotel room,” he said anyway, sheepishly.

You both stood in front of the counter, spoons in hand, and the pint of Ben and Jerry’s still clutched protectively between you. The soft buzz of a fluorescent light filled the awkward silence as you stared each other down, unsure how to proceed.

“Well…,” Franco started eventually, voice dropping low, almost conspiratorial. “He is asleep.”

As if in agreement, the clerk let out a snore, louder than the others.

You turned to him comically slow. The idea, which settled comfortably among your thoughts earlier, came back full force as you waited for him to explain his own thinking process.

Franco shrugged with one shoulder. “We could just— take it? I could always come pack and pay tomorrow.”

“That is literally stealing.”

“You were thinking it too,” he pointed out.

“I was not!”

“You definitely were.”

“I thought about it,” you corrected, “but I never said it out loud, which makes me the moral compass in this situation.”

“You and your morals,” he laughed, only to promptly try to hide with a small cough, throwing a quick look at the clerk.

You stared at him. Condensation was gathering between your fingers, seeping into your skin, and truth be told, your eyelids were growing too heavy for your own good, and a pitifully blank document was still waiting for you in your crumbling rental. You didn’t have enough faith in yourself, nor enough patience, to go back and get your wallet. Frankly, you doubted Franco was any more motivated. ”You’re really gonna come back and pay?” you asked, hesitant.

“Promise,” and the glint behind the depth of his eyes looked sincere enough for you to believe him.

He slipped the pint from your hands, balancing the two spoons in the other, and nudged the door open with his shoulder. The bell above it gave a lazy jingle at the movement, echoing in the stillness around you.

“C’mon,” he called with a wink, casual as anything. “Let’s go be criminals.”

Against all logic, reason and legality, you did. Your steps were slow and sure, forming an unspoken pact in their trajectory.

At least, they would have been if the clerk hadn’t stirred at that exact moment. 

A low rustle could be heard from behind you, followed by a sleepy grunt and the unmistakable sound of someone shifting behind the counter. A groggy mutter in Italian filled the air, low and accusatory. Your Italian was rusty at best, but you were pretty sure it wasn’t anything kind or a wish for a good night. Judging by Franco’s face, he seemed to have caught enough of what the man said to make him pause. He turned to you slowly, lips parted. Your eyes widened in a silent question to which he didn’t answer.

In that moment, frozen in amber, you saw your entire career flash in front of your eyes. Your major, thrown away in flashes of red and blue.

You mouthed one word: Run.

“Wait, are you serious—?”

You were already gone.

You bolted out of the door, Franco hot on your heels, the bell above you clanging in metallic indignation. The hoarse complaints of the clerk faded to background noises, swallowed by the wild slap of your flip-flops against the cobblestones. The wind tore through the loose strands of your hair as street lights passed by in a delirious blur. Franco’s breathless laugh reverberated against stone walls, so reckless and uncontainable it made you laugh too, even as you sprinted around a corner, then another, burying yourself further into a maze of sleepy streets you had no idea how to escape from. Finally, the knotted gravel gave way, spitting you both into the hush of a small, empty park.

You collapsed onto the nearest bench, doubled over, panting and wiping the sweat beading on your forehead. Franco was quick to drop beside you, clutching the pint of Ben and Jerry’s to his chest. “Okay,” he gasped, grinning widely through labored breathing. “I think we’re in the clear.”

You chortled, a deeply unattractive sound of such magnitude it turned into a cough. You buried your face in your hand to try to stifle it, just like  the growing grin thinning your lips. “Oh my god,” you managed to say, strangled with disbelief. “I’m going to get arrested. I’m going to get fired. I’m going to get banned from Italy for stealing.”

“It doesn’t sound like you believe in Half Baked anymore,” Franco teased, leaning back. You elbowed him with a groan.

In the comfortable silence, broken by giggles every now and then, the brown-haired man ended up prying the lid off the ice cream you so valiantly fought for with a triumphant flourish, which you fondly rolled your eyes at. You both stared down the pint, impatient to dive into your prized possession.

Soup.

The only word that could be used for what was once ice cream was soup. A sad, goopy mess of once-frozen chocolate and vanilla now swirled lazily in the container, brownie bits drifting. The heat of your argument, during which you left the freezer door open, along with the sprint across town, had completely melted it.

There was an awkward pause as you stared at the liquid. “Well,” Franco started, “can it be considered as a milkshake?”

You glanced his way and as soon as your eyes met, you couldn’t hope to hold the pretense of seriousness. Another snort escaped you and morphed into a loud, unstoppable laugh that you were sure the neighboring houses could complain about. Franco stared at you, a glimmer of wonder in the dark of his irises, before following suit until you were both wiping at the corners of your eyes, entirely done with the ridiculousness you managed to bury yourselves into.

“Criminal masterminds, truly,” you managed to wheeze out. “We really took that long to make up our minds?”

Franco offered you a spoon between two laughs. “After you, partner in crime.”

You took it, and for a split second your fingers brushed against the others’, making you pause just enough to see his smile twist into something reserved for the depth of the night. You felt a familiar warmth tighten your face, yet tried not to pay it too much mind as you plunged it into the puddle. You took a bite. The taste and consistency were objectively disappointing.

Still, cold sugar was cold sugar, and it was perfect.

You passed the pint back and forth, settling comfortably deeper into the bench, still warm from the remnants of the day, as the quiet of the very first hours of the morning wrapped around you like a blanket shared at a sleepover—something uniquely yours. The adrenaline faded slowly, making way for gentler words and inflections of voice, as well as the stunning realization the stars above you shone a little brighter than they did before.

Topics went and passed easily. You found out Franco Colapinto was an easy man to talk to: he was laid-back and attentive, slipping subtle jokes and flirtations in-between sentences you could almost miss if he wasn’t looking at you the way he did. You would huff at his attempts, but never quite push him away.

You conversed about every insignificant detail of your lives. The horrible state of your rental apartment and your colleague Maggie’s incurable snoring problem as well as the catastrophic, overpriced pizza you ordered on your first night here. Franco went on about his incredibly passionate vendetta against decaf coffee. Along the way, you learned he wasn’t Italian—well, only by his father—and that the interesting swirl of his tongue around words was Argentinian, that his favorite movie was Interstellar. You told him you never watched it. He berated you for half an hour.

In an interesting turn of event, the conversation drifted toward fashion. “Wait,” you interrupted with a mouthful of ice cream, pointing your spoon at him. “You’re not allowed to judge my flip-flops ever again.”

“The whole combo is a crime against fashion,” he answered, without missing a beat. “Even in the dead of the night.”

You rolled your eyes at him for what felt like the hundredth time tonight, yet none of them had contained any animosity. The spoon clinked against the nearly empty tub as you scooped again. “Well, can’t blame me. This night’s been… weird. The whole day, actually.”

Franco’s gaze turned toward you, not quite literally, as his eyes hadn’t left you ever since you sat down. “You said you were having a shitty day earlier.” A simple affirmation, to which you nodded without much thought. It was true. “Why?” he asked.

You hadn’t noticed how close you had physically gotten until your head dropped backward to face the sky, only to meet Franco’s arm replacing the wooden edge of the bench. He had an arm around your seat, you were tucked to his side, and the balm of his presence enveloped you whole. It eased you into confession with a compassionate simplicity.

“Because I’m a fraud,” you admitted, not without the addition of a largely over-dramatic sigh. 

His eyebrows lifted in surprise, but he didn’t interrupt. The inevitable sign that you had to explain the pathetic situation your hubris had gotten you entangled in.

“I… sort of, maybe, eventually bluffed my way into an internship with a motorsports media company,” you explained. The second his lips parted in surprise, embarrassment pooled hot in your chest. It might have been the first time you were ashamed of your actions. “Do you know anything about F1?” you blurted, hoping to get ahead of it.

Franco stared at you for several seconds, facial traits comically deprived of any expression. “Not at all,” he deadpanned. “Apparently, they race cars?”

You debated whether to laugh or groan. He was teasing, and it was working— you chuckled against his shoulder as your head dropped to the side. “Me neither! I didn’t expect to do something useful during this internship, so I thought one little lie couldn’t hurt!” you exclaimed. “Now they have me interviewing drivers and staff with ‘innovative’ questions before the race. Innovative. The only team I knew of was Alpine because I liked the blue and pink combo. I thought they were winning the championship!”

Franco choked mid ice cream bite, halfway through a laugh.

“And apparently they’re swapping drivers left and right?” you pressed on, waving your hands around. “How does swapping drivers midseason make sense? It can’t be efficient. It sounds more like a swinger scandal than a strategy!”

The longer you spiraled, the more Franco’s features disappeared in the dark of his hoodie, the shoulder you were lying on shaking in what looked suspiciously like a laugh. When he finally emerged at the end of your rant, he threw his head back, no longer concealing his giggling. He finally calmed under the stern look you gave him.

“Well,” he said, voice hoarse and warm, “maybe don’t say all that to their faces.”

“I’m not going to!” you scoffed. “I’m already one imaginary question away from losing my job and my opportunity at graduation and humiliating myself on the paddock.”

The arm Franco had around the bench was now resting on your shoulders, pulling you further—if discreetly—closer to him. “What type of questions did you have in mind?”

You listed out the sad sentences you’d typed and deleted in your document, and the brown-haired man next to you could only answer with a few snickers here and there through every few words. You shot him a raised eyebrow, daring him to do better, and that was all he needed: your voices echoed across the empty park as the night stretched thin and silver around you. He navigated you through the strange language of Formula One with ease, translating jargon you’d only ever skimmed past into something that made sense. Focus on their personality, make it human, he insisted. You reminded him that you didn’t even know most of their names.

Still, it spiraled— like it often did with him, you’d grown to notice. From brainstorming about questions on the ethics of DRS to what races they put on to hype themselves up, you found yourselves answering the questions instead of directing them. The topic of who would survive the longest in a zombie apocalypse came up, and your restricted knowledge of the sport only made the conversation more ridiculous by the minute. You threw out the name of George Russell. Franco had tears of laughter in his eyes.

“You know a lot for someone who supposedly doesn’t know anything about F1,” you noted

He gave you a one-shouldered shrug, accompanied by a smile. “Just picked stuff up. My entourage is really into motorsports.” Then, as if confessing a secret, he leaned into your space, his voice dropping levels to lower down to a whisper. “And I enjoy helping pretty girls.”

Your laugh came out in a breath at the comment, yet something in the air had inevitably shifted—slightly, but there nonetheless. The quiet amusement between you faded into silence, which only left the distant hum of the waking city and the occasional buzz of a street lamp above the park as a soundtrack. The ice cream pint was empty. The sky was lazily painting itself pastel.

Franco was close, so much you could feel the heat of his breath sweeping over your lips, the intoxicating depth of his perfume engulfing you whole. Your knees were brushing hesitantly against each other, your body pressed to his side like gravity kept inexplicably pulling you in, deciding what you wanted before your mind could catch up with the situation. The shadows of the rising light painted his face a sharp golden. His eyes were on yours. They never left.

Were you really about to kiss a man you had known for no more than five hours? You weren’t sure, but Franco didn’t seem to be pulling away. Neither were you.

“¿Vas a besarme?” he murmured, barely above a whisper, his pupils dilated and trained on the curve of your mouth.

You didn’t know what it meant and truthfully, you couldn’t care less. You didn’t want to ruin whatever it was with overthinking, and logic had been left in aisle seven the second you accepted to share that damned ice cream. All you could really tell was that your heart beat loud in your chest, from nerves and anticipation alike, and he was just there. Waiting.

Screw it.

You pulled him in.

It was heated, reckless, and you abandoned yourself into it, leaving caution thrown to the wind. His lips met yours halfway between a laugh and sigh and you swore you’d felt him smirking against your lips before you opened your mouth, giving him the access you both hopelessly desired. Franco kissed the way he talked: smooth, disarming, anticipating your every move with a hand on the dip of your waist and guessing what you liked, gauging your reactions by swallowing every exhale he could tease out of you. He tasted like vanilla, like bad decisions, like everything you could have possibly wanted in the span of a night. Your hands curled in the fabric of his hoodie, his fingers brushed along your jaw, and for a brief, dizzying second, it felt like the spark of something unexpected.

But when you finally pulled away, breathless and flushed, the first ray of sunlight brushed your features at the same spot his fingers caressed.

“I… We should go,” you managed to breathe out.

He nodded, the shadow of a smile thinning the pink of his lips. The silken chill of dawn crept through your hoodie as you both stood up, exchanging awkward sentences you barely registered amidst the buzz of your brain. Franco kissed your cheek, uncharacteristically gentle. “See you soon.”

You grinned because it was the polite thing to do, not because you believed him. No one ever really meant that. See you soon was only the prettier version of a goodbye, which is where you were leaving him. Overwhelmingly bittersweet, contrasting with the empty ice cream tub in his hand.

You walked back to your crumbling Italian apartment, trying not to turn around—the scent of his perfume on the hood of your sweater and the lingering taste of him on your lips made the task remarkably more difficult than you thought it would be. The air seemed to smell like vanilla swirl. A smile stuck to your face like melted chocolate.

By the time your fingers hit the keyboard, the questions you both brainstormed spilled easily onto the page along with the few terms and techniques Franco had clarified for you. You didn’t even reread them, you just wrote until the sun was fully filtering through the blinds and your colleagues had gotten up to make coffee. Maggie asked you where you went—apparently, your little escapade had woken her up as you left. You didn’t tell her about Franco, nor did you tell any of them.

After all, you didn’t expect to see him again.

Which is why you wholeheartedly believed he was a hallucination when you bumped into him on the paddock later that afternoon.

The day had been a confusing series of events. Your all-nighter, no matter how pleasant, had taken a lot of energy out of you, and was the reason you spent your morning alternating between getting ready and ten-minute naps, much to the team’s dismay. Even in the burning afternoon sun hovering above the Imola track’s paddock, you weren’t quite awake enough, and carbureted solely on your third can of Redbull—the iron grip you had on it threatened to split the metal in half.

They had sent you and Maggie, your unofficial camera woman, in search of the Mercedes hospitality to find the infamous George Russell that wouldn’t survive a zombie apocalypse according to Franco. The memory took your attention off your surroundings for a single second, pulling a chuckle out of you.

The impact jolted through your shoulder, nearly knocking you off balance.

You stumbled back a step, hands fumbling to protect the expensive media badge swinging from your lanyard. The paddock was alive with voices, soon-to-be rolling wheels—and you were about to become very acquainted with its asphalt.

The same hands that tripped you were the ones that caught you. You were about to curse out whoever had the audacity of being so inconsiderate, but stopped as the words were about to leave your mouth. “Careful there, partner in crime,” came an amused voice, with an overly familiar vocal timbre.

Your gaze shot up.

The brown curls, hair damp with heat, were the first thing to come out of the tired blur hindering your vision. Then was the infuriating smirk you had grown accustomed with, only to make way for the delicate traits of his eyes. The pink and blue racing suit was last, with white letters and sponsors across his chest. Alpine.

Your stomach dropped. “... Franco?” You were not sure if you were asking for him or accusing him.

He helped you up, detaching you from the grip of his arms only to face you with a proud smile. One you were itching to slap off his face. “Told you I’d see you soon,” he commented. Soon was an understatement—you had kissed him mere hours ago.

“You— You told me you didn’t know anything about F1.”

Franco hummed in agreement.

“You’re an F1 driver. For Alpine.”

“Maybe.”

Your jaw slackened. Franco Colapinto’s name had sounded familiar for very good reasons that were included in the hundreds of articles you went through, you realized, along with the mortifying understanding that you had openly called his team’s strategy a swinger scandal. Still, the words that left your mouth weren’t apologetic, and not even close to a stutter.

Instead, you stabbed a finger in his chest. “You lied to me!”

Franco arched an eyebrow, his gaze going from the nail you had buried in the softness of his suit to your offended expression. “Ah, I thought you wouldn’t be the one telling me off about one little omission.”

The callback to your late-night admission caused heat to flare up your cheeks, which seemed to greatly please him. He continued, his smug smile not faltering a tiny bit. “So… are you going to interview me here or…?”

“No,” you answered, words sharp and eyes narrowed. “We’re actually here for George Russell, so if you’ll exc—”

“Ohhh,” Franco cut in. “The zombie apocalypse non-survivor. That George Russell.”

You opened your mouth—ready to deny, deflect, eventually flee from the most delirious situation known to mankind—but Maggie appeared beside you, making her presence known with an obnoxious cough and eyes darting between you and Franco. “I’m sorry to interrupt whatever that is,” she starts, “but do you guys know each other?”

“No,” you blurted.

“Yes,” Franco said at the same time.

Maggie narrowed her eyes, flicking from the F1 driver to you. “Ooookay, because if you did it would be amazing on camera, with this whole…,” she made a vague hand gesture, “chemistry and all.”

“There’s no chemistry,” you insisted, silently pleading with her.

“There isn’t? I thought we had at least some, after everything,” Franco countered, not even bothering to hide his glee.

And before you could try to snark back with something, anything, that could save this interaction from the clout-chasing endeavors of your colleagues, Maggie was already pulling her phone out from her back pocket. “That’s great! I’ll tell the team we’re bumping Russell up,” she chirped, already sliding away and ordering the second half of your group around.

You slowly turned back to Franco, mouth agape in disbelief. The silence between you was thick, filled with lingering memories and entirely too proud on his end. His arms were crossed on his chest, and his cheeks tinted a light shade of pink.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” you muttered, running a hand through your hair.

Feigning ignorance, Franco threw a grin your way. “Come on. If your first interview is with me, it’ll be easier. We already practiced, remember?”

He seemed to revel in your squirming. You remembered alright. You recalled the warmth of his arm around your shoulders, the roughness of his hands threading through your hair, and the icy aftertaste his lips left on yours that no coffee, as strong as you could possibly make it, could wipe out. It was all too vivid in your mind, despite the drowsiness. It lingered, stubborn, just like him.

Franco didn’t need to be made aware of that, he already looked too pleased with himself. “Yeah, when you lied about not knowing anything about motorsports.”

“And you lied about knowing F1 for your internship,” he fired back. “It feels like fate, doesn’t it?”

You let out a slow, dramatic sigh, pinching your nose bridge. “It feels like an addition to my headache.”

He studied you. There was a difference in the light of day, switching perspectives on what happened when the blanket of nighttime wrapped around people, but his eyes seemed to strip off all those artifices bare. The chatter around you narrowed down to white noise as he took a step forward, shrinking the comfortable gap you had installed.

“Interview me,” Franco breathed, eyes boring into yours, “and I’ll make it up to you for messing with your schedule, and for our questionable first meeting.”

You scoffed at him, but taking a step back was a thought too far removed from you. You basked in the heated air, whether it be from the sun or the man in front of you, much to your own incomprehension. “And how would you make it up to me, Franco?”

Franco’s lips curved slow and deliberate. “With a date.”

“A date?” Your heart paused, catching up with his words before your brain could.

“Yeah. A real one, this time. No heist.” Obviously, that was too normal a sentence for him, because he added almost immediately, “unless you’re into that. Then there will be a heist. Again.”

You punched his shoulder, albeit with not much conviction behind it, which made him chuckle, the sound pooling like liquid sunlight on your skin.

A date. Franco Colapinto was definitely the strangest, and boldest, man you had ever met in your entire life. You would be lying to yourself if you even attempted to deny the fluttering of your chest when the idea crossed your mind. “No stealing,” you affirmed, steadier than you expected yourself to be.

A visible weight seemed to have been taken off his shoulders as he answered. “Promise,” and the glint behind his eyes had a whole other shade, this time around.

Just as you were about to respond—with what, you didn’t know yet—Maggie’s voice cut through the bubble Franco and you had carefully stepped in. All of a sudden, the overwhelming presence of other journalists, staff members, commentators and fans were noticeable enough to break the moment you both became engulfed in.

“You two ready to set up the interview?”

Franco didn’t move. He glanced in your direction, waiting.

Taking a chance on a man you had met in the dead of the night over stolen ice cream and fake identities was a dubious decision, at best. Kissing that same stranger on a park bench like a hormonal teenager, even more so. Every instinct, every rational thought was screaming in bright, flashing red to turn around from this uncharted territory.

And yet—

“Yeah, we’re ready. Just… give us a second.”

Franco flashed you a smile, shameless, just as bright as the midday sun washing over you, and somehow, impossibly, it made your heart ache. Not from regret, but from the terrifying thrill of wanting more of it.

It was probably a terrible idea, but so were all the ones that led you here. Look how far they’d gotten you.

What was one more?

©LVRCLERC 2025 ━ do not copy, steal, post somewhere else or translate my work without my permission.

[krosiefics]

would you like that? • bang chan

M D N I 18+

WC: 1.4k

Summary: Bang Chan is having too much fun teasing Stays on Bubble while he’s supposed to be working, he suddenly starts teasing you as well and that escalates to well…

A/N: lmfao I honestly called us (stays) out for writing shit on the internet but I like to think of it as ‘creative writing’ Also this isn’t proof read so, sorry abt any typos or mistakes :P

Tags: afab!reader, softdom!bangchan, piv, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it), grinding, overstimulation, ass grabbing(?)-not ass play), teasing, pet names (babe, baby, good girl, pretty, etc), breeding kink, I’m prob forgetting some so sorry

Chan giggled at his phone as he saw the flow of flustered responses to his latest Bubble message. “You’re teasing them too much.” You shake your head, peeking over his shoulder reading all of Stay’s responses. “No I'm not.” He scoffs, “They’re far worse than you could ever imagine.” It’s true and you know it, Stay’s write all sorts of things about the members online.

(a/n ;-;)

As one of Stray Kids’ managers, your job is to handle their social and music media, so you’ve seen things…things you probably shouldn’t have. Chan knows this and so he uses all these teases towards Stay as an advantage. “Let’s see, what should I say next?” Chan ponders to himself as you sit down on the sofa that sat behind his desk, you open your computer and as you’re about to start working on a new draft a loud giggle startles you.

Chan is curled up in his chair, kicking his feet giddily while looking at his phone. Growing annoyed at the man who is supposed to be working with you on new lyric drafts, you get up from your spot and snatch his phone gently from his hands. “Hey!” Chan pouts as you read the screen. Your face immediately heats up as you read the highly suggestive comment he left on someone’s post about pudding. “Chan, that's highly inappropriate!”

Chan was going to snap back but then noticed your face’s sudden change of color and he smirked. “Would you like that?” He teased, his voice laced with something you couldn’t quite tell. It’s not abnormal for you two to playfully tease or flirt with each other, it helps ease the awkward moments of silence that sometimes fall between you. But this…this was different, it was as if he was testing you, to see if you’d give in to all of your playful remarks you’ve made over the past few years of knowing each other.

“What?” You breathe out shakily. Chan licks his lips, his eyes flickering down to your soft plump lips. Oh what he would do to feel them against his. Chan knows he shouldn’t think like this, especially since you’re one of his managers…yet he still craved you, there was just something about you. Chan’s hands crept up the sides of your legs, gripping at your hips and tugging you closer to him.

Due to the sudden tug, you almost topple on top of him, you hold yourself above his head on the headrest of his chair. Your face felt so hot, you could feel your heart pounding in your chest, the way your stomach fluttered, the way your breathing became hitched…all because of this man’s sudden change of teasing. “I’m not kidding.” Chan sighs, leaning his face into your neck. You could feel his breath fanning across your skin, it sent chills down your spine.

The sudden touch of his lips to your skin instantly made you jolt, but he held you in your place not wanting to let go of this moment. “Please.” Chan whispered as he continued to pepper your neck with wet kisses.

You didn’t know what was happening anymore, it all went so quick. His teeth grazed over your collarbone and you gasped in response, your hands flying to his hair. Now with the loss of support from the headrest, Chan easily sits you in his lap, having you straddle his lap. Your breathing fastens as you feel him nibble at your skin, biting your lip not to let any sounds come out.

Chan’s hands snake around towards your ass and grab it, massaging the flesh. You let out an accidental moan at his action, you bury your face into his neck out of embarrassment. “It’s okay baby, it’s just us here right now, it's too late for anyone else to be here. So you can be as loud as you want, yeah.” Chan starts leaving kisses on the top of your head.

You whimper at his noises and he chuckles, as he adjusts his seating position you feel something hard poke at you. You pull away from his neck to look down at what it was, your face turns even redder. The outline of his hardened cock bulging from his jeans.

Your mind filled with the possible outcomes on what could happen if you stop this or if you let this continue. There were too many risks, but so many benefits. You wanted the man underneath you, you always have. Chan’s overall personality is what attracted you to him initially, but the more spent time with him the more you realized that this guy is insanely hot, handsome, talented, caring, and a billion other positive things. You knew you couldn’t have him though, it was wrong.

But right now, you didn’t care. You didn’t care how wrong this was. You let your lust and desire take over you.

You experimentally rolled your hips against his, Chan responded with a low groan, his grip on your hips tightening. “Fuck that feel good babe, don’t stop.” And you didn’t. You rubbed against him until his breathing was fast like yours, his eyes screwed shut from the pleasure, and his face red and hot. Then you stopped.

Chan whined softly, his eyes fluttered open as he stared up at you. You carefully removed yourself from his lap. “Wait.” Chan simpered, lifting his body to get up after you. You simply placed a hand on his chest to keep him seated there. You walked over to the door and locked it, even though there shouldn’t be anyone here at this hour, it still didn’t hurt to be careful. Chan was about to beg you to stay when he saw you walking away, but he stopped as soon as he saw you lock the door, excitement flooding through his body.

“One time.” You pointed with your finger as if to make a statement, “This is only happening one time.” You quickly slide your shorts and underwear off which reveal a wet patch on the pantie liner from your arousal. Chan stared at you in awe as he saw your glistening cunt, he was quick to follow suit in taking off his jeans and sliding his boxers down as well.

You swing your leg over his lap sitting hovering above his hard cock. “Pretty girl I’ve gotta stretch you out first or it’ll hurt.”

“You’re not that big Bang.” You poke, it was a lie he was big, not super massive but definitely above average to the point where it probably might burn.

You grab his cock which makes the messy haired boy hiss, aligning up to your entrance before sinking on to it. It did burn, but it was tolerable, you just focused on the fact that it’ll feel better soon. To distract you from the pain Chan started rubbing soothing circles on your hips with his thumbs, he shushed as you started moving your hips in circles.

“Oh fuck.” Chan moaned after you finally adjusted, your hips letting up before smacking back down. “I’m gonna fill this pussy up so much right baby. You’re gonna be a good girl and let me fill you up.” You throw your head back as Chan helps you with lifting your hips. You hum, nonsensically agreeing to whatever it is that Chan wants at that moment.

“Yeah, you’ll fill me up so good.” You moan.

Chan suddenly starts forcefully thrusting up into you, directly hitting your g-spot. “Oh fuck!” You almost scream, you quickly catch yourself by biting down onto Chan’s shoulder. He groaned as your teeth sunk into his skin, but he wasn’t complaining, cause now he’s gonna have a mark that reminds him of right now.

“C’mon babe, I’m almost there…shit,” Chan pushed your hips down as he rutted into your leaking cunt. You held onto him as the feeling of that familiar knot in your stomach started tightening, “Me too.” You shut your eyes as you allowed your orgasm to come putting down over you, you slumped against Chan’s chest as he continued plummeting into you.

You cried at the overstimulation, “I know baby, I’m sorry- I’m cumming.” Chan buried his face in your neck as he spilt inside of you.

The warmth of him filling up your insides. Chan carefully pulled out and cleaned you up with the small box of tissues that was at the corner of his desk. . And as if nothing, the two of you both went back to working on the lyrics. Occasionally sparing lustful glances at one another. Chan realized he’s not gonna be able to tease Stay again without thinking of you.

[lucydixon]

10 years of regret

Masterlist 𐴱 Taglist 𐴱 Reading List 𐴱 Navigation A/N: This is the Second part of my Breaking the Rules of attraction miniseries. Other parts: 1 𐴱 2 𐴱 3 𐴱 4 𐴱 5 Series Masterlist

Summary: Erik just about has a heart attack when Bobby casually lets it slip that he'd seen you in town that afternoon. He's left reeling, hit with ten years of regret, and desperate to see you again.

“Oh! I almost forgot.” Bobby turned to Erik halfway through dinner, his words muffled by the food he was still chewing, “I saw your friend from school today.” 

“My friend from school?” His brows pulled together in confusion. He didn’t talk to anyone from high school at that point, mainly because he hadn’t had friends. 

Except for you. 

“Who?” His voice was quiet when he asked. He could feel his heart fluttering against his ribcage, beating increasingly quicker as memories of you flashed through his mind. 

“That girl,” the boy looked thoughtful for a moment, “I don’t remember her name, but she used to come over all the time. You know the one-” 

“Where?” Erik cut him off, pretty sure his heart had stopped beating altogether. “Where did you see her?” 

Everyone at the table turned to look at him, a little surprised by how shaken up he looked. 

They’d all wondered what had happened between the two of you. 

Erik had always refused to talk about it. All they knew was that you’d just stopped coming around one day, and that they’d watched him mope for the better half of a year afterwards. 

“Uh, at the library,” Bobby was still a little young when all this had gone down, so it was surprising that he’d recognized you at all. 

“Did you talk to her? What was she doing?” he couldn’t stop the questions spewing out of his mouth in a nervous ramble. “Was she wearing a ring? Did you see?” 

“I just saw her.” Bobby leaned away from his older brother, unsure why he was getting so worked up over this. “She was sitting at the computers with a kid.” 

“A kid?” Erik felt the blood drain out of his face. “Was it hers?”

“I don’t know-” 

“Did it look like her?” He asked, unable to hide the creak in his voice, “How old was it?” 

“They had different hair colours,” Bobby shrugged .“He looked like he was ten or eleven.”

“Oh my god,” Julia leaned forward in her seat, clocking the panicked look on Erik’s face. “Bobby, did he look like Erik?”  

Everyone held their breath while Bobby tried to think back. 

“I don’t know, I didn’t look that hard.” He frowned finally, “Why?” 

“You don’t think…” she trailed off. 

“Erik Campbell!” their mother gasped, looking aghast, “Did you get that girl pregnant and send her away?” 

“What?” He groaned, scrubbing his hands over his face. “No! Not unless she just didn’t tell me, but I really don’t think she’d do that.” 

“And I didn’t send her away!” He added. 

The words rattled in the back of his throat, and for a second, they all thought he was going to start crying. 

Instead, he pushed his chair back and went downstairs. 

Erik paced the length of his bedroom, trying not to freak out. 

You were back in town. 

With a kid, who just so happened to be old enough to have been conceived right before the two of you had parted ways. 

He tried not to jump the gun. 

It might not be your kid. 

Maybe you’re babysitting or something. 

Maybe it wasn’t even you in the first place. 

Bobby could have been wrong. He’d just been a kid last he’d seen you. It wasn’t far-fetched to assume he’d been mistaken. 

All he knew for sure was that he needed to find you. 

Somehow, he’d managed to refrain all this time from looking you up on the internet. It wasn’t worth the headache, and he was terrified that he’d find your social media profiles and see pictures of you in a wedding dress. He couldn’t take the heartache, but now, he had no choice. 

He held his breath when he clicked on the link to your Instagram page, sitting on the edge of his mattress. The same mattress you’d sat in, studying with him late into the night. 

No wedding dress. 

He exhaled shakily, sick with relief. 

No kid either. 

Some people didn’t post their children on the internet, though.

He felt like a total creep as he snooped through your Instagram, looking for any clues on where he could find you, but came up empty. 

He conceded to the fact that the only way he was going to get a hold of you was to reach out online, which felt so impersonal and disingenuous, and he just knew that you would hate it. 

It wouldn’t be fair of him. 

Still, he stayed up all night typing, then re-typing a message, drafted in the notes app on his phone as if he was going to send it. 

He didn’t. 

For the next week, he spent just about every day at work staring out the window, wondering if you’d walk by. 

He felt pathetic. 

He shouldn’t have been this hung up on his high school almost-girlfriend. Especially after ten years. 

He’d been trying to convince himself that it was because he might have a kid out there. If he did, then maybe, just maybe, it was some kind of cosmic connection that kept him stuck on you all this time.  

He’d tried dating over the years and always found a reason to break it off early on, before even giving it a proper chance. 

His sex life had been a revolving door of drunken hookups and dating apps just to get his rocks off and let out some of the pent-up frustration deep inside him. 

If he hadn’t been good enough for you then, he sure as hell wouldn’t be at this point in his life either. 

Sure, he had a stable job at the tattoo parlour that paid well enough. But, he still lived with his parents, sleeping in the same bed that the two of you used to fool around in when you were teenagers. 

He certainly wasn’t good enough to raise a kid. 

But then he thought about how you’d done all the hard parts alone and felt like an even bigger piece of shit. He would’ve helped if only he’d known. 

Erik sighed tiredly and forced himself to take a lunch break in between clients. 

He walked over to the coffee shop on the corner with his hands shoved deep in his pockets while ‘Erik’s sad playlist’ blared through his headphones. 

He wasn’t paying attention and almost walked right into the person leaving the shop. 

In a shitty mood, he looked over angrily to snap at whoever it had been, but found himself staring into your eyes. 

“Shit.” 

Part 3

Dividers made by @saradika-graphics GIF By @alex-browning

[reasonsforhope]

Double dose of articles about how crime is actually plummeting

From the UK:

"Seventy-eight per cent of people in England and Wales think that crime has gone up in the last few years, according to the latest survey. But the data on actual crime shows the exact opposite.

As of 2024, violence, burglary and car crime have been declining for 30 years and by close to 90%, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) – our best indicator of true crime levels. Unlike police data, the CSEW is not subject to variations in reporting and recording.

The drop in violence includes domestic violence and other violence against women. Anti-social behaviour has similarly declined. While increased fraud and computer misuse now make up half of crime, this mainly reflects how far the rates of other crimes have fallen.

All high-income countries have experienced similar trends, and there is scientific consensus that the decline in crime is a real phenomenon.

The perception gap

So why is there such a gulf between public perception and the reality of crime trends? A regular YouGov poll asks respondents for their top three concerns from a broad set of issues. Concern about crime went from a low in 2016 (when people were more concerned with Brexit), quadrupled by 2019 and plummeted during the pandemic when people had other worries. But in the last year, the public’s concern about crime has risen again.

There are many possible explanations for this, of which the first is poor information. A study published in 1998 found that “people who watch a lot of television or who read a lot of newspapers will be exposed to a steady diet of crime stories” that does not reflect official statistics.

The old news media adage “if it bleeds, it leads” reflects how violent news stories, including crime increases and serious crimes, capture public attention. Knife crime grabs headlines in the UK, but our shock at individual incidents is testament to their rarity and our relative success in controlling violence – many gun crimes do not make the news in the US.

Most recent terrorist attacks in the UK have featured knives (plus a thwarted Liverpool bomber), but there is little discussion of how this indicates that measures to restrict guns and bomb-making resources are effective."

-via The Conversation, May 13, 2024

And the United States:

"[The United States experienced a spike in crime rates in 2020, during the pandemic.] But in 2023, crime in America looked very different.

"At some point in 2022 — at the end of 2022 or through 2023 — there was just a tipping point where violence started to fall and it just continued to fall," said Jeff Asher, a crime analyst and co-founder of AH Datalytics.

In cities big and small, from both coasts, violence has dropped.

"The national picture shows that murder is falling. We have data from over 200 cities showing a 12.2% decline ... in 2023 relative to 2022," Asher said, citing his own analysis of public data. He found instances of rape, robbery and aggravated assault were all down too.

Yet when you ask people about crime in the country, the perception is it's getting a lot worse.

A Gallup poll released in November found 77% of Americans believed there was more crime in the country than the year before. And 63% felt there was either a "very" or "extremely" serious crime problem — the highest in the poll's history going back to 2000.

So what's going on?

What the cities are seeing

What you see depends a lot on what you're looking at, according to Asher.

"There's never been a news story that said, 'There were no robberies yesterday, nobody really shoplifted at Walgreens,'" he said.

"Especially with murder, there's no doubt that it is falling at [a] really fast pace right now. And the only way that I find to discuss it with people is to talk about what the data says." ...

For cities like San Francisco, Baltimore and Minneapolis, there may be different factors at play [in crime declining]. And in some instances, it comes as the number of police officers declines too.

Baltimore police are chronically short of their recruitment goal, and as of last September had more than 750 vacant positions, according to a state audit report...

In Minneapolis, police staffing has plummeted. According to the Star Tribune, there are about 560 active officers — down from nearly 900 in 2019. Mannix said the 2020 police killing of George Floyd resulted in an unprecedented exodus from the department...

In Minneapolis, the city is putting more financial resources into nontraditional policing initiatives. The Department of Neighborhood Safety, which addresses violence through a public health lens, received $22 million in the 2024 budget."

-via NPR, February 12, 2024

[couldeatthatgirlforlunch]

Please can we have more Yan justice league?

Maybe the reader has a boyfriend in the military so she doesn't see him much and when he comes back to visit, the go on a fancy date before they crash it?

It would make it even better if they reacted to the boyfriend about to propose to her!

A Day in Life: Heartbreaks

Synopsis: A day in your life where your yanderes find a secret of yours and tell you another one.

Pairing: Yandere!Justice League X Assistant!Gn!Reader; Modern!40s!Bucky Barnes X Reader

Tw: Bucky you’re one of my fav characters from Marvel, I'm so sorry I did u dirty😭; Heavy mentions of cheating and NO forgiving; Stalking; English isn’t my 1st language.

Word count: 1k

Requested? Duh.

Extra notes: I should be studying instead of writing this. Also omg I got so many requests in just a few hours, thank you very much!! I'm writing them all!!

General masterlist | A Day in Life - Series masterlist

Since most of your days became filled with stress and anxiety, you started appreciating even more moments where you could just forget all your problems, from small ones — like, lack of motivation to go to the gym, bad hair days and an ingredient you forgot at your fridge and became rotten—, and big, out of your control ones — like seven superheroes, who you see almost everyday, stalking you.

Your boyfriend getting back was one of the best dic(k)strations.

Bucky was a sergeant, he spent weeks, even months, away from you on missions. It was hard, but you were both busy people, so your mind was usually too stimulated to think about boy problems only all day, most adults were, and you believed the hard work would be worth it one day. The future was hopefully bright.

The League never mentioned him. Actually, some of them implied more than once that they thought you were available, so they probably didn't know about your relationship. You didn't use much social media and your boyfriend got especially busy this year, so it made sense.

He paid for you to get your nails done earlier and took you to a nice restaurant. After that, Bucky took you for a walk around the city, lively and beautiful even at night, and stopped at the park where your first date happened. Everything was fine, until he got on his knees. Suddenly, seven, mostly colorful, figures descended upon you from out of nowhere, screaming.

— (Y/N)! YOU CAN'T MARRY HIM! — Flash’s voice startled you, confirming your suspicions to who the group was.

You growled.

— SERIOUSLY? LEAVE ME ALONE! IT'S MY DAY OFF! — Bucky, who had swiftly gotten up with his fast reflexes as soon as the heroes charged, blinked at the sight. He looked between you all.

— Doll? What’s this? — You looked apologetic at him.

— Sorry, Bucky. Since I got my job, my bosses got… Protective over me… — You didn't want him to get hurt. Bucky and his friends had a great sense of justice and hated bullies. He would surely want to do something if he knew the true extent of things. You also didn't want to ruin the vision he had of his idols.

Since their obsessive behavior started, you just counted your lucky stars that they would just get tired of you one day or wouldn't sabotage your relationships. They seemed fine with you having friends, but dating was different.

You turned to the League.

— Go! — They shook their heads.

— You can't trust this bastard, darling. We have proof of his betrayal to you. — You looked at Wonder Woman skeptically and crossed your arms. Bucky gulped.

— Oh, really? How so? — You raised an eyebrow.

Batman fiddled with his wrist computer, a second later, a protection was shown and different pictures and videos of your man talking and being very intimate with someone very familiar to you appeared. Your stomach churned and your heart ached.

— This is fake! Doll, you have to believe me! — Bucky cried out and got in front of you, holding your shoulders, trying to cover your vision from the images. You took a step back and kept looking at the images.

The League had more than enough means necessary to fake all of this, but you knew Natasha was Bucky’s ex, and they were still friends and coworkers, even with their intense heartbreak. You sometimes got insecure and worried since they spent so much time together, but he always told you you had nothing to worry about…

You gulped.

The League was all glaring at his back while he shouted a hundred words per minute, desperately trying to convince you he was telling the truth.

Superman growled and walked forward until he grabbed Bucky by his shoulders and pulled him away from you.

— Stay away from them, you asshole. (Y/N), I would never do that to you. — You ignored Green Lantern's words, like you were doing since the pacifier incident. You knew he was getting desperate and that made you specially scared, but at least he gave you some distance.

— Not now. — Batman took a step forward. — A few hours ago, we discovered your relationship. For security reasons, we searched, and found these pictures and conversations from his second social accounts, that he uses to commit his cheating.

— He didn't try to hide much, he thought he wouldn't get caught. — Flash stated.

— I-I need more proof… These could be old… — Your first words spoken made Bucky shut up. Mind scrambling for something.

— Let the Lasso of Truth speak for him. — In a second, the Lasso was thrown around Bucky's torso and he was squirming. — Speak, you worthless mortal! — Wonder Woman ordered.

Bucky was able to struggle for a few seconds, before he blurted out.

— It's truth! It's truth! I told her we broke up and started dating her again! I thought I could have you both at the same time!

You gasped. Your hand shot to your chest.

Flash was on your side in a second, trying to hug and comfort you, but you pushed him away. You started crying from heartbreak and anger.

— HOW COULD YOU?! — You glared at him and pointed at his face.

— Doll… I swear I love you both. But I'm also narcissistic, insecure and look down on women. — The Lasso was really doing its job. You laughed humorlessly.

You had nothing to say anymore. No reason to stay. You took advantage of his tied arms and got close, punched his nose, and stomped away.

The League contemplated going after you and trying to bring you comfort, but Batman and Martian Manhunter decided to just let Bucky go (after intimidating him so as to not get close to you again) and follow you discreetly, watching you from the shadows, intervening only if necessary.

Like, comment and reblog 🥰

Taglist:

@wandalfnation

[sakurapandadreams]

PLACEMENTS THAT MAKES ONE FEEL LEFT OUT

Please take all of these predictions with a grain of salt I'm not a professional astrologer.

FOR ASTRO POSTS HERE IS MY MASTERLIST

This is a new series of post I'm planning on continuing

This post consists all the placements that makes or causes someone to feel left out with in a place or a group or from people.

If you have some or any of these placements rest assured these placements doesn't mean you won't find any friends at all.

🖇 Mercury or Moon in Aquarius

Natives with these placements have trouble sharing their thoughts with others as they feel it doesn't align with their peers. Which is a big reason why these people rarely relate with anyone. In this world where people live by socializing they build their small world at home on their computers or phones through social media.

🖇 Capricorn Moon

These natives grow up the hard way, they mature at a young age. Growing up they can realize how people only make relations if it benefits them. However they disfavor this very idea, there more serious and want people to take their friendships seriously [which many unfortunately don't].

🖇 Cancer Rising

They don't feel left out everywhere but in certain groups yes. Many may get along with people elder to them as they find comfort in sharing their ideas with them. People with this placement even if their in a trio, can feel like someone who is third wheeling between a duo. Many people with this placement are ahead of their time.

🖇 Venus in 0 degrees

Of Course this is the purest form of the planet. Natives with this placement can get sidelined or get mistreated by people around them due to their looks. Most might be clueless or have trouble understanding certain aspects of love which inturn secludes them from their peers.

🖇 Saturn in Gemini

These people may have trouble understanding what to share and how much to ?. Hence these people keep to themselves and instead of talking things they express themselves better in writing. These people avoid gossips or conversations that may lead to drama which ends up making them left out.

🖇 Saturn in the 11th house

The most mentioned one of all. People with this placements feel left out because they have grown up learning it's better to be cautious around others. Many natives keep formal relationships with their peers making them hard to reach or feel free or comfortable to talk to.

🖇 Uranus in or ruling the 7th and 11th house

These people are highly intelligent, many people won't be able to match their intellectual wavelength. Hence more often than not they get alienated by people their age. Nothing is wrong with you guys. It's just your ideas and philosophers are different from people your age.

🖇 Neptune square Mercury

These people do have friends but within their friend groups they tend to feel left out. Because most don't understand which friends is reliable and many also desire to be liked by everyone hence in this process they aren't able to make close friends. This makes them feel left out in their own groups.

🖇 Rahu conjunction with Mercury

These natives get alot of friends [depends on signs and degrees] but most of them harbor jealousy for these people. Many may take advantage and keep friends till they benefit them. Many could have faced backstabbing. Their friends could have made them feel dumb. Hence these people feel left out.

🖇 Chiron in the 11th house

Quite less spoken one these people may have wounds regarding friendships or how they view themselves in friendships these people may often times feel that they don't deserve such people or may feel inferior to their friends on the flip side they could have been betrayed by their friends hence don't want friendships.

Credits for the images and dividers goes to the rightful owners

Copyright © 2024 sakurapandadreams | All rights reserved.

[r3starttt]

STREAMER! GF! ELLIE

M.list

Streamer gf! Ellie whose wall is almost filled with guitars even though she only plays with one specific and does it just for you.

“Y’all wanna see the guitars? I only use that one actually” she moved her chair to show it properly, pointing her index finger at one that was lying on the floor

“Want me to play? I haven’t done it in a while”

Streamer gf! Ellie who remembered everyone that she had a girlfriend once she went super viral (and got made fun of bcs there was no way she could even approach to any girl without getting nervous and it seemed)

Streamer gf! Ellie who made you appear on stream with her after that just to prove you were in fact real and dating her.

“For today’s stream I’m gonna show y’all my wife, be nice, but not too much” she grabbed you by the wrist, bringing you closer to the camera and only showing you from your nose down.

“I told y’all to not be so nice, why’re you even calling her mommy? What’s wrong with you people”

Streamer gf! Ellie who got insisted on doing more streams with you so she started to play with you on stream (ofcs your favorite games most times) and bringing you with her anytime she played any horror game.

Streamer gf! Ellie who started to play Minecraft with you once a week on stream (having more views those days too) because people loved the dynamic you two had for that one game specifically.

Streamer gf! Ellie who ended up showing your face by accident while trying to adjust the camera and panicked once her chat told her because she thought you’ll get mad or something

“What do you mean? No I did not-“ she started to open like ten different tabs on her computers, checking something desperately and trying to push you so you wouldn’t see the screens “what? What happened?” you asked, confused.

Ellie was panicking but the chat didn’t seem to take it so seriously so you laughed at her too, still fully confused and trying to understand whatever the screens showed. That until you saw you face on a clip “Did you just show my face?”

Her eyes shifted to you, not saying a word “El, did you? Really?” once she heard you laughing it was like the sudden tension on her body disappeared almost immediately, letting out a small laugh as well “Well everyone, meet the wifey” your hand slapped her arm, not to hard but with how dramatic she is; she pulled away from you ‘oww’

Streamer gf! Ellie who tried to make a vlog and failed because she doesn’t know how to hold the camera properly (you ended recording everything for her)

Streamer gf! Ellie who social media is full of shit posting, kitties and you (likes every edit her fans make about you)

Streamer gf! Ellie who once did a bet with you during stream and ended up getting long nails because she lost almost immediately

Streamer gf! Ellie who wears lots of “I love my girlfriend” shirts on stream

Streamer gf! Ellie who spoils you a lot and likes having small dates with you, like building legos together, doing movie marathons or going shopping. Just anything where she can spend her money on you and have a nice time together.

“Babe, wake up” you were covered in blankets, hugging a pillow and trying to cover yourself from the warm but very bright rays of sun that entered trough the open spaces in between the contains. Groaning the moment Ellie started to pat your back because that meant she was either hungry or bored and needed you up too.

“El, let me sleep… cuddle with me, Mhm?” the way she chuckled made you turn around, trying your best to open your eyes properly “I have a surprise for you” her sleepy voice elicited a smile on you “yeah?”

She got under the blankets, crawling to you until she was practically on top of you “yeah, and I don’t wanna be late” her lips pressed on your forehead, hands on your face making small circles around your cheeks with her thumbs

Streamer gf! Ellie who insists on you making your own YouTube channel or something like that because people love you a lot and you would be a very talented influencer

Streamer gf! Ellie who got excited when you first opened an account somewhere to interact more with the fans and did lots of spam about it

Streamer gf! Ellie who begged you to get a cat. She wanted the orange + black combo originally but ended up getting a gray kitty she found on the street (and it’s obsessed with it, it’s her baby) She named it either a stupid name or something game related

Streamer gf! Ellie who apologizes a lot for having to go on stream during the weekends or when you’re free and feels bad for not being able to spend more time with you

Streamer gf! Ellie who always goes to cuddle with you and the cat after every stream and asks you to tell her everything about your day

[honeypotmfer]

Eric’s birth chart reading

Quick disclaimer:

There are so many different perspectives and interpretations in astrology: modern vs traditional, including Pluto,Neptune,and Uranus in the reading vs disregarding them, the placidus vs the vedic system, etc.

For this reading I’m using the modern placidus interpretation, and including the planets I mentioned upove.

I’m also not an astrologer! Just an enthusiast.

—

Reading:

Aries sun + Scorpio rising:

His raw intensity masked by silence. People either feel obsessed with him and want to follow him or intimidated by him, there's no in between. He moves with purpose and doesn’t explain himself , and he never reveal his next move.

Saturn in the 10th house:

An extremely powerful placement. Ambition, career, public image... these realms echo with the discipline of Saturn.

Growing up, Eric might've felt an overwhelming pressure to succeed or to fit into a certain mold.

Which makes sense considering his father’s military background , his father was super strict or had high expectations.This placement is why he got that built-in resilience and determination. When he sets his mind towards something he does it.

Chiron in the 6th house:

when I saw this placement in his chart I was like “wow makes sense!”. The 6th house is the house of health, and Chiron is an asteroid that represents trauma and areas where one experiences significant pain and challenges. This placement indicates that he has physical health issues which makes sense because he did (his deformity).

Neptune in the first house:

This placement endows a person with heightened empathy and compassion which makes sense considering his love for animals and how he once cried because he heard a puppy in pain outside once. This placement also gives the person a sense of mystery and can seem elusive. This placement also brings great love of music! And other forms of art and literature, and it can make a person engage in media that provide world building aspects (ppl who love sims usually have a lot of Neptune aspects) which makes sense considering his love of making doom wads.

Uranus in the first house:

he loooovesss being different sooo bad; he really doesn’t wanna be like anyone else. This placement gives a STROOONG drive for individuality. The way he dresses, the music he listens to, his sense of humor,etc. Individuals with this placement often exhibit a distinctive and unconventional presence, both in appearance and demeanor, and it checks out since a lot of people bullied him for being “weird”. People with this placement experience sudden changes in their identity or life direction, reflecting Uranus’s association with upheaval and transformation, which is why he moved a lot as a kid,and it also lines up with him switching from him dressing preppy to his more edgy style. This placement also gives great love of technology and video games, he LOOOVED his computer, even teased for spending too much time on it.His strong urge for individuality and resistance to conformity lead to conflicts with authority figures and societal norms. He really struggled with accepting external control or adhering to traditional structures, leading to social alienation or misunderstandings in interpersonal relationships.this placement made Him impulsiveness.He often may make hasty decisions without fully considering the consequences, leading to instability in various aspects of life. This impulsivity is often driven by a restless nature and a constant craving for new experiences, which can result in a lack of consistency and difficulty in maintaining long-term commitments. This placement also brought a lack of stability in his identity and struggle with his self awareness (ironically).

Pluto in the 11th house:

the 11th house is associated with friendship and one’s relationship with society. this placement made him often experience transformative relationships within their social circles, marked by deep emotional bonds.he finds himself drawn to friendships and groups that challenge societal norms, pushing him to confront his true self and embrace authenticity. Such connections often act as catalysts for “personal evolution” (the shooting for example), compelling him to strip away societal masks and engage in meaningful, transformative experiences. This placement brings a tendency to experience power struggles within group dynamics, leading to conflicts or feelings of alienation. Trust issues can arise, making it difficult to form lasting friendships. Additionally, the intense desire to influence or control group outcomes can lead to manipulative behaviors. This placement also brought a strong drive for societal change (how Eric talked about the shooting like it’s a revolution and how he referred to it as war ,etc). This placement is also a great indicator of bullying, Which he faced.

Mars conjunction Venus in Aries and in the 5th house:

this placement brings great hedonism; he is addicted to the new and spontaneous. He needs to be stimulated constantly. This placement made Eric inclined toward risky behaviors,like stealing the van for example, driven by a desire for excitement and quick rewards. With both Mars and Venus in Aries—a fire sign known for its initiative and vigor—his approach to romance was direct and fervent. He pursued love with intensity( which was intimidating to a lot of girls) , valuing excitement and spontaneity in relationships. This placement often indicates a strong desire for passionate connections and a tendency to take the lead in romantic endeavors. In the 5th house, which governs creativity and pleasure, this conjunction enhanced his talents and encourages expressive, perhaps even theatrical, forms of self-expression. He found fulfillment in activities that allow him to showcase his originality and zest for life (again, his doom wads for example). The fiery combination of Mars and Venus in Aries manifested as aggressive or domineering behavior, especially in romantic contexts. This assertiveness may intimidate partners and create power imbalances in relationships and friendships. He struggled with compromise, leading to conflicts and misunderstandings. His hedonism extended to sex as well:The combined nature of the 5th and Aries gave him a very high sex drive and libido. It made him have a wandering eye too. He is very assertive in bed. He loooved to take control in all aspects in life, but especially in sex. He likely would loved power plays, biting,hair pulling, slapping ,and he really wouldve loved it ROUGHH and fast. He is the type to associate cannibalism with sex. He wouldve wantedddd to consume his partner’s flesh. He needs spontaneity in his sex life or he will get bored immediately (some people consider this aspect an indicator of a cheater, although in his case I disagree due to his other aspects,especially his 8th house moon in cancer). The 5th house’s link to creativity suggests a playful and experimental approach to sex, with a desire to explore new experiences and expressions of intimacy. Despite the dominant tendencies I mentioned above, there’s also a desire for connection, making face-to-face positions appealing for the intimacy and eye contact they provide.

Sun conjunct mars& Venus in Aries and in the 5th house:

these placements are both characterized by a potent blend of vitality, ambition, and creative energy. He had STRONG will power which these placements provide. These placements made him a natural leader, exuding confidence and a commanding presence that inspired others. And due to his Venus conjuncting his sun , he was very charming and persuasive, and sometimes even manipulative with the way he sells his ideas. He possessed an innate desire to initiate projects (in the bike wax commercial tape for example, he can be seen directing and giving orders) and was not afraid to take risks to achieve his goals. His approach to creative endeavors is bold and enthusiastic, often leading him to excel in fields that require innovation and courage. In romantic relationships, he is passionate and direct, seeking partners who can match his intensity. These placements also made him terrible at compromise due to his strong will(and as u can notice, being terrible at compromise and creating friction and conflict is a huge theme in his chart). The mars placement specifically also SIGNIFICANTLY influences temperament leading to pronounced anger issues which we can see in Eric’s case. This astrological configuration combines the Sun’s core identity and ego with Mars’s drive and aggression, all intensified by Aries’s fiery nature made him extremely full of rage and extremely competitive (how he was screaming so hard at Dylan after he cost them the match for example).

Cancer moon in the 8th house squaring Aries mercury in the 4th house:

this aspect presents a complex interplay between deep emotional sensitivity and assertive communication, particularly within the realms of home, family, and intimate relationships. Mercury is the planet of communication ,logic, and thinking. while the moon is the planet of emotions. a square between these two planets makes Eric’s way of thinking and logic conflicted with and often went against his emotions ( for example, him wishing that he were a sociopath so he wouldn’t feel bad for his parents, and him pretending that his victims are doom monsters so he wouldn’t feel sympathy and mercy for them). The Cancer Moon in the 8th house indicates profound emotional depth, with a strong inclination towards privacy and a need for emotional security. This placement brings intense feelings, a heightened sensitivity to the undercurrents of relationships, and a desire for deep, transformative connections. His Emotions are not taken lightly; they are experienced with intensity and can be influenced by subconscious fears or past traumas(another theme you can notice from his chart is his intensity!). Conversely, Mercury in Aries in the 4th house suggests a communication style that is direct, assertive, and sometimes impulsive, especially within the home environment. This placement can lead him to speak before fully processing emotions, potentially causing misunderstandings or conflicts with family members. (This could explain why he wrote out his feelings in paper to his parents instead of talking to them— I’m referring to the online conversation he had) Eric felt compelled to assert his ideas and opinions strongly, valuing independence and quick decision-making. The square aspect between these two placements creates tension between the emotional need for security and the drive for assertive self-expression. This dynamic manifest as internal conflicts where the Eric struggled to reconcile his deep emotional needs with his desire to communicate boldly and independently. There were challenges in expressing feelings without becoming overwhelmed or in articulating thoughts without disregarding emotional nuances.

—

There is soooo much more shit so tell me if you would like a part 2

[csuitebitches]

book review: Stolen focus by Johann Hari

Major learnings from this book. It basically talks about focus, why and how we’re losing it. Why can’t we pay attention anymore? Are we individuals to blame or our systems? 

There will be a time when the upper class will be extremely aware of the risks to their attention (caused by tech, social media, our current generation) and the masses, with fewer resources to resist the temptation of technology, will be manipulated more and more by their computers. 

Multitasking is a myth. What actually happens when we multitask is that we “juggle” between tasks. This results in incomplete tasks, higher error rates, less focus, less creativity and memory decreases. 

Sleep is extremely important, especially sleeping according to nature - when the sun sets and sun rises. If the whole world slept the way we are naturally programmed, we would have an economic earthquake. Our economic systems run on sleep deprived people. 

Reading online and reading print has a huge difference. Reading online creates tendencies of skimming and scanning text. This prevents our brain from focusing intently on one story at a time, which print allows you to do. You also remember and understand things from printed texts better. 

Empathy. Certain research suggests that reading fiction and novels improves empathy, because you are immersing yourself in another character’s life for a while. Empathy has played a huge role in human advancements. If a group of white people did not realise that colonisation was wrong, if men did not realise that women deserve equal rights, we would not have independent nations nor be close to gender equality today. 

There are multiple types of paying attention. Focused attention is one thing. But day dreaming and letting your mind wander with no distraction (that is, being alone with your thoughts) is equally important. Some of the most important breakthroughs in human history were because the inventors were not actively focusing on solving the problem. 

Being on social media = giving a free pass to be manipulated. No thoughts, opinions, desires that you have are original. They have all been fed into you by social media and the online world. It is by their design that we cannot focus. 

Leaked internal records of Facebook show that they are aware that their algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness. 64% of people, for instance, who join extremist groups join because FB’s algorithm directly recommends too. “Our recommendation systems grow the problem.” Zuckerberg eventually terminated the unit that was studying this. 

Diet and attention. The diet we consumed today is a diet that causes regular energy spikes and energy crashes. Our food does not have the nutrients we need for our brains to function well. Our current diets actively contain chemicals that seem to act on our brains almost like drugs.  

Be careful about reading research, especially when it’s funded by the industry itself. For 40 years, the lead industry funded all the scientific research into whether it was safe, and assured the world that it was. Lead later turned out to severely stunt your ability to focus and pay attention and that you are more likely to get ADHD. 

We define success broadly as economic growth. Economies should get bigger, companies should get bigger. Growth can happen in two ways - either the companies find new markets or they persuade the existing consumers to consume more. If you can get people to eat more or to sleep less, you’ve found the source of economic growth. It results in people working overtime, not having enough time with family, friends and themselves, stress and anxiety prone, lack of sleep and bad health, etc. 

Conclusion: use precommitment to stop switching tasks, try to focus more on intrinsic motivation than extrinsic, go off social media periodically (say 1 month at a time) and then extend those breaks; everyday spend 1 hour in walking in silence (no music, conversations or people- and if this is in nature, even better) to connect with yourself, 8 hours of sleep every night, build on slow practices like yoga, cut out processed food, take your PTO!!

[ahockeywrites]

quick - nico hischier

pairing: fem!reader x nico hischier word count: 1.4k warnings: unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it), no foreplay apologies, this is a quickie. thanks to the anon who requested this

You rounded the corner, the skirt of your sundress riding dangerously high on your thigh. Your arms were covered with a black blazer and around your neck hung your credentials. Social Media Manager for the New Jersey Devils. 

You had started the job following your graduation from Rutgers and loved every minute of it. From taking photos of the players during warm ups, to subjecting them to silly TikTok videos. It was something you could never take for granted.

It was game day and you were running around making sure that all the right information was with the right people. You had become friends with some of the broadcasters and knew who to give little bits of random information to, so they could drop things in during the show. 

You continued walking down the corridor to your office, heels clicking against the floor making your presence known. Everyone who worked for the Devils was incredibly nice and you were so thankful because when you did a Summer Placement, it was anything but.

The door to your office opened with a groan, reminding you that you needed to grease up the hinges soon because it would drive you insane if you didn’t. You sat down in your chair, logging into your computer so you could quickly tweet out some pre game graphics and interact with the fans.

A knock on the door of your office took your attention away from the tweet you were composing, one about the NJ Devil running around Prudential Center with a drum, terrorising different members of the team.

“Come in,” you called out and Nico Hischier entered your office. You didn’t usually do the walk in videos so seeing him in a suit was a completely different side of him that you hadn’t seen before. His hair was well styled and his suit fit around his muscles perfectly, accentuating them in the best way.

“How can I help,” you asked, undoing the button of your jacket and taking it off. Nico’s gaze remained on your face, no matter how much he wanted to look down. The captain had a crush on you from the first time you walked in the door. At first he thought it was just a harmless crush, one that would go away after a few nights between the sheets with someone. 

It didn’t. It made him want to spend more time with you. So every time you needed someone to take part in a TikTok challenge, or an interview for the YouTube channel, he’d volunteer. It didn’t stop the other players on the team teasing him. They all knew that he had a crush on you and it was something they wanted to try and facilitate. 

Then there was the night out. The one time you had gone out with the team after a game, rather than with your friends as usual. He watched as you took shots with Jack and downed a beer faster than he had ever seen. The way you looked into his eyes as you drank your pornstar Martini, licking your lips after each sip. Nico’s cock hardened just thinking about it.

“Just wondering if you’d be sitting on the bench during warm ups,” he asked innocently, batting his eyelashes. You refrained from rolling your eyes because he already knew the answer.

“Yes cap,” you saluted him in response. “I will be there, as I always am.” You pushed your chair behind yourself,  stood up and walked around to the front of your desk to stand face to face with the Swiss man. Even in your heels, Nico was still taller than you. 

“Anything else?” You asked as you cocked your head to the side. There must be another reason for him stopping by. He wouldn’t just stop by your office for no reason. Would he?

“You look really good today,” he complimented as he looked you up and down, taking in the flowery dress you had chosen to wear for the matinee game. “You always look good.”

“Thank you,” you replied not really knowing what else to say. 

“Ever since you walked into the press room the first time, I’ve thought you were beautiful. This dress really brings out your eyes,” Nico continued. “And your lips.”

He inched closer to you, not wanting to encroach on your space too quickly, giving you the opportunity to turn him down. 

“And then that night at the bar, your cheetah print skirt,” he wrapped his hand around the back of your neck as he spoke. “You looked so happy.”

You craned your neck up to look Nico in the eyes. “I was happy,” you told him. “Because you were there.”

“Fuck,” he cursed. “You don’t know how you make me feel princess.”

“I think I can see,” your gaze dropped to his pants and the bulge that you could see.

“We have 20 minutes until I need to be downstairs getting ready,” he told you as the hand that was around your neck made its way down your back to rest on the curve of your ass.

“I need to be down in 10,” you replied, leaning in so your lips were millimetres apart. All it would take is one move, from either of you, and you would be kissing.

Nico took the initiative and pressed his lips to yours, starting with a few gentle kisses that turned passionate quickly. His hands didn’t know where to go, all he wanted to do was touch you, feel you.

“Wait,” you pulled away. Nico pouted, lips red from your lipstick. “Let me lock the door.” 

Ah, Nico thought, that made sense. Neither of you would want someone walking in on what was about to happen. 

As soon as you locked the door and turned back around, his lips were back on yours, tongue poking past your lips and into your mouth. Your hands found his hair, tugging, wanting more.

Nico pushed you against the wall, starting a trail of kisses down your neck to the tops of your breasts. “Been thinking about these for months,” he admitted.

“Fuck, we have to make this quick,” Nico groaned as he yanked down his slacks and boxers in one go, the red tip of his cock leaking pre-cum. Your lips attacked his neck with kisses, you couldn’t leave a mark on him, someone would notice.

“I got tested last week, all negative, have the coil,” you got out between kisses.

“Mine was two days ago, all negative too,” he replied. “You want this?” You nodded faster than you ever had in your life.

“Jump princess,” he whispered into your ear and you obeyed. Your legs wrapped around him and with a little shuffling, he sunk himself inside you fully. Your lips found his once more. 

His hands settled on your hips and he slowly started to thrust up into you, keeping you pinned in place. You kicked off your shoes which allowed you to dig your heels into Nico’s firm ass. 

One of his large hands found their way under the skirt of your dress, in search of your clit. He found it faster than anyone else other than yourself had and Nico almost came when he heard your sweet moans of please as he rubbed the bud. 

“C’mon baby,” he continued the strategic rubbing of your clit with the pounding of your pussy and your mind started to become fuzzy as you felt yourself getting closer and closer to your release.

“Fuck, I’m gonna,” you gasped as Nico started sinking his teeth into your neck, not even thinking about the marks he was making. 

“Come for me princess,” he groaned, holding back his release that was imminent.

You listened and your head threw itself back whilst your eyes rolled back. Stars filled your vision as you reached your climax, hands pulling at Nico’s hair which was certain to be a mess.

You could feel your heart beating hard but it was nothing compared to the force of Nico’s final few thrusts and the feeling of his release coating your walls. Sweat graced both of your foreheads but that didn’t stop you leaning in and pressing some more kisses to his lips.

“Fuck princess,” he moaned, voice low and deep. “Let me clean you up.” He pulled himself out of you, still holding you up against the wall with his arms, and you whined at the loss of him.

He carried you over and placed you on your desk before grabbing some tissues that were in a box on the wooden surface. Nico quickly wiped between your legs before pressing a kiss to your lips.

“Sweets, you need to head downstairs,” he informed you. All you could do is shake your head.

“I can barely walk, I’ll be Bambi in my shoes,” you groaned.

“Should have thought about that before you let me fuck you silly.”

[haikyu-mp4]

Media presence, part 3

word count; 1526 – gn!reader, final part of the mini series

go read part 1 and part 2 first for the best experience

You were tapping your foot under the desk like a bunny, lips pursed as you tried to choose who to talk to first. Your eyes settled on Hinata. “Sweetie,” you started, and he nodded eagerly as if he awaited praise. “You don’t have to do everything Atsumu and Bokuto do.”

Hinata visibly deflated, but puffed out his chest to put on a brave front. “Yes, boss,” he said, and it brought forth a small smile because you did like it when they called you that.

“Imagine how much you could have earned if Calvin Klein was the one asking you to do it. Now it’s just out there for everyone.” you kept saying, visibly frustrated. Once again, Sakusa was thankful that you couldn’t see the smile behind his mask as he watched you from the side.

You turned your attention to Bokuto and Atsumu, who were so perfectly placed in the middle of the four, both wearing very guilty smiles.

“It’s not about posting thirst traps, obviously hot guys draw attention,” you said and just missed the way Sakusa’s nose scrunched. You gritted your teeth, breathing through them as you stared at the angry message from one of your bosses that was open on your computer screen. “It’s the fact that Black Jackals has taken in four younger players and three of them are doing a flexing competition on social media like they’re 17 years old,” you said, definitely rambling at this point.

Did I forget to explain what happened? If it’s not obvious already, all three of your problem children posted shirtless thirst traps on their stories last weekend and hashtagged it with HottestMSBYJackal, and then Atsumu posted another one with a poll on it so people could vote between the three. While they gained a lot of younger followers from the stunt, your bosses were not happy as older fans of the team found them to be way too vain and busy with their bodies, and not focused enough on the sport or whatever. What you felt about it was irrelevant. Caring about what everyone else thought about them was your job.

Bokuto pouted and nodded, not understanding what he did wrong but still not liking your tone. “Sorry, boss.”

“I’m letting you off with a warning, just please think twice before posting stuff. Be normal,” you begged them, shooing your hand as a hint for them to wrap up the meeting.

Atsumu must have put some extra audacity in his smoothie this morning because he seemed to let the whole thing fall off his shoulders when you said they just got a warning. “I need to ask you something first, it’s important.”

“Let’s just go,” Sakusa said. He was trying to herd them outside without touching them, which always proved equally difficult. Perhaps he had an inkling about his teammate’s question.

“Which one would you vote for?” Atsumu asked, a toothy grin growing on his face that usually did great for advertisement. You sighed. They probably expected you not to answer.

“Sakusa,” you said, which made all three start yelling for different reasons. He was your favourite today after not participating, knowing that if he tried to stop them it wouldn’t have worked anyway. You covered your ears, regretting answering immediately.

“Quiet down, this isn’t a playground! Let’s go.” Sakusa commanded, this time with a sternness that made the others kick into gear.

“Keep your shirts on, thank you.” They were all on their way out, Bokuto and Atsumu hanging with their heads like wounded puppies who startled once you spoke again. “Not you, Sakusa.”

“Not keep my shirt on, or?” he asked, that Atsumu-coded smirk ringing from his voice.

“Don’t test me, sit back down,” you said, and he shrugged before following your orders. The other jackals had turned around and were looking between you two curiously until Sakusa closed the door in their faces. He sat down and excused them for being so loud, which you brushed off.

The bosses had instructed you to scold all of them, even though you insisted Sakusa was not part of it. Those old men only saw how everyone referred to the MSBY four online.

Honestly, you had no idea why you asked him to stay, so you had to pull something out of your ass real quick. Your mind was racing with all the things you had to do because even though this wasn’t the biggest scandal, it still came on top of everything you usually did. So instead of lying, you rested your head in your hands for a second. “I’m not sure why I asked you to come back inside.” It wasn’t some grand confession, but just that made it feel like a tiny butterfly was fluttering its wings in Sakusa’s belly. He was so pleased that he wasn’t sure what to say, choosing instead to scoot his chair closer to the desk and wait for you to unbury your face again. You eventually did, resting your chin on your hand instead. “Did you think about my suggestion yet?”

“Yes.”

You smiled, nodding your head as he once again gave you one-word answers. Feeling like there was too little air in the room now, you went to open the window. That might soothe your headache. “Once again, the quality of your answers rock my world,” you said sarcastically.

Sakusa hesitated for a moment before speaking up again. “You do a great job,” he said just as you sat back down. For what felt like the first time that day, you really let your eyes settle on him. His hair was a little extra nice that day, in your opinion. You liked it when it was more messy, not picture perfect. Behind the hair, you could still see how his eyebrows were drawn together. More than usual, you’d say.

If you were honest, you would have told him you didn’t always feel like you did great. That you felt like it was so difficult to understand who you were supposed to cater to when everyone had a different opinion and kept expecting you to bounce back every time you met a new challenge. Because you were so good at your job, that came with expectations.

However, your relationship with Sakusa wasn’t like that, so instead your eyes teared up a bit and you whispered a weak “Thank you”.

He nodded but desperately wished you were close enough that he could ask you to tell him everything. To rest your head on his shoulder and hug you until the pain went away. But he knew he had to go back to practice any minute now, and you two would stay an unspoken thing.

You might have only started looking at him now, but he had practically been staring at you since the second he and his teammates came into that office. “I’m sure those idiots will charm everyone with time,” he said, an added assurance he didn’t usually give anyone else. “I’ve seen Bokuto practising his Bokuto Beam, lately.”

“You’re right,” you said. The Bokuto reference did make you laugh and quickly wipe at one eye where a tear threatened to fall from the pressure. It had been a long day. “I’m just glad you didn’t join them, imagine you finally started posting and I had to yell at you.” Sure, you would love a shirtless photo of Sakusa, but your job came first.

“Mm.” He cringed at the thought, hands stuffed in the pockets of his training jacket. After a beat of silence, Sakusa’s frown slowly loosened up. He was glad he could make you laugh a bit, that wasn’t usually his strong suit. “Anything else?”

“No, you can go,” you sighed. “They need you.” He nodded and silently got up, wondering if he should say something more. But he didn’t, he just left. It left you staring at the door, sighing deeply as you realised your predicament. You felt something special for Sakusa Kiyoomi.

As Sakusa got home and settled into his sofa after he was freshly showered, he unlocked his phone and opened messages. He wrote a message, deleted it, and then repeated this a few more times before switching to Instagram. There, he opened the story camera and angled it to show a small part of his pristine living room where the last lick of the sun was shining across the floor. Imagine you finally started posting, were the words that rang in his ears.

The picture he took was nice enough, and he added “Good evening.” in white before spending a while choosing the font he liked. He even added a calm song he heard the other day and grew to like.

After it was posted, the likes flooded in, but he turned on silent mode and switched back to messages. He wondered if seeing the story would make you do another victory dance. Once again, he opened your contact and wrote, deciding to finally send it.

What are you doing for lunch tomorrow?

You: Probably eat

Sakusa rolled his eyes yet smiled affectionately. Eat with me.

You: Okay:)

You: I look forward to it

No more 'unspoken thing'.

part 1 ║ part 2 ║ part 3 (final part) ║ headcanons ║ masterlist

[wroetominter]

Charity Match - George Clarke

Oh shocker, I rise from the writing dead because I have the feels again and need to release them somehow. I hope everyone else feels the same as I do in saying, George better be in the sidemen charity match this spring!

Pairing: George Clarke X FemReader

Warnings: none, fluff.

———

I had been a long time fan of the Sidemen and their friends for many years. I loved to watch their videos and support wherever I could. Merch drops, their random trading card drops, the like. When they announced they were doing yet another charity event, I jumped at the opportunity to finally attend.

Sat at my laptop, poised and ready to purchase a ticket when they dropped, I felt nerves creeping in, hoping I would get lucky enough to get the seat of my choosing.

Hearing the boys in a ChrisMD video playing in the background, my focus was temporarily drawn to them hiking a mountain. I couldn’t help be distracted by the words they were saying, soon snapping back to my computer as my options for Wembley stadium finally appeared. I panicked, searching for something that was close to where the players come on and off the pitch.

I purchased myself a ticket, feeling relieved that the pressure was over. Shutting my laptop, I was finally able to focus on the video in front of me.

In the months leading up to the game, the players had finally been announced. I wasn’t shocked to find that ChrisMD, and his channels frequent visitors the Arthur’s, George, and Isaac had also been selected to play. As a promotion, and probably to make the stands look like an authentic football match, they listed new merch on the Sidemen clothing website. This included mock football kit tops, sporting the different players so you could show your support. I was excited by this, wanting to differentiate other fans in the audience and build some friendships with like minded individuals around us.

Scrolling through the list of players, I knew pretty instantly the kit I was looking for. Selecting the YouTube all stars kit, personalized to the player “Clarkeey” as listed on the website. I completed my order and smiled, satisfied I would be well dressed for the game coming up so quickly.

—

I finished my outfit with the new football top, tucking it into my jeans slightly to show off my belt. I decided rather casual outfit, seeing as I would be sitting in the stands for a good majority of the game I wanted to ensure I was comfortable. I had dressed in a black jean, with a matching black and gold belt, and some white Nike sneakers with my new football top. I had pulled my hair up, knowing a football match could get quite warm.

Pulling a few loose hairs down to frame my face, and popping my wallet, and lip balm into my pocket I was ready for the match.

The tube to Wembley ended up being extremely packed, as expected. I scoured social media to pass the time, watching story after story. I paused on George’s for a few extra moments, admiring how well he suited his football kit in the photo he took with Chris before the match.

I was quite drawn to the man, finding both his looks and his humor alluring. The type of person that draws you in just by looking at a camera. I stopped my swoon as the train stopped, and we all filed out to get to the stadium.

I quickly found my seat, deciding to grab a drink before the match as well. I settled on a pint, taking it back to my seat and admiring the view of the pitch, and the group of men practicing in front of me. Although I do enjoy the actual football aspect of the matches, you can’t blame a girl for also finding pleasure in watching a pitch full of attractive men run around for 90 minutes.

Locking my eyes to the area in front of me, where I quickly spotted #3, “Clarkeey”. He was practicing between him and ArthurTV, looking incredibly focused. From their videos, George’s competitive side had always been apparent to me. He was quite good at the majority of challenges they had done, finishing in the top three ranks on most occasions. It was no surprise to me that he likely had been practicing his match skills for weeks, or months prior to the match.

I realized I had been staring, but I could have sworn that he looked back up to me. I felt a blush creeping to my cheeks, realizing that he likely had not looked at me, but into the crowd of thousands of people. I brushed it off and snapped a few photos of myself and the pitch, posting them to my stories and socials to show off that I was indeed at the match that day. If it didn’t end up on social media, did it really even happen?

Looking around me, I decided to check out who had been sitting near me as the crowds began to settle in with the match starting soon. To my left, was only three empty seats remaining, whereas to my right, there seemed to be a group of older school age boys cheering on the sidemen as they warmed up. I was roughly three rows from the front, happy I had paid the extra amount to have such close seats as I could see the players ready to begin the match with precise detail from my seats.

The three people needing their seats to my left finally showed, and I recognized them pretty quickly. It ended up being none other than the parents and sister of Chris. I smiled at them politely as they took their seats, Kelly next to me.

“I’m glad I’m sat next to another girl, and not the screaming boys just down there” she said to me, “I’m Kelly, what’s your name?”

I giggled slightly at her remarks to the boys to my right. “I’m Y/n, nice to meet you. You’re Chris’ family, right?” She nodded.

“Yes, the few unlucky enough to call that weirdo family” we laughed together and spent the next few minutes chit chatting. I found myself relaxing more with her, knowing I had someone to talk to helped ease my nerves of coming here alone.

The match started, and the excitement and fun made the time fly by. Cheering as goals came and went, jumping up with his family when Chris scored a goal, and cheering everyone on when the game was over and the winners announced. This year, the YouTube Allstars had taken the trophy! They raised Chris up, holding the trophy and I stood there clapping like a proud mom, watching the group of lads I frequently watched with so much joy between them.

Snapped from my trance, I felt one of the boys to my right tap my arm. Turning to face him to see what he wanted. “Are you George’s girlfriend?” He asked. I was a little taken aback by this, wondering where he could have gotten that impression.

“No, just a fan. Sorry” was all I could think of in response. I clocked one of his friends filming this interaction on his phone.

“Oh, seemed like it from the kit, my bad.” He walked away with his mates, clearly trying to make their way to the front to get closer to the lads. Strange, I thought to myself.

I told Kelly about the interaction and she laughed with me. She pulled me in a little closer, wanting to whisper her next statement to me. “I’m going to bring you down to the pitch with us when we go see Chris” she said. My mouth agape I stared at her, which made her start to laugh.

“Are you sure that’s okay?” I asked her. I was of course excited, but equally nervous for this.

“Yea, absolutely! I was given a plus one and didn’t use it. And I like hanging out with you, you make these events fun. I hope we can do something together soon after this as well. It’s tough to find a friend that both knows this weird world I’m attached to, but simultaneously doesn’t just use me for information about my brother.” I smiled at her kind words.

“Yes, let’s absolutely hang out more. I agree, finding friends in general living alone in London has been difficult for me as well.”

We sat in our seats, waiting for the crowds to die down a bit before security was to come grab us and bring us down to the pitch for family and friend celebrations.

Scrolling through instagram, I found myself on the export page seeing different posts from the match. I saw one in particular that caught my eye. It was a photo of the back of Kelly and I, standing and cheering. With my hair tied up you could clearly see the “Clarkeey” written across my back as we cheered.

The caption read “Chris’ sister and apparently George’s secret girl cheer YTAS on.” I was dumbfounded. This was the second time in the last fifteen minutes I had been told I was George’s supposed secret girl. Looking through the comments I found many people commenting that they thought the same thing after seeing me at the match. A few comments didn’t seem shocked by seeing me, quoting “she is his type after all”. I turned my phone off, trying to shake this from my head as we were led from the stands down to the pitch.

We went to Chris first, obviously so his parents could congratulate them. I was introduced as Kelly’s friend, which although true felt funny as we were incredibly recently friends.

“Congratulations Chris, your goal was so fun to watch!” I told him.

“Thanks Y/n, I’m glad you enjoyed it. I heard we broke last years record for money raised as well, overall I would call this a pretty successful day.” I agreed with Chris’ words.

An arm was soon brought around Chris’ shoulders as we stood around talking. I looked at the new addition to the group, finding George now standing with us.

His hair was slightly stuck down to his forehead from sweat, and he smiled at the group, clearly on cloud 9 from the days events.

“Hello Chris and family” he said, acknowledging the rest of us. His family politely said hello, and Chris’ mom came to give him a hug. I assumed they were well acquainted from how long him and Chris had been friends.

With George stood next to me, it felt rude between the two of us not to introduce ourselves as Chris and his family had become distracted in their conversation.

George turned slightly towards me, sparking the conversation.

“I don’t think we’ve met properly, I’m George Clarke.” He said extending a hand to me. I shook his hand.

“I’m Y/n, supposedly your secret girlfriend.” I mentally face palmed at my awkward conversation starter.

His eyes raised and I rolled mine, pulling out my phone to show him the numerous posts I had found. He laughed at a few of the fanboy comments, cheering him on.

“What sparked this debate online?” He asked with a seriously charming smirk on his face.

I turned my back towards him, showing off the kit I was sporting. He laughed,

“Ahh, yes. That makes sense.” We laughed together.

“And apparently I’m your type, so the people around me sort of assumed, since I was with Chris’ family.” I said.

I was happy that this conversation didn’t feel awkward. It felt light and filled with banter. Knowing my usual track record with men, this conversation was 10 times better than my usual interactions.

“To be fair to them, you are my type.” He said. I felt myself freeze slightly, just staring back at him. I could tell he felt nervous about my reaction to his words based on the words he had just spit out. I nudged him slightly, playing into his flirtatious nature.

“Well if the kit wasn’t obvious enough, you’re my type as well so I suppose they aren’t far off of their assumptions.” George agreed with me and we had a laugh together. Our moment being spoiled by the other lads, ArthurTV, Arthur Hill, Bach, Reev, and a few others joining the group and talking about the major after party celebration they were planning.

“You need to come, pleaseeeee” Kelly dragged out grabbing my arm. Of course, I was secretly praying I was going to be invited. Wanting to continue the conversation George and I were having.

“Of course, I’ll be there.” I said to Kelly, catching George looking at me from the side, a smile forming on his lips. I couldn’t help but blush to myself. Immediately wanting to tell Kelly about the entire interaction I pulled her to the side, filling her in on the details.

“Oh my god, yes! I am making it my personal mission to make sure you talk tonight!” She squealed. It felt so nice to have a wing woman on my side for this.

With this being a party, I wanted to go home and freshen up a bit. Kelly asked to tag along so she could get a rest from the big crowd. I agreed of course, as we made our way back to my flat.

I showed her a couple different outfit choices. Bring it was March and still a bit chilly outside, I settled on a nice but casual sweater top, and some new jeans to compliment. I felt put together but casual so I would still be comfortable.

We talked endlessly about the party, as Kelly begged me to tell her again about the conversation I had with George.

“I don’t know, he told me I was his type, he was definitely flirting, right?” I questioned.

“From everything Chris has told me he’s normally not good at talking to women. I would say yes absolutely. He had the balls to come out directly and say it, he was totally into you!” She divulged that she didn’t have many friends to share this kind of stuff with, so she was really excited to see how this night played out.

Entering the event, she let me know she was going to make herself scarce and go find some other people to converse with while I essentially shoot my shot, as she put it.

I searched the crowd, not finding George anywhere. I settled myself for a moment, realizing he had to be around somewhere.

“What will you have to drink?” His voice rang from behind me, scaring me slightly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he lightly led me by the small of my back a little closer to him so I could hear him better. My heart fluttering at his small action. The room was crowded after all.

“Umm, I think I’ll have a vodka redbull and pineapple please” I said to him.

“Coming up,” he walked away towards the bar and I felt myself let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. He looked insanely good after the match. Dressed in jeans, a white tshirt and a flannel top pulled over it, I found myself unable to take my eyes off of him. “Here you are” he handed me the glass, keeping his pint close by him.

We were stood at a bar height table, drinks going by quickly and conversation flowing. It felt natural to be talking to him. It was almost as if we had known each other forever.

“What brought you to the match alone anyway?” He asked as I told him the story of how I ended up here. “No boyfriend?” He added taking a drink of his pint.

“Well, I have been a long time fan, so I figured it was time to come out and support in person, plus, with it being for charity it was a good opportunity overall.” I said, taking a sip of my drink as well. He kept staring at me, and I realized I completely glazed over his addition. “Oh, no, no boyfriend.” His eyes softened a little at my confession.

“Good, I’m glad to hear.” He smiled and I could feel my cheeks heating up. “I don’t often find someone I connect with this well. I was really hoping you’d come tonight.” He confessed. If I thought my cheeks were red before. “I’m sorry I feel like I keep rambling, I’m not good with these situations, really.” I couldn’t quite find the right words in response, causing him to continue his nervous ramble. “If you don’t feel the same connection it’s no worries, really. I just wanted to get to know you a little more I guess and I-”

“George” I cut him off. He pulled his eyes to mine. I placed a hand on his on the table, sensing his nerves. “I want to know you more as well. Believe me, the connection you’re feeling is reciprocated.” He sighed, looking down at our hands together and laughed.

“Thank god, otherwise I look like an idiot here.” I laughed with him.

“You look really cute, not like an idiot at all.” It was his turn to blush at my words.

“You look amazing as well, indeed still my type.” I laughed at his callback to our earlier conversation.

I was thankful for my fangirl antics, which now led me to George.

We spent the rest of the night together, laughing together and with his friends. I could tell his friends were not used to him hanging out with a girl, based on their comments non stop about it. It was funny to see George so flustered by their comments, normally seeing him so confident and casual on the screen.

I heard my name, turning to find Kelly sneaking into our group.

“Was the plan successful?” She quietly said to me. I tilted my head down a little, to show her George’s arm had been wrapped around my waist and rested on my side for the majority of the night. She smiled massively at me, giving me two thumbs up and running off. I laughed which caught George’s attention.

“What’s funny?” He asked.

“Nothing, nothing at all.” I slid closer to him, reciprocating the arm around the waist and rejoining the group conversation.

This was a very successful night.