#Data Saved (answered asks)

[ao3scrapesearch]

This tool is optional. No one is required to use it, but it's here if you want to know which of your AO3 fics were scraped. Locked works were not 100% protected from this scrape. Currently, I don't know of any next steps you should be taking, so this is all informational.

Most people should use this link to check if they were included in the March 2025 AO3 scrape. This will show up to 2,000 scraped works for most usernames.

Or you can use this version, which is slower but does a better job if your username is a common word. This version also lets you look up works by work ID number, which is useful if you're looking for an orphaned or anonymous fic.

If you have more than 2,000 published works, first off, I am jealous of your motivation to write that much. But second, that won't display right on the public version of the tools. You can send me an ask (preferred) or DM (if you need to) to have me do a custom search for you if you have more than 2,000 total works under 1 username. If you send an ask off-anon asking me to search a name, I'll assume you want a private answer.

In case this post breaches containment: this is a tool that only has access to the work IDs, titles, author names, chapter counts, and hit counts of the scraped fics for this most recent scrape by nyuuzyou discovered in April 2025. There is no other work data in this tool. This never had the content of your works loaded to it, only info to help you check if your works were scraped. If you need additional metadata, I can search my offline copy for you if you share a work ID number and tell me what data you're looking for. I will never search the full work text for anyone, but I can check things like word counts and tags.

Please come yell if the tool stops working, and I'll fix as fast as I can. It's slow as hell, but it does load eventually. Give it up to 10 minutes, and if it seems down after that, please alert me via ask! Anons are on if you're shy. The link at the top is faster and handles most users well.

On mobile, enable screen rotation and turn your phone sideways. It's a litttttle easier to use like that. It works better if you can use desktop.

Some FAQs below the cut:

First off! If you're seeing an old version of this post, you may not have seen that we now have our first tool to poison AO3 fics! This is still experimental, and it's likely we'll find issues with it as people start using it! But if you want something like Glaze and Nightshade but for fic, this is what we have right now. Before you decide to use it, please read all the info you can--most importantly, using the poison in its current state makes your fic inaccessible to certain users. All the TTS tools I've tried work with this as long as your readers know to save the fic in a certain way! But people who need to download an offline copy to adjust the colors and can't do that with an AO3 site skin will NOT be able to download your work with the current version of the poison. For downloading EPUBs, it preliminarily looks like Calibre can support "unpoisoning" the fic so it's readable again.

"What do I need to do now?": At this time, the main place where this dataset was shared is disabled. As far as I'm aware, you don't need to do anything, but I'll update if I hear otherwise. If you're worried about getting scraped again, locking your fics to users only is NOT a guarantee, but it's a little extra protection. There are methods that can protect you more, but those will come at a cost of hiding your works from more potential readers as well.

"I know AO3 will be scraped again, and I'm willing to put a silly amount of effort into making my fics unusable for AI!": Excellent, stick around here. I'm currently trying to keep up with anyone working on solutions to poison our AO3 fics, and I will be reblogging information about doing this as I come across it.

"I want my fics to be unusable for AI, but I wanna be lazy about it.": You're so real for that, bestie. It may take awhile, but I'm on the lookout for data poisoning methods that require less effort, and I will boost posts regarding that once I find anything reputable.

"I don't want to know!": This tool is 100% optional. If you don't want to know, simply don't click the link. You are totally welcome to block me if it makes you feel more comfortable.

"Can I see the exact content they scraped?": Nope, not through me. I don't have the time to vet every single person to make sure they are who they say they are, and I don't want to risk giving a scraped copy of your fic to anyone else. If you really want to see this, you can find the info out there still and look it up yourself, but I can't be the one to do it for you.

"Are locked fics safe?": Not safe, but so far, it appears that locked fics were scraped less often than public fics. The only fics I haven't seen scraped as of right now are fics in unrevealed collections, which even logged-in users can't view without permission from the owner.

"My work wasn't a fic. It was an image/video/podfic.": You're safe! All the scrape got was stuff like the tags you used and your title and author name. The work content itself is a blank gap based on the samples I've checked.

"It's slow.": Unfortunately, a 13 million row data dashboard is going to be on the slow side. I think I've done everything I can to speed it up, but it may still take up to 10 minutes to load if you use the second link. It's faster if you can use desktop or the first link, but it should work on your phone too.

"My fic isn't there.": The cut-off date is around February 15th, 2025 for oneshots, but chapters posted up to March 21st, 2025 have been found in the data so far. I had to remove a few works from the dataset because the data was all skrungly and breaking my tool. (The few fics I removed were NOT in English.) Otherwise, from what I can tell so far, the scraper's code just... wasn't very good, so most likely, your fic was missed by random chance.

Thanks to everyone who helped with the cost to host the tool! I appreciate you so so so much. As of this edit, I've received more donations than what I paid to make this tool so you do NOT need to keep sending money. (But I super appreciate everyone who did help fund this! I just wanna make sure we all know it's all paid for now, so if you send any more that's just going to my savings to fix the electrical problems with my house. I don't have any more costs to support for this project right now.)

(Made some edits to the post on 27-May-2025 to update information!)

[ophcnim]

tag dumpeth

♢▐

[wordstome]

how c.ai works and why it's unethical

Okay, since the AI discourse is happening again, I want to make this very clear, because a few weeks ago I had to explain to a (well meaning) person in the community how AI works. I'm going to be addressing people who are maybe younger or aren't familiar with the latest type of "AI", not people who purposely devalue the work of creatives and/or are shills.

The name "Artificial Intelligence" is a bit misleading when it comes to things like AI chatbots. When you think of AI, you think of a robot, and you might think that by making a chatbot you're simply programming a robot to talk about something you want them to talk about, and it's similar to an rp partner. But with current technology, that's not how AI works. For a breakdown on how AI is programmed, CGP grey made a great video about this several years ago (he updated the title and thumbnail recently)

I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend you watch this because CGP Grey is good at explaining, but the tl;dr for this post is this: bots are made with a metric shit-ton of data. In C.AI's case, the data is writing. Stolen writing, usually scraped fanfiction.

How do we know chatbots are stealing from fanfiction writers? It knows what omegaverse is [SOURCE] (it's a Wired article, put it in incognito mode if it won't let you read it), and when a Reddit user asked a chatbot to write a story about "Steve", it automatically wrote about characters named "Bucky" and "Tony" [SOURCE].

I also said this in the tags of a previous reblog, but when you're talking to C.AI bots, it's also taking your writing and using it in its algorithm: which seems fine until you realize 1. They're using your work uncredited 2. It's not staying private, they're using your work to make their service better, a service they're trying to make money off of.

"But Bucca," you might say. "Human writers work like that too. We read books and other fanfictions and that's how we come up with material for roleplay or fanfiction."

Well, what's the difference between plagiarism and original writing? The answer is that plagiarism is taking what someone else has made and simply editing it or mixing it up to look original. You didn't do any thinking yourself. C.AI doesn't "think" because it's not a brain, it takes all the fanfiction it was taught on, mixes it up with whatever topic you've given it, and generates a response like in old-timey mysteries where somebody cuts a bunch of letters out of magazines and pastes them together to write a letter.

(And might I remind you, people can't monetize their fanfiction the way C.AI is trying to monetize itself. Authors are very lax about fanfiction nowadays: we've come a long way since the Anne Rice days of terror. But this issue is cropping back up again with BookTok complaining that they can't pay someone else for bound copies of fanfiction. Don't do that either.)

Bottom line, here are the problems with using things like C.AI:

It is using material it doesn't have permission to use and doesn't credit anybody. Not only is it ethically wrong, but AI is already beginning to contend with copyright issues.

C.AI sucks at its job anyway. It's not good at basic story structure like building tension, and can't even remember things you've told it. I've also seen many instances of bots saying triggering or disgusting things that deeply upset the user. You don't get that with properly trigger tagged fanworks.

Your work and your time put into the app can be taken away from you at any moment and used to make money for someone else. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people who use AI panic about accidentally deleting a bot that they spent hours conversing with. Your time and effort is so much more stable and well-preserved if you wrote a fanfiction or roleplayed with someone and saved the chatlogs. The company that owns and runs C.AI can not only use whatever you've written as they see fit, they can take your shit away on a whim, either on purpose or by accident due to the nature of the Internet.

DON'T USE C.AI, OR AT THE VERY BARE MINIMUM DO NOT DO THE AI'S WORK FOR IT BY STEALING OTHER PEOPLES' WORK TO PUT INTO IT. Writing fanfiction is a communal labor of love. We share it with each other for free for the love of the original work and ideas we share. Not only can AI not replicate this, but it shouldn't.

(also, this goes without saying, but this entire post also applies to ai art)

[lucyrose191]

CALM IN THE STORM| H.SPECTER

Pairing: Harvey Specter x Wife!reader

Summary: The entire firm knew how temperamental Harvey Specter was and whenever he was in one of those moods, they knew it was going to be a painful day, until they found the only thing that could calm him down.

Warnings: none.

Suits Master List

Harvey Specter could be described as many things; arrogant, rude, uptight, stone-faced and most certainly hot headed. It wasn’t hard to piss him off but it was certainly difficult to calm him down and once his mood was ruined the entire day was doomed.

It was quite frankly anyone’s worst day whenever Harvey wasn’t in a good mood because they always took the brunt of it and there was no way to fix it.

Or so they thought.

If there was one thing anyone would say about Donna Paulsen, it was that she knew everything, which meant she knew exactly what would calm Harvey Specter down.

His wife.

Y/N Specter wasn’t a lawyer, she was an aerospace engineer which was just as, if not more impressive than being a lawyer and Harvey Specter worshipped the ground she walked on.

After watching Mike Ross leave Harvey’s office with near tears streaming down his face, Donna had enough and picked up the phone.

Y/N’s attention was momentarily drawn away from her computer at the sound of her office phone ringing but continued looking through data as she answered "Y/N Specter speaking."

A sigh of relief was heard through the line before Donna’s voice filtered through. "Y/N! Thank god! I don’t know what the hell is up Harvey’s arse today but he’s nearly made Mike cry three times and it’s only 10 o’clock, can you please come and save us," her husband’s secretary practically begged.

Y/N smiled, leaning back in her chair, work forgotten. This wasn’t the first time she had received a phone call like this and she found it hilarious just how much fear her husband built within people, he was a real softy around her.

Luckily for her, she had a lot of freedom in her role, she had proven herself for many years before that she was now able to come and go from work as she pleased, being fully trusted that no matter how often she was here her work was always done.

"I won’t be long," she said before hanging up, not wasting time in grabbing her things to make her way to her husband’s workplace.

As she walked towards her husbands office, Y/N bit down her laughter as she saw the obvious signs of relief on everyone’s faces as she walked by.

"Y/N you have no idea how happy I am to see you," Donna greeted her as she approached her desk, "He’s miserable in there."

Y/N looked through the glass into her husbands office and found that the redhead was telling the truth, the heavy frustration on her husband’s face was hard to miss.

She gave Donna a smile before making her way into Harvey’s office.

The man sighed heavily hearing his office door open, not looking up from the case file open in front of him. “I thought I said I didn’t want to be disturbed.”

Y/N smiled, “and does that include me?”

Harvey’s head snapped up at the sweet, smooth tone of his wife’s voice, feeling the tension in his shoulders deflate just from her presence. "Y/N?”

“Hey handsome." She smirked slightly, walking around his desk, he turned in his chair just as she stood in front of him.

He looked up at her in the same way he always did, there was nothing but pure love in those eyes, “What are you doing here?"

Y/N smiled lovingly at him, stepping forward to stand between his legs, wrapping her arms around the back of his head. “You’re scaring your colleagues.”

Harvey rolled his eyes, sitting up to rest his hands on her waist. “They’re ridiculous.”

Y/N hummed, “maybe, but how could I deny the chance to come and see you?”

“Fair point, I can understand the struggle of not seeing my handsome face for a couple hours,” Harvey replied, dead serious, smiling as his wife rolled her eyes and gave him a gentle slap to the shoulder.

“What’s got you all worked up, darling?” She asked.

Harvey released a deep breath, sparing a glance to the case sitting open on his desk. “I didn’t even want to represent the guy but Jessica knows him, I know him to be a complete prick."

Y/N thought for a moment before inviting herself further into his space, forcing her way into his lap, not that he was complaining, he just tightened his grip around her, leaning back into his chair. “Well, how about I treat you to lunch?” She proposed.

Harvey smiled tiredly. “I’d love that, baby." He replied, earning a bright smile from his wife who leaned forward to press a loving kiss to his lips before standing back up, pulling him up with her,

“Come on then, we’ve kept Ray waiting long enough.”

The smile on Harvey’s face was a stark contrast to the frustration he had been hounding earlier and it was all down the angel in front of him who wouldn’t even allow him to grab his coat, too persistent in dragging him through his office door.

As they made their way out of the building, they paid no attention to the uncomfortable weight that seemed to lift from everyone’s shoulders.

One thing for sure is that the entire firm were relieved for the existence of Y/N Specter.

[muniimyg]

♡ 01: maybe it's all in my head

series m.list // taglist

note: hihiii ,, this jk has been rotting my mind for a while now ... time to ruin urs !!! enj the tension ,, (i miss being toxic) lmk what u guys think of their dynamic tho <3 excited to share their little story with u ,, mwaaaa

warnings: oc and jk are mean in this fic !!! pls don't comment being whiney abt it :') !!! oc overhears jk fucking someone ,, jealousy ,, banter

//

“oh. it’s you.”

leaning against the doorframe, jungkook looks at you half disgusted and half disappointed. his arms are crossed with one eyebrow lifted. he blocks your entrance.

“now, now,” you reach over and ruffle his hair. he shifts, dodging your touch. “don’t be so excited. i know your boring life just waits for my presence—oh. i get it. were you expecting someone? usually you’re thrilled to see me.”

jungkook’s expression doesn’t shift, though there’s a faint glint in his eyes. 

“thrilled is reaching, don’t you think?”

“is it?”

“yeah.”

you roll your eyes, brushing past him with a teasing smile. 

“right, so… which are you today? mr. save the dolphins or professor chem?”

jungkook scoffs at you.

“at least my marine conservation interest and organic chem major help the world. what’s your major again? yap-conomics or bitch-ology?”

“help the world?” you almost burst into laughter. “god, you are such a nerd.”

“nerd? i don’t know about you, but some of us care about—”

“yeah, yeah,” you wave him off. “are you waiting for a nobel peace prize or something? holy shit, jungkook. learn to relax a little. you’re so serious. it’s cute, really… but only when you aren’t so anal about it.”

cute?

jungkook feels his chest tighten.

before he can make a comeback, taehyung calls you to the living room.

“___? is that you? stop trying to edge jungkook! get in here! i need your data for our paper!” 

you stick your tongue out at jungkook before turning away and rushing to the living room. your lips curl into a smug grin as you saunter off, leaving jungkook muttering something under his breath. you catch him rolling his eyes just before you disappear around the corner, a small flicker of triumph igniting in your chest.

the living room is warm, filled with the faint hum of taehyung’s lo-fi playlist and the smell of old books—his aesthetic, no doubt. taehyung is sprawled on the couch, laptop open, an arm draped lazily over the cushions. his wide grin grows wider when he sees you. 

“i’m here!”

“finally! come on, genius. enlighten me,” he says, patting the seat next to him.

you plop down beside him, legs folded under you, your laptop balanced precariously on your knees. “genius? are you sucking up to me because you didn’t do your part of the project yet?”

“yup,” he says, shrugging, his head tilted lazily to the side. “if you don’t send me that data tonight, though, i might call you something less flattering.”

you laugh, the sound soft and light, and lean into the cushions, already pulling up the necessary files. 

“your boyfriend’s in a mood.”

“he always is when you’re around,” taehyung teases. “he only answered the door cos he thought it was his student. your face must’ve pissed him off.”

chuckling at his response, you ask another question. 

“where are the guys?”

“they’ll be home soon,” taehyung answers. “said they wanna eat out tonight after jungkook’s tutoring session. you coming with?”

“sure,” you agree. 

then, the two of you fall into a comfortable rhythm, bouncing ideas back and forth while taehyung clicks through your notes, occasionally throwing in a sarcastic remark or two that makes you nudge him with your elbow.

a few minutes later, you hear an unfamiliar laugh and footsteps approaching.

jungkook strides in, casual and confident as always, but this time a girl is trailing after him. 

she’s pretty. 

the two exchange a few murmured words before jungkook’s eyes flicker briefly in your direction. he raises a hand in a lazy acknowledgment, the girl following suit, and say hi. taehyung nods at them and then they’re gone—slipping upstairs in the blink of an eye. 

the sound of his bedroom door clicking shut echoes faintly.

and then, it rings in your ear. 

you blink, your fingers frozen mid-typing on the keyboard. something gnaws at your chest, sharp and unfamiliar, leaving a bitter taste at the back of your throat. taehyung, oblivious, scrolls through your notes, muttering about formatting errors.

but you… you’re somewhere else entirely. 

what was that?

no name?

no introduction?

did she think you were taehyung's girlfriend or something? that jungkook was all for her?

oh god.

there's a weird twist in your stomach. it feels like a prickle of irritation spreading across your skin like an itch you can’t scratch… you shake your head, trying to brush it off, but the image of jungkook—smirking as usual, leaning casually against the banister, that girl so effortlessly fitting into the space beside him—lingers, stubborn and unshakable…

what the fuck.

it’s not like you and jungkook are close. 

you’re frenemies, at best. 

unsure of when it started exactly—but it’s been happening long enough for it to be routine and well-known in the friendgroup. you two are the kind of people who throw jabs at each other during game nights and compete to see who can make the snarkiest comment without crossing the line. you’re always caught in this stupid cycle of one-upping each other, all for the entertainment of the group. sometimes, more for yourself. life gets boring pretty quickly, and jungkook is your fastest source of entertainment. 

yet, why does it feel like you’ve just lost some unspoken game?

your chest tightens, and you lower your gaze to your laptop, fingers hovering over the keys. you bite the inside of your cheek, a nervous habit you’ve never been able to kick… this icky feeling begins to take over and your mind races with reasons as to why.

maybe it’s because jungkook’s always been so good at getting under your skin. 

maybe it’s because, for all his teasing and relentless bickering, there’s this… comfort in knowing that he’s always there, right across the table, firing back at you like he knows exactly how to push your buttons.

and maybe that’s the problem.

because now, with someone else upstairs, laughing at something he probably said, you’re starting to realize that you might actually care more than you thought.

maybe you care because you’re not the one in his room he’s trying to make laugh.

after a few hours pass, everyone’s stomach beings to grumble. 

for the past 20 minutes, the guys have been begging you to go up and call jungkook down. he hasn’t been answering their texts and all argue that if they go up and knock; he’ll just ignore them. 

… but if you do it…

he’ll answer.

even if it’s just to insult you. 

you glance up at the clock, already mentally calculating the time. you're not really in the mood for another round of back-and-forth with him, but you know they'll just keep pushing you.

"please, please, please, ___!” taehyung cries, pouting. “i really need pad thai. like… so bad. like, i might die. please go get jungkook.”

you hesitate, your eyes flicking to the stairs. 

jungkook hasn’t come out at all. you don’t want to disturb anything and he’s a total grumpy-head when his study time is disrupted… what more if it’s a tutoring lesson? the last time you went up there, it ended with you calling him a dumbass and him tossing a pillow at you.

“i think you guys can go get him this time," you say, turning your attention back to your phone, pretending to scroll through a message.

"oh come on," jimin presses. "you know, at the end of the day… he only really listens to you." his voice drips with exaggeration, but it only makes you roll your eyes.

"yeah, that’s true…" hobi adds with a playful smirk, leaning back into the couch. "you’re like his… little bitch or something."

you shoot them both a look. “you think i’m his bitch?"

“either that or he’s your little bitch.”

you scoff at him. “please do not disgrace bitches by associating them with him.”

“fine, fine,” jin says with a dramatic sigh, raising his hands in mock surrender. “we won’t force you to go up… we’ll bribe you!”

your interest piques as you glance up at him, eyebrow raised. 

“bribe me? how much cash do you have today?”

yoongi and nam joon share a look. then, nam joon leans forward, his eyes twinkling mischievously. 

“milk tea," he offers, his voice low and enticing, like he knows exactly what will catch your attention. "… any boba store you want. any time… for a week, ___.”

you try to fight the grin that starts tugging at your lips. 

fuck it. 

you nod begrudgingly, slipping your phone into your pocket. 

“deal.”

taehyung bursts out laughing. “deal."

with a resigned sigh, you head for the stairs. 

as you climb up, you prepare yourself. 

you prepare yourself for his death glare and the innocent girl in the background. you prepare yourself for his snarky comments and his sweet tone of voice the minute he turns around to talk to her. you prepare yourself to feel sick to your stomach again. 

as you stand in front of his bedroom door and raise your fist to knock—you hear it. 

rather, you hear them. 

the unmistakable sound of his voice, muffled but clear enough that you can make out the low hum of his tone, followed by a girl’s laugh—a breathy, high-pitched laugh that makes your stomach twist.

you freeze, standing in the doorway, caught between disbelief and something you can’t quite name. your heartbeat picks up in your chest, your body tensing as the reality of the situation settles over you.

you’re not sure what exactly it is—maybe it’s the fact that it’s so casual, or maybe it’s the way the sound of it makes you feel like you’re intruding—but you feel a sudden flush creep up your neck and cheeks.

“oh my god, o-oh my g-god! t-that’s it, jungkook! oh god, baby… f-fuck!”

“fuck—you close, baby?”

“so close, baby. so fucking close. g-god, yes, yes, yes! nghh—fuck! so big, jungkook. oh my god, oh my god! fuck me, fuck me… j-just like that, baby. yes, y-yes–o-oh! mhmmmphhh—”

"shit, shit, shit..."

"fuck me harder, jungkook. please! o-oh? oh! oh my god! yes... yes! thank you, baby. thank you, thank you! ahhh... oh my god..."

you swallow, stepping back, retreating to the stairs. 

the guilt of overhearing makes your pulse race in an odd way, like you’ve been caught in something you weren’t supposed to see.

at the bottom of the stairs, you pause, your hand on the banister, unsure whether you should stay or go. 

you quickly decide. 

you’re already feeling the sting of something sharp and unfamiliar in your chest.

“guys,” you say quickly, trying to keep your tone light, but there’s an edge to it you can’t mask. "y-you know what? i think i’ll just head home. i’ve got a ton of work to do.”

they look at you, confused. taehyung blinks a couple of times, jimin frowning. 

“but we—"

"y-yeah,” you breathe. “i… i know. i just… it’s all good. you guys can go ahead without me,” you add, forcing a smile.

“slow down, ___. what—”

“i feel sick,” you confess. “okay? i feel sick.”

“okay… can one of us drive you home or something—”

“no. i’m good. thank you, though… i.. i gotta go.���

they all frown, their confusion morphing into concern, but you’ve already grabbed your things and hurried out the door before they can protest.

the cold night air feels like a slap to your face as you walk away, but it doesn’t quite shake the unsettled feeling in your stomach. 

you can’t stop thinking about it. 

about how you feel.

about what you heard.

about how much you fucking hate jeon jungkook.

it’s almost 10PM by the time you finish showering. your hair is still damp, hanging loosely around your shoulders as you brush it out in front of the mirror. the soft swish of the brush is the only sound in the room, your thoughts still lingering on what happened earlier. the image of Jungkook with that girl, the sound of their voices together, keeps replaying in your mind, and it won’t leave.

you shut your eyes and try to forget. 

taking a breath in—your moment is interrupted by a knock on your door. 

you frown, glancing at the clock before moving to the door, towel still hanging from your shoulders. it’s late, and you weren’t expecting anyone. 

heading towards the door, you wonder who it is.

then, when you open the door, you freeze.

there, standing in the hallway with a takeout bag in hand, is jungkook. his face is unreadable, but his eyes—those eyes—seem to be searching yours for something. you can’t quite figure out what.

you blink, caught off guard by the unexpected visit, and for a moment, neither of you says anything.

“uh…” jungkook clears his throat, breaking the silence, his voice lower than usual. “the guys think i did something to piss you off… so i’m supposed to say sorry for… whatever i did.”

“you didn’t do anything,” you lie. “goodnight.”

just as you’re about to shut the door, he takes a step forward. 

“___,” he says, tone flat and annoyed. “don’t be a bitch. just tell me what i did so i can apologize, go home and tell them what i did wrong, and we can act like nothing happened—”

“okay,” you shrug. “you wore an ugly shirt today. there. say sorry.”

jungkook winces at you. 

“seriously?”

you shrug again. 

“what do you want, jungkook? i have nothing to say to you—”

“i don’t fucking understand where all this attitude is coming from. i didn’t do shit to you today. you know i didn’t… so, can you please use your tiny brain to make something up? something more convincing than hating my fucking shirt.” 

you nod, pretending to care. then, just as you reach for the door to shut it again; jungkook swiftly moves past you. he lets himself in. 

“they’re worried you didn’t eat,” he states. “did you eat?”

you groan at him. “why the fuck do you care?”

“i don’t.”

but his actions say otherwise. 

jungkook then takes off his shoes and heads to your coffee table. he sits himself on the floor and begins to unpack the food. silently, you watch as he does so and can’t help but feel like throwing up. 

“eat,” he commands. 

you glare at him. 

“get out.”

jungkook leans back against your couch. “eat, tell me what i did wrong, then i’ll leave.”

“leave first.”

“eat first.”

“get out.”

“holy shit,” jungkook scoffs. “are you even capable of forming a complex sentence, or is that too much for you? ___, this is called a conversation. you’re supposed to—"

“get out.”

jungkook sighs heavily. 

a silence falls upon you two. 

jungkook has had difficult days with you before.

this is nothing new… but for some reason, right now feels harder than the other days. partly because most days he knows when he’s being an asshole—but today? he has no clue. 

he’s in the dark. 

jungkook clears his throat. 

“i didn’t yell at you today,” he starts. “i didn’t call you names. you called me a nerd but that was it… your face ruined my day but i guess it made the others pretty happy since they were so pissed at me for being the reason why you left… so, hey… how about this? you tell me what i did wrong for the guys. not for me.”

you raise an eyebrow at him. 

his eyes plead. 

then, a moment passes. 

instead of answering him, you pick up your feet and sit on the floor beside him. you look at the door and take the utensils from the bag. poking at the food, you contemplate on telling him what’s going on in your head. 

just as you’re about to eat a spoonful of the food, you suddeny feel jungkook close to you. without saying a word, his fingers brush lightly against your cheek, making you hold your breath. his hand moves to tuck a damp strand of hair behind your ear, carefully pushing it out of the way so it doesn’t fall into your food. 

the gesture is so unexpectedly gentle that it catches you off guard, and for a second, you’re just left there, staring at him.

he looks at you sincerely. in his eyes, you can see his defeat. 

you don’t know if it was the gesture or the look in his eyes—but your words slip out of your mouth faster than you can think to stop it. 

“she was too loud.”

he tilts his head at you. 

“oh,” jungkook connects. his expression stiffens for a split second, then he schools it back into calm. “overheard, did you?” he asks, leaning in slightly, voice a low murmur. 

“oh, i definitely heard,” you reply, folding her arms, feigning thoughtfulness. “don’t act so cocky… she sounded like she was faking it.”

he stares, jaw flexing, and for a moment, there’s a flicker of something challenging in his eyes. 

“that’s cute coming from someone who couldn’t even stay for dinner.”

suddenly that pang of jealousy again hits again. 

you know you should just brush it off… keep your cool and act nonchalant about it—but something about jungkook just makes you feel so off balance. 

“maybe i had better things to do,” you retort. 

“like what?” 

you shrug. 

“like leave.”

“you should’ve knocked,” jungkook smirks. “i would’ve opened the door. we don’t mind an audience usually.” 

there it is again. 

the sick, sinking, icky feeling. 

“you two fuck often?”

jungkook looks away, taking a moment to think. 

“yeah,” he admits. “what? surprised nerds get laid?”

you stay quiet. 

“i mean.. it’s not really any of your business…" he mutters, though there’s a tension in his voice that doesn’t match his casual shrug. you can tell he's trying to brush it off, but the way his jaw tightens betrays him.

you feel your stomach tighten, the words you threw out lingering in the air between you, each one heavier than the last. you weren’t expecting him to react like this—maybe a joke or a deflecting comment—but not this… 

tension.

"right," you reply, your tone softer than you intended. you glance down at your food, suddenly losing your appetite. the casual air you were hoping for is long gone, replaced by an uncomfortable silence that neither of you seems willing to break.

jungkook shifts uncomfortably, rubbing the back of his neck before clearing his throat. 

"look, it’s not like that," he adds quickly, but the words sound almost too defensive. "she’s just... i don’t know. it’s nothing serious."

you don’t respond immediately, still caught up in the strange mix of feelings his words stir in you. the way he said it—like it was nothing serious—feels too much like an attempt to distance himself from whatever was going on.

you’re not sure what you wanted from this conversation, but now all you feel is a growing knot in your chest.

"yeah," you mutter, trying to sound indifferent, but the weight of his words hangs in the air, making your throat feel tight. "whatever you say—”

“why do you care anyway?” jungkook’s voice is sharp now, a slight edge creeping into his tone as he looks at you, his expression shifting from defensive to something you can’t quite place.

you’re caught off guard by the question. 

you weren’t prepared for that, weren’t prepared for the way it makes your chest tighten. why do you care? it’s not like you have any right to, right?

you open your mouth, but the words don’t come out. Instead, you just shrug, trying to play it cool, but you can feel your pulse quicken. 

"i don’t. i just—"

"you just what?" he interrupts, his brow furrowing, as though he’s not buying the act. "you’ve never cared before. why start now?"

you clench your fists at your sides, feeling the sting of his words more than you want to admit. There’s a part of you that wants to tell him—tell him how seeing him with her, hearing them laugh together, makes something ugly twist in your stomach. 

but you can’t.

"i don’t know," you finally mutter, your voice quieter than before. “it's weird. like, of course i knew you weren't a virgin but... are you actually that good? then again… doesn’t take much to fake sounds like her.”

jungkook’s eyes flicker to yours, something unreadable passing through them before he exhales sharply, running a hand through his hair. then, he smirks. 

it’s more calculated, though… like he knows exactly what he’s doing.

"curious?"

"disgusted, actually."

a beat.

"what, you wanted it to be you?" he asks, his voice smooth, a challenge in his tone.

you almost choke on your breath, but you recover quickly. "me? sleeping with you? please."

he lets out a low laugh, but it’s not playful this time. 

it’s more mocking. 

“yeah, i mean, i don’t even want you that bad…" he takes a slow look at you, like he's mentally assessing you, deciding if you’re worth his time. "not even close."

the words sting more than they should, but you keep your composure. 

you try to look unbothered, but his next words twist the knife a little deeper.

“fuck you.”

"you wish i’d fuck you," he remarks, almost casually, like it's no big deal. "would make things easier, huh?"

your chest tightens, and something about the way he says it makes your blood run cold. It’s not just teasing anymore—it’s a jab.

but you refuse to let him see how much it affects you.

"i’m not interested in you," you shoot back, your voice betraying none of the discomfort you’re feeling. 

he leans in a little, eyes never leaving yours. 

"really?" 

“really.”

his smirk widens, and you can feel the tension crackling in the air. 

“guess what? i think you care more than you're letting on. you act like you don’t give a shit, but it’s so obvious you’re just pissed it’s not you in my bed."

you bite your lip, trying to keep your voice steady, but something betrays you in the way your heart races. 

"i’m not pissed," you mutter, the words coming out too quickly, like you’re trying to convince yourself as much as him. "why would i be?"

jungkook watches you for a moment, taking in every little reaction. 

"i don’t know, ___," he says, his tone low and teasing, like he’s enjoying every second of this. "but it’s cute. you’re all flushed, trying to act like you don’t care, but i can see right through you."

you grit your teeth, wanting to snap back, but instead, you just look away. 

"shut up," you mutter, frustrated with yourself more than anything. "you’re such an asshole sometimes, you know?"

he laughs again, but this time there’s something darker in it, almost like he's reveling in your frustration. 

“i don’t think you’re as immune to me as you pretend to be," he says. "but hey, don’t stress about it, baby. i’m not that interested either. i mean, what’s the fun in fucking you? it’d be harder getting rid of you than getting in your pants.”

you feel the sting of his words hit harder than they should.

“are you done?” you mutter, forcing a nonchalant tone. "and don't call me baby. you called her baby. i don't want to be associated—"

"you think you'd fold as fast as she did?"

jungkook’s eyes flicker with something that could almost be amusement—or maybe something else. he clears his throat.

“shit, ___. i’m sorry—”

“yeah?” 

you don't know why, but something inside you snaps. 

you shift your body close to him. so close that you glance at his lips, then back up to his eyes, as if you’re weighing something—daring him to make a move.

jungkook’s body tenses, his breath shallow, like he's ready to close the distance… to make some sort of move. his lips part slightly as if he's about to speak, but before he can, you push him away. 

now, he’s tongue tied.

“shit, jungkook... i'm sorry," you mock him. "but you're wrong... this is fun."

[leo-in-the-pitt]

On Your Own

Part 2 out now! Lace and Lies

Pairing Jack Abbot x Female Reader

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

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

Word Count: 5.9k

Tuesday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three days to San Diego. Alone.

————————————————————

Wednesday 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

————————————————————

Thursday 

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

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

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

Your phone buzzes almost instantly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—————————————————————

Friday - Conference Day 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

————————————————————

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

——————————————————————— 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—————————————————————

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Please, harder!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Then don’t. Stay here with me.”

You turn to him and nod gently.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[bi-writes]

whats wrong with ai?? genuinely curious <3

okay let's break it down. i'm an engineer, so i'm going to come at you from a perspective that may be different than someone else's.

i don't hate ai in every aspect. in theory, there are a lot of instances where, in fact, ai can help us do things a lot better without. here's a few examples:

ai detecting cancer

ai sorting recycling

some practical housekeeping that gemini (google ai) can do

all of the above examples are ways in which ai works with humans to do things in parallel with us. it's not overstepping--it's sorting, using pixels at a micro-level to detect abnormalities that we as humans can not, fixing a list. these are all really small, helpful ways that ai can work with us.

everything else about ai works against us. in general, ai is a huge consumer of natural resources. every prompt that you put into character.ai, chatgpt? this wastes water + energy. it's not free. a machine somewhere in the world has to swallow your prompt, call on a model to feed data into it and process more data, and then has to generate an answer for you all in a relatively short amount of time.

that is crazy expensive. someone is paying for that, and if it isn't you with your own money, it's the strain on the power grid, the water that cools the computers, the A/C that cools the data centers. and you aren't the only person using ai. chatgpt alone gets millions of users every single day, with probably thousands of prompts per second, so multiply your personal consumption by millions, and you can start to see how the picture is becoming overwhelming.

that is energy consumption alone. we haven't even talked about how problematic ai is ethically. there is currently no regulation in the united states about how ai should be developed, deployed, or used.

what does this mean for you?

it means that anything you post online is subject to data mining by an ai model (because why would they need to ask if there's no laws to stop them? wtf does it matter what it means to you to some idiot software engineer in the back room of an office making 3x your salary?). oh, that little fic you posted to wattpad that got a lot of attention? well now it's being used to teach ai how to write. oh, that sketch you made using adobe that you want to sell? adobe didn't tell you that anything you save to the cloud is now subject to being used for their ai models, so now your art is being replicated to generate ai images in photoshop, without crediting you (they have since said they don't do this...but privacy policies were never made to be human-readable, and i can't imagine they are the only company to sneakily try this). oh, your apartment just installed a new system that will use facial recognition to let their residents inside? oh, they didn't train their model with anyone but white people, so now all the black people living in that apartment building can't get into their homes. oh, you want to apply for a new job? the ai model that scans resumes learned from historical data that more men work that role than women (so the model basically thinks men are better than women), so now your resume is getting thrown out because you're a woman.

ai learns from data. and data is flawed. data is human. and as humans, we are racist, homophobic, misogynistic, transphobic, divided. so the ai models we train will learn from this. ai learns from people's creative works--their personal and artistic property. and now it's scrambling them all up to spit out generated images and written works that no one would ever want to read (because it's no longer a labor of love), and they're using that to make money. they're profiting off of people, and there's no one to stop them. they're also using generated images as marketing tools, to trick idiots on facebook, to make it so hard to be media literate that we have to question every single thing we see because now we don't know what's real and what's not.

the problem with ai is that it's doing more harm than good. and we as a society aren't doing our due diligence to understand the unintended consequences of it all. we aren't angry enough. we're too scared of stifling innovation that we're letting it regulate itself (aka letting companies decide), which has never been a good idea. we see it do one cool thing, and somehow that makes up for all the rest of the bullshit?

[no-144444]

lies and flights- o.piastri

pairing: oscar piastri x fem! Skyf1interviewer! reader

summary: you two have a moment, the moment ends, and so does something else...

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five

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He sighed as he walked into the paddock, cameras all over him as question after question was thrown at him. He answered as many as were appropriate and off he went, signing hats and t-shirts as he went. He had so much to do, so much to get through before qualifying, yet all he could think about was you. He didn’t mean to make it a big deal, he just wanted to take care of you. You’d fainted, for god’s sake. He was worried about you. 

He caught a glimpse of you walking in with Lando as he was filming some random content for one of the sponsor's instagram pages, and his mood sank lower than it already had been. You with Lando. 

It’s not like either of you had confessed, but you’d both felt the chemistry between the two of you, right? He finished up with filming and followed Tom into one of the meeting rooms, ready to look over data, when he (literally) bumped into you, sending you flying. 

“Shit, sorry,” he muttered as he caught you, holding you by the waist. “My bad.”

You smiled. “Saving me two days in a row? You should be a bodyguard instead of a driver,” you chuckled. “Thanks Osc.”

Lando’s jaw dropped when he heard you call him ‘Osc’, and a sense of pride bloomed in his chest. Osc was getting the girl! Lando sent him a quick thumbs up behind your back as he also held the camera. 

“What’re you doing here?” Oscar asked, not yet letting go of you. His hands were so warm, radiating heat through your whole body and making you nervous. You had a love-hate relationship with interactions with Oscar. He made you so nervous, no matter what. Your years of media training and professionalism could get stripped back by one small chuckle, one small smile, making eye contact. It was embarrassing. You liked him so much, which was a separate can of worms itself, and he looked at you the same way he looked at everyone.

“Motorhome tour,” you explained, looking up at him. He could’ve sworn he saw something in your eyes, something that practically asked him to make a move, to kiss you here in front of everyone. Then it was gone just as quickly as it appeared, your professionalism taking precedence over your feelings. “Moving on,” you turned back to the camera as Oscar dropped his hands from your waist, allowing you to move on. “To the driver’s rooms!”

He chuckled as he watched you and Lando run towards the other side of the motorhome, and Oscar started walking again, not unaware of the eyes Tom was giving him. 

“You two seem close,” he smirked. “The shoes aren’t a dealbreaker, no?”

He laughed. “Why does everyone bring up the shoes?!”

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“Congratulations on P3, Judgy McJudgy Pants! How did the race feel?” you questioned. You were doing post-race interviews today, and Oscar had gone from P5 to P3. 

“Yeah, it was difficult but we kept a good pace, Max was just too fast to catch,” he nodded, his eyes staring into yours. 

“I’m glad to hear, are you glad for the race to be over?”

He nodded, chuckling. “Very glad.”

“The heat must be something else in those cars, on top of the regular heat. Does that make getting out of the car a lot more of a relief?” 

“It does, but I was more excited about the interviewer,” he smirked. He was not doing this right now. He was not flirting with you on live television. You got the signal that the interview should end and you let out a quick breath of relief. 

“Well thank you, but I in fact need to interview your fellow podium drivers, thanks for your time.”

Lando walked over, ready to take the mic and he smirked at Oscar. “Getting bold?”

He shrugged with a smile. “What’s the worst she can say?” 

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"Oscar Jack Piastri!" Nicole's voice rang out as he lifted his phone to his ear. "My son flirting with people on live television is not something I want to see."

He chuckled as he mother continued berating him, and they chatted about the race for a while, before he had to go to the airport. When he walked to his door, ready to leave, he wasn't expecting a knock at the door, nor was he expecting it to be you.

"Hey Y/n," he smiled. "How are you?"

"I'm good thank, you?" you were out of breath. Had you ran here?

"I'm great, thanks. Are you alright?"

You came in and closed the door behind you. "What are you playing at?"

"Excuse me?"

"The interviews, the pictures, everything. What are you doing?" you questioned.

"Isn't it obvious?" he chuckled. "I like you, like, like like you. I thought I made that clear?"

You grimaced and his heart sank.

"It's fine if you don't-"

"Oscar, no, just... it's kind of awful timing and we can't be together, right? That would never work, we hate each other, right?" you rationalised, willing him to agree with you.

As much as he wanted to scream and rip his hair out, he nodded, a flat smile on his face. "Exactly, that's why I was just joking."

You breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God!" you chuckled. "Well, congratulations on the win and I'll see you in Qatar, thanks Osc."

"Bye," he smiled half-heartedly, then flung himself back on his bed when you left. You didn't like him back. And what did you mean by 'bad timing'? He spent his entire flight, awake and wondering about what you meant, and thinking over every interaction, wondering if he'd really just made it all up in his head.

But the way you looked at him, it couldn't just be platonic, right?

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yourusername

liked by pierregasly, charlesleclerc, landonorris, oscarpiastri and 2,928,733 others

yourusername: @.f1, you've been my home for many years and I love you, thank you for starting my career, but also for being my favourite series of motorsports since I was a little girl. But now @.skysports is branching out and I'm moving across the pond at the end of this season to cover @.Indycar and @.nascar ! I'll miss everyone so much, but I am so so so excited to see that the future will bring! 6 races left! (also sad to be missing the historic season that 2025 will be, but oh well!)

comments

user83: oh I'll kms.

pierregasly: we'll miss you xxx liked by: valterribottas, zhouguanyu, landonorris, danielriccardo, charlesleclerc, carlossainz, alexalbon, francocolapinto, liamlawson, yukistunoda, estebanocon, fernandoalonso, jensonbutton, aussiegrit, kevinmagnussen, nicohulkenburg, lewishamilton, georgerussell, kimiantonelli, olliebearman, isakhadjar, paularon, arthruleclerc, lancestroll, checoperez, maxverstappen, alexandrastmleux, kikagomez, lilymhe, rebeccadonaldson.

skysportsf1: We'll miss you most! xxx

tedkravitz: It's been a privilege and an honour to work with you. You truly are the funniest person I've ever met. Your segment on Ted's notebook will be thoroughly missed. You will be thoroughly missed.

charlesleclerc: Bonne chance mon amour! ❤️

yukistunoda: who will organise interviews with me and pierre now? 😿 -> yourusername: I'll ask ted :(

danielriccardo: legend of the sport :) -> yourusername: looking in a mirror are we?

mercedesfmg: we'll miss you y/n! 🩵

mclaren: missing you already! 🧡

user72: guys... has anyone told oscar? -> user21: he must be so upset :( -> user92: yeah his best friend and his crush leaving F1 in the same year.

stakef1: missing you 💚 -> yourusername: manifesting hulkenburg podium next year

lewishamilton: I'll miss you, but you definitely have to come back for some hot laps... maybe Austin next year? -> yourusername: I'm there :)

maxverstappen: sad to see you go, but i can't wait for all the stories :)

landonorris: FUCK I'M CRYING WHAT I'M GOING TO MISS YOU TOO MUCH PLEASE DON'T GO -> yourusername: IT'LL BE FINE LANDO YOU'RE A BIG BOY

patooward: YAY WE GET Y/N!

haasf1team: our favourite interviewer ever ❤️

alpine: missing you loads 🩷

jackdoohan: NO I'M FINE THAT MY BEST FRIEND IS MISSING MY ROOKIE SEASON -> yourusername: I'LL BE IN MELBOURNE AND AT THE LAST FEW RACES!!! -> jackdoohan: ...forgiven.

liamlawson: NO DON'T LEAVE ME HERE ALONE -> yourusername: JACK WILL BE THERE NEXT YEAR CALM DOWN

kimiantonelli: miss you xxx

olliebearman: will be in need of your smoothie recipe since you won't be here to make it :( -> yourusername: I'll send it to you :)

user829: someone check on oscar rn...?? -> user36: fr he's probably sobbing his celeb crush is leaving the paddock for good ->user292: BRO IS IN THE LIKES !!!!!!

redbullracing: we'll be staying tuned to watch shine -> user88: wow a better send-off than daniel got lmao

logansargeant: CANT WAIT TO SEE YOU AGAIN 😁😁😁😁 -> yourusername: ME NEITHER

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He stared at his phone in shock.

What. The. Fuck.

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navigation for my blog :) (masterlist)

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five

[elodieunderglass]

But there must be a way to save hobelars in the cultural memory right? Can we reprint the document that has the poem?

Just yesterday, i had heard my friend say something along the lines of war is rock paper scissors and i accepted that without a second thought and your post about hobelars came at the right time to add delightful nuance. And i want to remember and share about hobelars

References: this post where I note, on a post about medieval mounted warfare that articulated this as knights and horses in armour charging pikemen, that the overlooked mounted unit of the “Irish” hobelar - a lightweight cavalry skirmisher, mounted nearly-bareback on pony-horses called hobbies - would have neatly fitted into the gaps in that narrative. Here’s another post about hobbies i wrote too.

By asking, you are doing the work. Thank you./.

In their time, hobelars were a useful unit of medieval warfare; originally in defending themselves against the English, and then used abroad against others. A contemporary poem, which describes the Siege of Calais, mentions a hobelar on a hobby, describing their fighting style; but the only copy of this poem on the internet is a single badly scanned document of a book from the 1840s that will be reasonably difficult (but not impossible!) to source on paper.

There have been a total two books written about hobelars - one in 1914, and one in 1954 - and they are mentioned in passages of two or three out-of-print books about medieval warfare. They have a Wikipedia article which contains incorrect information like claiming that the hobby is the same horse as the Connemara Pony (it isn’t.) There is one single medievalist who has published recently and sparsely on hobelars, and necessarily he does this by arguing with The 1914 and 1954 Guys. He has not brought in any horse knowledge or political connectedness to his theses, but he’s all I’ve got, so I cling to him like he clings to the other two guys.

Irish Hobbies, the hobelar’s little horses, fare a bit better. Before going extinct, they gave their name to “hobbies,” activities done for pleasure, and we still use “my hobbyhorse” to describe our personal passions. @mylittlehony , a Horse Expert, produced an incredible list of mentions of hobbies in sixteenth and seventeenth century literature, including in other languages, which is literally an advancement on the internet’s collective knowledge of hobbies. Any piece of work you’re doing here is a contribution.

Still, without any in-print documentation, or active scholars, or any interest in them at all, they’re a very niche hobby! As I said in the post you’re asking about, a well-placed EMP could destroy all of our knowledge of hobelars and prevent us from making connections to recover them. .

To answer your question? That’s what PhDs are for. That’s what they’re supposed to give to humanity. Spending three years of dedicated research time, learning and gathering all the sources available, and collecting every lost scrap of data about hobbies and hobelars that has been scattered and lost. We know they’re in the quartermasters’ receipts, where they were described as cheap units without special equipment; we know that an English king specifically prevented hobbies being exported to Scotland fight against him, because they would have granted the Scottish an advantage. There are documents that mention them sidelong and sideways and misspelled, and a PhD could delightfully be spent fossicking about in libraries and archives and museums, working out exactly what their “darts” were like, and whether hobbies ambled or paced, and what social class hobelars had been in Ireland, and how far they made it in Wales, and whether they WERE the missing piece of European horse archers, and whether hobbies DID come from Spain, and maybe even whether the Thoroughbred racehorse has any hobby in them at all. The person doing this PhD could probably recover the shape of the extinct horse, the fighting style of the rider, and so on.

And they’d publish their papers, and their thesis, and on the Internet and in the backups and in the journals and in the great library of their Alma Mater and in their own home, that knowledge would be stored and connected, networked and made accessible, known and signposted, forever. Resilient to loss, resistant to disruption, a piece of work to add to humanity’s grain store - designed and destined to outlive you.

That’s what a PhD is. That’s why they’re meant to be done.

Why haven’t they already? Obscurity, probably; and as I’ve written, medievalists tend to take the tone of English and French kings to dismiss Celtic influence as primitive and negligible. There have to be intersecting spheres of nerdery to make the person who will take this on. They will probably have to be a horsegirl first, a medievalist second, and probably from a Celtic culture themselves, to better pierce through the political layerings; they ought to be the kind of nerd who gladly takes on the case of the underdog; and, ideally, be someone with a lot of hobbies. Just as you can see the missing shape of the hobelar, you can see this person and know that someday they may answer the call.

(Possibly even because of these posts. That’s, secretly, part of why I write them like I do. They’re not ragebait or clickbait; they’re go-to-grad-school-about-it-bait. I hope to catch someone someday.)

But in the absence of some person taking on this PhD, here’s how I’m doing my part.

The reason I am tumblr’s biggest hobelar apologist is because I have a character in a larger writing project who is a time-ghost of a hobelar and his hobby. They appear in a pattern in the story, which is called Throw Your Heart Over, based on the saying for jumping: throw your heart over the hurdle and your horse will follow it.

I toy with the idea of The Hobelar being the originator of the saying, after jumping a notable hurdle on his hobby.

But it won’t be enough to just self-publish an ebook about it, especially since it won’t break containment. The best way to get a correct answer on the Internet is to post a slightly wrong answer, in a tone of authority, and have everyone pile in on you for the joy of being the one to correct you.

So I’m going to write something provocative and tantalisingly incorrect-sounding about hobelars, just to provoke and annoy. It will have to be ragebait of unparalleled mastery. I will have to construct a scene that is SO WRONG, and somehow get the story SO IMPOSSIBLY POPULAR, that hopefully someone will be forced to do, like, a YouTube essay to horsesplain my sins to me, and THEN they’ll discover that first they must do a PhD.

And when they call me out, after four years of study, and tell me I have no idea what I’m talking about, I will lower my eyelashes demurely 🫦 and say oh dear what a shame if people started acting like they’d always known about hobelars because of all this, and a breeding project started trying to recreate the extinct Irish Hobby, and a video game came out about them or something, or anything. if I fuck it up again will you do more? Do you prommy??

So I’ll say: once upon a time, Killie’s ancestor was a hobelar. And he fucked up - or something, I don’t know what yet - and he asked his hobby to jump a pike-wall -

And the people will be jumping up and down saying THAT CAN’T BE RIGHT- he wasn’t there, he wasn’t wearing that, he didn’t ride that way, he probably wasn’t barefoot, NOBODY CAN JUMP A PIKEWALL, that can’t be right!!

And i said: none of this was right-! It’s a story about generational trauma. Nobody should have been there. And he grabbed mane, and asked for the jump, and the horse didn’t want to, but she trusted him -

And it didn’t happen, and it didn’t happen like that -

And it didn’t happen, and it didn’t happen like that -

And people will say: it never could have happened, and CERTAINLY not like that -

And I’ll say - and everyone else should say this too - make an OC or tell a story or find some way to hang on: some of what our ancestors gave us was garbage!! Some is useful!! Some should be lost and some should be kept!! And if academia won’t keep it then we will! Until they come and do it better!

We’ll all say together: he threw his heart over and she follows it still; and they’ll never land! and they’ll never land!!!!

[wip]

A very very minor thing I have been curious about for a while, and I'm finally asking: why do you calculate queue posting times the way you do? For example, if I set my queue to post 3x a day, naively I would expect it to post every 8 hours. But in reality it posts every 6 hours with a 12 hour gap between days. Why complicate the math like that?

Answer: Hello @circumference-pie!

Buckle up y’all, it’s story time again!

First: nobody who works at Tumblr right now was a part of the work of planning the default queue implementation, which was more than ten years ago. So the full story behind “Why does it work that way?” has unfortunately been lost to the sands of time. All we can do is tell you how it works today and surmise some reasons why. The queue is actually a very clever system and part of how it works explains some of why it works the way it does. Also, there have been attempts to do what you ask—we still have “Queue 2.0” available in your Tumblr Labs settings, which tries to get closer to how you expect things to work.

Anyway! How the queue works today is not actually a queue in the traditional sense. There is no single list of posts that are in “your queue”. Instead, when you “Add to queue” after creating a post, we’re actually scheduling it to post at a future time, as if you had used the “Schedule post” option instead. We’re just calculating that time on your behalf when you use “Add to queue”, based on your settings, and how many other scheduled posts you have already. We use a secondary “index” model, called “ScheduledPost”, to keep track of posts you have scheduled on your blog. We do mark the ones that are a part of “your queue”, but the data model doesn’t keep one list of your “queue” per se.

You can see this in action on your blog, hiding in plain sight. If you add a bunch of posts to your queue, and then schedule a post for a specific future date, you’ll see both in your blog’s “queue” list, side by side. Because technically to us, they’re the same thing: queued posts are really just another kind of scheduled post, relying on the same always-running service to publish scheduled posts across all of Tumblr. Here’s a fun fact: we typically have about ~14.5 million future posts to publish from this list at any given time and are publishing hundreds of these scheduled posts every second.

So when you’re adding a new post to your queue, what we’re doing behind the scenes is starting at the beginning of your “day”, and creating time slots based on your queue settings. If a time slot is already filled, we move on to the next one. That’s why the default queue scheduler works how you describe—we’re trying to fill those “slots” based on the start of the day, rather than trying to divide the calendar day evenly. This just makes it much simpler for us to understand, scale, and predict when our “peaks” will be. At peak times, the publish-scheduled-posts service is publishing tens of thousands of posts in a manner of seconds. We did rewrite that post-publishing part of this architecture a few years ago to improve its efficiency and solve a lot of “lost post” bugs, but we didn’t change how “Add to queue” works.

However, the Queue 2.0 project available in Labs was an attempt to change the queue system to work as you expect—instead of starting at [beginning of day] and creating enough slots to fit [number of slots] every [number of hours], it tries to divide the calendar day into [number of slots] and fit the result back to the original algorithm’s mapping of the day. We never productionized this alternative approach, because it has a few bugs that some blogs hit in extreme cases, and we’ve never had time to fully fix them. It also can cause a bit of weirdness when time zones diverge, like with daylight savings time. Also, a lot of people prefer the default algorithm, and we haven’t thought of a nice way to transition everyone from one to the other. So for now, both options exist, and you can choose which algorithm for queue-slot-generating you want to use. We hope that makes sense! 

While complicated, it is a great example of a system built by engineers to make sense and be scalable and predictable. But sometimes these kinds of systems, while clever, aren’t very intuitive to understand without digging into how they work.

Thanks for your question, and keep ’em coming. 

[hahaifolded]

We Want You: Ghoap x POC!FemReader (Masterlist) Summary: After getting to know you, the newest member of the 141, Simon "Ghost" Riley and Johnny "Soap" MacTavish realize that they want you. However, will the two be successful in reeling you in? Chapter 3: Bedrest (Previous) (Next) Chapter Summary: You talk to Price. Simon and Johnny overhear. Warnings: MDNI, Angst, Misunderstanding, Depictions of hospital, Injuries, military, Anxiety/Panic Attack Blog Rule: Age in bio or you will be blocked! Minors and ageless blogs will be blocked

“You better have a good reason for disobeying orders.”

You should have known Price wasn’t going to let you get away that fast. You ease yourself up from your hospital bed, body screaming for you to stop, but you ignore it. John sits at your side and watches you. His gaze is stern but kind all at the same time. 

You take a good look at your surroundings while you collect your thoughts. Nothing really caught your attention in your standard hospital room. Your captain sits in one of the four chairs that stand at the side of your room. You glance at the other three and note a familiar blue cap in one of them. However, what really catches your attention is the lack of signs of use in the other two. 

“Are they okay?” Your voice is wobbly which makes sense as those are the first words you’ve uttered since you’ve woken up. 

Price sighs. “Ghost and Soap are fine, but who you should really be worried about is yourself, love.” His eyes soften. “Now tell me, why did you ignore the Lieutenant’s orders?”

You wince as you recount your last few minutes of consciousness.

“I’ve been hit,” you hissed in your comms. Everything happened way too fast. One minute, you’re downloading data from some abandoned lab, and the next, you’re in an empty room, applying pressure on your bleeding abdomen. You think through the pain as you analyze your situation. Soap is on the floor below you while Ghost is waiting outside for the both of you. 

“Stay put. I���m on my way,” Ghost answers. That immediately eases you. However, that relief is short lived as—

“You know I hate repeating myself so I’m only going to ask one more time, why did you ignore orders and run towards evac on your own despite being injured?” Price again asks. His patience is now thin.

You shift again in your seat.“In my defense, I was going to wait, but…” you train off. Shit, this is going to be such an awkward conversation. 

“But what?”

“The situation changed.”

John’s face hardens. “I’m not playing games with you right now. I don’t need a rogue soldier on my team so if you’re not going to give me an answer, I think it’s better we consider other—“

“Enemy soldiers were approaching MacTavish’s position so I made sure he got the back-up he needed.”

“Did he call for back-up?”

“No, but—“

“So that still doesn’t explain why you went against direct ord—”

You snap. “Because I knew Ghost wasn’t coming!” John stills in his seat, eyes wide from your outburst. You take in quick, shallow breaths in an attempt to calm your beating heart. “As soon as Soap said he had enemy soldiers approaching his position, I knew I was on my own.”

John shakes his head in disbelief. “I’ll have a word with them, because that’s not right. I warned them that if they couldn’t keep it professional, I’d—“

“John?” The sternness in your voice catches Price off guard. “Be completely honest with me, if you had to choose between me or your wife, who’d you choose?” 

John stutters for an answer.

A small chuckle escaped you. “John, it’s okay, I already know the answer.” You sink back in your bed and look up at the ceiling. “Ghost doesn’t need Soap to call him.” You turn to look at Price, who grimaces under your kind eyes, and jest, “Ghost loves that boy way too much to not save him, and I can’t blame him for that.” 

Without removing his eyes off you, Price slouches in his seat and lets out a deep breath. “Fine,” he concedes and softens his voice, “but I’m going to start assigning you on more missions with me and Gaz. Need to make sure you stay alive.”

You roll your eyes. “Don’t do that. You know we make a good team,” you say, referring to you, Ghost, and Soap. “Besides, who else is going to make sure your boys come back to you?” Your voice is sincere in your declaration which only breaks your captain’s heart.

“But who’s going to make sure you come back?” John whispers as his eyes wander to your covered torso. 

You let out a pained chuckle. “You let me worry about that.” 

— — —

“Breath, Simon. You’re going to pass out,” stresses Johnny as he runs after his lover.

Simon takes a seat and hides his masked face in his hands after finding some chairs at the far end of the hallway. Johnny catches up and gingerly rubs Simon’s back in an attempt to soothe him. 

After a few days of keeping their distance (as they couldn’t bear seeing you hurt), Simon and Johnny were just about to enter your room when they overheard Price say their callsigns. Catching the gravity in their captain’s voice, the two soldiers opt to wait at the door, neither wanting to interrupt a disgruntled John. 

How Simon wished they hadn’t.  

Ghost gasps for air. His right leg furiously bounces. “I was going to come, I promise,” Simon panics. Tears well in his eyes as he recalls your words. You thought that he was going to abandon you. Do you really think he doesn’t care about you? 

And despite his own heart cracking at your confession, Johnny tries to soothe his distressed lover and begs him to breathe. As much as he wants to spiral, the Scotsman had to stay strong for Simon. “I know you were, Simon. I know.” 

And Johnny knows that’s true because they had both promised to put you first if anything happened during the mission. Simon and Johnny knew that in order for this to work, they both had to show you that you matter to them as much as the other did. But, after what they heard , it’s clear that they haven't done that. And now they both have to live with that shame. 

Eventually after a few minutes of pained gasps and soft coos, Simon manages to calm down. His breathing eases but his face stays hidden in his hands.

“Johnny?” 

“Hmm?”

“What do we do if she doesn’t want us?” Johnny freezes. Simon lifts his head to face his boyfriend. The two stare at each other, neither saying a thing. With the way things are going, Simon’s question doesn’t seem so far off. As of now, you think Johnny is a dog and that Simon doesn’t care about you. They weren’t necessarily screaming “boyfriends material.”

Johnny stutters out an answer, but thankfully, doesn’t have to answer as a friendly sergeant appears.

“Hey lovebirds.” Kyle sings-songs with a coffee in his hand. His smile falters as he senses their tension. “Everything okay? Is she okay?” His words are rushed as the couple’s anxious energy gets to him. Kyle turns towards your room. Eyes wide with worry.

“No, no, she’s okay. She just woke up. We’re just--”

“SHE WOKE UP?!” Kyle’s mood shifts from worry to joy. He lets out a small cheer and runs towards your room. He turns around and yells at the two to follow.

Johnny and Simon give each other a look, one that lets the other know that they’ll continue this conversation later, and nervously follow Gaz. Would you even be excited to see them? 

Kyle is the first to enter, clearly ecstatic to see his fellow sergeant alive and well. Your tired but still cheery voice reaches their ears as they turn the corner into your room. 

Despite Kyle chirping your ear off, your eyes wander as Simon and Johnny enter your room. Kyle quiets down. Price looks up with hard eyes. You sit up and smile at the two. 

“Oh thank God, you’re both okay,” you let out. And just like that, you return to your conversation with Kyle.

Ghost freezes. He couldn’t believe it. You’re happy to see them… to see him. Despite thinking that he wasn’t going to save you, you are relieved to see him alive and well. 

Johnny nudges Simon’s side and throws him a small smile. 

Maybe not all hope is lost.

Word Count: 1350

Previous - Masterlist - Next

Author's Note: AAAAH!! This was the FIRST chapter I thought of for this concept. Literally built a story around this! I love this chapter so much, specifically the first half. Really wish I can erase this from my memory and read it for the first time... raw

[tornado1992]

No one knows where Sonic lives.

Even in his so called world renowed hero status, there’s way too little that the general public knows about Sonic The Hedgehog, sure, they know what his favorite food is, they know the names of his friends, and they know when his birthday is, but they don’t know where is he from, how is he so fast, or what is his reason to fight.

They know about most of the times he has saved the world, but they don’t know why his shoes don’t get burned by his speed, they know he can turn into a god-like glowy golden being, but they don’t know how exactly the magical jewels that do that work, they know he’s unstoppable, but they don’t know why.

Most people don’t care that much about that kind of information, even if he’s a hero, that’s his own business, even heroes need privacy; but then there’s the curiosity, the enigma, the mystery, most of those questions will be left without a solid answer, but there’s a few that should have definitive one.

Where does someone who can run around the whole globe in a matter of hours live? There’s a lot of theories.

Sonic has enough fame to have several fan clubs all around the world, and between all those fan clubs there’s been a lingering interest in the enigma of where does sonic live, between all the other questions this one is the one that gets the most possible answers, considering factors like his speed, his well known crave for adventure, his love for nature, all of it could make the difference between the right answer and the wrong answer.

At certain point, the curiosity reaches to more general public apart from the fanatism prone, and when in opportunity to talk to him, a lot of people start asking him the same question: “where do you live?” the answers all equal and all different at the same time “right here in the same world as you” “it varies from time to time” “I don’t think you could visit me”

The vagueness, the confusing contradictions, the evasion of the subject; he’s doing this on purpose. They might not know a lot about the blue speedster, but now this sole data needs to be known.

They start asking Sonic’s acquaintances instead of the hedgehog himself, they know they’re not getting an answer out of him at this point, and if anyone could have one, his friends should know it. Turns out that they don’t know.

Most of his friends being more annoyed with the fact that not even they know where he lives than about the people sticking their noses to his friend’s business was a surprise to the masses, and underwhelming, backtracking, frustrating surprise.

There’s an anonymous user online who affirms that not even the hedgehog’s arch nemesis knows where Sonic lives. Reliable sources support the statement.

The waters of nonsense gossip calm down after some time, but the question still remains, left to be more of general curiosity than lingering mystery.

A random day in a random town, a news program happens to be live outside when the speedster passes by and stops to smell the flowers around the area, the reporters ask him for a small interview, he says they have till he finishes picking up enough flowers for a crown.

They ask the same question everyone has asked for quite some time, just a different word, “Sonic, where is your home?”

Apparently the accidental rephrasing change is what finally gets it, as the speedster just says “right now? should be at mystic ruins”

He runs off immediately, the reporters left speechless, the program still on air on TV’s and the web, and the world going wild.

They finally got a straight, solid, specific answer. “That can’t be true” “but it can” “it’s logical” “it’s not” “he must’ve been joking” “he sounded serious” and more and more discussions take place around that single interview, the fan clubs are theorizing again, the general public is now more curious, and the official news from all over the globe need to confirm this by themselves.

So they ask again.

A full week later, a different city in a different country, different news reporters don’t even bother to ask him for an interview, they just run to him the moment they see the blue blur pass by and ask him again “Sonic, where is your home?!” He yells his answer without stopping:

“Last time I checked was in Central City”.

“It’s a contradiction” “then he was joking before” “he might change where he lives weekly” “we need more proof” “that was way too specific again”.

A different continent, two days later, a group of kids manage to record him when he greets them from the other side of a mountain, they ask “Where is your home?!” He yells back “I’m not sure at the moment!”

The confusion only grows, now no one knows if he’s genuinely giving true answers or full ass lying, it would be logical for him to do either. The curiosity becomes a mystery again, and people are legitimately trying to track all the locations he has mentioned to find out what is this all about. Some people even try to track him down. They try.

A whole month later, there’s a celebration near sunset city, a commemoration of some sorts, there’s been a lot of battles in way too little time so people just try to think about the party rather than the motive for it. Sonic attends the celebration along some of his friends.

A local news channel manages to reach him at the chili dog stand where he is waiting for his food while talking to the two tailed fox everyone knows is his best friend. They don’t mean to interrupt, but these opportunities are limited.

They ask the same question, the same word change that they know works: “Sonic, where is your home?”

The blue blur hangs an arm around the kit’s shoulder in a half hug as he grins widely, he says loudly: “right now, it’s right here!”

This time his home was with him.

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Their pound of flesh

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

“What is this all about? Why am I here?”

Prince Atalon was not accustomed to being ordered about, even less so by lower-class military generals. Yet here he was inside the command bunker of General Drak after his security detail whisked him away out of the blue.

“My apologies Prince, but I have just received troubling reports that your life is now in danger.”

This certainly wasn’t what the prince had been expecting, and he took the offered chair to sit as the general continued.

“Before I proceed, I need to ask you a question,” the general began. “Have you encountered any strange creatures, either in our quarter of the base or when touring our allies' quarters?”

“What nonsense is this?” Atalon pouted. “You say my life is in danger and then ask me about what wildlife I’ve seen?!”

“I assure you my prince, the question is related, now please answer it.”

The stern look of the general dissuaded the notion that this was some prank and so Atalon pondered in silence as he recalled his last few days.

“I spent the first three days in our section of the base meeting with soldiers in the hospital, then the fourth day was spent visiting the frontlines, and then finally the fifth day I returned here.”

“And did you encounter any strange creatures?”

“Well,” the prince replied as something did finally come to him, “on the way back my convoy drove past a group of humans being chased by a large avian bird. It came up to about their waist but the humans seemed terrified as they were running away and it was chasing it.”

“And what did you do?” the general inquired.

“I felt ashamed that such cowardly beings were our allies so I ordered the vehicle’s AI defense unit to terminate the creature and save the humans.”

“It put a plasma round clear through the creatures chest and it dropped to the ground soon after. It was so fast we didn’t even have time to stop and receive their accolades.” The prince answered with a cocky grin.

Several expressions passed over the Malin general’s face at this admission; shock, fear, regret, disbelief, and then finally, resolution.

“This was transmitted to me within the last hour.” The general continued as they spun a data pad around for the prince to see. “It is an order issued for your immediate detainment and extradition back to the human homeworld to face the charges of murder, assassination of a high ranking military official, espionage, and treason to name a few.”

“WHAT?!”

To say that the prince was dumbfounded would be an understatement.

“That avian you killed,” the general continued to delay any inevitable deluge of questions, “was in fact a Major General enlisted in the human forces here on base.”

Spinning the data pad around again the general scrolled through the information to find the correct designation. “The 304th Grenadiers were assigned as their protection detail and were the humans you saw with it.”

He looked up at the prince. “They weren’t running in fear, they were playing with them.”

“Do you not hear yourself!? The absurdity of this!?!!”

The general shook his head at the prince’s question. “It doesn’t matter how stupid this situation is, the matter of fact is the human’s take this extremely seriously that if you are caught by the humans outside of our quarter you will most likely be killed.”

“They would murder me over a primitive bird?!” the prince stammered.

Without saying anything the general selected an audio file from the pad and played it.

“You listen and you listen good,” the voice began. The prince could identify the thick grunge of a human voice and accent. “That bird your callus fuck murder has survived thirteen campaigns, and their family another three hundred and seventy three without ever losing one of their number in the field of combat until now.”

The prince made to say something but the general held up a hand and bade them to continue listening.

“The way we see it is you just offed one of our own, and you better pray that the provosts get you first and get you off world to hang; because if we get you there won’t be enough of you lift to identify by.”

With that the ominous message ended and the general looked up at the prince.

“You now understand the seriousness of this situation I hope.” He returned the data pad to his desk and clasped his taloned fingers. “There are over six thousand human soldiers part of our task force here and this message could have been sent by any of them, meaning there are now over six thousand veteran soldiers who have a potential death mark for you.”

He leaned forward to the prince, his expression removed of any levity for the situation.

“If you wish to remain alive until their provosts come for you I strongly advise you remain here and avoid any exposure outside what-so-ever; is that understood?”

“And if I refuse?” the prince asked; clinging to the notion that their position would keep them safe.

The general was about to answer when a loud chanting began echoing from outside and into the bunker. Tapping his ear piece the general asked for a status update and waited patiently as the response came in.

“Then you will not last the night, as it seems they’re already outside with a noose to hang you with.”

[revelboo]

you are a monarch (king? Queen? Eh-) 🛐🛐🛐 THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE SEEKERS TRINE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I DIDN'T EXPECT YOU TO ANSWER IT QUICKLY A OMG HOLY SHIT, I HOPE YOU TAKE BREAKS IN BETWEEN AND DIDN'T FORGET TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF A💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞

Why is it so hard to find comic screen caps of all three

True Romance Pt 2

Seeker Trine x Reader

• “Don’t you think that’s a bit much?” Skywarp grumbles from where he’s stretched out on his berth watching Thundercracker fussing with what he’s almost positive is every cleaning cloth they own, fashioning them into a crude little nest with one hand, the other cradling the human’s limp form to his chassis. When Star had gone to the medbay, Thundercracker had started cleaning your wounds, wings flicking slightly. Already enamored by the weird little thing even though it hasn’t really done that much aside from going boneless after being warped to the base.

• “It’s soft,” Thundercracker mutters. “It needs a soft nest.” Satisfied, he hesitates not really wanting to put you down. Venting, he sits on the edge of his berth and uses the tip of a servo to turn your head, trace an arm. “It’s weird how much they look like protoforms.”

• “That looks nothing like a Cybertronian,” Skywarp retorts, wings flaring in irritation when Thundercracker holds you out to him and tips your little face his way. And okay, your face is similar to a Cybertronian’s. Same number of digits on your hands, same bipedal shape. “It’s creepy, not weird. Squishy fake Cybertronian looking thing.” Curling his lip, he’s startled when Thundercracker pushes you firmly into his servos, freezing at the feel of that tiny, warm body now in his hands. Feeling the steady beat of your heart and the rise and fall of your breathing and then you make a low noise and hang onto one of his servos with a soft hand. “Creepy,” he mutters without any real conviction as Thundercracker stalks away to leave you in his care.

• Entering the huge, communal space they share, Starscream pauses in flexing his repaired wing at the sight of Skywarp stretched out with the human in one hand, a servo of the other hand running from your shoulder to a foot again and again as his brother murmurs softly to it in a mix of Cybertronian and it’s own language. Cooing at it like it’s a sparkling. From across the room, Thundercracker is pretending to read a report on his data pad and monitoring Skywarp over the top of the screen. As soon as he’s noticed, Skywarp is thrusting you at him and it’s a struggle not to smile at his brother’s sour expression. “Still out?” Starscream asks, laying a servo against you and feeling that steady beat, but not knowing if it’s too fast or slow. Not really knowing anything about humans at all aside from how fragile they are. He’d decided to take it on an impulse and because it had unwittingly saved him. Rewarding you with your life seemed only fair.

• “If we’re keeping it, we’ll have to feed it,” Skywarp grumbles, optics flicking to the human and away as he flexes the servo it had clung to. “Any idea what they eat?”

• No, but it can’t be that hard to figure out. Feeling you moving under his servos, he watches your head lift. Sees the exact moment you notice him and freeze, eyes wide. And you begin to tremble against him as he slides a servo along your spine. “Aren’t you lucky, pet? To belong to us,” he purrs, using a servo to tip your chin up to meet his optics and feeling those soft hands grab onto him. Because when they crush the Autobot resistance and take this world? Make it a new Cybertron? You’ll survive if you behave.

• It wasn’t a concussion-addled nightmare apparently, your heart racing as those huge servos flex around you and you stare up into those red optics studying you. Trapped in the hand of this giant monster. Wanting to scream and unable to make a sound as fear seizes you. Pet? Head turning when you hear the slide of metal on metal and realize there’s three of them staring at you. Realizing they think you’re a stray kitten they’ve brought home, that your continued survival probably relies on playing along.

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[magicalbats]

Kinktober 2024 Day 18: Dan Heng x Reader

Rating: R-18+

Word Count: 8087

Warnings: Afab!reader, heat/rut cycles, ABO inspired, "dragon magic", tentacles in pussy, tentacles in ass, anal sex, oviposition (in the butt), eggs, mentions of egg laying, breeding, birth, etc the whole nine yards lol

A/N: Did not mean for this one to get so damn long 😩

⭐

It’s not unusual for Dan Heng to shut himself up in his room for days at a time, but you can’t help noticing his continued absence during communal meals over the last week. Usually he’d at least come out long enough to eat once with the rest of the crew, maybe even twice if you were lucky, and you never thought much of it. This seems somehow different to you though. He wasn’t typically this elusive. 

So you finally ask March about it one day after not seeing hide nor tail of him, not even in passing, to which she offers up a great big shrug. She had no clue what was going on with him, only that he sometimes got like this seemingly out of the blue. The only consolation she has for you is that it wasn’t anything permanent and that he’d soon be back to his old self again as if it never even happened in the first place. That’s how it always went, or so she said. 

Still, you can’t help worrying about him and you lie in bed that night pondering the situation. There was a very compelling part of you that wanted to check in on him, just to make sure he really was okay, but the logical part of your mind not ruled by emotion insists that it was probably best to let him have his space. You’re admittedly rather torn over what to do, especially when you were starting to feel a little stir crazy on this desolate stretch of the star rail where you didn’t have much of anything to do before the next warp jump. 

Under normal circumstances you would have spent this time together with March and Dan Heng, both together as a group and also individually to help wile away the amber hours, but after the impromptu makeover March had given you last night … you just don’t feel quite up to another evening spent in her room. You wanted to go hang out in the quiet, relaxing space of Dan Heng’s, if you were being honest. Badly, in fact. 

There just wasn’t a whole lot to entertain yourself with or even to look at in yours, still largely as empty and unoccupied as it was when it was first given to you, save the handful of bits and baubles you’ve picked up thus far on your journey. The data bank room where Dan Heng set up camp was far more interesting in comparison and there was always something for you to look at or mess with. Even if the two of you just sat in silence together while he read a book or logged information into the terminal, it still would have been preferable to this. 

That thought is what ultimately sways your decision after much uncertain flip flopping on the matter, and you hop up from your bed to pad towards the door. You don’t bother with shoes, since his room was right next to yours, and you quietly creep out into the hall as carefully as you can manage. 

Tip toeing over to the neighboring door, you surreptitiously glance either way down the softly rumbling train car to ensure no one was coming who would question what you were up to before reaching up to lightly rap at the sliding panel. You receive no answer at all so you try calling out to him next, mindful of keeping your voice in check. 

“Dan Heng? Are you awake?” 

Nothing. Not even a peep. 

If you hadn’t known any better, you might have thought he wasn’t even there at all but that didn’t make any sense. Where else could he have possibly gone? 

Feeling a tinge of doubt curl through your chest, you shuffle close to lean into the door and press your ear against it, holding your breath while you listen. It takes a long beat for your hearing to fully tune in to the other side of the sturdy barrier but then you hear it. A very soft rumble that sounds suspiciously like a groan, so faint as to be almost imperceptible, and your brows promptly take an expedient trip up to your hairline. Was he alright in there? 

“Dan Heng?” You try again, a little louder this time. 

Still, he doesn’t respond and you don’t dare raise your voice any more than that, so you decisively reach for the handle to yank it open. If he had a problem with it then you’d happily apologize for intruding upon his space like this, but you weren’t going to pretend like you hadn’t heard anything. If he was sick or somehow injured in there you’d never be able to forgive yourself for walking away. 

With a sharp little clatter, the door slides open in a rush and the first thing you’re immediately struck by is the smell. It’s not bad per say, just strong and cloying, like incense almost. Except there is no telltale smoke lingering in the air, nor is there any apparent source for it as far as you can see. The heady rush to your olfactory system slams into you like a brick and you stumble slightly, hand coming up to brace on the doorway to steady yourself while creeping concern rushes into the forefront of your mind. 

The second thing you notice are the small plates and empty glasses neatly stacked up on the corner of the data bank’s control panel, and you understand that that must mean he’s been sneaking out at some point to grab food from the mess hall. You’re not sure when he’s found the chance to creep around while completely avoiding detection when it seemed like someone was always up doing something somewhere on the Express. If it wasn’t you and March fooling around then it was Pompom cleaning or Welt going for one of his daily strolls through the train cars to get his exercise in. How in the world had he avoided being seen for almost a whole week now? 

The third and final thing you notice is that even at your sudden entrance into his room, Dan Heng still doesn’t give any kind of response and in fact seems not to even notice his area has been rudely intruded upon at all. It’s not hard to figure out why that was though, and a shocked little gasp rattles inside your chest as you lift a hand to your mouth. 

Back towards the corner of the shelves where Dan Heng usually kept his simple roll out bed, he’d amassed a small nest of pillows and blankets which he was currently laid out on top of. The fact he’s completely naked isn’t even the most surprising part, although that does catch you decidedly unawares for how unexpected it is. What really registers in your dumbstruck mind as alarming though are the faint, nearly translucent appendages sprouting out of his backside and his head, clearly visible to the eye and yet not fully formed in reality. 

In a far off, dreamy sort of way you recognize them as being physical traits of his other form, the other Dan Heng you’d seen only twice before, but you don’t understand how that could be, or why. He still looks like his usual self otherwise, his dark, fluffy soft hair short rather than long and silken. His ears were also rounded like a humans, too, rather than pointed. 

Just what the hell was going on here? 

Jittery and awkward, you self consciously close the door behind you so no one else can happen by and see him in such a brazen state of undress. You’re already feeling guilty enough about barging in here as it is without adding any more people into the equation. 

In truth you’re not even entirely sure what you’re doing now as you carefully step across the room to approach him, wondering if perhaps you should have just quietly excused yourself and returned to your room for the night. There’s an insistent tug of concern pulling on your gut though and, keeping your footsteps light so as not to startle him too badly, you shuffle up to his little mound of bedding. This is so far removed from what you’d expected to find in coming here that you can’t even really make sense of what he’s doing until you watch him shudderingly flex his hips in a slow, savory grind that drags his leaking cock over the mass of fabric bunched underneath him, the spectral length of his tail flicking aggressively through the air. 

That manages to stop you dead in your tracks and you just stare down at him for a harrowingly long beat, cheeks burning hot enough to cook an egg on. 

Oh. So that’s what he was doing. 

“Dan Heng? A - are you alright?” 

He jolts at the sound of your voice so very close to him, sucking in a painfully sharp breath as he shoves up to twist around and look back at you. Wide eyed and flushed, he just stares in bewildered silence as if he simply couldn’t make any sense of what he was seeing and you honestly couldn’t blame him for that. You were having a hard time wrapping your head around this too. 

“Wh - … what are you doing here?” He finally whispers, his voice throaty and gruff with a masculine edge you’d never heard from him before. 

Nervously shifting your weight from one foot to the other, you have to make a conscious effort not to look at his upturned backside even though he was still laying sprawled out over top of all those blankets, like some ancient god of myth at leisurely rest. Out of respect for him, of course, and not because you were so deeply embarrassed by what you’d walked in on. 

“I was just worried about you so I … I wanted to come check that you were okay. We haven’t seen you in a while. I’m sorry for, uh, interrupting.” 

His dark brows slowly draw inward, creating a wretched little wrinkle between them when he heaves a frustrated breath out through his mouth. “You shouldn’t be in here right now. I’m not feeling very up to entertaining anyone at the moment. You’ve caught me at a bad time, I’m afraid.” 

You think that must be the understatement of the century but you don’t say that, a little too transfixed on the not quite solid horns that are coming out of his head. “I can see that. Are you alright? I’ve never seen you like this before.” 

“And I’d planned to keep it that way.” He groggily murmurs, making it clear to you now that this was indeed the Dan Heng you were used to if he could still think up smarmy little quips to toss around, but the slowed speech and vague slur in his voice almost makes it sound like he’s drunk. 

You’re nearly certain that’s not what’s going on here though, and you cautiously kneel down next to him on the floor to look at him head on. “Can you tell me what’s happening?” 

Drawing a slow, tortured breath in through his nose, Dan Heng haltingly fists his hands in the rumpled ball of sheets underneath him as if to physically hold himself in check. “I’d rather not but you’re already here so I suppose I may as well. To be honest I’m not even sure if you’re going to believe me but … as you know by now I’m a Vidyadhara, yes? Well, it’s because of that. I’ve gone into a kind of rut.” 

You wrack your brain for a moment, trying to recall  the meaning of that word. “As in — for mating? But I thought - -“ 

“I know.” He cuts you off with a low, tortured hiss, fingers painfully clenching in the sheets as his not quite material dragon's tail irritably whips a frustrated arc through the air. “But just because we can’t reproduce it doesn’t mean the biological functionality completely stops working too. If you, for example, were infertile that doesn’t necessarily equate to the total loss of your menses. You may still have a period even if fertilization is impossible.” 

Your mouth drops open in abject shock to gape at him as if he’s just grown a second head. What the — 

“How do you know about that?” 

Dan Heng scoffs a quiet little laugh, pinning you with a very strained, very sweaty look. “Please. Do you really think I can’t smell it? My nose is sharper than yours so I always know when you, or March or even Miss Himeko are going through your cycles. In fact …” 

He trails off, shuttered blue eyes sliding to the side with a vaguely guilty look, or at least that’s what you think it is. 

Your curiosity is piqued though, and you find yourself attentively leaning forward to hang off his every word. “In fact what? Tell me, Dan Heng. Please?” 

“Well, it’s just,” Still hesitating, he stiffly tries to rouse himself from his prone position on top of the nest he’s made but he seems to have trouble making his limbs cooperate. Seething a dull hiss of frustration, he reluctantly sinks back down to hang his head low between his faintly trembling shoulders, trying to steady his breath. “It’s a shameful thing to admit out loud, but I can smell everything. When you’re on your period and … when you’re ovulating too. I know when you’re at your most fertile and I — unfortunately I think my biological cues may have synced up with yours.” 

The full weight of that information is so crushing that it almost leaves you feeling numb in the wake of such an unexpected bombshell. He was synced up with you and not anyone else? 

Somewhat shyly bringing your hand up to protectively curl it over your stomach, you flounder for something even remotely intelligent to say to that. “Does that mean … you’re like this because of me right now?” 

“It’s not your fault.” He insists, forcing his face back up to look over at you, offering his best attempt at a reassuring smile. “I’m not sure why it happened with you and not the others, but sometimes these things just happen. I’ll be alright so please don’t worry about me. It’s okay if you want to go back to your room now.” 

You know that’s his polite way of saying ‘please go back to your room’ so he can deal with this on his own, and you’re almost compelled to listen without stopping long enough to question it when you were feeling more than a bit out of sorts yourself. But something makes you hesitate, a small frown tugging at your mouth now as you look him over again. Naked as he is, you can clearly see that every inch of him is coated in a fine sheen of sweat that makes his creamy skin glisten slightly under the overhead lights, like he was burning up from within. That probably half explained his lack of clothes. 

The other reason must surely be his stiff cock which, even though you’d tried very hard not to look at it over the last few minutes, you can’t help but notice hasn’t flagged at all while the two of you were talking. He must have been in an awful physical state then if being walked in on like this hadn’t deterred his body in the slightest. And to think this was all because of you, intentionally or not. 

It’s almost impossible not to feel at least a little guilty about it, yes, but even putting that aside you felt strangely inclined to help him. Regardless of any personal responsibility you held here, he was still your friend wasn’t he? That warranted at least an attempt, you quickly decide. 

Determined and vindicated in equal measure, you nudge closer to him on the floor rather than getting up to leave, and that clearly surprises him a great deal. Stammering a soft sound of fluster, Dan Heng visibly recoils from the hand you reach out with but he still can’t seem to find the strength to truly pull away and put some (no doubt much needed) distance between you and him. Your fingers touch his shoulder, gently at first and then more firmly when all he does is suck in a ragged inhale, staring at you in wide eyed confusion. 

His stiffly locked frame only puts up a cursory amount of resistance when you carefully guide him over to his side and then further onto his back where he can questionly peer up at you without having to crane his neck around. It also allows his cock to spring up from his body to stand straight in the air, wobbling slightly as if to indicate his uncertainty. You feel a little uncertain too, looking at it like that, but you remind yourself to stay focused as you cautiously reach out as if to grab him. 

“Wait.” He hisses, snagging your wrist to stop its forward motion. “What are you doing? This is - -“ 

“I just want to help you. This will make you feel better, right?” 

“You —!” Seething through tightly clenched teeth, Dan Heng squeezes his eyes shut as if to reign in his self control and ground himself before he goes on. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. This isn’t something for you to take care of.” 

Your heart wrenches slightly at that. “Why not?” 

“Our body’s aren’t built the same, for starters. When Vidyadhara mate it isn’t … it’s not something for humans to experience.” 

Feeling his hand quake slightly where it’s still grasping onto your arm, you take a moment to thoughtfully drag your attention across his bare body. “You look pretty human to me.” 

“That doesn’t matter.” Clicking his tongue, he rolls his head back against the mass of blankets to look elsewhere, evidently anywhere else but at you. Guilty, or perhaps ashamed. “You saw the eggs in Scalegorge Waterscape, didn’t you?” 

For a horribly long stretch you’re not quite sure what to say to that while your mind frantically trips over that information. You were learning so much about the dragon species, none of which you’d thought to know before now, and it’s a difficult thing to fully wrap your head around it. Surely he wasn’t implying that … 

You send another cautious glance at his cock, still flushed and excessively weeping from the tip. “You mean those huge eggs came out of there?” 

“What? No. Not like that.” His chest slowly expanding with the deep, wavering breath he sucks in, Dan Heng rouses himself enough to lift his neck so he can look at you again. Sending you a guarded look, he roves his attention down to peer over himself and you follow his lead, watching him slowly bring his opposite hand up to loosely curl the fingers around his shaft. “At one time female Vidyadhara did lay eggs during the reproduction cycle but … hnng, now we’re just shooting blanks, for lack of a better term. It’s too complicated to explain right now but — even these small eggs that haven’t been incubated to maturity are still too large for your body to easily take. I appreciate your concern but - -“ 

“No.” You cut him off, using your best tone of stern reprimand to make his attention flick back up. “I want to help you, Dan Heng, and that’s what I’m going to do. Not to make up for something I didn’t even realize I was doing but because you’re my friend. I don’t like seeing you like this. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” 

Full on groaning now, he once again tips head back while he stiffly twitches there on the floor, the hand around his cock giving it a tight, desperate squeeze as if to dissuade his impending release. You watch in rapt fascination as a fat, glistening bead of clear discharge surfaces on the tip of him where it hovers for a static moment before slowly oozing down the side of his length. It’s clearly taking everything he has to keep his self control in check instead of letting himself get caught up in those rioting urges, and you think it all the more admirable of him. Something told you not many men could keep such a tight leash on the instinctive, hard coded urge to breed like this. 

But that’s all the more reason why Dan Heng deserved your help, wasn’t it? How long had he been suffering like this all alone? Was it always this bad or was your presence just one room over making it worse for him? Even if he seemed sure that your body couldn’t reasonably handle it, you still had to try. 

Letting him keep his hold on your arm where he’s still clutching it in an iron fist, you bring your opposite hand up to carefully touch fingertips to his tense thigh. He jolts so hard you almost think you’ve electrocuted him via static shock, but he just groans all the harder instead of moving to push you away. The tail that isn’t really there lashes out across the floor to whip another serpentine arc before curling inward to almost possessively wrap around your waist. 

That nearly manages to startle you, especially when you realize you can feel a faint hint of contact despite its immaterial nature. It’s so light and distant that you idly wonder if you’re only imagining the vague sensation of fleshy scales pressing into you but you quickly decide it’s as good a sign as any. Although his hold around your middle was loose and tentative, he wasn’t pushing you away and you take that as your sign to keep going. 

So you slide your fingers higher on a sure and steady trajectory, caressing over Den Heng’s shuddering hip to join him in taking hold of his weakly twitching length. While he holds the base tight enough to make his knuckles turn white, you gently wrap your hand around the top half to feel the sticky smear of discharge on your palm. His stomach flexes so dramatically with the tortured gasp he sucks in that this, too, nearly makes you second guess yourself. 

But the more you linger there touching him, the more he seems to slip into the heady daze that fogs his mind. You can see it clearly in the darkening flush that stains his cheekbones, the excess of sweat pouring out of him, and the heavy lidded quality of his eyes. He really did look drunk, if you were being honest. 

And finally he lets out a threadbare, needy little sound as his gaze unsteadily comes up to peer over at you again. You can tell he wants to give in, needs to find an outlet for these mind numbing urges that are clearly wreaking havoc on his body, but he still has misgivings about going through with this. You steadily meet his gaze though, trying to silently impart upon him that you were serious and you wouldn’t be going anywhere until something has been done about this. 

The moment the scales start to tip is reflected in his glistening eyes, as clear as day, and he at last wheezes a softly rattling breath into the air. “Are you sure you want to do this?” 

“Positive. Just walk me through it.” 

“Oohhn … then — take off your clothes. All of them. So we don’t soil them.”

His fingers tremble fiercely when he pries them off you, giving you your freedom to lean back and get to work. You don’t think you’ve ever undressed quite so quickly in your entire life, and the warm pulse of excitement you feel low in your gut now almost surprises you. It’s not so strange though, you think, tossing everything aside piece by piece into a messy pile. As he’d already pointed out, you were in the middle of ovulating so your pussy was feeling extra sensitive and gooey anyway, and the close proximity of his naked body coupled with that oddly cloying smell in the air was only making it worse. 

Your nipples are already standing up in stiff, aching points by the time you get the final layer of your bra tugged off, and you shudder sensitively at the sensation of them cutting through the air as much as at Dan Heng’s heated stare burning into your bare skin. Settling in next to him once again, you anxiously look for him for his next instruction. 

“What now?” 

“I’ll have to — prep you first before we can go any further. Like I said, your body isn’t … made for this kind of reproduction. My spend won’t have anywhere to go if I take you here.” Listlessly curling his hand towards you, Dan Heng nudges the pad of one blocky finger between your thighs to pointedly touch your cunt. You suck in a frazzled breath at the contact for as brief as it is, eyes widening slightly at him, but he just continues on. “And we’ll only make a big mess when all is said and done. I’m going to do my best to make it pleasurable for you too though.”

Stiltedly nodding your head, you eagerly scoot even closer until your knee brushes against his thigh. “I trust you. What should I do?” 

“Come here.” 

At the deliberate nudge of his hand, you carefully push up to lean over him. You’re not quite sure what to do with your hands, a little worried about hurting him if you were to brace your weight along his abdomen, so you stretch further out to brace against the sheets on either side. Panting softly now, Dan Heng brings his hands up to work them under your arms so he can nudge you further up against him. The motion tugs you off balance enough that you slip forward to lay out across the front of him, squeaking a tiny little sound of surprise when he insistently pulls you closer to his face. 

Once he’s got you situated on his chest, he cranes his neck up to catch your mouth with his in a tentative, experimental kiss. An intense shudder works through you despite how gentle and fleeting the sensation is, moaning a quiet sound into his lips as you slowly melt into him. He was a surprisingly good kisser … 

That careful push and pull encourages you to relax on top of him and it doesn’t take long for you to notice your pussy starting to ooze eager slick in response to his steady ministrations. It’s surprising, in a way, how readily your body reacts to him, but you don’t stop long enough to truly question it. 

Clearly feeling when your natural defenses start to come down, Dan Heng lets his hands wander over your shoulders and further down to caress along your ribs, your waist and then your hips. Even when his need was so great you could feel it coursing through him and vibrating like an active livewire, he still takes his time with it to warm you up, ensuring you were truly ready before he begins in earnest. 

It’s only when you finally start to get a little antsy, fidgeting against his body, do you finally feel something soft and vaguely wet nudge at your cunt. So dazed and caught up in the moment, you don’t even think to question it at first when you were just glad that he was touching you there at all. But then you realize both of his hands are still roaming over your back to squeeze and grope at love handles, tugging you even further against him, and you don’t think it’s his cock either … 

Forcing yourself to pull away from his mouth with a warbling sound of confusion, you twist around to peer back behind you in search of the source. At first you can’t quite make sense of what you’re seeing, that shuddering incandescent specter moving sedately between your thighs in a decidedly snake-like manner. And then it takes another gentle swipe at you, running from the starting seam of your cunt straight up to the wrinkled pucker of your asshole, and you outright jolt. 

It wasn’t his tail which had protectively curled itself around your calves, but something else entirely. 

“Wh - -“

“Don’t worry. It's just some of my power leaking out.” He murmurs, pulling your attention back around. 

“You mean like … the horns and tail?” 

Offering a stiff nod, Dan Heng slides his hands forward along your ribcage to gently nudge you into sitting up just enough to lift your tits from his chest. A deeply ruffled, shuddering exhale slips out of you when he redirects them around to grope at you, offering your breasts a careful squeeze that makes the nipples drag over his calloused palms. It almost makes you sway there on top of him, moaning a lilting sound into the air. 

While he diligently plays with your chest, pinching and tweaking at the sensitive buds to make them ache, you can feel that — immaterial tentacle working to spread your cunt open. You can’t think of anything else to call it when it was long and very reminiscent of a curling snake, wriggling around as if with a mind of its own behind you. And when it at last manages to nudge up against your entrance where it ever so slowly begins to push inside, you outright choke on a half stifled gasp. 

Although it wasn’t nearly as firm and real as Dan Heng is underneath you, there was still a certain tangible quality to it that leaves you trembling at the staggered stretch it puts on your guts. You have a split second, delirious thought that this must be what it feels like to be penetrated by a ghost, but the thought abruptly cuts off when he bends his face close to snag one of your nipples in his mouth. 

Tossing your head back to keen up at the ceiling, you stiffly hang there in the balance while he suckles your straining teat to heightened sensitivity and the spectral manifestation of his Vidyadhara power gradually worms its way into your body. Alarm almost registers in your hazy mind when you realize how good it actually feels being pulled between the two equally unrelenting forces, but you don’t get the chance to linger on it for very long. 

That not quite there tentacle shudders and wriggles inside you to make more room for itself so it can reach further in, steadily stuffing your cunt full until your toes start to painfully curl. It doesn’t exactly hurt yet it’s an exceedingly strange sensation to wrap your head around when it almost felt like your pussy was stretching open around nothing at all. There’s no resistance, barely any sense of friction, and you finally give in to the urge to mindlessly writhe, pushing back on the presence behind you with a faltering moan. 

Dan Heng softly shushes you, taking a quick, savory nip at your fattened nipple before turning his head to switch to the other. At the same time, the tentacle starts to move in earnest, carefully thrusting its long, squirming length in and out to make your pussy wetly click. Frantically clutching at his broad shoulders, you quickly give yourself over to that insistent pressure and roll your hips into it, outright quaking with pleasure. 

You’re so caught up in it, in fact, that you almost don’t even notice a second snaking tendril coming up to deliberately nudge at your clit. Issuing a startled little squeak at the unexpected sensation, you stiffly lurch forward as if to lift your hips and escape its attack, but Dan Heng holds you tight. There’s no way for you to wiggle yourself free like this and you have no choice but to sit there and take it, juddering uncontrollably while the pressure in you rapidly swells. 

Your first orgasm hits you almost embarrassingly fast, helpless to do anything else except cum when you were being relentlessly tweaked and sucked, and fucked from both ends. Clenching your teeth to stop the frantic wail rising in your throat, you viciously seethe and ride out the mercilessly crashing waves of your release while your pussy spasms around what amounts to nothing. It’s enough to almost have your eyes rolling back in your head, and you drunkenly sway on top of him when the high finally starts to dwindle a long stretch of moments later. 

Left raggedly panting in the aftermath, all you can do is bonelessly sink into him with a warm, content little groan of satisfaction. The spot between your legs feels like an even goopier mess than before, all warm and sticky, and stuffed full. But then, to your shuddering disappointment, the tentacle starts to pull out of you with a slimy wriggle, dragging the sensation of copious arousal right to your entrance where it finally slips free with a noisy squelch. 

Sensitively twitching at the sound, you quietly groan under your breath as you peer down into Dan Heng’s face when he finally releases your aching teat from his mouth. Both have been left flushed and swollen in the wake of his attention, and they fleshily drag across his chest as you lean down to kiss him again, which he happily reciprocates. 

He’s left you in such a deeply gratified state that you’ve almost forgotten why you were even doing this in the first place, so punchdrunk on fast pumping endorphins and the intoxicating smell of him that you could have easily dozed off right then and there. 

But then, to your surprise, he pulls back just enough to speak against your lips, murmuring a soft, “Don’t tense up. Just relax into it.” 

Rousing slightly from your comfortable daze, you start to question him but the words catch in your throat when you suddenly feel that tentacle — still coated in sticky, vicious slick — swiping over your asshole to coat it in the clinging discharge. A mildly horrified tremor works through you, and you suck in a rough gasp as you start to push up, but Dan Heng holds you tight to stop it. 

“It’s okay, I promise.” He soothes you, trying to keep his voice light and reassuring despite the eager inflection. “I know this probably isn’t ideal for you but it’s the best way to do this, trust me. I’m not going to hurt you. Take a deep breath.” 

That’s easy enough for him to say, but it’s much harder for you to listen to reason when that ghostly tendril behind you was insistently circling the rim of your hole to ensure it was thoroughly lubricated on the outside. Your heart feels like it’s going to jackhammer straight out of your chest as you fidget on top of him, trying in vain to angle your backside away but it’s no use. The smooth, vaguely fleshy tip just follows after you and insistently presses in on the center wrinkle, putting enough pressure on the muscle to make it slowly start to give. 

“W - wait, that’s - -!” 

He shushes you again, raggedly panting underneath you while the tentacle squirms and wriggles its way into your body to just dip past the inner rim of your entrance. The sensation of your sphincter relenting to grant it entry almost registers in your mind like a distant pop and you lurch in place, woundedly groaning as it starts to steadily reach in deeper now that it’s past that initial barrier. 

At the same time the second tendril on your aching clit continues to gently swipe back and forth over the sensitized pleasure button as if to soothe and comfort you. It doesn’t really work though when you were being penetrated from behind like this, helplessly juddering as you're gradually forced to take more and more. And it’s the same as it had been when it was your cunt being stretched open around something that wasn’t actually there, your ass opening up around what tangibly feels like nothing. 

It’s a struggle to make any sense of it or comprehend the full scope of what’s actually happening, your mouth hanging open on an overwhelmed, silent scream. It feels like too much for your body to handle, especially when it gradually begins to move in a slow motion thrust that just tests the give of your inner sleeve to ensure you wouldn’t tear. 

“Nnghn, D - Dan Heng, I can’t - -“ 

“I know. I'm sorry. Just bear with it a little longer, alright? I promise it’ll be over soon.” 

Not soon enough, you think, seething through the odd discomfort that comes with being penetrated like this. It doesn’t exactly hurt when the wriggling tentacle was smooth and narrow enough not to put too much strain on your weakly fluttering guts, but it’s something you’re not used to and you’re not quite sure how to relax into it. Every time you try your ass just hollowly contracts around its slim girth, forced to stay wedged open despite the desperate clench of muscle. Even worse is the fact you can feel your cunt steadily drooling yet more eager slick in response to the unfamiliar stimulation, somehow still not at all deterred even now. 

All you can do is endure it over the next odd minutes while he takes his time carefully making sure your hole is loosened enough for whatever he planned to do next. Given what he’d said about eggs earlier you had some ideas, of course, but you’re a little too caught up in the total onslaught to your body to think that far back. The only thing you were conceivably aware of in that moment was the longer that tentacle squirms around inside your ass the more excited you got. 

It doesn’t even really make any sense, in all actuality, and yet you don’t think to protest when it finally starts to slide out of you, dragging against your guts until it can slip completely out of your weakly clenching entrance. You sway dizzily at the sensation of your ass swollen and puffy, prepped to accept something bigger, yet say nothing against it when Dan Heng manages to gather enough energy to push up on his elbows and carefully slide you down next time in the nest of sheets. 

Moving gingerly slow, he crawls over top of you and stretches out to grab something just over your head. Blinking dazedly, you tip your head to see what he’s doing only to feel a pang of surprise when you realize he’s grabbing a small bottle of proper lubricant that was half hidden behind the corner of the shelf. So he hadn’t needed to use your own pussy slick to - -

“Sorry.” He murmurs, sounding truly apologetic as he pulls back enough to flip the little cap open. “I got so caught up in the moment that I was just doing what felt natural but … I realized this wasn’t going to work without the proper tools. You’re too tight.” 

You’re not sure how you possibly manage to blush under these circumstances, but you find yourself pinning him with a flustered scowl all the same. “Next time I’ll make sure to prep before I come to your room then.” 

Dan Heng hesitates at that, sending a briefly concealed look from under the fringe of his sweat matted bangs, and you quickly snap your mouth shut when you realize what you’d just said. Was there really going to be a next time? And would you really take the time to properly prepare for it? 

You don’t know about that just yet, but as you watch him carefully gather your knees under his arms so he can lean forward and bend you in half to leave your cunt and ass fully exposed to him, you think you might. Not only did he look frustratingly good hovering over you like this, all covered in sweat and tense with aching anticipation, but the heavy bob of his cock between your legs … even if this wasn’t exactly what you’d envisioned it was still undeniably exciting. 

“Scoot a little lower, if you can.” 

Letting out a shuddering breath, you comply with an eager wriggle that nudges you further into the space between his braced knees. It forces your legs into a deeper bend too, nearly bringing them right down to your chest, and you hold your breath as he brings the bottle down to squirt a healthy dollop over your waiting pucker. 

You hiss softly at the cool sensation, fidgeting restlessly underneath him, but Dan Heng stays focused on the task at hand. After setting the lube aside where it wasn’t likely to get knocked over, he reaches back down to loosely curl his fingers around the shaft so he can guide it towards your entrance. 

“I’m going to stick it in now.” He warns, groaning so heavily you almost can’t make out what he’s saying. “Just tell me if it hurts and I’ll stop to give you a break but — ooughhn, I don’t think this is going to take very long.” 

A violent shudder works through him, nearly bowling him over right on the spot as he sensitively lurches over you. It’s like his hips have a mind of their own now and they stiffly flex, pushing closer to you on a steady trajectory guided by his shaking hand. The fleshy glans presses into your waiting ass, your breath catching in your throat at the stark difference between this and the spectral tentacle. He’s firm and warm, and alive against you, and your pussy positively weeps when he starts to cautiously push in. 

The raised rim of your entrance readily accepts him, much to your gasping surprise, spreading open under the pressure to cling to the glans and then the shaft, and then more of the shaft until he’s sheathed half of the way inside you on a single, stilted thrust. This is very different from before and you wildly shudder at the full brunt of this kind of penetration, helplessly squirming on his cock where he’s got you impaled. 

He doesn’t seem to be doing much better than you as he hovers there for a long moment, just trying to ground himself by the looks of it. But he seems to be losing the fight and he screws his eyes shut with a ragged, almost painful hiss as he leans into you to settle his weight and let gravity do the rest of the work. The resulting, tortuously stilted slide of his flesh along your inner sleeve has your legs uselessly twitching in the air, yet you make no attempt to stop him or his inward push. 

All at once he’s pressed flush against your vulnerably upturned cheeks, and he immediately succumbs to the potent rush of sensation mixed with the overwhelming flood of pheromones that abruptly grabs him in a chokehold. Painfully stiff and halting, Dan Heng snarls a low sound of deeply felt pleasure while his body trembles and his cock wildly flexes inside you. 

At first you’re not entirely sure what you’re feeling, that incredibly hot, sticky surge inside your ass that seems to shoot almost uncomfortably deep. In a far off, dreamy sort of way you do realize he’s cumming, and you can’t really hold it against him when he’d been suffering this whole time without relief. Letting him deposit his thick load in your ass only seemed like the least you could do. 

But then you feel a strange sensation, a deep throb from him that makes your cunt squeeze tight and clench around nothing. It pulses once, twice, three times — getting stronger and more attention grabbing with each repetition — until on the fourth you feel something solid pass from him to you. 

It’s not very big, he’d been right about that, evidently, but it’s noticeable enough to alarm you, and your eyes widen up at him in utter disbelief. He’d been serious about the eggs? Was he — was Dan Heng really depositing a clutch of eggs into your guts? 

You almost don’t believe it, your dumbstruck thoughts screeching to a sudden and immediate standstill as you just lie there, staring up at him in perplexed silence while he uncontrollably shudders. He’s too caught up in it to look back at you though, heaving through the spasming throb when it starts up again. One, two, three — and on the fourth you once again feel a fat little something push into you. 

Finally rousing from your shock enough to noise a horrified sound, you fumble to push yourself upright but there’s nowhere for you to go. He’s got you so thoroughly pinned underneath him in this position that you’d have to untangle your limbs before you could even think about scuttling away. Seething viciously through your teeth, you just look down at the spot between your legs where his dark, curly pubic hair tangles with yours, wishing you could see what was happening. 

Again and again, one right after another, those deep pulses start up and he just keeps steadily filling you over the next few minutes until you start to understand why he couldn’t do this in your pussy. He was right about that too, you’re more than a bit chagrined to find, and you think you probably would have laughed if only you’d had the oxygen to do so. 

By the time the throbbing flex of his cock finally starts to slow down there are so many eggs in you that you not only feel them pushing in much too deep on your guts to be comfortable, but you can also see the distention of your stomach where they were forcing it out just enough to create a little pouch. In total you’d counted at least twenty, but you’d stopped keeping track at a certain point when your reeling mind simply couldn’t take it anymore. You’d never seen anything like it, never felt anything like it, and the worst part was by far the way all that insistent pressure on your inner sleeve made your pussy feel so painfully empty. 

And finally, when you’re not so sure you can take much more, Dang Heng at last wheezes a deeply relieved sound, going slack and boneless over top of you while he gasps for air. It takes him a very long moment to start recovering, and he gingerly eases back to carefully slip his rapidly softening cock out of you. The way he grimaces and whines softly under his breath seems to suggest it’s quite sore and sensitive in the aftermath, which doesn’t exactly come as a surprise, considering. 

But what does surprise you is when he at last slips free and you feel something pop right out of you, chasing after him. Your sphincter is much too stretched and loosened to stop it, and your eyes widen to the approximate size of dinner plates when you desperately try to crane your neck up enough to see what it is. 

“I’m so sorry.” He groans, sucking in a faltering inhale while he too tips his face down to look. 

Managing to get your upper body elevated enough with no shortage of effort when your stomach felt so strangely round and heavy, you come to a sudden, jolting stop when you glance between his legs. 

Sitting unassuming on the rumpled sheets is an egg. An honest to god egg. No bigger than the chicken variety Pompom occasionally used to make breakfast with, when they had the supply for it, and it was still coated in a sticky viscosity that makes you feel dizzy. That’s what was inside of you? But … but there were so many, and Dan Heng had just transferred them all to you through his cock? 

You shoot the appendage in question a disbelieving look, unsurprised to find it soft and tender now, at complete odds with the almost aggressive erection he’d had when you first walked in. No wonder he was totally exhausted and spent after that. And next it would be your turn to labor through the process of birthing them all, one by one until there was nothing left except an empty, hollow void inside of you where his clutch had once resided. It was an incredibly staggering thought to wrap your head around, but it was also a frankly impressive one too. 

So this was how the Vidyadhara used to mate …

⭐

Crossposted: here

[scuderiahoney]

Oscar Piastri x reader // in motion part 7

summary: a hockey watch party, one last data point for the pizza theory, and one last chance at the national title. Word Count: 7.2k

warnings: alcohol/intoxication, mentions of bullying, & some very mild angst

You watch the second round of the hockey championships from the floor of Lily’s apartment, surrounded by friends and friends of friends and anyone who cares enough about hockey to be there, really. You’re in a pair of Timberwolves sweats, your jersey, a team logo beanie, and even your socks are Timberwolves blue. The apartment gets warm, eventually, but you refuse to take any of it off.

They play a good game. The other team is good too, though. You hold your breath for almost the entire third period- it’s tied, 3 to 3. Alex makes save after save. Max takes shot after shot. Nothing is working.

Then, Oscar comes out onto the ice with just a few minutes left to play. You reach behind you and grab Lily’s hand. Lando snatches the puck away from the other team and sends it off to Max. Max passes it through a gap to Oscar. Oscar takes the shot.

The puck hits the net. The goal horn goes off, and the apartment falls quiet. Everyone is holding their breath now. Nobody dares to celebrate yet.

“There’s still a minute left,” you say, like you’re not all aware of it.

The seconds tick down. They feel endless. But when the buzzer sounds, the Timberwolves are up by one. They’re headed to the semifinals. The apartment erupts into cheers, and all you can do is finally breathe. Behind you, Lily does the same, melting into the couch.

“Guess it’s time to book flights to St. Paul,” she says, when you turn to look back at her.

You take a shot of tequila with her in the kitchen, and then you get seats next to each other on a flight out to the semifinals. Your phone rings nearly immediately after that- the apartment is noisy, but it’s Max, so you answer anyways.

“Bunny!” He yells. “We fucking did it!”

“I know!” You say back, feeling nearly as giddy as he must be. “Holy shit, Max!”

“I know,” he says back. You think he might be crying. “You’re gonna come, right?”

“Booked our flights already.”

Lando’s the next one on the line, and it’s pretty much a repeat of the same conversation. It continues. At one point, Alex is talking to both you and Lily on separate calls. You hope someone snaps a picture of him with two phones to his ears. The call lasts through their bus ride back to the hotel, and you want to ask for Oscar but you can’t, really, not when-

“Hi?” Oscar says, voice slightly confused. “Someone handed me the phone, I’ve got no idea what-“

“Osc,” you say, softly.

“Bunny,” he whispers, and the tone of voice makes you melt. “Hi.”

“Good job,” you say. “That goal…”

“Fucking insane,” he says, voice cracking slightly. “I’m so happy.”

You grin. “Me too.”

“I wish you were here,” he says, quietly.

You know somewhere during the call they’ve gotten off the bus and headed inside somewhere- maybe the hotel, maybe a restaurant. You wonder if he’s snuck away to talk to you, or if he’s counting on everyone being too excited to pay attention to him. Either way, you don’t mind. It’s enough to hear his voice, to hear the warmth in it, to know that he wants to talk to you too.

“Me too,” you say. Lily’s motioning to you from across the room, holding up the bottle of tequila. You nod, and she pours you another drink. “But Lily and I just booked flights for the semifinals.”

“Really?” He says, sounding a bit awed. “You have no idea how happy that makes me.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” you murmur.

“I- I’ve gotta go. We’re out for dinner, Seb’s buying, and-“

“I know,” you tell him, smiling to yourself. “I’ll talk to you soon. Have fun. Congrats.”

“Thanks, baby,” he says.

Then the line goes dead. You take your drink from Lily and take a sip. She gives you a look, a knowing smile on her face. You blink back as innocently as possible.

“You spent that whole call looking happy,” she says. “And then you got to the last five minutes and you looked lovesick.”

“Did I?” You ask.

She’s become convinced that your mystery boyfriend is someone on the team. She’s right, of course, but you’ve refused to tell her. You’d have told her tonight if they lost the game, but it’s the playoffs. You can’t do anything to mess this up for Oscar or the rest of the team. They’ve been so close the last 3 years. This is Lando and Max’s last chance. You’d do anything to see your best friends win.

“I’ll ask Alex who had the phone last,” she threatens.

“No, you won’t, because you won’t violate my trust like that.”

“Don’t call my bluff,” she groans. “Why won’t you just tell me who it is?”

You sigh. “They’re in the semifinals, Lily. I don’t want to do anything to fuck it up.”

She sighs and pouts back at you. “He’s one of the good ones, right? It’s not, like…”

“He’s amazing,” you say, both to reassure her and because it’s true. “Trust me.”

…..

“Hey,” Oscar says, nudging his foot against your ankle. “I have a question.”

It’s late, probably near midnight. It’s a Wednesday, the night before the team flies to Minnesota for the playoffs. You look up from your laptop, propped on your knees in front of you, and blink away the blurriness to look at him. He’s sitting on the other end of your couch, a mirror image, soft and cozy in the warm glow of the lamps in the living room. He’s not doing anything other than scrolling on his phone, but he’d insisted on wanting to be here tonight. To spend the night with you.

“Yeah, what’s up?” You ask. Your homework can wait. You’d much rather talk to him.

“Why does everyone call you Bunny?” He asks. “Like. I get the idea, but how did it even start?”

You blow out a breath and click save on your document. “That’s a long story.”

He shrugs and sinks further down on the couch, leaning against the arm of it. His calf slots between yours, warm and comforting and there. The two of you have been busy the past few days, weeks even, with end of semester work and practices and everything in between. It’s all you can do to just be there for each other. To just spend time together, even when you’re writing an essay and Oscar is trying to decipher math problems. It always feels better when you can feel him next to you.

“I’ve got time,” he says.

“It’s almost midnight,” you respond.

He shrugs again. “I’ve always got time for you.”

And. Well. There’s not much you can do to argue with that, not much you could say back. It sort of makes you melt, really. You let out a low breath and sink back against the arm of the couch, moving your laptop to the coffee table. There’s a loose thread on the blanket that lays over your knees, and you twist it around your pinky finger.

“It was, uh. One of my old teammates,” you say, focusing on the string around your skin, not wanting to look up at his face. “I went to a party with Max and Lando after I got off the crutches, and she was there, and she… yeah. Said a bunch of shit, called me a puck bunny. And back then, Max was a bit more hot tempered, and obviously he didn’t hit her but he started yelling, and then she started yelling, and then so did Lando, and we got kicked out of this party, and-“ you close your eyes, remembering the moment, when the three of you had tumbled out onto the lawn, into the cold air, and when they both turned to check on you- “it was all so absurd, so stupid, so- she was supposed to be my friend, you know? So I just started laughing. And Lando was looking at me like I was crazy, but then Max started laughing, too, and Lando dragged us both home and ordered pizza, and Charles was still up, so he heard the story. And the name stuck. Honestly, I like it. It’s a way to reclaim the insult, you know?”

You look up and find him watching you, drumming his fingers against his knee. There’s a soft, sort of sad look on his face. Your cheeks grow warm. He makes you feel so seen, in this way that feels a little overwhelming at times.

“You and Max have this thing in common,” he says. “You tell these borderline traumatic stories like they’re funny.”

You scoff. “Me getting mildly made fun of by an ex teammate is not on the same level as Max’s stories.”

Oscar blinks. “But it’s not about the level of it, right? And that was a low blow from her, after you’d lost your sport and your support system, to say that about the friends you’d made. I mean. I get that it’s funny or ridiculous, but. It’s okay if it hurts, too. It can be both.”

You stare at him for a couple seconds, a little in awe of him. Of his kindness, of how much he seems to care. You shift on the couch to crawl over to him, pressing yourself into his side and smiling when he wraps his arms around you and giggles. He sinks down onto the couch and pulls you with until you’re cuddled up together, a mess of limbs and blankets and comfort. He kisses your forehead.

“Thank you,” you say.

There’s more you could say, but you don’t think you need to. He knows you so well already.

“Anytime,” he says. “I mean it.”

Before he leaves the next morning, he digs through his backpack in your living room, brows furrowed. “Swear it’s- aha!” He exclaims, pulling something out of the depths of the bag.

He hands it to you carefully, gingerly, like he’s a little nervous. He’s smiling, though. You take the brochure, eyes widening when you see what’s written across the top.

“No pressure,” he says, so quiet and soft. “You said you wanted to find a connection to soccer again, and I saw this, and…” he shrugs. “Thought of you. We can talk about it if you want, or not at all, or-“

You interrupt him, because you think he might be on the verge of rambling a bit. You stare down at the brochure in your hand and smile. “Thanks, Osc. This means the world to me, you know that? You mean the world to me.”

His face breaks out into a warm grin, and you can’t help but kiss him. He smiles into it, the way he always does when you first press your lips to his. Like he can’t quite believe it. You know the feeling.

He’s off to Minnesota in just a couple hours. You’ll be on your way shortly after that. You slip the brochure into your already packed carry on with a warm feeling in your chest.

…..

The guys fly out together, but you and Lily head there separately. The hotel you’ve booked is near the rink, just to make things easier. Max is the one to get you both set up with tickets to the game, since he’s the captain, so they’re relatively good seats, with a good view. By the time the game day rolls around, you feel like you’re about to vibrate out of your skin. Lily seems to be the same. You have a little pregame in your hotel room, just to take the edge off, really.

The arena is cold, like most of them are. It feels strange. You’re so used to the home rink that this one feels new and weird and sort of wrong. You file down to your seats and try your best to take it in. You look down at the ice, where in just a little bit, your friends will be playing their hearts out. Your boyfriend will be playing his heart out. You feel nauseous, suddenly.

Lily grabs your arm and squeezes softly. “Your stomach?” You nod, and she smiles sympathetically. “Yeah. That’s normal. I get it every big game Alex plays in.”

You frown. “I’ve watched so many games, though.”

“It’s different when it’s someone you… care about.” She says.

Her suggestion for a cure to the nausea is soft pretzels, so the two of you make friends with your seat neighbors, leave your jackets there, and head off in search of warm bread. It doesn’t take long to find it. You take small bites of the pretzel as you wander the arena. They’re selling merch- jerseys and beanies and anything else you could imagine. Both of you stop to buy something, wanting to remember this. Lily picks up a t-shirt for Alex. You buy a beanie for yourself and a baseball cap for Oscar. She studies you carefully, but she doesn’t ask any questions.

You stop her just before you get out to the rink again, in the walkway to the seats. “You know who it is, don’t you?”

She laughs and reaches for your arm again, squeezing. “Babe, it’s not hard to figure out. But what you said at the apartment, after the last game- it’s the playoffs. If you’re superstitious about it… I can wait to confirm.”

You take a breath and nod. “Okay.”

“But as soon as this is done, I’m kidnapping you and making you tell me everything,” she says. She squeezes your arm again. “Also, I’m very happy for you.”

You melt. “Thanks, Lily.”

The two of you get back to your seats just before they take to the ice for warmups. You catch yourself holding your breath as you watch Oscar skate loops and patterns around the rink. He goes through his normal warmup routine, he chats with Max and Charles along the way, and then he takes a second, spinning slowly on the ice and looking up at the crowd. You wave when he faces you. You don’t expect him to see it, but then he waves back, and your heart stutters in your chest. Lily’s not looking, too focused on Alex. You let the moment take a little weight off your shoulders.

The team hasn’t made it to the semifinals since you became friends with them. There’s something strange about this atmosphere. There’s so much resting on the game. You feel like you can’t quite relax, and maybe you won’t be able to for the whole thing. Then the puck drops, and Max takes it down the ice, and they score within the first two minutes, and you start to wonder if you ever had anything to worry about.

They win, easy and beautifully, and keep a solid two goal lead on the other team the whole time. They’re through to the finals. You and Lily hug each other in the stands, and you think she’s crying. You think you are too. Oscar’s down on the ice, hugging his teammates. Max stands in the middle of it, talking it all in. Lando bumps into him, grinning. Your boys. They look so proud. You’ve never been more proud.

You tell them as much when you find them after the game. They don’t have a lot of time- Seb’s set a strict hotel curfew, and you probably won’t see much of them until after the last game.

Lando pulls you into a hug in the parking lot of the rink, his face pressed against your shoulder. “One more game,” he says, quietly, and your heart breaks.

“One more,” you say, as Max comes up and hugs your other side. “So we make it count, yeah?”

Lando’s done after the finals game. It’s the last of competitive hockey for him. Max will be off to another team, hopefully, but he’ll be a rookie instead of a team captain. This last game will hold so much weight for both of them. They’re tired and nervous and you can feel it seeping out of them.

“How about I sneak you guys some pizza?” You suggest, and Lando pulls away, face lit up. “Not exactly on the meal plan, but…”

Max pulls back with a grin. “One last data point for the pizza theory.”

“Yeah,” you agree, ruffling his hair before smoothing it off his forehead. You do the same to Lando. “I’m so proud of you two, you know that?”

Any other day, they’d tease you for being cheesy. They’d roll their eyes and duck their heads and do anything to get you to stop. But today, Lando pushes his head against your head, a bit like a cat, and Max smiles, all squinty eyes. You smile, too.

Behind them, Oscar’s leaning on a barricade, talking to Alex and Lily. You want nothing more than to run over and kiss him, but the playoffs aren’t done yet. He smiles softly at you, and you smile back.

You order the pizza to your hotel and then walk it over to theirs, because Seb would definitely not approve and he’s more likely to catch the pizza delivery guy. Max lets you know that they’re hanging out in one of the conference rooms, and gives you directions on how to get there. The boxes are heavy in your arms- Lily had offered to come with, but two of you together would be even more suspicious.

They’re having some sort of movie night- a way to wind down and celebrate before practice tomorrow and the final game the day after that. You knock on the door lightly and hold your breath. Someone shuffles behind the door and then opens it.

It’s Charles. He grins, widely, and doesn’t even make a comment when you peer over his shoulder. They’re watching something with racecars on a giant projector screen. You hand over the boxes.

“Hi,” Charles whispers. “Thank you for the pizza.”

“Of course,” you whisper back. You know you won’t be invited in- the superstitions are running high, now. “I’m proud of you, you know.”

Charles grins. “Thanks. We will see you soon, yes? Oh, and- you should take the stairs down.”

You blink at him, but you figure he’s just worried about you getting caught by one of the coaches. You nod. “Okay. Tell everyone I said good luck, yeah?”

He nods, and then he shuts the door.

You head off for the stairwell at the end of the hall, figuring it’s better to play it safe than sorry. You nearly jump out of your skin when someone clears their throat when you open the door. You come face to face with your boyfriend, and you can’t help the smile that washes over your face. You understand the direction to take the stairs now.

“Osc,” you murmur, stepping closer. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he says, all pink cheeked and smiley. “You got my message, huh?”

You nod. “Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that Charles knows.”

Oscar nods. “I can’t stay long. They’ll get suspicious eventually, and… you know. But I wanted to see you.”

You smile and cup his face in both of your hands. He grins into the kiss when you press your lips to his. His hands fall to your hips, warm and broad, holding onto you to keep you both steady.

“You’re going to the finals,” you tell him, pinching one of his cheeks as you pull away. “I’m so proud of you, baby.”

He blushes even more at that, eyelids fluttering closed. “Just one more game.”

“One more game,” you agree.

Your heart twists in your chest. You wonder if he’s feeling what Max and Lando are feeling too, though maybe to a lesser extent. Last game with this team. One last time on the ice. Do anything to make it count. You hadn’t known your last game would be the last game. Oscar has a whole season left after this one, but it still must sting, you know it.

You kiss his cheek. “Go hang out with your teammates. One more game. I got you guys extra breadsticks, but if you don’t get there quick Carlos will definitely eat them all.”

Oscar sighs, rolls his eyes, and kisses your forehead. “Thank you, baby. I’ll see you soon.”

He disappears into the hallway without a trace. You find that you miss him nearly immediately.

…..

When they take to the ice for the last game- of the playoffs, of the season, of their time as a team, as this team- they don’t look nervous. You can feel the nerves in every inch of your body, every hair standing up straight, every muscle tensed. You’re shivering, but not from the chill in the arena. They look calm, cool, and collected. You suppose that’s a good sign.

Lily grips your hand tighter than ever as you wait. Every second ticks by so, so slowly- the anthem, the announcements, the pre game warm ups. You swear you’re going to have a heart attack. Oscar’s down on the ice, running his typical warm up drill, the one you know all too well. Skate from one side to the other. Shoot 3 pucks. Skate back to the other side. Find Charles, who’s waiting. Fist bump. Helmet pat from Max. Deep breath. Shoulder shake. Okay, here we go.

You hold your breath through the entire first period. No goals. You swear you can see the sweat dripping from Alex’s brow in the goalie box, even from up in the stands. Lily’s taken to gripping onto the armrest now, after she squeezed your hand a little too hard and you yelped. You’re leaning forward, elbows on your knees, chin in your hands. Neither of you move during the period break.

They come back out onto the ice raring to go, ready as ever. The other team has two near goals. Max snatches the puck, finds a gap, takes off down the ice, and- he scores. You can’t even scream- it’s more of a sigh of relief, really. Next to you, Lily’s on her feet. You follow suit.

The other team follows it up with a goal of their own five minutes later. Lily winces when Alex hangs his head. You watch Oscar skate over to him, giving him an affectionate pat on the shoulder. He’s come so far, really, from staying by himself at practices to this. It warms your heart.

You grab Lily’s hand and squeeze. “It’s okay,” you say, deciding to be sure of it. “This is it. They’ve got this.”

When the final buzzer rings out through the arena, you’re still holding her hand, fingers knitted together. You think she might be crying. You’re pretty sure you’re crying too. Nobody would blame you, really. There’s loud music playing, confetti flying through the air, and down on the ice-

A sea of blue jerseys, blue sweatshirts, Timberwolf blue, everywhere. Max is already holding the trophy, high above his head as he ping pongs back and forth between his teammates on the ice. They did it. You knew they would, but they really did. The Timberwolves are the national champions. Your heart is pounding in your chest.

By the time the two of you get your legs to work and make your way down to the ice, they’re already clearing the team off of it. They’re headed for the locker room, wide grins on their faces, yelling back and forth. Max is the first to spot you, followed by Lando- they’re sweaty and gross but you try not to make a face when they wrap you up in hugs- ones that are frankly uncomfortable with all their pads on.

“Bunny!” Max yells, basically in your ear. You’re searching the crowd over his shoulder, watching for Oscar. “We did it!”

You pull back and ruffle his hair, grimacing at the sweat. “I knew you would.”

Lando grins and knocks his shoulder against yours. “Yeah. Always been our biggest believer, huh?”

Your chest warms and tightens. You feel like you could cry again, but you’re smiling so, so wide. Oscar’s nowhere to be seen. He probably has no idea you’re even down here.

“We’re going to change,” Lando says. “And then we’ll see you at the bar down the street?”

You nod, sure your eyes are shiny. “Yeah, sounds like a plan. Time to celebrate.”

“One more time,” Max says. Lando nods.

“One more time,” you agree.

Lily finds you seconds later and tells you she got the same message from Alex. When you see Charles on your way out, you stop, tugging on his wrist.

“I couldn’t find him,” you say, hating how pained your voice sounds, how obvious it all feels. Charles smiles. “Can you tell him…”

“I’ll tell him you were looking and that you’ll meet us at the bar,” he agrees.

“Okay,” you nod. “Proud of you, Charlie.”

He grins and wraps you up in a quick hug. “Merci, lapine.”

…..

After a quick stop back at your hotel room to change and freshen up, you find them in the bar, nerves coursing through your veins. They’re easy to spot, decked out in playoff and Timberwolves gear. The song that’s playing is loud in your ears, but not loud enough to drown out your racing heart. Lily squeals and drops your hand when she spots Alex, taking off across the bar to get to him.

Oscar’s in the middle of the sea of people. He has a drink in one hand, and his other arm around Charles’ shoulders. Your heart skips a beat at the sight of him. His hair’s a half dried mess, his cheeks are flushed, and there’s a wide smile on his lips. He’s a national champion. Your national champion.

His eyes light up when he sees you, and it pulls you in like the tide. You cross the room, and he drops his arm from around Charles. If you’d been paying attention, you’d have heard Max yell your name, or seen Charles hold Lando back with an arm, or noticed Lily tugging on Alex’s arm to get him to look. You don’t, though. It feels like a movie, the way the whole crowd disappears. It’s just him and you. He hauls you into his arms when you get within reach, and one hand slip to hold your lower back as you wrap your arms around his neck. When his lips touch yours, the music and flashing lights fade away. All you can feel is Oscar, and the way he’s kissing you. He steals your breath away. From that very first day, when he walked into the house, bright eyed and new, to now- it’s all been leading up to this. He cradles your face in his hand and tugs at your lower lip with his teeth. You gasp, tangling your fingers in his hair. And then-

You’re in a bar. Surrounded by your friends, his whole team. You’re pretty sure the coaches are here somewhere. You remember that, suddenly, when he pulls away abruptly. Your face is hot, his cheeks are red, but both of you are smiling. He’s so hot like this, oozing confidence and pride and you nearly lean in to kiss him again.

A hand appears between the two of you, and Oscar bursts into laughter. You turn and find Max and Lando standing there, looking utterly bewildered. You start to laugh, too.

“She has a boyfriend,” Lando scolds, eyes wide. “Bunny, you have a-“

Max rears his head back. “Lando, you are even more dumb than I am. He is the boyfriend.”

“Oh,” Lando says, though he’s in a bar so it’s more of a shout. “Oh! You fuckers, why didn’t you tell us?”

“Shots?” Carlos says, popping up next to Lando. He has a tray of shot glasses and limes in his hand. “Celebratory shots, anyone?”

You and Oscar both take one of the glasses eagerly, matching grins on both your faces. You cheers with each other and throw them back, reaching for lime slices at identical times, fingers brushing each other. You start to giggle again, feeling giddy. Carlos blinks around the circle at you and Oscar, and then his gaze settles on Lando.

“What is happening here?” He asks, jabbing a finger into Lando’s shoulder. “Lando, you look upset.”

“They’re dating,” Lando says, and Carlos is fighting a laugh, you can tell. “Each other. Apparently.”

“We will need more shots for this,” Carlos says, eyebrows raised. “I will be back.”

You and Oscar spend the next five minutes dodging slaps on the back and congratulatory hugs from the rest of his teammates- not on the win, but on your relationship. Carlos returns with more shots and Charles in tow. Charles, who’s got a wide grin on his face. You wince.

“I am so glad everyone finally knows,” Charles says, and both Lando and Max frown. “I’m very bad at keeping secrets, you know.”

“You knew?” Lando asks, blinking between you and Charles. “You told Charles first?”

Max reaches for a shot and throws it back as you start to explain. “He… figured it out. I didn’t tell him.”

Charles nods. “I am very perceptive.”

“But, but- we were looking for clues,” Lando whines, elbowing Max. “We had theories and evidence and— I almost bought a corkboard. And frickin’ Charles figured it out before us? And the whole time it was frickin’ Oscar?”

Max snorts and passes Lando a shot. “Mate, I think we are maybe just oblivious.”

Lando opens his mouth to protest, then closes it again. He blinks at the shot glass in his hand. He holds it up and switches his gaze to your boyfriend, and then takes a deep breath.

“If you ever hurt her-“ he starts.

“Lando, we can give him the talk later,” Max interrupts. You breathe a sigh of relief. “Right now, we have a lot to celebrate.”

Lando rolls his eyes but nods. “True.”

You reach for one of the shot glasses. Everyone else follows suit, and you clink them together in the center. “To the national champions!”

“Hey, that’s us!” Lando yells giddily before he knocks the shot back.

Oscar deposits his shot glass back on the tray and pulls you under his arm. He’s not big on PDA- the kiss a few minutes prior being an adrenaline fueled exception- especially when being stared down by his team captain, your best friends. But the little bit of contact is nice. The heavy weight of his arm around you is comforting. Max turns and nods his head towards the bar.

“Alright, kids, first round of drinks is on me,” he says, grinning. “What will it be?”

He takes the orders, and Lando goes up to help him carry things. Lando gives you a hand motion, a vague sort of I’m watching you gesture. You roll your eyes. Oscar laughs. Next to you, so does Charles.

“This is all fun and games,” Charles says, pointing at Oscar, “until you have to ride back on the plane with them tomorrow. No escaping.”

Oscar pales and swallows tightly. You pat his back soothingly.

Max comes back with drinks and a grin on his face, Lando tagging along behind. It’s then that it hits you, square in the chest- their senior year, their last game, last chance, national championship. They did it. The thing they’ve been trying to do for years . Max is grinning so bright, so wide. Lando’s eyes are red rimmed like he’s been crying. They did it. You feel your own eyes start to well up.

“M’so proud of you guys,” you say, voice wobbling.

“Oh, shit,” Oscar mumbles, already rubbing your shoulder soothingly, studying your face. “Hey, it’s okay.”

“She’s only two shots in,” Max says, sounding fond. “It is early for her to be this weepy already.”

“Shut up,” you grumble. “I’m emotional.”

“We have time to be sappy later,” Max says, patting the side of your head. “Tonight, we celebrate.”

It’s nice, more than nice, really, to get to be with Oscar like this. To lean against his shoulder without fear of what anyone else is thinking. He makes you feel so bright. It’s something about the way he looks at you every time he tells a joke, already laughing, looking to see if you are too. His cheeks are flushed, eyes wide and shining. When he leans down and kisses your cheek, you feel like you’re shining, too.

You dance badly with him to the bad music in the bar. You sit on barstools together and shout to be heard over the cacophony. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, because it’s with him. The two of you make the rounds with the rest of his team, and you tell them all congratulations on the win while they say the same about you and Oscar.

Logan grins and nudges your side. You ignore the fact that he’s far too young for this bar. “Should’ve known when you bought all that Australian food, huh?”

The truth is, you hadn’t even known then, not really. And yet, you think he might be right.

…..

Halfway through the night, you spot Max sitting in a booth in one of the corners, alone. You frown and nudge Oscar’s side, nodding your head towards the team captain. Oscar frowns, too, and shrugs. You frown deeper. He nudges your side, then, urging you towards Max. You lean up and kiss his cheek softly, giggling at the near immediate blush that rises up under his skin, and then head towards Max.

You slide into the booth across from him. He’s nursing a gin and tonic, and he gives you a smile when you sit down. It’s forced. You frown deeper still and tilt your head at him. It’s loud in the bar, but the sigh he lets out is big enough for you to hear it loud and clear.

“I’m fine,” he says, which is so obviously not true that you almost laugh. “Seriously, Bunny, go celebrate with your boyfriend.”

You’re a bit taken aback by the tone he uses, by the way he nearly trips over the word boyfriend. You blink at him. He sighs again and scrubs his hand harshly over his jaw.

“Talk to me,” you insist, knocking your glass against his lightly. “Come on, Max, you’re a national champion. You shouldn’t be pouting in the corner at your own party.”

He huffs, rolls his eyes, but his shoulders sag. “Everything is changing.”

You nod sympathetically.

“Everything,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut. “It’s my last game, and soon it’ll be graduation and I’ll be leaving everyone, and Lando’s not even playing hockey after this, and you don’t trust me anymore, and-“

He tried to keep rambling, but you cut him off. “Max, what?”

He sighs and rubs his hand over his face. “It’s good, you know. To see you come out of your shell. I’m glad to know that when we leave you will have other people but- I know I look like my dad but I’m not him, Bunny. You could have told me,” he says, “and I would have been happy for you. I wouldn’t have called you a puck bunny. And I-“

You feel sick, all of the sudden. He called her a puck bunny last year. He did what? Max had a heated argument with his dad before he left after the game, one you heard about from Lando and in whispers between Charles and Carlos. The stress of everything is weighing so heavy on his shoulders, but for some reason this is the straw that’s breaking the camel’s back. You reach over and grab his wrist lightly.

“Max,” you say, emphatically. “We didn’t tell you because it happened on spring break and we wanted a little time just to ourselves,” you say, quietly. “And then it was the playoffs. Nothing changes during playoffs. My boyfriend has facial hair right now and I’ve put up with it because of the playoffs.”

Max looks up at you. A little anguish melts away from his face. “That is stupid superstition,” he says.

“Tell that to your beard,” you mutter. He laughs. “Max, you may look like him, but you are your mother’s child, through and through. I know who you are. That was never what it was about,” you say, shaking your head. “I just knew how important the championship was to the team. To you. To me. I didn’t want to do anything to mess it up.”

Max sighs and shakes his head. “Your happiness is more important than some stupid trophy.”

“I am happy,” you say. He’s lit up by the soft glow of a hanging lamp, and you see him smile a bit, something lighting up in his gaze. “Happier now that I got to tell you guys, but. He makes me really happy, Max.”

The grin that breaks out across his face is contagious. “Then that’s all that matters,” he says. “That’s all we’ve wanted for you since the day we met you.”

You don’t know whether to laugh or cry or do a mixture of both. Max seems to sense it, and he reaches out to squeeze your wrist.

“Come on,” he says, nodding his head towards the bar, where Oscar is currently being interrogated by Lando. “We can be emotional later, yes? Right now, we have a championship to celebrate, and you have a boyfriend to celebrate with.”

…..

The night ends with you and Charles toting a very drunk Lando, Max, and Oscar back to your hotel. Lily had let you know ahead of time that she’d be heading back to Alex’s room with him, so yours is free. You’d much rather it was just Oscar coming back with you, but you couldn’t leave them all to Charles to watch over.

Oscar’s not a big drinker, not a heavy partier, but tonight he’s a national champion. You’d taken it easy and taken the responsibility off his shoulders. Now he’s leaning heavily against you as you walk back, his arm around your shoulders, his head knocking against yours. He’s rambling about something, words slurred. You’re nodding along like you can understand.

He stops on the sidewalk, mid sentence, even as Charles tries to corral Max and Lando out of the road. Your boyfriend turns to look at you, eyes wide and bright.

“I really like you,” he says, the clearest he’s sounded in at least an hour. “You know that, right?”

You laugh and press your hand to the side of his face. “Yeah, Osc. I really like you, too.”

He nods, reaching up to place his hand on your cheek, too. “You’re really cute. Can’t believe I get to call you my girlfriend. And I get to tell everyone now.”

You laugh and pinch his cheek. “You’re cuter.”

“Bunny!” Max yells from up ahead. “Stop eye fucking your boyfriend. You have the room key.”

You scoff. Oscar blushes. The two of you hurry down the sidewalk towards your friends.

You drag all of them up to your hotel room with you, because Max and Lando shouldn’t really be left on their own, you want to keep Oscar with you, and it would be rude to leave Charles out. They fumble into the room, full of giggles. Max flops down on one of the beds. Lando lands on the other.

“Nope,” you say, shoving at Max. “That’s my bed.”

Max grumbles but rolls over anyways, sliding onto the floor between the bed and the little balcony. You snort out a laugh. Oscar sits down on the end of your bed and grins at you, cheeks rosy. You smile right back at him.

“Hey. You two,” Lando says, voice slightly muffled by the pillow he has his face smashed against. “No sex while we’re in the room.”

“Oh my god,” both you and Oscar say at the same time. You tack on a “Shut up,” for added effect.

Charles rubs at his face sleepily. “I need to sleep.”

Everyone seems to agree with that. You crawl into bed, and Oscar follows, seemingly too sleepy to be apprehensive about it even though your friends are in the room. He leans over and kisses your forehead.

“G’night, champ,” you whisper.

“Goodnight,” he mumbles back.

“We are all champions,” Max calls out from the floor.

“Go to sleep,” Charles says with a whine.

…..

You’re the one to get all four of them up the next morning, ready with coffee and pastries from the hotel lobby to try and fend off the hangovers. You hand Oscar the hat you’d bought for him the night before, and he takes it gratefully, shoving it down on his head to cover his messy hair. There are bags under his bloodshot eyes, but he’s grinning so wide. He’s subdued this morning- they all are, nursing the hangover of the century- but he still finds a second when nobody’s looking to pull you in with a hand on your hip and press his lips to yours. It makes your heart skip a beat, and you feel a little ridiculous for it, but when you pull away his cheeks are red, and you think maybe he’s feeling it too. The pride, mixed with getting to spend moments like these together. Celebrating together, recovering together. It’s all you’ve wanted.

You corral him, Charles, Max, and Lando out of the hotel room just before their call time to get on the bus. You walk them all the way to their hotel- it’s not far. Sebastian is standing outside, a baseball cap pulled low over his own eyes, clipboard in hand. He laughs when he sees the five of you.

“Carlos said you would have them,” he says, gesturing at all of you. He has one eyebrow quirked, like he’s trying to assess exactly what’s going on. “They are lucky their teammates were nice enough to gather their luggage. And, probably, that you were there to… take care of them.”

You shrug. “I’m not running a brothel or something, if that’s what you’re saying.”

“Jesus, Bunny,” Max says with a roll of his eyes.

Seb balks. “That is not what I was saying, because that would be weird and inappropriate.”

“Forgive her,” Lando says, patting Seb’s shoulder. “She had a hell of a night.”

“She did?” Max snarks, nudging your shoulder before he follows Lando. “Do you remember what happened when she walked into the bar?”

Charles laughs, shakes his head, and gets on the bus, too. You’re left standing there with Oscar and Seb. Oscar pouts- he’s not one for PDA, especially in front of his coach, it seems- but he pulls you under his arm and dashes a soft kiss against your forehead. It’s enough, for now. It’s more than you’ve had before, really.

Seb clears his throat. “Sorry, lovebirds,” he says, pointedly looking up at the sky. “We’ve got to go.”

“Good luck with them,” you say, nudging your shoulder against Oscar’s.

He nods, making a solemn face. “If I don’t make it back, you know who to investigate first.”

You nod. “Carlos, probably.”

Oscar laughs, eyes crinkled at the edges, and then he’s stepping away onto the bus. You feel the distance in your chest already. Then you hear his teammates start to holler and whistle at him, and you laugh. They wouldn’t do it if they didn’t love him.

Seb nods goodbye as he climbs onto the bus. Then he turns back over his shoulder, voice low, as he says, “you really brought him out of his shell. Thanks.”

The door closes before you can respond. It’s okay, though- you think it’s pretty plain to see, to anyone who’s ever looked at the two of you together- Oscar’s helped you just as much.

…..

note: thank you ALL so much for sticking with me & this story. i’ve got plans for one last part, but these next few weeks are going to be a bit hectic so please bear with me! tysm for reading, hope you enjoyed!!

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