#locker 17

[katelyn102]

Offense game balls🥳

[mechromancing]

scooter watching gaige ransacking his shop thirty seconds after meeting her :

[wetpapert0wel]

waaaah i wanna play more voices of the void but its scary scary scary

[mayoiayasep]

someone tled the kantarou and reo catfight🥳🥳

[letthemkook]

🂱 ACE jeon jungkook (one)

18+

Pairing: Yandere!Crimeboss! Jungkook × Detective!Reader

Themes: Obsession, power imbalance, cat-and-mouse tension, psychological warfare, forced proximity, dark seduction, corruption

Genre: Dark romance, crime thriller

Warnings: Dubious consent, manipulation, possessiveness, graphic language, coercion, criminal themes, stalking, dark erotic content, emotional degradation, SMUT

“He was just another criminal on your list — cold, untouchable, dangerous. But the moment you walked into that room, Jungkook forgot every crime he ever committed and started planning a new one: making you his.”

part two

—————— 🂱———————

He wasn’t just a rumor on the streets — he was the kind of name whispered in locker rooms and back alleys, in morgues and in the untraceable lines of cartel accounts. No fingerprints. No face. Just stories. Gruesome ones. A man who could vanish in the blink of an eye and reappear in the form of another dead informant. Another burned-out safehouse. Another officer “gone rogue.”

Jeon Jungkook.

Your first case as lead investigator was small — an arms deal gone wrong in Busan, two bodies in a warehouse, both shot through the heart. What caught your attention was the precision. Two shots, one for each man. Bullet casings wiped clean. No signs of forced entry. The cameras had been cut thirty seconds before it happened.

The only trace left behind was a single white playing card on the floor, bleeding into the pooling crimson beneath the bodies.

The Ace of Hearts.

There’s a moment in every detective’s life where things stop being about justice — and start being about survival.

Your moment came in the form of a manila folder, dropped onto your desk with a thud and a muttered, “Good luck.”

You didn’t look up right away. Just stared at the stamped name across the top like it might bite.

No face. No verified voice. Just a trail of shattered lives and dead witnesses. His file was thick. Thicker than any you’d seen. Most of it redacted. Every page screamed warning, even the pages that said nothing at all.

Drug trafficking. High-tech weapons. Political blackmail. A hundred aliases. But one signature — left behind like a calling card, stained in red.

Some said he was born into the criminal world, son of a now-erased syndicate boss. Others believed he carved his empire himself, a ghost who learned how to hack his name out of the shadows. Either way, no one had ever seen him. Not clearly. The only known image was blurry, snapped through shattered glass mid-explosion.

He looked young. Too young to be behind so much blood. But something about the tilt of his head, the laziness of his posture, the way he stared directly into the lens — it made your skin crawl. Like he knew he was being watched. Like he wanted to be.

You were officially assigned his case as lead profiler. The youngest ever brought onto the division. You didn’t ask why they gave it to you. Maybe they thought you were expendable. Maybe they thought he’d underestimate you.

——————-

They brought him in at 3:17 a.m.

You were already waiting — coffee long cold in your hand, eyes glued to the monitor as grainy footage played on a loop. A blacked-out car. A familiar walk. He’d exited the vehicle like he didn’t have a care in the world, shoulders relaxed, hands in the pockets of his long dark coat. Even with a team swarming him, Jungkook didn’t flinch. Didn’t fight.

He smiled.

The bastard smiled like he was right on time.

“Are you sure you want to be the one to interrogate him?” your commanding officer asked as he handed over the file. “He’s not like the others.”

“I know.” You didn’t say the rest: That’s exactly why I have to.

You’d been tailing him for six months. Always one step behind. Surveillance footage here, wiretap audio there. The pieces never quite added up. No matter how many hours you poured into his case, the deeper you dug, the more he vanished — like smoke curling just out of reach. He wasn’t a man. He was a myth.

Until now.

You took a deep breath before stepping into the room, heart hammering with anticipation and a dread you didn’t want to name.

And there he was.

The second interrogation started before you stepped into the room.

You could see him through the mirror.

Jeon Jungkook — uncuffed, seated loosely in the chair, one leg stretched out like he owned the ground beneath it. He wasn’t doing anything. Just staring at the empty seat across from him. Like he knew you’d be there soon. Like he’d been waiting.

When the door opened, he didn’t turn.

But when you walked in — when your heels clicked on the concrete and the air shifted around your scent — he moved.

His head turned slow, then his eyes lifted.

And they devoured you.

Not with awe. Not with admiration. With hunger. Sharp, unrepentant, and barely contained.

The cuffs had been reattached at your request — short chain, anchored to the table.

You sat down without flinching.

But your hands tensed on the file.

He didn’t say anything. Just kept watching.

His gaze flicked over your eyes, your lips, your throat. A slow drag. Calculating. Carnal. Every inch of your body felt cataloged, peeled back layer by layer — and not in a scientific way. No, this wasn’t a profiler’s stare.

“So it’s you,” he said, voice low, thick like honey laced with poison. “The little shadow.”

Your spine straightened. “Excuse me?”

Jungkook chuckled, leaning in like you were sharing a secret. “You’ve been on my trail for half a year, detective. I knew someone was watching me. But I never expected you.”

His gaze dropped — slow, deliberate — tracing your form, lingering where it shouldn’t.

And then he smiled like something divine had clicked into place.

“God,” he murmured, “you’re beautiful. They didn’t put that in your file.”

It was the kind of look men wore before they ruined something soft.

“Jeon Jungkook,” you said calmly, forcing your voice steady. “Do you know why you’re here?”

His tongue slid slowly across his bottom lip.

You looked down. You had to. Even one more second of eye contact and you might’ve flushed.

“We have a forged ID. You were in the passenger seat of a car linked to last month’s arms deal. The driver was seen leaving a drop site in Gangseo. You’re being held while we investigate further.”

No response.

You tried again. “Do you deny knowing the driver?”

His mouth twitched at the corner. Not a smile. Something more base.

You knew, without looking up, that he was still watching your mouth.

“You understand this is serious?” you continued.

Still no words. But you could hear his breathing. Controlled. Deep.

He wasn’t ignoring you.

He was soaking you in.

You glanced up again, only for a second — and there it was. The glint. The flicker of movement, the jerk of his fingers against the cuffs. He wanted to reach for you.

The way his gaze had locked between your lips and your collarbone… it was like instinct was fighting him with every breath.

The cuffs were the only thing stopping him from moving.

He shifted slightly, and the chain strained.

The sound was loud in the silence.

“You’re not going to say anything?” you asked, voice sharp now, snapping to protect your own pulse.

His throat worked once.

And then, finally — “You were just a name on a screen until five minutes ago. Now that I’ve met you I feel like I’d burn down the world to keep you looking at me like that.”

Your heart stilled.

He didn’t say it with fondness. He said it like a man crawling through a desert, finally reaching water.

You didn’t respond. You didn’t dare.

Jungkook leaned forward until the cuffs yanked him back with a quiet metallic click. His smile curled slow — dark, knowing, primal.

You wanted to move. You should’ve moved.

But you didn’t.

Not even when he said, softer now, “What perfume is that?”

You opened your mouth to answer, then stopped yourself. You were not here to play. You were not here to entertain fantasies.

But something told you this man had already started building them.

The rest of the interrogation went nowhere.

He answered nothing. Said little. But his eyes never left you. Not even once.

You left feeling like your body had been touched without ever being reached. Like your bones would remember this encounter long after the bruises of his gaze faded.

You needed a break. A shower. Silence.

You got none of those.

Instead, five hours later, you were summoned to the deputy chief’s office.

“He’s being released,” they said flatly.

Your mouth dropped open. “What?! On whose orders?”

“Everything we had is gone. Witnesses walked. Evidence scrubbed. Whoever’s backing him has reach. Judge signed off five minutes ago.”

You were still arguing when the elevator doors opened downstairs.

And there he was.

Jeon Jungkook, fresh clothes, no cuffs. Walking out as casually as if he’d just finished a spa day.

But when he saw you — he paused.

Paused like the sight of you had just punched the air from his lungs.

Then he smiled. Not politely. Not smug.

Like was about to devour you.

You didn’t speak.

Neither did he.

But he crossed the distance slowly, calculated, until he stood just close enough that your shoulders nearly brushed. The same way a man might pass someone at a crowded bar — only this wasn’t crowded. And it wasn’t by accident.

His eyes dragged across your face. No shame. No mask. Just heat.

Then, as he passed, his voice ghosted behind you:

“Next time… you won’t have a table between us.”

And he was gone.

_____________

You told yourself it was over. That he’d disappeared back into whatever empire he ruled from the shadows. That he had more important things to do than fixate on the woman who couldn’t even get him charged with a forged ID.

But logic didn’t help when you looked over your shoulder too often in grocery stores.

Didn’t help when you kept locking your door twice, even though you’d never forgotten once in your life.

Didn’t help when you kept waking up in the middle of the night with your heart racing — from nothing.

From something.

From whatever was now living in the silence.

Because the truth sat deep in your gut, heavier than you could admit even to yourself.

Jungkook had looked at you like you were already his.

And men like that didn’t forget.

You went back through every note in his case file. Every surveillance photo. Every redacted line of intel. You looked for signs that he’d ever taken an interest in one of his investigators before — any woman, any name, any pattern.

But there was nothing.

Nothing but the way he had looked at you across that interrogation table. Like he hadn’t just noticed you. Like he recognized you. Like the universe had finally handed him a shape he’d been waiting to see — and it just happened to be yours.

Attention from a man like Jeon Jungkook felt like heat under your skin. Like a fuse had been lit somewhere deep in the walls of your life, and now you were just waiting for the spark to reach the core.

He wasn’t making a move.

And that’s how you knew he was serious.

You started carrying a weapon off-duty. You started varying your commute. You memorized exits. Not because anything had happened.

But because you felt it.

Like breath on the back of your neck in an empty room. Like the echo of footsteps one beat behind yours on a quiet night. Like an eye watching through a scope you couldn’t see.

And now he knew exactly what you looked like when you weren’t behind a badge.

_______________

You didn’t want to go.

But your friends insisted.

“You’ve been working nonstop,” Hari said, looping her arm through yours. “You’re barely sleeping. You’re paranoid.”

I have reason to be, you wanted to say. But you bit your tongue.

“Just one night,” Minji added. “We’ll dress up, drink too much, dance a little. No cops. No crime scenes. Just fun.”

So you gave in.

The club was new. Lavish. Private. The kind of place where you didn’t walk in unless your name was on a list or your dress cost more than your rent. You didn’t ask how your friend got the hookup — some cousin-of-a-cousin situation, she claimed — and you didn’t push. You were too tired.

Too worn thin.

The second you stepped through the velvet-draped doors, it hit you: the money. The power. The heat.

It wasn’t a place people came to unwind.

It was a place people came to be seen.

Crystal chandeliers dripped from the ceiling. Music pulsed low and dark, more bass than lyrics. Everything gleamed — marble floors, glass staircases, sharp-dressed men and women with too much perfume and too few inhibitions.

You felt out of place immediately.

Still, your friends pulled you to the bar.

“Something expensive,” Minji told the bartender, grinning. “She’s a cop. She needs it.”

You didn’t correct her. Not anymore. You weren’t sure what you were now.

You took the drink. Sipped. Smiled when they cheered.

And for one moment — one brief, suspended moment — you let yourself relax.

Until you noticed something.

A man. In the far corner. Near the VIP mezzanine.

Watching.

You looked away. You looked back.

He was gone.

You told yourself it was nothing.

Just nerves. Shadows. The trick of a crowded room.

But the unease grew. You scanned the layout — exits, guards, mirrors angled too carefully.

And then it hit you. All at once. The subtle perfection. The impossible security. The air of controlled chaos, polished to an art. The Ace of Hearts on every wall.

You’d studied this style before. In reports. In background intel.

And then you knew.

This place wasn’t just owned by someone like Jungkook.

It was his.

You stood so suddenly your barstool scraped back.

Your friends blinked. “Whoa—hey, are you okay?”

You were already walking.

The hall toward the private wing was guarded, but no one stopped you. Not one hand lifted. Not one voice called out.

Like you were expected.

The hallway grew darker. Quieter.

You turned the corner too fast — heart pounding, fists clenched — and slammed into someone.

Hard.

You stumbled back. Hands reached out.

Caught you.

You looked up—

—and froze.

Jungkook.

He wasn’t dressed like he was last time. No cuffs. No chains. A white dress shirt unbuttoned at the top covered by a black suit blazer with the matching trousers, expensive watch glinting, a ring on one finger you’d never seen before.

But his eyes?

Exactly the same.

Still dark. Still quiet. Still piercing into yours like they knew something that could end the world.

He didn’t speak.

He just looked at you.

And for the first time, you couldn’t look away.

Not because of fear. But because you saw something worse. Satisfaction.

Like this moment — you here, alone, in his domain — had already happened in his mind.

Like he’d imagined this exact scene a hundred times.

“Did you follow me here?” you breathed.

His head tilted slowly. “No,” he murmured. “You came to me.”

You stepped back. “I didn’t know—”

He didn’t move.

Didn’t have to.

The hallway seemed to shrink around him.

“You’ve been waiting for this,” you whispered, pulse racing.

And then came the smallest smile.

“Not waiting,” Jungkook said softly.

“Planning.”

You didn’t move at first.

When Jungkook said planning, you froze. Not because of the word — but because of the way he said it. Calm. Measured. Like this wasn’t a surprise to him. Like tonight, this hallway, this very breath between you, had all gone exactly the way he knew it would.

“I’m not here for you,” you said, but your voice cracked halfway through.

He raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you?”

Your fingers clenched at your sides. “Let me go back to my friends.”

“I didn’t stop you.” He leaned casually against the doorframe, one hand in his pocket. “You came this far.”

You swallowed. “We shouldn’t have come here.”

But even as you turned to leave, his voice stopped you. Quiet. Controlled.

“I wouldn’t go back that way.”

You turned slowly. “What do you mean?”

He tilted his head, eyes dark and steady. “Do you know who the man is sitting two tables behind your friend with the ponytail?”

Your stomach dropped.

“You’ve been watching us?”

“I always watch what’s mine.” He took a step forward — not fast, not loud. Just close enough that you felt it. “And what I want.”

You tried to swallow the panic in your throat. “You wouldn’t hurt them.”

“No,” he said simply. “I wouldn’t.”

And then his voice dropped.

“But other people might. People who owe me things. People who’d do anything to earn back my trust.”

You stared.

Jungkook didn’t look away.

He wasn’t gloating. He wasn’t bluffing.

He was warning you.

“I don’t want to see your friends in a tabloid headline,” he said softly. “Not when you can stop it.”

You didn’t speak.

Didn’t breathe.

He stepped back then — gave you space — and nodded toward the stairs at the end of the hallway.

“I just want to talk. Upstairs. Just us.” A pause. “Ten minutes.”

He let that linger.

Then: “Unless you’d rather go back and roll the dice.”

You hesitated.

And that hesitation was all it took.

You followed.

The club blurred behind you. The bass dropped away. You heard nothing but your own heartbeat echoing in your ears as you followed him up the glass staircase and down a private corridor lined with black marble and gold trim.

He opened a door. Waited.

And you stepped inside.

The second it shut behind you, he moved. Fast.

You didn’t even have time to turn before his hands slammed against the door on either side of your head — caging you, pinning you, his body pressed full against yours.

The click of the lock was the last sound you heard before you felt him.

Breath hot against your neck.

Hands skimming your waist, possessive but slow

His lips found your throat before you could reply — warm, wet, desperate. Kisses turned to nips, his teeth grazing sensitive skin like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to kiss you or mark you.

And God, you hated the way it lit your nerves on fire.

He kissed just beneath your ear. Down the side of your throat. The curve of your shoulder. His grip tightened on your hip.

“I’ve thought about this,” Jungkook murmured against your pulse. “Every night. Every time I closed my eyes, it was this. You. Right here.”

You sucked in a breath — not from fear, not from resistance.

From the heat.

The terrifying, suffocating heat of being wanted like this. Devoured like this.

“You should hate me,” he whispered. “I know you do.”

His hand slid higher, curling against the side of your neck, not squeezing — holding. Like you were something delicate. Like you were already his.

“But you came,” he said. “That’s all that matters.”

He kissed you again — harder now, teeth dragging.

And you knew this wasn’t about seduction anymore.

It was about claiming.

And he wasn’t going to stop until every inch of you remembered who you belonged to. Your body was frozen.

Not by choice.

Not entirely.

You weren’t sure if it was fear or instinct or the terrifying awareness of how close you were to destruction — but you couldn’t move.

Not with him that close. Not when you could feel how real his hunger was.

His voice ghosted over your skin.

“You don’t know what you do to me,” he said, quiet and rough. “I haven’t been able to think about anything else since that room.”

You flinched, but he smiled like it was affection.

“You’re shaking,” he whispered. “Are you scared of me?”

You didn’t answer. He didn’t wait.

Suddenly, his hands found your thighs, gripped tight, and he lifted you — clean off the floor, like you weighed nothing. Your arms flew around his shoulders on instinct, legs locking around his waist, and then—

Then you were on the bed. Still wrapped around him.

His mouth crashed to your shoulder as he pressed you down into the mattress, still clothed, but pressed so tightly you could feel every twitch of his body.

“I need you,” Jungkook muttered, voice wrecked now, desperate. “Right now. Can’t wait. Can’t—”

He was unraveling. Coming apart at the seams from the fantasy he’d waited too long to touch.

And that’s when you knew you had one shot.

You forced your body to relax. Gave a soft, breathy hum near his ear. Let your fingers smooth along the back of his neck.

“Jungkook,” you whispered sweetly. “Let me take care of you.”

That made him still.

You shifted your hips gently beneath him, fingers brushing his jaw. And when his head lifted just enough, you leaned in and gave him the softest kiss on the lips. Barely there. Just a taste.

He melted.

Eyes fluttering shut, mouth parting slightly as if he didn’t know how to handle that kind of softness.

You smiled.

“Good boy,” you purred, brushing your lips across his. “Let me worship you a little.”

Another kiss, teasing, light, just enough to keep him drunk on you. Then down his throat. His collarbone. His chest.

His hips jerked slightly.

You smirked.

“Sensitive,” you teased. “Didn’t expect that.”

He growled under his breath, but you slid your fingers down his chest slowly, tenderly, like you were tracing a masterpiece.

You kept your voice honey-sweet, just enough to stroke his ego. “You’ve been patient with me, haven’t you, Jungkook?”

He nodded, breath shaky.

“All that time watching. Waiting.” You dragged your nails over his shoulders. “It must’ve been so hard.”

“Every fucking day,” he rasped.

You kissed him again — etting your lips barely part against his, teasing the tension. He moaned into your mouth, hips pressing harder, arms trembling as he held himself above you.

When you pulled back, his lips chased yours instinctively. And that was when you knew you had him.

“You dont understand what it’s been like,” he murmured, voice low, thick. “Knowing your name. Your face. Having to wait.”

He kissed the corner of your mouth — soft, reverent — and your hands curled into fists, not from fear, but from restraint.

Because if you wanted to survive this, you couldn’t play defense.

You had to seduce the devil.

So you tilted your head slightly, lips brushing his jaw. “Then why wait?” you whispered. “You’re the one who locked the door.”

That made him pause.

His eyes darkened, pupils expanding, lips parting just a little. You brought your hands up slowly, grazing the sides of his chest, kissing down his neck and unbuttoning his dress shirt, then trailing them down, down, until your fingers curled into the belt at his waist.

“Tell me,” you said softly, “is this how you imagined it?”

He swallowed.

“I bet it was filthier in your head,” you teased, nails dragging just slightly. “Harder. I bet I was already begging. I bet you thought about me choking on that big, big cock.”

“Don’t,” he warned, voice shaky.

“Don’t what?” You leaned in, lips brushing the shell of his ear. “Say what you want me to say?”

He hissed under his breath. His whole body leaned forward slightly, chasing the heat of you, and you knew then: you had him.

Of course you did.

Because in his mind, this was always inevitable.

His eyes devoured you like he didn’t know where to look — your mouth, your thighs, your hands as they slowly found his shoulders. His shirt was completely unbuttoned now, revealing the toned hard skin of his chest, and his abs.

His eyes were now fluttering shut, mouth parting slightly as if he didn’t know how to handle that kind of softness.

And while he was distracted—you moved.

Quick, fluid, practiced.

You rolled your hips, shifted your weight, and in one smooth twist, flipped the both of you.

Now you were on top, straddling him.

He blinked in dazed surprise, chest rising and falling, letting you guide him like a man under spell.

You pushed him to lay all the way down, and he groaned, head falling back, and you took that opportunity to press soft kisses along his throat. Each one slow, teasing, calculated. You dragged your lips along his jawline, whispering between them.

“Thought about this too, didn’t you? When I walked into that interrogation room? I bet you touched yourself to it.”

His breath hitched.

“You didn’t want to hurt me. Not really,” you lied, sweet and syrupy. “You just wanted to know what I taste like.”

He nodded, barely breathing.

And then your hand slid down between you — slowly, confidently — and palmed him through his pants.

The sound he made was broken. Half-groan, half-whimper, head falling forward to your shoulder as his hips arched into your touch. His hands found your waist — not gripping, just holding. Like he thought he finally had you. Like this was real.

“That’s it,” you whispered against his throat. “You like being touched, don’t you? Bet you’d let me do anything right now.”

“Yes baby, don’t stop—,” he gasped. You smiled against his skin.

And then you pulled back.

Your hand moved fast — a sharp, sudden strike straight to his groin, the heel of your palm hitting hard through the expensive fabric.

He choked out a grunt, body curling forward in reflex.

Before he could recover, you shoved him back onto the bed.

A ragged, wounded sound tore from his throat as his body curled toward the pain.

And you ran.

You bolted from the bed, flung the door open, and didn’t stop to look back. His cursing rang in your ears, low and strangled, full of disbelief and pain and fury. The sound of it should’ve satisfied you.

But it only fueled the adrenaline in your blood.

You barreled down the stairs, through the corridor, chest heaving. The music from the club below pounded like a heartbeat.

Your friends were still at the bar.

“MOVE!” you shouted, breathless, just as the guards began turning your way.

You slammed into a standing table, sending bottles, glasses, and bodies flying.

A blur of chaos.

It gave you seconds.

Just enough.

You grabbed your friends, who were still too stunned to scream, and dragged them toward the side exit as shouting broke out behind you.

And when you burst into the alleyway and sprinted into the street—

You knew one thing.

You escaped tonight.

But the look on Jungkook’s face as you left him breathless and in pain?

He wasn’t going to forget it.

And he sure as hell wasn’t going to forgive it.

So you kept running.

Ignoring the part of you that wanted to finish what you started back in that room.

[romanticrivalries]

WHAT ARE THEY? SINCARAZ LORE (WITH RECEIPTS)

The RG final brought in an influx of new fans. Because of my SINCARAZ x called you again edit, I received a lot of inquiries about what happened between them. Since their relationship is complicated—("he means a lot to me" / "we’re good friends" / "aren’t close friends" / they wake up in the morning and think about each other)—and goes ↗️↘️↗️↘️↗️ every other month (Hot N Cold by Katy Perry is quite befitting), I thought I should make this.

Before we join hands and plunge into the rabbit hole, I need to establish how downbad Carlos was (is?) for Jannik. 

His entire face lit up at the mere mention of Jannik:

Exhibit B. I swear, if Carlos had a tail it would start wagging aggressively at the sight of Jannik.

Carlos looking back at Jannik after they parted ways.

He looks back at Jannik a lot. Exhibit B. Exhibit C.

Tbh, his smile during Jannik’s speech in the Rome ‘25 ceremony is incriminating enough:

(Smiling so aggressively his gums are showing… Someone call an ambulance, we’ve got a man down bad.)

Now that that has been established, let’s move on. Buckle up, it’s a long ride.

They first met as teenagers (Carlos was 15, Jannik - 17) in 2019 at the JC Ferrero Challenger Open, held at the academy of Carlos’ coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero. Carlos won. Jannik is the one who approached Carlos first because he wanted to get to know him. 

“I saw the draw coming out and I said, ‘Oh, Carlos Alcaraz, I have no idea who he is!’” said the Italian. “I saw the age and I said, ‘Wow, he’s playing a challenger, it’s amazing.’ And then straight away I was impressed. “After the match, we went to the same locker room … and I was like, ‘When did you start to play tennis?’ And then we started to talk a little bit, because I wanted to get to know him because he was just an amazing talent already back in the day.”

Their first ATP match up was in 2021 at the Rolex Paris Masters. Despite losing, Jannik was the one to say to Carlos at the net: “I hope we play some more.”

And the rest is history: Carlos imprinted on Jannik and has been down bad ever since. Therefore, it can be concluded that Jannik fell first but Carlos fell harder.

Prior to 2024, Jannik and Carlos were quite consistent about referring to each other as good friends.

CARLOS (2022): “[...] and of course, we are great friends outside the court. [...] I talked to him out of the court, by phone, I mean we laughed a lot**, he’s a nice person [...]”

They went jet skiing together after their Umag final, 2022. 

JANNIK (Rolex Shanghai Masters 2023): [...] “We have a very good relationship off the court and I feel like we are good friends, but still, you know, on court there is, uh, this nervous, you know, inside you feel a little bit nervous [...]”

During December of 2023, Jannik and Carlos trained together at the Juan Carlos Ferrero Tennis Academy as preseason preparation. Same place where they met for the first time, btw. A ceremony took place where it was unveiled that the main court would be named after Carlos. Jannik recorded the entire thing on his phone, a video that he never shared on social media.

Many people say their relationship is one-sided, that Jannik doesn’t reciprocate, but this moment alone speaks volumes of how much he cares. Other people were capturing the event, so he didn’t need to, but he still chose to, just for himself and Carlos. It wasn’t something meant to be shared with the public. Not only that, he didn’t just take a quick snap, he recorded the entire thing. It’s characteristic of his introverted, private nature to show he cares in subtle ways like this that aren’t always visible/obvious to the public eye.

Jannik talked about it a little bit over here after the interviewer teases him for taking photos like a fan: “For me, it’s special, they grew up together [...]”

The unshared video should also serve as a reminder that there are likely many other private friendly moments shared between them that we as outsiders will never be privy to, so we shouldn’t base assumptions on the nature of their relationship from what’s said/not said on their social media.

CARLOS' UNWAVERING FAITH IN JANNIK

Carlos believed in Jannik’s potential before most people did. In 2023, he remained steadfast in his claim that Jannik is his biggest rival when people were expecting him to name Djokovic. The media kept trying to coax the Alcaraz vs. Djokovic narrative out of Carlos but he would not budge.

Note: Jannik didn’t have his meteoric breakthrough until 2024 (he was showing signs of it by the end of 2023). Before 2024, Jannik had no Grand Slams and only 1 Masters 1000 title (Canada). In comparison, by that point, Carlos had 2 Grand Slams and 4 Master 1000s. He became the youngest World Number One in ATP rankings history in 2022.

I: The rankings say it’s Novak and Carlos, Carlos and Novak, do you consider him to be your biggest rival at the moment? CARLOS, ROME ‘23: “[...] Probably, Jannik right now is my biggest opponent. We had really great matches, but at the same time really, really tough ones. [...]”

CARLOS, Post-Wimbledon, ‘23: "Having someone there, with whom you fight, with whom you have that battle, that beautiful rivalry, is important to maintain motivation for so long. Right now, I think I have it and I’m not afraid to say it: for me, it’s Sinner at the moment. That beautiful rivalry that we have, those big games that we have played, on big stages. As the years go by there will be better ones and we will fight for the big titles.”

Even Jannik didn't consider himself to be Carlos' biggest rival.

JANNIK, SHANGHAI '23: "But in the other way, I feel like that he [Carlos] has achieved many things more than I did at the moment, and me, personally, I think, at the moment, the biggest rivalry he has is Novak because of certain circumstances of points and World Number One and Grandslams throughout the last two years [...]"

I’ve observed Jannik avoids getting ahead of himself and making presumptions about the future— I’m not sure whether it’s because of superstition, his realistic perspective about the rapidly-changing brutal nature of tennis as a competitive sport or something else —which is why he doesn’t entertain talks about the future of their rivalry as easily as Carlos does.

At the time, this raised a lot of eyebrows, but Carlos predicted Jannik would become World Number One in 2024, which Jannik did. The reason behind the skepticism was that in 2023 the World Number One title had gone back-and-forth between Djokovic and Carlos until Djokovic emerged on top as the Year-end World Number One. Djokovic won all the slams apart from Wimbledon, which was won by Carlos. So, people were expecting a similar pattern in 2024.

LANGUAGE(S) THEY COMMUNICATE IN:

In 2022, Carlos said they both communicate in Spanish. On the other hand, Jannik said he speaks in Italian while Carlos speaks in Spanish.

CARLOS: [...] We speak Spanish. I don’t know how to speak Italian. At the moment, we speak Spanish. (Source) Interviewer: “His [Jannik’s] Spanish is good?” CARLOS: “Yeah, he’s good. He has to improve, but his Spanish is good.”

JANNIK: “Sometimes we talk in the locker room. He speaks in Spanish and I speak in Italian, so we talk kind of mixed. But I think we understand us very well. Off court we are friends, we are good friends. I mean, also now after his match and my match, we saw each other in the ice bath. I think we are in a good relationship which hopefully can live for many years because this is the most important.” (Source)

(A/N: Fast forward to the trophy ceremony in Rome 2025, where Carlos told Jannik to speak in Italian because he understands, while Carlos gave his speech to Jannik in English because Jannik’s Spanish isn’t that good [?])

BOTH ARE ALIKE OFF-COURT:

Because of their contrasting personalities, I’ve seen people make assumptions that they don’t mesh well off-court or wonder whether they have anything in common to talk about outside of tennis, but they’re actually quite similar off the court and get along well. In particular, they both place a lot of value on honesty, integrity, and being good people. They both keep close to their small circles. 

DARREN CAHILL (JANNIK’S COACH), 2024: “Two young, great kids, not just on the court but off the court as well. Their friendship is real. They both respect each other and like each other and you’ll see that on the court tomorrow regardless of who wins [...]”

DARREN CAHILL (JANNIK’S COACH), 2024: “I think Carlos is very similar to Jannik in both the way they play with the excitement level they bring to the game, and their personalities and their likability. Both guys are incredibly alike off the court. They both like each other.”

JANNIK: "It's easy for Carlos and me to get along. We are quite similar off the court. When we play, however, we are a bit different, but that's normal, it's our nature. Off court, I listen to him, I get the feeling he likes to be surrounded by the people closest to him, as I am. Carlos pushes me to be a better player."

JANNIK, SHANGHAI 2024: “[...] For me it’s nice that we’re rivals on the court and friends off the court [...] Off the court, we are quite similar, because we surround ourselves with our close ones, we like to stay with the team, um, you know there are many, many things, similar things I feel like [...]”

Alcaraz said of Sinner: “I always say you have to be a good person first and athletics comes after that. Jannik thinks the same thing.”

DARREN CAHILL (JANNIK’S COACH), 2025: “Now Carlos and Jannik aren’t going out to dinner together either, but they are mates. They’re in the locker room, they’re talking. I’m part of some of their conversations. I won’t repeat what they are because most of it focuses around what 23-year-olds and 21-year-olds talk about, but they have fun, and they enjoy each other’s company.”

They’re both big football fans.

So you won’t be dropping Carlitos a text if Italy beats Spain in their group-stage match? [JANNIK] No, I will never do that… [Pauses to laugh and grins]... Maybe!

ON-AND-OFF DIVORCE ERA A.K.A We’re so back / It’s so over / We’re so fucking back / it’s joeover

They forgot to sit down and define the relationship, so were on completely different pages for a good part of 2024.

Things were looking good in Indian Wells.

They were high-fiving and chatting each other up in the tunnel before their match, Carlos waited for Jannik so they could leave the court together when the match was delayed because of rain, giggling together as they left the court (bonus: carlos patting Jannik’s b—), sat together in the locker room and talked about life, also laughed about:

CARLOS, INDIAN WELLS 24: “Well, we were laughing about it with Jannik when it [match] suspended, because I had bees, had the rain.”

Things changed around Miami.

While Carlos was waxing poetic about their futures:

“Hopefully Jannik and I both have a long and beautiful future ahead of us.” (N: Oddly romantic thing to say: sounds like Carlos wants to spend the rest of their lives together.) CARLOS, MIAMI 2024

Also, Carlos saying more downbad and incriminating things like: “He means a lot to me.” (INDIAN WELLS ‘24) 

For the first time, in Miami 2024, Jannik defines their relationship as not that close as previously painted:

“[...] We have a lot of respect for each other and, obviously, off the court we don't speak that much because he has his own things and I have my things."

Some of the reactions from this reddit thread are worth a read, lol.

(Skipping a major arc: Roland Garros '24)

Things started looking good again months later during Beijing. Chatting in the gym (part 1, part 2). Carlos was looking to give Zendaya a run for her money the way he was laughing in part 1. I would say Jannik isn’t that funny, but too many people close to him have said otherwise, so maybe he is indeed just that funny.

Just look at them during the trophy ceremony. 

“I respect you a lot as a player but even more as a person” was very much needed after all the noise that had reemerged with the WADA appeal.

Jannik and Carlos greet each other’s teams.

They shared a flight together after their final:

Carlos’ interview about it. Jannik’s interview about it (his little giggle when asked about the photo was so cute).

During Shanghai, someone pulled Uno reverse, because now Jannik was talking about how they’re friends off court but Carlos was like we’re not that close.

CARLOS, SHANGHAI ‘24: "We don't talk too much when we are around. Obviously, we have a really good relationship off the court as well. I think we both respect each other a lot, as a player, as a person, but once we are on tour traveling, you know, during tournaments when we are on-site, we are with our team, on our own, so we don't speak too much. When we can, we talk a little bit besides tennis about life a little bit, but not too much. It means, we have a good relationship, but we are not close friends, you know, but I think the respect that we have, you know, put [us] in a position that we have a really good relationship."

For renowned downbad Carlos to say this, the people were certainly shocked. He managed to fight off the allegations until he lost the war by cheesin’ so hard just because Jannik grouped him as a legend during the trophy ceremony in Shanghai (the final was between Jannik and Djokovic but Carlos was there to watch).

Just look at him:

Their exhibition final, SIX KINGS SLAM ‘24 was a gift that kept on giving:

Silly confusion because the announcer got their walkout order wrong, Jannik removed confetti from Carlos’ hair, Jannik—I wake up in the morning thinking about Carlos—Sinner, Carlos refused to let go of Jannik, bench talks etc.

I: So, did you just tell us that everyday you wake up you think about him [Carlos]?

(The interviewer decided to choose violence and not let that insane statement from Jannik go by unnoticed by everyone in that stadium)

JANNIK: [Flustered pause] “Well, no, I mean… [Jannik laughs in panic while Carlos looks utterly delighted] It would be strange, no?”

(The interviewer had to intercede and save him.)

I: “In practice terms."

(Love how the interviewer said this in such a pointed way, like gay boy your mind went there by itself, I was talking about practice)

I: "He’s your biggest rival, isn’t he, over the next few years. Do you still get on as friends?”

JANNIK: “I mean, we understand each other very well. We travel a lot. We are, I would say good friends [turns to check with Carlos, who nods], you know. Not obviously the best out of the best, but y‘know, we also like to share every time when we go on the court. We try to enjoy [...]”

Carlos decided to send signals to Jannik during his press conference that he wants to be friends:

“[...] We don’t spend too much time together off the court, but I would love to.”

He WOULD LOVE TO. Jannik did that blazing signal manage to transmit through your thick curls?

I really liked this comment on their relationship:

It explains everything pretty well.

It's hard to be friends with the person who is responsible for chipping away your soul and body in a grueling battle that lasts for hours, who rips your heart into pieces by squashing your dreams and taking the one thing you wanted the most (when it was nearly within reach).

Poor Jannik has cried enough times because of Carlos 😭

“Tears of happiness? I haven’t had them yet. [I cried] after [losing to] Carlos in the US Open, also a bit at Roland Garros,” Jannik adds. “There are always moments when you feel emotions you don’t want in the locker room or sometimes when you’re in transportation or even in the hotel room alone. It means you care about the sport. It means you want to reach this level." (Source / 2024)

I liked this analysis on them.

FOR JUST CO-WORKERS, THEY’RE TOTALLY NORMAL ABOUT EACH OTHER:

They both wake up in the morning and think about each other.

Carlos [about Jannik during Roland Garros ‘24]: "...to wake up in the morning and want to improve my game to try to beat him..." [Source]

Jannik [about Carlos on two different occasions]: "...he pushes me to do better. I wake up in the morning trying to understand what I can do better trying to beat him next time, which is something nice for me as a player." [Source]

Jannik: "...we try to push ourselves to the limits, you know, I wake up in the morning trying to understand the ways how to beat him and you know this kind of rivalries and this kind of players they push us always to our 100% limit..." [Source]

CARLOS, SHANGHAI ‘23: “[...] Against him, as I said, it’s different.”

JANNIK, SHANGHAI ‘24: “[...] It’s like fire and ice, a bit [...]”

Interviewer: “Carlos was in here, and he said it really hurts to lose against you. Especially against you. Do you love to win, especially against him?” JANNIK: “[...] Obviously, both of us, we hate losing, especially against each other.”

CARLOS, INDIAN WELLS ‘24: “I mean, I hear some declarations from Tommy Paul that was funny for me, that he's [Jannik’s] absolutely naked right now. He’s playing naked, so [...]” (Source) / “I hear some words from Tommy Paul that he’s [Jannik’s] playing absolutely naked, so he’s right [...]” (Source)

Guess he liked the thought of Jannik playing absolutely naked so much that he had to mention it more than once. Alright.

CARLOS, ROLAND GARROS ‘24: “That’s when I thought, ‘Jannik, if you really want to beat me, you’re gonna have to take me out on a stretcher.’”

“Everything he does, he does it perfectly.”

CARLOS, ROME ‘25: “[...] Honestly, I’m going to say I need him in the tour [...]” / “I’m not going to get tired of saying, y’know, how amazing a person, athlete you are.”

JANNIK, ROLAND GARROS ‘25: “He’s [Carlos’] a player with charisma, with that aura. The moment he steps on court, you can feel his presence.”

CARLOS, ROME ‘25: I'm more focused when I'm playing against him, or I feel a little bit different when I'm going to face him than other players. He has that aura. When you're seeing him on the other side of the net, it's different.”

Where’s that twitter post that went along the lines of: aura is basically you calling another man attractive

CARLOS, ROLAND GARROS ‘25: “[...] It’s a privilege to share the court with you, in every tournament, making history with you.�� 

Not to be cheesy and quote Red, White & Royal Blue, but: “History, huh?”

We've only scratched the surface here (their divorce 2.0 still remains unearthed), but this post has gotten too long, so I'm going to end it here. Hopefully, this proves useful to someone.

[narcjsistx]

— YOUNG TO BE DESTROYED, OLD TO BE SAVED

ও kaiser michael x fem!reader

ও warnings: small age gap between characters (reader 16 and kaiser 17) ; mention of domestic abuse ; mention of attempted suicide ; mention of teen pregnancy ; mention of burns caused by a fire ; mention of a sex scene. nothing is described in detail, but if you think you can't read it don't worry :) stay safe!!. the kaiser at the beginning of the story is the same as the one at the first meeting with ness, without tattoos, the story will also follow them as adults after

ও 𝐌𝐘 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ; take a look, trust me!

Sixteen is not the right age to start stealing to survive. If you have to steal to live, it is better to start when you are young, so that you never know the feeling of having a warm house with food always on the table. Starting at sixteen means overturning all the principles that until a minute before had been the pillars of your life, rules that your parents had taught you since your first breath. Stealing is wrong, but dying of hunger is more wrong. You don't have much choice when your parents refuse to look you in the face. Berlin has always been cold, since you were born you never felt the heat of the sun on your skin for more than a few hours. You love Germany but hate the city you live in, which you never had the chance to escape. The last time you tried it got you into this shitty situation you're in now, with the misery all around you

You look up, the light from the distant field lamps faintly illuminating the messy place that has been your new home for weeks now. The sound of the whistle echoes in your ears, as if the soccer field were just a few meters away from you and not at least one kilometer away. You hear the screams of the players, the curses, the laughter, everything that comes out of their mouths as if you were there with them and not lying on a mattress recovered from a bin. You observe their blurry silhouettes, the balls that whizz through the air, all as a silent spectator. They don't know you've been watching them for days, ever since you found this shelter while wandering. It would be weird to know that someone you don't know has been watching you for so long, watching your movements, the way you train and joke with your teammates. Hell, it would be scary for you too to know that they're staring at you from afar. But watching them is the only human contact, if you can call it that, you have with civilization. It seems like the whole world has turned its back on you, but you're not completely homeless. You are, yes. But you get a shower every day thanks to the same players who leave the locker room door open

You've learned some of the names of the players, at least the ones who are most often praised or accused. You still can't tell the difference from their tone of voice. The most called is a certain Grimm, who does nothing but make assists that then take him to the net without a striker who can score. Another who is called often is a certain Alexis, who however seems more useful than the other. You didn't know the rules of soccer, but since you camped here you're suddenly an expert

Your father had shown you some soccer games when you were younger. He didn't like sports, but watching his national team play in anything important was a kind of pride for him, even though he had been beaten up as a child by some kids who were now part of the team. He told this story with a pride that often made you doubt his sanity. When moments like that happened, the house became even quieter than it already was, with you crushed on the couch between the bodies of your parents. The smell of cigars filled the air and the only acceptable noise was that of the television. You didn't enjoy watching the games, but as long as you had the opportunity to go to bed an hour and a half later than usual, you were fine with it. It was kinda a transgression, but you were proud of it

Your father was not a big fan of Bastard Munchen, one of the most exclusive sports clubs in the entire country, if not the most important. Yet for days now you found yourself staring at them, the club's players and their cannon shots on net. This too was a transgression, probably the second most important in your entire life after the suicide mission that was supposed to lead you to run away from home. More than once you had approached the campus, going past the fences less than two meters high. The locker rooms were attached to the fields, you didn't have to go over the fence to enter and use the showers, but curiosity had pushed you to wander a bit through the team's territories. The dormitories were south of the field, the cafeteria connected to them and you counted at least ten fields from the bit you had managed to explore, when no one was around or the team was away for some match. Security was not doing its job as it should have done to protect future German prodigies, and so sneaking into the camp to steal something from the mess bins was quite easy

You didn't go every day, that would have been too dangerous, but every time you went you made sure to take at least a week's worth of supplies. Sometimes the food ran out early, sometimes you didn't get past the fence for two weeks. But now, with your stomach empty for two days, you think it's time to go. You should have done it a few days ago, but due to some stomach pains you couldn't. This had delayed the arrival of the new food and consequently you were on an empty stomach. You have to wait for their workout to finish and maybe go after dinner time, hoping to find something that can ease the pain. They usually never eat much, lucky for you

You wait for the right moment before starting to walk, a ruined sweatshirt that protects you from the cold of the night. You go beyond the fence and hide in the half-light that the dumpsters give you, waiting patiently for the time when you know the maids will throw out the garbage bags. You hear the voices of the women and the players through the open windows, and the familiarity with which everyone seems to be in the canteen environment doesn't particularly affect you. You've never had the chance to experience something like this, a normal dinner with your parents or the simple pleasure of staying home to rest, so you don't know this feeling that was so described in the books you were forced to read. It should be reassuring, but the only reassuring thing you've ever had in your life was a caress years ago that a woman at the supermarket gave you, mistaking you for her niece, who was accidentally next to you

It's cold, but the sweatshirt seems to warm you a little as you rest your chin on your knees, warming your hands with the little warm breath you manage to create. Your stomach is hurting like hell, but the hope of being able to put something under your teeth pushes you to resist, even if the maids are delaying their usual time to put out the garbage bags. You haven't known what time it is for several weeks now, but it's probably well past midnight already and the garbage bags are not yet in the drawers, while you feel like dying. You tremble, trying to make as little noise as possible, because you know that if they discovered you they would call the police. The police have never helped you, and they wouldn't if they found out you were doing something like this. The only solution is to wait and hope you don't die here tonight, even if under current conditions it would be possible. It will probably happen, sooner or later, but you want to hope that later is as far away as possible. You're still too young to go away like this

As you close your eyes, you hear the sound of metal doors slamming. You hear the chatter of women throwing out garbage bags, filling the dumpsters that slam into your face. Blood starts to drip from your nose, but that's not the main problem when the smell of burning meat finally reaches your nostrils. You struggle to wait for the women to come back inside, but as soon as they disappear behind the door, you rush to the dirty bags to open it as if it contained the most beautiful Christmas present in the world. You voraciously start throwing pieces of meat into your mouth, also taking some tomatoes and some yogurt sauce that is stuck to some bitten bread. From the emotion small tears form at the edge of your eyes, but you can't help but let them out as you fill your stomach after days of panic. This is the first time this has happened to you since you became homeless, but it feels so good to finally have a full stomach again

"A dog? A stray dog?"

You freeze when you hear a male voice outside the dumpster. The food gets stuck in your throat, while your agitation starts pumping through your veins again. You tremble uncontrollably, almost unconsciously, as you turn your head towards the presumed voice. There is definitely someone here, and it is a man. You hear footsteps approaching the dumpster you are locked in, and in a last ditch attempt to save your skin you hide under the bags, at the bottom of the metal container. The stench burns your lungs, but you hold your breath while you trying to move as less as possible. If they catch you now, it's over. This is definitely trespassing, and it's punishable by jail time. In prison they would kill you for your weakness, or probably use your body only for personal purposes. Both options would kill you anyway, and you still have so many things to do before you leave this world

A hand slips through the garbage, feeling the bags covering your stomach. You hold your breath, even when the hand accidentally lands on your breast, squeezing it. You feel the hand disappear above the surface, then grab the bags that cover you. You remain paralyzed when not even a bag has the possibility of covering you, thus marking the end of your hiding scene. You no longer feel air in your lungs due to the anxiety of having been discovered, and you look up where the dumpster has its opening: a pale face, vaguely illuminated by the street lamps, appears in front of your vision. You notice a young man, with blond hair and a light red eyeliner, with eyes too blue to be human. Some of his long, messy hair falls onto your face, pinching your face, which is stained with something wet from the garbage. His eyes are a little surprised when he notices you, but he doesn't seem that surprised either. He raises an eyebrow, grabbing his hair and putting it behind his shoulders "What the fuck are you doing here?"

You don't know how to respond, the words that don't want to come out of your mouth and create a remotely convincing excuse. You stammer something, but that only seems to annoy him, as he looks at you questioningly "Are you a woman? I assume... oh. I touched your breasts, earlier. While you were hiding" he says maybe a little guilty, but you wouldn't be able to tell from his confident tone of voice "I thought you were a damn stray dog. Even though it smells the same" he says chuckling, but you don't share his irony while you're still figuring out if he'll call the police or not. He seems to notice your silence, taking your arm to at least make you sit up "I was joking, don't take it personally. Not that I care about your perfume, I don't know you" he says shrugging. He then seems to remember something "Get out of the way. I have to check if they threw away something I need" he says, pushing you aside, picking up a bag and placing it on the floor, disappearing from your view. His attention shifts completely to the object, as he opens it and throws out the waste, swearing something under his breath in a thick Berlin accent

You get down on your knees, resting your hands on the edge of the dumpster as you watch him, still scared "You… you’re not going to call the police?" you ask, stammering, but he huffs, not even turning around "I don’t care. You can just walk away" he says throwing the garbage around him, but suddenly he turns, looking at you in the face "Indeed. Come here, if you don't want me to call it. You have to help me find something" he says smiling victoriously, and you stand up, following his order. He seems satisfied when he sees you at his side "You have to look for the drawing of a blue rose with thorns along the arm. Like... a tattoo sketch" he says looking, and you remain a little perplexed, but you nod. In the middle of the night you start looking for this sketch, an almost holy silence that holds between you. You search without asking questions, without attracting more attention than you already have. You drop your conditions to help this stranger who seems to be able to give you freedom, if you help him. With shaking hands you search for at least ten minutes, until you turn around noticing that he hasn't been searching for a while now, more interested in studying you "How young are you?" he asks bluntly. You press your lips together, moving your gaze back to the envelope, still searching for "Sixteen" you say a little uneasily, but he nods "I'm seventeen" he says confidently

You think the conversation is over, but less than ten minutes later, you feel his eyes burning on you again "Why were you here? I won’t call the police. But answer me" he asks, and you feel a little uncomfortable answering without sounding like a criminal. You think about it a bit before telling the truth, lying to him would make him angry and he might change his mind "I needed food. Opening the bags and eating the scraps was the only option" you say a little embarrassed by your own words, but your words don't seem to surprise him "I understand"

After almost half an hour of searching, a small ketchup-stained piece of paper pops out of the mass. You grab the sketch, handing it to him "Is this?" you ask uncertainly, and he smiles at it "It's this" he says taking it, looking at it proudly. You stand up from the ground as he seems too happy to pay attention to you. You clasp your hands behind your back, looking down. Thanking him would be better, showing respect is always appreciated "Thank you... thank you for not calling the police. I will never come back here again" you say promising something completely false. He looks up, getting back on his feet. Only now do you notice the difference in height between you. He nods, chuckling to himself "At least make promises you know you can keep" he says, but you have already run away behind the fence

Running back to your shelter, you can't help but think that luck has saved you. If he had called the police, you would probably be in a cell in any police station by now, awaiting legal proceedings. Yet you found someone whose only interest was himself and his desperate need to find that drawing. It was probably a staff member or a player, but you're not sure about either possibility. It's enough to know that for tonight you're still alive and with a full stomach. You have taken less food though, which you will probably finish earlier than expected due to your stomach pain. Your return there will be much closer than you want, but as long as you live you're happy. You curl up on the mattress, still chewing a piece of bread. You fall asleep sooner than expected, still thinking about today's luck. When you wake up you notice with regret that it snowed during the night, and that your sweatshirt is completely wet because of the loose flakes on your body

You stand up from your hiding place, looking out at the distant campus now completely covered in snow. You're cold, but your sweatshirt was the only long-sleeved thing you had left. You go back to the hideout, taking off your now completely soaked sweatshirt, remaining in your bra. You light a small fire with some paper, closing the exit of the hideout with the mattress turned over. You pull your legs to your chest to save heat, but the shivers don't seem to go away even as you're about to fall asleep again. The last thing you see before you fall asleep is the calm flame of the fire in front of you. The first thing you see when you wake up is the shelter completely in flames. You wake up because of too much heat on your body, especially concentrated along your left leg, finding yourself surrounded by flames. You regain alertness almost immediately, looking around for an escape route while your heart risks coming out of your rib cage, and the only option seems to be the exit which however is still partially blocked by the burning mattress. You tremble looking for a solution, and the only option seems to be to move the mattress with your bare hands. You take a generous dose of snow that you put on your hands before grabbing the edges of the object to move it

The pain of the flames immediately reaches your hands. You scream in despair, feeling your whole body burning, but you don't let go. You try to move the mattress and only succeed after a few attempts, not daring to look at your hands that you can no longer feel because of the pain. When you finally move the mattress you fall to the ground, onto the cold snow. The cold hits your bare, burned skin, causing a sensation you would compare to the hell your mother said she feared. If this isn't dying, you don't know what is. With your knees planted in the snow you look down just to take a look at the state of your hands, but you are disgusted to see only burned and bloody skin. Looking down you also notice a large burn on your left leg, the same one where the heat was concentrated. You try to calm yourself down with deep sighs, but all you really do is scream at the top of your lungs in pain. You cry as you look at the burns, barely walking away from the shelter that is now completely destroyed. The cold is killing you as is the pain, giving you a headache so bad that you pass out a few meters away from the fence of the Bastard Munchen campus

The last thing you see, blurry, before passing out, are the soccer players training on a nearby field. You're afraid of dying, either from the cold or the pain. Maybe yesterday's luck was just a last favor. Maybe dying young is the only solution, if the pain will stop. You breathe loudly, but your eyes close

The first thing you see when you wake up is snow. You move slightly, brushing away the snow that has fallen on you. You don't know how much time has passed, if even a day, but the sun is setting. You sit up, your head is pounding and a bad general discomfort throughout your body, but the pain has disappeared in all places except those where there are burns. You look at your hands and leg, where scabs now cover the skin: you shiver at the sight of them, but you are alive. Your body is completely frozen and you're still in your bra and pants, but you're alive. You try to stand up, but you fall almost immediately; you try again until you can stand up with some difficulty, but strong enough to walk a few meters. You look at the nearby fence, and turn towards the shelter: now only a pile of black ash covers that area. You almost want to cry, but you're so dehydrated that you don't even have any body water to use. You look around, seeing how the showers aren't that far away: you walk towards them and when you notice that no one is inside, you close the door behind you heavily. You let yourself fall along the metal of the door, feeling the heat of the showers, probably recently used, finally warm you up

You find yourself sitting on the floor, your body warm and your burns a little painful from the sudden heat. You shiver as you stand up, walking towards the showers to turn them on and drink, even though you don't know if your hands still work. You limp to the shower hallway, but are frozen when you find the same blond boy at the end. He turns instinctively when you let out a gasp, and you look into each other's eyes: he seems surprised to see you here, while you're just scared to see him. You remain silent, and only then you realize that he is naked except for a towel covering his lower waist. He seems to notice your eyes moving, but it doesn't seem to bother him "Aren't you cold like this?" he asks casually, but you shiver as you don't know whether to go out and run away or stay here. He raises an eyebrow at your silence, taking a few steps forward while you take a few steps back. Your back hits the wall, and his fingers find their way to your chin, grabbing it to look up at you. You close your eyes, opening them only when you don't notice any annoying hands on your body: you find only his blue eyes staring at you, studying you

"You smell like something's burning" he says, looking you up and down, then focusing on your hands, which he grabs. He deliberately presses his fingers against the scabs, making you scream in pain. He does it again, and you notice a small smile on his face "You have a low pain threshold. You wouldn't resist a tattoo under your eyes" he says proudly, and from your teary eyes you can tell that the red eyeliner he has is actually a tattoo. He chuckles at your confusion, letting go of your hands but not moving away from you "You’re here again, you know it’s forbidden to enter a sports campus? Or did you want help?" he asks, smirking. You avoid his gaze, stammering something "I know it’s forbidden… but… I…" you say, confused, but he shakes his head "It’s okay. I like stray dogs" he says reassuringly, and even though the comparison he just made between you and such dirty animals bothers you, you remain silent. Your silence seems to amuse him, to the point of patting you on the head "Do you want something? I can give it to you, I won't call the police. If you want to take a shower, go ahead, I'll wait here" he says walking away, sitting on the bench in the locker room. You look at him a little perplexed, but you run towards the showers and lock yourself in one, turning on the water. As you wash yourself quickly you hear him humming, and this makes you a little nervous "Are you sure... are you sure you won't call the police?" you ask, rubbing soap on the scabs, which make you grimace in pain "I don't feel like it. I don't particularly like cops" he says, and you breathe a sigh of relief "You don't even like them, do you?" he asks, and you sigh "No..." you say while washing yourself, and your answer amuses him "We have already found something in common between us" he says, and you remain silent again

"I left you a shirt behind the shower door" the boy says, and after drying yourself off, you put on your bra, your panties from before, and the shirt that turns out to be your team's. It's big on you, and when the boy pops up near the showers to look at you, he nods in satisfaction "It's a little long, but I think it's better than the way you were before. You're hungry, too, I guess. And those nasty burns need some dressing" he says, looking at you, and you don't know how to reply "Wait here" he says, leaving the locker room before putting on a sweatshirt. You hadn't noticed him, but he seems to have dressed while you were cleaning yourself. You haven't looked at him much, but he seems to have a very trained and toned physique for a simple member of the staff, he's definitely a player. You could run away now that you're finally alone again, but this undue kindness from a stranger is making you soft. He probably doesn't want to bother you, otherwise he would have done it already. But you're not used to kindness, especially if you haven't done anything for him, besides helping one time

He returns shortly after, with a container with meat and a bottle of disinfectant. He bends over next to you, while you have sat on the floor near the sinks. He passes you the container, which you open with difficulty because of the burns, while he soaks some bath paper with disinfectant. You bite the meat, and let him take your hand that he soaks with the liquid "Shit!" you scream in pain, but he doesn't stop, almost making you cry. He continues for a while before wrapping your hand with bandages, doing the same thing for the other hand and leg "It should ease the pain a little. I don't know honestly, but they do that with the injuries we inflict on ourselves on the field" he says resting his head against his palm, and you look up from your meal just to stare at him for a few seconds "Thank you" you whisper, but he shakes his head "This time a thank you is not enough. I want to know your name" he says, and you answer even though you don't want to "My name is Y/n. Can I know yours?" you say, and he smirks "Michael. Kaiser Michael" he says putting his palm in front of you, but you look at him and a small smile forms on your lips. He seems to understand that because of the burns you can't shake his hand, but it doesn't seem to bother him "My mistake" he says, and you chuckle "Don't worry"

The two of you sit in silence, next to each other. You look at your bandaged hands and wonder why he’s been so nice to you. His blonde hair hides his face from your view, so you can’t see if he’s thoughtful or calm, but you assume he’s okay with not talking. He turns his head slightly toward you, tilting his head "Do you have a home?" he asks "No" you answer without regret, and he looks even more amused "So you’re homeless. Why did you run away? Didn’t mom and dad give you enough sugar?" he asks, laughing, but you look down, remaining silent "I touched a sore spot. Nice" he says, but you turn away "It's not a sore point. I... I just don't want to talk about it" you say shakily, and he nods "Okay, stray dog" he says, but you glare at him "I don't like that nickname" you say pouting, but he shrugs "I like it. Make up one that bothers me, so it's fair on both sides" he says, and even though he doesn't want to stop calling you that, you're interested in how to resolve it "Umh... dog... Berlin dog" you say, but he bursts out laughing "Calling me a 'Berlin dog' when my favorite animals are dogs and I'm from Berlin is not a very smart move on your part" he says, and you prick up your ears "Are you originally from here too?" you ask, and he nods "Since birth" he says, and you seem more interested in the discussion "Which area?" you ask but his mood changes slightly, less funny "I don't remember. I haven't been home in a long time, I'm basically always on campus" he says, but you look at him puzzled "You don't remember the area where you lived for years? I have to call you 'stupid dog', then" you say, and his mood seems to return "I can accept this" he says, again amused. Things seem a little less awkward now that you’ve finally joked around and talked a bit. Michael stands up, offering you a hand "Do you want to sleep here for the night or do you have a shelter to go back to?" he asks, and only now do you remember what happened to your shelter. You purse your lips, standing up on your own "Umh… if it’s okay I can sleep here" you say, and he nods "Don’t worry, the campus is completely player-controlled after 10pm. We can bring whoever we want into the rooms" he says, and you look at him in surprise "You didn’t mean here in the locker room?" you ask, and he seems amused by your stupidity "Of course not. If you have to stay, at least use the comfort services. I don’t know how long you’ve been homeless, but I bet you miss sleeping in a warm bed" he says

You haven't slept in a real bed in far too long, and if he gives you the assurance that the surveillance won't tell you anything, you can accept it. You nod, taking a step forward "Okay... thanks" you say, and he leaves the locker room as he begins to walk towards the dorms. The two of you remain silent, until he reaches the entrance "You still haven't told me how you got those burns" he asks, and you cross your arms "Fire" you say, and he seems to accept it. You enter the dorms, where you can hear people chatting and laughing through the doors, much like they do during the training sessions you've been watching so much. You enter his room, where you find a boy sitting on one of the two beds in the room "Oi, Ness. We have guests" the boy says closing the door behind him, letting you in. A boy with brown and magenta hair looks up from his book, watching you curiously but not with a perverse look "Hello. Do you know her?" he asks straight to Kaiser, and he nods "Kinda. She'll be sleeping here tonight" he says disappearing into the kitchen of the room, returning with a pair of round glasses that he puts on "This is Alexis Ness. He is my roommate and teammate. Don't worry about him, he's a good guy as long as you don't insult me in front of his eyes" he says, and even though Kaiser's description reduces the boy to a loyal dog, he doesn't seem to mind too much "My pleasure" he says, and you shake your hand with a nervous smile. You realize now that Alexis is a name you've heard before, and that makes you curious "You both play for the Bastard?" you ask, and Kaiser sits on his bed "On the pre-adult team, at least until we both turn 18. But yeah" he says, and this makes you curious "Which roles?" you ask, and Ness rubs the back of his neck "He's a striker, I'm his midfielder" he says, and you nod "Cool"

A few hours later, with another meal in your stomach and a generous helping of water, it’s time to go to sleep. You’re left in Kaiser’s shirt, and he signals you to lie down next to him. Normally you’d refuse, but you have plenty of reasons to accept: you’re sleepy, you miss having a bed to sleep in, Michael is kind, and you really don’t have the right to refuse. You take a few steps forward, lying down next to him with your body pressed against his, while Ness is already asleep in his bed. You both remain silent, but you know he isn't sleeping even though his eyes are closed "Weren't you sleepy until just now?" you whisper, and he opens one eye "I can say the same thing about you. I'm not sleeping because I'm used to having more space in my bed" you say, and you look at the ceiling "I can go sleep in the showers or on the floor, you know" you say, but he shakes his head "It wouldn't be polite of me to let a young lady sleep on a dirty floor" you say, and you stifle a laugh "Young lady?" you ask, and he nods "You're one year younger than me" he says, and you realize it's true "Oh, I told you the first time we met" you say, and he nods "When you looked for the sketch in the garbage" he says, and you think about it "But why do you need that drawing, in the end?" you ask curiously, and he smiles "That's the next tattoo I want to get. When I turn eighteen... the first one I got was done illegally. I want the two roses on my neck, the thorns along my arm and the crown on my hand" he says, and you're shocked "That would be really cool. But why do you want to do that, any particular reason?" you ask, and he smirks "I've known you too little time to tell you. Become my trusted slave first and I'll think about it later" you say, and you giggle "Really funny, hope so Micheal. But at least, can I know when you'll be eighteen?"

"Christmas day" he says, and you choke on your own spit. Kaiser looks at you puzzled, making you sit down on the warm mattress "Does Christmas disgust you that much?" he asks ironically, but you shake your head "I was born on December 25th too" you say, and this time it's you who sees him completely surprised, even his frown is replaced by a little smile "This is unexpected. Another thing that unites us, then"

You spend the rest of the night joking around, trying not to wake Ness: he tells you about the team, about his role as a striker, about how he's been living in the Bastard Munchen dorms for at least a year, and you tell him about your burning hideout. Before you know it, it's dawn. You stay in bed, while Kaiser gets up to go to the bathroom, Ness who has just woken up. You watch the two boys in silence, watching them wander around their small apartment undisturbed, as if you were not there and could not see their bare and toned chests as they put on their sports uniforms for their morning workout. This is also a transgression, your parents would go against everything you have done in the last 24 hours. But for the first time ever, you are having fun with someone who is actually quite simple. With Ness already gone to breakfast and Kaiser still in the room, the boy approaches his bed, sitting on the edge "You can sleep, we don't have room service unfortunately for us. If you're hungry eat, make yourself at home. I should be back by lunchtime" he says, and you nod with half your face covered by the blanket. He chuckles at the scene, walking out of the room and leaving you completely alone. You spend the morning sleeping, eating a bad brand yogurt and watching the boys team up out the window: Kaiser stands out among the members, with his fast movements always followed by Ness. He scored without showing too much effort, demonstrating a resistance to the duration of the training that honestly surprised you for such a young boy

At lunch time the door opens, and Ness comes in leaving you a tray full of food "Kaiser couldn't come. I hope you like our canteen" the boy says, and you can't help but show your disappointment at the lack of the blond boy. You take the food and eat alone, staying like that until dinner time when the door opens again, this time with Kaiser carrying the tray. You get up from the boy's bed, walking towards him "You said you'd be back at lunch time!" you say taking the tray, but he sighs amused "My mistake, miss. I had to check something. Let's have dinner together, shall we?" he says, taking a bowl of soup. You don't ask yourself many questions, taking the soup and starting to eat. Kaiser tells you about his workout, as if you hadn't been watching him from the window of the room all day. He dresses your wounds again and gives you a taste of a dessert that the campus cafeteria gave to the players this morning, after the breakfast. Before Ness goes back to the shared room, you're both back in bed, almost asleep

For the next month, you find yourself spending your days like this. You rarely leave your room, walking the dorm hallways late at night with Kaiser. You’ve occasionally come out of the fence, but you don’t like walking near the pile of ash that the fire has destroyed. You try to stay as far away from the black on the snow, which even after weeks has not disappeared. Your stomach hurts when you think about it, but the uneasy feeling goes away when Kaiser is next to you. Some players have noticed your presence on campus, but no one dares to tell the directors: Michael said that you are a childhood friend of his, and that you only occasionally sleep in his room. You don't think that the other players want to talk behind his back, once he happened to tell you about how he beat up one of them when he first arrived at Bastard Munchen for a relatively stupid reason. You spend your evenings in bed with him, playing board games, reading Ness's books, or watching the TV he had installed in the kitchen just for you. He tells you about amazing things like special training sessions, the times he took planes, or what it's like in foreign countries like England, Italy, and France. He tells you so many interesting things that you almost feel guilty for being able to tell him only about your strange experiences as a homeless person. You haven't told him about your past, about who you were before you were a tramp, just as he hasn't told you anything about Michael Kaiser before Bastard Munchen called him. You never talk about topics from the past just because you don't want to run the risk of having to talk about them: it's a limit that you've put on yourselves without telling each other, a barrier that still can't be overcome even after all this time of synchronicity. You're not big fans of physical contact, you see how he often reject even Ness's high fives. But when you're alone in the room, in silence, his arms almost spontaneously find space around your waist, while you're lying on the bed with his face in the crook of your neck. Without speaking to him you stroke his hair, and you feel at peace with the whole world but above all in perfect connection with the boy who apparently saved you from humiliation. Often you don't need words to communicate, often you just need to look into each other's eyes and read the soft and real meaning you mean

Despite being locked up most of your time inside four walls, you have never felt freer than this: free to eat what you want, to talk to whoever you want, to hug whoever you want, to be faithful to whoever you want. In sixteen years, you have never had so many possibilities. Now that you have it, for the first time you feel like a normal teenager and not an idealized perfect model who tried to kill herself. You're grateful your parents kicked you out of their house if it resulted in you meeting your savior, that in less than a month he will finally be able to get the tattoo he so desires. While you wait, you try to be as faithful to him as possible: you eat the food that only he brings you, you wear only his shirts, you keep your hair loose just because he once mentioned that he thought you looked good with your hair like that. They are small gestures that want to show him how much you owe him, even if you can't repay him properly. But you will, one day, you absolutely will

It's Christmas Eve when you hear Kaiser knocking on the door. You run to open it, noticing the tray full of chicken soup "It's so much" you say, letting him in, and he nods, placing the tray on the coffee table between the two beds. You go to his side, first grabbing some spoons from the kitchen "Ness? Dinner with the players?" you ask, and he nods "He'll probably be back after midnight. He said he wanted to go to some kinda party they're throwing in the main room. Usual shit" he says, starting to eat, but you tilt your head "You're not going?" you ask, and he turns around, raising an eyebrow "Why should I?" he asks questioningly, and you put your elbows on the table, stirring the soup "You're part of the team, you should. It's a party" you say, even if you never had a concrete definition of a youth party, accustomed to elegant balls "You're here, why should I go?" he says, and for the first time, his words have an effect on you. You smile like an idiot, choking on your soup. Kaiser grabs a handkerchief, rolling his eyes in amusement as he wipes your mouth "You’re acting like a dog. You’re going back to your old ways, like a stray dog again" he says teasing you, and you take the handkerchief to clean yourself "I'm not a stray dog. Not anymore" you say defending yourself, but he snorts amused "You're not anymore, I know. Thanks to me. I tamed you"

The handkerchief remains against your mouth, but his words seem to enter your head like missiles. Involuntarily, you let yourself go into the care of another person as soon as you had the chance to do so. Even if by running away, or trying, you had promised yourself not to do it again, now the situation is as before. Kaiser is kind, though. Kaiser does not force you to drink your own saliva when you spit out the bitterness of the poison. Kaiser does not force you to remain with a bloody face for days just because the blood makes them happy. Kaiser doesn't make you sleep naked when it's cold just because you talked back to your mother. Is it really that bad to be tamed by your savior, in this case?

"You don’t like soup?" he asks with a raised eyebrow, and you snap back to reality. You shake your head, pushing the handkerchief aside and smiling sheepishly at him "No, no. It’s good. I was just thinking about… have you booked your tattoo appointment yet?" you ask, making up an excuse, and he seems to believe it "Tomorrow morning. I had to pay triple the price to book an appointment on Christmas Day, but I know it’s worth it" he says proudly, and you agree with him "It definitely will be. You'll finally have what you want" you say, placing your face in the palm of your hand, but he shakes his head "Just a part. The rest I want I can't get yet, but that will come too. Also, I added a small modification to the tattoo, but nothing too big" he says, and you connect his words to his desire to be the best striker in the world "Really?" you ask, and he nods "Exactly. But it's so small that I don't want you to see it, I'll show it to you directly tomorrow" you say, and you nod

A few hours later you find yourself on his bed, his arms around your waist tighter than usual and his face more hidden in the crook of your neck. You caress him trying to stay awake to wish him a happy birthday, even though you know it's yours too. But he's your savior, and it's the first one you've spent together, in each other's arms. You can ignore yourself for this year. Before the alarm can ring, you're already squeezing his hand. "Happy birthday, Michael" you whisper, and he looks up only to meet your eyes. He smiles tiredly, resting his face on your chest"Thank you. You too, Y/n" he says, and you almost get emotional in front of his enormous kindness of having even remembered the right date. You smile at him kissing his forehead, but only afterwards do you realize that you went a bit too far. You pull your head back embarrassed, but he tilts his, probably amused and tired from the little nap he had taken on you "If only this was your gift, I'm totally fine with it. But I would have preferred the kiss lower down" he says in a low voice, and it gives you the shivers. You press your lips together not knowing how to respond, but he seems to want to tease you a bit "I have to give you the gift, mh?" he says

Involuntarily or perhaps not, your eyes fall on his lips as his on yours. The caresses become slower and the grip on your waist more possessive. His face slowly approaches, and this time you don't take steps back like your second meeting in the locker room, this time you are the one closing the distance, letting your plump lips end up on his. You both remain still for the first few seconds, but he is the first to reply, pushing them more voraciously towards yours. Instinctively you tighten your arms around his neck, enjoying the sensation of a kiss you have always dreamed of but never received. It is your savior who gives it to you, that's why it tastes so sweet. Kaiser gets on top of you, kissing the edges of your lips, and when you pull away you can't help but laugh both of you. This time it wasn't words that were needed between you, but gestures, and you like this new way of communicating, if it makes you so happy. Michael just leans down to rest his forehead against yours, and you both close your eyes "Give me one more year, just hold on one more year. After that we could be anything you want" he whispers against your lips, and you nod, you would do it even if they were insults if they came from his mouth. He kisses, you kiss him, this all night until your lips hurt. When you fall asleep, a trickle of saliva still connects you, but the trickle and his body are not there when you wake up

Ness wakes you up and shakes you, while you are still in the world of dreams "Get in the closet, run. The directors are checking the rooms, some players brought drugs into the party last night... some went to the hospital" says the boy lifting you up, and before you can even reply, you are locked in the closet. Waking up you realize the gravity of the situation, and a hole in your stomach starts to eat you slowly, understanding that if they find you it's over. Kaiser wasn't next to you, is he still on campus or has he already gone to get his tattoo? You need him, you're dying of anxiety and he's the only one who can defend himself in case the directors find out about you. You need the kisses he gave you last night again, the reassuring way he made you feel even if you weren't anxious. You need your Michael. You think this, but you hear Ness opening the door and the footsteps of at least three people in the room. You hug your legs to your chest, holding your breath as you watch them wander around the room through the crack, checking their clothes or the kitchen. You don't see Ness, you don't know if they've thrown him out for inspection. You try to think clearly, but when the closet door reveals your hidden figure, the world falls apart

"And you? I don't think the team has any female players. Miss, I kindly ask you to follow us" a man says, grabbing your arm and throwing you out of the closet, making you fall to the floor where all the other directors are watching. As you are dragged out of the room you hear Ness talking to the directors, but they tell him to go back to his room or risk having his contract annulled. Like a humiliated puppet, the directors drag you to the main office of the campus, dragging you as if you were unable to walk independently. You cry silently without realizing it, but this does not stop them from locking you in the room with them, starting to write a report of the discovery "Miss, your name? Where do you live? Why were you in the room? Do you have any contact with Alexis Ness or Michael Kaiser? Do you know it is illegal?" they ask, but you, sitting on the plastic chair, cannot even compose a complete sentence, trembling and with a probable attack of mutism. You look around confused, biting your nails in nervousness. This doesn't seem to stop them from asking you more questions, but after what seems like an eternity but was probably less than an hour and a half, the door is opened by someone else

You turn around, and Kaiser appears in the room. He closes the door behind him, walking straight to the director’s desk, slamming his hands on the wood "Is that a fucking way to treat a young lady, dragging her across the campus without even giving her a chance to explain?" Michael barks, and you look at him like he’s given you a drink after walking across the Sahara. The director swallows a lump of saliva, avoiding the direct gaze "She had a chance to sp-" he excuses himself, but Kaiser slams his fist on the wood "Are you kidding me? The players made videos of her being dragged" he says, continuing "If they make videos of you doing something like that, you'll be prosecuted right away. I'll make up some other bullshit to defend her and you will end up in prison" he says, and the director looks up "Are you kidding? Why would you?" he asks anxiously, and he laughs "Because then you'd lose me too, and your fortune with the campus. And that chance of us having Noel Noa train us? Nuh nuh, no way" he says, and the director clenched his fingers into fists "I... I won't do anything to her. But she has to get off the campus, it's against the rules" he says, but he shakes his head "If she gets off campus, I'll get off with her. But off the team. I'm going to ReAl" he says, and the director stands up "Don't you dare threaten me, Kaiser!" he shouts, but Micheal remains calm "I didn't say anything too absurd. It's your decision" he says crossing his arms

In your eyes now Kaiser is like water: necessary, destructive, perfect. He lets himself go without fear of breaking something, and he's doing it for you, for the same girl he kissed last night as if his life depended on it. The freshly inked tattoo flexes against his skin stiff from punching the desk, but that only gives it an even more suggestive look of perfectionThe blue roses, the thorns, the crown: finally everything he ever wanted is engraved on his body. It's damn beautiful, he is. You are proud to be faithful to him and only him, to be tamed by this very human being

"She can stay, she can do it, damn it, okay?" he says, reaching the limit, and Kaiser raises an eyebrow "And?" he asks, and the director glares at him, but lowers his gaze "And have dinner, lunch, do whatever she wants" he says exhausted, and he nods. He nods at you, the first since he came in, and takes your hand as he leads you out of the room. You don’t talk along the corridor, but in the open air you stop. Kaiser turns, not letting go of your hand "Does something hurt?" he asks, and you shake your head "Why did you do that?" you ask through tight lips. It’s cold, your breath condenses as it leaves your lips. Kaiser looks at you surprised by your question, taking a few steps back "Why wouldn’t I have done that?" he asks, and you want to answer him but you can’t find the right words. He remains silent, and only when he notices that you’re not angry, he comes closer, closing you in a hug. His hands rest on your waist, while you press your face against his chest "I want you to stay with me. I want you by my side, at least until you turn 18 and I can buy you an apartment of your own. I want you here" he whispers to you, and you feel the blood rushing through your veins again. You let out a loud sigh, looking up. "I want it too. But I don’t want you to have to change something in your life just for me" you say, and he chuckles at your words "But I’m okay with it. I’m okay with it if I do it for you" he says cupping your face, placing a light kiss on your lips "This is the last one. I want to give you the next one as a present for your eighteenth birthday" he says, and you frown, saddened by his statement but okay "Also" he says, moving away from you and lifting the sleeve of his shirt to better show the part of the tattoo with the thorns "I didn't show you the tattoo or the modification. But you can look for it" he says, bringing his arm closer to your face. Questioningly you take his arm in your hands, examining the complicated tangle of thorns that now surround his arm. On the thorns, in a point parallel to his heart, you find a small writing. You take a few steps back, looking up at him who is already looking at you smiling "Happy birthday" he whispers to you, sweetly

In a handwriting similar to yours, the name 'Y/n' stands out among the thorns. You open your mouth in shock, not believing it "You can’t really have done that" you stammer insecurely, but he runs a finger over the tattoo "It’s permanent. It’s there and it’ll never come off"

"Stop doing things for me when I can't repay you" you say with tears in your eyes, still emotional. He shakes his head, taking your hands and kissing your knuckles "Repay me by continuing to be just the way you are. Devoted" he says, and you can swear that right now you feel in love with him. In love with Michael Kaiser. In love with your savior, your God, your only rock. It's not just pleasure, it's love and only love

Almost two months after that Christmas, you find yourself sitting on the benches of the soccer field for practice. Kaiser chases the ball, his hair now also blue that flutters in the cold wind of mid february. It is a change in his appearance that he has made recently, and yet you have already gotten used to the idea of this new haircut that Ness made under your and Michael's advice. It sets him apart, more than it already did before, even just his charisma. You read a philosophy book that Kaiser lent you, but you're not that interested. You look up from the pages only when you see him approaching: you lower the canteen to him, and he sits down next to you, drinking greedily. He puts the empty canteen on the grass, wiping the light sweat from his forehead with a towel "Do you have anything else to do?" he asks, and you look at him puzzled "No? Do you need something?" you ask, closing the book

Kaiser looks around, but you've been alone for hours now. He looks at you for a bit, before looking down "Have I ever told you about myself before the Bastard?" he asks, and you stiffen, shaking your head and realizing that it's finally that moment "I was different, I was born different and still am. But now I don't have to deal with my father anymore" he says, and you move closer. Kaiser looks up, he takes your hand in his, playing with your fingers "My mother is an actress, I think. I never really wanted to understand it actually. She worked with my father when she wasn't famous yet, she got pregnant and right after giving birth to me she realized she could be someone if she left me to that lout of a father of mine. She was my father's muse, a director famous only thanks to her. He went crazy when he found out she was gone, maybe I was still too young to remember the slaps and punches he probably gave me. So I never went to school, staying in the criminal area of Berlin. I stole to support the family, maybe I learned to steal even before I learned my name... but that didn't stop the slaps. My father always thought that I was the problem of his breakup with my mother, the reason for his failure. He never changed his mind as I grew up, getting used to making me almost a dead corpse every chance he got. But then I met soccer... I bought a ball, I gave myself a gift for the first time. I held that ball as if my life depended on it, as if it was the only thing that made sense to me. I got pretty good at it without knowing a single damn rule of the sport, but then I got caught in a theft. The police arrested me for something other kids in the neighborhood had done, but I rebelled so much that they took me straight to jail without a legal trial. I thought about killing myself for a few days, I won't deny it. I was fourteen or fifteen years old... but someone saved me. A very powerful man in soccer found out about my story, paid to have me thrown out of prison and entrusted me to the care of Bastard Munchen. I had to go through a selection, there I met Ness for the first time, but from that moment the real part of my life began" says Kaiser, and every word sticks in your mind as if it were sacred. You try to stay strong, but it hurts to think of all the pain he had to endure just because he was born, just because his mother decided to run away and not take her responsibility. You squeeze his hand, letting yourself go against his shoulder "Thanks for telling me. I know how much you hate being pitied… but you already know that no matter what, I’m here for you, even if it’s something huge. I want to be as kind to you as you’ve been to me from the very beginning" you say, and his arm tightens around your shoulders "I know. Thanks. Just saying... only you and Ness know about this" he says, and you nod "I understand"

You’ve never seen him so vulnerable, so Michael and not Kaiser. You think about him as a child, about everything that happened, about everything he thought during prison. It’s something so intimate that he only told you and Ness, which means he wouldn’t judge you if you told him about your past. You’re a little unsure, but you try to relax your muscles "Do you want to… do you want to hear about my past?" you ask, and he takes a moment to you can nod "I'd like that" he says, and you take a long preparatory sigh. He's the first person you've ever told about your life before, when you were still someone

"I am the daughter of my mother's betrayal, I don't know who my real father is. The man who raised me never particularly loved me, but he gave me a more than dignified life... it's complicated to explain. Since my mother fucked another man, he did everything to become the man she loved again, giving her and me everything that could be called rich. But the extra work stressed him, and the constant arguments led them to hit each other... and when I was old enough, their slaps also reached me. They introduced me to the upper class of Berlin at a young age, making me frequent circles where I didn't really belong, like private schools or classical ballet classes... I never liked this stuff, but the first time I disobeyed them, I found myself drinking rat poison for days, without food. Following their rules to perfection meant I would get slapped less, but I swear, I just couldn't do it... the looks of others... the whispers... they terrified me. I was afraid of everything and everyone, and at fourteen I thought about committing suicide"

Your hands are shaking, it's a sensitive subject for you. But you want to talk about it, if he's listening to you

"I just thought that I had no reason to live if I was suffering even just to breathe. One night I gave myself an almost lethal dose of antidepressant drugs, my mother's, and I waited to die. But it didn't work, they admitted me to hospital but I was still alive. When I came home a month later, my parents locked me in the house for almost a year, making me self study so as not to give me the chance to be influenced by negative thoughts... they always thought that my attempted suicide had been caused by others. One night I took some clothes and ran away from home, I wanted to leave Berlin and take the first train to Belgium, but they discovered me at the station. They told me that they didn't want me at home anymore, and that they had already disinherited me. From there, my being homeless began" you tell trying to avoid some painful parts, but then you realize there is no point in not telling 'em "Also... I almost died once. They beat me so bad that I went into a coma, but only for a few days. They justified everything to the police by saying that I had pushed myself too hard in dance and the stress had done this to me. The police ignored the bruises on my body" you say with a shaking voice, remembering how you had burst into tears in front of the police but to no avail, still forced to live in your golden prison

The two of you remain silent for a few minutes, probably processing each other's stories. The cold wind corrodes your skin, but you feel warm at the same time: it is a warm sensation that comes from knowing the truth about the past of the boy who saved you. Of all of them, he chose you, not another person. You have never been chosen by anyone, and yet he had no problem telling you such an important part of himself, so intimate, so vulnerable. You try to shake Kaiser's hand, and when he notices, he returns the squeeze, kissing your knuckles. You smile at him, and his arm spontaneously finds space around your shoulders: he pulls you close, leaving a kiss in your hair before getting up to go back to training. From afar, now, Micheal seems to shine even more than before. If you were devoted to him before, now you know you are dependent on him. You don't want change all this

A year later, you are in exactly the same situation. The days on campus are going by peacefully, you have started to earn some money by cleaning the cafeteria, even though Kaiser has always insisted on not letting you lift a finger. Since he came of age he has started to earn a much higher salary, which gives him the possibility of having lots of money: as vain as he is, his money often ends up in clothes for you or makeup, or in any case in things to give you. He has told you several times that he has no problem spoiling you, if you continue to be as in love as you have been for a long time now. The money often ends up in an extra ticket when the games are abroad, and for the first time you have taken a plane and left Germany: you were not afraid of flying, even less of talking to the people you met in the new country, in Italy. You were finally able to see him play seriously and cheer for him, and the result of your screams was a kiss in the locker room at the end of the game, with a cup won and the shortness of breath for his hungry lips on yours. You had the chance to spend time together on your days off from the foreign match, days that you spent on each other's lips, even though he said that your next kiss would be on your birthday. At the end of the soccer season he spent more money to take you on holiday to Spain, where you had the chance to swim in the sea thanks to him. It's always thanks to his affection for you that you've had so many opportunities in such a short time that you're surprised that you were his choice, you who are mediocrity personified compared to someone as fantastic as him. He loved you, he spoiled you, he gave you the love you had sought but never received. He knew how to make you feel good when you didn't even know how to feel, when your thoughts became too big. He had saved you and continued to do so every day, and you weren't afraid to admit it: you showed it with your loyalty, with your sweetness, with your dedication towards him. It was the least you could do before you found a way to pay him back in full

Dedicating yourself like this to someone was dangerous, you knew it perfectly well: you knew you had changed a lot from who you were before the fire, losing traits of your personality that you had previously thought were unique. But he had lost himself to find you, to help you, to give you a life. Losing yourself couldn't have been such a bad decision, if he had done it for you too. You didn't worry that he might get tired of you, you wouldn't have allowed it, you would have stayed by his side forever, as he wanted, he would never have chased you away. You didn't risk your life when you sacrificed yourself for him, it was all due. You were happy and that was enough for you, you just needed to know that Kaiser was there

"The room is huge" you say looking around, putting your bags on the floor. You walk towards the walls made of glass, which show the great city of Munich. Kaiser nods, sitting on the edge of the bed "Yeah. If you like it, it's money well spent" he says, and you roll your eyes, moving closer "You shouldn't have. I would have liked to stay in the dorm room too" you say positioning yourself between his open legs, and he smirks at you, pulling you close to him putting his arms around the lower part of your waist. He rests his face against your stomach, looking up "It's an important date, in a few hours you'll be an adult" he says, and you huff "It's no big deal. There was no need to organize all this" you say caressing his face, and he rests his face against your palm "Let me spoil my beautiful girl" he says in a low voice that makes you shiver, making your knees weak and your mind stupid

It was Christmas Eve, in less than an hour it would be midnight, and that meant both of your birthdays. Kaiser had surprised you this afternoon with a flight to Munich just for the two of you, in one of the most luxurious hotels in the city, with a reservation for a whole week. The flight lasted a few hours, and now that you are in the hotel it is almost time to celebrate your birthday. In fact, you would have officially become an adult, far from your parents and close to the boy who considers you his girlfriend, even if in fact you have never talked about what your relationship is really like. You love each other and kiss each other, you consider each other's partner, and you are both jealous as hell of the other. But neither of you has ever talked about making the relationship concrete, about putting a point and calling it 'dating' and no longer something random. It's something you've wanted to do for a long time, but you don't want to push Michael into it. When he thinks is good talking about it, you'll do it too. Waiting is the only choice

You look at the clock, noticing that while you were putting your clothes away in the closets, the minutes separating you from the age of majority have now become five. You turn to Kaiser who is lying on the bed, climb on the bed and crawl towards him, catching his attention "Impatient to become an adult?" he asks massaging your back, and you giggle sitting on his stretched legs "Not too much. I'm curious to see you nineteen, what will be different from the normal Kaiser?" you ask, and he snorts amusedly "I think absolutely nothing. Maybe just a few more bucks spent on condoms, what do you think?" he asks, and you are surprised "OH" you say embarrassed, imagining things you shouldn't be imagining. He seems to notice your behavior, and it amuses him "Did I overdo it? I thought you'd thought about it. But I can wait" he says, massaging your thigh, and you glare at him, your cheeks still red "I thought about it... but... god, this is embarrassing" you stammer embarrassedly covering your face, but leaving his hand on your thigh. Before he can reply, his phone rings: you both turn towards the object, and you automatically move off of Kaiser, who stands up "Give me just a second" he says, taking the phone. You sit on the soft hotel mattress, watching him walk towards the glass door of the room

He answers the call, putting the phone to his ear. You see him listening to someone's words for a while, until a smirk appears on his face, as if he is finally satisfied. He lowers his face, as if some sort of shadow is covering his eyes. You tilt your head to listen better, but the only thing you hear coming out of his lips is "Get on your goddamn knees, Blue Lock". You remain confused, but the ringing of your alarm makes you understand that it is midnight: it is your birthday and his. Normally you never bother him during his calls, but this time you get out of bed, walking towards him on tiptoe: arriving at his side you hug his waist, standing on tiptoe to reach his neck, where you leave him a light kiss "Happy birthday, Micheal" you whisper, making him look down at you. He smirks at you, pulling the phone away from his ear before ending the call. He wraps an arm around your waist, kissing your forehead as he pulls you close "Happy birthday. You’re an adult too now, liebe" he whispers to you, and you nod, pushing yourself against him "Impossible to believe, right?" you ask, ironically, but he kisses your lips, holding your face with his tattooed hand

You kiss him back, wrapping your arms around his neck, smiling "Was this the famous kiss you said you’d give me when I turned eighteen?" you ask between the pauses between kisses, and he nods, not stopping "I want to give you so much more than this. I want to show you how important and amazing you really are to me" he says kissing you again, and you feel a slight need in his words, in the way his hands hold your hips as if he were afraid of making you run away. You respond to his kisses trying to keep up, but the more time passes the more your knees become weak from the passion with which he is torturing your lips and your neck, where there are already some hickeys. A slight knot forms in your stomach, and involuntarily little moans escape your lips that make Kaiser stop "Can I?" he whispers to you, and at the same time his hands end up on your thighs, picking you up. You instinctively wrap your legs around his waist, letting his face end up on your breasts, giving you the chance to look at him from an angle that makes him so damn handsome. A stupid smile forms on your lips, as you lean closer to his ear, a little awkwardly "Do what you think is best" you whisper, and that's enough to make him start his long torture. You end up with your back against the mattress, him on top of you with a visible desire to ruin you, with a face that makes you dumb. Before you know it you're naked with him, wrapped in his arms as a new sensation is created between your thighs. Kisses turn into hickeys, his hands on your hips in signs of love and his back full of scratches as he starts moving inside you. When you are already destroyed, you finally feel a feeling of satisfaction in your stomach, as if a weight has gone away. Kaiser ends up at your side, wrapping his arms around your waist, a peaceful feeling on his face "You were gorgeous. You always are" he whispers to you, and you can swear that the tear that just fell is one of pure happiness, pure love for him

A week later, sitting on a flight back to Berlin, you find yourself thinking about what happened during the vacation: beyond the nights of sex, the walks through the city and the dinners in the nicest restaurants in the neighborhood, you involuntarily ignored one thing: the call from the night before. At the time you didn't think about it, but now thinking about it it sounds a little suspicious, even if Kaiser has never actually hidden anything from you: for some unknown reason, however, you think you should ask more. You can't explain the feeling you have, but you prefer to eliminate it in the moment

"Hey" you whisper, and he looks up from his book "Liebe? Tell me?" he asks, and you swallow a lump of saliva "Listen... do you remember the call you received the night before the Eve? I was wondering... who was?" you ask, and imperceptibly you notice Kaiser annoyed "Nobody important, team related matters" he answers you, and you nod, even if the answer doesn't satisfy you. You spend the rest of the trip in silence, and when you get off the plane, Kaiser doesn't take your hand. It makes you sad, and you think it's your fault that he's rightfully angry with you now, you didn't trust his answer and obviously he understood it. Back on campus you lock the door, and everything seems to go back to the way it was the night you lost your virginity, with him inside you and your nails on his pale back. The following days pass peacefully, but you have the feeling that there is still an unresolved situation that you don't have the courage to face, because you don't like seeing him angry with you. You'd rather ignore the problem than find the love of your life against you

A month later, you're on your knees in the hallway of the campus rooms. Your fists clenched on the carpet, tears now flowing freely "What do you mean you're leaving for Japan?!" you ask in shock, seeing the suitcases at his sides blurred by the tears. Kaiser looks at you indifferently, then looks at his cell phone to check the time. You are alone, the entire campus is already inside the buses headed to the airport, and you only discovered it when, a few minutes ago, you returned from your walk in the city. You knew absolutely nothing about all this, no one and especially Kaiser had told you anything about this sudden transfer of at least six months to Japan, on the other side of the world. You ran into the room to see if Kaiser was staying, but you found him in the hallway with the suitcases in his hand, as if he wasn't forgetting you here. When you threw yourself at him to hug him he shook you off almost immediately, and you inadvertently ended up on the floor

"What, what's going on? Micheal? What's this all about?" you ask stammeringly, taking a few steps forward, but he takes a few steps back to avoid contact. He looks you up and down, judging you for the first time in the years you've known each other; in his eyes you don't recognize the same boy who fucked you shamelessly for many nights, whispering the sweetest phrases you've ever received. In his eyes there is not your savior. You tremble without being able to control it, and when you finally grab his hand, you squeeze it tightly "Micheal, why? What did I do, why didn't you tell me?" you say sobbing, but he doesn't bend down to kiss your knuckles, one of the gestures he has always made. He looks at your hand, perhaps disgusted "I didn't have to tell you anything, why do you expect this? Isn't everything I've done for you enough?" he says harshly, and the world of certainties you've built for yourself falls miserably. You let go of his hand, looking at him without knowing what to say: you've always been grateful for him saving you, but in fact, you've never done anything to repay him, and you haven't even tried. You look at him with wide eyes, your lips trembling and shiny "I... Michael, I am..." you say, but he interrupts you "Don't you dare tell me you're grateful, what I do with it? I spent money, a tattoo, my feelings for you. What did I get out of it? Nothing" he says disgustedly, and his annoyed look makes you feel so small and useless. You try to take his hand again, but it's him who grabs your wrist and blocks it, forcing you to look him in the eyes "I'm not forgetting anything here in Germany, nothing and especially no one. I no longer want to waste my strength on someone who doesn't know how to do anything but be a pig, an animal that follows its owner without personality, and who actually has the courage to say that I'm forgetting an important part. Go away, Y/n, I don't want to see you anymore, until my last fucking breath" says Kaiser, and leaves you like that, still, in the middle of the corridor while he disappears into the elevator

Standing in the hallway, you feel like dying would be a lot less painful now. Your breathing is blocked, and your ability to move has stopped the moment he made it clear that he wants you dead. His words start to spin in your head, spinning so much that your vision blurs and everything around you goes black. Your god doesn't want to be worshipped by you anymore, your Michael Kaiser doesn't want to have you around anymore. Everything you shared with the same person for more than two years has now been thrown in the trash, along with all your hopes for a future with him. Are you really a useless pig? Is it true that you no longer have a personality? But really, why did he do it? Was it a particular behavior of yours that hurt him? Why did he throw you away so easily?

The world no longer exists, you no longer exist. He took your life with him, on the bus, on the plane and in Japan. He threw you away when he had the chance, and what are you left with now but a blurry memory of yourself before you met him? What are you now that he, your sense, is no longer there?

What are you now? A pig? Alone?

He is not here, he will not be here as long as you live, but you already know that you will not live anymore. How can you continue to live when all your certainties are gone, leaving you like a fool? Do you really still have any sense? Are you still you?

Even before the time is up, the stick already has two clearly visible pink bars. You stare at the stick speechless, feeling a general feeling of unease throughout your body after realizing what I have suspected for a month now. Your hands start to shake, causing the test to fall to the floor, which however does not change the result at all. The room, even though empty, suddenly seems so narrow, the more you look at that stick the more you realize how deep in shit you are. It wasn't supposed to happen, not now with you in this condition, but he never took precautions even once, and you let him do it because there was no point in telling him to do something else

The pregnancy test comes back positive, even after you've been staring at it for a whole hour. You're pregnant with Michael Kaiser's child, now the star of the Blue Lock TV

But you and him haven't spoken in three months.

Today is a beautiful sunny day in Berlin. You woke up early to go running, meditated and took some supplements that the doctor prescribed you last week. Berlin has had a huge boom in sunny days lately, but that's probably because it's almost spring, and that means more time for your skin to be kissed by the sun. Warm light also comes in through the window of the room, from where you see outside a beautiful garden that you've already stared at a thousand times. You turn to Ines, who is still coloring her book: you should do her ponytails like this more often, now that you look at her, because it makes her blonde hair look better. Maybe you too should start wearing your hair tied up again and no longer loose

"Miss, it's always the same story. You shouldn't take your medication with coffee, don't ruin all the work you've done with another addiction" the doctor says, looking up from your clipboard and directing her gaze to you. You chuckle nervously, playing with a lock of hair as you lean back in your chair "You're always so funny, Dr. Horwell. You always know how to make me smile" you say, and she huffs, probably as tired as you are from this session. The two of you have a staring contest for a few seconds, but the psychologist seems to be winning "Really, Y/n. You’re such a nice girl but often… often you get lost in useless memories. In stupid things. It makes me feel like you want to continue therapy just to meet me" the woman says, and you raise an eyebrow at her comment "Not that I like spending 100€ every time I come here, but yes, I enjoy your company" you say giggling, and this makes the other woman chuckle too, but she looks at you with a serious look of displeasure. She sighs, placing the folder on the table "If you enjoy my company that much, I’d be happier to see you in another context. Not in therapy, like the last three years" she says, looking down

You don't react, they keep smiling. You don't like to admit that you're not healed yet, and that since the last thing happened, it feels like you've wasted years of therapy. But now there's no point in showing sadness, the psychologist knows how much you're still tied to your trauma, to the reason why you decided to start the sessions years ago. You don't need her words to realize how much you pretend to have overcome the situation, when instead you still feel like you're in that corridor in Berlin. Even though you want to move on, you feel like if you do, you'll be taking away your last chance to be whole in the way you want to be and not the way the psychologist intends. You're fine with this, you've been used to being in this condition for years now. It would be strange to change, even if this would probably lead you to be able to start living for yourself again and not for the sixteen-year-old you

"I think seeing him was the icing on the cake, really… tell me again, how are you?" she asks, and you smile "Great. I’m still shaken up, but I think I can handle it" you answer, but for the umpteenth time you are lying to yourself. Seeing him after five years was harder than you want to admit, more destructive than his words left to you years ago. But it happened

You still remember how Ines complained about having your hand too tight on yours, which you were involuntarily squeezing tightly. You still remember perfectly how he turned towards you even before you recognized him. You still remember how you felt like a pig again, as if you were watching your master taking you to the slaughterhouse. You still remember how smelling his smell again after years made you cry without you even realizing it. You still remember when, few days ago, you saw Micheal Kaiser again after years, and you with his daughter, whose existence he doesn't even know

"Do you at least regret what you did to me?"

"I regret you, not the situation"

"I know when you lie to me, I know you. But you still have the same problem as when you started therapy..." says the psychologist, and you tilt your head, waiting for an answer "You still chase the problem, rather than accept the end. You gave so much to him that you didn't realize how little you had become for yourself" says the psychologist, knowing full well how to stab you without making you bleed "Accepting that it's over for you means accepting that he only wanted you from the beginning for one purpose. But accepting it would make the sixteen-year-old you suffer, even if it would mean bringing the you of now to finally be free. You're afraid, you're afraid to see yourself happy because you still think you haven't repaid him for saving you" she says, and the room becomes quieter than you can stand. You look around, avoiding direct eye contact now that you're in the corner. Your hands start to sweat, and you try to take deep breaths to regain some clarity. You look up a little, lips trembling "Did he ever love me?"

The psychologist smiles at you, perhaps a little to reassure me "I can only give you my personal opinion, but for me, yes, he loved you. But he was broken, just like you, and he blew it all when he realized that the situation could hold him back from becoming the best in the world. He loved you, but he did it as a consequence, not as an initial goal. At first he helped you only because he needed another support, someone he could give everything to fill the holes he had. But something broken can't try to fix itself using something else that's broken. You were simply too young to be destroyed, but too old to be saved"

word count: 15,696

[sunsburns]

going to basketball!luke’s game in his jersey and then he fucks you in to after 🤤🤤

ohhh this is over a year old i'm so sorry josie, but i see ur vision. it's giving the opening of 17 again tbh!!! and i’m talking a messy, sweaty, nasty fuck where he’s still running on adrenaline. (18+)

he finds you after the game with that look in his eyes—the one that’s half-cocky smirk, half-ravenous stare. sweat still clings to his temples, jersey clinging to his skin, and his hand slides to the small of your back the second you're close enough.

"you wore that for me?" he murmurs, voice low as his fingers tug at the hem of his old jersey hanging loose on you. it's long enough to fit oversized, but short enough that he can slide his hand up underneath it without anyone noticing as you stand in the back hallway of the gym.

you grin, "thought you might like it."

he doesn't say anything. just looks at you, teeth sinking into his bottom lip, and then you’re pressed up against the wall—fast, messy, urgent. like he's been thinking about this the entire game. like scoring points wasn’t the only thing he planned on doing tonight.

minutes later, you're in the locker room. not even locked. you’re bent over the bench, both of you still half-dressed, the cool wood digging into your thighs. luke’s jersey sways loosely on your body with every thrust, his number on your back bouncing in the mirror in front of you. and he’s obsessed with it.

“shit,” he breathes, one hand gripping your hip while the other slides up the small of your back, palm ghosting over his number. “look at you. y’so perfect like this.”

he watches the way your body moves, the way his name on your back means something. his breath is ragged, hot against your skin as he leans over to whisper, to kiss and mouth behind your ear.

his fingers slide around to your front, slipping under the jersey to touch where you’re already soaked. he runs wobbly, slopping, tight circles against your clit. “all that cheering. screaming my name. standing up in the front row looking like that.”

he’s still got his game shorts on, waistband pushed low, but everything else is gone. skin on skin, sweat-slicked and raw. you can feel his muscles twitch every time he thrusts in deeper, his hand gripping your ass, then sliding over the fabric of the jersey again like he can’t decide if he wants to fuck you or the idea of you in his colours.

and when you finally gasp his name, head dropping forward, he grabs your hair gently and tugs until you’re upright again, so you can see yourself. see the jersey, the flushed heat in your cheeks, the look in his eyes behind you in the mirror.

“say it again,” he pants. “wanna hear it.”

“luke—” it’s broken, almost a sob. your knees are shaking.

“that’s right.” he grins, smug and glowing. “say it like you did when i hit that three-pointer.”

[izzih22]

u should write a fic abt a post practice/ post game pazzi facetime call

Yours No Matter the Distance

Note: I promised yall I would post today so here you go. Also this is not based off a real game or anything just an fyi

Azzi Fudd had the Wings game pulled up on her laptop the second tip-off happened.

It didn’t matter that she had training at eight the next morning. Didn’t matter that she had weights, film, and a whole to-do list of team responsibilities. It didn’t even matter that Paige had told her not to stress about it, to “get sleep, baby,” and “catch the highlights in the morning.”

Azzi wasn’t missing a second.

Not of Paige.

Not of her girl.

Not for the world.

She sat cross-legged in bed, oversized UConn hoodie on Paige’s, obviously and her phone on Do Not Disturb as she watched #5 lead Dallas with a kind of control and intensity that gave Azzi goosebumps. There were flashes of that same old swagger, that glimmer Paige always got when she locked in. Her jumper was clean, her dimes even cleaner. Azzi swore she could watch her play for hours and never get tired of it.

Even the commentators were gushing, talking about her vision, her IQ, how the Wings were starting to feel like Paige’s team.

Azzi just smiled and whispered under her breath, “Damn right it is.”

By the time the game ended, Dallas had won by twelve. Paige had finished with 17 points, 9 assists, and a couple of defensive stops that had Azzi actually yelling at her laptop like she was courtside. And now, with the post-game interview wrapped up, Azzi was waiting, phone in hand, the FaceTime already set to Paige’s name.

It rang once.

Twice.

And then—

The screen lit up with a familiar face, damp hair slicked back under a towel, cheeks flushed from the game.

“Hey you,” Paige said, voice a little hoarse but still teasing, that grin pulling wide as soon as she saw Azzi.

Azzi melted. “Hi. You look hot.”

Paige raised a brow and tugged at the towel draped over her neck. “I’m literally sweating through my shirt right now.”

“Exactly.” Azzi leaned her cheek into her palm and gave her a soft smile. “You were so good tonight, P. Like—really good. I’m so proud of you.”

Paige’s expression softened, her shoulders sagging slightly like the weight of the game had finally let go. “Thanks baby. Felt like I finally found my rhythm tonight. Took me long enough.”

“You’ve been so good, though. The stats are crazy. But more than that? The way you lead out there?” Azzi shook her head in awe. “It’s like you were born for this.”

Paige snorted, but it came out shy, like she couldn’t quite take the compliment. “Coming from you? That means everything.”

“Damn right it should.”

They shared a smile, the kind that lingered, the kind that said I miss you even if neither of them had said it yet.

Paige broke the silence first, shifting the phone to show more of the locker room behind her. “I’ve got like twenty minutes before they kick me out. I should shower but…I kinda just wanted to see your face first.”

Azzi curled tighter into the hoodie, which still smelled like Paige even after a few washes. “I was waiting the second the buzzer went off. Had my phone in my hand like a clingy girlfriend.”

“You are a clingy girlfriend.” Paige grinned wider. “Thank God.”

“Shut up,” Azzi laughed. “Like you’re not the one who texts me every two hours on game day for good luck.”

“That’s…different.”

“How?”

“Because I’m obsessed with you. Duh.”

Azzi buried her face in her hands, giggling like she was sixteen again and falling for Paige for the first time. “You’re the worst.”

“Yeah, but I’m your worst.”

They paused again, both smiling too hard to speak. Paige leaned back in her chair, towel still hanging around her neck, and gave Azzi a look so full of love it almost hurt.

“Wish you were here,” she murmured, quieter now. “It’s not the same when you’re not on the bench or waiting for me in the tunnel.”

Azzi’s throat tightened. “I know. I wish I was, too.”

“I swear, every time I make a big play, I look over like I’m gonna see you there. And then I remember…” Paige trailed off with a shrug.

“Paige…”

“I know, I know. It’s just hard. I miss you.”

Azzi blinked hard. “I miss you more.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

Azzi bit her lip, trying to keep her voice steady. “I watched the whole game in your hoodie. Had it on the second I got home.”

Paige smiled so wide it nearly broke her. “You’re actually gonna kill me.”

“You deserve it.”

They both laughed softly, and for a moment, the distance didn’t feel so heavy.

Paige tilted her head. “You doing okay, though? Like, really okay?”

Azzi hesitated, then nodded. “I am. It just…sucks, not being there. I wanna be the one running into your arms after games, not sitting here on my bed pretending like FaceTime is enough.”

“It’s not enough,” Paige agreed. “But it’s something. And you’re still the last person I see before I fall asleep. Even if it’s through a screen.”

Azzi smiled again, sad and full all at once. “You know I watch every game, right? Every single one.”

“I know.” Paige’s voice got quieter. “It means everything.”

“I mean, I’d watch you do anything. Basketball just happens to be the sexiest option.”

Paige choked on a laugh. “Oh my god, Azzi.”

“What? You want me to lie?”

“You’re unreal.”

Azzi smirked. “And you’re lucky.”

“So lucky.”

They sat like that for a while Paige in the dim locker room, Azzi curled up in bed, their connection as strong as ever despite the miles between them.

Eventually, Paige let out a sigh. “Okay. I gotta shower. They’re giving me the side-eye already.”

Azzi pouted. “Fine. But FaceTime me again before bed?”

“You already know.” Paige looked right into the camera. “Love you, Az.”

Azzi felt her whole chest swell. “Love you more, P.”

“Not possible.”

“Wanna bet?”

Paige laughed, that raspy, tired sound that still somehow made Azzi’s heart skip. “I’ll call you in twenty, babe.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

They hung up.

Azzi leaned back in bed, still in Paige’s hoodie, screen dark, heart full. It wasn’t the same as being there in person. But it was theirs. And that was enough for now.

Because no matter how far apart they were, Azzi knew one thing for sure:

Paige was hers.

And she’d be watching every game until they were in the same place again.

Side by side. Where they belonged.

[demie90s]

I LOVEE MENACE READER, I NEED ONE WHERE THE REF KEEPS MAKING FLASE CALLS AND MISSED CALLS MAKING HER CRASH OUT, THEN THE LAST FALSE CALL SHE GOT, SHE CRASHED OUT ON THE GIRL WHO WAS FOULING HER AND THE REF

𝐔𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍 𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐌 X 𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐄!𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑

Play Stupid. Win Stupid.

MASTERLIST, MORE

ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: The ref has one more time to blow that dusty-ass whistle before you take matters into your own hands. You’ve been fouled, hacked, shoved, and tripped all game—and somehow you’re the one getting the calls.

ɢᴇɴʀᴇ: Sports chaos, menace!reader, tension, locker room aftermath, team rallying around you

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: Cussing, ejection, light physicality, reader might’ve said “get your whistle out your throat before I do it for you”

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: ~0.8k

ᴠɪʙᴇ: “I’m calm until I’m not. And when I’m not, you better be.”

I swear I tried to behave.

Geno had one rule for me this game—keep your cool. And for the first three quarters, I really tried. For real. Every time that girl bumped me, pulled my jersey, elbowed me low, I just breathed. Blew it off. Looked at the ref. Who—surprise, surprise—was more interested in staring at the sideline than doing his job.

By the second quarter, it was clear. They weren’t gonna play fair. And he wasn’t gonna call fair.

She shoved me in the back going up for a rebound. Nothing.

KK got tripped—and we got the foul.

Azzi caught an elbow to the face. Whistle? Silent.

By the time we hit the last few minutes of the third, I stopped reacting. Didn’t look at the bench. Didn’t talk to the refs. Just nodded every time she hit me.

Fourth quarter. Close game. Crowd loud.

We’re running a clean play—Ice driving baseline—and here comes someone barreling into her like she’s trying to clear traffic. Ice hits the floor hard, sliding across the hardwood like a dropped phone.

No call.

I stopped dribbling.

I just stood there. Ball in hand. Breathing hard. The crowd’s screaming. The team’s yelling.

And the ref?

He blows the whistle.

On. Me.

“Offensive foul. Number 17.”

I blinked.

Then I looked at Geno.

That man looked like he aged five years in two seconds. His clipboard didn’t even make it to the floor—he just dropped it.

I handed the ball to the nearest girl.

Took off my headband.

And walked.

Straight up to the player who’d been fouling us all night.

“Yo,” I said, loud enough for her to hear but quiet enough to stay dangerous. “You got one more time to touch her like that.”

She didn’t back up. She smiled. Real smug.

I tilted my head.

“You think this funny? Try me again. I swear to God, you won’t finish this game walking.”

Then—then—the ref steps in, puffed-up like a Dollar Tree security guard.

“That’s enough,” he says, waving me off. “You’re out. Technical.”

I looked him dead in the face.

“Oh, word?” I said, taking a step forward. “You wanna eject me? Cool. But make it worth it.”

Then I reached for his whistle—and snatched it clean off his lanyard. Man looked like he saw his life flash.

“You gon’ need this when I’m done with her,” I said, tossing it at his chest. “To call the damn ambulance.”

Azzi damn near ran off the court to hide her laugh. Paige is holding KK now, trying to keep her calm. Nika’s standing next to the scorer’s table mouthing, she gone snap.

Too late. I already did.

Security starts coming toward me. I back up slow like I know the drill, hands up like “yeah, yeah, I’m leaving.”

But not before I walk past the player again—closer this time—and lean in like I’m whispering a prayer.

“I swear to God, if Ice so much as bruises, I’m finding you in the parking lot. Pack your shit early.”

The whole gym is watching. Camera flashes. Phones out. Geno’s got two hands on his hips like he’s about to faint.

I don’t celebrate. I don’t dap anybody up.

I just leave.

Locker Room

The room’s dead quiet when I walk in. Everybody moves like I might still be ticking.

I sit down on the bench, unzip my warmups, and stare at the floor.

Ice walks in last. Her cheek’s red. Ice pack in hand.

She comes to me, sits right next to my knee.

“You didn’t have to do all that,” she says, real soft.

I don’t look at her.

“She didn’t have to hit you like that.”

“She does that to everybody.”

“Then I’m not everybody.”

She doesn’t say anything. Just puts the ice pack on her shoulder.

Then, after a minute, I turn to her. Grab her chin gentle.

“Let me see your face.”

She lets me.

I press my lips to her forehead. Once. Twice. Three times.

“Say the word,” I whisper, “and I’ll find her in the parking lot.”

Ice laughs.

⸻

Later that Night, Group Chat

📱Paige: [screenshot] Yo this ref deleted his Twitter 💀💀

📱Nika: “play stupid. win stupid.”

📱KK: I still can’t believe you really took the whistle

📱You: He ain’t deserve it. He just renting it.

📱Azzi: Geno wants to talk tmr

📱You: He better not touch me either then

[cryinggirlnamedhelen]

think I’ll miss you forever; like the stars miss the sun in the morning sky ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡

when they leave you—but don’t worry, they’ll come back.

ft; kaiser, sae

part 1 - kaiser

⋆｡°✩₊ °✦ ‧ ‧ ₊ ˚✧₊ °✦

where was he?

you sat on the swings, a bag of warm bread on your lap. fifteen was probably too old to sit on the swings, but you really couldn’t care less. the bread was his favorite; michael’s favorite. you had even gotten the sugar and garlic flavored ones too—the ones that he always had the softest expression eating.

he was always there whenever you were there at the swings, usually with his soccer ball too. whether it was winter or summer, spring or autumn, you knew that you could always count on him to be there. your wallet sits lonesome in your pocket. he wasn’t even here to take your money either. (not donations, you would always tell him. you knew he wouldn’t accept anything you give him if he thought that you were donating.)

you stared up at the sky, your eyes flicking to your watch every 1 or 2 minutes, although it felt like hours. where was he?

⋆｡°✩₊ °✦ ‧ ‧ ₊ ˚✧₊ °✦

2 years later

“pookieeee! come onnnn! let’s go! i heard that bastard münchen have themselves michael kaiser! i have a boyfriend and all, but he’s soooo hot! come on, just this once? i even bought bread

your best friend tugged on your arm, bright red and golden nails grasping onto your shirt. you froze. michael kaiser? no, no. can’t be. there are probably thousands of michael kaiser’s in the world. but if it’s really him, does that mean that his father finally left him alone? “okay, fine. just this once.” you muttered. “where’s the bread?”

.

after the match, all you could hear were screams, yelling, screams, yelling, screams, yelling, cheering, screams, yelling, and…yeah, nothing else.

bastard münchen won by a hefty amount. 5-1, yeah, that was pretty good. but it was the guy who was portrayed at least a thousand times on the screen. michael kaiser, that guy. okay, so looks like you were wrong. looks like it really was him. “come on, let’s go! my boyfriend’s waiting for us!”

before you could even open your mouth, your best friend was already dragging you to the locker room. “wait, no! i don’t wanna watch a bunch of sweaty teenage boys change! who knows what they do in there!” your best friend ignored your words as she pushed open the mahogany door to the locker room.

“i still have college ess-“

“oh, don’t be such a buzzkill. you have a 4.7 GPA! you’re fine.” your best friend cut you off before you could finish before running over to go hug her boyfriend, who scored a grand total of zero points for the team. you sighed and stood by the door, eyes searching around for michael. but since it’s been 2 years, you’d expect that he probably forgot about you already. he’d be 17 now, which is the prime age for hot guys to be dating a girl and being a dick.

you just didn’t expect a blue rose tattoo and long blonde hair to cover your sights, and a “long time no see, mein schatz” with a clear smirk in the words to flow through your ears.

———

bro this shit is so ass, i wrote this in like 5 minutes at 3 in the morning

BUT MY GLORIOUS KING KAISER HAS FINALLY BEEN ANIMATED AND VOICED ACTED BY MY GLORIOUS KING MAMORU MIYANO TOO YESSSS (the guy who voiced the loml chrollo and my husband atsumu)

[svetamillss]

You are a teacher's pet🤍

Featuring: Cho Hyun Ju x Reader(f), Thanos (Su Bong) x Reader(f), Kang Sae Byeok x Reader(f), Nam Gyu x Reader(f), Cho Sang Woo x Reader(f)

Warnings: age difference, teacher-student relationship, character age can be changed.

A/N: I decided to experiment with this topic, so I apologize if you don't like this.

🤍🤍🤍

Cho Hyun Ju

You are 20 years old, Cho Hyun Ju is 30 years old

In the fourth year of the university, your group's curator changed. Now they are a gorgeous thirty-year-old woman named Cho Hyun Ju. She was a tall brunette in an elegant classic outfit, her face was not bright, but with cute makeup, her hair was straight to her shoulders.

You immediately fell in love with her and don’t stop looking at her. When she told everyone something, you hardly listened, all your attention was focused on the woman, and not on what she says about studying.

When you found out, thanks to rumors, that Cho Hyun Ju used to be a man and only recently ended the transition to a woman, you fell in love with her even more. After all, her strength of spirit has conquered you.

You couldn't stand it and decided to confess your feelings to the woman, so when all your classmates left and you were left alone with her, you told her everything. You were very nervous and afraid that she would tell everything to the rector, but it didn't happen. What happened surprised you the most. The woman accepted your feelings and said that she also liked you right away, but she was afraid of her feelings, because it is wrong for a student to meet a teacher, even if both are adults. Still, the difference of ten years can scare many people.

You decided to discuss everything over a cup of coffee. And decided that for now you will maintain friendly relations and get to know each other better, and as soon as you graduate from university (you need to be patient for less than a year), you will start dating and maybe go to Thailand together, where she always dreamed of.

Now the woman will help you with your studies, but not single you out so that others don't know. Also, while no one is around, she can kiss you on the cheeks or forehead. You are really looking forward to when your kisses will be much closer and more intimate.

Thanos (Su Bong)

You are 17 years old, Su Bong is 23 years old

He became your physical education teacher in the 11th grade. All the girls drooled on him (absolutely from different classes) because he was really a sexy and young teacher.

But he set his eyes on you. You understood this when the man began to praise you and compliment you for your success, and sometimes even gave you as an example.

Your classmates were angry and spread rumors that the teacher fell in love with you. And when the rumors reached him, he didn't keep silent. He confessed everything alone with you. And was already waiting for a complaint to the director that he was seducing an underage girl, but it didn't happen. You didn't tell, because you also started to fall in love with him.

You decided to meet in secret. Your closeness is only kisses and hugs, no sex!

He continues to compliment you in front of everyone that you are sometimes afraid that Su Bong will declassite you, but so far everything is fine.

When a man sees other guys flirting with you, he becomes very angry, but does not get into fights. He has a much better remedy. He will play back on them in physical education class, that the guys will leave a wet place.

- Fuck, how I'm waiting for you to graduate from this damn school to become officially mine. - he says all the time, when you in the women's locker room, he will only kiss you as if he's about to lose you forever.

But you are still afraid that they may find out about your relationship, then you two will come to the end, but so far everything is fine, right?

Kang Sae Byeok

You are 18 years old, she is 22 years old

She became your new English teacher. It so happened that you decided to connect your life with English, so the girl became your tutor.

Each other liked you right away. The girl was not very talkative, so she showed her feelings with her actions. She is always ready to help you, will always support you if something happened to you and you are afraid to tell it to others.

At one of your classes, you confessed to each other and kissed for the first time.

You started dating, but you did it secretly, although you were already 18 years old, but you didn't want unnecessary questions.

There was a lot of intimacy and romance, because you were able to melt the heart of this cold girl, but it's still difficult for her to talk about her love.

You both wait for you to graduate from school and enter the university, because then you will be able to move and live together and no longer hide your love.

- We have a month to be patient and then we can tell everyone that we love each other. - you said happily when you were lying in the arms of Sae Byeok at her house, she just smiled at your words and kissed you on the lips.

She was also really looking forward to this moment.

Nam Gyu

You are 20 years old, he is 25 years old

He was your philosophy teacher, although the subject seemed boring, this guy was positive.

You immediately fell in love with Nam Gyu and began to study his subject diligently so that he noticed you. And you managed to draw his attention, because a few months later he also fell in love with you. He is just afraid to confess, because despite the fact that you were in the last year of university, you two could have had problems.

That's why he was waiting for you to graduate from university, but in the meantime he only helped you in your studies and praised you for your efforts, he also liked to compliment you.

Your friends started joking, saying that Gyu fell in love with you, but you blushed and answered what they were coming up with.

When you graduated, he confessed to you at the prom and said that he would accept any answer, even a slap. But you kissed him on the lips, he was both very surprised and happy (of course no one saw you).

- Wait.. so you mean you love me too? - he asked when he interrupted the kiss.

- From the very beginning of the year, when I first saw you, so I studied hard so that you would notice me. I know it was dangerous, but I couldn't help myself. - you answered blushing.

When you announced your relationship, none of your friends were surprised, because they all knew for a long time.

Cho Sang Woo

You are 19 years old, he is 46 years old

You don't understand how it happened, you thought you were crazy, because falling in love with a man who was 30 years older and who your teacher of higher mathematics at the university, is just absurd. But this is your life.

You were even able to tell him about your feelings, although you understood that he would definitely tell everything to the rector and you would be punished, but he did not do it, instead he began to pay a lot of attention to you: he always turned to you at lectures, helped at tests and asked to stay for a while after his lesson to talk.

You chat about everything in the world, these were casual conversations, but you thought they were very intimate. You and Sang Woo never hugged or kissed, he could only hold you hand for a while, but it was enough for you, because you loved him.

But you had too much age difference, and you couldn't cope with it, that is, he couldn't.

The man transferred to another university which you didn't know. He didn't answer messages and calls, and you had no idea where he lived.

Only after a month of your calls and worries, he wrote you the last message, and then blocked you:

"I'm sorry I disappeared and didn't say anything. You're a good and smart girl, I like you, but I'm too old for you, you still have your whole life ahead of you and don't ruin it on someone like me. I decided to save our destinies from a mistake, so I left you. Forget me and don't look for me. Be happy."

You read this message a bunch of times in tears, but deep down you knew that he was right, he really saved you both.

🤍🤍🤍

[hyruling]

Happy Buddie Eve! I love your writing so much!! Especially that last one with the covering the other’s mouth prompt - it was so warm and funny and adorable!

How about 17 for buddie? ❤️🫶

Thank you!!

17. holding the other’s chin up

—

The silence in the car ride home is heavy.

They showered at the station. Eddie borrowed some of Buck’s spare clothes from his locker — his turnouts and henley were too filthy to drive home in, and the rest of his clothes are all packed in bags at the house, waiting. His hair is still damp and dripping down his neck, and it feels suffocating in a way that doesn’t make sense; feels like ants on his skin, a buzzing in his veins, an itch he can’t scratch.

Or maybe that’s just Eddie.

Eddie, who keeps looking at him. Who’s in his passenger seat again, dressed in Buck’s too big sweats and LAFD tee, Buckley splashed across his back in a way that makes him want to throw up the sickly warmth that pools in his gut every time his eyes find it.

He’s watching Buck now, a burning gaze that digs in like a bruise, and he can’t keep delaying the inevitable.

“What are you gonna do?” Buck asks over the soft sounds of the radio.

Eddie huffs, self deprecating and gentle, turns his attention briefly to the road ahead. “Think my orders from Captain Han were pretty clear.”

Buck smiles despite himself. “Yeah, but—I mean, is that—enough?”

He feels Eddie look at him again. “Enough?”

“To come back,” Buck says, keeping his eyes carefully on the road, anywhere but where they desperately want to look. Stalled car half a mile ahead. The Fiat next to them that keeps inching over like they want to merge. Yellow traffic light, red brake lights of the white sedan they’re trailing. Eddie’s eyes, still burning a hole in his temple.

“You mean, is Chim bossing me around enough to get me to come back?” Eddie asks, an edge to his voice Buck can’t place. Like he wants to laugh, but it’s getting caught in his throat.

And he’s tired, suddenly. So tired. Tired of grief weighing on his bones with every breath, the heaviness he can’t shake, can’t outrun. Tired of missing Eddie when they’re in the same room, of tiptoeing around and not saying what they mean. Even when they’re at each other’s throats, when Eddie bares his teeth and Buck nips back, they’re still not saying it. And he can’t do it anymore.

“You know what I mean,” Buck says.

“Yeah. I do,” Eddie admits. Goes quiet.

Buck still doesn’t look. Keeps his hands carefully at ten and two, turns down the side street that will take them home.

“You’re bleeding,” Eddie says in lieu of an answer.

Buck barely resists the urge to shrug. Makes a left onto South Bedford.

“Your neck,” Eddie continues.

The sting cuts through the fog, a sharp pain he didn’t notice until Eddie pointed it out. Buck pulls into the driveway and opens the door, snatching his bag from the back. Eddie is on his heels, and Buck fumbles with getting the key in the lock, and then they’re inside the empty house, the fading light outside dying in the windowpanes and shadows on the wall.

“Chris?” Buck asks.

He tosses his bag on the couch and winces when he remembers the dusty handprints. Motes of it swirl in the air from the impact and land somewhere on the couch he hates, that’s responsible for the crick in Eddie’s neck.

“Pepa has him,” Eddie replies, toeing off his dusty boots in the entry, his back turned to him, Buckley across the shoulders.

“We could have picked him up.”

“She’s taking him to dinner and then shopping. Making up for the months she couldn’t spoil him,”Eddie explains.

Buckley disappears, and then Buck is looking at him for the for the first time since the roof. The first time in months that Eddie was moving towards him rather than away. He’s moving towards him now, and the hand on his elbow jolts through him like a shock.

“C’mon. Bathroom.”

Eddie tugs, and Buck follows. Eddie parks him on the closed toilet seat and fishes around for the first aid kit in the cabinet. He unzips it and grabs a pack of gauze, tearing it open as he comes back, ever efficient and competent in a way Buck’s never learned not to envy. His finger gently hooks under Buck’s chin and he tilts his head back, finding the cut close to Buck’s jugular and pressing firmly with the gauze.

“Think your chinstrap got you,” Eddie says, tilting Buck’s head where he needs to stop the bleeding. He feels like a dog offering up his belly, brought to heel by Eddie’s gentle hands on him. “You missed some dirt in the shower too.”

Eddie releases his chin, instructing him to keep pressure on the cut, fingers brushing as he moves Buck’s hand where he wants him. He digs through the bag for antiseptic and Buck watches him, takes him in after hours of denying himself. The drying hair curling over his forehead, the fan of his lashes over his cheek, the slope of his nose. He’s gorgeous, of course he is, Buck’s always known that. But he’s been caught in a feedback loop of thought that began when he crossed the threshold of the roof, to where Eddie was waiting for him, and the only thing louder than the adrenaline surging through his skull was that Eddie was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

It’s dangerous ground, made even more so by Eddie’s hands back on him, tilting his chin this way and that, fingers skating across his jaw in a way that makes him have to clench it around a shiver. Eddie cleans Buck’s face first, wiping the dirt away with a wet washcloth. He goes in with the alcohol swab next, and Buck hisses at the sting. Eddie mutters an apology and finishes quickly, dabbing with a fresh gauze pad once he’s satisfied.

“Don’t think it needs a bandage,” Eddie says. “If it starts bleeding again I’ll put one on.”

“Okay,” Buck grates out, voice hoarse.

Buck keeps still while Eddie cleans up. Eddie didn’t tell him to go, and so he stays, watching Eddie’s hands work. He closes his eyes after a minute, slips in that middling headspace between sleep and wakefulness. He’s not sure how long he drifts there before Eddie brings him back with a hand on his shoulder, thumb brushing his collarbone.

Eddie’s squatting in front of him when he opens his eyes. His hand is warm on Buck’s shoulder. “Get up, bud, let’s go to bed.”

“I’m fine, I don’t need—I can help, if you need to get Chris, get to the airport—”

“Wow,” Eddie interrupts with a soft smile. “From sabotaging sub-letters to pushing me out the door. That’s some real growth right there.”

Buck flushes. “I was never—I’m not pushing you out. Just, I know you were—your shift is at seven—”

“Buck,” Eddie interrupts again with a long suffering sigh. “I called Captain Morales while you were in the showers.”

“You—you did?” Buck asks, and a tentative sort of hope starts scratching at the door.

Eddie shakes his head, looks down at his knees. “Okay, guess we’re doing this here.”

He stands and pulls out Chris’ old step stool from under the sink. When he sits across from Buck on it, he’s a good inch or so shorter, and Buck bites back a smile at the picture he makes perched so low to the floor.

Eddie’s arms cross over his knees. He almost looks like a little kid when he says, “Yes, I did. Told him I was sorry but I couldn’t take the job after all.”

“Wh-why? Because of what Chim said?” Buck asks.

Eddie shrugs one shoulder. “Partly. He was right about a lot of things. But I—Buck, I never wanted to leave. Not now, not then. I was just—doing what I thought I needed to. And I did need to, I had to go for Chris, I had to fix things, and—and be his dad again. But I should have come back for Chris too. And for me.”

Buck swallows, and it echoes like a shot in the small bathroom. “What does Chris say?”

Eddie smiles. “I talked to him before I called Morales. He wanted to come home weeks ago, but he knew how much I put down on the house and didn’t want to shake things up again. It wasn’t until I said I wanted to stay that he finally spilled.”

Eddie shakes his head, looks at a spot over Buck’s shoulder. He knows without turning that he’s looking at the marks on the doorframe, the ones that measure Chris’ height over the years. “That kid. Too damn good for his own good sometimes.”

“Yeah, he is,” Buck says, finally matching Eddie’s smile. He feels like he can breathe for the first time since he laid eyes on Eddie at the airport. “So, you’re—staying?”

“Yeah, Buck,” Eddie says, eyes shining. “We’re staying.”

It’s a miracle he doesn’t slide off the toilet from the weight that disappears from his shoulders. He releases a shaky exhale, and he wants to touch Eddie so badly he could cry.

He balls his hands into fists instead, pressing them into his knees. “That’s—that’s really great, Eddie. I’m glad Chim—y-yeah. Thank god for post adrenaline speeches.”

The smile slips from Eddie’s face, and Buck is right back on the precipice again. Eddie shifts closer, legs crossed under his clenched hands, and holds Buck’s gaze. In a low voice, he asks, “It—you still don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?” Buck asks just as quietly.

“You never asked,” Eddie says, and Buck’s heart rushes to his throat. “You never asked me to stay, or to come back.”

“I didn’t think I needed to,” Buck says, a little sharper than he means it to be.

“No, you’re right. You didn’t need to,” Eddie says. “But I still wanted you to.”

“Eddie,” Buck breathes, air punched from his lungs. “You—I couldn’t. I never asked you to choose between me and Chris, you know.”

“I know you didn’t,” Eddie says, surprisingly placating.

Buck frowns, continues, “That’s—that’s not my place, and I-I know that. I would never put myself between you. But the thought of you being gone was s-so—and I know I acted out, and I know I let you down when Bobby died, I left you alone when I s-should have—god, fuck, I’m sorry Eddie. I’m so fucking sorry.”

He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, hard. Tries to stem the flow of tears that are always right on the brink these days.

“Hey,” Eddie says softly, tugging at Buck’s wrists. Buck gives in, lets Eddie pull his hands away from his face. The fading light from the window and the pressure on his eyes turns Eddie into a strangely haloed figure, the only real thing in the room.

"I'm sorry too," Eddie says, and squeezes Buck's wrists. His palms are up like a supplication, and he curls his fingers until his nails dig into his skin. "I'm not telling you this as some kind of guilt trip, I'm trying to say that—I'm coming home for me. And that means I'm coming home for you too, do you get it?"

"I—not really," Buck answers honestly.

Eddie chuckles softly, looks down at his hands encircling Buck’s wrists. He thumbs over the delicate skin, traces the blue veins with his nail, and a shiver shakes down Buck’s spine.

"This is my home," Eddie explains, speaking to their hands. "El Paso was a lot of things for me, but it was never really home. This place, this is where I found it.”

Eddie’s eyes find his again, golden in the dusky light. “And Buck you're—god, you're the reason for almost all of it. Don't you know that?"

Blood rushes in his ears, and any hope he had of suppressing the tears is gone. They spill warm over his cheeks while Eddie rubs circles on his wrists, beautiful even here, even like this — cramped on the tiled floor that could use a good scrub, three toothbrushes in the cup by the sink because of course Eddie forgot to pack them, the way he always forgets. And the feeling he'd been trying to ignore, the one he's spent nearly Eddie's entire absence explaining away and denying, hooks itself behind his ribcage and glows.

—

prompts xo

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

can you see the stars in your dreams (and do they have a lot to say about me) - Part 18

Or: a secret Admirer AU

PART 1 || PART 2 || PART 3 || PART 4 || PART 5 || PART 6 || PART 7 || PART 8 || PART 9 || PART 10 || PART 11 || PART 1 || PART 13 || PART 14 || PART 15 || PART 16 || PART 17

Steve doesn’t see much of Eddie for the next few weeks. Presumably there are still Dungeons and Dragons sessions and band practices, but Steve and Chrissy are no longer invited. Jeff flits back and forth between their two groups like a child of divorce, and Steve? He just misses Eddie.

Eddie, who even once Steve slinks back to his usual seat in the cafeteria for lunch, no longer gives his table top rants. He doesn’t say anything at all, not where Steve might overhear him. But he still has Chrissy, and Robin, and Jeff, and that’s enough.

In his free time, he writes aimless letters destined to never be read.

Steve’s moving on—getting over it is a process, or so he tells Chrissy. He never shows her the letters, can’t bear to see the pity on her face. He doesn’t talk about it with Robin again either–just hides his notebook away and gets on with his life.

Eddie’s just a boy, and it’s just a crush. Steve can move on, he always does. He tells Eddie as much in a letter he’ll never read.

Everything changes when he opens his locker and something drops out. It’s a bright yellow envelope, sloppy sunflowers drawn on the sides with black pen, and there, dead center, is his name written in a handwriting he’d recognize anywhere, is his name. Not Secret Admirer, not even Harrington, just Steve.

He shoves it into his backpack before Robin can close her own locker and notice.

It stays hidden there for the rest of the day as Steve’s heartbeat rabbits away in his chest, and his palms itch with sweat. He doesn’t open it that night either, too afraid of what he might find in it. It’s like that one story Robin had told him, where the guy goes crazy after burying someone under the floorboards or something? It’s calling to him, no matter how hard he plugs his ears.

Steve doesn’t get much sleep that night.

He still hasn’t opened it by school the next day. Might not ever have opened it if he hadn’t glanced toward Eddie during lunch and caught his eye. Eddie’s staring, gaze intense even with all the distance between them. But then, the weirdest thing happens—Eddie smiles just a little, and finger waves at him, like they’re friends.

Steve just stares, gobsmacked until Eddie’s entire face starts to turn a splotchy red and he looks down at his lunch table as if embarrassed.

“What was that?” Chrissy asks, looking behind her at whatever had caught Steve’s eye.

“I have to go,” Steve blurts, rushing out of the cafeteria before she can ask anymore questions.

His and Chrissy’s usual abandoned classroom has a teacher in it, so he ends up in his and Robin’s bathroom stall, this time alone. Still, he sits on the ground, leaving enough room for the ghost of Robin to have a seat, too.

He opens his backpack, zeroing in on the envelope instantly—as if he’d ever, for a second forgotten about it—and finally pulls it out.

He traces the sunflowers on the paper, memorizing the grooves Eddie’s pen had made before finally turning it over and sliding his fingers beneath the seal to tear it open.

The paper’s thicker than he’s used to getting from Eddie, and it’s that same, bright yellow that doesn’t fit Eddie’s aesthetic at all. But it fits Steve’s, and that’s the thought that finally gets him to bring the letter closer to his face and begin to read. 

   Steve,

   I wanted to start this out by saying that I’m sorry—it’s a phrase I’m becoming alarmingly used to saying in recent weeks. To Jeff, to Gareth, and now to you. No matter how surprised I was, I had no right to say all that shit to you. And for that, I’m sorry, okay? Really, truly sorry.

   As Chrissy and Jeff pointed out once you’d left, I was a dick, and there’s no excuse for that. And as my uncle told me when he was doing his disappointed parent shtick, I might have been projecting, just a tad.

   Eddie Munson might be gay—who knew?

   So, I’ll hope you accept my sincerest apologies for how I’ve handled this whole thing, Steve. I can’t imagine how it must have felt. Well, I can now, a bit. And it’s scary, right? But, I think it’s my turn to be brave. If I haven’t already ruined any chance I might have had, maybe we can go on a date?

   I’ll pick you up this Friday at your house, say around seven? If you don’t answer the door, I’ll understand. That’ll be my answer.

   But I really, really, really hope you do.

   Yours, always, hopefully,

   Eddie

Steve stares down at it, flummoxed. He reads it again, and again, and again. When the words on the page don’t change, he slips it delicately into the envelope, and goes to his next class, mind swirling away with the clouds.

“Can I drive you home?” Steve asks Jeff before he can climb into Chrissy’s car.

“Uh, sure?” Jeff replies just as Chrissy cuts in with a near-frantic, “are you okay?”

Steve smiles tightly at her and says, “I’ll call you tonight, okay? I just need to talk to Jeff.”

She bites her lip, looking even more worried than before, but all she says is, “I’ll hold you to that.”

Jeff and Chrissy trade an indecipherable look and then Jeff dutifully follows Steve to his car and climbs in. Before he starts the engine, he pulls the envelope out of his pocket and hands it to Jeff.

“What’s this?” Jeff asks.

“Read it,” Steve replies, starting the car and pulling out of the parking lot so he doesn’t have to see whatever expression crosses Jeff’s face as he reads.

It’s silent for a few minutes aside from The Clash filtering quietly tinnily from the radio, but then Jeff says, “so, he finally did it.”

Steve’s fingers clench on the steering wheel at the vague answer to the question he hasn’t yet asked. “Is it some sort of joke?” Steve grits out, still unable to look at Jeff’s face.

“No, man,” Jeff replies, doing that same shoulder clasp thing he’d done last time he’d been in Steve’s car while he was upset. “He’s just been working through some stuff.”

“So he’s…” he finally shifts his gaze toward Jeff, hoping to convey his question without having to say it aloud.

“Seems so,” Jeff replies.

And Steve shudders, all those same feelings he’d been working so hard to suppress bubbling back to the surface, the most dangerous of all being hope.

“Are you going to go?” Jeff asks, voice even enough not to show his opinion on the decision one way or another.

Steve swallows, throat dry. “I don’t know.”

They don’t talk for the rest of the drive, and when he calls Chrissy later that night, she asks the same thing.

“Are you going to go?” she asks breathlessly, like she’s hanging on his every word.

Steve sighs. “He said he might be gay, Chris. What if we go out and he’s wrong?”

Left unmentioned is the niggling voice in the back of his head still insisting that the whole thing is some sort of cruel prank to get back at him. He’d lied, and strung him along, and gotten him hurt. No matter how many times Eddie apologizes, Steve knows he’s not really the one that should be.

“What if he’s right?” she asks.

Steve knows, deep down in his bones, that he’s going to go, just at the chance that Chrissy’s right, that Eddie’s right, that Jeff’s right. Steve desperately wants to be wrong. 

***

Steve doesn’t show any outward appearance of having received the letter. Eddie watches, obsessively trying to catch even the barest hint of what he thinks of the note– if, when he knocks on the Harrington’s front door, he’ll open it.

He keeps looking, and looking, and finally, blessedly, when Eddie looks, Steve’s looking back. Their eyes lock, and such a wave of relief courses through Eddie that he, like a fucking idiot, waves at him. Steve stares, mouth open, and does absolutely nothing back.

Eddie looks down at the table, whole body aflame with mortification, hair dangling messily into Doug’s mashed potatoes.

“Dude,” Doug says, shoving Eddie’s shoulder, forcing him away from his precious lunch.

“You good?” Jeff asks, leaning across the table to poke at Eddie’s bowed head like it’s potentially diseased roadkill he found on the side of the street.

“He hates me!” Eddie whines, turning his head just enough to glance towards Steve’s table, spitting a chunk of hair out of his mouth.

Steve’s not there at all anymore.

“Harrington?” Gareth questions around the bite of apple lodged in his throat. “Aren’t you trying to steal his girlfriend?”

“Of course no—not anymore!” Eddie stutters, turning his head the other direction to glare at Gareth instead.

For his part, Gareth just looks down at him, supremely unimpressed. “Uh huh,” he replies, keeping his voice quiet even when very obviously fed up. “Is this more secret bullshit you’re refusing to tell me?”

“It’s not my secret!” Eddie hisses, finally removing his head from the table so he can crouch on it instead, leaning over Gareth like a gargoyle. “And I promised!”

“Bet you told Wayne,” Gareth mutters.

“Oh my god, I told Wayne!” Eddie cries, dropping off the bench entirely to crawl under the table where he belongs. It’s not like there’s anyone in the room right now that he wants to impress—he already scared Harrington off.

“Dude,” is all Jeff says, peering under the table to look down at him judgmentally. “Chrissy is going to kill you.”

Eddie clutches his hair hard enough that it hurts. “It’s Wayne! He doesn’t count,” Eddie whines, “does he?”

Jeff snorts, kicking his foot out until the toe of his sneaker connects softly with Eddie’s kneecap. “He doesn’t count,” he starts, continuing before Eddie’s even slumped with relief, “to you.”

When Eddie slinks out from beneath the table, Steve’s spot is still empty, and Chrissy’s sitting there, glaring across the cafeteria at Eddie like she can just sense that he didn’t keep his vow of secrecy.

God, girls are scary.

He avoids looking in her direction the rest of lunch, picking at his own potatoes and mushy peas just for something to do.

Steve’s not going to open the door—he knows that. But, even still, he wakes up early on Friday morning to sneak into Mrs. Johnson’s yard to carefully cut a few of her sunflowers, ducking low enough that the bushes in front of her windows will obscure him.

When he’s done, he’s got five perfect sunflowers, tied together with the brown shoelace he’d stolen from a pair of Wayne’s old boots.

He leaves them in the kitchen, awkwardly propped into a bowl full of water since the Munson’s aren’t the kind of family to own a vase, or even a tall enough glass, apparently.

By the time Wayne gets home from the graveyard shift, Eddie’s elbow-deep in a trash bag in the back of his van. Wayne peers through the propped-open doors, eyebrows already raised as Eddie freezes, hand in the metaphorical cookie jar.

“What’re ya doing, boy?” Wayne asks.

Eddie stares, brain full of ants and TV static as he fumbles for an answer. What comes out of his mouth is “I asked Steve out!”

Wayne’s lips quirk up, and he’s smirking at Eddie as if to say, see? told ya, the smug bastard. But all he says is, “is that so?” drawling and easy like he’s not acting all-knowing and superior.

Eddie groans and takes his hand out of the garbage bag to run it through his hair and pull. “Or I left him a note?” he says, gut churning as Wayne’s face drops to his more customary frown. “Oh my god, he’s not going to show!”

“Then why’re you cleaning your van out?”

Eddie puffs up, glaring back at Wayne now. “Well I’m going to show up, Wayne!” he replies, voice shrill. “I’m a man of my word.”

Wayne snorts when Eddie calls himself a man, just like he always does, but his lips are quirked up again, looking almost proud as he replies, “good man,” with only a slightly mocking intonation. “Want some help?”

They get all the trash out in a matter of minutes. When it becomes clear that the vacuum cleaner can’t reach no matter how close they park the van, Wayne comes back out with the broom from the kitchen and they sweep as much debris as they can from inside before Eddie steals the comforter from his own bed and lays it across the back carpet, masking the weird stains.

Wayne finishes it off with a spritz of his own rarely-used cologne, covering up any remaining funky smells. Even so, Eddie elects to leave the windows rolled down to air it out for as long as possible.

When Wayne notices his commandeered shoelace around the sunflowers, he doesn’t say a thing.

Then, he’s forced to go to school, wiling away the hours until he’s standing in front of the Harrington’s front door, boots shined for the first time in his life, sunflowers clutched in shaking hands, van parked neatly behind him, hair brushed into submission. He’d even used his fancy conditioner, thoughts of that half-remembered first letter waxing poetic about his hair fueling his action. 

All for a boy who won’t answer the door.

But, Eddie’s a man of his word, so he knocks.

And waits.

And waits.

And waits.

He waits such a long time that he jumps when the door opens, breath catching as he looks at Steve Harrington, face-to-face for the first time since that disastrous day in his living room. His mostly-healed eye aches with remembered pain, his ribs cold with the absence of Steve’s hands.

He’s missed looking at him.

Steve’s in light-wash jeans, hair perfectly coiffed, wearing a green sweater that makes the gold in his eyes pop, even in the dim light from the Harrington’s porch light. He looks good, put together enough for a first date, casual enough to just be his everyday clothes.

Eddie’s heartbeat flickers with something that feels alarmingly like hope.

“Uh, hey,” Eddie says, finally breaking the awkward silence.

He smiles, trying to be charming, but he’s never done this before, doesn’t know how to contort his face. He holds out the sunflowers, arm awkwardly extending, hoping desperately that his offering will be accepted.

Steve stares down at them, hand still clutching the door like he’s one second away from slamming it closed in Eddie’s face. Eddie holds his breath, heartbeat ratcheting up from the oxygen deprivation.

Steve reaches out, his fingers brushing Eddie’s as he tries to take the flowers from him. Eddie’s fingers stay clenched around the stems for a second too long, hand following the flowers trajectory toward Steve’s own chest until Eddie forces his hand open and lets it drop uncomfortably back to his side.

Steve stares down at them, leaning down to take a sniff. Eddie winces—they don’t smell like much, just dirt and nebulous green things. But Steve smiles, just a tiny, little thing that hits Eddie’s body like electroshock therapy.

“Thank you.” Steve says quietly, not looking away from the sunflowers as he asks, “come inside while I put them in some water?”

Steve swings the door open wider, and Eddie slides past him and into the Harrington’s house. As Steve wanders further inside, Eddie stands in the entrance—foyer?—feeling remarkably out of place. Even from here, he can see enough negative space to house twenty-odd people, a vaulted ceiling, and is that a chandelier? Eddie doesn’t step a toe off the mat beneath his feet, afraid his very presence will stain the perfect white interior.

He shouldn’t be here. Places like this aren’t for the Munson’s of the world. They’re for royalty, kings and queens, and all the upper crust that spits down on the rest of them. But when Steve comes back, sans sunflowers, he’s smiling just a little, tromping his own shoes over the white carpet like he doesn’t give a shit.

Maybe he doesn’t belong here either. Maybe it’s possible to carve out a space for him in the Munson’s shitty trailer, however small.

“Alright, Munson,” he says, still smiling just this side of awkward. “What’re we doing?”

As Eddie holds Steve Harrington’s own front door open for him to step through, Eddie’s mind’s buzzing with maybes.

***

Eddie’s van smells like mothballs and cologne, and the radio’s quietly playing the sort of generic pop music Steve usually mumbles along to on his way to school. But, Eddie’s fingers are twitching against the wheel, and he hasn’t said a word since they’d climbed in, so Steve sits on his own hands and keeps his mouth shut.

The longer the silence drags on, the more Steve regrets ever opening the door at all. Eddie pulls into Hawkins’ drive-in, and buys their tickets and two bags of popcorn. Steve’s hand clenches in his lap, Eddie’s words to Chrissy all that time ago running through his head—we can go to the drive-in and hold hands the whole time.

“I hope this is okay?” Eddie says, finally breaking the silence as he spins the dial to the correct channel to catch the movie. “I wasn’t sure if you liked horror, but this is all that’s playing this weekend, and I’ve been wanting to watch it so—”

“It’s fine,” Steve replies, and it is.

He’s never been much for horror beyond putting it on for dates so he has a built-in excuse to reach out. But, he’s not squeamish, and maybe those same thoughts are running through Eddie’s head: an excuse to reach out and touch.

But, as the title card flashes SLEEPAWAY CAMP in big, boxy font, all Eddie does is reach into his popcorn bag and stuff a handful into his mouth. Steve follows suit, the buttery kernels turning to ash on his tongue.

He watches with little enthusiasm as the stupid teenagers on screen fool around and get torn apart. Eddie makes little comments throughout the movie, but there’s nothing Steve can grasp onto.

What does one say to, “whoa, blood fountain,” or “god, that kid’s a douche,” or, “they should’ve killed him sooner.”

Steve still tries, humming and nodding along and verbalizing his own agreements. Eddie never responds, just keeps stuffing his mouth with popcorn until the bag’s empty. Steve stares down at his own mostly-full bag and wonders if the separate bags were just to make sure they didn’t accidentally brush hands. 

He hands his own popcorn over, and Eddie grabs it twitchily, muttering a “thanks, dude,” without really looking at Steve at all.

Steve just wants to go home, crawl into his own bed, and forget this whole thing ever happened.

But he just sits there, silent as the movie plays on. He doesn’t understand the end, but he missed so much of the beginning and middle that he barely questions it.

When it’s over, Eddie turns the dial back to that same, nondescript station that doesn’t fit him at all, fingers clenching hard enough on the wheel that Steve can hear it creak under the strain. Steve turns away, to look out the window, throat clogged up with feelings he doesn’t want to think about.

The longer this date drags on, the more excruciatingly clear it becomes that whatever is driving Eddie to this, it’s not him returning Steve’s feelings. This isn’t how dates go when you’re excited about them, there’s nothing clicking into place–it doesn’t even seem like Eddie’s trying.

He feels small, and sad, and every minute that passes with Eddie saying absolutely nothing at all only makes Steve feel more like a charity case that Eddie’s taken pity on. 

He never should have listened to Chrissy and Jeff’s encouragement. They’d both been so hopeful that he’d caved, but they’re not the ones stuck in the devastatingly uncomfortable moment. It’s just him and Eddie, living with the fact that Steve’s got a crush on a boy that can never like him back.

There’s no coming back from this, no matter how nice Eddie tries to be about it. Because he is nice, no matter how he’s been acting the past few weeks.

Steve’s the problem—always has been, always will be.

So, he stews in the silence, watching the same familiar buildings pass him by like it’s the last time he’ll ever see them. And maybe it will be, if Eddie decides to be not so nice. This was all so catastrophically, unbelievably stupid from that very first letter all the way to this moment, stuck in a van with a boy that won’t even look at him. 

He’s so lost in thought that he doesn’t realize they’re going the wrong way until Eddie’s pulling into a familiar clearing in the quarry. His headlights illuminate the skid marks Steve’s car had made in the dirt when he’d screeched to a halt to stop Jason Carver from rearranging his face.

Eddie slides into park much more levelly and cuts the engine. The quiet is absolute, made worse by the darkness surrounding them. Steve can hear the crinkle of Eddie shifting on his seat, the sound of his throat as he gulps like he’s about to go off to war.

 “I thought—” Eddie starts before petering off as his voice breaks. Steve listens to him take a few shuddering breaths before starting again. “I thought we could star gaze?”

Steve sighs, slumping back into his seat, so unbelievably tired. “Eddie—”

“Unless you don’t want to!” Eddie rushes out. “I just thought…”

Steve would kill to know what he’s thinking, but whatever it is, Eddie doesn’t pick up his trailing sentence, just leaves it hanging in the silence between them. Steve sighs again, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose, desperate to keep an even keel.

“Look, Eddie” Steve starts, turning toward Eddie. He can see the silhouette of his frame hunched over in the driver’s seat, but his face is a black void for Steve to project upon. It makes him brave. “You don’t have to do this. You, like, tried it out, right? And it didn’t work out.”

“Steve—”

“It’s fine, Eddie,” Steve cuts in, exhausted. “You can just drop me off at home, and we can go our separate ways.”

Eddie makes a sound like a strangled cat, and then his silhouette lunges across the distance between their seats. Steve jerks back, head banging painfully into the window as Eddie’s mouth mashes against his, more teeth than lips.

PART 19

Shoutout, once again, to my beta reader and friend @queenie-ofthe-void for this one!!! I struggled for weeks on the date, and then they said, "what if you just make it as awkward as possible," and then I wrote this entire date in a day. Truly a muse for me <3<3<3

[mrrharper]

Military-Grade Scheme

Here’s a more unorthodox transformation story I wrote as a commission for @khartoum1. Enjoy!

In every college football team it’s pretty easy to point to a couple guys that rise above the rest. Both in terms of athletic ability and personality. Dudes who excel on the field and have no problem boasting about it after the game in the locker room. They naturally assume leadership roles, feeling that it’s only natural they hold at least some amount of power. I mean, look at them.

Tom Sullivan was a textbook example of such a player. Starting safety playing for Wake Forest, he had a reputation as an unstoppable weapon on the field, never allowing any receiver to get past him. His frequent and flashy tackles always made the highlight reel after every game and he was frequently rewarded for his effort with awards, respect from his bros and frequent hookups. Of course, being the arrogant football jock he was, he cared most about the last one. Every week meant a different girl in his bed, another pussy to conquer. This allowed him to reinforce his cred with his teammates, and even though there were a few cases of a condom being forgotten about, higher forces wouldn’t allow any random slip-up with a chick to affect his promising career. And so Sully lived his blissful life, surrounded by dudes who borderline worshipped him and girls who basically loved him.

And there was David, of course. David Mustafa, a year older than Tom and also a safety playing for the Demon Deacons. He was always there in the back of Tom’s mind as a possible threat, but not a very dangerous one. David was good, but not Tom Sullivan level of good. That thankfully translated to him spending basically 90% of every game on the sidelines and Tom could only assume he was always waiting for him to make some kind of mistake, place his foot at a wrong angle or something, so that he could have his moment of glory. But that moment would never come, as Sully was way too good to make this kind of rookie error. Football was his life, the only thing that mattered, and he would make sure it would stay that way.

Wake Forest’s season began with a Military Appreciation Game. Tom was obviously a patriot - red, white, blue and all that shit - but he was not the greatest fan of these types of events. Not because the military wasn’t important or anything, of course it was. But for Sully, a true All-American alpha, the troops had become too effeminate, too soft. And that was not something he thought needed appreciating.

He had one hell of a game. A few big tackles, including one on Boston’s brawny tight end who was known to play dirty on the field. He even recorded an interception, breaking their opponent’s best drive so far in the game and basically sealing the win for the Decs. The final score being 41-17, there was celebration in the locker room. First, Coach came in and gave a quick and dry congratulatory speech, as was custom, and then the more than 50 football players were left all alone. Booze quickly entered the picture, everyone filled with adrenaline after such a thrilling performance.

Tom quickly took off his sweaty jersey and pads and threw them onto the locker before turning around to face the rest of the team.

”Brahs, we fuckin’ did it! That’s how ya begin a fuckin’ season!” A scream of cheers followed and someone threw a can of beer at Tom. He caught it, which gained him a few more claps, and quickly drank the whole thing. He then crushed the can with his foot and flexed. Fuck, winning felt so good.

”These faggots have just tasted the raw power of Wake Forrest football, am I right guys?” A bunch of ‘fuck yeah’’s came in response.

After some time the temperature in the room cooled and the players started taking care of their gear and getting ready to leave. Meanwhile, Tom was talking with his best bros on the team - two corners, Antonio and Demarcus, and Sam “Carnage” Carney, a linebacker.

”Dude, I’m tellin’ ya, this whole thing was bullshit.” Tom groaned after Demarc mentioned how cool he felt as they were clapping for all the service members who came to the game.

”Bruh” Antonio looked at him, surprised? “What do ya mean dude? They’re, like, the army, ya know, the dudes who fight for our country and shit, defending America from terrorism.”

”I mean, I guess they do that, sure” Sully shrugged “But you must have seen how the military turned from thought dudes to woke pink-haired pussies. This ain’t the strongest army in the world no more, just a bunch of beta libs.” He grinned and looked at his bros “Am tellin’ ya dude, if ya got me a random soldier dude form the nearest base or whatever, I would defeat him in seconds. That’s how weak our military is now, huhuhuhuh.”He then let out a low, dumb-sounding laugh. The other three jocks nodded, automatically aligning themselves with Tom’s view.

”Yeah, brah” Demarc slapped him on the back “You’d crush any one of these camo-wearin’ pussies, fuck yeah dude!”

”Exactly, bro” Sam joined in “With yer strength, nothin’ would stand in yer way man, I can see all these bitches runnin’ away after seein’ ya all pumped and ready to smash them into the ground.” They all laughed, imagining such a scenario.

A few days later, the defensive line was in the middle of their weekly workout sessions. The gym was filled with banter as different guys chatted in between sets or motivated each other to push as hard as they could. And of course, in the middle of it all was Tom, breaking another personal best on the bench. After getting through 3 sets with the heavier weights, he threw the bar onto the rack and screamed.

”Fuuuuuuuck yeah!” A few bros closest to him stopped their exercises for a moment and congratulated him in their own bro ways - with wolf whistles, claps on the back and shouts. Tom stood up and got to the nearest mirror to flex his pumped arms. 

“Look at these arms, dude” He said to no one in particular “These guns just won Warrior of the Month on Insta.” A few more cheers followed. “And they fuckin’ deserved it, huhuhuh” He kissed his right biceps and looked into the mirror once more. Yes, he was a football god. 

After the high of crushing his lifting record had dwindled, he turned back towards the gym and started walking towards the free weights area. There he stumbled upon David, who was picking up a set of dumbbells.

”Ey, David bro, how ya doin dude?” Tom came close to the other guy with a smirk on his face. “Gettin pumped for the next game?”

”Yeah, sure” David just shrugged in response. Tom then put his arm around David’s shoulders and tucked him closer.

”Bet ya just can’t wait to warm up the bench for us stars, am I right?” 

“Mhm.” The only response he got was a grumble and a sigh. Tom clapped David on the back, causing him to lose balance and drop the dumbbells on the floor. Sully erupted in laughter and David just rolled his eyes and picked the weights back up.

”Hope yer better at holding onto chicks then weights bro” Tom said it loud enough for some other guys to hear it, and they all started laughing once again.

”I’ll be sure to let you know” David responded, putting a slight grin on his face, and got out of Tom’s embrace. But Tom was not yet done with him. He quickly jumped up to him and rubbed his hair.

”Calm down bro, am just messin with ya, ya know, as bros do, huhuhuhuhuh.” With that, Tom lost interest in hazing David and went back to the other jocks.

Next week Wake Forest destroyed the Air Force Falcons 49 - 6. From the moment he put on his uniform, Tom knew this was going to be an epic night. He ran onto the field with his signature crop top look, his jersey tucked to expose his flexed abs. And he dominated for the next 4 quarters. Tom and his bros celebrated after the game for a while, seeing this as a sign that Sully was correct in his assessment that the modern American soldier was indeed a weak beta pussy. Crusher and Demarc had once again brought beer and the jocks got very rowdy in the locker room. With booze flowing, surrounded by used football gear that was reeking of sweat, Tom felt like he was on top of the world.

When they finally left the stadium and walked onto the parking lot, Sully saw David waiting by his car. He dismissed the rest of the guys, who obediently said their goodbyes and left, then came up to his Chevy.

”What’s up, brah?” He looked at David, a cocky grin on his face, his arrogant expression partially hidden by his sunglasses.

”Nothin’ much” David shrugged “That was one hell of a game, right?”

”Fuck yeah” Tom took a step closer and clapped David on the shoulder “These Air Force pussies couldn’t get past these guns.” He then flexed both his arms. After all, he needed to show David who was boss.

”Oh certainly, huhuhuh” In response, David laughed in the same dumb and low-pitched way as Tom and other jocks usually did. He then reached into his pocket and took out a pair of dog-tags hanging from a thin, stainless steel ball chain. That immediately caught Tom’s attention. David then put the dog tags in front of Tom’s face.

”So… I know your attitude towards soldiers,” Another dumb laugh. “But I found a couple of these and from what I’ve heard wearing these can do magic with girls.” David grinned slightly and extended his hand towards Tom, who looked at him, suspicion in his eyes. David felt that reluctance and continued. “And so I immediately thought that you need a pair of these for yourself. Gotta make sure our team’s alpha safety stays on top in the chicks department, huhuhuh.” 

Tom thought about what he heard. For all of two seconds. The promise of more pussy was more than enough for him. He grabbed the dog tags and put them on. Two small metal plates were now hanging from his neck. He looked down and watched them settle on his meaty chest. Then he looked back up at David.

”Damn, dude. That’s sick. Chicks are gonna dig it so bad dude, I bet they’re gonna get wet just from seeing these.” Tom then flexed his chest, making his pecs bounce and watched the dog tags bounce as well.

”Hahahah, I bet dude” David extended his fist towards Tom, who eagerly bumped it. Then they both chuckled again and watched Sully flex his pecs a few more times.

”Let’s hope you know more about gettin’ pussy than defending the field” Tom laughed at his own joke and David just smirked and nodded. 

After a few days Tom had to give it to David - he seemed to be correct. Wherever he went, chicks seemed to gather around him instantly, all competing for a chance to hook up with him, as long as he had the dog tags on. He very much enjoyed the effect they seemed to have on women. He didn’t know it was possible to get more chicks into bed with him than he already did, but it certainly was. He just had to have these two small pieces of metal resting on top of his chest.

A few weeks in, Tom felt that he needed to go a step higher, so he got himself a military-style baseball cap that he started wearing all the time, even when he wasn’t hunting for sexual conquests. Antonio gave him a bit of grief after he wore the cap on the sidelines during a game, about how he was ranting about the Army just a few weeks prior only to suddenly become very into the military aesthetic, but even though he was one tough son of a bitch on the field, it wasn’t hard for Tom to put him in his place. Besides, he wasn’t “into the military aesthetic”, he just… felt like he had to buy the cap because… uhhh… he… he had to buy it to make sure the dog tags’ influence was still working after the novelty wore off. Exactly, nothing more. 

A similar line of thought made him look up military bars around town. If chicks were into this whole “army vibe” then that would be the absolutely perfect spot to hunt pussy with his newly acquired powers, right? Thankfully for Tom, there was a Marines training ground in the same county as the school, so there were a few establishments catering to the military crowd around town. He decided to go there one Wednesday after practice. He didn’t have any classes the following day so he had all night to himself.

”Brah, yer not goin’ to that Alpha Psi Delta party?” Carnage stopped him before they left the building. “It's gonna be an absolute beer fest duuuuuuuude.” He was clearly pumped up for the party. The party which Tom forgot about in his quest to find the best army-focused place in town.

”Ya gonna skip the Alpha party, bro?” Demarc joined in. Suddenly his bros were so focused on him skipping one frat party. And what was the big deal in that? It was just another random exert at Greek Row, indistinguishable from countless other parties he attended. And he attended all of them. Which meant today he would be breaking a pretty impressive streak… Tom looked at his bros and thought about it for a minute, but then he felt a thought tugging at the back of his brain. He had a mission today. And you don’t abandon a mission because of some random event set up by a bunch of drunk frat bros. 

“Nah brahs, already got some serious plans for today.” He thrust his hips slightly and they all immediately realised what he meant and backed down.

”Go get that chick, dude!” Demarc slapped him on the back and Sam just grinned, immediately changing his tune.

”Fuck dude, yer dick can’t get enough of that good ol’ pussy, huhuhuh“ He let out a dumb chuckle and Tom left them at the entrance with a mock salute.

The night went spectacularly well for Tom. At the bar, he felt at ease the entire time, even talking with a few actual Army guys at the counter. Interacting with them felt almost natural, the right words flowing out of his mouth for the soldiers to treat him as one of their own. And of course, the dog tags worked their magic on every chick that entered the establishment. He ended up fucking two girls that night, both cute blonds who clearly had a thing for military guys. Both seemed to love it when he barked at them like a drill sergeant and he found himself enjoying this as well, which he didn’t expect.

Visiting that military bar became almost a habit for him. Every few days, when his cock demanded action, he would spend the evening there, talk with some of the regulars and use his natural charisma to get some sweet, sweet pussy. This entire military thing seemed to work better and better on girls with every passing week. He didn’t have to put in any effort (even though, of course, his game was top notch) as women were just naturally joining him when they registered his presence. 

This also helped in further cementing his cred with his teammates, who were all cheering him on as his body count inflated every day. And he had more and more stories of his conquests he could use to further assert his dominance in the locker room.

After one game, a close one against Boston College which went into overtime, Tom was talking with their tight end about his latest hook up and he was clearly impressed.

”Damn bro, you just have this thing in ya that girls can’t get enough of.”

”Exactly dude, that’s it man!” Tom playfully punched Trev in the shoulder, then took off his pads and got them ready for cleaning.

”What ya doin’ bro?” Antonio, the linebacker, looked at him with a puzzled expression.

”Dude, that shit stinks bro. I gotta get it at least disinfected or somethin’.” Tom responded, perplexed as to why his bros found it weird that he was cleaning his gear. He was not some grunting neanderthal. 

Antonio immediately nodded, and Tom noticed he was doing the same thing with his pads when he was leaving the locker room. He was grinning as he left the facility. It seemed he had some positive impact on his bros. 

To make sure their next game wasn’t another nailbiter, but a dominant win instead, Coach dragged the entire team through every drill and exercise under the sun to make sure they were ready to crush Clemson on their home turf. Tom quickly adopted Coach’s mindset, barking at his bros during practice if their footwork wasn’t good enough or if their tackles landed at wrong angles. “Damn, Sully, yer like a fuckin’ drill sergeant.” One offensive lineman laughed as they were going back to the locker room after their last practice before Saturday’s game. Tom furrowed his brow, still in his serious mood, but after a second he grinned and patted his bro on the back. “Y’all need a sergeant to kick yer ass when ya do shit wrong. And if no one's gonna do it, I will.” He said, a feeling of pride growing inside him. Sergeant. That sounded good.

Funnily enough, other players started calling him that. In the guests’ locker room before the game, Demarc walked up to Tom. “Ey, Sergeant, ya gonna give some big speech or somethin’?” Sully looked at him confused. He wasn’t really the type of guy to do speeches and shit. They had Coach for that, and even Coach didn’t do motivational quotes, but rather warning them what would happen if the team didn’t live up to his expectations. But as he looked at Demarc, something shifted inside him. These guys needed that. They needed to be riled up, spirits high, ready to destroy the other team. And who’d be better to make sure that was the case than him, their Sergeant?

Tom stood with his back towards the door, looking at the team, fully geared up with his helmet on, and clapped a few times. “Everyone!” He shouted and all eyes were now on him. 

“I know Coach dragged us through hell this week, but he had one damn good reason. Cause right now I’m certain that when we get out on that field we’re going to fucking destroy these fuckers!” Cheers filled the room, and Tom’s face was covered by a shit-eating grin. “So when we’re out there, remember just one thing - we can fucking do this and nothing will stand in our way. Ain’t nothing gonna stop us from gettin’ that W!” More cheers and a few whistles followed. A moment later the players started leaving the locker room, and they all clapped Sully on the back as they walked past him. 

When most of the team had already left, Tom noticed Sam “Carnage” Carney was wearing his jersey as a crop top. He stopped him as he was about to go through the door.

”Dude, ya know that’s against the rules.” He pointed at his stomach which was proudly on display.

“Brah, ya wear yer own like that all the fuckin’ time.” Sam rolled his eyes. Tom furrowed his brow in response.

”Am I wearin’ it like that right now? Nope. And that’s cause I know the fuckin’ dress code. We don’t need no stupid penalties today. Am I right?” He looked at his bro with a serious expression and Carnage rolled his eyes again, but he obeyed Tom’s order and grabbed his jersey to straighten it so his whole abdomen was covered.

”That’s good enough for ya, Sargeant?” He said, with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. But Tom was only focused on Sam wearing his gear in accordance with regulations, so he didn’t care.

”Yeah” He patted him on the shoulder. “Now let’s go and win this thing.”

They beat Clemson 28-14. The game wasn’t as close as the score would suggest, with Wake Forest’s defence keeping their opponents at just seven points for most of the game. The atmosphere in the locker room was ecstatic. Coach made a short, but powerful speech. Tom also took the opportunity and congratulated everyone on their performance, highlighting a few guys who excelled during the game.

During most of the trip back towards Wake Forest, Sully was in the middle of a conversation with a few defensive linemen about their sexual conquests, and Tom seized on the opportunity to boast about his recent successes. But around the time they were passing Charlotte, he heard two guys sitting in front of him discuss going to a shooting range together. He never got this whole thing with owning a gun. Like, he understood that they were manly as fuck, but the actual shooting part never appealed to him, his mind occupied by his workout routines and diet plans since he started high school.

And yet he joined in. The guys were more than eager to share their only passion other than football with Tom, telling him all about the guns they tried out recently and what they planned to buy for themselves after their newest NIL deals had been signed. Even though this was his first time engaging with the subject, he very quickly became fluent in the appropriate lingo. It didn’t take long for Tom to ask the guys to take him to their favourite shooting range, so he could give it a shot. By the time they arrived on campus, he felt as if he’d spent the last few years getting proficient with handling various types of firearms instead of tackling and catching footballs. Talking about it came naturally to him and when he did, his hands felt ready to grab a gun and pull the trigger, and he knew he’d get a bullseye every time.

Life was going good for Sully. A beast on the field, a beast in bed. An alpha in the locker room and at the shooting range. When the season began he couldn’t have imagined that thing would have gotten so much better for him. And yet they did. From the moment when he put on these dog tags he got from Mustafa, he turned into the best possible version of himself he could have ever imagined. Tom “Sergeant” Sullivan. That sounded good. Very good.

David came into the empty locker room, always one of the first guys before a practice, and slowly went through his usual routine of checking all his gear. As he did, his teammates slowly poured in, the locker room getting progressively louder and smellier. David didn't talk much with the other guys, being more of a silent type and keeping mostly to himself. The exception to the rule came with Jake Griffin, the team’s kicker, with whom David talked at length, mostly about topics completely unrelated to football.

As the locker filled up with more and more rowdy jocks David kept glancing at the entrance, looking for one particular face to show up. Or rather, to not show up. A smirk appeared on his face and it grew progressively wider as the minutes passed, still no signs of him. Maybe this would be the day. The other guys finally noticed that he wasn’t present when almost everyone had their gear already on, and David could hear them discussing the possible reasons for his absence. He couldn’t believe it, this must be it.

When 5 PM finally came, Coach came into the locker room with an expression that would make God himself uncomfortable. He looked at the team, then faced David.

”Tom Sullivan has enlisted in the US Army and is on his way to bootcamp. David Mustafa, you’re the starting safety from now on and I expect you to prove today that you’re worthy of being Sully’s replacement.” There was a loud, heavy sigh coming from Coach, followed by an even louder, collective “What?” that came from the team.

“I expect every single one of you to focus only on today’s practice. Leave the high school gossip for later. Understood?”

”Yes, sir!” The entire Wake Forest roster responded and ran onto the field, David among them, a shit-eating grin on his face. 

His plan had worked. He didn’t believe it at first, but his hatred of Tom Sullivan made him buy the dog tags from the sketchy website regardless. The site proudly advertised “military grade” tags that would turn the person wearing them into a proud soldier eager to join the military. David assumed that the target audience of such a product was mostly propaganda-pilled high school kids, but when the idea to gift them to Sully to get rid of him appeared in his mind, he just had to try it.

In the beginning he didn’t know whether he had been scammed or not, but when Tom started wearing military caps, following the dress code and bragging about picking up chicks at a local military bar, David realized that it was working. There was just one question he was asking himself - would the dog tags be strong enough to get Sullivan to enlist in the Army. His personality seemed to get more and more aligned with a serious recruit, but the final outcome didn’t seem sure. Until now.

With no Sully to taunt him, the other jocks immediately dropped their crude jokes, and thanks to hours spent studying the team’s playbook David replaced Tom on the field with little effort. Coach seemed satisfied with his performance at practice, which was not easy to achieve, and assured David that he would be playing for the rest of the season. His future on the team now looked very bright.

From the moment Tom woke up that day, he was running on autopilot. He showered, made breakfast, packed his bag and left. But he didn’t go to the training facility, no. Instead, his legs led him to the closest military recruitment center. There, he knew exactly what to say, what forms to fill out and how, and the recruiters loved it. He was also lucky, seemingly, as the next transport to boot camp was the same day. So just a few hours after getting out of bed, Private Tom Sullivan was on his way to Basic Training. Away from his previous life, away from football and his bros.

Just as David had planned from the beginning.

Unluckily for Tom, he was assigned to a squad led by Staff Sergeant Driver who for one was a walking stereotype. Clean shaven, tall and always straight as an arrow, his entire body a showcase of every regulation. He was hellbent on turning every cocky recruit into a military machine, so from the moment he learnt a football jock was arriving on base, he knew he had to make an example out of him in every way possible. And so Tom was assigned additional PT hours, his uniform was meticulously checked every morning, afternoon and evening and Driver always made sure that he shouted just a bit louder when standing just in front of Sully’s face. 

There were also other, less visible aspects of Tom’s training. Sarge was laser-focused on making every single one of his recruits conform to a specific set of personality traits that Driver saw as necessary for a true American Soldier™. That meant arrogance mixed with unwavering obedience to superiors and a steadfast conviction that every action of the American military was a correct one. This was all mixed with a streak of conservatism, but with a twist as Sergeant saw spreading one’s seed and increasing the population of the greatest nation on Earth. Because of that, all of his recruits had developed a kind of horniness only satisfied by breeding a fertile female. Obviously Tom’s sex-focused brain didn’t need a lot of conditioning to align with Driver’s view and it didn’t take long for the child support paperwork to appear on the Sergeant’s desk.

Every day for weeks on end, Sully’s brain was worked on, molded to fit the standard of an Army grunt - indistinguishable from any other soldier in his squad. Although… Even as over the duration of his stay at boot camp he got closer and closer to this ideal, Driver saw something in him and at some point he turned from the scapegoat to the favorite. When he was deemed close enough, when he adhered to all the uniform regulations without a single comment, and when his brain was fried by all the propaganda, fucking and lifting, he became his Staff Sergeant’s little pet. Driver showed him off to other officers on base, basically advertising his abilities to turn even the most stubborn recruit into a mindless drone dressed in camo fatigues. 

One day towards the end of his training, Tom was summoned to the Staff Sergeant Driver’s office. He came in and stood at attention in front of the desk, waiting for further instructions. The officer on the other side smirked.

“You’ve done a great job, Private. I can tell you’ll be a great new weapon for our amazing Army.” He then picked up a remote and turned on a small TV standing on a cabinet next to Tom. A football game appeared on the screen, a close one. 21 - 17. Tom’s eyes turned towards the screen and one detail immediately caught his attention. The name of the team currently in the lead. Wake Forest.

He furrowed his brow slightly, a thought nagging at the back of his head. Nothing specific, but a weird sort of unease. His eyes were now glued to the screen as Wake Forest’s defense lined up for the next play. The ball was snapped, the quarterback receded a few yards, clearly getting ready to throw to one of the receivers that sprinted towards the end zone. A second had passed and the ball was in the air, flying towards the upper part of the field. For a moment it seemed like this throw would turn into a 30 yard reception, maybe even a touchdown pass, but then a player from Wake Forest jumped right into the path of the bowl, snagging it right in front of the receiver’s face. That player then runs across the field as his teammates rish in to congratulate him on the interception and the TV broadcast shows his name in the corner of the screen. Wake Forest safety, David Mustafa.

That name stirred something deep within Tom. His brow furrowed even more and a feeling of anger started building inside him. But a moment before he could act on this feeling he heard Sergeant bark at him.

“You’re not listening to me, soldier. I just gave you an order.” Tom’s head immediately snaps back, looking at his officer who doesn’t really look angry, just amused. “That requires punishment. Drop down and give me 100.” Private Sullivan immediately complied and got down to the ground and began doing push-ups.

“Count them as you go along.” Another order from Staff Sergeant Driver.

“Yes, Sir! Two… three… four…” Tom kept counting as he was focused solely on executing the order. Memories from just a minute ago, the image of the football game, David getting a highlight reel-worthy interception, it all disappeared, his mind now locked into the soldier mentality that Driver instilled within him.

As the Sergeant watched his grunt continue doing push ups on the floor he knew that this was his last relapse. Tom Sullivan, the football star, was gone. In his place was Private Sullivan, a perfect specimen of Army mentality. Just war fighting, fucking and lifting on his mind.

[yelenasbraid]

good enough — joe burrow

summary — ‘we’re not good enough’ is starting to sound and feel like ‘i’m not good enough’ for joe

warnings — fem!reader, whole lotta angst, mentions of panic/not feeling great, takes place after the game against the eagles, lots of italics so sorry, maybe some ooc joe?? halfway proofread so don’t come for me.

note — i listened to the song j’s lullaby (darlin’ i’d wait for you) by delaney bailey and whewww it fueled the angst

ANOTHER FUMBLE RECOVERY. another turnover. another at-home loss. he couldn’t fight this game anymore, he couldn’t fight the refs, he couldn’t deny the very blatant fact that they weren’t good enough.

so he sat, watching jake perform the last moments of the game. he watched as they lost, the score 37-17. he knew the stakes coming into the game. the eagles were a prominent team, a good opponent. he was expecting a good game out of it, not a blowout.

the post-game press conference was going to be a nightmare.

what kept him sane as he walked in the tunnel wasn’t a thing or an event, it was a person. you. he knew you watched the entire thing, he knew you’d be upset, as was he. he also knew that if one person said the wrong thing he’d snap.

he just needed to see you. just for one second.

he walked into the tunnel, his head hanging as cameras flashed. he clenched his fists; they wanted a picture of this?

“joe,” he picked up his to the sound of your voice, and if he didn’t know better, he would have collapsed right then and there. he walked up to you, putting the rest of the energy he had into his getting to you. he gently wrapped his arms around you, inhaling your perfume, reveling in your warmth.

you pulled apart from him like gum from the concrete; he didn’t want to let you go. he didn’t want to go to the press conference and face the failures, his failures.

“don’t you dare go there,” you gently warned, your voice like a cool stream over a sore wound. your hands held his clenched fists, which eventually opened to envelop yours. you were right, but it was too late; he was already there.

“i’ll see you at home,” he swallowed. his eyes twitched, the glass beneath them shattering as he made eye contact with you. he took a breath; he was not going to lose it.

“i love you,” you reminded him, letting go of his hands.

“i love you,” he hummed, mustering up some energy to offer you a smile. to you, it just looked like a more relaxed expression. he trailed off, being whisked away by staffers. he gave you one last look before he disappeared to the locker rooms.

—

his drive home was silent. his hands wrung the steering wheel as the conference played over in his mind.

“we’re not good enough, we’re not good enough. we gotta get better,”

“we gotta take responsibility for how we’re playing individually,”

“i don’t think anybody was good enough today,”

the underlying message that the reporters didn’t catch, thankfully, was that he wasn’t good enough. he should have been better. it was all his fault.

you’d catch it though. he knew you saw through him the moment you saw him. he loved it about you, that he didn’t have to say anything for you to get him. it wasn’t always the case, but it was this time.

he pulled into the driveway, throwing the car into park and sitting there for a moment. he stared at the wall of the garage, losing himself in the defeat and disappointment of the night. he blinked, throwing himself out of whatever funk he was in, and shut the car off. his body ached, his head was heavy, and all he wanted to do was sleep. it was only 6 pm; going to bed now wouldn’t hurt right?

he grabbed his bag and walked up into the house. he opened the door to the smell of vanilla and woodsmoke, his eyes directed to a candle that was lit in the kitchen. he didn’t see you in the living room or the kitchen, and for a second he thought you’d left. he swallowed, nerves bubbling in his gut as he kicked his shoes off by the door.

“babe?” he called, his voice hoarse and scratchy. his expression relaxed as he heard you pad down the stairs, seeing you in sweats and a t-shirt.

“hey,” you smiled, coming off the stairs. you crossed your arms over your chest, watching as joe stood there. he didn’t know what to do, clearly this game proved that. he just wasn’t good enough. the voices from past recruiters filled his mind as he zoned out again, whispering sweet lies to him about his performance.

he’d never be good enough.

there’s always someone better.

he wasn’t even good enough for you.

his breath hitched as he focused on you, the world around him coming back into focus.

“what?” he cleared his throat, seeing the confused expression on your face.

“i asked if you were hungry,” you repeated. seeing him this dazed worried you, especially given the circumstances.

“don’t really have an appetite,” he responded, moving past you and towards the stairs. his emotions were a sour cocktail, and he was tired of it being the only thing settling in his stomach. he wanted you told hold him, to comfort him, but he also needed to figure out what exactly happened out there. his brain was leaning towards finding a solution, even if there was no use in the state he was in.

“i figured,” you hummed, letting him stroll past you up the stairs, “i’ll be here when you’re ready,” you added. you’d wait for him, all day every day. you’d let him go through his process, do his routine, and he’d come back to you. he always did.

joe paused on the stairs, something stopping him. he didn’t know what it was, maybe it was your voice in his head breaking through the noise, telling him to not shut you out. maybe it was your divine-like patience. you always made time for his moods and his failures. did he make time for you? amidst his struggles, did he ever take a second to make time for your moods and your struggles? was he being a good boyfriend?

“baby?”

“why are you still here?” he asked you, his tone sharp, despite him meaning to sound that way.

“what?” his tone caught you off guard, making you rapidly blink to help you process.

“you should leave,” he continued, “you…” he was panicking. why was he pushing you away? he needed you.

“what are you talking about?” your fear struck you, but you still fought yourself. he couldn’t mean what you thought he meant, right? you swallowed, watching as he battled himself. watching as his eyes avoided yours, as his fists unclenched and then clenched again. he was shaking too.

“you’re always here for me, when have i ever been there for you?” he asked, “i’m not a good boyfriend, i’m not a good quarterback,”

“joe, stop,” your voice stopped him, a stern expression reminding him much of his mother. while you were serious, there was undoubtedly a kind warmth behind your eyes. he panted, his eyes filling with hot tears.

as silence sat between you, joe’s breathing lessened. he walked back down the stairs, dropping his bag at the foot of them. he stood there, deflated, as you approached him. you took his face in your hands, feeling warm tears hit your fingers. your thumbs whisked them away, trying to give joe some semblance of comfort during a time where there wasn’t much of it.

joe wrapped his arms around your waist, nuzzling his face into your neck. he pulled you in close, the weight on his chest lessening as he let you pull him in. he let your warmth take him over, spreading like a wildfire over his bones. he felt your fingers through his hair, your hands running down his back. you were the personification of comfort and safety, and he was trying so hard to drink it all in.

“you are not a bad boyfriend,” you hummed, and in response he squeezed you tighter, “you’re not a bad quarterback,” you added, running your hands down his back. he pulled away from you as tears fell from his eyes. he wiped them away with the palm of his hand.

“how?”

“do you remember that time i was followed by some guy? i called you, and without any hesitation you answered and came to help me,”

“that’s just what a boyfriend is supposed to do,”

“hold on, i’ve got more,” you patted his chest, “the time when my mom had a cancer scare. you left practice early every day to make sure not only that i was ok, but if i needed anything. the time i got promoted at work and you surprised me with my friends over for dinner. the time i was spiraling so badly after a bad encounter with someone at work you picked me up, made me a delicious dinner, and made sure i felt appreciated and loved,” you listed them off, and there were many more. you guys weren’t perfect, by any means, but he was enough. he’d always be enough.

“you’re a good quarterback. if you don’t want to look at the numbers, look at your heart. you have such a passion for these young guys, for the vets. you lead them well and confidently, you make sure they know they’re appreciated and give them their first game ball if necessary, like you did with andrei. but because none of us are perfect, we make mistakes, but it makes us better. it doesn’t define you as a person,” you continued. you watched the gears turn, and while it would take some time for joe to see that himself, he knew you were right. he knew what you were talking about, he saw what you saw, and it calmed the frayed nerves in his body.

“i don’t deserve you,” he whispered, “i really don’t,”

“you deserve the world, joe burrow,” you countered, giving him a soft smile. he gave you one back, sniffling.

“i’m sorry for telling you to leave, i just…i don’t know,”

“i know, just don’t push me away. i’m not here to make things worse for you, i hope you know that,” you allowed a laugh at your last words, making joe chuckle too.

“i know that,” he agreed.

“don’t push me away,” you repeat, resting your hand on his chest, it movie with the rise and fall of his chest.

“i won’t,”

“good,” you smiled, “now, i say it’s time for a comfort show,” you grinned, which made his face light up. the both of you walked over to the couch, sitting down on the plush white cushions. you settled a blanket across your lap, while joe grabbed a blanket of his own, laying his head in your lap.

“spongebob?” he turned his head up to look at you, a hopeful look in his eyes.

“sure thing, squidward,” you teased, kissing him on the nose. you turned it on, then nestling into your spot on the couch. you ran your fingers through joe’s hair, occasionally catching his neck before going back into his hair. joe melted into you, cuddling into your warmth and your safety. he watched the episode, giggling at a couple parts, but the most important thing is that he was with you. that you were the glue that held him together. the feeling of your hands in his hair sent prickles down his spine, and in a good and comforting way. every prickle sent warmth across his body, relaxing his taut muscles.

you bent down and kissed his temple.

“i love you, joe burrow,” you hummed.

“i love you more, y/n l/n,” he hummed back. it wasn’t too long before sleep bid him closer, and took over his body. he slumped into you, his soft breaths telling you he fell asleep. you kissed him again, smiling against his warm skin. he was safe and he was loved, and that’s all that mattered.

joey looked so sad after the game 🥺 hopefully this makes a bit better. ALSO! i do have a couple more fics lined up that might be released this week so STAY TUNED!! i just wanted to write an angsty fic ngl

tags: @wickedfun9 @joeyfranchise