olive-recs

[olive-recs]

reading and rereading your accolades, richer than any reward <3

thank you, thank you, i always aim to be Loud and Aggressive about the things i appreciate <3. in this lawless land of tumblr, one must always give tenfold what they wish to receive (especially in these last many — not few — years where interaction has been bankrupt. where did y'all go. is a reblog costing you physical monies, now? then get a job and make that money, make purse: fic writers deserve all your attention and more).

[olive-recs]

can tell this is going to be for me so i am doing a silly little list of things i adore as i read! the closest one can get to a live react of your always top shelf, frankly stellar, simply beyond my level of comprehending and grossly inadequate praise of writing!

first of all: cat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ramen, i have had you for one (1) singular line and already i would die for you. come here, bestie, i will always be that person that feeds my neighbors cats (within reason — i do ask if i can do so, i will not ruin a prince's health and wellness just so i can bribe them into becoming one inside their chosen circle, okay) and i have adopted you immediately, ramen, my silly little, hopefully-not-wet, prophetic and good omen cat <3.

and then omg, long (and green!!!!! my 2nd favorite color and this is important to ME!!!!!) dress moment for the win <3333. i love Long Dresses and i never see them represented in fics, i love this reader so much already, you really wrote this for me, clara. AND OSCAR'S ENTRANCE WHAT A LOSER, I LOVE HIMMMMMM <33333. love how he is the perfect amount of sincere (calling the date a dropkick) but also still very absent minded and somewhat anxious, bro is good at holding it together (i would like to say better than me but no; i would not be late, mister oscar jack piastri. that sounds like a you problem you've run into, my guy, and i, personally, would never) but i can feel his growing anxiety. delicious. and oscar just sleeping through the damn premiere asdfghjkjhgfdsdfghjkjhgfdsdfghj. what a loser; worried people are gonna think he's weird, thinking he's gonna get noticed, oscar, bbygirl, where was this though process before you decided to just nap. through. the party.

and damn, clara, i know i've perhaps said this before but your dialogue is electric. it captures the voice of everyone so clearly that i can hear the cadence of it, the lilt and quirks, the half formed sentences drowned out by the sounds of traffic and the whirl of being and the rhythm of heartbeats, beside. oh, your writing is so lovely it makes me positively ache, i want to live inside of it, be crafted by it — ladel it into the biggest of bowls and drink my fill so there's nothing left but the musicality of your words <3333.

and they keep taking massive loser points noooooooo 😭😭😭😭😭😭 reader, babe, he said you were local and you failed asdfghjkjhgfddfgh. they're a disaster duo and i adore them for it. (again, could not be me, thank you very much. i am too well trained for such a thing, and far too logical to make these choices; yes, yes, thank you for your consideration. indeed, i do have to remind you of this very few paragraphs, it's in my contract and i need you to know i am very cool and put together, thank you very much, way more competent than loser boy oscar, beloved though he may be.)

also!!!! imperative stop on this track to say that i adore how your chosen set piece really does reflect the movement, restlessness, and anxieties of the characters. intentionally done and so gorgeously crafted, i adore how the writing pushes me to a sprint pace in reading and how it flits this way and that, focusing for a nanosecond on a detail here, then a briefly skimmed intricacy there. perfect for the tone, exacting for the location, and so so fun <3. i am breathless just reading this, bro, imagine how they must feel going through it. (again, could not be me though, so sorry icons, kings, i would say it gets better but i'm not certain it should. this is wildly entertaining. for me, anyway.)

oh, i adored this so much, clara <3333. the little bit about superstition and their shared little moment with the cereal and ramen (both food related... after my own heart, i see). i thought for sure at the last minute you were gonna try and have reader be his plus one to the event, but i adore that it didn't end up that way because yeah, it feels very them <3. and is there something about part 2, i'm hearing??????? dear devoted delicate i would be SAT immediately upon posting and not the hours late i currently occupy.

· · · · ♡ NO LOVE IN NEW YORK

… starring oscar piastri x f!reader ... 5.2k words ... in which your good samaritan tendencies, and some loser forgetting to show up on your first date, lead you to the most bizarre yet exhilarating nyc commute of your life. ... featuring fluff, humor, meet cute, some forced proximity. female reader (wears 'feminine' clothing). language, reader gets stood up on a date, suspension of disbelief for manhattan geography and the logistics of the mta (please forgive me new yorkers i went ten years ago). english is not my first language. ... author notes tadaaa oscar piastri debut who cheered!!!! not me because i'm scared to death of getting him wrong lowk. i was bemoaning the absence of oscar pictures at the f1 premiere and thought, "i know he just couldn't be bothered to go, but wouldn't it be funny if he'd just gotten lost?" and thats how this fic happened. ngl this is very much out of my comfort zone, i know oscar less than other drivers + much more romcom than i'm used to and idk how i feel about it so feedback would be VERY appreciated! very much open for a part 2 if you'd like that tho!!! enjoy ヘ(≧▽≦ヘ)♪ MASTERLIST / ASK BOX

There was no valid reason dating in New York City should have been this complicated.

Yet you prided yourself on being quite smart—smart enough to survive in the hostile urban jungle as a twenty-something on her own; definitely smarter than the national average judging by the (frankly depressing) headlines you heard pinging on your phone every morning. Outstanding high school GPA, reading comprehension way above your grade as a kid, and still no damn clue how to score a date in Manhattan.

Well, rather, how to score an agreeable date. Or perhaps just one that turned out to be real.

Monday morning had risen with a yawn from the sun, as though it were remembering only now that June was well underway but the streets remained chilly. Weak light shimmered over the fire escape when you’d drawn your curtains open. Ramen was sitting on the railing, licking his cream paw and staring at you with unimpressed nonchalance, and you’d grinned. Ramen—your downstairs neighbor’s cat, a sandy little imp whose real name you’d never found out but had baptized so after he’d stolen your instant dinner right off your kitchen counter—only showed up on mornings with importance. Like the day you’d aced Introduction to Statistics with nothing but two hours of sleep and five Monsters.

This was a good omen.

So yes, you were enthusiastic by the time you got home from class, scrambled together an omelet, and disemboweled your apartment looking for your favorite earrings. You were optimistic, and that sometimes sounded like the worst thing anyone could be in New York City.

But this first date promised to be nothing like the others, your inner voice hammered home as you tried to cram your feet into shoes half a size too small. He was cute, funny, not a fascist, he waited exactly the right amount of time in between replies—neither psychopathic nor disinterested—, and he’d told you to dress up because it was only fair that real-life art should match the paintings on the wall. After half a dozen insipid dinners at every other pizza place in Little Italy, and as many ghostings, a museum first date sounded more promising than you’d dared to hope.

Even though he dropped off the radar at ten p.m. the prior evening. Even though you shot him a bubbly, “you said 2:30pm right? can’t wait!” at eleven (the appointed time was but a scroll away, but you just needed to say something, diffuse the nerves somehow). Even though you double-texted him at two fifteen, “omw!”. 

But Ramen was there this morning, blinking his slow blinks at you. The date had to go well.

The sun was fully awake, undeniable, blazing above the trees and endless spires piercing the sky beyond Central Park, by the time you sat down on the steps in front of the museum. Alone.

It wasn’t until two fifty-seven that you accepted to face the glaring truth. 

First miss for Ramen.

You collected yourself in a clumsy torpor. Nothing to do with your heels, or the stupidly long dress you’d picked out and whose skirt you now had to lift with every step—this was the inescapable, crushing feeling of disappointment.

Of course New York City would punish the optimistic. The naïve. The superstitious, who put the outcome of their days into the hands of some feline apparition, scan the sky for four-leaf clover clouds. Served you right for still believing in things falling into place.

Your face burned from the sun and the humiliation, eyes prickling from unshed tears as you stuffed your phone into your purse. Pretended not to notice the group of tourists snapping shots of you, perhaps thinking you some roaming Millais muse. Disappeared into the shade of 103rd Street station, green gown flowing behind you like a pennon.

Every step down the long stairway stung more than the last, but you kept your gaze firmly to the ground, careful not to trip—and bury any ounce of dignity left in you for good. Blend in with the jaded city folk, you thought as you swiped your Metrocard; act as if you know exactly where you are going and go there with purpose, even if you could not be more stranded. Where to now? Back to your disordered, sweltering apartment, its haphazard pile of dishes in the sink and Ramen gauging you silently from the windowsill? Or to the campus library, trying to glean whatever productivity lies within heartbreak? And risk bumping into your friends, who’d teased you all day about the giddy bounce to your step, and having to explain you weren’t even worth showing up for?

“Excuse me?”

You looked up and met hazel. A mop of chestnut hair, that he had manifestly tried to arrange before giving up; discreet moles on an otherwise pale face, and brown eyes where danced flecks of gold and the most gripping kind of urgent resignation. The stranger was cute, and for some incomprehensible reason he matched you: he, too, was dressed to the nines like he’d run off from some wedding, and he also distinctly looked like he wished more than anything for the Earth to swallow him.

“Are you going to the F1 movie premiere?”

“What?”

“The, uh, the F1 movie red carpet thing? Are you going there right now?”

You were starting to worry your foreign-accent (British, or perhaps Australian?) comprehension skills had gotten alarmingly bad, or maybe the shrieking of MTA wagon brakes had finally rendered you deaf. 

“No, uh... I…” Oh, what the hell. Like there was any use lying to a beautiful stranger who seemed like he was somehow having a worse afternoon than yours. “I got stood up by my date. F1, you mean like Formula 1?”

What a formidable and ridiculous scene you two must’ve painted—two kids in formalwear, standing in the middle of a New York City subway platform, stuck amidst the pungent smell of piss and nonsensical conversation.

“I’m sorry about your date, they sound like a bit of a dropkick,” the stranger replied, and although you weren’t entirely sure what a dropkick was you were surprised to find him genuine. “But, uh… I think I’m lost, and I hoped you might help me, or else I’m gonna be the one doing the standing up. On about two thousand people.”

You had no time to furrow your brow, or chew on his words. Suddenly everything clicked with an audible bang, right in sync with the train doors closing to your left. The reason you’d felt so familiarly drawn to that cherub face, and why he had mentioned Formula 1… None of the downright lubricious Instagram edits your best friend had ever sent you featured him in a suit, but he was unmistakable.

“Oh my god, you’re Oscar Pia—”

“Please don’t tell all of Manhattan,” Piastri interrupted, grimacing as he glanced around the platform. You suffocated your voice, though found his dread of being heard a little pointless. Two people standing idly in black-tie garments as metros passed them by were eye-catching, for sure, but nowhere near NYC eye-catching standards. “It’s already pretty bad how late I am to my own premiere, I don’t want to have to take selfies in the subway.”

A million questions jostled about inside your head, but all you could do was stare at him, mouth agape in incomprehension. You didn’t keep up with Formula 1, hardly saw any point in cars going in circles, and perhaps a McLaren (was it McLaren or Mercedes?) superfan might have known better than you what the fuck Oscar Piastri was doing there. Not the film premiere gimmick, you were willing to believe that was the kind of fanfare F1 drivers spent their off-days doing—what the fuck he was doing alone at three in the afternoon, asking for your help in some acrid station on Lexington Avenue. 

“Couldn’t you just drive to the damn premiere?”

“Oh, right, so I should just steal a car off the street?” he deadpanned.

“No, I mean… don’t you have a chauffeur? An… an agent or something? A team? How do you even end up…” you trailed off, finding no words that wouldn’t bring you to astonished frustration. Instead, you opened your arms wide, encompassing all of New York’s rickety railways. “Here?”

Piastri parted his lips to retort with one of his impassive quips, but his whole face fractured then with tremendous vulnerability.

“I’ll tell you if you help me find my way. Please?”

He did not look like the type of man who’d ever begged anyone to do anything for him—you expected a high-adrenaline junkie like him to pray for neither forgiveness nor permission—and the contrast made you consider. That, and the sheer absurdity of the situation. And the fact the only other way you could see your afternoon ending was with an onslaught of messages from some guy assuring you life had gotten “sooo hectic” in the last ten to twelve hours.

Piastri was much cuter than him anyway.

“You know what, yeah, sure, what the hell,” you shrugged with a growing smile. “I’ll help you. I could use the good karma. I’m Y/N, by the way.”

This whole plan was utterly ridiculous, and you had no idea how you’d possibly explain that to your friends when they’d ask how your date had gone, but the way Piastri deflated with relief, like his whole body was exhaling, had you convinced you’d made the right call.

“Thanks, Y/N.” He said your name with the slightest of accents, and you caught yourself wishing he could say it again. “Maps said this was the shortest path to Times Square, but I think it’s a little confused—”

“Times Square? Oh, you’re not getting anywhere near that on the 6. We need to get to Central Park North. You coming?”

You tilted your head to the side, to the staircase drenched in hazy summer light, and Piastri seemed to be weighing the pros and cons for a split second—you couldn’t fault him, to be fair; you could’ve been a stalker, or a lunatic, or the lowest echelon to a weird MLM scheme. Still, he must’ve decided whatever you were recruiting him for was less dangerous than missing this premiere, because he took off after you.

When he billowed out of the station and back into the city, Piastri winced, and at first you assumed it due to the piercing sunlight reverberating on glassy panels, or the cacophony of horns and engines. However, you quickly noticed him glancing at the passersby with frantic interest… and looking puzzled at their utter disinterest in him.

“Relax, no one’s looking at us,” you reassured him, striding down the street on autopilot. He jogged two steps to catch up.

“You sure?”

“Certain. There’s so many people in New York City, and so many of those people do weird shit, that practically anyone can go unnoticed. I assure you that this,” you gestured down at your long dress, catching the light like rippling topazes, then at the silver cufflinks on his jacket, “does not even make the top 5 weirdest things any of these people have seen today.”

But the Australian looked unsure still, twisting his thin lips in a crooked zigzag, so you stopped in your tracks and hailed a young lady passing you by on the sidewalk, Airpods firmly bolted inside her ears.

“Excuse me, do you know who this guy is—”

She strode past you with the most furtive glance biologically possible and a mechanical Nothankyouhaveagoodday. You turned back to Piastri.

“See? No one cares.”

He chuckled, face breaking like dawn, and you chuckled too with no real reason. You weren’t too sure what was funny about typical New York callousness, but the way Piastri’s eyes crinkled, still somewhat strained from stress but illuminating all his features, made you all fuzzy inside. Up close and under sunlight, he looked even younger than you’d thought, no more than twenty-five, and the shadows on his face had lifted, rounding the angles and softening the corners. Like he’d been oil-painted on canvas, ochres and whites melting into each other at the edges.

“Okay, I guess you’re the local,” he conceded, and you resumed your brisk walk.

Maybe you really were at the museum, after all.

“So,” you spoke up after a bit. “I was promised a story.”

“Right,” he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, clearly regretting his bartering skills.

“How do you, Oscar Piastri, end up late to a movie premiere and alone in a subway station?” You stepped across a grate on the sidewalk, careful not to wedge your heel in the holes. “They just left you behind? Did you oversleep or what?”

No reply, but his dry laughter morphing into a cough was a flagrant enough response.

“Oh my God, Piastri,” you gasped merrily. “Did you seriously sleep through your movie premiere?”

“No! … It’s not over yet. I’m just late for the red carpet part. I can still make it to the screening.”

You stared, unconvinced, and he stared back, unconvincing. Biting the inside of his cheek, he watched your smile grow wider until he couldn’t take your teasing anymore. For heaven’s sake—you’d known him a grand total of five minutes and were already tormenting him!

“What?”

“How do they let you get away with this?”

“I was racing in Canada yesterday! God forbid a guy wants a nap,” he stressed the last as though it were some capital punishment and rolled his eyes.

Something in his demeanor was fabulously amusing. He was all relaxed tension, calculated coldness akin to what you’d expect from a person who’s constantly scrutinized; yet there was something more, a sort of agitation bubbling within, under the pores of his handsome face. Feeling so deeply and letting a stranger see so much was not in his nature, that much was clear. Every microexpression, in the lift of his brows, the curve of his lips, the arc of his eyes betrayed a kind of imbalance. He was losing his footing, like a glacier abraded from the top by the sun.

New York City had trained you for all sorts of people, including still waters like him. How to ripple their surface.

“Does this happen to you often?”

“No. Never.”

“Never missed a flight?”

“Just once. My mom woke me up screaming one hour before boarding the second ti—watch out.”

Swiftly, he grabbed your elbow and switched your spots on the sidewalk, pushing you closer to the wall. Before you could open your mouth to protest, the ground rattled from a firetruck barreling past you, ruffling Piastri’s hair and the lapels of his jacket.

“But I set three different alarms on my phone and I figured, Lando will probably break my door down if I sleep through them, so I’m safe,” he resumed, entirely unfazed. You looked up at him like he’d just performed actual magic. “But… apparently not. I woke up… twenty minutes ago?” That explained the slim, red pillow mark on his face you’d mistaken for a fading sunburn. “I wanted to call a taxi, but they’ve cut off traffic. It’s a big deal, you know? Brad Pitt’s gonna be there.”

The way he said Brad Pitt, with a tone so level it became thick with meaning and the littlest of jazz hands, made it abundantly clear there were few people on Earth Oscar Piastri would’ve been less excited about than Brad Pitt.

“Are you in it?”

“What?”

“The movie. Are you even in it?”

“Uh, my elbow is. Minute fifty-three.”

“Wow,” you giggled, arching your eyebrows in a playful wave. “So am I talking to Oscar Piastri the pro athlete, or Oscar Piastri the movie star?”

“Eh, just Oscar Piastri’s fine,” he shrugged, non-committal, though the glint of a smile now flickered uninterrupted on the corner of his lips, almost real enough to remark upon.

Your steps had carried you to the subway entrance north of Central Park already—too soon, far too soon, you thought with a faint ache in the chest. Piastri stirred in your body some kind of early-summer warmth, soft and shimmering like a drowsy morning. As soon as he would vanish to the far side of the platform, only the icy wind would remain, howling endlessly through the corridors…

Piastri, however, did not seem set on giving you up. At least judging by the tiny, tentative steps he took as he walked up to the turnstile, as though the machine could eat him the way it did cardboard tickets. You saw him take out a small, green-lettered card from his pocket… and stopped him.

“Wait, that’s not gonna work.”

“Huh?”

“Your ticket, it’s a single ride. You used that back there on Lexington, right?”

“Uh, I guess?”

“You don’t have a Metrocard?”

He turned to you, puzzled, and almost slammed into a hurried businessman in the process. Thankfully for Piastri, even assault was too inconsequential to reroute the average New Yorker, and the man just breezed past the turnstile and into the guts of the Earth with a nasty glare and a taunting beep!

“Why would I have a Metrocard, Y/N, I’m in this city about twelve hours a year.”

You glanced toward the entrance, where a faint trickle of light still seeped in. A flock of little old ladies, perhaps en route to a high-stakes bingo showdown, had laid siege to the terminals. Judging by their furrowed brows and squinting eyes, no one else in the station would be seeing so much as a hint of a ticket anytime soon.

Goodness gracious. Your helpfulness would be your undoing.

“How late are you to this thing?”

Piastri checked his watch. “Very.”

“And how much do you care about being late to this thing?”

“Normal dude Oscar Piastri? Not so much, to be honest. Formula 1 driver Oscar Piastri…”

“Say less.”

Veritable horror surfaced on Piastri’s face at your confident strides, as if he imagined you were about to vandalize your way through the gates.

“Come on! Hop over,” you signaled.

“Uh…”

“Or we could wait in line. Your call.” Like trying to get a puppy to jump through a hoop. What was he waiting for, a treat?

Or perhaps the patrol of inspectors coming down the hallway at the exact same second as Piastri gathered momentum and jumped the turnstile. That, too, seemed like a sensible thing to be on the lookout for.

The two men cried out right as his dress shoes hit the ground.

“Oh come on!” you whined. “They’re never here!”

“What do we do?!” he cried.

“What do you mean, what do we do? Just book it!”

You heard a cacophony of footsteps behind your back, promptly echoed by lighter sounds as Piastri ran down the corridor. Without a second glance, you pushed down on your hands, swung your legs forward, and… came to an abrupt halt mid-air. Looked down. Sage green fabric had wrapped around the metal blades of the turnstile, like snakes constricting their branches.

“Oscar!” you yelped.

If you’d had any doubt Oscar Piastri was the real racing deal until now, they were all silenced at once from the way he spun on his heels, ran back to you and, without a split second’s hesitation, not even the span of a breath, picked you up from your perch and took off. Instinctively your arms wrapped around the taut base of his neck as you felt his clammy hands slide down your back: the glossy fabric offered no grip to hold on to, yet his strong arms held you into place as tightly as they could. You gritted your teeth, prayed to God your heels would not fall off, and watched in stunned silence as Oscar raced down the stifling hallways.

It seemed like but an instant had passed when Oscar threw himself into the belly of the train, its imminent departure chime his very own chequered flag, and the old doors rattled shut behind you. For the first time, New Yorkers shot you strange looks. Finally you had crossed their threshold for urban bizarrerie.

And you were still in Oscar’s arms, flushed and panting even though he was the one who’d done all the running. And had barely broken a sweat.

You were about to clear your throat and kindly—begrudgingly, perhaps?—request he put you down… when the announcer’s perky voice began chirping out the next stops through the loudspeakers. You snapped your head at the line map above the doors. No matter what language she said it in, your next stop was always wrong.

“Oscar,” you murmured.

“Yeah?” he breathed out.

“We got on the wrong way.”

“There’s no oil in New York City.”

Oscar remained silent for a few seconds, as if in a trance. His jittery leg did not.

“What?” he mumbled when he broke out of his reverie.

You simply pointed at his knee, bouncing up and down since he’d sat.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to drill a hole in the ground with your shoe for. There’s no oil in New York City. If there was, Trump would’ve sucked it dry already.”

Oscar sighed, throwing his head back against the glass panel, but your heart swelled with satisfaction when you caught a glimpse of his smile.

Rippling anyone’s surface had seldom proven as easy as it was fun.

You leaned a little closer to him, and he closed his eyes with a faint grunt. His leg, however, was now still.

“Why are you so nervous about being late? You’re the main attraction, it’s not like they’re going to hold it against you.”

Hearing his reply proved difficult over the train’s thundering racket, glass windows and moist handles vibrating within their sockets like charged electrons. His eyes, mercifully still closed, allowed yours to linger on his mouth—to decipher each word as it formed, and to savor the quiet contemplation.

“Being fashionably late usually draws more attention than I like to get.”

“So why bother going? You don’t look like you enjoy being in the public eye that much anyway.”

Only one eye opened, tentatively so, and met your small, expectant smile, chin resting on your fist and your crossed legs imperceptibly brushing his. Any story he could’ve told you right then would’ve been riveting, it seemed, and for the first time in weeks Oscar found that for you, he did not mind sharing one.

“I told Lando I’d go. We collided yesterday on track and they thought it would maybe look bad if one of us showed up and not the other. Like we’re avoiding each other or something. I don’t know, PR stuff. But I promised Lando, so.” He pursed his lips then, and blew air through his nose, holding back a giggle. “Also, I don’t know, I felt like I had to go. I had a… a premonition.”

“A premonition?”

“Yeah, I don’t know, some kind of hunch. In my cereal.”

You stared at him long, assessing him and the likelihood of a lie, but he was a master of the unreadable smile, the one that could mean anything from I’m one look away from bursting into laughter to I have never dissociated more than I am currently, and even, perhaps, I wish this train ride with you would never end.

“In your cereal?”

“This morning, at the breakfast buffet, I had cereal and there was this kinda cornflake clump that looked like a clapperboard. You know,” he mimed it with his hands and the click of the tongue to match. “So I thought that was some… sign? The universe was telling me to go to this premiere, or something.” His neck tensed abruptly as he suddenly remembered himself. Who he was, and what he believed in. “But uh, that’s a little stupid. Forget it.”

The subway doors opened and closed, chimes rang and accordion tunes from the platforms faded in and out of the background chatter. You had close to lost count of how many stops were left until Times Square. The incessant ballet of New York’s illustrious unknowns would still play out, with or without your attention.

When Oscar looked down at you, almost entirely hunched over his lap and taking him in like he was an August rainshower, he found you beaming.

“No, I totally get you. This date I was supposed to go on before I ran into you… I went because Ramen showed up, even though there were so many red flags that I could’ve seen coming.”

“Who?”

“Ramen.”

“Who’s Ramen?”

“The neighbor’s cat. That’s not his real name, just what I call him.”

Oscar stared at you, expression frozen in one of delightful incomprehension, the one you get when you are not entirely sure a miracle is destined for you just yet. And you stared back, awaiting his next words for as long as it’d take them to come.

“So you went on a date because a cat told you to?”

“He didn’t tell me anything, silly, he’s a cat,” you retorted like it was the most obvious thing in the universe, to which Oscar rolled his eyes and muttered Of course. “He just stared, and every time he does it, I know I’m gonna get lucky that day. He’s never failed me before. Well, until today.”

A beat passed, during which you refused to elaborate further out of fear you’d betray the words lingering at the front of your mouth. Maybe this hadn’t been a miss for Ramen, after all. Maybe his magic had worked in unexpected ways. Oscar, on the other hand, just basked in the whole of you, and his lips slightly parted without a sound, as though they didn’t quite know where to begin.

“What?”

“It’s just… My job, this whole universe I live in, there’s no room for good luck charms or silly little superstitions. They’re just… distractions. All the answers are in the data. Our only faith is in the numbers.” And you sensed him about to say something else, something he had to wring out of the very cloth of his ribcage, but suddenly the deep wells in his pupils were sealed off with his favorite lid of deadpan humor. “Well, except the Italians. But they suck, so I wouldn’t take them as an example.”

“Oh my God, Oscar,” you gasped, “you can’t say that, do you know how many Italians there are in New Y—”

A sudden jolt shook the entire train, knocking the carriage back onto its breathless tracks; the momentum sent a teenage girl flying into a tall gym guy, who in turn crashed into you—your hands were too slow to catch you, not lighting-fast and gloved in greatness—you fell on top of Oscar, your nose buried against the open buttons of his shirt.

You were upright in less than a second, locked in a litany of Oh my God sorry’s to which Oscar replied his own recitation of No worries it’s not your fault’s. The train resumed its journey through the depths of Manhattan as if nothing had happened, and truthfully nothing had—except you were now a little closer to each other than you’d been before, and you hoped with all your might that he wouldn’t notice the way your eyelids fluttered, or how your fingertips had started burning up, or how the air was now thicker, or maybe you hoped he did, so you wouldn’t have to speak it aloud—nothing had happened, and truthfully everything had.

“Why did you think I was going to the F1 premiere back there?” you asked softly, not sure why that was the question you’d elected to go with now.

Oscar’s face was impassible—he���d found his calm, collected control back. But he didn’t know, or didn’t care to know, that you could hear his heartbeat louder than the railroad racket below.

“You looked funny.”

“Okay, you’re literally wearing a bowtie, and it’s crooked, by the way.”

“No, I mean, you looked pretty.” The faintest flick of his tongue showed above his bottom lip, undoubtedly accidental. “You looked really pretty, so I assumed you were a guest or something.”

Maybe what you’d heard and thought was his heart pulsating in sync with the wobbly tracks had not been his, but yours. Somewhere indistinct, the lady’s mechanical voice crackled something about Times Square. 

“Thank you,” you smiled, with no mischief attached, this time.

“I’m… pretty glad that your date didn’t show up in the end, huh,” he laughed half-heartedly.

“Oscar, Times Square,” you sprung to your feet, nearly twisting your ankle. “That’s you!”

The doors almost chewed down on the hem of Oscar’s pants when he jumped out of the train. Without so much as a glance back or a single word of forgiveness, all the carriages vanished into heavy shadows, and the world was back to normal again.

Or almost. If there was anything even remotely normal about Times Square.

Every single light blinded you—no matter how many times you came you could never wrap your head around how the place managed to dazzle you even in broad daylight—as you both exited the metro station. Summer lay heavily on the commotion of cars, police whistles, loud music, and… screaming bloody murder?

“Ah, I think that’s my cue.”

Oscar held his hand over his eyes as he took in the scene, and only then did you notice the race cars parked in the middle of the street, some fifty meters ahead. It was probably a fair assumption, then, that the thousands of people massed near the makeshift stage, underneath gigantic screens, were all waiting for him. A fair assumption, and an incredibly odd one; to think you had spent such a mundane moment with the man they would soon shout themselves hoarse for!

“Yeah, good luck with that, I’m not going any nearer,” you forced between clenched teeth. “I hope you don’t get into too much trouble.”

When you spun on your heel, you found Oscar extending his hand out for you to shake, squinting his eyes against the sun. Or maybe it was an excuse not to have to look you in the eye more than absolutely necessary. In the same way you couldn’t tell whether your hand was slightly clammy from the heat or the nerves.

“Thanks for saving the day. Or at least mine,” he said, a little too solemn, a little too final. Like this was a farewell rather than an acknowledgment.

“Thanks for saving mine,” you replied, hoping the little smile you forced on your lips looked appropriately warm, and not inexplicably aching. “Maybe I’ll see you around?”

To anyone else Oscar would’ve replied the truth—Probably not—but that was not what his bowl of cereal would have wanted of him, so he said:

“Maybe.”

He gave you a wink half a second too long, and immediately looked horrified at what he’d done, which made you double over in a flurry of giggles. When you opened your eyes, he was a few steps ahead, waving you goodbye, and you returned the salute. You watched him jog the distance to the first cameras until he was but one more black and white dot in a sea of elegant millionaires, your throat hollow save for a funny kind of longing.

Then you walked back the way you came, carrying the end of your skirt down the stairs of the metro station.

Thirty minutes later, as you rummaged through your purse for your keys in front of your apartment complex, you noticed your phone lighting up. Usually, when you went on a date, you’d put it on Do not disturb so as to not be tempted—basic education, you reckoned, and something not many dates of yours had had the courtesy of reciprocating—, but you always sent your best friend your location beforehand and allowed her and only her to go through. She knew better than to text you unless it was life or death.

Clearly, this was of the utmost importance, and the fact there were only three messages instead of the fifty-seven you were expecting did not reassure you one bit.

“bitch” “who tf is that with oscar” “and why tf is it you??????”

A link to a TikTok came up mere seconds later.

The sage green gown was unmistakable. Anything else could’ve been explained otherwise, maybe blamed on some uncanny resemblance, a fortuitous angle—it looked like the video had been shot from very far away, and the protagonists not at all aware of the recording; but you would’ve recognized that lilypad-bright dress anywhere. Just like you knew that the blurry mass of pixels near the man’s face was a pathetic excuse for a wink, and the woman doubling over for no reason was actually laughing. That she’d watched him disappear into the crowd, immobile and longing, to commit to memory the very way his bones moved when he walked.

“Oscar Piastri’s Mystery Date Gets Cold Feet Right Before Red Carpet Debut?? 👀”

You stared at your phone even as it kept going off, its vibrations tickling your palm. A series of interrogation marks, each its individual message, popped up one after the other on your notification bar, and all you could do was clutch the screen as though you could shatter it with your bare hands.

This meant nothing, you calmed yourself down. This would blow over soon, you swore. As soon as they realized Oscar Piastri would never be seen again with this mysterious woman, and that it was never anything serious. Anything at all, even. That the New Yorker in apple green was just a mirage on his path, pertaining only to him and for a split instant.

And even if things didn’t smooth over… you had a feeling Oscar’s team would have no problem tracking you down.

©musicallisto, 2025

⤷ liked this fic? then you might enjoy... endless giggles (ln4)!

[olive-recs]

stopppppp, these are so cute <3333333 really put the cute in meet cute, lol. megumi's was probably my favorite — what can i say? i'm a sucker for a library date and university au (megumi and i pouring one out for the dewey decimal system, ayyyy). i also must say, i adore the characterization you make for each reader — it gives the little fic so much more life and love and i just adore stepping into each different personality (sukuna's was especially fun for that reason. always wanted to work in a museum, and i love the friction that comes with questioning history (even if it comes at the cost of one's pride — being wrong in front of a CROWD no less 😭😭😭😭). i love the comfortability of your writing sm!!! please don't mind me as i work through the entirety of your masterlist, shhhhh, no one needs to know.

meet not-so-cute | fushiguro toji, fushiguro megumi, geto suguru, gojo satoru, ino takuma, kong shiu, nanami kento, sukuna ryomen, yuuji itadori ╰►sorcery aside, how might you two meet? what organic ways do you cross paths? and how long will he allow this little meet-cute to go on before he asks you out? 6.7k words

a/n: hello!!! this was actually a request I got in my inbox and I had a lot of fun writing it, so thank you anon :] super fun idea, I thought. I included more characters than I usually do because a lot of the headcanons are shorter than usual. I kind of lost the plot with some of these. meet cute is kind of an umbrella term that I loosely followed for these headcanons. one day, I should go more in depth into my writing process with these, but basically, I usually try and make them as individualistic as possible, so each character feels like it's own oneshot. I did still try to do that with this, but I tried not to focus too much on length. I wanted these to be short and sweet. hope you like them <3 warnings: mentions of murder/death, cussing, kissing, use of my singularly detested term "y/n."

megumi thrived in the university library. three evenings a week, like clockwork, he clocked in at 4:00 and out at 9:00. no noise, no drunk roommates, no sweaty basement parties—just the steady hum of fluorescent lights and the smell of old paper. it was quiet. predictable. he liked that. he didn’t like much else about university. the loudmouths, the frat boys, the posturing. but the library? the dewey decimal system? that was his sanctuary.

he’d seen all kinds pass through. coughing stem majors who hadn’t slept in three days, loud econ guys using the back tables to scam freshman girls into dates, study groups that dissolved into tinder swiping. occasionally someone genuinely cool wandered in, someone who treated the books with care, read for pleasure, maybe even respected the quiet rule. but those people were rare.

which is why you stood out. he was mid-shelving—a tattered copy of the brothers karamazov in hand, scowling because who the hell willingly read dostoevsky in college—and then there was your voice. “is that the brothers karamazov?” he blinked and turned. you stood a few feet away, clutching your backpack strap like you’d been walking the aisles for a while.

“uh,” he glanced at the cover. “yeah. it is.”

you lit up. lit up. “I've been looking for that forever! I thought it was checked out or something.” and then you were smiling at him—really smiling—and he was malfunctioning.

“uh—yeah, it was. but it’s back now. I mean—obviously.” he handed it to you before his brain could sabotage him any further. you took it like it was a gift from the gods.

“thank you,” you said, so sincerely it made his heart squeeze. “seriously.”

he opened his mouth to say something, anything clever or smooth, but what came out was: “you’re welcome.” flat. useless. he was great at this. you wandered off before he could embarrass himself more, and he stood there for a moment longer than necessary, trying not to look like he’d just seen a mythological creature. it should have ended there, but it didn’t.

he finished shelving the rest of his cart and was heading back up front when he saw you again, tucked into a table in the back corner. a warm cup of tea beside you. laptop open but ignored. three books sprawled out: two obviously your own, littered with tabs and notes and your handwriting in the margins. but the one in your lap? that was the brothers karamazov. you were flipping through it like it was the most engrossing thing on earth. your glasses were slipping down your nose. you pushed them up absently. you looked soft. focused. smart.

megumi refilled his cart and wandered toward your table under the flimsy excuse of returning some books nearby. how had he never seen you before? he lived here. he breathed this place. and yet—you were new. fresh. gorgeous. he slowed his walk, pretending to skim the titles on his cart as he passed you. he saw the pen twitching in your hand as you hesitated over the library book. “you can—you can write in it, you know?” he said quietly, hoping he didn’t sound like a total creep.

you looked up, startled. then you smiled. “isn’t that considered vandalism?”

he gave the smallest smile back. "I won’t tell.”

you laughed, and megumi felt something uncoil in his chest. like maybe he wasn’t going to die alone after all. “I'm y/n,” you said, casually. “you work here?”

“yeah,” he replied, straightening a little. “megumi.”

“nice to meet you, megumi,” you said, and he nearly floated off the floor. you chatted. about the book. your major (literature, he was right). the annoying freshmen who always talked too loud. it was easy. natural. he didn’t feel like an awkward lump of bones for once.

then your phone buzzed. you glanced at it and winced. “shoot, I've got a meeting. I gotta go.” he nodded, trying not to look visibly crushed. “I'll be back tomorrow, though,” you said, smiling again. "I like it here.” you left with the book hugged to your chest, and megumi spent the next hour thinking about ways to casually die and be reborn as someone cool.

the next day, he wasn’t supposed to work. but his coworker, yuuta, owed him a favor, and megumi was suddenly very motivated to collect. you walked in right on time. cardigan today. worn jeans. hair up, soft tendrils falling around your face. you looked like you belonged in the pages of the very novels you read. effortlessly poetic.

megumi had gone full nerd. he’d pulled a few other books from the stacks—ones he thought you’d like. similar authors, maybe some translations. he told himself it was just good customer service. he caught your eye and walked over, awkwardly offering the books like a cat dropping a dead bird at someone’s feet.

you beamed. “you brought me more?”

he shrugged, face heating. “thought you might like them.”

you motioned to the seat across from you. “well then. you should stay and tell me which one to read first.” he sat. you talked. again. books and music and weird professors and the best study spots on campus. it was casual and fun and somehow flirty in a way that didn’t make him want to crawl into a hole. you were honest. kind. ridiculously smart. he was trying not to fall in love on the spot.

eventually, you glanced up from your tea. “so, megumi,” you said slowly. “you ever hang out outside the library?”

he blinked. “sometimes?”

you laughed. “would you want to? like—with me?”his brain short-circuited. but his mouth worked faster. “yeah. yeah, I'd like that.” you smiled, and he liked that.

toji knew this hit was going to be a bitch. rich politician. high-end steakhouse. twice as many bodyguards as brains. shiu had warned him—these weren’t the type of guys you take out clean. no, they came with backup, surveillance, and bulletproof everything. but toji wasn’t losing to a security system. he was losing to a guy built like a refrigerator. they’d gone two rounds already. the alley behind the restaurant was littered with blood, broken glass, and toji’s pride. this last bodyguard was a tank—fast, brutal, and apparently immune to concussions. toji wasn’t about to admit defeat, but the bruises forming on his ribs were saying otherwise.

he was about to cut his losses, pull a classic “abort and call shiu like a little bitch” move, when—crack. the sound was sharp and final. something heavy slammed into the back of the guard’s skull. he dropped. toji hit the ground too—knees giving out, breath ragged, knife still clenched in his fist.

you were standing over him. tall. calm. a black bodysuit clinging to you like shadow. hair pulled back. tire jack still raised in your hands like you’d done this before. like this wasn’t even your first alleyway knockout of the evening. toji blinked up at you, bloody and blinking, heart pounding from the fight—or maybe not just the fight. “…huh.”

you arched a brow. “that all you’ve got to say?”

"I usually have a better opener, but I'm concussed,” he grunted, propping himself up on one elbow.

your eyes dropped to the blood on his shirt. “looks like more than a concussion.”

he smirked. “still breathing, aren’t i?”

you didn’t laugh, but something about your mouth twitched. like you were tempted to. like you’d enjoy it if he kept talking. “you alright?” you asked, voice too casual for the situation.

“peachy.”

“good.” you turned away. “because I'm not carrying you.”

he let out a short laugh—painful, but real. “didn’t realize I was your type.”

“you’re not.” that shut him up.

but not in a bad way. no, it lit something up behind his ribs. he liked women who could kill him—liked them more when they didn’t fawn or fuss. you were the opposite of delicate. you didn’t even offer him a hand. toji leaned against the alley wall, watching you disappear through the side entrance like smoke. you didn’t look back.

by the time he made it to the other side, limping and pissed, the hit was done. clean. efficient. bullet to the skull in the bathroom. silenced. silent. he was halfway to sulking in the shadows when you emerged again—cool and composed, slipping a pistol into your waistband like you’d just clocked out of a shift at the office.

the client was already waiting, briefcase in hand. “name?” you didn’t hesitate. you tell him. he hands over the money. toji clenched his jaw. six figures. gone. and then—you brushed past him. no smug grin, no lingering glance. just a whisper of perfume and your fingers ghosting briefly over his chest.

he didn’t even register it at first. just stared after you as you vanished into the night like you belonged to it. three minutes later, he was slouched in the passenger seat of shiu’s car, grumbling and cursing and trying to find a position that didn’t make his ribs scream. “you look like shit,” shiu said, not looking up from the road.

“feel worse.” toji shifted—and felt something odd in his inner pocket. he fished it out. thick envelope. heavy. inside: the cash. most of it. he stared. then pulled out the folded slip of paper tucked beside the bills.

shiu whistled. “guess someone felt sorry for you.”

“you know her?” he asked, casually. too casually.

shiu shrugged. “seen her around. heard good things. tell me if she’s looking for work—I'd hire her in a heartbeat.” toji didn’t answer.

later that night, after the stitches and the cursing and the bottle of whiskey, he found out where you lived. two days later, half the cash was back in your mailbox—stuffed in an unmarked envelope. along with a slip of paper of his own. toji. xxx-xxx-xxxx.

the next morning, you found it. you rolled your eyes. smirked. called the number. “hope you’re not just looking for a thank-you,” you said.

on the other end of the line, toji’s voice was rough and amused. “nah. I'm asking if you’re free friday. wear something that won’t get blood on it.” cute. in a criminal sort of way.

gojo satoru was beloved. that was just a fact. teachers liked him because he was smarter than he let on. students adored him because he was charming, funny, and hot enough to make skipping class feel worthy of the punishment. waitresses at his regular spots knew his order, his quirks, his usual table. baristas at the corner café? knew him by name and drink.

which was why, when the to-go cup handed to him tasted like battery acid and death, he blinked. “what the hell—” he muttered, peeking into the cup. black coffee. no sugar. no cream. just three shots of death with ice.

he turned back to the counter just as you stepped up. hoodie sleeves too long, voice soft as you said: “sorry, I think there was a mix-up. this…isn’t mine.”

he took you in with one glance. pretty. like really pretty. the kind of pretty that made his brain go a little sideways. “actually,” he said, stepping up beside you, flashing a grin like it belonged on a billboard, "I think I've got your drink.”

you turned your head, eyes wide. blinked up at him. that was when it hit him. you weren’t giggling. or playing with your hair. or leaning into the flirtation. you looked…startled. a little confused. blushing, yeah—but more out of discomfort than delight.

“I'm so sorry,” you said, placing the actual sugary masterpiece he’d ordered back on the counter and pushing the black coffee his way. "I didn’t even look. that’s on me.” it wasn’t. he knew it wasn’t. but you were still taking the blame like it was second nature. his gaze flicked to a lone backpack at a corner table. your table.

“well,” he said, picking up both drinks, “seems like fate wants us to chat.” you looked horrified. and then he was walking, sliding into the seat across from your things before you could protest. you hesitated. stared. but eventually followed. sat slowly, unsure. gojo leaned his chin into his hand, sipping his coffee—your coffee—and pretending not to wince. “this is evil,” he said conversationally. “are you okay? do you hate yourself?” you didn’t laugh. just looked at him, expression flat.

conversation came easy for him. he asked about your major. your music taste. your hair routine. the specific reason you were drinking a war crime in a cup. your skincare. your favorite color. how you felt about pancakes. you answered with as few syllables as possible. you weren’t shy—you just didn’t care. you weren’t flattered. you weren���t amused. you weren’t impressed. 

it drove him insane. because gojo was used to being liked. he was used to being the sun, and people orbiting him with giddy smiles and heart eyes. but you? you had no orbit. you had gravity. heavy and still and unmoved. you didn’t need to be charmed. you weren’t looking for anything. least of all him. he loved that.

after the twentieth question in under five minutes, you set your pen down. “what’s your goal here?” you asked bluntly. “are you just really bored or something? because I don’t have time for this.”

gojo blinked. grinned wider. “let me take you out.”

you stared. “like…on a date?”

“mm-hmm.”

“why?”

“because you’re beautiful, clearly immune to my overwhelming appeal, and I like a challenge.” he lifts your cup. “I'll take you somewhere they serve things better than this war crime in a cup. there's this place uptown—prix fixe, white tablecloths, the whole shebang.” he gives you the name of the restaurant he has in mind. 

you blink again. “dinner at that place costs more than my laptop.”

he shrugs like it’s no big deal. “I'll cover it.”

you raised your eyebrows. “there’s zero chemistry here.”

“you think so?” he asked, cocking his head. “because I feel a spark.”

“there’s no spark.”

“there will be,” he said confidently. “eventually. you’ll see.”

“no,” you say, quick. not sharp, but not hesitant either. “no, thank you.”

there’s a beat. a breath. he deflates—not dramatically, just slightly. like he expected it. like this was how it was always going to go. “fair enough,” he says. he leans back in his chair, looks up at the café lights with something too soft for someone wearing sunglasses indoors. then he looks at you again. “I'll be here tomorrow. same time. I'll get your drink. still think it’s gross, though.”you huff—almost a laugh, almost—and stand. you don’t say yes. you don’t say no. and gojo watches you walk out like he’s watching a star slip below the horizon. because maybe you didn’t want his fancy dinner. but you still might want him. and he’s got time.

it starts with a dare. a dumb one. your friends are three shots in and bloodthirsty for chaos. loser has to kiss a stranger. that’s the rule. you lose. you pick someone fast—because thinking about it too long will make you chicken out—and the first person you lock eyes with is a boy in a grey hoodie, laughing with friends near the kitchen. he's cute. sweet-faced. his smile looks like sunshine distilled. takuma, your friends tell you his name is. 

you walk over. "hey," you say, tapping his arm gently. "weird question. can I kiss you?"

he blinks. "huh?"

"I lost a bet," you explain, already wincing. "and the consequence is kissing a stranger. you’re very cute. but I totally get it if you don’t want to—"

"no, no—it’s okay!" he blurts, eyes wide and pink creeping up his neck. "I mean—uh. sure. if you're okay with it."

you grin. “okay. I'll be quick.” except you’re not. because as soon as your hands fist in the front of his hoodie and you pull him down, it spirals fast. the kiss is hot. messy. decidedly not pg. someone somewhere yells for you to “get a room!” and then laughs fade into static as your mouth moves against his.

he tastes like mint and strawberry soda. his lips part and yours follow. he grips your waist like he might float off otherwise. it lasts a lot longer than fifteen seconds. when you pull back, you’re breathless. his eyes are glassy. you smile—bashful now. “thanks,” you say quietly. and then you’re gone, swept back into the crowd like a fever dream.

takuma doesn’t even catch your name. but he thinks about you constantly. your perfume haunts him. warm, floral, clings to the fabric of his hoodie like ghostly fingers. he wears the same sweatshirt three days in a row. maki notices. “seriously?” she asks on day four, watching takuma sniff his sleeve like a lovesick freak. “you kissed one stranger. let it go.”

“I'm trying,” takuma mutters, curled on the couch. “it’s not working.”

he replays it in his head at least twice an hour. the way your lip caught between his. the breathy little sound you made. the way you smiled—soft and kind, like you were shy even after that feral, earth-shattering kiss. he’s down bad. and he knows it.

the next weekend, there’s another party. takuma throws it, mostly because he’s hoping, maybe…and there you are. in a different outfit, with different friends, but unmistakably you. you see him before he sees you, and when your eyes meet, you freeze. like a deer caught mid-escape. then you’re stumbling over.

“oh my god,” you say. “hi. I—I didn’t know this was your apartment again. I didn’t mean to just like—last week—if that was weird or—”

takuma shakes his head fast. “it wasn’t weird. at all. I mean, it surprised me, but, uh. in a good way.”

you pause. blink. “really?”

“really,” he says. then, braver: “I've actually been hoping I'd run into you again.”

your breath catches. “oh.”

“and, um,” he adds, scratching the back of his neck, “if you're not doing anything tonight, maybe we could actually hang out? like talk. you know. with our mouths off each other.”

you laugh, cheeks warm. “yeah. I'd like that.”

you spend the whole night on the couch together, feet tucked up, drink forgotten on the side table. he asks you everything—your major, your favorite movie, whether you like cats or dogs more, whether you’ve always been this quiet.

you remind him of nanami. a little guarded. thoughtful. reserved. not cold, just self-contained. but unlike megumi, you don’t scoff at everything hopeful. you listen with wide eyes and small nods. takuma finds himself talking more than usual, because you actually make him feel heard. and you surprise him, too. you say dry, clever things that make him snort into his cup. you have this crooked smile that sneaks out when you least expect it.

he’s officially toast. by the end of the night, he doesn’t want to say goodbye. “so…” he says, hands nervously wringing together. “would you wanna go out sometime? like a real date. somewhere I can impress you.”

you raise an eyebrow. “are you planning on kissing me again?” you say, as if you weren’t the one who kissed him in the first place. 

"I mean—only if you want—”

you laugh. "I was hoping you would.”takuma’s face goes red. he beams. “then yeah. I'd really like that.” and he means it. he likes you, a lot. and he’s already planning ways to prove it.

shiu’s on his way to work. not the kind of work that comes with a suit and 401k. the kind that involves shady offices, burner phones, and blood in the back seat if fushiguro doesn’t show up on time. he’s either heading downtown to his dingy little hideout or sitting curbside waiting for a client to bring the kind of mess no one else wants to clean up.

he doesn’t see exactly how it happens. one second he’s turning at a green light, and the next a shiny black tesla is gunning it across two lanes like it’s trying to break the sound barrier. and then—crash. metal. glass. crunch. his car takes the brunt of it. slams into the tesla, and somehow still clips you too.

he jerks forward with the impact. the seatbelt leaves a nasty burn across his chest. his baby—hot rod, his beautiful, custom-tuned, low-riding sweetheart—is groaning from the front end. hood buckled. front bumper dangling. engine coughing like it’s on its last breath. he’s pissed. he’s out of the car before the airbags deflate, already stalking toward the tesla like he’s going to drag the driver out through the window.

but then—you're already there. apologizing. repeatedly. like it was your fault. and the asshole in the tesla is loving it. he’s rubbing his neck, already prepping for the insurance scam, and smirking down at you like you’re a wounded puppy. “it’s alright, sweetheart,” he drawls, all fake charm and condescension.

shiu sees red. he steps in, all six-foot-something of muscle and rage, shoves tesla guy back with a hand to the chest. “you kidding me?” he snaps. “she wasn’t at fault here. you blew the light. you were speeding.”

tesla guy protests, something about his neck and a green light. shiu silences him with a glare. he knows his type—slick, greasy, and probably calls his mother’s maid “toots.” not happening. meanwhile, your car’s got a scratch and a ding, tops. his car? getting towed away in pieces. and still—you’re turning to him, soft and apologetic, offering your insurance info like you had anything to be sorry for.

he grabs your arm, not rough, but firm. directs you gently but unmistakably away from the mess. “don’t apologize,” he says, voice low. “not to that dickhead. you didn’t do anything wrong.”

you blink up at him, startled. he really gets a good look at you for the first time. you’re…pretty. real pretty. a little disheveled from the crash, still in work clothes. kind, clearly, even to people who don’t deserve it. that kind of kindness doesn’t survive long in his world. “you headed somewhere?” you ask, glancing at the wreckage of his car as it’s hooked to the tow.

“work,” he says, automatically.

“want a ride?” you offer. "I just got off a night shift. I'm free.”

he hesitates. his line of work isn’t…civilian-friendly. but you don’t need to know what’s behind the unmarked door he’s getting dropped off at. it’s just a ride. no big deal. and besides—he doesn’t like the thought of letting you disappear just yet. so he accepts.

it’s been a long time since shiu kong has ridden shotgun. but your car? it’s spotless. immaculate. it smells like you—floral, soft, sweet in a way that clings. the steering wheel is pink. there’s a little plush charm hanging from the mirror. it’s all so not his style. but he likes it anyway. you drive with one hand on the wheel and the windows cracked. talk a little, laugh quietly. you don’t ask too many questions. he likes that.

then your car pulls into his lot. you hesitate. the building is sketchy. unmarked. windows tinted, graffiti peeling. a place people walk past fast with their heads down. you glance at it, then at him. but you don’t ask. you just say, “want me to come back and get you when you’re done?” he stares at you for a moment. surprised. you don’t know him. you don’t owe him.

but you’re looking at him like you want him. like you see him—and you’re not scared. or maybe you should be, and that just makes him want you more. he shakes his head. “won’t be necessary. I'll have the car thing handled tonight.” shiu without a car is like a shark without teeth. just wrong.

but before he gets out, he pauses. glances at you, hand on the door handle. “give me your number,” he says.

you blink. “what for?”

he shrugs, casual. “just ‘cause I don’t need a ride…doesn’t mean I don’t wanna see you again.” you smile. kind. a little wary. but you hand over your number anyway. and shiu kong, criminal consultant and part-time getaway driver, walks into his back-alley office already planning when he’s going to call you.

nanami works in finance. suits. deadlines. numbers that won't stop blinking at him. hiromi higuruma’s law firm shares the building. their companies partner often—legal and financials always tangled—and nanami’s walked the same halls as their employees more times than he can count.

you, though. you’re new. he’s seen you a few times. usually with your nose buried in a stack of paperwork, always moving with purpose. paralegal, he’d guess. he catches snippets—your name in passing, your voice on late-night calls echoing through the stairwell. you’re polite, focused. never unkind, but busy. too busy to notice anyone else. which is fine. he prefers to observe anyway.

it's late. the building is near-empty. everyone’s gone home except the usual suspects—higuruma still holed up in his office across the hall, nanami finalizing projections with an exhausted sigh, and you, curled up on the floor of the breakroom surrounded by documents, legal pads, and a cold, half-eaten sandwich. a storm rages outside. not just rain—sheets of it. thunder that rattles the glass. nanami packs up around 9:45. he pulls on his coat, briefcase in hand, and steps into the hallway right as you do.

you’ve got your hood pulled up and your tote bag slung over one shoulder. he nods at you out of habit. polite. respectful. his hand already on the door handle when he sees you hesitate, peering through the glass at the torrential rain. you sigh. adjust your coat. mumbling something about the mile-long walk to the station. nanami pauses. “pardon me,” he says, voice even. “are you headed toward the station?”

you look up at him, surprised. “yeah. I'm just hoping I don’t get struck by lightning on the way there.”

he doesn’t laugh. but the corner of his mouth quirks. “I'm parked out back. I'd be happy to offer you a ride.”

you hesitate. he sees it. but your eyes soften as you take him in: the tailored coat, the neat briefcase, the calm, steady presence of a man who never raises his voice and always holds the elevator door. “…you sure?” you ask. "I don’t want to be a bother.”

“it would bother me more,” he says, “to watch you walk through that storm.”

you blink. then smile. small. grateful. “alright. thanks.” he leads you to his car—a sleek, black luxury sedan. immaculate interior. smells faintly of cedar and clean laundry. he opens the passenger door for you, of course. it’s quiet for a moment once you're inside. the rain patters against the roof like static. you glance around, a little sheepish. “nice car.”

“it gets me where I need to go.”

“still. very…bond villain of you.”

that earns a ghost of a smile. “hopefully less villainous.”

you chat lightly on the way. he learns that you're not from the city. that you’re working while putting yourself through night classes. that you're tired—he can see that—but proud. you ask him what it is he actually does, because finance sounds like a broad umbrella.

he tells you. you listen. actually listen. it’s simple. it’s nothing. but it’s been a long time since someone has looked at him like you do. interested, engaged, without a trace of performance. he pulls into the station, and for a second neither of you moves. “thanks again,” you say, finally unbuckling your seatbelt.

“of course.” then you’re gone. rushing through the rain toward the platform, hood up again. nanami watches you go, hand still on the gearshift, mind curiously quiet.

but after that night, nanami is…resolved. he’d like to get you back in his car. but this time, for dinner. somewhere quiet. classy. you in a nice dress, him with his sleeves rolled to the forearms. maybe afterward, he’d take you to that little dessert café he only ever goes to on sundays. maybe, eventually, he’d take you home. not just a ride. a night. a morning after.

the thought surprises him. the intensity of it more than anything. he doesn’t act on impulse. never has. but he asks hiromi about you—just once. casually. hiromi doesn’t buy it for a second. “you?” he says, raising a brow. “since when do you flirt?”

"I wasn’t flirting.”

hiromi laughs. “alright. sure.” nanami doesn’t respond. but he’s thinking about you again before he even leaves the office.

two weeks pass. late nights. brief glances. passing hellos. it doesn’t rain again—until it does. a quiet friday, near closing time. thunder rolling in low and steady like a warning. he finishes his work deliberately late. watches the sky darken through the high windows. waits. and when you appear in the lobby, your coat too thin and no umbrella in sight, he’s already there. already standing beside you. already holding the door open with quiet expectation.

“it’s raining again,” he says. "I can give you a ride.”

you blink up at him, surprised. “oh—really? that would be… really nice, actually. thank you.”

you step into the car, brushing water from your sleeves. he turns the heat on a little higher, makes sure your seat warmer is on. you compliment the vehicle absently—something about how it smells nice, or how clean it is—and he simply says thank you. he says he’d be happy to drive you home, not just to the station. you assure him he doesn’t have to. he insists. 

the drive is mostly quiet. comfortable. your voice cuts through every now and then, soft and curious. you ask about the building he works in, if he likes the coffee on the third floor, how long he’s known hiromi. normal questions. friendly ones.

and nanami, steady as ever, answers all of them. carefully. thoughtfully. when he pulls up in front of your apartment, you start unbuckling, murmuring another round of gratitude. but before you go, he says, without looking over, “I'd like to see you outside the office sometime. if that’s something you’d be open to.”

there’s a pause. a small, confused silence. “like—help with something for work?”

his hand stills on the steering wheel. “no,” he says. “just dinner. if you’d like.”

you stare at him for a second. then smile, a little sheepish. “oh. um. sure. yeah, that sounds…nice.”

nanami nods once. keeps his expression neutral. but after you close the door and disappear into your building, he lets out a quiet breath—just a little longer than necessary—and smiles, just a little softer than usual.

sukuna doesn’t usually wander the human world. it's tedious. soft. full of noise and smell and weak little creatures with short lives and even shorter memories. but today, he’s feeling… strange. restless. so he ends up in a museum, which is somehow worse and better at the same time—like walking through a graveyard of things he already buried.

he’s passing through a wing on ancient warfare when he hears your voice. “—and this particular design was popularized during the late kamakura period, though its origins likely trace back to—”

“that’s incorrect,” sukuna says flatly.

you glance over at him. “I'm sorry?”

he steps closer, hands tucked into the sleeves of his coat, eyes scanning the blade behind the glass. “the craftsmanship. that curve. the hamon. it predates kamakura.”

you arch a brow. “well, most scholars disagree.”

he shrugs. “they’re wrong.”

you smile tightly. “and how would you know?”

"I was there.”

there’s a pause. then you laugh, a single breath through your nose. “you were there. in the thirteenth century.”

“earlier.”

you blink. “right.”

he doesn’t elaborate. you don’t ask. the middle schoolers you’re touring shuffle awkwardly, sensing something off, and you keep moving with a practiced ease. sukuna follows. silently, at first. then he speaks again when you pause in front of a replica scroll. “that’s not how it looked.”

you sigh. “let me guess. you were there, too?” you think you’re playing into some theatrical joke. of course he wasn’t there…right? right? 

he hums. “not there. but I remember who drew it.”

you give him a sideways look. “well, if I'm getting all of this wrong, feel free to take over.”

"I would, but your delivery’s not terrible.” you don’t realize that’s a compliment. you just nod, like you’ve decided he’s one of those eccentrics who know a lot and talk a lot more. 

the kids leave, eventually. ushered out by a second staff member. but sukuna stays. you glance back and find him still behind you, hands clasped, eyes sweeping the room. “you’re not part of the tour,” you say.

“I'm aware.”

“then why are you still here?”

he shrugs again. “nothing better to do.” that’s not true. he’s killed for less boredom than this. but you…you’re interesting. not because you’re beautiful, though you are. not because you’re clever, though you are. but because you’re confident. steady. you stand in front of him like you don’t realize what he is—or maybe like you don’t care. either way, it fascinates him. 

you make another offhand remark about a historical treaty and he corrects you again. it’s barely even a correction. just a detail. a preference. he knows you’re not wrong. he just likes disagreeing with you. you glance over, amused now. “do you have a degree in this or something?”

“something like that.”

you roll your eyes, good-natured. “well, if you are a reincarnated warrior from a thousand years ago, you could at least be a little less smug about it.” he doesn’t smile. doesn’t correct you. you’re only human. maybe ninety years if you're lucky. you don’t know what it means to be alive forever. you wouldn’t believe him if he told you. so he doesn’t. he reigns himself in.

“what’s your name?” you ask eventually, still half-suspicious. he lies. gives you a simple one. something borrowed. you nod. “well, thanks for the impromptu history critique, I guess.”

“I'll be back,” he says, almost without meaning to.

you snort. “try not to heckle the next time.”

he watches you walk away—back through the staff hallway, badge clipped to your belt, keys jingling in your hand. he watches the way the museum lights flicker just slightly as you pass. he reminds himself that he doesn’t like humans. but maybe you’re not like most. 

he returns two days later. lingers near the entrance like a shadow. you notice him immediately, lips twitching in some combination of fondness and exasperation. “you again?” you say, meeting him halfway.

“you never corrected the kamakura exhibit,” he replies.

you roll your eyes. “let me guess. still wrong?”

he nods. then, after a beat: “there’s another museum. less modern. more...accurate. you should see it.”

you hesitate, trying to gauge if this is another one of his strange quirks or an actual invitation. “you want to take me to a museum?” you ask.

“to set the record straight,” he says. “nothing else.”

nothing else. not the way he wants to see how you light up when you talk about things you love. not the way your voice sounds when you're unsure but keep speaking anyway. not the way he could maybe—just maybe—show you things no one else can.

you tilt your head. “alright. but if you start arguing with the exhibits again, I'm leaving you in the feudal era.” he doesn’t smile. not quite. but his eyes burn a little brighter.

yuuji waltzes into the er like it’s a casual wednesday. arm bleeding, shirt clinging to his skin, and a cocky little grin that’s doing a poor job of masking the fact that he’s very much in pain and maybe just a little dizzy. he did not mean to get this hurt. he also did not mean to walk into the trauma bay and immediately fall in love.

but there you are. clipboard in hand, blue scrubs, hair tied up, calm as a monk. you glance up at him and blink like, oh great, another idiot. and yuuji? he’s a goner. full-body, soul-leaving-the-chat goner. you’re beautiful. so beautiful it makes his teeth hurt. like, he thinks he might be bleeding more just to get your attention a little longer. and you’re cool. collected. you haven’t even smiled once and he already wants to marry you.

“looks deep,” you murmur, taking his vitals. your hands are gentle. professional. efficient. you don’t even flinch at the mess of his arm.

he tries to play it cool. “yeah,” he says. “you should see the other guy.” you don’t laugh. not even a pity smile. okay. fair. he’s bombing. but he can recover. 

you pull on gloves and start prepping the tray. “you need stitches. a lot of them.”

“sweet,” he says, because his brain is goo and he doesn’t know how to talk to pretty girls when he’s not also actively leaking blood. “do you do this often?”

you glance at him again, dry. “stitch people? it’s kind of my job.” right. yes. obviously. cool cool cool.

he shuts up for a bit while you clean the wound, staring at the ceiling and trying not to faint. from blood loss. or how close your face is. either/or. she has really nice eyes, he thinks. is that creepy? probably. don’t say anything about her eyes, man. don’t do it. don’t be that guy. you lean in closer to check his pupils with a tiny penlight, and yuuji’s stomach flutters like he swallowed a whole nest of butterflies. he can feel your breath on his cheek. smell your shampoo. his brain whites out for a second.

“you feeling lightheaded?” you ask, scribbling something down.

yes. because you exist. “nope. all good,” he croaks.

you’re stitching now. he winces. “sorry,” you murmur.

“no, no. it’s cool. you’re doing amazing. like, if I ever get injured again—which statistically I probably will—could I request you?” you glance at him like you're not sure if he’s joking. he is. but also, he’s not. and then he starts blatantly staring at you while you work. he can’t help it. he’s trying to memorize your face. commit this moment to memory. you in your element, brow furrowed in concentration, lips pursed in a way that makes his chest hurt.

you finish the last stitch and start taping gauze. “all done,” you say.

already? he sits up too fast and wobbles. you steady him with one hand. he’s in love. “do I get a sticker or something?” he asks, a little dazed.

you raise a brow. “do you want a sticker?”

“I'd keep it forever.” and there it is—a tiny laugh. barely a breath. but it counts. it’s the greatest sound he’s ever heard. he wants it as a ringtone. you start typing something into the chart on the monitor, clearly wrapping up, and yuuji panics. fast. “actually, uh—wait. I think I'm still a little lightheaded.”

you pause, peer over your shoulder. “you stood up fine.”

“yeah, but like, internally. I'm dizzy. maybe nauseous. blurry vision. could be internal bleeding.”

you squint. “from a forearm laceration?”

he nods, very serious. “anything’s possible. medical mysteries happen all the time.”

you sigh, come back over with your stethoscope. “alright, dr. house. let’s check you again.” he lets you, thrilled to be buying more time. you check him. everything’s normal. his pulse is a little fast, but that might be from the way you're touching his wrist. “ino,” you say slowly. “you’re fine.”

"I might throw up,” he tries.

“you won’t.”

he pouts. “can’t I just like…hang out here for a bit? make sure I don’t collapse outside?”

your lips twitch. “the waiting room’s that way.”

he winces. “so cold.” you’re already back at the chart again, wrapping things up for real this time. and now he’s desperate. time’s running out. so he blurts, “do you wanna maybe go out sometime?” silence. you glance at him over your shoulder, amused. exasperated. fond, somehow.

you don’t say yes. but you don’t say no, either. just shake your head, smiling despite yourself. and when he’s walking out of the er, still a little loopy, he’s already planning how he might maybe get injured again next week. nothing major. just…a mild concussion. or a broken finger. something small. just enough to see you.

[olive-recs]

You don’t kiss them all day

Including: Gojo, Nanami, Choso, Sukuna, Toji, Yuuji, Megumi and special guest… Toge !!

my smau masterlist

〰・♡・〰〰・♡・〰〰・♡・〰〰・♡・〰〰・♡・〰

[olive-recs]

ma'am???????????? asdfghjklkjhgfdsdfghjklkjhgfd this is SO. GOOD; absolutely floored and astounded by the fact that you haven't written in so long and yet you're able to chug a red bull and pump this out mostly in one go. i must always, always commend your dialogue, it's always so true to form and organic and well paced and played within the context of your larger writing. that will always be the part i struggle with the most so to see it so well done, so nicely carrying characterization, plot, and feeling... what can i say we love to see it, you stay winning.

and then!!!! i love how you pepper in characters here and there and give them attention and silly wit (lando will always be at the scene of the crime. the jackson wang of f1 fic, he is at every party. oscar with a your mom joke. he would. i love a loser.), and none to say of the nice depth you give your main characters <333. love your exploration of them all at once very focused an insular in the moment but also with hints of well-roundedness. you get them, it would seem. ("After fighting every weekend for fucking midfield, bronze glinted awful bright.") and also like???? they're so beautiful in your eyes?!?!?!?! ("Eyes like an August storm fixing on Charles, making him gasp as he was tugged close." / "in his remembrance of an accent that curved around his body in the dark.") you spit bars, bestie beloved benefactor, don't be deceived.

loved loved loved the way you built up anticipation in the fic, from the ticking clock to the drive to the hotel room, to the pounding energy of the club growing erratic and strange and muddled, and even at the very beginning with the time crunch, the clandestinity, the "incessant" phone ringing. yeah, i knew where the story was heading because i read the summary, but you were building up to it from the very beginning and never once faltered in your course *chef's kiss*

and the smut!!!! the spice!!!!! you proved to me you were a genius when you said it was your first time writing such a genre. could not tell. very electric. very hot. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

TAKE WHAT YOU WANT (AND GO)

⤷ pairing : charles leclerc x max verstappen

⤷ wordcount : 5.7k

⤷ rating : explicit

⤷ genre : porn without plot

⤷ summary : charles and max collided in barcelona in a fight for podium. when cars collide, so do bodies; nothing to say for the sparks that catch in the heat of racing.

⤷ authors note : i joked about lestappen fucking nasty after the spanish gp, then went 'wait a minute. jk jk. unless?' and was overcome by the rabid rpf disease as i dusted off my word document to pour my soul into two grown men rawdogging. enjoy.

⤷ 🎧 : bedroom warfare by one ok rock, teeth by 5 seconds of summer, slow down by chase atlantic

"With the consideration of both parties involved, and by the decision of Red Bull and acceptance of Ferrari, the charges against the driver of car 16 by car 33 will be dropped. We will do no further investigation at this time." The steward looked at both team principles for confirmation. Charles could see in his peripheral vision Fred Vassur nod before shaking Christian Horner's hand. Charles kept his eyes on Max. 

The Dutchman was sitting across from him, jaw tight as his gaze locked somewhere beyond the confines of the steward's room. Though Charles was relieved he could enjoy his win today without the threat of a penalty hanging over his head, he couldn't bring himself to be truly grateful. Not when he knew why Red Bull had bigger concerns than some bumped wheels. 

Now, he stared as Max sat deathly still. His whole body was taught, full lips pressed thin as a muscle consistently flexed in his jaw. Angry. 

Charles didn't want to admit just how much it turned him on.

(read the rest on ao3)

⤷ tagging : @olive-recs @musicallisto @deadpoets

[olive-recs]

TAKE WHAT YOU WANT (AND GO)

SNEAK PEAK .ᐟ

⤷ pairing : charles leclerc x max verstappen

⤷ summary : charles and max collided in barcelona in a fight for podium. when cars collide, so do bodies; nothing to say for the sparks that catch in the heat of racing.

⤷ updated description to come!

"It's like I said in the interview," Charles attempted between gasps, "it's racing."

Max's hand gripped tightly in his hair, tugging his head back and causing Charles to thunk his head against the wall. The pain was inconsequential as Max ground into his hips, the relief so blinding Charles nearly cried. "Is that what this is?" Max damn near purred, nipping sharply at Charles' collarbones, the hand not in his hair coming up to enticingly circle his neck. "Just racing?"

It wasn't, and they both knew it. It was never just racing - not for them; the ones this deathly sport had raised. The track was their only playground, the scream of the engine a familiar childhood lullaby. They gave their sanity to it every weekend, blood and sweat as sacrifice for the race they both worshipped as religion. It wasn't just racing when they ran each other off the track, hunting each other down to the finish line. They spat insults over team radio, hissed threats and promises in the paddock. It wasn't just racing for them then, and it certainly wasn't now. 

Not between them.

⤷ authors note : so excited to share this with you guys!! it's been hounding me ever since the spanish gp, and i'm excited to announce the full fic will be dropping soon! please like / reply to this post if you would like me to tag you when i post the full chapter!

[olive-recs]

darling!!!! dearest!!!!

oh, i adore a slice of life moment and this is perfectly timed since two days ago i was asking lindsay what to do when you get sun burnt 😭😭 *i* however, am much better off than charles because it simply does not hurt. looks pink! cannot feel it. someone get this loser some sunscreen or pass him my superior skin genetic coding, hah.

ANYWAY, I love this dearly ♡♡♡ especially the "you aren't really here either, but someplace else, in the valleys that stretch out between charles' moles"

your poetry, Clara, is always divine ♡♡

oooh may i request a 17 + 24 for charles x reader? 🤭

17. tracing tanlines under a fingertip && 24. balcony views — charles leclerc

"JESUS CHRIST, CHARLES, when you said Ferrari was getting under your skin I didn't think you meant that literally."

"What?"

He turns around, quizzical, and the fading light of day catches more irregular motifs on his pectorals and clavicles than you'd even noticed. You can't help snorting at the sight.

"You're lobster red!"

A beat passes, during which Charles stares at you like a fish out of water, and then he's wiggling around, trying to catch a glimpse of every patch of skin on his torso, and when he cranes his neck to inspect his upper back he almost trips on the shirt he's just discarded to the floor.

"Putainnn," he drags out, a defeated moan that slumps out of his lips just like his shoulders. "Argh! C'est pas vrai..."

"That's what happens when you try to apply sunscreen yourself like a big boy." Your laugh is soft, your head shaking gently as you observe your husband, crimson stripes all over his back and shoulders like the brushstrokes of some tropical Van Gogh. "Come on, go sit on the terrace."

He does as he's told, shuffling his feet over to the chaises longues on the large, roofed balcony. When you step out the hotel room, favorite assortment of aloe vera ointments in hand, you find him sitting on the edge of the chair, pressing two fingers onto the red gash on his arm. When he lifts them and they reveal white skin that immediately fades back to carmine, he sighs.

"Not to say I told you so," you drag one of the chairs over, "but..."

"You told me so."

He grumbles like a toddler proven wrong—the swirling shapes of his sunburns are certainly reminiscent of a kindergartner's drawings. Even so, your smile is delicate, easy like an evening shower when you coax a ribbon of aloe vera cream onto your palm and rub your hands together.

"Tell me if it hurts."

Instead, Charles lets out a long, blissful exhale as soon as your cool fingertips press against his bare back.

Slowly, gently, you trace the outline of his burns, where a nascent tan fades into red patterns; you study the confines of skin he overlook in the morning, cajole the corners of him where even his fingertips won't go. That's when the gentle breeze picks up, born out of the Atlantic's froth, and dishevels the Brazilian foliage below and Charles' salt-kissed hair.

You feel him melt beneath your touch like so many times before.

"This is nice, actually," he murmurs, low and deep like the rumble of the ocean somewhere over the railing.

"Yeah, well, if you want a massage, just ask next time, there's no need to fuck up your skin like that, alright?"

"This never happens to me in Monac—aouch," he winces, but the sound is soon lost to the breeze, too.

"We're not in Monaco right now," you reply with a peculiar reverie, as though you aren't really here either, but someplace else, in the valleys that stretch out between Charles' moles.

He, on the other hand, looks over your hunched shoulders, to the late-afternoon that sprinkles golden lighting over the jungle. In the distance, he thinks he can make out a flock of tropical birds spinning in the milky sky like dancers, though it could be a trick of light. How to be sure, on this island where life commences anew, but oh so different?

"Yes, that's for sure," he concedes, pensive. But his eyes tear from the sprawling view and travel up to your concentrated face, and he scrunches into a solar grin.

"I think you should be good... though you should probably keep your shirt on for the next few days. Even if it pains me horribly to say it," you release him from the cooling balm, and are about to step back and put the tube away when he grabs your hand and pulls you back to him. Into the radiating heat of his body and the midday brightness of his gaze.

"Thanks for taking care of me."

"Of course, Charles," you reply in a genteel hum. The Monégasque rubs his thumb across your wedding band. "That's what I signed up for."

Neither of you makes a move; only your heads turn to the magnificent ocean, and, very far, its horizon where heavy clouds gather. All of the sunset's oranges and pinks ricochet off of their dark gray, and somehow you are certain they end their course back with you. Curled up in your promontory.

The rain, after a while, scatters off into the ocean, quietly.

© musicallisto, 2025 MASTERLIST / INBOX ⤷ liked this fic? then you might enjoy... adoration (cl16)!

[olive-recs]

op, these are all so delightfully darling ♡♡♡. I will most certainly be coming back later to finish the stories that I missed (i am quite dedicated to my routine and schedule, myself, and can't longer much longer than I already have) but i simply had to sing praises now (and bookmark so I don't lose this little slice of devoted domesticity and bring spot of joy) because!!!!! Oh, I love the softness in this, the sweetness inherent, the ebb and flow and the way you describe differences in schedules as not conflicting and disastrous, but just one of the many ways we bend to reach the ones we care about, and hold their quirks in admiration and a pleasantly close sort of divine. Thry work in tandem, and they are pleased pleased catch the other, and yes yes i love and adore.

morning routine | fushiguro megumi, fushiguro toji, geto suguru, gojo satoru, ino takuma, kamo choso, nanami kento, yuuji itadori ╰►he is obsessed with watching you get ready; whether you’re an all-over-the-place mess, or painstakingly meticulous, he loves the little things 6.1k words

a/n: reader is kind of all over the place in this one, so it might not be applicable to all self-inserts mb. warnings: cussing, eating habits (but not in a negative way)...I think that's it. I love a man that's painfully obsessed with every single, minute thing his girlfriend does, and so.......here we are. enjoy <3

it takes nearly a year of dating before you sleep over at megumi’s. not because he doesn’t want you there—he does. in the quiet, desperate way he wants everything good. but his dorm is…sterile. spartan. the bed is always made, the floor always clean, his desk meticulously organized down to the direction his pens face. it’s not for show. he lives like this. he needs it like this.

your dorm, in comparison, feels like another planet. the walls are bursting with you—posters slightly peeling at the corners, handwritten notes pinned beside polaroids, a stack of annotated books threatening to topple. there’s a mug of tea gone cold on the windowsill, a cd player mid-skip, a sweater that might be his draped over the back of your desk chair. the chaos of it all unsettles him. the comfort of it? that’s what undoes him completely.

he never says so, but after the first time he sees your space—really sees it—he stops inviting you to his. keeps you on the couch in the lounge, sitting on yuji’s desk while they argue about which movie is worse (spoiler alert: they’re both terrible), curled under a throw blanket on a bench on the campus grounds…you don’t question it. you’re used to the way megumi loves: quiet and reluctant, like a secret too sacred to say out loud. he comes to your room regularly, choosing to sleep there more often than his own bed. the mess of it doesn't overwhelm him like he thought it might; if anything, it's comforting, just like your presence.

after a mission that shakes the ground beneath his feet, he slips into your bed. no words, no warning—just his body curling into yours like he’s homesick for something he can’t name. and you, still half-asleep, burrow into him like instinct. you never ask questions. you just hold him. it’s in those mornings after that megumi sees the version of you no one else does.

you're dignified by default. stoic, composed, always two steps ahead of your emotions. you keep your feelings buttoned down and folded neatly behind your eyes. but when the alarm shrieks at 6:00 am, all of that unravels.

you groan like you're being punished. a truly inhuman sound leaves your throat as you roll over and claw at the covers like a toddler protesting bedtime—but in reverse. “five more minutes,” you whine, wrapping yourself around him like a particularly needy sea creature. megumi’s already been awake for ten minutes. he’s well-rested. too well-rested. you smell like his shampoo. there’s a red line on your cheek from where you were pressed against his shoulder. he’s going insane, and you’re snoring.

when he finally peels you off him, you stumble around like you’ve never lived in your own body before. you trip over your desk chair. pull a t-shirt over your head and then realize you forgot deodorant. there’s a toothbrush hanging out of your mouth while you hop into your pants. your socks don’t match. you glare at your reflection like your own hair is personally attacking you. megumi just stands by your door, bag slung over his shoulder, watching like you’re performing high art. you are, in your own way.

you don't even notice how he stares. how his eyes track your every move, memorizing your rituals like prayers. how his lips twitch into the faintest smile when you attempt multitasking and nearly knock over your entire bookshelf. if you have time, your makeup is minimal—nothing more than a subtle enhancement. if you don’t, you mumble something about “au naturel” and try to tame your thick eyebrows with your fingers. he’s never once thought you looked anything but beautiful.

breakfast is always a surprise. sometimes a banana and a granola bar, sometimes a bagel that you throw in the toaster and forget about. sometimes just coffee—until he narrows his eyes at you, all judgment and concern, and you begrudgingly accept the yogurt he hands you. he pretends it’s not a big deal, and you pretend you’re not soft for it, and that’s the thing: he knows you. knows how you make lists in your head as you brush your teeth. knows how you always triple-check your bag before you leave, even though you’ve packed it the same way for years. knows that you’re meticulous in the field, a force in combat, and somehow still a barely-functional goblin in the mornings.

because in those chaotic, half-conscious mornings, he sees the parts of you that don’t belong to the world. the parts that are only his. and though you’ll never say it outright, when you sleep in his shirts and mouth “love you” into the hollow of his throat at midnight, megumi lets himself imagine what a life with you could look like. what it will look like, if he’s lucky enough. he’s always been quiet. always tried to need nothing, but he can no longer deny that he needs this, needs you.

toji never meant to fall in love with you. he thought you'd just be a good partner. reliable. sharp. someone who wouldn’t die and wouldn’t let him die either. that was it. simple. clean. professional.

but then, you were laughing at something during a stakeout—low and breathy, half-annoyed, half-amused—and he looked at you too long. just a second too long. and everything shifted. 

now you’re drooling on his pillow, hogging his blankets, tangling your legs with his in the middle of the night like you’ve always belonged there. like you own the place. (you do.) he wakes up before you sometimes. not always. sometimes he’ll sleep like the dead until you’re jabbing him in the ribs, sure he’s stopped breathing, well into the afternoon. but most mornings, especially when you have to leave and he doesn’t, toji’s eyes crack open just as the sky’s starting to blue.

he doesn’t say anything. just turns his head and looks at you. you’re all soft angles and slow breaths in the morning. face slack, hair a mess, limbs heavy with sleep. a far cry from the weapon you become once the day gets going. he used to think you were always on. always alert. calculated. it made him crazy, how good you were. unflinching. cold. but mornings peeled that mask right off you.

now he knows the truth: you are an absolute mess before sunrise. you roll out of bed like your bones don’t work. trudge to the bathroom half-blind, dragging your blanket with you like a child. you brush your teeth while he’s peeing and don’t even blink. he used to flinch at that kind of intimacy. used to brace for awkwardness. now? he just spits into the sink next to you and hands you a cup to rinse.

you're freezing, always, even in the summer. you steal his hoodie like you paid for it. tug it over your head with a sleepy grunt and shuffle around the apartment like a raccoon in sweats. and if he’s anywhere in the vicinity, you’re sliding your ice cube hands under his shirt without warning. he used to curse you out for that. the first few times, it pissed him off, but now? he waits for it. he wants it. it’s like a ritual. your sleepy little ambush, his warm back, your sigh of relief when his skin starts to thaw your fingers.

you don’t talk much. he likes that. if you say anything at all, it’s in a voice octaves lower than usual, cracked and rough and all kinds of sexy. a lazy, “you wan’ coffee? or jus’ water?” as you fumble with the kettle. toji doesn’t even really care, but he says yes to both just to hear you say something again.

you're utilitarian to your bones. cotton underwear, black cargos, tight long-sleeves. hair up and out of your face, braided or slicked back, always ready for a fight. you don’t like perfume, but you’re militant about deodorant. you’ve got a whole rant ready about it, and toji’s heard it at least fifteen times.

when you finally start getting serious—knife tucked into your boot, water bottle clipped to your bag, watch set five minutes fast—he’s already packed you breakfast. sometimes it’s leftovers. sometimes it’s a protein bar and an apple. sometimes it’s a whole sandwich because he knows you’ll skip lunch if things get dicey. that’s the thing about being toji’s girl: you’re never leaving the house unfed.

you grumble when he walks you to the door, squinting at the rising sun like it personally offended you. shiu’s already out front, tapping his watch like a smug little bastard.

you roll your eyes. toji does too. “dickhead,” he mutters. you smirk. and then, always, always, he says it: “call me if you need anything.”  you nod. “I mean it. help, food, ride, someone’s face punched in—call me.”

“I know,” you say. and you do.

you’re awake now—eyes sharp, movements clean, shoulders squared. the mask is back on. the girl who never misses a shot. who never runs late. who never lets anyone see her bleed. he loves her, too. but he especially loves the version of you who drools on his pillow and talks to him with your morning breath. who shuffles into the bathroom for a handful of seconds, forgetting what you even needed in there, who steals his clothes and stabs him in the kidneys with her toes under the covers. he never meant to fall in love with you. but he did. hard. and for once in his life, he’s not sorry about it.

suguru looks at you like you hung the moon with your bare hands. like the mere fact of your existence is a miracle that he’s unworthy of witnessing—but still gets to wake up to every single day. his love isn’t loud. it’s not brash or performative. no, it’s reverent. like worship. like prayer. like the kind of thing you kneel for. but don’t mistake quiet for passive—because his love is consuming. from the moment he met you, it bloomed in his chest like wildfire, and it took everything in him not to let it swallow you whole. he knew you were skittish. you flinched at dependency, floundered when anything felt too soft, too needed. so he was gentle. patient. devoted.

he chased you, but never cornered you. he adored you, but never overwhelmed. until one day… you let yourself want him back. let yourself need him. not just tolerate the idea, but cherish it. now? now you don’t just let him take care of you—you thrive in it.

mornings with suguru are quiet symphonies. always the same, whether the sun's up or not, whether there's a blizzard outside or birdsong at the window. his kisses—those feather-light things on your neck and shoulders—are always the first thing you feel. sometimes, they tickle. sometimes, they melt you. every time, they anchor you. the way he wakes you is an act of love. an offering. he murmurs sweet nothings into the shell of your ear, presses his nose to your jaw like he’s memorizing the shape of you all over again. it’s not performative—it’s ritual. because waking you up is sacred to him. he always gives you enough time. enough space. enough stillness. before suguru, you’d yank yourself out of bed like it owed you money. now, you rise slowly, curled in his arms, his warmth a tether. he makes sure there’s time for the both of you to exist together, unhurried and whole.

you hate the cold—but he kind of loves it. loves the way you cling to him in oversized sweaters and mismatched socks, trailing him like a ghost with cold feet and sleepy eyes. you wrap yourself around his middle while he brushes his teeth, lean back into his chest while you brush yours, half-asleep and adorable. he ties the back of your hoodie when the string gets stuck. he presses vitamins into your palm without a word. watching you take care of yourself has become his favorite show. doesn’t matter if your hair’s wild or your makeup’s half-finished—he watches you like you're magic. because you are.

and when you blush under the attention, flustered or a little grumbly—he only smiles. because that stage-light feeling, that spotlight you hate? he’ll soften it for you. dim it, until it just feels like a warm sunbeam you can bask in. suguru doesn’t just admire you—he tends to you. dresses you if you’re too sleepy to do it yourself. asks you quiet questions in that low morning voice of his—just to hear your sleepy replies. “how’d you sleep?” “want tea or coffee?” “you still love me, even with bedhead like this?” (he already knows the answer. he just likes the sound of you saying it.)

you used to dread mornings. used to drag yourself through them with caffeine and survival instincts. now, you’ve adopted his routine. slow. intentional. loving. breakfast is never skipped. you sit at the kitchen table in one of his hoodies while he scrambles eggs with one hand and keeps the other on your knee under the table. you talk—sometimes. sometimes you don’t. but it’s never awkward. just peaceful. familiar. and when it’s time to go? he insists on driving you. every time. even if he has nowhere to be. even if it’s an hour out of his way. even if you protest.

he shuts you up gently with a scarf wrapped around your neck, tugging it snug so it covers your mouth before you can argue. “you don’t inconvenience me,” he says, looking at you like you personally hung the stars. “you’re the whole reason i want to leave the house.” suguru geto teaches you that love doesn’t have to be chaos or ache. that needing someone doesn’t have to hurt. that mornings can be soft. that you can be soft. and every day you wake up like this, in his arms, in this bubble of quiet love—you start to believe him.

mornings with gojo are kind of a shitshow. they are not peaceful. they are not organized. they are not quiet. they’re a mess. but the kind you almost look forward to. a domestic battlefield, all tangled limbs and laughter. not elegant, but real. and weirdly sweet.

the first alarm doesn’t stand a chance. it’s silenced before it finishes the first note. gojo smacks his phone off the nightstand without opening his eyes, groaning something unintelligible as he drags you closer, burying his face in your neck like he's trying to go back in time. you're no better—clinging like your life depends on it, legs twisted around his like ivy. if one of you has to get up first, it feels like mourning.so no, you don’t get up the first time. or the second. and by the third alarm, you're already running late.

it’s chaos. blankets kicked off the bed. hair wild. clothes half-on, half-lost somewhere in the room. you’re tossing his uniform at him from across the bed while he’s in the bathroom, already wetting your toothbrush with one hand and brushing his own teeth with the other—finger-brushing, because his actual toothbrush is nowhere to be found. you don’t even question it anymore.

you swap places, brushing your teeth while he fumbles for deodorant, and he pinches your cheek like it’s some kind of reward for being cute. you swat him away. he just laughs, mouth full of foam, and then kisses your forehead anyway. two seconds later, he drops your moisturizer into the toilet. you shriek. he kisses you again before getting smacked on the hard plane of his chest.

shower time is not optional—not when you’re always getting home so late from missions or parties, one thing or another, you keep each other busy. you’re already so far behind that arguing over whose turn it is feels pointless. so you both squeeze in, barely dodging elbows and shampoo bottles, and immediately start bickering about who used the last of the conditioner (it was him). he gets soap in his eye. you nearly slip trying to rinse your face. it’s not graceful. it’s not romantic. but it’s yours. and honestly? it’s kind of perfect. you’re drying off with a towel that’s definitely damp from yesterday, grumbling softly about how he never does any laundry. 

getting ready is a two-person operation. he zips your jeans while you wrangle your mascara. you straighten his blindfold, then redo it because his “I did it cute” actually means “I did it crooked and wrong.” he brushes your hair while you slap on moisturizer (the toilet water was scrubbed off religiously), catches the jacket you toss over your shoulder without even glancing. it’s not impressive anymore. it’s just normal.

downstairs, he starts the coffee while yelling up, “don’t forget your phone again, I’m not turning around!” you shout back, “you forgot you whole ass wallet twice last week, satoru!” he makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like surrender.

you throw toast in the toaster. he pulls leftover pizza from the fridge, eats it cold off the plate. you steal a bite without asking. he lets you. the toast pops and hits the floor. he shrugs and you share it anyways. there’s no such thing as a smooth exit. you’re hopping into your shoes, still tugging on your jacket, while gojo fumbles for his keys that are somehow already in his hand. and before you can open the door, he’s there, pressing you back against it, arms around your waist, nose tucked under your jaw.

“you smell too good,” he mumbles, voice muffled by your skin. “I can’t walk into school like this. I’m gonna die.”

“then maybe stop sniffing me like a bloodhound,” you mutter, but your voice is soft. you don’t actually want him to move. he kisses you once, then again, just below your ear, because he knows exactly what that does.

“we are so fucking late,” you sigh, pulling away with effort.

“we are,” he agrees, not the least bit concerned, a corner of toast still sticking out of his mouth.

you steal it. eat it. smile. because yeah, you're always late. and yeah, it’s a mess. but you wouldn’t trade it for anything. you’re together. and somehow, that’s always enough.

mornings with ino are always a little...cluttered. not in a bad way. just in a way that feels like him—shoes untied, hoodie wrinkled, a bag half-packed with yesterday’s receipts and a granola bar he forgot to eat. a little chaotic, a little late, but somehow still endearing. somehow still yours.

you, on the other hand, are his opposite in almost every way. precise. polished. the kind of woman whose alarm only has to go off once. who showers every morning without fail, who lines up her skincare bottles in order of use, who styles her hair neatly and brushes her teeth with an electric toothbrush that charges on a little glass stand. you're not uptight about it—you’re actually quite gentle—but your routine is sharp, crisp, efficient. it works for you. and, in turn, it works for him.

because even though ino is a lifelong lover of the snooze button, he's gotten better about mornings. mostly because of you. you don’t demand he change, but he wants to see you before the day pulls you both in opposite directions. he’s slower to get up—body warm and heavy with sleep—but he always rises. sometimes with a groan. sometimes with a yawn so big it makes his jaw crack. but he sits there, criss-cross on the bed, watching you with half-lidded eyes as you glide across the room, already moving through your mental to-do list.

you float. that’s how he sees it. all grace and direction, even as you’re talking out loud to yourself, running over the day’s checklist. you’ve packed your bag already, and now you’re packing his—mumbling about mission protocol and check-in times, slipping clean socks into the side pocket of his bag because he always forgets. he barely hears the words. he’s too busy watching you, soaking you in.

and then, like clockwork, he reaches out and catches you by the arm, halting your momentum with a tug that turns into a hug. a tight one. a grounding one. his arms loop around your waist, chin on your shoulder, and he pulls you into the kind of embrace that slows time. you pretend to protest—hands flailing against his chest, muttering about how tight your schedule is—but you don’t mean it. you never do. you fold into him like you were made to, nose pressed to his neck, fingers curling in the hem of his shirt. he loves that he’s the only one who can get you to pause like this. that he can bring you down to earth with a single pull.

eventually, though, the moment passes. you straighten up, clear your throat, and suddenly you’re back in motion. back to telling him he cannot be late again today, nanami’s going to have his head if he strolls in like last time, and he better not forget his water bottle again either. you’re pulling his usual shirt out of the drawer—wrinkled, because it’s his, and he doesn’t fold things—and his boots are already waiting at the door. you’ve done half his prep without thinking, and he’s already halfway in love with you for the thousandth time that morning.

he gets dressed with practiced ease, catching up to your pace as best he can. you’re at the mirror now, checking your planner while sipping from your water bottle. he leans in the doorway for a moment, just watching. you’re organized in a way he’s never been, maybe never will be. and still, you’ve never tried to fix him. never tried to change the way he exists in the world. instead, you’ve just carved out space for him inside your calm, careful life. you’ve made room for his clutter, and he’s tried—quietly, earnestly—to keep from taking up too much of it.

breakfast is a shared effort. some days, you’re up earlier and you’ve already got eggs on the stove. other days, he insists on doing it, even if that just means microwaving rice and scrambling some eggs while you’re tightening your laces. there’s something primal in him—some quiet need to provide for you in any small way he can. he knows you don’t need him to, not with the way you handle yourself and the world like it’s second nature. but he wants to. just like he wants to be the one to bring you your coffee, even if you’re always the one who remembers to buy the coffee grounds. and you let him. that’s the part that gets him. you let him be messy. be flawed. be himself. you don’t organize his chaos—you just wrap your order around it. and he does the same. a little give, a little take. a quiet rhythm. a partnership.

by the time you’re both slipping into your shoes, double-checking your gear and grabbing your phones, he’s alert enough to match your stride. a little disheveled. a little behind. but not by much. just enough to still be ino. just enough to remind you that no matter how different your approaches may be, you fit together. somehow. and every time you open the door to leave, his hand finds yours. because while you’re ready for the day, he’s only ready if he’s walking into it beside you.

choso has never been a morning person. not even close. alarms were things to be ignored—suggestions at best, insults at worst. he’d been infamous for burrowing deeper into bed, refusing to get up until the last possible second. if yuuji wasn’t banging on his door, he wasn’t moving. but that was before you.

now, you sleep in his bed—your side always tucked, your phone charging at the exact same spot on the nightstand every night, your alarm set to go off at a reasonable time (not three snoozes past). and for reasons choso doesn’t fully understand but absolutely cherishes, your presence has shifted something in him. that piercing morning ringtone no longer signals agony—it signals that you’re awake. that you’re there. and that’s enough for him to stretch, groan a little, and roll out of bed.

he still isn’t graceful about it. you are. always have been. the type to wake up and start—quick to stand, quick to brush your teeth, quick to open the blinds and let the light in without mercy. at first, it threw him. you were so... together. your skincare routine looked like a ritual. your outfits were folded. you ate real breakfast and made to-do lists that had subcategories and little stars. and you loved him, this walking heap of tangled hair and forgotten socks, who lived out of a laundry basket and called cold pizza a food group.

in the beginning, it was rough. his mess got under your skin. the sheer entropy of his life felt like a direct attack on your peace. but somewhere between his sleepy mumblings and the way he always remembered your coffee just the way you liked it—even if he couldn’t remember where he put his own shoes—you adapted. you didn’t give in, didn’t lose your order, but you started distinguishing the kinds of messes. the ones that could stay. the ones that made you smile a little, because they were his. and choso, to his credit, learned too. learned which of his disasters stressed you out and which made you mutter under your breath before softening at the sight of him trying to fix it. now, mornings look different.

when the alarm rings, he’s still not thrilled—but he gets up. because you do. because he likes following you. there’s something sacred about being just one step behind you in the morning, watching you go through your routine like clockwork. he showers first, picking up the shirt you laid out for him the night before. notices how you’ve stacked his vitamins by the sink, folded a small towel just for him. he brushes his teeth lazily behind you as you do your hair, your reflection focused, brows slightly furrowed.

you’re talking. you always are in the mornings. half to him, half to yourself. running through everything you both have to do: meet with some jujutsu higher-ups, check in with yaga, lead the first years through drills, and then later, he has a solo mission. you make him swear, hand on heart and soul, that he’ll keep in touch during it—text you updates or you’ll kill him—and he nods solemnly, the toothbrush still in his mouth. you’re already scribbling the grocery list on the fridge notepad while flipping the eggs you’re somehow managing not to burn. he doesn’t understand how you do it all. how you can look so put-together with your morning voice and bedhead, still blinking the sleep out of your eyes. but he sees the details—the little imperfections that most would miss. the way you leaned into him before the sun came up, drooling a bit on his shirt (which he’d never bring up—maybe). the way you secretly liked his warmth, even if you always said you had things to do. you act like you’re immune to his mess, but he’s caught you smiling at it more than once.

he loves that. loves that his sharp-as-a-tack, painfully organized girlfriend makes time to cook him a full breakfast even when she has ten places to be. loves that you care. that your chaos isn’t external like his—it’s controlled, carefully hidden, but he knows where to look for it. and he cherishes every moment you let it show. by the time he’s dressed and ready, you’re already packing your bags. he kisses your temple, mumbles something low and grateful, something that sounds a lot like I don’t know how I got this lucky. and you roll your eyes, smack his shoulder, and tell him to hurry up, or we’ll be late again. choso is still chaos. still half a storm. but now, his favorite part of the day is waking up and realizing he gets to weather it with you.

kento isn’t really a morning person. not in the usual sense—not because he dislikes them, but because his nights are always far too long. between missions, paperwork, and the ever-looming weight of responsibility, sleep is often a luxury. still, the second his alarm so much as whispers, he’s up. responsible to a fault. you, however, are already stirring beside him.

you don’t need to be up yet. you could easily steal another hour or two. but there you are, yawning like a sleepy kitten, soft-eyed and blinking at the too-bright room. a drowsy smile pulls at your lips, and nanami covers it with his own in a kiss that lingers longer than it should, considering his schedule. “go back to sleep, sweetheart,” he murmurs against your cheek. but you never do.

he knows why. time with him is precious—rare, rationed like sunlight in a long winter. if it were up to you, you’d follow him around all day, clinging to his side like a koala. and if it were up to him? he’d let you. he’d carry you through the dullest meetings, the longest train rides, the most irritating bureaucracy, if it meant keeping you close.

mornings are slow, quiet things in your shared home. you pad into the bathroom after him, still half-asleep, rubbing your eyes and bumping gently into his side as you lean on him. he steadies you with a hand at your waist, fondness blooming in his chest at the sight of you so undone by sleep. it’s a side of you few people ever see. but he sees it every day, and it never fails to make him ache with how much he loves you.

you don’t talk much this early. mostly just let him murmur about the day ahead—checking in with gojo, supervising the first years, writing up reports that he knows no one will read. the mention of missions makes your body tense ever so slightly. he notices. he always notices. so he pauses. turns to you. brushes a hand along your jaw and swears, like he always does: “I’m always safe. I’ll always come home to you.” your brow relaxes. you nod, brushing your teeth with half-hearted effort, still swaying slightly with the weight of sleep. you lean against him, and he lets you, anchoring you with an arm around your shoulders as you both move to the closet. he lets you pick his suit, because he knows it perks you up. you take it seriously, even in your pajama shorts and socks with the little frills. he watches you squint at ties like you’re choosing between life and death. he says nothing, lets you have this moment, this ritual, this say in his day.

“you know,” he says, just like always, buttoning the shirt you chose, “you can sleep in. you don’t have to wake up just for me.” but you wave him off, as always. and secretly? he’s glad you don’t listen. he likes seeing you like this—sweet and docile, blinking up at him with half-lidded eyes, still caught between dreams and reality. it does something to him, knowing that he is the one you choose to wake up early for.

he watches you zone out in front of the coffee pot, you nearly nod off while washing your face, and he wraps his arms around your waist, steadying you with a low chuckle. some mornings, when time permits, he tucks you back into bed. presses kisses into your hair. tells you he’ll be back before dinner.

and then, hours later, when the chaos of the day tries to wear him thin, he opens his lunch and finds your note. scrawled in sleepy handwriting, letters just a little crooked, maybe even a smear of peanut butter at the corner.

I love you. be safe. come home to me. he reads it twice. tucks it into his jacket pocket like a sacred artifact. it stays there all day. tired or not, mornings have become nanami’s favorite, despite how he used to hate them. because you're there.

yuuji has always been a morning disaster.. in a “toothbrush hanging out of his mouth while he drools into the sink, one eye open, pants backwards, tripping over his own feet” kind of way. megumi was always the gold standard of functioning morning people. yuuji remembers those old sleepovers vividly—megumi, freshly showered and dressed, out the door by 6:45; and yuuji, still horizontal, trying to figure out how to open both eyes at the same time. they weren’t even in the same time zone. he used to think that’s just how mornings were. a battlefield. a struggle. something to survive, not enjoy.

the first time he stayed over, it was innocent—too many movies, too many snacks, both of you too tired to do anything but collapse into your bed, limbs tangled. he woke up expecting to panic, expecting the usual mad rush, the existential dread of being late.

but instead, he woke up to you. still half-asleep, your face smushed against your pillow, hair everywhere, wearing his oversized hoodie with the sleeves bunched around your hands, looking soft and warm and so painfully pretty it made his chest hurt. the sun spilled across the sheets in lazy ribbons and for the first time in his life, yuuji didn’t mind being awake too early. 

now, your room feels like a second home. maybe even his first. every inch of it is you—from the polaroids strung across your wall (many of them of the two of you, caught in grinning, blurry moments), to the sketches you doodled in class and couldn't bear to throw away if they were of him. there's the stuffed bear he won you at that fair when he definitely cheated at ring toss but still swears he didn’t. there’s the faint scent of your perfume on his old hoodie that you “borrowed” months ago and never gave back. it’s messy, but intentional. soft, but lived-in. like a physical manifestation of how he feels when you hold his hand in public—completely, irrevocably wanted. and the mornings? absolute chaos.

yuuji snoozes the alarm three times because being the big spoon is a full-time job. he likes to pretend he’s shielding you from the cruel, cold world outside the covers. it’s not heroism—it’s self-indulgent comfort.

eventually, you groan, stretch, and whine about being late. but it’s not angry. it’s not urgent. it’s familiar and funny and lazy in a way that makes yuuji smile into your shoulder. you're no better in the mornings than he is, most of the time. your hair is a battlefield, you accidentally wear yesterday’s socks more than you’ll admit, and you forget what day it is at least twice a week before your first sip of tea. but it’s all endearing. you’re endearing. especially when you make an attempt to pull it all together.

you’re both stuffing things into your backpacks, grabbing half-packed snacks, checking to make sure you didn’t your notes again. you both try to tame your appearances just enough to not look like complete disasters in front of yaga—though that never stops him from lecturing you both about punctuality like it’s a religion and you’ve committed high blasphemy.

but the chaos is beautiful. you are beautiful. and this morning mess you’ve made together? it’s everything to yuuji. he watches you comb your hair with exactly one functioning brain cell, still half in dreamland. sometimes you accidentally drinking out of his water bottle instead of your own, and when you sheepishly apologize, he just shrugs and says, “you literally used my toothbrush on accident last week, babe. we’re past the point of no return.” and you know he means it—yuuji doesn’t care about any of that. he cares about you.

every morning, without fail, he kisses you. sometimes it’s quick, sometimes it’s deep and syrupy and a little over-the-top. either way, it gets nobara groaning, waving her hands in front of her face like she’s trying to physically block out the pda. “save it for after missions,” she grumbles, bonking yuuji on the head with a textbook. but he doesn’t care. he never cares.

because there was a time, not too long ago, when he didn’t have this. when mornings were lonely and frantic and nothing special. but now he gets to wake up late and warm and in love, with someone who understands him, matches his chaos, and still somehow makes him feel like the luckiest idiot alive. you’ve integrated him into your life so effortlessly it makes his heart ache. you’re wrapped around every corner of his day. he sees you in his notes, hears you in his music, tastes you in every sweet bite you sneak into his lunchbox. and in the mornings—when he’s drowsy and soft and honest—he thinks, I never want to wake up without her again. and that thought alone? that’s enough to get him out of bed.

dividers by @cafekitsune

[olive-recs]

the very moment i saw the word count on this indescribable (curse you, damien nazario and playchoices circa 2018) beauty, i bookmarked and saved it for a time when i could more properly loose my goddamn mind and wow, did i underestimate the sheer size of your mindddddddddddddd.

clara, dear devoted delicate, i simply must know, first: did you simply stumble into the redshift, blueshift symbolism or did you know this from the jump and built the whole story around it? also, how did you hold yourself back from making the title relate to it? it was a GORGEOUS thing to run into and devoted, behold in the middle of a story i knew was gonna be catered to me (angst????? by YOU???????? oh, there never has been and never will be anything quite like it, you always how how to so uniquely crush me by degrees until you've demolished me whole <3333) and it was simply so delicious and so delightfully profound that i don't think, if i were you, i would have had the strength to not spoil it from the moment the writing began, or yell about it on our dms, or make it the whole axis from which the whole of the story revolved: the title, the beginning sentence, the synopsis, the whole meal????

(i do love and admire so deeply how you casually sprinkle it in before the cut. yet unexplained, a bite that doesn't yet know it's sting)

and then!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ohymygoddddddd your writing never fails to leave me so wholly breathless, entirely reverent, on the floor in deference, grasping for the barest bit of veil to venerate and kiss like!!!!!! you do that!!!!! lyrically!!!!!!!!! oh, you have such command over language, the likes of which i can never comprehend but so desperately want to hold <33333. you're cadence and flow is a river, and the fact that you give me access to sit on it's banks and watch it bubble and ebb and drift from me... will never be ungrateful ever again, oh, it has been too long since i have let your prose flow through me and invigorate what is long dead <3333.

and the way you write romance!!!! so hopeful and steady and true!!!!! opening itself up only for the right moment at the right time, and i a spectator to it's glow!!!! the only romance i will ever truly hold in the highest of esteem is one written by you. you understand it's softness in a way i can never regard and everyone else needs to shut up, i only want to hear love stories from youuuuuu.

· · · · ♡ THREE BILLION GIRLS (YET I WANT YOU)

… starring carlos sainz x f!reader ... 9.5k words ... in which there are seven billion humans on earth, maybe three billion girls in the universe—but carlos sainz only loves one. ... soundtrack dans l'univers by nekfeu ft. vanessa paradis ... featuring angst, fluff, second chance romance, language, alcohol, lando norris & carlos sr. as supportive characters, suggestive content, one mention of smut, carlos dates other women (Not Cheating), thalassophobia (? there's one scene on a boat at sea), reader is some kind of space scientist (left vague). english is not my first language. ... author notes this fic is full of physics because physics is the secret poetry of the universe. a girl's gotta use her engineering degree somehow! requested by and dedicated to the talented brilliant showstopping @ivyquity ‹𝟹 MASTERLIST / ASK BOX

MERCURY.

SÃO PAULO, 2019.

Carlos wasn’t sure why he was reminded of the planets all of a sudden.

No evening could have been more different from this than the last time he’d seen the planets, though. The treacly heat of the nightclub, funk basslines snarling through the floor and into his ribs, the relentless procession of limbs twisting to the pulse; nothing of that other night remained. The planets had dissolved. And yet—

the tint of the lights, bleeding from mauve into wine into the deepest cosmic blue—

(What had she called them, those shimmering spectres of space? Redshifts? Blueshifts?)

—rays of false stars, tumbling from the ceiling and spinning at the edge of his vision…

Fucking hell. He looked down at the glass in his hand, where the liquor was swaying with him. No planets there. This was intoxication of a lesser kind. Mundane.

It should have been anything but, he thought, lips curled in a half-scorn. It wasn’t every day one partied in Brazil; not every day one earned a first podium in Formula One.

And it wasn’t every day one counted one hundred and eighty days since a breakup.

A face peeled from the blur of the crowd, eyes alight, lips drawn in the pull of laughter, and Carlos swallowed back the bile before it could rise to his throat. On anyone else, a joy so unchecked would’ve felt jarring, but he had learned young Lando’s agitation was to be received whole, not understood.

“Smoooooooth operatorrrrrrr,” the Brit slurred, wrapping a sweaty arm around his teammate’s neck. “How you doing, podium sitter?”

“Landooooo,” Carlos replied in the same sing-songy manner. “You abandoned me. You were out there… DJing.” Carlos wasn’t sure who was drunker now—him,  whose speech was definitely more accented and slurred than he’d imagined, or giggly Lando, for whom every accented and slurred word he spoke was the peak of hilarity. “What’s your problem?”

“That’s not even a word, mate, that’s… it’s mixing. Mixing,” he repeated, self-important.

“How about you mix your racing with some overtakes?”

“Arsehole.” As always, the swat he gave his stomach packed no punch, just affection. As always, Lando evaded Carlos’ chokehold to ruffle his hair, just barely, and the sudden doubling over had the Spaniard’s head spinning dangerously. No play fighting four cocktails deep. Got it.

“No, but for real, how are you doing?” Lando took advantage of the lull between songs—a transition almost less awkward than what he could’ve come up with—to yell the question above the noise.

“Great! How could I be anything else than great?” Carlos laughed, genuine enough, thankfully, to fool Lando.

“No, I mean how are you do-ing,” he pressed, sweeping his gaze over the dance floor below, the tables and bursts of champagne fireworks.

It took one more chin-jab, cartoonish and anything but subtle, at a group of women by the bar for Carlos to finally catch on.

“Come on! There’s got to be someone who caught your eye. This place is literally swarming with hot girls.”

“I…” Again those galactic lights burned into his retinas, blotting out the crowd, the dancers, their gold and emerald jewelry, until only remained the smoldering unease of the void. Like leaning over the edge of the Milky Way. “Yeah. I don’t know. Not sure I’m in the mood tonight.”

“When are you ever gonna be in the mood if not when you get a podium? In Brazil?”

“When I win in Brazil?”

Lando chuckled, but shook his head. “Mate, I get it’s been rough, but that was—when did you guys break up again?”

“May.” The twenty-first.

“Right, May. So that’s like…” One, two, three, four, five fingers and a furrowed brow. “... six months ago, no?”

One hundred and eighty days, on the dot. He’d been counting every last one. “Yeah, more or less, I think.”

“Don’t you think it’s time to get back on the field? Dip your toes a little? I think you’re just, like, out of practice, mate.” Carlos must’ve pulled a face right then, because Lando held up both his hands, almost knocking over some guy’s drink. “I’m not saying she has to be the love of your life or whatever! It’s just about moving on. And not… ruminating like you are.”

“Ruminating? What am I, a cow?”

“No, a bull,” Lando beamed. “What was it again? El Matador?” His gaze trailed off to the side, where two young women, long straight hair and leather miniskirts catching the club lights, had been stealing glances at the drivers since the beginning of the conversation. Carlos followed. The brunette he locked eyes with did not look away first. “So get back to the ring.”

There certainly was some merit to Lando’s reasoning, however unwilling Carlos had been to see it. At least, not right away—not when Lando vanished back into the crowd and he was swept up by his team. Not when they paid him a line of shots and carried him into a euphoric whirlwind of Spanish shouts. Not when they hoisted him onto their shoulders in front of the DJ booth and, from the height of his newfound apex, he locked eyes again with the dark-haired girl. Unyielding. Alluring.

Dip your toes a little, had said Lando five shots ago. Those same feet now tingled with a new kind of electricity as they carried him toward her. She’d seen him coming from afar, was already watching him with the ghost of a smile playing at her lips well before he’d found the nerve to approach. 

He wasn’t thinking of planets anymore, even though the supernova-colored spotlights on her ochre skin shone brighter than ever. Like watching the same scene play out from the far end of the galaxy.

“Hola,” he huffed out. “I’m Carlos.”

She giggled, biting her lip, “Eu sei quem é você.”

She was gorgeous, exposed neck like the bronze he’d just won and dark doe eyes begging to touch him and… and blurry features melting into one another and the darkness of the club, a faceless dream you remember so long as you don’t blink.

She didn’t say anything more, just smiled at him like the sun, and the next second his mouth was on hers, one hand pressing her waist flush against him. She’d opened her lips before they’d even met his, and her warm tongue distilled the aroma of alcohol into his mouth when she moaned into the kiss. Her fingers tugged slightly at his disheveled hair, settling at the nape of his neck; slowly, so slowly, his hand snaked down her back, cradling the curve where her miniskirt ended.

He thought it was the leather, cold and callous under his fingertips, before he realized he really was touching her skin. She was cold. Not even cold, really, but—lukewarm. Tepid. Like her very skin held back, uncommitted; yet her hands caressed his neck, her kiss grew famished. No—she wasn’t cold. She wasn’t hesitant. He was.

He forced his eyes shut, pleading, begging the spiral of thoughts in his head to wane, to relax—enjoy it enjoy it enjoy it you want this; scanning the flow of his own veins, every part of him she grinded against for a flush of heat, for a glimmer of desire—and came up short. Not even the coarse rumble of lust. Nothing.

The smoldering unease of the void.

Jupiter, he thought then like a drowning man breaking the surface of the ocean. That’s what her big brown eyes reminded him of. Jupiter.

He broke the kiss with a retch. She stared, with her head tilted to the side and blinking fast—to avoid those Jupiter eyes Carlos had no choice but to look at her swollen lips, but this was unbearable too, so he unfocused his vision to an indefinite point over her shoulder.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he repeated louder, not hearing himself over his tinnitus. “I have to go.”

“Está bem? Are you okay?”

“Sí, sí, yeah, I—I have to go. I’m sorry.”

If he stayed one minute in the club—with his mouth dry, his body adrift in a tangle of other bodies, hot then cold and spinning like tops—he was going to throw up. Eyes fixed on the floor, he pushed his way toward the exit, but he hadn’t made it ten steps before stumbling into Caco, thank God. A steadying pat on the shoulder, a look hovering somewhere between scolding and concern, and then they were out on the street, scratched raw by the cold breath of the Brazilian night.

Carlos was still panting when he drew out his phone. 4:59 in São Paulo—and just beneath, though the difference had long since etched itself into habit, Spain’s time. 9:59. She would be awake. She would be at work. She would be lost in her solar kingdom…

He turned his back on his cousin slightly as he scrolled through his contacts, like he knew this was a mistake he was intoxicated enough to make. Letter by swaying letter, each keystroke a lurch through an unstrung chicane, he typed the name until it surfaced.

One hundred and eighty-one days now.

His thumb hovered over there, heavy. Above the name he hadn’t dared to summon aloud in all that time. Like a fault line you don’t name, afraid it might finally split.

Headlights split the night, and a sedan slid into the curve at the end of the elegant marble drive. Someone took him by the arm; he nearly dropped the phone as he stuffed it deep in his pocket. All the planets and their ink-dark sky were swallowed by leather and gasoline.

Like many Madrileños before him, Carlos has never visited his city.

Through no fault of his own, he would retort somewhat defensively when asked. That’s just what happens when you’re the child of a sprawling city; you have no time for her as she has no time for you. How many Parisians have never climbed the Eiffel Tower, or New Yorkers the Empire State? 

So your wide eyes and catastrophized gasp do not come as a surprise when he admits he’s never sat on the velvet cushions of the Lope de Vega theater. Never had his breath stolen out of his chest by the immensity of the Guernica. Never even slumped at a marble-topped table in San Ginés, worn out at dawn, cradling the chocolate con churros of the capital…

“Do you even live here?” you question after he confesses his one and only visit to the Catedral de la Almudena dates back to a decade.

“Of course I live here, that’s why I don’t do all that stuff. It’s for tourists. And I do know Madrid,” his voice perks up. “I’ve been to the Prado and the Royal Palace and the Bernabéu a million times.”

“Because your dad is always getting invited places! You’ve never lazed about the city, seen her just for the sake of seeing her. Twenty-two years on Earth and you’ve spent them all looking for cheap thrills all over the world instead of discovering what’s right in front of you.”

Those kinds of conversations always end with that little pout of his, and the way you look at him: insistently, already dreaming up some wild plan to fill in the gaps of his illustrious little prince education.

He’s walked thousands of streets with you, seen thousands of landscapes in the years he’s known you—beautiful and remote and sometimes crass and adventurous and accidental—but his favorites are always the ones you choose. Gravity in those places feels more supple. Soft enough to make him forget the smell of scorched rubber; botanical gardens full of sickly-sweet flowers that seem to bloom open in your wake, following your laughter; hidden restaurants tucked away between sun-warmed stones in the Mediterranean…

and above all, the planetarium.

It’s your most revolted reaction yet, and it starts with a game of Trivial Pursuit at his parents’. A question about the first manned mission to the Moon—and, frankly, not even that easy of a question, may he be forgiven—has Carlos grimacing and his mother throwing her head back with a hopeless, “Ay, hijo, how do you not know this!” Carlos Sr. interjects with his good-humored tone (Come on, Reyes, I don’t think he was paying too much attention to that in school), his son attempts to defend himself (I don’t even know the order of the planets! How am I supposed to know this?), but the damage is done.

Carlos Sainz will not go one day longer without knowing everything there is to know about the planets.

Lucky thing you are assigned closing hour the following Monday.

The planetarium’s main room is long deserted by the time you shoot Carlos a text message—“you can come out of hiding now, tonti”. All the school excursions and strolling pensioners have kindly been kicked out by your little white lie, something about the projection room closing early for maintenance; and there is no way any other staff would investigate the lack of visitors at 5 p.m. instead of quietly scurrying home. Still, Carlos waits five long minutes before he slips out the side door, his fist tight around… a balaclava?

“What the hell is that?” you giggle as his head swipes the room, cautious. “Do you think we’re robbing a bank?”

“I don’t know, I thought there might be cameras in here,” is all the defense he has, and you snort.

“I can tell you’ve never done anything slightly rebellious,” you roll your eyes, but he wraps his arms around you from behind and you melt like you always do. “No, the nose ring doesn’t count.”

“I could’ve gotten expelled! They were super strict!”

“You, Carlos Sainz Junior, could not have gotten expelled from anywhere.”

He chuckles, an unhurried thing rumbling against your back, and buries a kiss in your hair before freezing up.

“This isn’t, like, illegal, though, right?”

You whip around, stealing the balaclava from his grasp and dangling it in front of his face. Daring him to reach for it. “What if it is?”

“Well I’d probably lose my job.” He can’t stop smiling, despite the seriousness of his words, like your closeness chisels the bronze of his lips into a perpetual grin. “I don’t think McLaren would like that look on one of their drivers.”

“For guys whose job is literally speeding, you lot sure are booooring.”

“Sorry I’m not exciting enough for you, miss astrophysics.”

You click your tongue in mock outrage, and he leans in for a forgiveness peck but you’re quicker to push him away, grabbing him by the shoulders and turning him around.

“Nuh-uh! Time for the conference now. Hope you brought something to take notes, cause there’s a surprise quiz at the end.”

He mutters something about bringing it on and not being scared when you sit him down in the front row’s deep-blue cushioned seats, palms outstretched in front of you and a half-stern glare like you’re trying to get an unruly puppy to behave. Surprisingly, he shuts up, and you miss the fond gaze he drapes upon you as you type commands away into the computer—until suddenly all the lights in the room flicker to sleep, like inhabited by a more secret kind of life… and slowly at first, then like silent starbursts, planets and constellations and comets emerge from the void, as though beckoning the curious closer. It’s a spectacle you’ve seen hundreds of times, colorful reflections sprawled across thousands of enthralled kids’ faces… but you know no star that shines brighter than Carlos’ eyes as you take the stage just for him.

“Welcome to the Madrid planetarium,” the words come out chipper, though unmistakably rehearsed. “You are about to embark on a voyage across the cosm— Carlos!” your shoulders slump, pouting at his wheezes. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Sorry, sorry, it’s just… I never thought I’d see you like that. At work. It’s a little funny.” His gaze roams over your body, from the pin to your breast pocket and the corded card around your neck, to the tight updo you’ve locked your hair in—you never do them that way at home, nor do you paint your lips so. He’s thought about it before—how you’ve been to a few races, witnessed him don the fireproofs and the helmet and disappear into the car, as though swallowed by the higher existence of the team, the speed; but he never returned the favor. Until now. “You look smart. I mean I know you’re smart, but now I can tell just by looking at you.”

An intense blush creeps over your cheeks, though thankfully the ambient night obscures it.

“Please save all your remarks for the end.” And, very softly: “Thank you.”

You know his smirk is not going anywhere anytime soon, so you carry on, comically louder.

“So! As I was saying…”

The usual lecture is forty-five minutes: enough to cover an introduction to planetology and crack a few jokes with the audience without boring the kids to—literal—tears. With Carlos, though, time dilates. He’s quiet at first, bewitched by your ease as you recount all the things the planets have whispered to you. Slowly, though, his timidity wanes, and he asks more questions, surprisingly pertinent (though he can’t help slipping in a cocky “What planet is the hot guide from?”), until Carlos, the riotous kid who used to race past the world, takes the time to bask in it. You show, you tell, you open the vault for all the little things you know about astronomy; tales and figures spill out of you like a solar flare, and each ray touches Carlos’ heart with an overpowering sense of warmth.

By the time you suggest you move on to a more immersive part of the exhibit, he is a hundred times more in love with you than he was before he met Mercury.

And so it may be an hour, or perhaps two, after Carlos snuck into the planetarium after hours, and you’re both lying on the night-dark carpeted floor—“No way I’m letting my hair touch that, you really don’t wanna know when this was last cleaned.” “Well lay your head on me, then.”—with your eyes fixed on the spherical roof where celestial shapes parade. Lazily, like dust shelling off the sky.

Neither of you have spoken in what feels like centuries, and the rise and fall of Carlos’ chest beneath your neck almost matches Antares’ pulsating glow. Over your heads, numerical meteors ignite and vanish.

“How did they manage to send rocketships and satellites so far away?”

He shimmies a little underneath you, like the sudden question wiggles within.

“All these distances you mentioned, they’re all so huge. How do we send and pilot stuff so far out there? Wouldn’t they run out of fuel?”

You smile like the break of dawn.

“Not everything is about gasoline, racer boy.”

“That’s not what I implied,” he groans with a little shake of the head, the citrus of his shampoo enveloping your nostrils.

“I know. Well, most spatial vehicles don’t run on fuel. Only rockets do, for brief minutes. The rest are solar or nuclear-powered, and besides… engineers know a trick or two.”

“Like?”

He speaks with the rising inflexion of a diligent student, the one you’ve heard him get with Tom Stallard once or twice before, and you laugh to yourself at the idea he might be hoping to draw inspiration from astromechanics for his car’s next breakthrough.

“Like… You ever hear about a gravitational slingshot?”

“Mi vida, one hour ago I had no idea that half the planets don’t actually have solid ground.”

His chuckle sounds exactly how you imagine the Big Dipper does, when she shakes off her morning dew before disappearing into the rosy horizon, so you chuckle back.

“Okay, well, a gravitational slingshot is… a way for probes to travel to the ends of the solar system with minimal energy. You throw your satellite into the path of a bigger body, say, a planet, and use the momentum from its orbit to propel it forward. Somewhat like swinging from vine to vine in the jungle.”

“So is it a bit like using the slipstream from the car ahead of you?”

Of course he’d find a way to tie it back to the cars.

“In a way, yes.” One of his hands nestles in your hair, scratching it softly. Overhead, Saturn preens its rings like a peacock’s feathers. “But think of it more as… galactic hitchhiking. You use it to adjust trajectory more than speed. These planets, they’re on their invariable course through the universe, and you’re meeting them for a fraction of an instant to redirect your path. Get you where you wanna go. The calculations have to be exact… or else you might be too late or too early for the rendezvous. Like Voyager I,” you straighten up slightly, careful not to elbow Carlos, and draw imaginary lines across the ceiling. Too absorbed in your explanation to notice he’s only staring at your fingers and the golden threads they weave. “They launched it precisely at the right moment, on a slightly offset path, so it would meet Jupiter. And it did, and it got caught in its orbit, and that’s when they gave it just a little extra power boost and boom—off it went into the void and on its correct course.” You angle your head up to meet his face. “Isn’t that romantic? How they were interstellar soulmates?”

“It’s just a big box of metal and an even bigger ball of gas,” Carlos chuckles.

“Oh come on, I’m sure you have a lot to say about the poetry of big boxes of metal.”

His smile remains on his face long after Saturn has dipped below the artificial horizon, making way for constellations with names he can barely read. His voice comes out a little subdued, though, when he asks after a while:

“What would’ve happened if Voyager I had missed its shot and never met Jupiter?”

You shrug. Perhaps the tragedy of it all doesn’t weigh on you the way it does Carlos.

“Maybe it would’ve met another planet, and that would’ve sent it in a totally erroneous direction. Or maybe it would’ve just drifted off into the void forever. Who knows? The only important thing is they did find each other, and it did work out.”

Pensive, Carlos plays with your hair, wrapping and unwrapping it around his finger. As always when he’s entirely surrendered to you, he forgets. He forgets about the smell of charred rubber and unimpressive lap times cascading one after the other—forgets the omnipresent roar of the engine and inhumane shriek of the crowd. You alter gravity, make it more bearable; alleviate the g-forces.

In a year or so, he will make the gravest mistake of his life—he will confuse lightness with lack, bliss with distraction. He will panic, for the very first time in his life, and he will cut you off. At once so it hurts less—so he doesn’t get the time to hurt and you to hate him—because when you are standing in Mattia Binotto’s office and he offhandedly mentions Sebastian Vettel doesn’t want his red seat next year, you cannot ever afford to forget about the rubber and the lap times and the engine and the crowd.

For now, though, he lets the beams of your sun bathe him in the tranquil glory he’ll forget later.

“I feel like you’re a bit like my Jupiter at times, aren’t you?” he murmurs against the crown of your head. “Putting me on the right track when I stray too far.”

“Hope that means you’re always staying in my orbit,” you reply, tummy fluttering with love at his words.

But you know it better than anyone, don’t you?—

All it takes is a just a little extra power boost and boom—

off he goes into the void.

VENUS.

MILTON KEYNES, 2022.

It wasn’t raining the very first time Carlos Sainz climbed the top step of a Formula 1 podium, though until the end of time he would remember it that way.

Perhaps the champagne droplets Checo drenched his race suit with left a more striking impression than he thought, colder than he remembered. Perhaps it was his sweat, dripping from his helmet and down his temples. Or perhaps he needed something external to explain the vague gloom he’d felt that day, and he’d decided to blame the sky.

The celebrations themselves had been dizzying: a whirlwind of cheers and congratulations and crimson fists raised in the air; his father hugging him tight, and Lando, excitable, loving Lando running up to congratulate him for his first victory in red. His first victory ever—¡lo conseguiste, cabrón, y con Ferrari! 

Never had he ever heard a sweeter Marcha Real than the one lauding him on English soil. The sound etched itself in his mind, like all the Tifosi’s adoring eyes lifting toward him.

A tiny serpent wrapped around his ear murmured that one pair of eyes was missing. The drums of Fratelli d’Italia drowned it out.

Later, after he’d answered every question and taken every picture, when he reconvened with his father in the quiet of his driver room and unlocked his phone to zero missed calls, the indefinite malaise he’d felt rising all weekend came growling back. He braced himself as he dialed the number and pressed his phone to his ear.

He should’ve been feeling anything but weighed down by those wormy nerves in the pit of his stomach. He should’ve been triumphant and invincible and…

“Hello?”

“Hi, love,” he said, bracing himself for an outcome he already knew would not be different than every other time. “Um, just calling to let you know I won the race.”

“You did? Oh, wow, congrats!” her voice was shiny with enthusiasm, genuine and gentle, just like she always was—charming and polite and chipper—, but there was an edge of confusion to it that Carlos could never miss. “But, um… I thought it was yesterday?”

“I…” he scoffed, bit the inside of his mouth as he wondered if this was worth feeling defeated over. Probably not. Not today, at least. “Yesterday was the qualification round, remember what I explained to you? So I won that too, but that just means I started first for the race today. And that’s what I just won right now. That’s the important part.”

“Oh! Right.” At what point did her flippancy become too frequent, too intentional, to be excused by her sweet and kind disposition? How long until he’d start resenting a partner who did not shoulder anything of the world alongside him? “That’s great! Proud of you.”

“So… I take it you weren’t able to catch the race on TV?” Like she’d said she would. Then again, had he attended any of her fashion shows lately, or had he been furiously cycling down some bumpy slope in the Alps?

“No, sorry, I was out for brunch with the girls and then since I thought it was yesterday and all—” she droned on and on, but Carlos was already out of it, struggling to avoid the knowing, empathetic looks from his father. “But that’s okay, I’ll watch it on YouTube or something. Right after I get my prediction for Cancer season,” a little giggle escaped her. “You know, I might be more emotional than usual this summer, because—”

Astrology was always her favorite cheat sheet to look at the world, its deepest secrets and inner workings unveiled by the fantastical movements of planets and constellations. Carlos didn’t believe much of that—to be fair he didn’t believe much of anything that wasn’t computable, solvable, and repeatable—but for her he had been willing to give it a try. He’d jokingly asked her to intercede for him, pray that the twelve houses trace a clement path for him at Ferrari, but she’d looked terribly offended about the implication you could ask anything of the planets, and he hadn’t uttered another word about the cosmos since.

“I’m a Libra, right, so that means I’m ruled by Venus,” she’d excitedly rambled on one of their first dates. “So that means I’m really lovey-dovey, sensitive to aesthetics, and all that. My modeling career and all; that was all written. Predestined. Because of Venus, cause it’s the planet of love and beauty. You know anything about Venus?”

And to anyone else he would have answered the truth—what Venus had whispered to him years before. I know a day on Venus is longer than a year. I know Venus is so bright it was originally believed to be a star. I know astrophysicists debated the possibility of life in her clouds but she was ultimately ruled out as “too hostile”.

“No, I don’t. I think I’m a Virgo though?”

When he hung up, after a “Bye, love you” he’d hoped was earnest enough, Carlos turned to his father and his shoulders fell. The older man was already looking at him, decades of careful love swimming in his eyes.

“I know what you’re gonna say.”

“What am I going to say?”

Now his son was taller than him, but if he could have, Carlos Sr. would have crouched down to the floor and patted his little head gently. As though he weren’t a two-time world champion, but simply a dad with the answer to every question in the world.

You’re gonna say that she’s not Y/N. You always wished I’d never broken up with Y/N.

“That I’m not right for her and she’s not right for me and you have no idea why we’re even together? It's been months and she can’t even remember how a race weekend works.”

Young Carlos drooped against the wall with a soft thud, muscles still sore from fighting gravity and lifting gold trophies, and threw his head back to stare at the ceiling. Unable to look at his father, who replied in the soft, measured tone he’d use when his son would lose hope in karting.

“Well, I never said that, and I think you’re putting words you believe in my mouth to legitimize yourself. And you’re being harsh on her. Do you know what her workday is like?”

The race winner sighed, a long, thick breath escaping through his nose like it had been trapped in there for thousands of years.

“It’s just… I can’t connect with her. I can’t connect with anyone. We’re so… mismatched. But she’s kind, and she’s so patient with me. That’s kind of all I can ask of anyone, with the life I lead.”

“No, Carletes.” Slowly, Carlos Sainz picked up his son’s Silverstone trophy and handed it to him. Just like he would the stuffed animals thrown off the bed by a frantic nightmare. “It’s precisely because you lead this life that you need the best copilot you can find. Someone who’s there for you through thick and thin, and challenges you, but keeps you on track.”

A small beat. Then muscle memory kicked in, and Carlos’ head dipped against his father’s shoulder, like a mighty willow bending to the tempest. The father cradled the son, wrinkled hand caressing the bark of his strong neck.

“Things will make sense, hijo. They always do in the end.”

Like planets locking into place, on the same orbits until the end of time and long after that.

“What’s this one?”

“That’s Vega.”

“That’s Vega,” he mutters in a mocking tone, slightly muffled by your head on his abdomen.

“What?” you chuckle.

“You say that like it’s obvious! Like it’s sooooo easy.”

“It is obvious, it’s my job, Carlos! It’s like if I asked you what the yellow line on the edge of the tire means.”

“Okay, okay, well…” He cranes his neck, scanning the animated ceiling for just the speck of stardust that will end your streak. “Ooh, and this one?”

Squinting your eyes, you try to make out the small dot Carlos is pointing at… before your lips melt into a knowing smile.

“You’re taking the piss, Carlos, there’s nothing there.”

He swears, and the slight contraction of his stomach sends tickles down your spine. How long have you two been floating in that vast expanse of universe, moored to nothing but one another?

“Wow, why is that thing over there so green? Is it like that in real life?”

“That’s the emergency exit sign, amor.”

Carlos groans, trying to cook up a reasonable defense, but he’d ridicule himself a million times over if it meant hearing your wind chime laughter, like fairy dust speeding through outer space.

“And that one over there? The red one? Is it also the emergency exit sign?”

“No, that one’s real. It’s a galaxy.”

“Is it actually red?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because of redshift.”

You stay quiet, and he doesn’t press you further. He knows the explanation is just one carefully collected silence away. Instead, he stares at the star cluster, immobile unlike most of the planets on display, faint crimson clashing with the infinite mauve around. Like a watchful creature lying in wait.

“You know that the universe is expanding, right? It’s growing right now.”

“Yeah.”

“So the light that’s emitted by this galaxy must travel a huge distance to get to us, and in the time it takes to reach Earth, the empty space between us has grown. Stretched out, like someone is pulling at the ends. From our perspective, it looks like the galaxy is moving away. Farther from the observer. So the light’s wavelength increases, because of the Doppler effect, and that’s why the galaxy looks red to us.”

“So when something expands or moves away from you…” he recapitulates slowly.

“It turns red, yeah.”

The words will haunt him far longer than he expects. They have no reason to—out of the thousands of shattered promises and declarations of love and ineffable vulnerability and jokes and harsh truths and supplications—yet they do. They linger like a mist as he sits in his bedroom, two years later, cradling in his lap the very first helmet Carlos Sainz will wear for the Scuderia Ferrari. His belly, swollen with pride earlier from the fifty-five on the side and the red star on the back—all so unbelievably him, side by side with the prancing horse at last—, grumbles with bile. His phone lights up with the notification he’s been avoiding all day.

A year and a half or so—he stopped counting the days. His mom said that meant he was healing?—without a word and on the morning of the announcement, you text him “Congrats on the move”.

Like you couldn’t keep it in, like no rough breakup and unbearable radio silence could prevent you from cheering your champion on. Watching him expand.

He texts back a sober “Thanks. hope you’re doing well”, and deletes your number before he can catch himself dialing it once again.

MARS.

MARANELLO, 2024.

For the first time in his life, the last thing Carlos Sainz longed for was combat.

Little Carletes had been born pugnacious, tiny fists that closed around no claws. Not a troublemaker, per se, but rambunctious, like an inexhaustible volcano. What he lacked in sharpness, he’d made up for in belligerence, for he could never be half the raw talent his father was at everything but he could bleed twice as hard on the jagged rocks of greatness. For every kid that ran him off the track in go-karts he could push two more; for every hour his teammate would stay in the sim, he’d spend one night. As if, far from deplenishing him, the fight gave him energy.

He was always outrunning something, it seemed. The clock, his father’s shadow. At the end of the 2024 season, after months of trying to outrun the end, Carlos was so unfathomably tired.

The end came as a roaring tornado on February first, and all he could do was turn the ignition on and speed away. To no avail, of course. Ferrari never regrets a decision, no matter how fast you are, when the decision comes with seven world titles.

Therefore, when Carlos Sainz heard the loud footsteps stomping down the hallway, he knew with immense lassitude that he would not be combating today.

“Care to explain what the hell this is?”

She was fuming, arm outstretched toward him with an accusatory glare. She stood taller than ever before in their almost-bare bedroom, a giant among piles of moving boxes and polystyrene. They’d barely had the time to touch ground in Maranello before being uprooted again.

“That’s… your phone,” Carlos sighed. Wrong answer, he knew as much, but at least he’d delayed the battle for just a few instants.

“Yeah, right, play dumb all you want,” she scoffed, shoving her phone right under her boyfriend’s nose. “What the fuck were you doing with her? It’s all over Twitter.”

As soon as his eyes had gotten used to the sudden brightness, Carlos recognized the pictures; him, strolling down the streets of Madrid, a lifetime ago. Unmistakable. On his arm, looped around his bicep, was hers. A lifetime ago indeed.

He would’ve frozen even if he hadn’t wanted to. The afternoon came back to him in a kaleidoscope of memories, colors, and smells—the ozone of Madrid’s thousands of exhaust pipes, the faint scent of frying oil from some churrería, and how she’d drop his hand to press her nose against every bakery’s window display. How many years had it been? How many artifacts of that era had he neatly wrapped up and stored away in cardboard boxes, traveling around the world with him because he couldn’t throw them away?

“Love, these pictures are old. See how my hair is totally different? That’s from, like, 2018.”

“Why are they making rounds again then?” she spat, distrustful. “Your fans won’t stop posting them. Tell me the truth.”

She’d always been combative, irascible—she never backed down from what she wanted, even when it simply didn’t exist, and perhaps that was the reason Carlos had been drawn to her when they’d first met. Someone to challenge him, to spar with. Someone who’d stand by his side because they know what it means to fall and rise again.

But for the first time, all Carlos Sainz wanted was peace and familiarity. A soft bed to crawl into, and not one he must cut through thorns for.

“I’m telling you the truth, I have no idea why they’re posting them. They do weird things sometimes.”

That was a lie, but one he could stomach without batting too obvious an eyelid. Carlos knew exactly why fans kept posting old pictures of his very first love to social media, the same reason he had never been able to delete them from his phone, but instead kept them in a passworded folder inside a folder inside a folder. The formidable and harrowing impression of unfinished business. A story you keep adding chapters to, yet stray away from the epilogue of.

She didn’t buy it. She never did anything he said. Was she this wary of him when they’d met, or had fame and scrutiny made her paranoid? He toyed with the inside of his cheek. Was she paranoid? Or could she read him better than he could, and he’d been a horrible person—a horrible boyfriend—to her this whole time?

“And you’re not even fighting for us! Gosh! If you still love her so much, why don’t you just find her?” she cried out, throwing her arms in the air.

She didn’t leave him time to say anything; not that he would have anyway. She turned on her heel and slammed the door, sending flakes of white paint flying into the barren bedroom.

“So what happens when something gets close to you?”

His question cuts through the surreal silence that has curled up between you; in the soft space between your bodies, slouched together on the carpeted steps of the planetarium. Slowly, you lift your head from his belly and look at him, attentive.

“Hm?”

“You said that when an object moves away from the observer, it turns red. That’s redshift. So what happens if it’s coming closer?”

The corner of your lips lifts into one of those half-moon smiles only you know how to wear.

“Blueshift.”

Violet light floods the craters in your eyes, as though an angel had filled them to the brim.

“When an object comes back to the observer, it turns blue.”

JUPITER.

NICE, 2025.

Damn you and your punctuality.

With all the years you’ve been working at the Nice Observatory, you know very well by now the inescapable ballet of convertibles cruising down the coast in the summer months—rich Parisian families on vacation and English retirees enjoying the last days of tolerable Riviera heat—, but you have grown particularly wary of the month of May. When the Cannes festival and Monaco Grand Prix draw closer, the city and its surroundings bubble up with a sort of effervescence that makes everything unbearable. Tourists and kids and journalists swarm about the streets; the sea itself becomes more dazzling, like it’s dressing in its finest garments for the season; and you’re just trying to get to work.

(Of course, that’s the sole reason you hate late May in Nice. Nothing to do with the Monaco Grand Prix itself, nor the faces you see plastered at every damn bus stop and on every damn television every year. Well, face.)

Thus, to avoid traffic, you have taken the habit of leaving home earlier in the morning. An invigorating springtime promenade, with the Mediterranean as your sole neighbor… as far as you can remember, you have always found comfort in the still nooks of early dawn and late dusk, after all.

Had you been just a little less conscientious of your work… held up just a little longer on the beltway… you wouldn’t have made it to your office in time to check your emails before you’re whisked away for day-long observations and meetings. You wouldn’t have opened your inbox, you would’ve only read the message tomorrow, after the fact. Too late. Or late enough to play the Sorry-I-missed-it card.

But you don’t, and you do, and you find the email sitting there. In bold letters, as though mocking you. No subject—of course he wouldn’t know private correspondence in an office is supposed to say, well, PRIVATE—and a sender address that looks too stupidly obvious to be real.

carlo55ainz@gmail.com.

The sun blinks for an instant, and gravity holds its breath, pinning you against your chair. That’s probably the second where you open the email, because you don’t remember moving your fingers.

“Hi. Sorry, I had no idea how to contact you, and no idea where to start either. I might have looked you up on LinkedIn and found your work email. You’ve been doing amazing I see, you have a PhD now! But I never doubted you or how smart and cool you were. I knew you’d get here.

I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately and all the things I did wrong. I was young, but that doesn’t cover everything. It doesn’t cover almost anything, actually. If you’re willing to hear me and let me apologize properly, even if I’m really really late (I can’t be the fastest all the time), can we meet up in Monaco tonight? I’d be the most grateful man in the universe.

C”

It’s all in Spanish, and the font isn’t the same size across all the text, and you can tell he doesn’t send emails too often because instead of sending the pictures as an attachment he pasted them directly underneath the paragraph, but they’re of two concert tickets wrinkled with brown stains—your favorite band, and he’d dropped his coffee on them the morning of and you’d sworn to every god that’s ever existed you’d flail him alive if the security guard’s scanner couldn’t read their barcode.

The first thought that comes to your mind, somehow, is “Of course it’s real. What a loser.”

You shouldn’t reply—of course you shouldn’t reply, your boss is calling you over from outside the office to go down the observation room and if your best friend were there she would tell you to delete the message and never speak of it again.

“I don’t go to Monaco anymore. Too much traffic and parking’s a nightmare. Also I feel stupid over there with my Clio IV.”

You only catch his reply late in the evening, when the sun is slowly descending behind the Mercantour and you’ve awkwardly evaded your coworkers’ offers for celebratory drinks downtown. Sure, the tests were a resounding success today, but you just need to run something by your office real quick. Just one thing, and then you’re going straight home, because you’re exhausted, but thank you so much for offering, you’ll join them another time—

If the timestamp is any indication, the reply came two minutes after your first email.

“I’ll come to you then.”

Your heart is pounding like a quasar when you step out the Observatory’s main entrance and into the Southern night, seemingly the only person in the whole world. The only person, except for the silhouette you notice immediately just a few meters ahead, draped in night and leaning against a Vespa. He looks stronger than when you last saw him, a little wider and buffer; a soft breeze ruffles his dark hair, and you spot the faintest hints of white within. Something he probably hasn’t noticed yet, but observing details has always been your life’s work.

Six years after shattering your heart and disappearing into the gaping mouth of a race car, Carlos Sainz stands before you, and he beams the brightest grin this side of the Mediterranean when he spots you. And you, as if no minutes had passed at all, cannot do anything but smile in return.

“Where’s your Ferrari?” you ask, pointing at the little scooter with your chin.

“Didn’t you hear? I had to downsize.”

He sounds more mature, less boyish; maybe all the furious air he ingests has eroded his vocal chords too, or maybe his throat is thick with emotion as he takes you in. Neat shirt, tight bun, ever-so-slightly painted lips. Taking the stage of his life just for him, if only for an evening.

A moment passes where you’re both too dizzy to say anything. The first shooting star of many pierces the sky millions of kilometers over your heads, though neither of you see it. Then, Carlos extends his arm and hands you one of the two helmets he’s carrying.

“Do you still trust me?”

Of course you don’t. He told you a life with you would be incompatible with his other goals—he once dreamed of a life in which you were not, and it matters little whether that thought existed in him for a tenth of a second or a whole year, because he’d said it, burned it into your ears like tinnitus.

But he would make you laugh to tears, and he held you for eight hours straight when you sobbed yourself into exhaustion the day your childhood dog died, and he took pictures of you sleeping in a pile of limbs with Piñón, and your fingers once dug into his ribs as his rental bike drove you down a secret cove, where he made love to you like waves lapping at the shore.

“Yeah.”

You have yet to find a single planet, by some faraway nebula, where you don’t trust him.

The ride down to the harbor is perfectly quiet. Not only do you not exchange words—no use over the small engine’s agonizing screams—but the whole city falls silent, from the groups of twenty-somethings hitting their first bars of the night to the seagulls shrieking and descending upon unsuspecting gelati. Like Nice’s narrow, treacherous streets bow their heads to Carlos and you, shrinking and moving and shifting to open a perfect path. Eventually, he stops the scooter by the docks, in front of a yacht that would probably fall under the small umbrella in his circle; to you, it looks like a mansion.

“That’s new.”

“You’ve been gone a long time,” he shrugs, but you can tell by the glint in his voice that he’s proud of his trick.

He helps you up on the boat, disappears into the cabin—busying himself, as always, only at ease when in control—and the yacht rumbles to life in a harmony of swells, then casts off into the Mediterranean night.

“I’ll admit I didn’t check the weather,” Carlos breaks the silence long minutes later, after you’ve helped him drop the anchor in the middle of nowhere, just a tiny dot kilometers from shore. Your unbreakable bubble, suspended outside of time and reality. As far from any asphalted road as can be. “Sorry. I thought it would be a little nicer.”

“This is very nice,” you reply.

And it is—you don’t need to slip into fake courtesies with Carlos, not even after so many years. In the half-decade since you’d parted ways, you’d imagined this meeting a million times under a million circumstances and a million watchful planets, and every time you feared the awkwardness of silence; the one thing that would betray an irrevocable destruction of what you once had. But there’s nothing close to it here, on the deck of his yacht, each sitting on a banquette and eating olives in the middle of the sea. Only the inexplicable familiarity of those who know every inch of each other’s soul.

You throw your head back and prop your knees underneath you. Sure, the sky is a little cloudy, but every milky spot you expected to find is perfectly visible. You smile at them, like old friends on a school photo.

“This is really beautiful, actually.”

Carlos is only staring at you from the port side.

Yeah, yeah it is.

“I’m sorry.”

“You said that already, it’s okay,” you chuckle, but he interrupts, voice trembling slightly from the solemnity.

“No, I mean sorry for six years ago.”

You bite your lip. Turn your head to face him, slowly, but his nose is pointed at the sky, his arm lazily grazing the waves from over the gunwale.

“Is that it?”

“Well, I could say sorry for being such an asshole. Sorry for being a coward and not knowing how to deal with your expectations and the expectations of the world, and choosing to cut one off. Sorry for hurting you and not even allowing you the time to grieve. I tried to numb it with the racing, and the parties, and that kind of stuff, but honestly I don’t think there’s been a day where I don’t regret that decision. But I don’t know, I don’t want you to think I’m making up excuses for myself or… or rubbing salt in the wound, so I’ll just leave it at Sorry. It’s not even a tenth of what you deserve, but… I wanted to start there.”

Your next words, after long, languid moments of silence, are carried over to shore by the salty breeze, so soft he barely catches them.

“I forgive you.”

When you look up and your eyes finally meet, they are shiny with tears. Like the diamonds that rain in the heart of Jupiter’s storm.

“I forgave you the second you walked out.”

“Why?”

“Because I loved you.” It’s self-evident, and you almost giggle at the admission, disbelieving of how disbelieving Carlos can be. How does he not get it? The core principle upon which all of the world’s mechanisms were built? The barest, rawest axiom to ever befuddle science? “I think some part of me will love you till the day I die. I know you’re a logical person, Carlos, but surely you can understand that…”

He nods. Mutters to himself more than to you, to the moonbeams that caress the tide. “Yeah, yeah I can understand that.” You stuff your mouth with olives to swallow back a sob.

Your lashes are still wet—from tears or the boat’s lull gently splashing your face, you’re not sure—when you breathe deeply and attempt to defuse:

“How was the race?”

“Awful.”

His response is so instantaneous you can’t help giggling.

“I heard you and Alex both scored points though!”

“Yeah, but it was ugly raci… hold on, have you been keeping up with me?”

“No,” you blurt out hastily. Actually, yes, you have, indirectly; through a colleague of yours, fifty-something and red-faced, who’s been a diehard Williams fan since childhood and excitedly talks your ear off every week about the team’s historic revival. Needless to say, you don’t peg him the type to know much about the drivers’ personal lives from ten years ago, and see no elegant way nor immediate utility in telling him you are Carlos Sainz Jr.’s ex-girlfriend.

“Are you a Williams fan, Y/N? Or maybe more of a Tifosa?”

“Shut up,” you groan, but he wiggles his eyebrows at you, so you throw him your olive pins. One, and two; he jumps to his feet with an indignant “hey!”; the third one hits him square in the forehead, and you burst into incredulous laughter as he jogs up to you.

“Stop it! You’re on my boat, I could—” in just a few steps he’s towering over you, lying on your back on the cushioned seat and spraying him with pins and peanuts between giggles. He grabs your machine-gun wrist, devoid of ammo, and you yelp when his charcoal eyes bore into yours. “—throw you overboard whenever I want.”

“Try it.”

The words come out on their own, taking you both by surprise. Carlos’ breath catches in his throat, and his eyes travel from your parted lips, breathing in ragged little pants, to the lines of neck your crumpled up shirt reveals, then to your whole frame, pinned against the seat, with his knee between your legs—he doesn’t even remember setting it there, the same way he never remembers downshifting six gears at turn 1 in Bahrain. The shadow he casts on your face conceals the acute flush to your cheeks when you notice the proximity of your faces.

“What is this for, Carlos? Why did you invite me here? Just to apologize?” you murmur.

“No,” he breathes out.

He needs no further explaining. You read it all, in the earthly browns of his torrid eyes, consuming you entirely like a hearth. All the desperate wondering if this dull ache ever goes away, or if it is only alleviated when its source is near—if a planet’s core can ever be replaced by another gemstone, of another chemical composition, a placeholder, anything to make the solar system spin again.

Of course it can’t. You get the feeling he’s known this for a while. That he knew this before you even taught him anything about the Moon who answers no prayers, or Jupiter who sets explorers on their right course. 

You could kiss him right now—but you don’t. Neither does he. Instead, he releases your wrists, not without the faintest of caresses to your cheek. If you knew him any less, you’d think it accidental. But the outline of his orbit is no mystery to you. 

Carlos sails the yacht safely back to shore a few hours later. What happens between you on the high seas during those hours will remain a secret that only early-rising constellations know.

Slowly, in deliberate movements, as if to dilate time and space further than physics will allow, he clasps the helmet on your head, and drives you back up to the Observatory, where he picked you up a lifetime ago. His driving is prudent, uncharacteristically so, as if he could fracture reality by hitting the brakes too hard, yet the pang of despair that creeps up your stomach all the way up the hill is so strong you fear you might puke.

Up there on the hill, at the foot of the slumbering dome, another shooting star slices the atmosphere, but Carlos is unclasping your helmet and you are staring into his eyes, so neither of you miss it, per se—you just see it elsewhere. For the first time the silence threatens to suffocate you, so you suffocate it first; you throw yourself in Carlos’ arms, and cradle his furious heart for an eternity. He parts first, but his hands remain on your shoulders. Then, with a reverence you’ve only seen in a scientist when they handle a meteor, he kisses your forehead.

“See you soon?”

“I hope.”

You part ways. The sidewalk is blurry, though it hasn’t rained yet. A Vespa’s engine roars to life, waking up the barking of every dog on the street.

When you reach for your car keys, your fingers graze an unfamiliar piece of paper in your blazer’s pocket.

By holding it against the light, you discern a phone number, an address. And just as you unwrap it, you hear the unmistakable click of the universe falling back into its axis.

“Pick you up same time, same place tomorrow?

Hope I’m not a little too late or a little too early.

- Voyager”

© musicallisto, 2025

[olive-recs]

stoooppppppppp this is so cute; takes me back to the two (2) days in high school where i was convinced i was going to become a computer programmer because i took one (1) coding session and thought: yeah, this is within my wheelhouse. it was decidedly not.

first of all: characterization?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!??!?! yes, yes, that is carlos sainz, yes, yes, that is quiet chaotic charles leclerc, yes, yes, that is carlos' effortless charm and fellowship and ability to make everyone believe and root and devote themselves to him, love to see it written out in such engaging and true-to-form terms <3. and that is also his loser gene coming out in just,,,,, avoiding his crush like the plague. reader is a PROFESSIONAL and says this isn't some college crush that will debilitate her ability to do her job and relate to her coworkers; carlos is still working on that bit, give him some time, he is learning (i would know. i am his sister, this is a gene that we share. we have been looking into epigenetic links to see if we can turn it off, what else do you think carlos does in his spare time?)

anyway, jokes aside, your writing is soooooo lovely; everyone is always so magnetic in your fics, and there's a lovely sort of ease that emanates from them: i know everyone is going to be okay and things are going to find a way, and it's 1000% thanks to your lovely cadence and your warming flow <3. adore you, claras <3333

· · · · ♡ IF (SAINZ WIN == TRUE) (cs55)

… starring carlos sainz x f!engineer!reader ... 4.4k words ... in which carlos is an effusive, self-assured lad to every member of his team... except ferrari's head software engineer, making her wonder if he secretly hates her guts. ... based on this request ... warnings for language (minor) ... my first ever (posted) fic for carlos aaaaa (i have written A Lot More about this man because he occupies my every waking hour, but i shan't share it yet). in honor of me missing my communication networks final last week i made the reader a software engineer, but you would Never catch me willingly coding anything in c++ outside of my mandated assignments. no not even for carlos sainz jr. i have morals. this is open for part 2 if you guys enjoy it <3

He speaks the language of princes.

It's not in anything he says, no, he's much too industrious to waste time boasting, but rather in all that he doesn't. Carlos walks into the Ferrari motorhome, with that good-natured smile and that slightly disheveled hair from the morning's cycling session, and heads bow. Not out of plight, or even obligation, but mostly because it's hard not to. His warm greetings to everyone—Ciao's and even Come stai?'s to his team members strolling down the hallways before the weekend—, his keen interest in remembering little things about engineers' and photographers' lives, his nonchalant stride around the parc fermé all force camaraderie at least; reverence to most.

Wherever the red car goes, Maranello or any other corner of the world, religion follows, and though Carlos Sainz has never quite fit into the nooks they keep for their idols—their walls are carved for Monégasque shoulders—, he's at least always carried the air of a rebel leader on unforgving land.

But if Carlos is Ferrari's bastard prince, then clearly you are a subject he would not go to war for.

Or so he makes you think, once again, on that hot Singaporean afternoon.

You hadn't meant to interrupt, really, but with only one hour to go before FP1, you needed to talk to Riccardo Adami; something about the software updates, optimization of the data acquisition systems to account for Marina Bay's sweltering heat—run for half a second too long, overheat half a degree too much, and everyone's calculations would be going to hell. So of course you'd corrected it, supervised a brand new version of your code for the weekend, for that tenth of a Celsius; competition drove you. Almost just as much as those solar eyes boring into you when you walk into the room.

"Riccardo, about the softw—oh. Carlos. Hi," you timidly trail off when Carlos' eyes meet yours.

The room gets quiet, and it is only then that you notice how much space his laugh takes. Usually, you would've recognized the accent from outside the door, the boisterous voice regaling the Fifty-fives with another funny story—how could you not, when it sends shockwaves down your stomach? He seems to have been in an animated conversation with his race engineer, but as you get closer to the two men you notice the crinkles lengthening Carlos' eyes are fading with his smile. You aren't sure he's even said hi back.

"We've changed the code for acquisition, but some loops could still cause problems with overheating, particularly the engine oil temperature sensors…" you explain, though half your attention is directed to your peripheral vision, in which Carlos sways on his two feet, averting your gaze at all costs.

But you're not a college girl with a crush, you're Scuderia Ferrari's head software engineer and so you go on with your precisions to Riccardo. What to expect during free practice, how to overshoot any nonessential sensors that might fuck up the data analysis... until, mid-sentence, Carlos excuses himself awkwardly, pats Ricky on the shoulder, and walks out of the room.

You will your face into not betraying the sudden ache in your throat. How he simply acted like you weren't there... didn't even inquire about the updates. About the race. About your flight, about how much you loved Singapore's twinkling lights, about... you.

"Xavi and Charles know this already, but we really gotta test it all now before it gets cooler for FP2," you conclude with a too-hard swallow. Back firmly turned to the door Carlos just disappeared out of.

Riccardo thanks you, offers his own insight, some banalities about the risks of rain—no, you shouldn't consider them banalities. Nothing, on a Friday, is a banality anymore; yet everything is when you remember how Carlos' entire face shuts close when you're around, how his tone quietens down, how he repeatedly and stubbornly conceals all his rays of brazenness from you.

Does he hate you? Despise you? Are you not worth his effrontery?

This is ridiculous. You're not a college girl with a crush, you're a damn senior member of the team with responsibilities and he doesn't owe you anything more or less than you him—

"Riccardo," you neither ask nor plead. "Has Carlos... said anything about me?"

"About you? Like what?"

"I don't know... but you did see he just... left while I was in the middle of talking, right? And he looked annoyed as soon as I came in." And for all that's holy, try to pass this off as mere politeness and not a heartache that is eating you alive.

"Maybe he was just bored."

"So I'm boring?"

"No," Riccardo wheezes, in uncharacteristically high spirits for the conversation. "But I've worked with a ton of drivers, and you know, they're all the same. Less time discussing boring analytics is more time they spend in the sim. Or on track. What, you think he's angry at you or something?"

"I just... don't get why he's always so guarded and distant with me but so outgoing and confident with you guys. Charles isn't like that either. It makes no sense. We're a team, all of us."

The Italian looks at you for long seconds, amusement noticeable on his features, and you would shake him up and tell him to stop giving you those pity eyes if you lacked the tiniest bit of respect for the man; instead, you frown and cross your arms.

"He'll be in a good mood tonight when we top free practice," Riccardo assures you before you can ask him if he needs anything else. "and even better tomorrow after getting pole. You can talk to him then if you want."

A smile creeps its way on your lips without you conjuring it. There it is, that loyal veneration that only men and women of the Scuderia possess. Something in those southern eyes Carlos shares with legend has made you religious, too.

"I'll hold you to that... we could all use a Singapore miracle."

Singapore is a miracle.

Surely any other team would scoff at the word, bragging that a pole position has nothing to do with miracles, that it's all meticulous teamwork and endless iterations on calculators, but Ferrari is deeply supersitious at its core. You—the centenarian team, its red-hot beating heart—don't shy away from thanking divine intervention. Maybe that's the reason why it still works.

After Carlos' last pole in Monza, the whole Scuderia had dared to dream of something different, a glimmer of scarlet in the season's overwhelming orange. Of course, an uncatchable Max had put a dampen on the fervent Tifosi's mood, but the formidable hope machine had revved back to life...

and now it's roaring in Marina Bay.

Leclerc's side of the garage claps for a hard-earned P3, but it's the Spaniard's team that erupts into cheers and rushes out into the pitlane to congratulate their hero. You stare at his lap time on your monitor with a grin—1:30.984, not even a tenth faster than his teammate—as cheerful screams, in Italian and Spanish, fill the garage; they get louder when Carlos walks back inside, grinning ear to ear and not even bothering to dodge the strong-arm pats on his head and back.

"Twice in a row, cazzo!"

"And this time you won't have Verstappen underfoot!"

"Perfect lap, Carlos, that was a perfect lap..."

"Grazie a tutti," Carlos beams, fire suit down to his waist, running clammy hands through his hair—he parts the red sea as he walks deeper into the garage, close to where you are. "I think we all did a very good job today, and now we gotta finish the job tomorrow..."

He laughs with the mechanics, a sun of fire and victory casting its rays onto the tarmac, and maybe it's the euphoria of the moment, but a sudden wind of courage rushes through your blood, and you walk up to him.

"Bravo, Carlos."

Your voice hits him like the purr of an engine in the ruckus, overshadowing any other sound; he whips his head in your direction, shiny eyes colliding with yours, and for the first time you don't back off but hold them in awe, and his smile doesn't fade, but rather shifts. To surprise, or... coyness?

"You were incredible out there, we're all so so proud of you," you praise, and the more you look at him the wider your smile grows, and the quieter the rest of the world gets.

"Thank you, Y/N," he rubs the back of his neck, his free hand fiddling with the hanging sleeves of his fire suit. "We... I couldn't have done this without you. Because, you know, the overheating, or what you were saying to Ricky before? I didn't understand everything, but at least I didn't cook to death."

Coyness? In Carlos Sainz? When he's still sweaty and panting from qualifying first? What a bizarre sight, one that makes you giggle.

The way your nose scrunches up beneath sparkling eyes is so endearing, Carlos almost feels his breath hitch in his throat, almost reaches out to lightly brush your arm, hold the steady coolness of it.

"Great, that was what we were going for, pretty much," you reply, and for a second you could've sworn he wanted to touch your arm and changed his mind, but...

you bury the idea before a craving for his warmth can nestle in your chest.

"Great," he repeats. "So, I'll... see you later," and with that he leaves you there, stranded in the middle of the garage, to be lauded by the press and fans.

You'd be lying if you said his shadow disappearing out the backdoor as quickly as it had come doesn't slice a gash in your heart—always whisked away to some important obligation, and you, like everyone else, duty-bound to pick up the pieces behind him. But this time around the cut doesn't run as deep, doesn't bleed as red; because for the first time in months Carlos talked to you, joked with you, and looked the tiniest bit glad to be doing so.

If that's how good of a mood a pole puts him in... then clearly you'd better make damn sure he wins this race.

Ferrari is deeply superstitious at its core. Maybe that much is true in any sport—when victory eludes you, athletes find obscure laws to trick themselves into believing they still retain control—, but a team so old, on which glory has rained so often, does not withstand the passage of time without a few pillars of faith. And so it makes sense that Ferrari drivers, of all people, would have their pre-race traditions.

Leclerc plays the piano on Saturday nights; you hear him every time you pass by the team hotel's lounge, his melancholy tracks grounding you in a precise time and place. Now the car is out of bounds, the comfort of your object-oriented programming and optimized lines of code off-limits; now's the time for withdrawal and rest.

Typically, you like to hang out in the lounge while Charles plays, trying to distract yourself with a book or simply basking in the music. The predictable, calculated flow of Charles' arpeggios soothes you, like lines of code running one after the other. So does the Monégasque driver's easy conversation. Although it doesn't shoot butterflies in your belly like Carlos' does... but you're not supposed to play favorites.

This Grand Prix eve is just like any other, save for the unordinary trepidation that carpets the hotel. With one of their own sitting on pole, it's obvious strategists struggle more than usual to drop the words "tire management" and "pit stops". Eager to escape the nervousness, you excuse yourself from the dinner table, and make your way to the lounge.

Charles is already there, if the usual pieces echoing in the distance at dessert are any indication, and you barely even get lost in the elegant halls before you find the lounge... though there is no piano to be heard. Maybe this hotel has two music rooms—maybe Charles went to bed early—or maybe...

maybe he's sitting on the piano stool and chatting with Carlos, wet and sleepy from his evening shower.

Neither driver notices you at first, and you stop dead in your tracks, wondering if you should just leave. You wouldn't want to intrude—intrude on what, the rational part of your brain says, but with Carlos I always feel like I'm intruding on something bigger than myself, the rest of your body answers—, but you really enjoy this unspoken tradition with Charles... and, well, this is everybody's lounge, and...

"Y/N," Charles sees you eventually and beckons you over. "Sorry, I don't think there'll be a lot of music tonight, Carlos is distracting me."

"You could kick me out anytime," Carlos remarks good-naturedly, but you don't miss how he angles his body away from you ever so slightly. The sight sends a dagger through your heart. So he actually hates you then. So you didn't breach any barrier earlier at the circuit, didn't melt any ice. So he didn't look pleased and a little excited to be talking to you.

"That's okay, I'll just head to bed then—"

"Oh no no no," Charles interrupts, "come sit with us. I was trying to convince Carlos to give the piano a go, maybe you'll be more successful than me."

"Absolutely not, mate."

"Come on Carlos, it will relax you!"

"No, you're the musician, not me. One of us has to be the sportsman, no?"

Unsure, you flick between the two men, Charles' inviting face and Carlos, who's still doing everything he can to avoid looking at you in the eye. And then you decide—fuck it. You're just as much a member of the team as he is. He cannot drive you away with his... stupid cold shoulder tactics any longer.

You take a seat on the sofa opposite Carlos, and watch in half delight, half annoyance as he turns his shoulders away from you. Though his body language appears relaxed, one leg strewn across his knee and elbows hugging the backrest, he is, as usual, going to hell and beyond to not acknowledge your presence.

Charles has the merit of lightening the mood with his jokes and fan encounters of the day: some bizarre, some endearing, because he seemingly never has a boring day in the paddock. His easy laughter mixes with the distant voices down the halls when your attention drops—too fast, too soon, as always, it's irremediable—to Carlos, the soothing scent of his shampoo and the little droplets that run down his temple whenever he shakes his head in amusement... before you know it, you're staring again, eyes shining with undisclosed heartache. Something Charles sees, and recognizes very well, with a jot of curiosity.

Charles may not be the most perceptive when it comes to these things, but he is in love too, and he'd know the signs anywhere. That's why after a little while he lets silence blow his last words away like wind does the mist, and stands up from the piano stool.

"Well, I'm going to bed," he announces with an air of conniving finality, and he smiles his crooked smile at Carlos. "Gonna need all my energy to take the lead in turn 1."

This snaps you out of your reverie. Half-gone, you bid him goodnight at the same time as the Spaniard does, and you brace yourself for his own excuse... but it doesn't come. Carlos lazily watches as Charles leaves the lounge. You don't dare to move, as if your slightest sound could remind him you're there and trigger his fight.

You would've thought a tête-à-tête with you to be Carlos' worst nightmare... but he makes no sign of leaving. And sends solar flares up your chest and throat. "Whatever problem he's got with me, he'll have it sort it out with me like an adult" sounds much more intimidating when it's so plausible.

"You think he has the slightest chance of overtaking me in turn 1?" Carlos chuckles.

You look him straight in the eye and read no resentment, not even that sheepishness from before—just relaxed delight, and the slightest hint of reddened cheeks against tan, damp skin. It takes you a second, maybe even two, to realize there's no one else in the room. He's talking to you. Joking with you.

Why is the script running without error all of a sudden, even though you changed no variables?

"Maybe," you give a noncommittal shrug and a smile. "Why not? It all depends on you."

"He can lead the first lap if he wants. That will just make it more fun to cross the finish line ahead of him after."

"You better win this one, Sainz, because I..." you start, and midway through your sentence are hit by how absolutely ridiculous you're about to sound, but he's leaned in already, intrigued by your words, and his burning gaze and strong hands fiddling in his lap have you losing all notions of propriety. "I've... coded a little something for you. If you win. A surprise. It's not much, but... yeah."

Your whole face burns deep scarlet as you trail off... and the light in Carlos' eyes darkens, then goes out completely. His smile fades back to the usual professional grimace he reserves for you. Distant. Cold. He rises to his feet.

"I should get some sleep."

Terror strikes you. Incomprehension too.

"No, Carlos, wait."

He turns his head to your outstretched hand... your pleading eyes almost rip through his heart.

"Why do you dislike me so much?"

And then his shoulders slump, like crushed by an immense weariness, and he sighs, long and hard, before his gaze falls back to yours. Those big brown eyes, gentle, compassionate, and those fingers tapping against his thigh like they're waiting for an invisible cue to reach out for yours.

"... Can we talk about this after the race?" he says, shooting daggers through your stomach.

So he didn't deny it. Didn't reassure you, tell you it's all a misunderstanding, that he bears no ill will towards you, that you're imagining things as usual and that you two could be on the best of terms if you just got out of your head a little bit.

One more time, he's running away. Sweeping everything under the rug, for just one more session, one more race, hiding behind the excuse of concentration and professionalism.

But who are you to revoke him that? It's a damn good excuse. You need to win. He needs to win. Not be bothered about... interpersonal relationships while clipping walls.

"... Alright," you concede, voice and bones all broken, glistening under your frozen skin. "But if it's something I've done, then I'm sorry. I really do... enjoy your company. And you."

"It's not something you've done," he speaks quietly. Gosh, your frailty in this moment—you, so proud and unshakable on the pit wall, so dedicated and thorough on TV, so immeasurably devoted to Ferrari, to Charles, to him... "Or, well, I guess not directly..."

If he looks into your confused, imploring eyes one more second, almost brushes your arm with his one more time, then he's done for. But he thinks he knows this already.

"I don't dislike you," he starts speaking and as soon as he opens his mouth he knows there's no stopping himself now, so he blurts it all out as quickly as he can to get it over with and hopefully bury some meaning in the pits of his accent. "Not at all. In fact I really like you. I think you're gorgeous, and smart, and clever, and fun, and every day I wish I could spend more time with you outside of races and get to know you better but then I remember that can never happen and it's so frustrating and I have the hardest time concentrating. So I just avoid you. It's easier."

Silence thick as a thundercloud tethers you to one another. He runs a hand over his face, sighing deep, and you blink. Once, twice.

You've always prided yourself on your brains—not everyone gets to be in charge of all the computing for a Formula 1 car—but right now, you are all utterly lost.

"Carlos, I... I don't get it." Or maybe you do, heart thumping in your ears, but you're too scared you might be wrong.

"In any other life I would've asked you out on a date." This time he speaks more slowly, more purposefully, too. Like he's imbuing every syllable with the depth of his confession. "But it kills me that it can't be this one."

"... Why not?" you tentatively ask after an instant, feigning not to notice how his hand is now resting on the back of your sofa, right next to your ear and neck.

"Because you're a senior engineer! That would be like... like dating Ricky. Even if you're much prettier than Ricky. But you don't need to tell him that," he adds with a nervous laugh, which you mirror; though you fall silent as soon as his hand comes to rest on your shoulder, right where your collar ends, millimeters away from your skin. His body's warring with his own words... one wants to resist, the other to give in. "What if I leave Ferrari? That's a crazy conflict of interest."

"That's a silly idea, you're not leaving Ferrari anytime soon. Are you?"

"I don't know, it's... hypothetically... you know what I mean," he exhales in defeat. His hand clasps a little tighter on your shoulder, his scent dizzying, closer than ever before. Can he feel your frantic heart thumping underneath your skin? If he keeps licking his lips like this, will he sense your breathing getting more erratic?

"I do. But... the problem is I like you too, Carlos."

If embers could burn back to life, light a hearth out of nothingness... they wouldn't shine as bright as Carlos' eyes just then.

"Don't mess with me."

"I'm not messing with you. Why wouldn't I like you?"

"Because you're not supposed to have a favorite."

"I won't tell Fred if you don't."

He laughs, a brittle but adorable little thing, like a small bird taking its first flight. If you could hear the sound more often, see that bashful smile on his handsome face more every day... you wouldn't need any other prince to die in war for.

His hand runs down your arm, his thumb lightly caressing your skin through the fabric of your shirt before he grabs your shaky hand in his.

"Now's not the best time, but... I think we've got to have an important conversation after the race tomorrow," his deep, soft tone pacifying you just as much as the abstract shapes he traces on the back of your hand.

"After you win, you mean."

"Right. After I get my surprise, no?"

"After you win," you repeat with a grin, and he squeezes your hand, smiling too. Something, deep down, tells him he'll win regardless of the race result.

"Cosa diavolo sta facendo?"

Even in spite of the roaring crowd and the bellowing V8s speeding down the straight, the dumbfounded voices around the pit wall come to you clear as day.

"Russell 1.4 behind Lando," Ricky, sitting on the other side of Vasseur, speaks into his headset.

The team principal keeps quiet, eyes fixed on the cascade of numbers and brackets on your screen. He understands before the rest of the wall what his driver is doing; and as you relay all the information you get to the race engineers, you understand it too.

"Lando .8 behind, .8 behind with DRS—Russell no DRS... Copy that."

He's doing it on purpose. Keeping Norris just close enough to shield him from the Mercs while making sure he can't catch up. You'd laugh in triumph and disbelief if you weren't gritting your teeth so damn hard, heart on the verge of exploding as the last laps tick out in a blur.

Just a few more minutes. Just a few more seconds, and the night sky over Marina Bay will explode in crimson lights...

Mechanics spring to their feet and climb the wall to the track, bumping their fists in the air. Cheers, claps, exclamations, a bouquet of red roses swaying in the wind to greet its champion at the finish line. And then, the unmistakable roar of a racecar speeding past the chequered flag at three hundred kilometers an hour. Liberation.

You spring to your feet right as the fireworks go off, yelling to the sky. Carlos won. Carlos won! Your Carlos—in the middle of Red Bull's flawless season...

"¡Vamos Fred! ¡Vamos Ricky!" Flashes of red and gold pass his high spirits by, diligently braking into the first corner.

He laughs, he screams it all out, unclenching all his muscles, woozy from the G's, from the adrenaline, from the win... from you, watching him from the pit wall. From the memory of your skin against his, your adoring eyes and the formidable lightness inside his chest that has him feeling like he's the king of the world.

In a few minutes, he'll be posing with his trophy and the team in front of his P1 plaque for the group photo, and he'll drench you in champagne—your lively laughter will fill his heart with the gold of medals. And later in the evening, before the afterparty, he'll pull you aside and tell you maybe this victory has made him reckless, and he'll kiss you senselessly like a prize he fought for.

For now, though, he's nodding his head at Lando who gave him a congratulatory wave from his car when his on-board screen lights up with an unexpected message. Glowing red letters read, "Great job, smooth operator! 🌶️" Laughter escapes him as small virtual fireworks go off on his screen... and he presses the radio button on his steering wheel.

"Did she have one of these ready for Charles too?"

A few seconds of white noise, and then, your mischievous voice, dripping with joy.

"You know me, Carlos. Never play favorites."

… f1 taglist; @retvenkos @giuseppe-yuki (want to be added? send me an ask!)

[olive-recs]

♯BOY TROUBLE ( how would the batboys react to you mentally adopting damian wayne ! )

— gn!reader, established relationship ( dick & tim — separated ) , fluff, not edited, based on this req.

© ahqkas — all rights reserved. even when credited, these works are prohibited to be reposted, translated or modified

. . . DICK GRAYSON !

it all started the moment you met the youngest wayne. a misunderstood boy who just needed to be a kid for once in his life? yeah, he’s in your care now

whenever damian has competitions — be it fencing matches, art exhibitions, or even a spelling bee he had unwillingly agreed to participate in under the pressure of his annoying teacher — you’re the first to make sure his support system is solid. you firmly believe no child should perform without someone rooting for them and you are all for the opinion

you’d clear your schedule to make the time for the boy, no matter how busy things got, and even often dragging your boyfriend, dick, along with you, even if he was juggling nightwing duties in between

“you will take off for this. your little brother deserves to see you in the audience.”

your enthusiasm is literally unmatched. damian rolls his eyes and grumbles, “tch, stop embarrassing me,” but secretly, he glances at you during breaks and feels a strange warmth knowing someone is so invested in his hobbies / competitions and not just his skills / training :(

when the competition ended in a win ( “that’s my champion up there! gold medalist, damian wayne!” ) , you were celebrating with him like it’s the olympics, insisting he picked the restaurant for dinner as a treat

for the rest of that night, the three of you indulged in the finest fast food gotham had to offer with you and dick gloating over damian while the boy quietly basked in your praise. though he’d never admit it, the celebration made the medal feel just a little more special

when damian gets in trouble at school — whether it’s a “misunderstanding” as they call it or him actually calling a classmate an “insufferable peasant” — you refuse to believe your sweet boy could ever be at fault

you’d march straight to the principal’s office with dick in tow ( he was kinda forced to come with you ), arms crossed, ready to advocate and defend the boy’s side. “let me get this straight. you’re accusing damian of initiating this? he doesn’t need to; his vocabulary alone could bring your students to tears.”

dick has to hold you back with how expressive your language becomes, and damian just stands there and watches you with a mix of amusement and silent admiration, although he would never admit the latter

damian often snaps at his brothers or throws a sarcastic jab that cuts too deep with his tongue that’s as sharp as his katana. and of course you’re quick to defend him

the second jason storms off muttering about how “the demon spawn needs a leash” or tim fires an insult of his own, you’re already positioning yourself between the brothers ( while taking the youngest’s side )

even dick gets the full treatment of facing your wrath. if he ever reprimands the boy too harshly, you gently interrupt, pulling damian aside later to reassure him. “your brothers don’t always get you, but i do. they’ll catch up eventually.”

you’re not above spoiling him in subtle ways, especially knowing that your boyfriend & his brother never had someone like this when he was damian’s age ( he kinda had bruce, but the older man was too busy with his own problems sooo )

you sneak art supplies and books into his room because you know about his interest toward art and animals. “oh, these? they were on sale. don’t think too hard about it,” you say, but the price tags tell a different story ( it was dick’s debit card so who really cares — more like bruce’s but oh well !! )

you’re also constantly pushing dick to spend quality time with his younger brother. “go take him to the arcade or something. he needs these memories with you.”

speaking of art, you keep every piece of artwork damian makes — no matter how small or nessy— like it’s a rare portrait. most of those pieces end up on the fridge in the apartment you share with dick, attached with mismatched magnets you buy in every new country you visit

the first time he noticed, it was a simple pencil sketch of titus he’d left on the counter when he visited ( ran away from gotham ). he’d been practicing shading and hadn’t even meant for anyone to see it. when he walked into the kitchen and spotted it on the fridge one day, neatly pinned beneath a sunflower magnet, he froze. “what is that doing there?” his voice was sharp but his cheeks tinged pink

“it’s your drawing.”

yes, he can clearly see that

“it’s just a sketch.”

“maybe to you,” you said, finally meeting his gaze with a soft smile, “but i think it’s perfect.”

he didn’t respond, just muttered something under his breath and walked away, but the next time you looked at him, you caught him stealing a glance at the fridge with a subtle, almost imperceptible smile

in your eyes, damian might be the fiercest, sharpest little warrior in the world, but he’s still a kid who needs love, support, and the freedom to grow. and you’re determined to give him everything he deserves

. . . TIM DRAKE !

it was the same as dick’s, damian wayne had you wrapped around his little finger the moment your eyes landed on him.

whenever the boy has a competition — whether it’s an art showcase or even a science fair — you’re the one who’s planning to make sure his support squad is in place ( forming you and your boyfriend, tim drake )

“tim, clear your schedule. i don’t care if bruce called a meeting or gotham’s on fire. damian’s science fair is tomorrow, and we will be there.”

there’s no point in arguing with you

the moment you hear about the science fair, you are immediately all in. of course damian protests about how he doesn’t need your help. he’s completely capable of doing some stupid project

“i know you are, but every great scientist needs an assistant. think of me as your alfred in this situation,” you hoped the slightest mention of alfred, his father’s personal assistant would make damian less grumpy but from the way he shot you a glare you knew your attempt was screwed ( not for long )

over the weeks leading up to the fair, you help him brainstorm ideas that are in balance with his advanced brain work and appropriate for his age group. damian initially suggests a DNA-splicing project but settles on a robotics demonstration when you gently redirect him with how the school might frown upon genetic experiments ( he tried once and by the end of his presentation, the teacher called bruce )

when the winners are announced and damian takes first place ( because of course he does) , you practically jumps out of your seat, clapping and cheering louder than anyone else. tim chuckles beside you with a teasing smile etched on his lips, “you’re more excited than he is.”

back at home, as you help him unpack his supplies, damian quietly hands you the certificate he received. “you should keep this.”

“damian, this is your award. why would i keep it?”

“you helped,” his reply is dry and all you get before he disappears into his room

he gets into trouble in school sometimes, and you absolutely refuse to believe that your damian could be at fault

whether he got into a fight, talked back to a teacher, or made some kid cry with a sarcastic comment, you’re pretty convinced it’s all a big misunderstanding. “he’s such a sweet boy, he wouldn’t do something like that unless provoked.” ( sureee )

you drag tim along to the principal’s office and the sight of you looking like damian’s legal guardians creates a funny picture. “are you seriously telling me that a kid who can quote shakespeare off the top of his head is starting childish banters?”

and when damian mouths off to tim or the rest of the family, you always jump in to defend him

“he didn’t mean to call you incompetent, tim. he’s just expressing himself in his unique way.”

“you can’t expect him to adjust overnight, jason. he’s been through a lot.”

tim often raises an eyebrow at your behavior towards his younger brother. “you do realize you’re coddling a kid who could take out a grown man with his bare hands, right?”

who cares, tim, look at the drawing he just made!!

you let him ramble on about his pets, especially about batcow’s care routine or the meal preferences of alfred the cat

damian “accidentally” leaves drawings of you on your desk, and when you thanks him, he dismisses it as “just a sketch”

in your eyes, damian isn’t just tim’s little brother—he’s yours, too

[olive-recs]

CASSIDY HOW I HAVE MISSED YOUUUUUUU (and how i have missed your big brained, silly, funny, miraculously vibechecked and aesthetic writing but we'll get there in time, first know that i think of you constantly <3)

finding out you're in the dc fanbase is curing me, actually, but don't bring me back to my jason todd days, please revive this part of me in a way infinitely stronger and i have some Thoughts™ about your silly silly writing so allow me to clear my throat so that i might more properly scream:

YOU GET IT; YOU GET IT; YOU DELIVERED; YOU UNDERSTOOD <3333.

ofc the bruce one was on point i see your current ride or die energy for him, it's silly fun, but the jason section????? oh you knew what the girlies were veritably begging for and that's so powerful of you to just deliver like that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and tim so right so right that loser would and i can't be upset about it ♥♥♥ my favorite of the set has to be dick though, i think you perfected the precarious tightrope that separates his competent side and loser energy <3333. don't make me consider writing for these degenerates again, it could, in fact, break me.

attractive things they do while you're dating

pairing: batboys (plus clark lol) & reader ❀ׄ ꥈ

𓍢ִ໋☕ cassidy's note: for funsies. not edited. i love reading variations of these. i haven't written since 2020. if you can like this, reblog too.

bruce 🦇ᡣ𐭩˚.

navigating paparazzi: the careful way he guides you to block the flaring flashes from cameras with his broad shoulders.

bruce wraps his fingers to pull on your waist, tugging you further behind him, ensuring no shots of you are taken on what was meant to be a private night out.

despite the urgency of the situation--his face still stays controlled and imperturbable, but his grip is firm to reassure you, as he leans down and mumbles in your ear, "just a bit farther, the car's close," before his voice cuts through the cries and shutters lowly: "we're done here."

listens intently, and remembers every single detail about you, despite whether you think it's significant or not for him to know.

bruce stores your favorite shampoo and conditioner in his bathroom when you stay the night over.

and when you're sitting on the edge of his sink, removing his makeup from under his eyes, you notice it sitting amongst his own body-wash and pine scented soap.

but when you ask him about it, he simply shrugs and waves it off.

dick 🏙ɞ♥️*

teaches you self defense: his hands gently curl over yours to demonstrate how they should look before you throw a punch.

his touch is light, "keep your thumb on the outside", dick's finger taps the inside of your palm, "if you keep it inside, you'll break it--not fun."

he whistles when you hit him solidly in the side with a wide grin, despite the force of your blow, "better."

insists on helping you put on all your jewellery and shoes.

he turns you around, and pulls your hair to one side of your neck, before fiddling with the clasp. he's clumsy at first, but eventually gets the hang of it the more he does it. his hands linger on the slope of your neck for a moment longer than necessary.

later, as you reach for your shoes, he beats you to it, kneeling in front of you. dick's motions are all exaggerated as he does it.

your hand cards through his hair when he's looking up through his lashes after he's fastened the straps, and kissing the inside of your calf slowly.

jason ❤️‍🩹⋆｡

reads on public transportation: jason pulls out a beat up paperback he picked up from a secondhand bookstore from his back pocket. it has dog eared pages and a weathered spine.

there's a baby crying on the train, but he doesn't seem to notice as he flicks a ringed finger to the page he last read.

he pulls a pencil from his jacket pocket, and traces a line in a passage--a part he thinks you'd like. when he leans forward, his shirt rides up a bit so a strip of his skin is visible to you.

doesn't wipe your lipgloss from his cheek.

the shimmer from it stains his cheek after you pressed a kiss to it. you go to wipe it with a laugh, reaching with your thumb, and jason catches it mid-air. "you've got glitter on your face jay, people are gonna-"

"next time, wear red."

tim 🪽❥˚

gnaws at his lip as he concentrates.

the hum of the keys click in the batcave and papers rustle. tim's focus is sharp as he attempts piecing together his newest case, and his teeth catch in his bottom lip. an unconscious habit.

you can't help but tease him about it, "that's a terrible habit to have, you know that?" you lean against his desk."it helps me think."

sure enough, he does it again. "you're gonna chew your lip off your face one day." his lips curve upwards at your observation, but your gaze was now intense as you observed his lip in his teeth, and before you can state another snarky remark, he shoots you a knowing look before pulling your belt loops, and kissing you.

wears your hair tie on his wrist. it was never really ever a big deal. one day you handed it to him while getting ready for bed one night as you pulled out your ponytail and he snapped it onto his wrist without much thought. now, it's routine. it doesn't matter where he is exactly, if tim's at a gala or in a meeting or out in gotham on patrol, the hair tie is around his wrist.

you heard him cursing from the other room when he misplaced it once.

clark 🌟.*☆

saves you a seat, always: whether it's evenings in or out, clark always makes you feel like you're the most important person there.

it's not something that's said but understood, as he pulls the chair next to him, letting it be out long enough for you to get comfortable, before gently scooting it inwards.

when you eat, and when he thinks you're not looking--clark will adjust your plate, and glace over at your water glass to make sure it is filled. and if you want extra bread, don't even worry because he kept an extra piece on his plate for you.

pushing his glasses up. there's something kinda charming about the way he does it that you wish you could explain it better. it's absentminded, he does it a lot!

when he's looking over articles or reading or just talking to you. in the elevator, he'll lean forward to look over the numbered floors, and they won't stay in place, sliding down the bridge of his nose. you don't say anything, but smile slightly, and he'll return it goofily and with more teeth, before he asks, "what?"

tags: @retvenkos

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LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS SMMMMMMM ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

Was sooooo right in thinking Franco was gonna be one of my favorites ♡♡♡ his personality lights up this fic, and i just adore the banter and playfulness you portray here ♡♡♡♡♡ you do it every time, clara, and i can never know how ♡♡♡♡♡ simply magic ♡♡♡♡♡

hello beloved I hope your shoulder surgery goes well!!! as a little distraction can I please ask for a franco colapinto x driver!reader, enemies to lovers? love u and thinking of u always xoxo

· · · · ♡ BOOM, CRASH! (fc43)

… starring franco colapinto x f!driver!reader ... 2.4k words ... in which you get into a nasty crash, and the first person to visit you in the hospital is the last guy you'd ever imagined being worried about you. ... warnings for crash, hospital, injuries, blood, nothing too graphic i think! reader is a bit of a bully tbhh but it is a cutthroat sport 😌 ... if you haven't noticed already, these are all very self-indulgent for me, and this is no exception.

Ironically, the last words you remember telling Franco Colapinto before you barrel into the wall at turn 12 were “Don't crash it.”

“What?”

“Don't crash it,” you repeat pointedly. “Logan wasn't exactly irreproachable in that regard. Budget cap's drawing closer.”

Your smile is wide but dulcet, not quite reaching your eyes, and your teeth are sharp and gritted. To any inopportune cameras that would be pointed at you right now, you only look like a well-meaning driver giving your rookie teammate advice before his second-ever F1 race... but neither you nor Franco miss the electricity crackling in the hallway outside the driver rooms.

“What makes you think I'm gonna crash it?" the Argentinian bites back, all fluttering eyelashes and wolfish smile. Unfazed, as always. Grinds your gears like little else can. "If anything, you be careful to not crash into me. Since I'm starting ahead on the grid and all.”

“Right, I forget it's your first time in Baku. You'll see what I mean soon enough, anyway.”

Your steps lead you down the hallway and to the garages mechanically, a path you've taken dozens of times, wearing different colored suits, following behind different teammates in stride. And this year's Williams blue would've suited you perfectly... if it didn't come attached with the pretentious goofball traipsing behind you.

You don't even bother looking back when you speak again. You raise your chin and brace yourself for the artificial lights of the pitlane.

“Good luck, or whatever.”

“It wouldn't kill you to be nice, you know?”

“Wouldn't kill you to know your place.”

The door handle creaks beneath your gloved hand, drowning out whatever it is Franco mutters in Spanish on the other end of the hall—”re amargada la piba esta” he mumbles to no one but himself—, and at last you are safe, at peace in the nervous bustle of a garage entirely devoted to you.

Sure, getting a new teammate midseason is a tough predicament to find oneself in: a whole new dynamic to establish, a whole routine to fall into. And newbies always get the chance to make good first impressions; not the girl who’s been sitting in the car for two years. You’d told yourself you wouldn’t mind it—Carlos Sainz will be snatching your first driver privileges next year anyway—but it would be easier to comply if the aforementioned new teammate wasn’t an annoying pain in the ass, flirting and laughing his way through the paddock with that detached nonchalance that believes everyone must be wrapped around his finger, and then having the gall to outqualify you on one of your favorite circuits. On his first-ever time there!

So yes, maybe it’s your ego taking up too much space in the tight cockpit of your Williams, obscuring your vision. Maybe it’s the disastrous grip you’ve reported twice now on the radio—Okay, Y/N, we heard that and we’ll get back to you.

Whatever it is, somewhere around lap 20, your car oversteers into a wide spin right as you enter the rapid turn. The steering wheel snaps out of your hands, and it’s like a giant strangles you with all its might for a blink of an eye, barely even a second.

You only know you’ve hit the wall—hard—from the ringing in your ears and soreness of your jaw. What used to be your front right tire lies in front of your smashed wing, rubber and carbon scattered pitifully. Your finger shakes when you lift it and press the radio button.

“I’m OK… I think.”

A flash of red catches the corner of your eye. You’re not sure if it’s from the flag being waved outside of track limits, a Haas zooming past in the corner, or… it’s hot, and viscous on your eyebrow, dripping into your eyes. You bring your hand to your forehead, where your helmet is crushed inward, just above your left eye. Smashed into your forehead.

Then everything kind of blurs together. You vaguely feel someone helping you out of the wreckage, their distant yapping about concussion symptoms not helping your light-headedness at all. You think you slip out of consciousness for the first time then, on the track still, because your next memory is of an ambulance—or what you assume to be an ambulance, you’ve never ridden in one before, and you even think to yourself this new procedure is pretty excessive from the FIA, the medical car was quite sufficient—and then it’s back to nothingness until you wake up for good on a stretcher, hooked to some sort of medical tube—perfusion?—as you’re being ushered into a quiet hospital room.

The nurse who visits you is sweet, filling in the blanks in slow, accented English. The gash to your forehead is pretty deep, but nothing the surgeon doesn’t see at least once a week! (At that, you lift a groggy hand above your brow bone, where you feel a thick bandage.) A few stitches later and you’re good as new, though the blood loss and concussion combined left you pretty weak, and justify keeping you in observation for the night. It’s just protocol, you’re probably used to hospital visits in that line of work of yours, she jokes—and you know you’ve recovered almost all your mental acuity because you get offended at that. No, you don’t usually crash. In fact, you haven’t all season…

And it had to be today of all days, in Baku… after you told Franco to not crash it.

When the nurse leaves the room with the promise she’ll be back in an hour, you let out a long, dreary sigh. Fernando Alonso’s grainy voice over the radio comes to mind. ¡Karma!

Night falls quickly outside your window with nothing to kill time but your phone. After catching up on the race results—somehow you’re too exhausted to feel irritated at Colapinto’s points finish—and posting a reassuring Instagram story for your followers, you’re left to the mercy of your ruminating thoughts. Sleep is impossible to catch; the adrenaline of the race hasn’t worn off yet, and you’ve been knocked out so long now you’re desperate to leave this stretcher.

You’ve just about decided to call the nurse for an early discharge when a shadow appears behind the door’s little windowpane, hesitates for a second, and then knocks. Medical personnel wouldn’t bother; it’s probably your family, or maybe even Vowles, or…

“Hey, how… che, estás hecha mierda.”

You tense immediately when you catch the brown waves of hair and unmistakable accent as Franco walks into your hospital room. He looks genuinely stumped, like he hadn’t expected to see you in such bad condition, so much so he forgets to shut the door behind him.

For some reason, the sight endears you. Makes you want to take him in your arms, feel his realness in this hallucinatory evening. What a ridiculous thought!

“Stop it with the Spanish,” you protest, devoid of your usual fire however. “Maybe it works on your fangirls, but not on me.”

“I said you look like shit.”

“Oh.” You look him straight in the eye, the silliness of the situation dawning on you, and against all odds you start to laugh. A real laugh, more than a chuckle, one that sends phantom pains stabbing through your sore abdomen. “Well if that’s all you’re gonna say, you can stick to Spanish! I don’t want to hear it.”

What did the nurse say about the anesthesia’s side effects? Do they include feeling a little glad and relieved to see your detested teammate? To know he’s the first person to check up on you?

Whatever the reason, you’re laughing, absurdly, and so is Franco, chuckling to himself as he closes the door and drags a chair closer to your bed. His eyes crinkle like a little kid’s, and that’s when you notice his disheveled appearance. Cheeks a little flushed, hair tousled like he’s just run a marathon, he’s wearing a crumpled-up Williams shirt, no doubt the first thing he could get his hands on after the race. It hits you then that he’s probably just off media duties, and the fact he’s alone, with no team delegation in tow, indicates he left early. Just to get to you. To make sure you were alright.

You are a competitor, but you aren’t a monster. The idea Franco couldn’t be bothered to wait for James, or anyone else, tugs at your heartstrings.

“Thank God you told me not to crash it, huh?” he teases between chuckles.

“Shut up.”

“Careful, Y/N, the budget cap is coming for you,” he wiggles his fingers over your face like a looming ghost.

You turn your head away to face the wall, huffing in exasperation, but a throbbing pain traverses your skull, and you wince. Franco’s eyes darken, smile fading into a grave expression.

You rarely see him like this outside of the helmet. It’s novel, but it’s welcome. Almost attractive, in a way.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I… My helmet smashed into my forehead. I was bleeding pretty bad, apparently, they had to stitch me up. I got concussed too. Aren’t helmets supposed to absorb these hits?”

“Concussed?” he repeats, and holds out his hand in a peace sign. “How many fingers?”

You stick out your tongue at the Argentinian, flipping him the bird.

“And now?”

“Ah, come on, don’t be so mean,” Franco chuckles, scooting a little closer to your stretcher with his chair. Unfazed, as always. But this time it doesn’t peeve you; you’re rather thankful for his cheeky banter, actually. For a moment, in the blur of cold white lights and carbon fiber debris, you’d started to fear you could lose it for good. “We were just starting to become friends!”

“That’s because I’m concussed. I don’t want to be friends with you, we’re rivals.”

“Well the whole rivals thing isn’t working very well for you lately. Maybe you’re better off being friends with me.”

You roll your eyes, but the gnawing anxiety that roars in your stomach whenever someone pits you against the rookie stays quiet for once. Perhaps you’re still under the influence of the tranquilizers… or perhaps those brown eyes holding you in their light, tender in a way you’ve never seen them before, make it harder to get mad at him.

“I’ll consider it.”

And you don’t mean it just yet, but you don’t don’t mean it. What do you even hate Franco Colapinto for? Stealing the spotlight from you just two weeks into his career? Flirting with every living being on the paddock except you? Or forcing you to up your game and face your fears?

A stabbing pain crushes your skull all of a sudden, and you shut your eyes, teeth gritted and muscles taut, to try and breathe it out… to no avail. When you open your eyes, Franco is staring at you, brows furrowed in that same serious, concerned expression that sends a wholly different type of pins and needles through your body.

“Everything alright?”

“No… The painkillers. I need another ketoprofen,” you whine, squinting your eyes against the harsh hospital lightning.

“Should I call the nurse?”

“No, they’re on the table over there,” you gesture blindly. “There’s a glass too.”

Only sounds inform you of what’s going on once you close your eyes, faint lights and colors barely piercing through your eyelids. The rustling of fabric, then someone fumbling with cardboard and pills, your sink opening, and then cautious footsteps stopping at the edge of your bed.

“Here.”

You take the pill between weak fingers and fight with all your might to sit up straight in the bed without moving your head… but the soreness and exhaustion from the race and surgery overpower you. So much for neck strength.

“I can’t,” you huff out in defeat. “I can’t tilt my head.”

“It’s okay. Take the pill,” Franco orders softly, and you put the drug on your tongue, too tired to raise the outrage of him bossing you around.

Slowly, carefully, Franco brings the rim of the glass to your lips, and you drink all that you can, training your attention on the medication going down your throat—and not on your teammate’s intense gaze fixed on your mouth, nor the proximity of your bodies or his slightly ragged breath.

“Thank you,” you exhale when you’re done.

Luckily for him, he has his back turned to you when you speak, setting the empty glass down on the table, so you don’t notice his bashful smile. He’s never heard you so docile, affable, even, and though he likes it when you bite back… it feels great, too, to know there is a way to pierce that armor of yours.

“Franco,” you call out to him, neither of you missing how this is one of the first times you’ve called him by his first name. “Do you mind… staying? Just until James or someone else gets here. It gets so boring.”

He spins on his heels in disbelief, scrutinizing you in search of mockery, or irony, or your usual callousness… but all he reads is earnest and the slightest hint of embarrassment, all he sees is your outstretched hand. So he brushes it with his, not daring to hold it purposefully just yet. Like he doesn’t want to overstay his welcome into your bubble.

“Yeah, sure. But only so you won’t get bored.”

“Of course,” you smile faintly as he sits back down on his chair. Your eyes meet in newfound amusement, maybe even temporary fondness. “Don’t go around thinking I like you.”

“Me? I would never. We’re rivals.”

You give a small appreciative nod, and after some instants of silence, clear your throat and ask him to recount the end of the race. Just as you expected, his storytelling is dramatic and entertaining, interspersed with words he doesn’t remember how to say in English and the unmissable zest of grid gossip Franco always brings to his tales. You chuckle, gasp, and pester even, as much as you can with your aching skull and limbs… and barely notice the minutes ticking by, or how you wish the rest of your team would never show up, your distaste for Franco slaking.

Maybe you can be persuaded into liking his presence, after all. So long as he stays out of the car, though… and remains your personal nurse.

… f1 taglist; @retvenkos @giuseppe-yuki (want to be added? send me an ask!)

[olive-recs]

Could I please please please ask for a lil thing about Lewis comforting his partner when they’re feeling insecure 🥺 👉🏻👈🏻

· · · · ♡ pre-season jitters (lh44)

… starring lewis hamilton x gn!reader (and roscoe !!)

... 1.4k words

... in which the bleak pre-season period has you feeling all sorts of anxious, but a homemade meal and affection from your favorite person (and dog!) could be just the thing you need.

... i love this request and I think we could all use a little bit of lewis reassurance every now and then 🥹 let's all forget this horrendous weekend for him btw

The pitter-patter of Roscoe's claws on the linoleum floors is what reveals your presence first. Slumbering in the kitchen amidst the fumes from the extractor hood, the bulldog suddenly straightens up, stares at the front door, ears pricked up for no apparent reason, and disappears into the hallway with a snort. That's when Lewis knows he has to set the table, add pepper to the risotto. He's not the best cook, and usually the private chef would be in charge of dinner... but in the week preceding each new season, the British driver prefers to keep his evenings and his hands busy.

Your steps are heavy, keys turning in the door laboriously—"Hi Roscoe, oh, you're a sleepy boy, aren't you?" faint between huffs and puffs. Lewis can read you like an open book after so many years: it's not just the bleak mid-February evening weighing you down.

You've had a shit day.

"Hi, Lew," you sigh as you step into the kitchen to wash your hands, something like weary relief peeking from your tone.

"Hi, love." In the cozy penthouse lights, your tense figure and slumped shoulders look out of place, too harrowed to belong in this neat space that the London night outside can't traverse. "I made dinner, nothing too fancy, sorry, but..."

"It's perfect," you cut him off gently, with those shiny eyes he adores so much, eyes that only ever seem to catch his light and nothing else's. A quick peck to his cheek unravels your twisted face a little more. "Wish it were pre-season jitters every week."

"I don't," he chuckles, the sound vibrating against your shoulder like a gentle caress. "Poor Bono's going to have a heart attack any day now... you'd think we haven't done this ten times over already."

Dinner is a ritual, almost a sacralized place for Lewis and you—and Roscoe, wagging his tail back and forth between your legs to see what he can puppy-look his humans into slipping him underneath the table. And it works, Lewis never having been one to resist him for long; Roscoe licks his chops with each mushroom he eagerly steals from the driver's fingers. Easy conversation turns into soft jokes and his latest media duty drama, your favorite to dissect after a long day... but he notices the spark in your smile doesn't reach your eyes, and your mouth contorts into a downtrodden pout when he leans over to scratch the top of Roscoe's big head.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asks in earnest, and as long as you don't meet those big, soulful brown eyes, you know you can get through the conversation without crumbling.

"Yeah, I'm just a little tired-"

"No," he shakes his head, smiling ever so slightly, as his hand reaches out to cradle your fingers on the table. "Come on, I know you by heart. I know you're upset. You know you can tell me everything that's on your mind, right?"

Moonlight filters through the large glass windows, mixing with the ceiling light's warm glow and casting a hundred different hues on your cheeks—fractals of white and gold softening the blacks of your eye bags. Lewis aches to see you so—gorgeous and exhausted, yet unwaveringly surrendered to him, willing to crash headfirst into his safe haven. His hand clasps yours at the same time as Roscoe rests a warm, heavy head on your lap.

"It's just... this stupid thing at work. I'm so... behind on everything, and there's this new guy who's always being passive-aggressive towards me in front of our boss, and he's a fucking idiot but—everyone loves him and his ideas, and I feel like no one... appreciates anything I do or even just values my presence, and..." Quivers in your voice you barely control anymore. "And also, you're gonna be leaving next week and I hate it so much when you're gone because then I feel sad but being sad makes me feel like a big burden to you because you're supposed to be focusing on racing and not... not babysitting me or listening to me drag you down, and then I—"

"Hey," he interrupts before your tirade degenerates, and you almost don't notice him getting up from his chair, shapes moving beyond the blurry veil of your eyelashes.

You rush to wipe them; in the blink of an eye he's there, with a gentle hand on your shoulder; its weight grounds you, much like Roscoe's chin pressing a little deeper against your thigh. As if sensing your distress.

"I think you may be getting into your own head a little. Don't you think?"

He speaks softly, but nothing paternalistic; a conciliatory hum that echoes the steady purring of the washing machine, and down below, all these cars full of people headed back to their own little warm huts. Words don't come to your tongue, blocked by the acerbic shame that bubbles in the pit of your throat—how many times must you fall to pieces over nothing in front of him like this? Instead, you shake your head, and that's good enough for him.

"You're not a burden, love."

You've heard it before, from unremarkable social media influencers and good-natured friends, but it's only when Lewis says it, with the perfect balance of pragmatism and warmth, that you truly let the meaning seep in.

"Not now, and not ever. I listen to you because I choose to listen to you, because I want to be there for you. And about work—look at it this way. Do you really think they'd keep you around if you contributed nothing? I know I'd get axed."

You laugh despite yourself, which Roscoe takes as a sign that the sudden sour mood is gone and everyone's attention will soon return to the food if the content little yelp he lets out is any indication.

"No one would ever axe you, Lew, you can't be bothered to do media day like every other week and have never been told anything. But I'm not a seven-time world champion of anything."

"You don't need to!" he chuckles too, raising his hands in mock innocence. "I'm just being realistic here. You're valued. You really do matter. Who do you trust more, some pathetic high school bully or a seven-time world champion?"

"You just want me to stroke your ego," you retort, rolling your eyes, though a small smile creeps on you lips when Lewis leans even closer, eye to eye with you.

"Well you brought it up first, and I can't exactly help being the greatest at what I do."

"Shut up," more giggles escape through your pursed lips.

Lewis' eyes crinkle a little brighter with each of your chuckles, but his grin fades into tenderness when he kisses your forehead. As he pulls back, his features are more relaxed, more quiet, but no less expressive for all that.

"Whenever I start beating myself up after a particularly shit weekend, you always tell me you wish I could see myself through your eyes, right? How admirable it is that I always give it my all, and that I always strive to be the best I possibly can? Well, that goes both ways. You get all caught up in your own head and don't realize how people see you... but I love you, and I do. From outside your head," he ends with a playful tap to the tip of your nose, where a few gleaming tears have dug a bed.

Your fingers intertwine with his out of habit, without really thinking about it, and you lean into his side just as his arms close around your frame, one hand cradling the back of your head. It's indescribable, the tranquility that overwhelms you whenever you're in Lewis' arms, like his strong heart is enough to numb all your aching nerves and wounds.

Time can't pass slow enough in his comforting embrace... much to Roscoe's dismay.

"Oh, sorry, big boy, you must be starving," Lewis laughs at the bulldog's disgruntled bark, "it's been at least ten minutes since you last ate anything..."

You ruffle Roscoe's thick neck as he nonchalantly trots behind Lewis and the treats he always smells on his clothes; though the dog's attention is too captivated by the prospect of food to pay you much attention now, you swear he rubs up against your leg like an approximative hug. Blinking away the last tears, you take in the domestic scene, Lewis mumbling sweet nothings to his waddling companion, the familiar sound of his food bowl scraping against the floor.

At least you do hold some significance in your small corner of London, you think. In between these walls, in the depths of their hearts—hearts that have, somewhat and somehow, chosen you. And it won't be easy to understand just yet... but at least, for now, it will be enough to treasure.

... f1 taglist; @retvenkos @giuseppe-yuki (want to be added? send me an ask!)

[olive-recs]

or or or!!!!! consider i've been struck with genius and would like to posit an oscar piastri and roommates au.

· · · · ♡ roommate!oscar piastri...

"your roommate's never around," your best friend remarks as she cozies up in front of the laptop on your bed. "what does he even do all day?"

he flies out the country on a random wednesday night, each destination more exotic than the last—"what do you mean you're going to bahreïn? who even goes to bahreïn on a weekday?". he comes back with trinkets, magnets he sticks on the fridge, and horrible horrible tacky shirts from tourist trap shops just to make you snort. he turns every little thing into a competition; who can most effectively arrange the dough on the oven tray to bake the most cookies in one batch... he smiles when you knock on his door to give him back his hoodie—somehow it got lost in your laundry basket, this oversized gray hoodie sporting mclaren on the chest—and he says, "it's okay, keep it. i'll just ask for another one." he talks about australia with a wistful smile, but cackles in delight when you find yet another jar of vegemite hiding in a cupboard. he shrugs when you ask him why he hasn't moved out already, since he clearly has the funds to do so."i quite like living with you, actually."

"he drives," is all you reply.

send me a driver + a concept and i'll give you a moodboard + drabble !

[olive-recs]

hi hi hi ♡. if you'd consider making content for alex albon, how about albon and the fake relationship au?

· · · · ♡ fake dating!alex albon...

alex clearly hadn't thought this through. but in his defense, how could he have expected his parents to believe him, when he'd said he couldn't spend his free weekend at his grandma's in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, england, because he already had plans with his girlfriend? and even more so—how could he have possibly predicted they would be so over the moon about their darling boy finally finding someone they'd insist he bring his beloved to thailand with them over the summer break? he is sheepish as a scolded dog when he walks over to you in the williams garage. "hey, y/n... you got any plans for the summer?" "fixing your car," you reply, squinting your eyes. that's alex's prank face if you ever saw it. "... would you like a free trip to thailand?"

send me a driver + concept & i'll make a moodboard + drabble based on it !

[olive-recs]

AA23 + FRIENDS TO LOVERS! — sharing clothes, and having inside jokes only the two of you understand. sleepovers that eventually stopped happening as you grew older. watching movies together at your apartment. alex flying you out to races and cheering him on. lingering hugs that are held too long to be strictly platonic. seeing each other in gala outfits and acting completely normal, but then sharing a room overnight and blushing at seeing the other in their pajamas. being invited by alex to a bar with his friends, and not noticing you’d been linking pinkies until someone else points it out—then getting flustered and pulling your hand away… and missing the warmth of his hand the rest of the night.

🎨 send me a prompt and i’ll make a moodboard!