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thepencilnerd · 1 month ago

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A Lesson In Fear Extinction | part I

pairing: professor!Jack Abbot x f!psych phd student reader summary: You’re a senior doctoral student in the clinical department, burned out and emotionally barricaded, just trying to finish your final few years when Jack Abbot—trauma researcher, new committee member, and unexpectedly perceptive—starts seeing through you in ways you didn’t anticipate wc: 11.9k content/warnings: academic!AU, slow burn (takes places over 3 years lbffr), frat boys being gross + depictions of unwanted male attention/verbal harassment, academic power dynamics, emotional repression, discussions of mental health, mutual pining, hurt/comfort, angst, so much yearning, canon divergence, no explicit smut (yet/tbd but still 18+ MDNI, i will fight u) a/n: this started as a slow-burn AU and spiraled into a study in mutual repression, avoidant-attachment, and me trying to resolve my personal baggage through writing ~yet again~ p.s. indubitably inspired by @hotelraleigh and their incredible mohan x abbot fic (and all of their fics that live in my head rent free, tyvm) i hope you stay tuned for part II (coming soon, pinky promise) ^-^

The first thing you learn about Dr. Jack Abbot is that he hates small talk. That, and that he has a death glare potent enough to silence even the most self-important faculty members in the psych department.

The second thing you learn is that he runs his office like a bunker—door usually half-shut, always a little too cold, shelves lined with books no one's touched in decades. You step inside for your first meeting, and it feels like entering a war room.

"You’re early," he says, without looking up from the annotated manuscript he’s scribbling on.

"It's the first day of the school year."

"Same difference."

You take a seat, balancing your laptop on your knees. Your fingers hover over the keyboard, unsure if you should even bother.

Dr. Abbot finally glances up. Hazel eyes, sharp behind silver-framed glasses. "Let’s make this easy. Tell me what you’re working on and what you want from me."

You hesitate. Not because you don’t know. You’ve been rehearsing this on the walk over. You just hadn’t planned on him cutting through the pleasantries quite so fast.

"I’m running a mixed methods study on affective forecasting errors in anxiety and depression. Lab-based mood induction, longitudinal survey follow-up, and semi-structured interviews. I'm trying to map discrepancies between predicted and experienced affect and how that mismatch contributes to maladaptive emotion regulation patterns over time."

A beat.

"So you're testing whether people with anxiety and depression are bad at predicting their own feelings."

You blink. "Yes."

"Good. Start with that next time."

You bite the tip of your tongue. Roll the flesh between your teeth to ground yourself. There is no next time, you want to say. You’re only meeting with him once, to get sign-off on your committee. He wasn’t your first choice. Wasn't even your second. But your advisor's on sabbatical, and the other quantitative faculty are already overbooked.

Dr. Abbot leans back in his chair, examining you. "You’re primary is Robby, right?"

"Technically, yes."

He hums, not bothering to hide the skepticism. "And you want me on your committee because...?"

"Because you published that meta-analysis on PTSD and chronic stress. Your work on cumulative trauma exposure and dysregulated affect dovetails with mine on stress-related trajectories for internalizing disorders and comorbidity. I thought you might actually get what I’m trying to do."

His brow lifts, just slightly. "You did your homework."

"Well, I’m asking you for feedback on a dissertation that will probably make me break down countless times before it's done. Figured I should know what I was getting into."

Dr. Abbot's mouth twitches. You wouldn’t call it a smile, exactly. But it’s something.

"Alright," he says, flipping open a calendar. "Let’s see if we can find a time next week to go over your proposal draft."

You arch a brow. "You’ll do it?"

"You came in prepared. And you didn’t waste my time—as much as the other fourth years. That gets you further than you’d think around here."

You nod, heart thudding. Not because you’re nervous.

Because you have the weirdest feeling that Jack Abbot just became your biggest academic problem—and your most unexpected ally.

You see him again the next day. Robby was enjoying his last remaining few weeks of paternity leave and graciously asked Jack to sub for his foundations of clinical psychology course. Jack preferred the word coerced but was silenced by a text message with a photo of a child attached. The baby was cute enough to warrant blackmail.

He barely got through the door intact: balancing a coffee cup between his teeth, cradling a half-closed laptop under one arm, and wrangling the straps of a clearly ancient backpack. His limp is more pronounced today. The small cohort watches him with a mix of curiosity and vague alarm.

You’re in the front row, laptop open before he even gets to the podium.

Jack drops everything onto the lectern with a heavy exhale, then glances around. His eyes catch on you and pause—not recognition yet, just flicker. Then he turns back to plug in his laptop.

You don’t expect to see him again two days later, striding into the 200-level general psych class you TA. The room’s already three-quarters of the way full when he walks in, and it takes him a moment before he does a brief double-take in your direction.

You return your attention to your notes. Jack stares.

"Small world."

"Nice to see you too, Dr. Abbot."

He sighs. "Why am I not surprised."

"Because the annual stipend increase doesn't adjust for inflation, I'm desperate, and there aren't enough grants given the current state of events?"

Jack mutters something under his breath about cosmic punishment and unfolds the syllabus from his coat pocket like it personally betrayed him.

When he finally settles at the front—coffee in one hand, laptop balancing precariously on the desk—you catch him bending and straightening his knee just under the edge of the table, jaw set tight. It’s subtle. Anyone else might miss it. But you’ve been watching.

You say nothing.

A few students linger with questions—mostly undergrads eager to impress, notebooks clutched to their chests, rattling off textbook jargon in shaky voices. Jack humors them, mostly. Nods here, clarification there. But his eyes flick to you more than once.

You take your time with the stack of late enrollment passes. He’s still watching when you sling your tote over one shoulder and head for the door.

Probably off to the lab. Or your cubicle in the main psych building. Wherever fourth years disappear to when they aren’t shadowing faculty or training underqualified and overzealous research assistants on data collection procedures.

Jack shifts his weight onto his good leg and half-listens to the sophomore with the over-highlighted textbook.

His eyes stay on you when you walk out.

You make it three steps past the stairwell before the sound of your name stops you. It’s not loud—more like a clipped murmur through the general noise of backpacks zipping and chairs scraping—but it cuts straight through.

You turn back.

Jack’s still at the front, the stragglers now filtering out behind him. He doesn’t wave. Doesn’t beckon. Just meets your gaze like he already knows you’ll wait. You do.

He makes his way toward you slowly, favoring one leg. The closer he gets, the more you notice—the way his hand tightens on the strap of his backpack, the exhausted pull at his brow. He’s not masking as well today.

"Thanks for not saying anything," he says when he stops beside you.

You shrug. "Didn’t seem like you needed an audience."

Jack huffs a laugh, dry and faintly surprised. "Most people mean well, but—"

"They hover," you finish. "Or overcompensate. Or say something weird and then try to walk it back."

"Exactly."

You both stand there for a beat too long, campus noise shifting around you like a slow tide.

"I was heading to the coffee shop," you say finally. "Did you want anything?"

Jack tilts his head. "Bribery?"

"Positive reinforcement." The words trail behind a small grin.

He shakes his head, mouth twitching. "Probably had enough caffeine for the day."

The corner of your lip curls higher. "As if there's such a thing."

That earns you a half-huff, half-scoff—just enough to let you believe you might have amused him.

"Well," you say, taking a step backward, "I’ve got three more RAs to train and one very stubborn loop to fix. See you around, Dr. Abbot."

"Good luck," he says, voice low but steady. "Don’t let the building eat you alive."

The next time he sees you, it’s after 10 p.m. on a Thursday.

You hadn’t planned on staying that late. But the dinosaur of a computer kept crashing, two of your participants no-showed, and by the time you’d salvaged the afternoon’s data to pull, it was easier to crash on the grad lounge couch than face the lone commute back to your apartment.

You must’ve fallen asleep halfway through reading feedback from your committee—curled up with your legs splayed over the edge of the couch and laptop perched on the cheap coffee table. The hall is mostly dark when Jack walks past. He’s heading toward the parking lot when he stops, mid-step.

For a moment, he just stands there, taking in the sight of you tucked awkwardly into yourself. You look comfortable in your oversized hoodie, if not for the highlighter cap still tucked between your fingers and mouth parted in a silent snore.

He doesn’t say anything. Just watches you breathe for a few seconds longer than necessary.

Then, maybe with more curiosity than concern, he raps his knuckles gently against the doorframe. Once. Twice. Three times for good measure.

No response.

Jack steps inside and calls out, voice pitched low but insistent. "This is not a sustainable sleep schedule, you know."

You stir—just barely. A vague groan escapes your lips as you shift and swat clumsily in the direction of the noise. "Just five more minutes... need to run reliability analyses..."

Jack chuckles, genuine and surprised.

He leans against the wall, watching you with no urgency to leave. "Dreaming about data cleaning. Impressive."

You make a small, unintelligible noise and swat again, this time with a little more conviction. Jack snorts.

After a moment, he sighs. Then carefully crosses the room, picks up the crumpled throw blanket from the floor, and drapes it over you without ceremony.

He flicks off the overheads and closes the door behind him with a quiet click. The hallway hums with fluorescent buzz as he limps toward the parking lot, shoulders tucked in against the chill.

A few weeks into the semester, the rhythm settles—lecture, discussion, grading, rinse and repeat. But today, something shifts.

You’re stacking quizzes at the front of the general psych lecture hall when Jack catches movement out of the corner of his eye. Two male students—frat-adjacent, all oversized hoodies and entitled swagger—approach your desk.

Jack looks up from his laptop. His expression doesn’t shift, but something in his posture does—a subtle, perceptible freeze. He watches from where he’s still packing up—hand paused on his laptop case, jaw tight, eyes narrowing just slightly as he takes in the dynamic. There’s a flicker of tension behind his glasses, a pause that says: if you needed him, he’d step in.

They swagger up with the kind of smirks you’ve seen too many times before—overconfident, under-read, and powered by too many YouTube clips of alpha male podcasts.

"Yo, TA—what’s up?" one says, leaning far too close to your desk. "Was gonna ask something about the exam, but figured I’d shoot my shot first. You free later? Coffee on me."

His friend elbows him like he’s a comedic genius. "Yeah, like maybe we could pick your brain about, like, how to get into grad school. You probably have all the insider tricks, right?"

You don’t even blink.

"Sure," you say sweetly. "I’d love to review your application materials. Bring your CV, your transcript, three letters of rec, and proof that you’ve read the Title IX policy in full. Bonus points if you can make it through a meeting without quoting Andrew Tate—or I’ll assume you’re trying to get yourself suspended."

They stare. You smile.

One laughs uncertainly. The other mutters something about how "damn, okay," and both slink away.

Jack’s jaw works once. Then relaxes.

You glance up, like you knew he’d been watching.

"Well handled," he says, voice low as he steps beside you.

You offer a nonchalant shrug. "First years are getting bolder."

"Bold is one word for it."

You hand him a stack of leftover forms. "Relax, Dr. Abbot. I’ve survived undergrads before. I’ll survive again."

Jack gives a small, amused grunt. Then, after a beat: "You can call me Jack."

You glance up, brow raised.

"Feels a little formal to keep pretending we’re strangers.

You don’t say anything right away. Just nod once, almost imperceptibly, then go back to gathering your things.

He doesn’t push it.

It’s raining hard enough to rattle the windows.

You’re having what your cohort half-jokingly calls a "good brain day"—sentences coming easy, theory clicking into place, citations at your fingertips. You barely notice the weather.

Jack glances up from your chapter draft as you launch into a point about predictive error and affective flattening. He doesn't interrupt. His eyes follow how you pace—one hand gesturing, the other holding your annotated copy, words sharp and certain.

Eventually, you pause mid-thought and glance at him.

He's already looking at you.

Your hand flies up to cover your mouth. "Shit. I'm sorry—"

Jack shakes his head, lips twitching at the corners. "Don’t apologize. That was… brilliant."

You blink at him, the compliment stalling your momentum. The automatic response bubbles up fast—some joke to deflect, to downplay. You don't say it. Not this time.

Still, your fingers tighten slightly on the edge of the desk. "I don't know about brilliant..."

Jack doesn’t look away. "I do."

The silence stretches—not awkward, exactly, but thick. His gaze doesn’t waver, and it holds something steady and burning behind it.

You glance down at your annotated draft. The silence stays between you like a taut wire.

Jack doesn’t fill it. Just waits—gaze unwavering, as if giving you time to come to your own conclusion. No pressure, no indulgent smile. Just a quiet, grounded certainty that settles between you like weight.

Eventually, you exhale. The tension loosens—not completely, but enough to keep going.

"Okay," you murmur, almost to yourself.

Jack nods once, slowly. Then gestures at your printed draft. "Let’s talk about your integration of mindfulness in the discussion section. I’ve got a few thoughts."

Ethics is the last class of the week. The room's heating is inconsistent, the lights too bright, and Jack doesn’t know how the hell he ended up covering for Frank Langdon. Probably the same way he got stuck with Foundations and General Psych: Robby. The department’s too damn small and apparently everyone with a baby gets to vanish into thin air.

He steps into the room ten minutes early, coffee already lukewarm, and makes a half-hearted attempt to adjust the podium screen. The first few students trickle in, then more. He flips through the lecture slides, barely registering them.

And then he sees you.

You’re near the back, chatting with someone Jack doesn’t recognize. Another grad student by the look of him—slouched posture, soft jaw, navy sweater. The guy’s grinning like he thinks he’s charming. He leans in a little too close to your chair. Says something Jack can’t hear.

Jack tells himself he’s only looking because the guy seems familiar. Maybe someone from Walsh’s lab. Or Garcia’s.

You laugh at something—light, genuine.

Jack tries not to react.

Navy Sweater says something else, more animated now. He gestures to your laptop. Points to something. You nudge his hand away with a grin and say something back that makes him blush.

Jack flips the page on his lecture notes without reading a word.

You’re still smiling when you finally glance up toward the podium.

Your eyes meet.

Jack doesn’t look away. But he doesn’t smile either.

The guy beside you says something else. You nod politely.

But you’re not looking at him anymore.

The next time you're in Jack’s office, the air feels different—autumn sharp outside, but warm in here.

He notices things. Not all at once, but cumulatively.

Your hair’s longer now. It’s subtle, but the ends graze your jaw in a way they hadn’t before. You’ve started wearing darker shades—amber, forest green, burgundy—instead of the lighter neutrals from early fall. Small changes. Seasonal shifts.

He doesn’t say anything about any of that.

But then he sees it.

A faint smudge of something high on your neck, near the curve of your jaw.

"Rough night?" he asks, lightly. The tone’s casual, but his eyes stay there a second too long.

You look up, blinking. Then seem to realize. "Oh. No, it’s—nothing."

He raises an eyebrow, just once. Doesn’t press.

What you don’t say: you went on a date last night. Your first real date since your second year. Navy Sweater—Isaac—had been sweet. Patient. Social psych, so he talked about group dynamics and interdependence theory instead of clinical cases. A refreshing change from your usual context. He’d been pining for you since orientation. You finally gave him a chance.

You’re not sure yet if it was a mistake.

Jack doesn’t ask again. He just shifts his attention back to your printed draft, flipping a page without comment.

But you can feel it—that subtle change in the room. Like something under the surface has started to stir.

Jack doesn’t speak again for the rest of the meeting, at least not about anything that isn’t your manuscript. But the temperature between you has shifted, unmistakable even in silence.

His feedback is sharp, incisive, and you take it all in—but your focus tugs sideways more than once.

You start to notice little things. The way his hands move when he talks—precise, economical, almost always with a pen twirling between his fingers. The way he reads with his whole posture—leaned in slightly, brows furrowed, lips moving just barely like he’s tasting the cadence of each sentence. How he always wears button-downs, sleeves pushed up to the elbows, like he’s never quite comfortable in them.

You catch the faint scruff at his jawline, the flecks of gray you hadn’t seen before in the fluorescent classroom light. The quiet groan of his office chair as he shifts to get more comfortable—though he never quite does. The occasional tap of his fingers against the desk when he’s thinking. The way his eyes track you when you pace, like he’s cataloging your rhythm.

When he leans in to gesture at a line in your text, you’re aware of his proximity in a way you hadn’t been before. The warmth that radiates off him. The way his breath hitches just slightly before he speaks.

When you ask a clarifying question, he meets your eyes and holds the gaze a fraction too long.

It shouldn’t mean anything. It probably doesn’t.

Still, when you pack up to leave, you don’t rush. Neither does he.

He walks you to the door, stops just short of it.

"Good luck with the coding," he says.

You nod. "Thanks. See you next week."

He hesitates, then nods once more. "Yeah. Next week."

And when you leave his office, the echo of that pause follows you down the hall.

At home, Jack goes through the same routine he always does. He hangs up his coat. Places his keys in the ceramic dish by the door. Fills the kettle. Rinses a clean mug from the rack without thinking—habit, even if it’s just for himself.

Then he sits down on the edge of the couch and unbuckles the prosthetic from his leg with practiced efficiency. He leans forward, slow and deliberate, and cleans the area with a soft cloth, checking the skin for signs of irritation before applying a thin layer of ointment. Only then does he begin to massage the tender spot where his leg ends, pressing the heel of his palm just enough to release tension. The ache is dull tonight, but persistent. It always is when the weather shifts.

He doesn’t turn on the TV. When he buckles it back on and gets up again, he moves around his apartment quietly, the limp less noticeable this time around.

While the water heats, he scrolls through emails on his phone—most from admin, flagged with false urgency. A few unread messages from students, one from a journal editor asking for another reviewer on a manuscript that costs too much to publish open access. He deletes half, archives another third. Wonders when it became so easy to ignore what used to feel so important.

The kettle whistles. He pours the water over the tea bag and sets it down, not bothering with the stack of essays he meant to look at hours ago.

He doesn’t touch them.

Not yet.

Tonight, his rhythm is off.

Instead, he looks over your latest draft after dinner, meaning only to skim. He finds himself rereading the same paragraph three times, mind somewhere else entirely. Your words, your phrasing, your comments in the margins—he's memorizing them. Not intentionally. It just happens.

Later, brushing his teeth, Jack thinks of how you’d looked that afternoon: eyes sharp, expression animated, tucked into a wool sweater the color of cinnamon. Hair falling forward when you tilted your head to listen, then swept back with one distracted hand. A little ink smudged on your finger. The edge of a smile you didn’t know you were wearing.

He wonders if you know how often you pace when you’re deep in thought. How your whole posture changes when something clicks—like your bones remember before your voice does. How you gesture with the same hand you write with, sometimes forgetting you’re holding a pen at all.

He tells himself it’s just professional attentiveness. That he’s tuned into all his students this way. That noticing you in detail is part of his job.

But it’s a lie. And the truth has started to settle into his bones.

He closes his laptop, shuts off the light.

He dreams in fragments—lecture notes and old conference halls, the scent of rain-soaked leaves, the sound of your voice mid-sentence. The ghost of a laugh.

He doesn’t remember the shape of the dream when he wakes.

Only the warmth that lingers in its place.

Across town, you’re on another date with Isaac.

He’s funny tonight—quick with dry quips, gentler than you'd expected. He walks you to a small café far from campus, one you’ve driven by a dozen times but never tried. He orders chai with oat milk. You get the pumpkin spice out of spite.

"Pumpkin spice, really?" he teases. "Living the stereotype."

"It’s autumn," you shoot back. "Let me have one basic pleasure."

You talk about everything but your dissertation—TV shows, childhood pets, the worst advice you’ve ever received from an advisor. Inevitably, you steer the conversation into something about work. It's a habit you seem to remember having since your earliest academic days, and one you don't see yourself breaking free from anytime soon.

"My undergrad advisor once told me I’d never get into grad school unless I stopped sounding ‘so West Coast.’ Still not sure what that means."

Isaac laughs. "Mine told me to pick a research topic ‘I wouldn’t mind reading about for the rest of my life.’ As if anyone wants to read their own lit review twice."

You laugh—genuine, belly-deep. Isaac flushes with pride and takes a long sip of his chai, eyes bright.

It's easy with him, you think. Talking, breathing, being. You lean back in your chair, cup warm between your palms, and realize you should feel more present than you do.

He’s exactly what you thought you needed. Different. Outside your orbit. Not tangled up in diagnoses or a department that feels more like a pressure cooker every day.

But still, your mind drifts. Not far. Just enough.

Back to the way Jack had looked at you earlier that day. The pause before he spoke. The silence that wasn’t quite silence.

You can’t put your finger on it. You don’t want to.

Isaac reaches across the table to brush his fingers against yours. You let him.

And yet.

You catch yourself glancing toward the door as he brushes your fingers. Just once. Barely perceptible. A flicker of something unformed tugging at the edge of your attention.

Not for any reason you can name. Not because anything happened. But because something did—quiet and slow and not easily undone.

You remember the way his brow furrowed as he read your chapter, the steadiness in his voice when he called your argument brilliant, the way he looked at you like the room had narrowed down to a single point.

Isaac is sweet. Funny. Steady. You should be here.

But your mind keeps slipping sideways.

And Jack Abbot—stubborn, sharp, unreadable Jack—is suddenly everywhere. In the cadence of a sentence you revise, where you hear his voice in your head asking, 'Why this framework? Why now?' In the questions you don’t ask Isaac because you already know how Jack would answer them—precise, cutting, but never unkind. In the sudden, irritating way you want someone to challenge you just a little more. To push back, to poke holes, to see if your argument still stands.

You find yourself wondering what he’s doing tonight. If he’s at home, pacing through a quiet, single-family home too large for his own company. If he’s reading someone else’s manuscript with the same intensity. If he ever thinks about the way you looked that afternoon, how you paced his office with fire in your voice and a red pen tucked behind your ear.

You think about the hitch in his breath when you leaned in. The way he’d watched you leave, that pause at the door.

And then Isaac says something—soft, thoughtful—and it takes you a second too long to register it. You nod, distracted, and reach for your drink again.

But your mind is already elsewhere.

Still with someone else.

You take another sip of your drink. Smile at Isaac. Let the moment pass.

But even then, even here—Jack is in the room.

You don’t see Jack again until the following Thursday. It’s raining hard again—something about mid-semester always seems to come with the weather—and the psych building smells like wet paper and overworked radiators.

You’re in the hallway, hunched over a Tupperware of leftover lentils and trying to catch up on grading, when his door creaks open across the hall. You glance up reflexively.

He’s standing there, brow furrowed, papers in hand. He spots you. Freezes.

For a moment, neither of you says anything. The hallway is quiet, just the hum of fluorescents and the distant murmur of a class in session. Then:

"Grading?" he asks, voice lower than usual—quiet, but unmistakably curious.

You lift your fork, deadpan. "Don’t sound so jealous."

Jack’s mouth twitches—almost a smile. A pause, then: "You’re in Langdon’s office hours slot, right?"

"Only if I bring snacks," you quip, referring to the way Frank Langdon always lets the TA with snacks cut the line—a running joke in the department.

Jack raises his coffee like a toast. "Then I’ll keep walking." A dry little truce. An unspoken I’ll stay out of your way—unless you want me to stay.

You watch him disappear down the hallway, his limp slightly more pronounced than usual. And you find yourself thinking—about how many times you’ve noticed that, and how many times he’s never once drawn attention to it.

Your spoon scrapes the bottom of the container. You try to return to grading.

You don’t get much done.

Later that afternoon, you’re back in the general psych lecture hall, perched on the side of the desk with your TA notes while Jack clicks through the day’s slides. It’s the second time he’s teaching this unit and he’s not even pretending to follow the script. You know him well enough now to catch the subtle shifts—when he goes off-book, lets the theory breathe.

He doesn’t look at you while he lectures, but you can tell when he’s aware of you. The slight change in cadence, the way his eyes flick toward the front row where you sometimes sit, sometimes stand.

Today’s lecture is on conditioning. Classical, operant, extinction.

At one point, Jack pauses at the podium. He’s talking about fear responses—conditioned reactions, the body’s anticipatory wiring, what it takes to unlearn a threat. You’ve heard this part a dozen times in college and a dozen more in grad school. You’ve written about it. You've published on it.

But when he says, "Fear isn’t erased. It’s overwritten," his eyes flick toward you—just for a second.

And your heart trips a little. Not in a dramatic, cinematic way—more like a misstep in rhythm, a skipped beat in a song you thought you knew by heart. Your breath catches for half a second, and you feel the heat rush to the tips of your ears.

It’s absurd, maybe. Definitely. But the tone of his voice when he said it—that measured, worn certainty—lands somewhere deep inside you. Not clinical. Not abstract. It feels like he’s speaking to something unspoken, to a part of you you've tried to keep quiet.

You shift your weight, pretending to re-stack a paper that doesn’t need re-stacking, pulse louder than it should be in your ears.

From your seat on the edge of the desk, you can see the way he gestures with his hand, slow and spare, like every movement costs something. The way he leans on his good leg. The way the muscles in his forearm flex as he flips to the next slide, still speaking, still teaching—none of this showing on his face.

Your eyes keep drifting back.

And he doesn’t look at you again. Not for the rest of the lecture.

But you feel the weight of that glance long after the class ends.

You stay after class, mostly to gather the quiz sheets and handouts. A few students linger, asking Jack questions about the exam. You hear him shift into that firm-but-generous tone he uses with undergrads, the kind that makes them think he’s colder than he is. Efficient. Clear.

When the last student finally packs up and leaves the room, Jack straightens. His eyes find you, soft but unreadable.

"Good lecture," you say.

He hums. "Not bad for a recycled deck."

You hand him the stack of forms. "You made it your own."

His thumb brushes over the edge of the papers. "So did you."

You don’t ask what he means. But the quiet between you feels different than it did at the start of the semester.

The room is mostly empty. Just the two of you. You're caught somewhere between impulse and caution. Approach and avoidance. There's a pull in your chest, low and slow, that makes you want to linger a second longer. To say something else. To ask about the lecture, or the line he looked at you during, or the kind of day he's had. But your voice sticks.

Instead, you shift again, adjust your grip on the papers in your hands, and let it all stay unsaid. But Jack’s already turned back toward the podium, gathering his things.

He doesn’t look up right away. Just slides his laptop into its case with more force than necessary, his jaw set tight. He’s annoyed with himself. The kind of annoyance that comes from knowing he missed something—not a moment, exactly, but the shadow of one. An opening. And he let it pass.

There was a question in your eyes. Or maybe not a question—maybe a dare. Maybe just the start of one. And he didn’t rise to meet it.

He tells himself that’s good. That’s safe. That’s professional.

But it doesn’t feel like a win.

His hand pauses on the zipper. He breathes out through his nose, not quite a sigh. Then glances toward the door.

You’re already gone.

You let the moment pass.

But you feel it. Like something just under the surface, waiting for another breach in the routine.

It happens late one evening, entirely by accident.

You’re in your office, door mostly closed, light still on. You meant to leave hours ago—meant to finish your email and call it—but the combination of caffeine and a dataset that refused to make sense kept you tethered to your desk.

Jack’s on his way out of the building when he hears it: a muffled sound from behind a half-open door just across the hallway from his own. He pauses, backtracks, and realizes for the first time exactly where your office is.

He hears it again—a quiet sniffle, then a low, barely-there laugh like you’re trying to brush it off.

He knocks.

You don’t answer.

"Hey," he says, voice just loud enough to carry but still gentle. "You alright?"

The sound of your chair creaking. A breath caught in your throat.

"Shit—Jack." You swipe at your face automatically, the name out before you think about it.

He steps just inside, not crossing the threshold. "Didn’t mean to scare you."

You shake your head, still blinking fast. "No, I just—burned out. Hit a wall. It’s fine. Nothing serious. Just… one of those days." You try for a joke.

Jack’s eyes sweep the room. The state of your desk. The way your sweater sleeves are pulled down over your hands. He shifts his weight.

There’s a long pause. Then he says, softer, "Can I—?"

You furrow your brows for a moment before nodding.

He steps in and leaves the door slightly cracked open behind him. He remains by the edge of your desk, a respectful distance between you. His presence is quiet but steady, and he doesn't pry with questions.

You exhale slowly, suddenly aware of the sting behind your eyes and how tight your shoulders have been all day. You look down, embarrassed, and when you reach for a tissue, your hand grazes his by accident.

You both freeze.

It’s nothing, really. A brush of skin. But it lands like something else. Not unwelcome. Not forgotten.

Jack doesn’t pull away. But he doesn’t linger, either.

Jack doesn’t move at first. He watches you for a moment longer, the quiet in the room settling unevenly.

"You sure you’re alright?" he asks, voice low, unreadable.

You nod, quick. "Yeah. I’m fine."

It comes too fast. Reflexive. But it lands the way you want it to—firm, closed.

Jack nods slowly. He doesn’t push. "Okay."

He steps back, finally. "Just—don’t stay too late, alright?"

You offer a smaller nod.

He hesitates again. Then turns and slips out without another word.

Your office feels warmer once he’s gone.

And your breath feels just a little easier.

Jack makes his way down the hallway toward the faculty lounge with the intention of grabbing a fresh coffee before his office hours. He passes a few students loitering in the corridor—chatter, laughter, the usual.

But then he hears your voice. Quiet, edged. Just outside the lecture hall.

"Isaac, I’m not having this conversation again. Not here."

Jack slows. Doesn’t stop, but slows and finds a small nook just shy of the corner.

"I just don’t get why you won’t answer a simple question," Isaac says. "Are you seeing someone else or not?"

There’s a pause. Jack glances down at the coffee in his hand and debates turning around.

But then he hears your exhale—sharp, frustrated. "No. I’m not."

Isaac huffs. "Then what is this? You’re always somewhere else—even when we’re out, even on weekends. It’s like your head’s in another fucking dimension."

Jack feels the hairs on his neck stand up. He sees you standing with your back half-turned to Isaac, arms crossed tightly over your chest. Isaac’s face is flushed, his voice a little too loud for the setting. Your posture is still—too still.

Jack doesn’t step in. Not yet. He stays just out of sight, near the hallway alcove. Close enough to hear. Close enough to watch.

You draw in a long breath. When you speak, your voice is level, cold. "I just don’t think I’m in the right place to be in a relationship right now."

Isaac’s expression shifts—confused, hurt.

Jack watches the edge of your profile. How your shoulders lock into place. How your eyes go distant, like you’re powering down every soft part of yourself.

He doesn’t breathe.

Then someone laughs down the hallway, and the moment breaks. Isaac looks over his shoulder, distracted for half a beat, then turns back to you with something sharp in his eyes.

"You’re not even trying," he says, voice low but biting. "I’m giving you everything I’ve got, and you’re... somewhere else. Always."

You stiffen. Jack stays hidden, tension rippling down his spine.

"I know..." you say, voice tight. "I'm sorry. I really am. But this isn’t working."

Isaac’s face contorts. "Seriously? That’s it?"

You shake your head. "You deserve someone who’s fully here. Who wants the same things you do. I’m not that person right now."

He opens his mouth to say something, but your eyes have already gone cold. Guarded. Clinical.

"I don't want to whip out the 'it's not you it's me bullshit'," you continue, each word deliberate. "But this isn’t about you doing something wrong. It’s me. I can’t give more than I’ve already given."

Jack watches the shift in your posture—how you shut it all down, protect the last open pieces of yourself. He recognizes it because he’s done the same.

"I'm sorry." The words are genuine. "You deserve better." Your eyes don't betray you. For a moment, though, your expression softens. You look at Isaac like a kicked dog, like you wish you could offer something kinder. But then it’s gone. Your eyes go cold again, your voice a blade dulled only by exhaustion.

Then someone laughs again down the hallway, closer this time, and the moment scatters. Jack moves past without a word. Doesn’t look at you directly.

But he sees you.

And he doesn’t forget what he saw.

As he passes, you glance up. Your eyes meet.

Only for a second.

Then he’s gone.

Isaac doesn’t notice.

Time passes. You're back in Jack's office for your regular one-on-one—but something is different.

You sit a little straighter. Speak a little quieter. The bright curiosity you usually carry in your voice has hardened, now precise ,restrained. Not icy, but guarded. Pulled taut.

You’re not trying to be unreadable, but you can feel yourself defaulting. Drawing the boundaries back up.

Jack notices.

He doesn’t say anything, but you catch the slight narrowing of his gaze as he listens.

You’d gone all in on this program, this career—your research, your ambitions, your carefully calculated goals. Isaac was the first time you'd tried letting something else in. A possibility. A softness.

And it crashed. Of course it did.

Because that’s what you do. That’s the pattern. You’re excellent at control, planning, systems, at hypothesis testing and case management. But when it comes to anything outside the academic orbit—connection, trust, letting someone see the jagged pieces under the polish—you flinch. You fail.

And you’ve learned not to let that show. Not anymore.

At one point, you trail off mid-sentence. Jack doesn’t fill the silence.

You clear your throat. Try again.

There’s something steadier in his quiet today. You finally finish your point and glance up. His expression is neutral, but his gaze is… undivided.

"Are you okay?"

It catches you off guard. You blink once, not expecting the question, not from him, not here.

You start to nod. Then pause. Your throat feels tight for a second.

"Yeah," you say. "I’m fine."

Jack doesn’t look away. He holds your gaze a moment longer. Not pressing. Not interrogating. Just there.

"You should know better than to lie to a psychologist."

It’s almost a joke. Almost. Just enough curve at the corner of your mouth to soften it. You let out a breath—half a laugh, half a sigh. "Guess I need to reassess my baseline."

Jack leans forward slightly. Then, without saying anything, reaches over and closes your laptop. Slides it just out of reach on the desk.

You open your mouth to protest.

Jack cuts in, quiet but firm. "You need to turn your brain off before it short circuits."

You blink. He continues, gentler this time. "Just for a few minutes. You don’t have to push through every wall. Sometimes it’s okay to sit still. Breathe. Be a human being."

You look down at your hands, fingers curled around a pen you hadn’t realized you were still holding. There’s a long pause before you speak.

"I don’t know how to do that," you admit, voice barely above a whisper.

Jack doesn’t say anything at first. He lets the silence settle. "Start small," he says. "We’re not built to stay in fight-or-flight forever."

The words land heavier than you expect. You stare down at your hands, your knuckles paling against the pressure of your grip. Your breath stutters on the way out.

Jack doesn’t move, but his presence feels closer somehow—like the room has contracted around the two of you, warm and steady.

You set the pen down slowly. Swallow. Your eyes burn, but nothing falls.

Your jaw shifts. Just a fraction.

You don’t say anything at first.

Jack doesn’t either. But he doesn’t look away.

After a beat, he says—careful, quiet—"You want to talk about it?"

You hesitate, eyes fixed on a crease in your jeans. "No."

He waits. "I think you do."

You laugh under your breath. It’s not funny. "This how you talk to all of your clients?"

He doesn't bite.

"You don’t let up, do you?" You're only half-serious.

"I do," he pauses. "When it matters. Just not when my mentee is sitting in front of me looking like the world’s pressing down on their ribcage."

That makes you flinch. Not visibly, not to most. But he sees it. Of course he does. He’s trained to.

You look at your hands. He's not going to let this go so you might as well bite the bullet. "I'm not great at the whole... letting people in thing."

Jack doesn’t respond. Just shifts his weight slightly in his chair—almost imperceptibly. A silent invitation.

Your voice stays quiet. Measured. "I usually just throw myself into work. It’s easier. It’s something I can control."

Still, he says nothing.

You pick at the seam of your sleeve. "Other stuff... it gets messy. Too unpredictable. People are unpredictable."

Jack’s gaze never wavers. He doesn’t push. But the absence of interruption is its own kind of presence—steady, open.

Your lips twitch in a faint, humorless smile. "I know that’s ironic coming from someone studying emotion regulation."

He finally says, softly, "Sometimes the people who study it hardest are the ones trying to figure it out for themselves."

That makes your eyes flick up. His expression is calm. Receptive. No judgment. No smile, either. Just… presence.

You look down again. Your voice even softer now. "I don’t know how to do it. Not really."

Jack doesn’t interrupt. Just shifts, barely, like bracing.

And somehow, that makes you keep going.

"Grad school’s easier. Career’s easier. I can plan. I can control. Everything else just…" You trail off. Shrug, a flicker of helplessness.

He’s still watching you. The way he does when he’s listening hard, like there’s a string between you and he’s waiting to see if you’ll keep tugging it.

"I thought maybe..." You press your lips together. "I thought I could do it. Let someone in. Be a person. A twenty-nine year old, for fuck's sake." Your hands come up to your face. "But it just reminded me why I don’t."

You draw a slow breath. Something in your chest cracks. Not a collapse—just a fault line giving way.

Jack just stares.

Then, slowly, he leans back—not away, but into the quiet. He folds his hands in his lap, thumb tracing a familiar line over his knuckle. A practitioner’s stillness. A kind of careful permission.

"You know," he says, voice low, "when I first started in trauma research, I thought if I understood it well enough, I could outsmart it. Like if I had the right frameworks, if I mapped the pathways right, it wouldn’t touch me."

You glance up.

He exhales through his nose—dry, but not bitter. "Turns out, knowing the symptoms doesn’t stop you from living them. Doesn’t stop the body from remembering."

He doesn’t specify. Doesn’t have to.

His eyes flick to yours. "But you don’t have to be fluent in trust to start learning it. You don’t have to be good at it yet. You just have to let someone sit with you in the silence."

You study him. The sharpness of his jaw, the quiet behind his glasses, the wear in his voice that doesn’t make it weaker.

Your throat tightens, but you don’t speak.

He doesn’t need you to.

He just stays there—anchored. Steady. Unmoving.

Like he's not waiting for you to come undone.

He's waiting for you to believe you don’t have to.

It's Friday night. You’re walking a participant through the start of a lab assessment—part of the longitudinal stress and memory protocol you’ve spent the last year fine-tuning. The task itself is simple enough: a series of conditioned images, paired with soft tones. But you watch the participant's pulse rise on the screen. Notice the minute shift in posture, the tension in their jaw.

You pause. Slow things down.

"Remember," you say gently, "we’re looking at how your body responds when it doesn’t need to anymore. The point isn’t to trick you—it’s to see what happens when the threat isn’t real. When it’s safe."

The participant nods, still uneasy.

You don’t blame them.

Later, the metaphor clings to you like static from laundry fresh out of the dryer. Fear extinction: the process of unlearning what once kept you alive. Or something close to it.

You think of what Jack said. What he didn’t say. The silence he offered like a landing strip.

It replays in your head more than you'd like to admit—the dim warmth of his office, the soft click of your laptop closing, the unexpected steadiness in his voice. No clinical jargon. No agenda. Just space. Permission.

You remember the way he folded his hands. The faint scuff on the corner of his desk. The way he didn’t fill the air with reassurances or advice. Just stayed quiet until the quiet felt less like drowning and more like floating.

And it had made something in your chest stutter—because you'd spent years studying fear responses, coding reactivity curves and salience windows, mapping out prediction error pathways and understanding affect labeling.

But none of your models accounted for the way someone simply sitting with you could ease the grip of it.

Maybe, you think now, as you log the participant's final response, this is what fear extinction looks like outside of a lab setting. Not just reducing reactivity to a blue square or a sharp tone.

But learning—relearning—how it feels to let another person in and survive it.

Maybe Jack wasn’t offering a solution.

Maybe he was offering proof.

Is this what it looked like in practice? Not just in a scanner or a skin conductance chart—but in the quiet, everyday choice of showing up? Staying?

Perhaps the data is secondary and this is the experiment.

And maybe, just maybe, you’re already in the middle of it.

The new semester begins in a blur of syllabi updates and shuffled office assignments. It's your final year before internship—a fact that looms and hums in the background like a lamp you can't turn off. You’re no longer the quiet, watchful second-year—you’ve published, you've taught, you've survived.

But you’re also exhausted. You’ve become adept at wearing competence like armor.

Jack is teaching an elective course this semester—Epigenetics of Trauma. You're enrolled in it—a course you didn’t technically need, but couldn’t resist for reasons you cared not to admit.

When you pass him in the hallway—coffee in one hand, a paper balanced on his clipboard—he stops.

"Did you hear the department finally updated the HVAC?" he asks, and it’s not really about the HVAC.

You nod, a wry smile tugging at your mouth. "Barely. Still feels like a sauna most days."

Jack gestures to your cardigan. "And yet you persist."

You grin. It’s a tiny thing. But it stays.

Later that week, he pokes his head into your office between student meetings.

"You’re on the panel for the trauma symposium, right?"

The one you were flying to at the end of October—thanks to Robby, who had playfully threatened to submit your name himself if you didn’t volunteer. He’d needed someone to piggyback off of, he’d said, and who better than his best grad student—who was also swamped with grant deadlines, dissertation chapters, and a growing list of internship applications. You’d rolled your eyes and said yes, of course, because that’s what you did. And maybe because a part of you liked the challenge, academic mascochism and validation and all.

You nod. "Talk and discussion."

He steps farther in. "If you’re open to it—I’d like to sit in."

You glance up. "You’ve already read the draft."

Jack smiles. "Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to hear it out loud."

You lean back slightly, watching him. "You going to grill me from the audience and be that one guy?"

Jack raises an eyebrow, amused. "Wouldn’t dream of it."

You hum. "Mmhm."

But you’re smiling now. Just a little.

It’s not quite vulnerability. Not yet. But it’s a beginning. A reset. The next slow iteration in a long series of exposures. New responses. New learning. Acceptance in the face of uncertainty.

The only way fear ever learns to quiet down.

Robby’s already three beers in and trying to argue that Good Will Hunting is actually a terrible representation of therapy while Mel King—your cohort-mate in the developmental area, always mindful and reserved—defends its emotional core like it’s a thesis chapter she’s still revising in her head.

Mentored by John Shen, Mel studies peer rejection and emotional socialization in early childhood, and she talks about toddlers with the same reverence some people reserve for philosophers. Her dissertation focuses on how early experiences of exclusion and inclusion shape later prosocial behavior, and she can recite every milestone in the Denver Developmental Screening Test like scripture.

She’s known for respectful debates, non-caffeinated bursts of energy, and an uncanny ability to babysit and code data at the same time. The kind of person who shows up with a snack bag labeled for every child at a study visit—and still finds time to coordinate the department's annual "bring your child to work" day. She even makes time to join you and Samira on your Sunday morning farmers market walks, reusable tote slung over one shoulder, ready to talk about plum varieties and which stand has the best sourdough.

Samira Mohan, meanwhile, sits with her signature whiskey sour and a stack of color-coded notecards she pretends not to be working on. She’s in the clinical area too—mentored by Collins—and her work focuses on how minority stress intersects with emotion regulation in underserved populations. Her analyses are razor sharp and sometimes terrifying. Samira rarely speaks unless she knows her words will land precisely—measured, deliberate, the kind of sharp that cuts clean.

Although still in her early prospectus phase, choosing to propose in her fifth year rather than fourth, her dissertation is shaping into a cross-sectional and mixed-methods exploration of how racial and gender minority stressors compound across contexts—academic, familial, and romantic—and the specific emotion regulation repertoires that emerge as survival strategies.

Samira doesn’t stir the pot for fun; she does it when she sees complacency and feels compelled to light a fire under it. That’s the Samira everyone knows and you love—the one who will quietly dismantle your entire line of argument with one clinical observation and a deadpan stare. She does exactly that now, throwing in a quote from bell hooks with the sly smile of someone who knows she’s lit a fuse just to watch it burn.

It’s a blur of overlapping conversations, familiar inside jokes, cheap spirits, and the particular cadence of a group that knows each other’s pressure points and proposal deadlines down to the day. For a moment you let yourself exist in it—in the din, in the messy affection of your academic family, in the safety you didn’t know you’d built, much less deserved. Samira’s halfway through a story about a disastrous clinical interview when she turns to you, parts her mouth to speak, and looks up behind you—

"So is this where all the cool kids hang out?"

You feel him before you see him—Jack’s presence like a low hum behind you, the soft waft of his cologne cutting through the ambient chatter. The light buzz of conversation has your senses dialed up, awareness prickling at the back of your neck. You don’t turn. You don’t have to.

Robby lets out a loud "whoohoo" as Jack joins the table, hauling him into a bro hug with the miraculously coordinated enthusiasm of someone riding high off departmental gossip. Jack rolls his eyes but doesn’t resist, letting Robby thump his back twice before extracting himself but instead of settling there, he leans down slightly, voice pitched just for you. “Is this seat taken?”

Robby at 12 o'clock, Heather to his left, then Samira, Mel, you, and John. The large circular table meant for twelve suddenly feels exponentially smaller. The tablecloth brushes your knees, heavy and starchy against your lap. You feel warmth creep up your cheeks—probably from the alcohol (definitely not from anything else)—and scoot over slightly closer to Mel, giving him room to squeeze in between you and John. You can feel the shift in the air, the proximity of his sleeve against yours, the silent knowledge that he's there now—anchored in your orbit.

He slides in beside you with a quiet murmur of thanks, the space between your arms barely more than a breath. The conversation continues, but the air feels a little different now.

He nods politely to Shen on his left, mutters something about being tricked into another committee, then glances your way—dry, amused, measured.

Always measured.

You feel Jack beside you—not just his sleeve brushing yours, but his presence, calm and dense as gravity. His knee bumps yours beneath the table once, lightly, maybe unintentional. Maybe not. The cologne still lingers faintly and you try to focus on what Samira is saying about peer-reviewed journals versus reviewer roulette, but it’s impossible to ignore the warmth radiating from his side, the way your skin registers it before your brain does. He's like a human crucible. You keep your gaze trained forward, sipping your drink a little too casually, pretending you don’t notice the way your heartbeat’s caught in your throat.

The charged air gives you a spike of bravery—fleeting, foolish, and just enough. Before you let the doubt creep into your veins, you nudge your knee toward Jack’s beneath the table, thankful for the tablecloth concealing the movement. You feel him exhale beside you—quiet, but unmistakable—and something inside you hums in response.

You feel Jack’s thigh tense against yours. The contact lingers, neither of you moving. Moments pass. Nothing happens.

So you cross your legs slowly, right over left, deliberately, letting the heel of your shoe graze his calf.

He stills.

The conversation around the table doesn’t pause, but you’re aware of every breath, every shift in weight beside you. The air between you tightens, stretched across the tension of everything unsaid.

Everyone else is occupied—Robby and Shen deep in conversation about conference logistics, Heather and Samira bickering over which of them was the worse TA, Mel nodding along and adding commentary between sips of cider. Jack sees the opening and seizes it.

He leans in, just slightly, until his shoulder brushes yours again—barely perceptible. "Subtle," he murmurs, voice pitched low, teasing.

You arch a brow, still facing forward. “I have no idea what you're talking.”

"Of course not," he says, dry. "Just sudden interest in the hem of the tablecloth, is it?"

You swirl your drink, letting the glass tilt in your fingers. "I’m a tactile learner. You know this."

He huffs a quiet breath—could almost be a laugh. "Must make data cleaning a thrilling experience."

"Only when R crashes mid-run." You angle your knee back toward his under the table, a soft bump like punctuation.

Jack tilts his head slightly, eyes flicking to yours. "Dangerous territory."

"Afraid of a little ambiguity, professor?"

His mouth twitches at the title.

You sip slowly, buying time, letting the quiet between you stretch like a drawn breath. His thigh is still pressed against yours. Still unmoving. Still deliberate.

"You always like to push your luck this much?" you murmur, keeping your eyes trained on your drink.

Jack hums low. "Only when the risk feels... calculated."

You glance at him, the corner of your mouth twitching. "Bit of a reward sensitivity bias tonight, Dr. Abbot?"

He shrugs. "You’ve been unintentionally reinforcing bad behavior."

You smirk, but say nothing, letting the conversation around you swell again. Robby starts ranting about departmental politics, Heather counters with a story about a grant mix-up that almost ended in flames. You sip your drink, Samira taps her notecards absently against her palm.

The rest of the evening hums on, warm and loose around the edges. When it finally winds down—people slowly gathering coats, hugging their goodbyes—you rise with the group, still a little buzzed, still aware of Jack’s presence beside you like heat that never quite left your side.

Under the soft yellow glow of the dim lobby chandelier, everyone says their goodnights—laughing, tipsy, hugging, good vibes all around. Jack is the last to leave the circle, and as you turn toward the elevator, you glance over your shoulder at him. "See you tomorrow," you say. "Last day of the conference—only the most boring panels left."

Jack lifts a brow. "You wound me."

You grin. "I’m just saying—if you show up in sweats and a baseball cap for your presentation, I’ll pretend not to know you."

The elevator dings. The doors slide open. You step inside, leaning against the railing. Jack stays behind.

"Goodnight," he says, eyes lingering. You nod, then turn, pressing the button for your floor. Just as the doors begin to glide shut, a hand slides into the narrow threshold—the border between hesitation and something else.

Palm flat against the seam. That sliver of metal and air.

He steps in slowly. Quiet. And presses the button for the same floor.

The doors slide shut behind him with a soft hiss.

Silence hums between you.

You don’t speak. Neither does he. But your awareness of each other sharpens—your breath shallow, his jaw tense. The elevator jolts into motion.

Jack shifts slightly, turning his body just enough to lean back against the railing—mirroring you. His arm grazes yours. Then the back of his hand brushes against your knuckles.

A spark—not metaphorical, not imagined—zips down your arm.

Neither of you pulls away.

You glance sideways.

He’s already looking at you.

Your eyes meet—held, quiet.

Not a word is exchanged. But something breaks—clean and sharp, like a snapped circuit. Long-simmering, unvoiced tension rising to the surface, clinging to the pause between heartbeats and motion-sensor lighting.

Jack leans in—not tentative, not teasing. Just close enough that his breath grazes your cheek. Your breath catches. His proximity feels like a fuse. He’s watching you—steady, unreadable. But you feel the pressure in the air shift, charged and thick.

"I don’t know what this is," you finally whisper. Your throat feels incredibly dry. A sharp juxtaposition to the state of your undergarments.

Jack’s voice dips low. "I think we’ve both been trying not to look too closely."

Your chest tightens. His hand twitches by his side. Flexing. Gripping. Restraint unraveling. His breath shallows, matching yours—fast, hungry, starved of oxygen and logic. And then, like a spark to dry kindling, you thread your fingers through his.

Heat erupts between your palms, a jolt that hits your spine. You don’t flinch. You don’t pull away. You tighten your grip.

He exhales—shaky, like it’s cost him everything not to close the distance between your mouths. The electricity is unbearable, like a dam on the edge of collapse.

And still, neither of you move. Not quite yet.

But the air is thick with the promise: the next breach will not be small.

The elevator dings.

You both flinch—just barely.

The doors slide open.

You release his hand slowly, fingers slipping apart like sand through mesh, reluctant and slow but inevitable. Jack's hands stay in a slightly open grip.

"I should..." you begin, breath catching. You clear your throat. "Goodnight, Jack."

Your voice is soft. Almost too soft.

Jack nods once. Doesn’t reach again. Doesn’t follow.

"Goodnight," he says. Low, warm. Weighted.

You step out. Don’t look back.

The doors begin to close.

You glance over your shoulder, once—just once.

Your eyes meet through the narrowing gap.

Then the doors seal shut, quiet as breath.

For now.

Contrary to Samira's reappraisal of you joining her for Friday night drinks, you begrudgingly allow her to drag you out of your cave. Just the two of you—girls’ night, no work talk allowed, and no saying "I need to work on my script" more than once. She makes you wear lip gloss and a top that could almost be considered reckless, and you down two tequila sodas before you even start to loosen your shoulders.

You’re halfway through your third drink when a pair of guys approaches—normal-looking, vaguely grad-school adjacent, maybe from public health or law school. Samira gives you a look that says seems safe enough, and you need this, and so you nod. You dance.

The one paired off with you is tall, not unpleasant. He asks before he touches you—his hand at your waist, then your hip, then lightly over your ribs. You nod, give consent. He smells like good cologne and something sugary, and he’s saying all the right things.

But something feels wrong.

You realize it halfway through the song, when his hand brushes the curve of your waist again, gentle and careful and... wrong. Too polite. Too other.

You think of the way Jack’s fingers had curled between yours. The heat of his palm against yours for a single minute in the elevator. The way he hadn’t touched you anywhere else—but it had felt like everything.

You close your eyes, trying to ground yourself. But you can’t stop comparing.

You’ve danced with this stranger for five whole minutes, and it hasn’t come close to the electricity of the sixty seconds you spent not speaking, not kissing, not touching anything else in the elevator with Jack.

It shouldn’t mean anything but it means everything.

You step back, thanking the guy politely, claiming a bathroom break. He nods, not pushy, already scanning the room.

Samira follows a song change later. "You okay?"

You nod. Then shake your head. Then say, "I think I might be fucked."

Samira just hands you a tissue, already knowing. She looks understanding. Like she sees it, too—and she's not going to mock you for it.

"Yep," she says gently while fixing a stray baby hair by your ear. "Saw it the second Jack joined us for drinks that night."

The night air feels cooler after the club, like the city is exhaling with you. You and Samira walk back toward the rideshare pickup, her arm looped loosely through yours.

You don’t say anything for a long moment. She doesn’t push.

"I don’t even know what it is," you murmur eventually. "I just know when that guy touched me, it felt like wearing someone else’s coat. Warm, sure, but not mine."

Samira hums in agreement. "Jack feels like your coat?"

"No," you sigh. Then, after a beat, quieter, "He feels like the one thing I forgot I was cold without."

She doesn’t say anything. Not right away. Just squeezes your hand. "So what’re you gonna do about it?"

"Scream. Cry. Have a pre-doctoral crisis," you say flatly.

Samira snorts. "So… Tuesday." You bite back a smile, shoving her shoulder lightly but appreciating the comedic diffusion nonetheless.

She exhales through her nose, gentler now. "If it’s any consolation, I see the way he looks at you."

Your eyes flick toward her. She continues, tone still soft, sincere. "Not just that night during drinks, but during your flash talk. I’ve never seen him that… emotive. It was like he was mesmerized. And even back during seminar last year, when he was filling in for Robby? Same thing. I remember thinking, damn, he listens to her like she’s rewriting gravity."

You should feel elated. Giddy. Instead, you bury your face in your hands and emit a sound that can only be described as a dying pterodactyl emitting its final screech. "I hate my fucking life."

"It's going to be okay!" Samira tries to hide her laughter but it comes through anyway, making you laugh through teary eyes. "You will be okay."

You shake your head back and forth, trying to make yourself dizzy in hopes that this was all a dream.

"Who was it that said 'boys are temporary, education is forever?'" Samira all-but-sang.

"Do not quote me right now, Mira," you groan, dragging the syllables like they physically pain you. "I am but a husk with a degree-in-progress."

The week that follows is both everything and nothing. You go to class. You show up to lab meetings. You present clean analyses and nod through questions from the new cohort of freshmen. You even draft two paragraphs of your discussion section. One of three discussion sections. It looks like functioning.

Since submitting the last batch of internship applications, your dissertation committee meetings have gone from once a week with each member to once every three. You'd already run all of your main studies, had all the data cleaned and collated, and even coded all of the analyses you intended on running. Now all that was left was the actual writing and compiling of it all for a neat, hundred-or-so-page manuscript that no one would read.

It’s your first meeting with Jack since flying back from the conference.

In all honesty, you hadn’t given it much thought. Compartmentalization had become a survival strategy, not a skill. It helped you meet deadlines, finish your talk, submit your final batch of internship applications—all while pretending nothing in that elevator happened. At least not in any way that mattered.

Now, seated outside his office with your laptop open and your third coffee in hand, you realize too late: you never really prepared for this part. The after.

You hear the door open behind you. A familiar cadence of steps—steady but slightly uneven. You know that gait.

"Hey," Jack says, as calm and neutral as ever. Like you didn’t almost combust into each other two weeks ago.

You glance up. Smile tight. "Hey."

"Come in?"

You nod. Stand. Follow him inside.

The office is the same as it’s always been—overcrowded with books, one stack threatening to collapse near the filing cabinet. You sit in your usual chair. He sits in his. The silence is comfortable. Professional.

It shouldn’t feel like a loss.

Jack taps a few keys on his laptop. "You sent your methods revisions?"

"Yesterday," you say. "Just a few small clarifications."

He hums. Nods. Clicks something open.

You sip your coffee. Pretend the sting behind your ribs is just caffeine.

The moment stretches.

He finally speaks. "You look… tired."

You smile, faint and crooked. “It’s November.”

Jack lets out a quiet laugh. Then scrolls through the document, silent again.

But the air between you feels thinner now. Like something’s missing. Or maybe like something’s waiting.

He reads.

You watch him.

Not just glance. Not just notice. Watch.

Your coffee cools in your hands, untouched.

He doesn't ask why you weren't at the symposium he moderated. Or if you were running on caffeine and nerves from recent deadlines. And definitely not why you booked an earlier flight home from the conference.

You search his face like it might hold an answer—though you’re not entirely sure what the question is. Something about the last two weeks. The way he hasn’t said anything. The way you haven’t either. The way both of you pretended, remarkably well, that everything was the same.

But Jack’s expression doesn’t change. Not noticeably. He just skims the screen, fingers occasionally tapping his trackpad. The glow from his monitor traces the line of his jaw.

Still, you keep looking. Like maybe if you study him hard enough, you’ll find a hint of something there.

A crack. A tell. A memory.

But he stays unreadable.

Professional.

And you hate that it hurts.

It eats at you.

Why does it hurt?

You knew better than to let this happen. To let it get this far. This was never supposed to be anything other than professional, clinical, tidy. But somewhere between all the late-night edits and long silences, the boundaries started to blur like ink in water.

You tell yourself to turn it off. That part in your brain responsible for—this—whatever it was. Romantic projection, limerence, foolishness. You’d diagnose it in a heartbeat if it weren’t your own.

You just need to get through this meeting. This last academic year. Then you'd be somewhere far away for internship, and then graduated. That’s all.

Then you could go back to pretending you’re fine. That everything was okay.

The entire time you’d been staring—not at Jack, not directly—but just past his shoulder, toward the bookshelves. Not really seeing them. Just trying to breathe.

Jack had already finished reading through your edits. He read them last night, actually—when your email came through far too late. He’d learned to stay up past his usual bedtime about two weeks into joining your committee.

But he wasn’t just reading. Not now.

He was watching. Noticing the subtle shifts in your brow, the tension at the corners of your mouth. You didn’t look at him, but he didn’t need you to.

Jack studied people for a living. He’d made a career out of it.

And right now, he was studying you.

You snap yourself out of it. A light head bobble. A few quick blinks. A swallow. "All done?" you ask, voice dry. Almost nonchalant, like you hadn’t been staring through him trying to excavate meaning.

Jack lifts an eyebrow, subtle, but nods. "Yeah. Looks solid."

You nod back. Like it’s just another meeting. Like that’s all it ever was.

Then you close your laptop a little too quickly. "I think I’m gonna head out early, I don’t feel great," you offer, keeping your tone breezy, eyes still somewhere over his shoulder.

Jack doesn’t call you on it. Not outright.

But he watches you too long. Like he’s flipping through every frame of this scene in real time, and none of it quite adds up.

"Alright," he says finally. Even. Quiet. "Feel better."

You nod again, already halfway to the door.

You don’t look back.

"Hey—" Jack’s voice catches, right as the door swings shut.

Your hand freezes on the handle.

You hesitate.

But you don’t turn around.

Just one breath.

Then you keep walking.

You make it halfway down the hall before you realize your hands are shaking.

Not much. Barely. Just enough that when you fish your phone out of your coat pocket to check the time, your thumb slips twice before you unlock the screen.

He’d called your name.

And maybe that wouldn’t mean anything—shouldn’t mean anything—except Jack Abbot isn’t the type to call out without a reason. You’ve worked with him long enough to know that. Observed him enough in clinical and classroom settings. Hell, you’ve studied men like him—hyper-controlled, slow to show their hand. You’d written an entire paper on the paradox of behavioral inhibition in high-functioning trauma survivors and then realized, two weeks into seminar, that the paragraph on defensive withdrawal could’ve been subtitled See: Jack Abbot, Case Study #1.

You’d meant to file that away and forget it.

You haven’t forgotten it.

And now you're walking fast, maybe too fast, through the undergrad psych wing like the answer might be waiting for you in your lab inbox or the fluorescence of your office.

You don’t stop until you’re behind a locked door with your laptop powered off and your hands braced on either side of your desk.

You breathe.

In through your nose. Out through your mouth.

Again.

Still—when you close your eyes, you see the look on his face.

That same unreadable stillness.

Like he wanted to say something else.

Like he knew something else. And maybe—maybe—you did too.

537 notes · View notes

pitlanepeach · 2 months ago

Text

Radio Silence | Chapter Seven

Lando Norris x Amelia Brown (OFC)

Series Masterlist

Summary — Order is everything. Her habits aren't quirks, they're survival techniques. And only three people in the world have permission to touch her: Mom, Dad, Fernando.

Then Lando Norris happens.

One moment. One line crossed. No going back.

Warnings — Autistic!OFC, strong language, more angst (IM SORRY IT'LL GET BETTER SOON I PROMISE).

Notes — Welcome to Oracle Red Bull Racing, Amelia Brown.

Want to be added to the taglist? Let me know! - Peach x

2020

The office was quiet in the way only offices designed for genius could be; not sterile, but reverent. Drafting boards and CAD monitors hummed quietly in the background, interrupted only by the soft tick of a mechanical clock that someone had insisted on keeping analogue.

Amelia sat stiffly in the chair opposite Adrian Newey.

He was perched on a stool beside a massive whiteboard, sleeves rolled up, fingers stained faintly with pen ink, as though he’d been sketching ideas directly into the fabric of his shirt. His presence was oddly... nerve-racking.

Neither of them spoke for the first few minutes.

Amelia rolled her golf ball between her hands in her lap, trying not to bounce her knee. Adrian made a few marks on a fresh sheet of paper, muttering under his breath. It sounded like a stream of formulaic gibberish to anyone else. To her, it was almost a lullaby.

He paused. Looked at her. “Do you have any thoughts?”

She shrugged. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to hear them.”

Adrian hummed, and then there was a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I will always listen. I will also always tell you when you are wrong.”

She swallowed, then nodded. Then she gestured to his paper pad. “You’re already sketching the '21 nosecone?”

“Yes. The frontal vortex targets under the new regs are… absolutely maddening. They’ll make cooling a nightmare.” He muttered.

She shifted forward, almost involuntarily. “Mm. Not if you separate the low-pressure bleed early and feed it into the underside of the side-pod. It could trick the wake into thinking it’s interacting with a full-body airflow.”

He went very still.

“Interesting,” he said slowly, standing and crossing to the nearest drafting board. He didn’t ask her to explain it again. He just started drawing. She stood too, walking around the conference table in order to stand at his side. Without looking at her, he handed her a pen.

She made a face at it. “I like red.”

He didn’t say anything. Just took the black pen back and found her a red one.

By the time lunchtime rolled around, they had filled three boards, made seven sketches, and the early formation of a concept that wouldn’t just survive under the 2021 regs; it would thrive.

They hadn’t spoken much, not conversationally. Just fragments.

“This doesn’t breathe well at speed.”

“What if we taper the upper control arm here instead?”

“Why does this remind me of the '98 car?”

But somehow, it worked.

By mid-afternoon, Adrian glanced up at her from the schematic they were both hunched over.

“You think in shapes,” he said.

She blinked at him. “You think in sound.”

He smiled, and it was full of promise. “We will make a wonderful pair, Miss Brown.”

She let out a quiet breath. “Oh. Good. I was afraid that you would regret spending three million pounds on me.”

He stared at her for a long moment before laughing shortly. “No regret, Miss Brown. Not a single one.”

For the first time in weeks, she didn’t feel anxious. Or lonely. Or burning with the guilt of abandoning McLaren, the team that was synonymous with her family name.

She tucked the golf ball back into her pocket. “I’ll draw up a more formal aero flow map tonight.”

“Don’t bother,” he said, flipping to a new page. “We’ll build it first. Then reverse-engineer the explanation.”

She grinned, sharp and fast and excited. “We can do that?”

“We can do anything we want.” He told her.

—

Christian pushed open the door to the technical office with the kind of hesitant curiosity reserved for someone who was pretty sure they’d told everyone to go home six hours ago.

The light was still on.

At first, he thought maybe the cleaners had left it by mistake. But as he stepped inside, the faint scratch of pencil on paper, the rustle of blueprints, and the hum of two very intense brains in quiet dialogue stopped him dead in his tracks.

Adrian was barefoot now, barefoot, perched on a wheeled chair with one leg pulled up under him like some kind of engineering gremlin, holding a scale model in one hand and gesturing toward it with the other, mid-monologue.

Amelia was sitting cross-legged on the floor, a yellow golf ball tucked beneath her heel, grease-smudged notebook balanced on her knee, jotting notes at lightning speed while murmuring confirmations like, “Yeah, but the boundary layer separation’s going to collapse here—unless we change the outwash angle…”

Neither of them noticed Christian standing in the doorway.

The room was covered in paper. The whiteboards had no white left. Someone, probably Adrian, had scrawled equations on the glass wall. There was a half-eaten croissant on the radiator. Half of the work was done in black ink. The other half was done in red.

He took one silent step backward.

Paused.

Then slowly, quietly, pulled the door closed behind him.

From inside, he could just barely hear Adrian’s voice, “Did I ever tell you about the time I built a full wind tunnel model out of my wife’s hairdryer and a vacuum tube?”

Amelia sucked in a breath. “Did it work?”

“It blew the roof off my shed.”

She laughed, genuinely, full of lightness.

Christian exhaled and reached for his phone.

—

iMessage — 00:45am

Christian Horner

We are going to become world champions.

Helmut Marko

How can you know?

Christian Horner

Newey is barefoot. His intern is laughing.

Helmut Marko

Mein Gott.

—

The drive home from Milton Keynes had been quiet; just the low hiss of the car heater and the soft murmur of the radio.

It had been her first week working at Red Bull Racing. She’d stayed in Max’s flat, the one he kept in Milton Keynes but only used when he was in town for sim sessions.

The high of her first week was still humming under her skin; the buzz of purpose, of being understood, but underneath that, exhaustion tugged at her bones. She felt stretched thin. Too much stimulus, too many new faces.

But the moment she stepped through the front door, into the warm, lemon-honey air of the house she’d grown up in, none of that mattered.

Her mum was in the kitchen, back turned, humming softly to the radio.

Amelia didn’t say anything.

She dropped her bag quietly, kicked off her shoes, walked straight over and folded herself into her mother’s arms from behind, pressing her forehead between her shoulder blades, breathing her in.

Tracy stilled. Just for a moment. Then she reached back, tugging Amelia around until she could hold her properly; one hand at the back of her head, the other wrapped around her shoulders, thumb rubbing slow circles into her jumper.

“Hello, darling,” she whispered. “I missed you.”

Amelia pressed closer, her cheek against her mum’s collarbone. “I missed you too.”

They stood there like that for a long time, the hum of the radio filling the silence between them, a wooden spoon tapping gently against the edge of a pan.

“I saw the article,” Tracy said eventually, voice soft. “And the photos.”

Amelia tensed.

Another piece had gone live, following the Motorsport.com exclusive. Red Bull had shared her official announcement — complete with photographs of her in team gear, standing in the middle of Max and Alex.

Tracy didn’t let her pull away. “You looked very professional. And happy.”

“I am,” she said, too fast. Then again, slower. “I am. I just… I’m wishing that he wouldn’t make it so hard.”

Tracy sighed into her hair. “Your father’s not angry with you, love. Not really. He’s angry with himself. He had no idea that you were even receiving offers, let alone considering any.”

Amelia swallowed. Shrugged. “He didn’t want me at McLaren. He never offered. I gave him every chance to.”

“I know, sweetheart.” Tracy pulled back just far enough to look her in the eye. “And you were right not to wait forever. You did the brave thing. You put yourself first. I’m proud of you.”

Amelia blinked fast. “I’m not used to that,” she admitted. “Putting myself first. It feels… selfish.”

Tracy brushed a strand of damp hair from her face. “No. Not selfish. It’s how you grow. You’re building race cars with Adrian bloody Newey. That’s something to be incredibly proud of.”

Amelia smiled, weakly. “They call me Mini Newey. All of the engineers. Christian. Max thinks that it’s funny.”

Tracy chuckled, pulling her into a tight squeeze again. “They should call you Better Newey.”

That pulled a real laugh out of her, small and sore and soft.

“Now,” Tracy said, letting her go, “go change into your favourite pyjamas and let me feed you. I bet you haven’t eaten a real meal all week.”

“I’ve been living on machine coffee and stale pastries,” Amelia admitted, already peeling off her jumper.

Tracy shuddered. “Criminal behaviour. Go on, love. I’ll have dinner on the table in ten.”

As Amelia padded toward the stairs, warmth blooming in her chest, she heard her mum call gently after her. “He’ll come around. He loves you too much not to.”

She didn’t answer, but she nodded once, before disappearing up the stairs.

—

iMessage — 01:43am

Lando Norris did u leave bc of me like. mclaren it’s okay if u did i just. i just need to know feels like maybe u did and idk. i feel shit also this is prob a bad time. i had like 5 beers and a shot of smth blue was v blue. tasted like acid

Amelia Brown No. Not because of you. You don’t matter to me that much.

Lando Norris ouch ok but like partly bc of me?

Amelia Brown Not everything is about you, Lando.

Lando Norris but some things are

Amelia Brown You started ignoring me. For no reason. Then I got a job designing a future championship-winning car. Those two things are unrelated.

Lando Norris when did u become so meannnn :(

Amelia Brown I’m not being mean. You’re just used to me being quiet when people treat me badly.

Lando Norris i didn’t mean to treat u badly i just panicked everything was getting weird and real and i didn’t know what to say

Amelia Brown So you said nothing. That’s still a choice.

Lando Norris yeah. i know. i’m sorry i miss u sometimes just thought u should know that

Amelia Brown That doesn’t change anything.

Lando Norris yeah i figured ok

Amelia Brown Go home. You are going to feel terrible tomorrow morning.

Lando Norris already do thanks i guess goodnight mini newey

Amelia Brown Don’t call me that

—

Amelia sat cross-legged on the floor with her laptop open in front of her, the Red Bull Racing CAD interface glowing on the screen. Max was half-stretched out on the couch behind her, a bowl of strawberries balanced on his stomach and a bottle of Heineken in hand.

“Okay,” Amelia said, tapping the trackpad. “Front wing redesign is about eighty percent locked. We’re still playing with DRS and airflow under braking, but I think what we’ve got is going to make the car ridiculously sharp into corners.”

Max took a sip of his beer, watching her over the rim. “Ridiculously sharp sounds nice.” He noted.

“It’ll bite if you get lazy,” she warned him.

He shrugged. “So, just like you.”

Amelia didn’t even look up at him. Over the past few weeks of working with him, she’d learned how to decipher his tones — he was teasing her. “I’m not lazy. You’d die without me.”

He tossed a strawberry at her. She caught it and took a bite.

She turned back to her laptop, sighed, and opened up the email thread that she and Adrian had going.

Max cleared his throat. “Ah, have you talked to your dad yet?”

Amelia’s fingers froze over the trackpad. “No.”

Max nodded. “He’s still not talking to you?”

“Nope.” She popped the ‘p’.

“Your mom?” He questioned.

“She’s trying. He’s just… stubborn. You know what he’s like.” Amelia exhaled. “He thinks I betrayed him.”

“You didn’t.”

“I know that now.” She rubbed her temple, leaned her head back against the couch. “But I also think I became inconvenient. It was easier when I was just the kid who wanted to build toy cars in the corner. Now I’m—”

“Mini Newey,” Max offered, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

She groaned. “Max, stop.”

He rolled his eyes. “You are, though. And you’re building my car, so I’m not complaining.” A pause. “Have you talked to Norris?”

Amelia blinked slowly, then shut her laptop with a quiet snap. “He messaged me two weeks ago. Drunk. Asked if I left McLaren because of him.”

Max raised an eyebrow. “Did you?”

“Of course not.” She scoffed. What a ridiculous idea. “He just… doesn’t get it. He thinks that everything is about him.”

Max laughed. “He’s nineteen. His brain is still soft.”

“I’m also nineteen,” she muttered, tipping her head back against the couch to look up at him. “I think he’s just emotionally illiterate.”

Max blinked, then grinned. “Tell him that to his face. I’d pay to see it.”

“You’re not a world champion yet,” she shot back. “You don’t get to make demands like that.”

He leaned in, until their faces were almost level. “I will be. And when I am, I’ll buy you a stupidly expensive watch for every podium we get.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You say that now.”

“Mark my words,” he said, puffing his chest in mock pride.

They sat there for a while — not quite friends, not just colleagues. Something in-between. Teammates in the truest sense. Bound by a shared obsession: a championship. A car so fast it betrayed the law of physics.

“I miss him,” she said quietly.

Max exhaled through his nose, slow and even. “He’s a nice boy. Stupid, but nice.”

“I know.” Her voice was barely a breath.

—

iMessage — 18:15

Fernando Alonso How has your first month at RB been? Do I need to make any angry phone calls?

Amelia Brown It’s been great. Everything’s going better than I could’ve imagined. I’m already making progress. Adrian and I work really well together.

Fernando Alonso I told you so, did I not? You two are very alike!

Amelia Brown It’s a perfect fit, actually. I feel like I’m finally being heard.

Fernando Alonso Good, good. I knew it. You made the right choice. And now, you’re three million pounds richer. That helps too.

Amelia Brown Haha, yes. Very much. I would've probably taken £5, so, thank you for handling the negotiation for me.

Fernando Alonso Mi Nina, for your talents, they would have paid three billion.

Amelia Brown I miss you so much. When are you coming to visit?

Fernando Alonso Soon. I’ve got some meetings in London next month.

Amelia Brown Anything exciting?

Fernando Alonso You’ll be the first to know if there is.

Amelia Brown :)

—

Lando stood with his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his hoodie, shoulders hunched, posture defensive. Across the polished meeting table, Zak leaned back in his chair, arms folded tightly over his chest, eyes fixed on the floor like it might offer him an answer he hadn’t already lost.

The silence had stretched too long.

“She’s really gone, huh?” Lando finally muttered.

Zak didn’t look up. “Yes.”

Lando blinked hard. He wasn’t sure what he expected; some kind of denial, maybe. Some reassurance that there was still a version of this where she came back. That maybe Red Bull was just a phase. A test. Something to prove a point.

“She left a hole here,” Zak said eventually. “Not just in the team. In the culture. She was…” he paused, trying to find a word that wouldn’t sound too sentimental. “I didn’t realise how important she was to the team. How much she was involved in.”

Lando didn’t answer right away. His jaw was tight. “We all let her down.”

Zak looked at him then. Really looked at him. “You liked her.”

It wasn’t a question. Not judgment, either. Just a fact. Like pointing out a flat tire or a burning building.

Lando flinched. “Yeah. I really liked her.”

“You shouldn’t have listened to us,” Zak said quietly. “Any of us. You should’ve fought for her.”

“I couldn’t.” Lando’s voice was sharp, brittle. “I was scared. And stupid.”

Zak let out a rough, humourless laugh. “And I was selfish. I never gave her the recognition she deserved.” He paused. “She was the brain behind the Mercedes deal.”

Lando’s head jerked up, eyes wide.

Zak’s voice dropped, heavy with something close to guilt. “She pulled it all together, handed it to me in a file with start-to-finish instruction. Never asked for credit. I knew she wanted more, deserved more, but I didn’t give it to her. Not because she wasn’t ready. Because I wasn’t brave enough.”

He leaned forward, elbows on the table.

“I didn’t want to be the one who gave her a shot, because I knew what people would say. Nepotism. Favouritism. They’d talk about her name before they ever looked at her work. And I thought I was protecting her from that.” He shook his head. “But I wasn’t. I was just holding her back.”

Lando stared at him. Silent.

There it was.

The ugly truth of it all.

Lando swallowed thickly. “She was never going to stay.”

“No,” Zak said. “No. I don’t think so.”

Lando ran a hand over his face.

She had belonged here once. She had. And they’d both let her feel like she didn’t.

Now she was designing the future with the enemy.

And they just had to sit back and watch it happen.

—

The paddock buzzed with the usual pre-season chaos; the rhythmic whirr of engines, the sharp sound of tires scraping against the asphalt, and the chatter of team members huddled in tight circles.

Amelia stood near the Red Bull garage, her posture stiff but her eyes alert, scanning the familiar sea of cars and faces.

It was the start of the 2020 season, and everything felt both familiar and brand new. The sharp smell of fuel lingered in the air, mixing with the faint metallic tang of freshly waxed cars. But this time, she wasn’t in McLaren orange or one of her father’s old team shirts; this time, she was in Red Bull team gear. Black and dark blue with that iconic bull on her chest, the Red Bull Racing logo proud on her back.

And tucked around her neck, a pair of navy blue Red Bull ear defenders.

She glanced to her left. Max was chatting animatedly with Christian, the two of them gesturing towards the car as the crew worked around it. Adrian was nearby, bent over a laptop, his face creased in concentration. Amelia would soon be next to him, diving into the data and throwing out her ideas. But for a moment, she lingered at the edge of the paddock, trying to ease herself into this new, new, new.

Amelia’s gaze drifted toward the McLaren garage, even though she knew she shouldn’t be looking. There was Lando, standing with her dad, his usual smile present but different. Amelia tried not to flinch.

Her fingers tightened around the edge of her ear defenders, the cool plastic grounding her, just a little. She had left her golf ball in her office, determined not to need it.

Her eyes flicked back to the Red Bull car, sleek and aggressive in its design. It was more than just metal and carbon fiber. It was partly her work, her heart and soul poured into something tangible.

And then, from the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a camera crew approaching her.

Her stomach dropped.

The journalist’s voice reached her first, though she barely registered the words. “Amelia, first season with Red Bull Racing. You’ve been working behind the scenes for a while, but now you're here, in the paddock, in full Red Bull gear. How does it feel to be wearing navy blue now, after spending so much time with your father’s team, McLaren?”

Before she could formulate any kind of response, a familiar presence appeared beside her. Max.

He stepped in without hesitation, his body language calm and protective as he leaned slightly into her space. His gaze shifted to the interviewer, who looked briefly excited at the new addition.

"Need an out?" Max asked her, his voice low enough only for her to hear. His stance was relaxed, but there was something in the way he held himself; a quiet assurance that, if she needed him to, he would get her away.

The camera crew hovered expectantly, but Max didn’t flinch. He didn’t let the pressure reach her. He stayed right there, like a grounding force beside her.

"Amelia?" The interviewer prompted, waiting for her response.

Max’s eyes softened as he glanced at her. “Say whatever feels right,” he murmured, offering her a smile that was small but understanding. “You don’t owe them anything.”

For a moment, Amelia felt the tension drain from her. This wasn’t a performance. She didn’t have to give them the perfect soundbite. She could speak her truth, on her own terms.

She took a deep breath and, feeling Max still there, solid and supportive beside her, looked directly at the interviewer.

“It feels powerful,” she said simply, her voice steady but soft. It was the truth. For the first time, it felt like she was owning her decisions, not just navigating them. Powerful because this was her journey now. Because, despite everything, she was in total control.

The interviewer didn’t push for more, probably sensing the finality in her words. But the moment lingered for a second longer, like they were all collectively taking a breath.

Max gave her a subtle nod of approval, his lips twitching into a smirk.

And, just as quickly, the two of them turned and started walking away, the cameras still rolling behind them, but it didn’t matter. Amelia’s shoulders relaxed, a weight lifting, and her feet carried her toward the garage.

—

iMessage — 19:51

Lando Norris I’m sorry. I know that’s not good enough but I am I’m really sorry. And I want you to know that I’m happy for you. I’m not being sarcastic. You looked beautiful on camera. I’m glad Max was there with you. I wish it had been me.

Amelia Brown Congratulations on the podium finish, Lando.

—

The morning sun was bright over the circuit as Max and Amelia walked into the F3 paddock. Amelia was wearing a denim dress. Max, in his typical laid-back skinny jeans and plain shirt, had his hands in his pockets and a baseball cap perched low over his eyes. He was always eager to watch the younger drivers, always curious about who might be the next big thing in motorsport.

She was more used to the engineering side of things, but she’d been a fan of motorsport in general since she was a child. The thrill of being here just to watch was amazing.

They settled into the VIP viewing platform. The race kicked off with an energy that seemed to buzz in the air. Engines roared and the young drivers raced past, navigating the tight turns and high-speed straights with a determination that made Amelia feel the thrill of the sport she’d always loved.

As the race unfolded, Amelia’s eyes were drawn to car 81; Oscar Piastri. The young Australian was carving through the field with an almost eerie calm, moving up with a precision that belied his years. He raced like someone who had been here for ages, his every move instinctive yet calculated, as though he had been born for this.

Amelia felt that familiar pull. It was the same feeling she had gotten watching Lando in Formula Renault all those years ago — a sense that she was witnessing something special. Piastri surged ahead, eventually crossing the line first, claiming the win in the season opener.

“Damn,” Max muttered, impressed. “Kid’s fast.”

Amelia leaned in closer to the barrier, watching as Piastri celebrated with his team, their joy radiating from every hug and high-five. She turned to Max, who was watching her closely, amusement dancing in his eyes.

“Don’t get too attached,” he teased. “He’s not yours to claim yet.”

“I’m not trying to claim him,” she replied, her tone steady, though there was an undeniable certainty in her voice. “But I will. When the time comes. And I think...” She trailed off, watching Piastri for a moment longer. “It will come for him very soon.”

Max grinned, shaking his head fondly. “Always thinking ahead, kleine zus.”

Amelia’s eyes remained on the Australian driver, a quiet feeling settling deep in her chest. She couldn’t quite place it.

“His manager?” she asked, her gaze still on Oscar as he laughed with his team, the world around him seeming to pause for a moment.

“Mark Webber,” Max replied, his voice neutral, but his expression unreadable.

“Ah.” Amelia’s lips tipped upward into an amused smile. Mark Webber, who had been central to Red Bull's rise in the sport. She glanced sideways at Max, then back at Oscar. “Mark Webber,” she repeated, her voice soft. “It’s strange, isn't it? Fernando and Mark; rivals. And now, I’m working at Red Bull thanks to Fernando, and Oscar is under Mark’s wing.” She looked at Max, a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. “Formula One is a funny place.”

Max grinned, clearly entertained by the thought. “You can make connections out of anything, can’t you?”

Amelia let out a soft laugh, her gaze returning to the young driver in the distance. “I guess I do,” she said, her voice quieter now, a subtle sense of realisation setting in. “And somehow, they always seem to circle back to Red Bull.”

It was funny how Formula 1 worked that way: legacies, rivalries, and new beginnings always intertwined.

—

iMessage — 00:42am

Amelia Brown

Are you in Woking?

Lando Norris

Yes…?

Amelia Brown

I’m home alone. Come over. I am still angry at you, but I’m ready to talk to you now.

Lando Norris

Ok im omw like right now

NEXT CHAPTER

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onepieceisreeeeaaalll · 3 months ago

Note

may I request another Luffy x fem reader please. Where Luffy is always picking up y/n like anywhere and everywhere they go (they aren’t dating or anything yet either) and he’s just always carrying her. Maybe even one day she’s wearing a skirt and so she freaks out when Luffy goes to grab her but Luffy holds her skirt down while carrying her. I don’t know I feel like it would be cute. Thank you!

Carried Away - Luffy x Fem!Reader

Hey! This was SO FUN to write! I spent too long trying to avoid it because I was overthinking, but it's been sitting in my drafts just haunting me. Here it is! Hope you like it!

Tags: SFW, use of y/n, platonic, pre-relationship, gunshot, Marine shenanigans

Check out my masterlist if you like stuff like this!

~1.7k

》* 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • 。* 。° 。* 。 • ˚《

Incident One - The Thousand Sunny, noon

“Luffy, you can't be serious.” Nami sighs.

The ship has been sailing a course towards - well, you can't remember. Nami's the one who handles the navigation, and quite honestly, you didn't hear where she said you'd be going. Something about the logpose, needing to restock - the usual. The point is that it's meant to be an easy journey.

So, everyone's a little surprised to see a random, abandoned dingy in the middle of the ocean. With a treasure chest in it, no less.

“Yeah - duh! We can't just leave that there!” Luffy whines, gesticulating his hands at Nami. “We're pirates - remember? That's treasure!”

“We don't know that, idiot!” Nami snaps, reaching a hand up to smack at Luffy's head. “It could be explosive, like that barrel was forever ago! Remember that?”

He's already barreling near the edge of the ship, though, eyes widen with excitement. You can't help but giggle at the energy he has.

“Aw, come on! Let me go over and take a look! I'll be real quick. Besides, what if it is treasure? Don't you want the money?”

Nami seems to pause at Luffy's comment. Everyone looks between her and Luffy, before she lets out a very long sigh. If you look closely enough, you're sure you can see berrie signs in her eyes.

“Fine. But seriously, only real quick. And bring someone along with you so you don't get stuck in the water. Like Zo-”

“Alright! Let's go!”

Your eyes widen the moment Luffy's arm snakes around your waist, rotating around it over and over again in rubbery fashion. You weren't even close to him, but for some reason, you're the one he's selected.

“Wait!” You screech, your hands grasping at his arm, but it's too late.

Laughing wildly, Luffy backs up, rearing his other arm before launching you against his side and sending you both over the edge of the Sunny.

“Luffy!” You scream, but the sound of the wind passing by is too loud in your ears. And so is Luffy's laugh.

You land on the dingy with a thud, your arms still grasping onto Luffy tightly. His arm retracts from the rotation around your waist, and while you breathe heavily to calm your racing heart, Luffy is already marching towards the treasure chest in the small space.

“What the-” You start, but Luffy's quick to wave you over.

“Nami said I needed someone to come with. Here, check this out with me!”

Your head aches, and all you can do is stare at him as a groan slips past your lips. Well, you can't argue with that logic.

》* 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • 。* 。° 。* 。 • ˚《

Incident Two - A Nearby Island, morning

Yesterday, that treasure chest proved to not have treasure itself, but some kind of treasure map. The crew was mixed. On the one hand, it seems like an obvious trap. On the other hand, money. Money won out.

Much to everyone's relief, the map has led to a nearby island. The one the crew was headed to, anyway, so it was really of no inconvenience. There's the opportunity to restock, to fix gear, to get a bite to eat. It's a much needed respite after the long journey everyone's just had, so why not add a treasure hunt?

No one is more excited about this than Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp.

“Treasure hunt!” They gleefully cheer, leading the charge down the gangplank.

The ship is docked off the shore, hidden away by large trees and surrounding cliff sides. So long as everyone is careful, there's no reason to believe there should be any danger.

You're gathering your things, sorting through them on the deck. Getting a free day with some berries in your pocket is rare enough as is. It'd be preferable to make the most of it. Maybe some new boots? Oh, or something to take up your free time! Knitting?

It’s while you're lost in your thought bubble that you feel something grab at you. Looking down, your wrist is clamped by - is that a hand? Attached to-

The rubber arm is long, outstretched from the bottom of the gang plank, and you let out a gasp as it reels you quickly away from where you're standing.

“Luffy!” You whine, as exasperated now as you were yesterday.

You're snapped to Luffy's side, pulled with such a force that your feet fly off the ground until you crash into his body. Luffy beams, moving his hands to straighten you up properly. You blow some hair from your face, jerking forcibly from his grasp. Even though he's strong, it seems to have taken him off-guard.

“Seriously, what was that for?!”

“Didn't want you to get left behind! We're treasure hunting!” Luffy grins.

“You can't just-!” You start to argue, but you're too flustered to really finish your statement. He's beaming at you too brightly, and that smile is too damn infectious.

With a sigh, you pull away, walking down the hill ahead of the group.

“I'm going clothes shopping!” You exclaim.

》* 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • 。* 。° 。* 。 • ˚《

Incident Three - Town, noon

This is getting out of hand. You're aware of how much Luffy likes to grab at the crew, throw them around, and it's no secret that he prefers it to finding another route to having people do as he says. Luffy's impatient. Impulsive. Reckless. It's grown on you, sure, but there's something about the way your stomach lurches every time you're tossed around that leaves you uneasy.

But you've planned for this. It was a decision made out of necessity, nothing more. A cute skirt purchased in town, too short to really significantly cover anything if you were moved around. Sure, Luffy is…well, Luffy, but he's still a guy. At the end of the day, there's no way he'd risk your modesty. Right? He could respect that.

That's the idea, anyway.

Your shopping trip has ended, and you're sporting your new skirt, holding a bag of clothes casually in one hand. It's a beautiful day. The sun is shining brightly on the town, birds are chirping, and there's an arm around your waist.

Wait.

Your eyes widen as you're pulled back forcefully, soaring several feet backwards into the air. A scream rips from your throat as you're pulled into Luffy's arms, and the rubber man is running with impressive speed through town. Your arms wrap around his neck tightly to hang on, and everything is whirring by so fast that you can't figure out what's happening immediately. All that you know is you're moving, you've lost your bag of clothes, and Luffy is the culprit.

“Hey, (Y/N), good thing I found ya! I lost Chopper and Usopp, but they'll catch up. We're gettin’ outta here!”

“Monkey D. Luffy, what the hell are you-?!”

Gunshots. You screech, scrambling as you shift in his arms. Luffy groans with mild irritation, adjusting his hold on you tightly as he sends an arm onto a nearby pole. He launches you both up, and you bury your face in his neck.

“Marines?! How did that happen?!” You exclaim, and your face turns red as your skirt flies up. An arm moves from his neck, quickly scrambling to pull the fabric down.

“Oh - yeah! Turns out that treasure map was left by them! Funny, right?”

“Funny?!”

"Well, kinda." He shrugs, before turning his head out to the Marines. "Stupid jerks! We wanted our treasure!"

"There's Straw Hat!" A Marine yells, followed by several loud bangs from their guns.

You gasp as he jumps between buildings, and bullets are ricocheting off of stone structures you both pass, nearly grazing you. You're pretty sure some hit Luffy, bouncing off of his rubber legs and sending them off every which way. But your skirt keeps threatening to creep up, and you're not sure how tightly you can hang onto him with just one arm. Luffy can feel you bouncing in his grasp, and he glances down at you with a look.

“What's wrong? Put both arms around me or you're gonna fall!”

“I can't, my skirt!” You whine. “I'm gonna flash everyone!”

“Hm?” Luffy tilts his head, furrowing his brows as he looks down at your lap. Noticing your hand pinning your skirt down, he doesn't think twice. He reaches to grab your hand, pulling it around his neck.

“Luffy!”

“Stop whining, just hold on!” Luffy groans, and one of his hands moves to the fabric of your skirt before it can fly up any further. He holds it down, one hand on your skirt and the other wrapped around you tightly.

Your face flushes, and you gasp as he jumps from the roof of a building down to a tree, and then to the ground. You jostle with every move, but your arms have secured you to his body. You're safely nestled against him, and you don't think twice about moving.

》* 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • 。* 。° 。* 。 • ˚《

Incident Four - The Thousand Sunny, evening

The ship lurches as it lands in the ocean far from the island the crew was on. You all let out a collective sigh of relief as the sails carry you far, far away from that Marine trap. By the time you and Luffy had arrived on the ship earlier, everyone else had barely made it, and Franky had already loaded up the cola to coup de burst the crew to safety.

It's only now, in the aftermath of the fight, that Luffy's grasp on you loosens. He had been too caught up in punching and tossing Marines away to even think about letting you go. Your feet touch the deck carefully, and Luffy's rubber limbs retract as they snap back into place.

Your hands immediately move to straighten out your skirt, and you hear a huff from your Captain beside you. Glancing up, you take notice of the way he adjusts his hat, looking at you with a tilted head and a confused expression.

“Why're you wearin’ somethin’ like that, anyway? Makes it harder to fight, right?” He asks, and his tone is genuinely dumbfounded.

Your face flushes, and words die in your throat. What explanation is there? I didn't want you to toss me around? Clearly, that didn't work, and it feels a little embarrassing to say as much. You're not sure why, but telling Luffy you bought a skirt because of him feels weird. So, you clear your throat, leaning back against the railing of the ship behind you.

“Oh, um…just thought it was cute.” You lie, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear. “I didn't think we'd be running from Marines today.”

Luffy's quiet for a moment, and his eyes flicker to your skirt only briefly. He still looks dumbfounded.

“Huh. M'kay. Just don't complain when I grab ya next time that your skirt’s goin’ up.” He responds with a grin, a playful chuckle sounding from his chest.

This son of a-

"Sanjiiii! I'm hungry! Whadda ya got?” Luffy exclaims, turning away from you decisively.

“Can it, Luffy, we just got out of port! I need to unload the groceries!” Sanji shouts from across the deck.

Even though you're still annoyed, and your skirt is still riding up, you find yourself laughing. Maybe the Captain grabbing you for adventures isn't the worst thing in the world.

#one piece #op #luffy #luffy x reader #monkey d luffy #monkey d luffy x reader #monkey d luffy fluff #luffy fluff #luffy x reader fluff #nami #cat burglar nami #sanji #black leg sanji #one piece fanfiction #op fanfiction

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anim-ttrpgs · 4 months ago

Note

Y'all state in the Eureka rulebook (at least the version I have) "In our experience, the more preparation,the better, no matter the genre." I was wondering if you've expanded on that anywhere? I've been rambling in my drafts about how different games talk about prep, including PbtA games which often state outright that you should only make limited preparations.

Yeah this is something that it would be a good idea to expand upon, because “GM prep” is word that has been so diluted and corrupted by D&D5e and its toxic critical role play culture, where “GM prep” means “they will do this, and when they do, the music will be timed just right and the battle map will be so impressive, etc.” PBTA is telling you to avoid prep because it doesn’t want you doing that kind of prep (and no good RPG does). This can work for PBTA for a number of reasons that I actually don’t want to get into in the interest of time but it has a lot to do with the pure genre emulation and the limitedness of the playbooks.

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, however, cannot get away with this because it is both a much more expansive “toolbox” game and because it is explicitly a mystery-investigation game. There are many other games that do also really benefit from the type of prep that Eureka wants from its GMs, such as dungeon crawlers, but Eureka needs it the most.

But the kind of prep Eureka wants isn't “they will do this and when they do it will be perfectly timed and look so impressive,” it is “what if they do this? What if they do that? What if they do some other third thing?”

A Eureka GM needs to have something ready for the shed behind the house, in case a PC decides to go to the shed behind the house, because this is a mystery game. You can’t just improv it, if you make something up on the spot, then and that thing doesn’t perfectly adhere to the facts of the case, the case can be ruined. That’s why we push for using adventure modules so much, because they’re literally designed to do that prep for you.

TL:DR

TTRPGs are games where anything can happen, so instead of being extremely meticulously prepared for one possibility, a good GM is moderately prepared for a wide variety of possibilities. In a game where “the facts” not 100% lining up doesn’t fully matter or isn’t likely to be pried into, you can get away with lower prep in each of your possibilities you’ve prepped for, but in a game where “the facts” and tiny little details are all that matters, you should have a high level of preparedness for each possibility, and the best way to do that is to use an adventure module.

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lolasangelz · 2 months ago

Text

easter at the cameron-hills

w/c: 565

a/n: happy easter!! im imagining if this was at gigi's family due to their traditions it would be religious (and intense)

ᵕᵕᵕᵕ୨♡︎୧ᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕ୨♡︎୧ᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕ୨♡︎୧ᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕ୨♡︎୧ᵕᵕᵕᵕ

easter at the cameron-hills household was never simple.

whether it was at the camerons, the hills, or at home, it always came with a side of chaos - strained smiles, too many expectations, and kids way too hyped on sugar before 9 a.m.

but this year, it was at home.

and it started with screaming.

"has the easter bunny came?!" "CHOCOLATE!" "i saw something by the sofa!" "it was probably dad’s sock." "EW!"

rafe groaned beside her, face buried in the pillow. georgia cracked one eye open and saw the clock blink 6:41 am

“they’re too loud,” he mumbled.

“they’re your kids.”

he rolled over, arm thrown across her waist. “they’re only mine when they’re quiet.”

grayson burst through the door then, basket in hand, cheeks flushed. “mama! mama! the bunny CAME!”

gigi sat up, rubbing her face. rafe stayed horizontal.

it only got messier from there. there was chocolate smeared on the wall by 7:06 am, and maggie had somehow managed to get an entire foil wrapper stuck in her curls. maddie wore her bunny ears upside down and insisted it was fashion. emerson - clipboard in hand - had drafted a detailed egg-hunting map, complete with time slots and a “no dad interference” rule.

gigi gave up after grayson hid an egg inside a shoe.

rafe, to his credit, handled breakfast. store-bought cinnamon rolls, sliced fruit, coffee so strong it made gigi blink twice. he moved slowly but with purpose - and not once did he look at his phone. not once did he talk about work. just… was there.

“you let them eat chocolate before breakfast,” gigi muttered, walking past him in a cloud of bunny stickers and glitter.

“you were still asleep,” he said gently. “you needed it.”

she wanted to argue, but he smiled at her, soft and knowing, and she didn’t. she just stole a sip of his coffee and leaned into his shoulder for a second longer than usual.

photos came after. gigi wrestled the kids into pastels, rafe snapped the pictures, and somehow one turned out perfect - four laughing, wrinkled-nosed babies, and gigi standing behind them mid-laugh, rafe’s hand just barely visible on her waist.

“we’re getting good at this,” he said quietly when he showed her the photo.

“what, parenting?”

“no. surviving.”

the day died down after that. the kids watched a movie, half-asleep in a nest of blankets and sugar comas. maggie drooled on rafe’s chest, grayson curled against his side. gigi watched from the kitchen, heart full in a way that made her ache.

later, when they were alone, rafe found her in the bedroom folding tiny pastel clothes into a too-small drawer.

“you okay?” he asked, voice low.

“just tired.”

he wrapped his arms around her from behind. she leaned back, let herself breathe.

“remember our first easter?” she said.

“you cried in the bathroom.”

“i didn’t cry.”

“you did. your sister sent some passive-aggressive gift basket and you threw a chocolate bunny at the sink.”

she laughed, soft and surprised.

“we were a mess.”

“we still are.”

she turned, rested her forehead against his. “i don’t mind anymore.”

he kissed her then, sweet and slow. like something that had always been there, just waiting for the quiet to come out.

outside, the sky turned that easter-evening gold, and inside, in the warm hush of home, everything felt a little more possible.

ᵕᵕᵕᵕ୨♡︎୧ᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕ୨♡︎୧ᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕ୨♡︎୧ᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕᵕ୨♡︎୧ᵕᵕᵕᵕ

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abbyandersxnswife · 8 months ago

Text

Look for the Light ── ᖭི༏ᖫྀ

Canon Abby! x reader; apocalypse au!

Synopsis: You and Abby used to be best friends back in the Fireflies, but after her trip to Jackson, she makes it clear she no longer wants to be friends. If anything, she doesn't seem to even like you anymore. However, her actions keep stating otherwise...

Warnings for; Smut, switch Abby! Follows timeline of TLOU2

Word count: 3.9k

✦ ───────────────────── ✦

You didn't know Abby Anderson.

At least, not anymore.

Now she was just Issac's top Scar killer, another soldier in the WLF, another person like any other.

You arrived at Soundview Stadium a few months ago with a few other WLF soldiers, your patrol unit finally moving in after guarding a post near the Seraphites Island.

You still remembered the day you first ran into Abby again, surprised to see her returning from the lodge up in Jackson.

You didn't know how high she had climbed in the ranks with Issac then, all you knew then was that your old best friend was standing in front of you, walking with Owen and Mel- and you nearly knocked her over when you ran to give her a hug, burying your face in the crook of her neck, never so glad to smell the familiar scent of pine and vanilla. Abby had been strangely stiff, patting you awkwardly on the back like you hadn't spent nearly two years with her in the Fireflies.

Seeing her gave you hope, hope that you two could talk and make up for lost time, finally have some companionship- but that hope was quickly dashed when Abby made it clear to you that she didn't want that at all.

She had said it later on when you two were alone, your things finally unpacked in the tiny room. You had tried to ask her how she was doing, how Jackson went, if she was alright, but it all fell on deaf ears.

"Listen y/n..."

Abby had said, pausing for a moment, rubbing the back of her neck. It was as if she knew this wasn't a good idea, that the next words were words she couldn't take back.

"I don't think we should be friends, I know we used to be but that was a long time ago- I'm just not the person you used to know."

You had been hurt then, hoping she'd give you more of a reason, but Abby was silent, her once bright blue eyes cold and dim.

If Abby Anderson no longer wanted to be friends, if she wanted to pass by you in the hall like you didn't once know every detail about each other - fine.

Fine by you.

"Y/n?"

You opened your eyes groggily and opened the door to see Nora standing in the threshold.

"Hey, Issac wants you to report to him- says he's got the details for your latest mission"

You smiled, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes.

"Thanks, Nora, I'll be there in a sec"

You threw on some clothes before heading out, making your way up to Issac's office.

"Hey-"

You pushed open the door and saw Abby, Manny, and Issac already waiting for you, and felt your heart drop into your stomach at the sight of her.

"Ahhh, y/n there you are, now we can get started. A rogue group of Seraphites attacked a patrol yesterday down by the Eastbrook area- I want you guys to go in and sweep to make sure they're all gone. Bring any supplies you find back." Issac pointed to the map on the table for emphasis.

"Y/n, I know you haven't been on a mission with these two before but trust me, they're good. I can get your old crew for a different mission another time"

"No problem Issac, I can work with anyone"

"Great," Issac said before continuing, "When you return, we'll start drafting our plans to invade the Seraphites' Island, we can take the boats and see if we can defeat them on home territory."

Your gaze immediately darted to Abby, wondering what she thought of the news, but she only stared stubbornly ahead.

"Grab something to eat and then head out, take the truck, Manny."

"Alright, let's go guys"

Manny left, and you watched Abby leave as well, trailing behind them, sighing inwardly at the day ahead of you. Today's mission was gonna be a long one.

"The Seraphites have been growing bold lately"

Manny broke the silence, seemingly oblivious to the tension that lay between you and Abby.

The back of the truck was snug, Manny and Abby on one side, you on the other. Abby was looking anywhere but your face it seemed, and you sat there quietly, pretending like you weren't sneaking glances whenever you got the chance. After all, this was the closest you had been to her in years.

To be fair, you both equally avoided each other at base- she didn't want anything to do with you, so why would you bother with her?

"Yeah well they broke the treaty, if any of them are at Eastbrook we wipe the site and leave"

The air is chilly when you step out, you adjust your jacket and flip the safety off your gun.

"School looks deserted, but best if we just do a patrol of the site just to be sure. Abby, go with her, patrol the inside, I'll do a grounds check first"

Manny walks off, gun in hand, already entering an old school bus parked in front of the school.

"Come on" Abby says, and you follow her as she prys open the front door.

The interior of the school is a mess, the wallpaper of the walls peeling, desks pushed half hazardly into the hall. Sad shreds of streamers hang from the ceiling, every window smashed, the shards glistening on the floor.

You enter a classroom, pushing the door open with your gun.

Your eyes light up at the greenery inside, the schooldesks covered in a bed of moss, ivy hanging from holes in the ceiling.

"It's beautiful-" You say to yourself, bending down to pick up the remainders of the kids' drawings on the ground. You examine one, it's a picture of a house with what looks to be a horse-

"Can you stay focused? We're supposed to be looking for supplies"

Abby's voice cuts sharply through the silence, the only sound the rifling she's causing by searching through the desks.

You sigh and help her, retrieving a roll of bandages and a few packs of old batteries before moving onto the next room.

Abby finds the cafeteria at the end of the hall, and the old shelves of the cafeteria pantry prove to be quite sparse, with nothing but some old bean cans that Abby takes anyway. She's still acting like you don't exist, so you've got a whole lot of time to examine your surroundings.

You hear a creak while searching through the cupboards and pause, listening for footsteps.

"Do you mind moving a little quicker? Maybe your old patrol did things slower, but I'd like to get back to base sometime soo-"

"Shut up!" You whisper harshly, cutting her off.

Abby looks offended, finally training her gaze on yours, but your eyes dart away to the doors of the cafeteria.

"What?"

Abby asks, watching you.

You hear it again, a second creak. You push Abby up against the wall by the lapels of her jacket, her blue eyes wide with surprise. Her gaze darts down to your lips for a second before her arms come up to pull yours off.

"Woah y/n- what are you-"

A loud bang interrupts Abby's next words, the double wooden doors of the cafeteria slamming open as five Seraphites rush in.

"Seraphites!" You yell, dragging Abby down with you to avoid the gunfire.

Abby breaks out of your hold, punching the nearest Seraphite in the face as you shoot the second. The third Seraphite comes running at you, tackling you to the ground, slamming your wrist against the concrete floor. A sharp pain runs through your arm, and you watch as he kicks your gun out of reach. You grapple on the floor together, kicking as he attempts to strangle you, worried about Abby- before a loud gunshot rings out and the Seraphite's body slumps over you.

Abby stands over you, one hand extended. You take it.

The other two Seraphites lay dead on the ground, bodies riddled with bullets. You brush yourself off, but the ache in your arm is making itself more evident.

"Thanks"

Abby hands you your gun but her brows furrow at the way you cradle your left arm gingerly.

"Are you okay?" She asks.

You feign nonchalance as best you can.

"Yeah.. but my arm might not be"

Abby hesitates for a moment, but reaches out and examines your arm. Her touch is soft, a strange contrast to the stoic way she's been acting this whole mission.

"I think medical should check you out" Abby says, clearing her throat. "Come on we should head back to the truck."

Abby steps back and pushes open the doors. You follow her out.

Medical let you go with a brace for the minor fraction on your left arm. You felt miserable, first mission back in the field and injured- you wouldn't be cleared to go on another for at least another few weeks.

You sat slumped against a bookshelf in the library, half hazardly reading "City of Thieves" by David Benioff, ignoring the dull ache in your arm. You'd been doing this for at least a week now, hiding out from prying eyes.

"Y/n?"

Your eyebrows raised at the sound of Abby's voice, and even further when she came over, standing awkwardly in front of you.

"How's your arm?"

Abby asked, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

"It's fine, I guess," You replied. "Just reading to pass the time. Medical ordered I "take it easy" for the next two weeks." You rolled your eyes at the last part. The corners of Abby's mouth twitched, as if she was holding back a smile, but you were sure it was a trick of the light.

"That sucks.. what are you reading?"

Much to your surprise, Abby sat down next to you, one muscular arm reaching over your lap to grab your book.

"Hey, City of the Thieves? I'm reading this one right now- no spoilers"

She held up a finger in warning, and you smiled at her attempt to joke.

"Yeah, yeah" You waved her away.

A beat of silence stretches between you, and you work up the courage to break it.

"So.. what did you come here for? We both know it wasn't just to talk about books"

"I.." Abby looked at the floor, picking at the fabric below. "I wanted to apologize for what I said a few months ago.. and how I've been treating you ever since. I'm sorry"

Abby stops to look up at you, and you take the opportunity to study her. Her cheekbones are a little sharper. There's a healing cut across her cheek that hadn't been there before. Her rosy cheeks, full lips, and clear blue eyes- they're the same.

She's still your Abby, somewhere.

But the hurt you felt then, the lack of company you've had, the loneliness you've felt? It's also there, somewhere.

"Why'd you do it then?"

You ask, and Abby's eyes drop back to the floor. She's silent for so long you're sure she's going to just leave, but she answers.

"I thought I'd feel better after I found the guy who killed my dad in Jackson... but, I don't."

You inhale at her admission, eyes searching for hers as she meets your gaze. The softness she finds in yours prompt her to press on,

"I feel like nothing makes me happy anymore, I still wake up every night from reoccuring nightmares about him- and I've pushed a lot of people away because of how angry I feel. Angry that he's left me, angry that killing the one guy I trained for 4 years to fight to avenge him didn't make me feel better, angry that I've fucked up in every relationship with anyone I care about because of it-"

Abby runs her hands through her hair, smoothing down the stray strands of hair in her braid.

"Y/n, I pushed you away because I care about you. I was being fucking stupid back then- and every time after. I wanted to be near you so much but I felt like I didn't deserve it. I'm not a good person. You deserve someone better than me"

Abby hung her head and stood up, ready to accept whatever you had to say.

"That's up to me to decide Abs."

You said softly, and Abby looked up in surprise. She felt both shock and happiness when you hugged her, and for a second she stood still. Was she allowed to have this? To have you, even for a moment?

Abby hesitated for a moment, before burying her face in your hair, pressing you closer to her.

She never wanted to lose you again.

The next few weeks passed by in a blur, your arm healing up just fine. You and Abby spent a lot of time together- eating together in mess hall, going for walks around the crop fields- she helped keep your mind off the itch you felt to get back out.

Lately though, Abby had been acting a little strange, spending more time in the gym, off walking Alice or talking to Manny more than she usually did. You assumed it was nothing though, after all, what else could it be?

"Did you hear? Issac's gonna do a large-scale attack on the Seraphites Island, Manny and Abby got instructed to lead the assault with their chosen squads."

You overhear Nora talking to Mel on your way to mess hall, and your eyebrows furrow. You remember Issac talking about invading the Seraphites back when, but Abby hasn't mentioned it to you at all. Before you have more time to think about it further, Abby arrives and hands you a still warm burrito.

"Hey y/n, brought you breakfast"

Abby smiles at you, and you smile back despite the worry at the back of your mind. She would tell you, wouldn't she?

"Wanna go for a walk?" Abby asks, but you shake your head. You're due for a visit to Medical- you hadn't been needing your arm brace and was sure that with a medical note Issac would dispatch you to assignments again.

The Medical Bay turned out to be quite empty, so you're out with the note clutched in your hand in no time.

You head up to Issac's, past the cells holding Seraphites, and knocked politely on the interrogation door. Issac emerged a dew seconds later.

"Y/n? Oh, a medical note"

While Issac read, you inquired about the rumor you'd heard at breakfast, trying your best to seem casual.

"Abby and Manny are leading the squads in the assault on Seraphites Island right? Would I be able to join them?"

Issac looked surprised,

"You'd have to ask them, they get first pick of who they'd like, then I'll form the rest of the squadrons. Why don't you talk to Abby? I'm surprised she didn't ask you already, I told her about it weeks ago."

Issac's words ring in your ears as you make your way down to Abby's room. You knock on her door for a second before you burst in.

Abby's shirt is off, her dark grey tank laid out on the bed. She's in the middle of drying her wet hair when she sees you come in. You can't help but stare- at her abs, at her white bra, at her unbuttoned dark green cargo pants- and ignore the flutter in your stomach.

You wrench your gaze away.

"Y/n?! What's wrong?"

Abby moves towards you, but you put a hand out. Her cheeks flush when she realizes what she's wearing, or the lack thereof, and bends down to grab her shirt.

"I got cleared from Medical! And uh.. Issac told me you and Manny are leading squads for the invasion against the Seraphites?"

You say, addressing the ceiling.

"Oh.." Abby says, trailing off. She slips on her tank top, stalling.

"I.. I only just found out," Abby lies, "I haven't decided who I want for the squadron yet-"

"You just found out?" You say, angry at her blatant lie. "Don't lie, I know Issac asked you weeks ago"

Abby's tone is defensive,

"Did you ask him behind my back?"

"When were you planning to tell me?" You shoot back, "Were you planning to tell me?"

Abby backtracks at your words, rambling. Her hands raise, like she's guilty of a crime.

"I was- I swear I was, I would have asked you to be on the squadron but your arm was still healing and-"

"Why didn't you just tell me? Forget picking me to be on your squadron, I don't care about that- were you just gonna leave and not tell me? Let me wonder if you fucking died or not?"

Abby's eyebrows raise in alarm, realizing her misstep at identifying what was making you so upset. She sits down, wiping her sweaty hands on her cargos.

"No- y/n, I promise I would have told you, I just didn't want to ruin the peace we were building- and honestly I'm sure I'll be fine, I've done tons of patrols-"

You shake your head-

"Be honest. This is just another way of pushing me away, isn't it? Have you been having nightmares again? Why can't you just be honest with me, what's going on?"

Abby's face breaks, the flicker of conflicting emotions clear to you for a moment. She warrs against touching you, but loses the internal battle. She pulls you closer to her position sitting on the edge of the bed, hands caressing the back of your thighs, unsure of if it's reassuring you or her.

"The nightmares... they never stopped." Abby takes a breath before continuing, "And.. Owen's missing, his patrol partner Danny was found dead," Abby explains, "I keep pushing you away because it hurts that I might lose you. What if Owen's dead? What if that was you next? I don't want to lose you."

Your eyes soften at her words,

"Abs, I'm sure Issac's got people out looking for Owen... and you won't lose me. I may not be as seasoned as you are, but I held my own just fine at the Seraphite outpost for months. Besides, if I go with you, you'll be there to watch my back."

You reach out and cradle her face, stepping a little closer, now stood directly between her legs.

Abby hugged you around the waist, hiding her face in your sweater, voice a little muffled.

"Issac said Owen is a traitor- that he killed Danny to protect.. a Seraphite. I told him it wasn't true, that there was no way he'd do that, that if I could just look for him I'd bring him back- but Issac refused. He wouldn't let me look for him."

Abby looks up at you, a mixture of grief and worry plain on her face. A stray tear rolls down her cheek and you brush it away.

"You're all I have left y/n." Abby whispers.

You crumble like putty in her hands, biting your plush lip as you look at her. Abby felt like she was going to explode.

This whole time, Abby's thought the way she felt about you was one-sided. Even when she was busy pretending to no longer care about you, even when she was staring straight head walking past you in the halls, even that damn school during your first mission together- a bit of her always longed for you.

She had tried to chalk it up to the fact she missed her best friend over the years, that she had a stupid girl crush in her teens, but these past few weeks only served to prove her wrong.

So, when you lean into her, Abby can't resist. She feels like she's lost everything- her dad, Owen- and you're all she has left. Can anyone blame her for acting on what she wants, just once?

Abby pulls you into her lap just as your lips crash into hers, both of you reaching for the other.

Butterflies flutter in your stomach as you kiss Abby, her large hands gently pressing you closer at the small of your back, and your hands tangle in her hair.

You can't get enough of her, hands pulling up her shirt, running your fingertips over her midriff as she shivers at your touch.

"Y/n? We don't have to do anything if you don't want to-"

You cut Abby off with a firm kiss as you push her over.

"Abs, I want to. I want you"

Abby grins at your words, and pulls you down into her for another kiss. Her hands guide your hips as you grind down on her, moaning into her mouth.

Abby thinks this is the closest she'll get to heaven, and flips you both over, her body pressed up against yours.

"I'm glad- I've wanted you for so long" Abby says, kissing down your neck, moving your shirt aside for easier access. You moan as she leaves hickies on your chest, her hands already undoing your pants, fingers dipping down into you.

"Oh baby, you're so wet for me"

Abby's voice is huskier than you've ever heard it, and you feel yourself get even wetter at her words. She rubs your clit with her thumb as she slips two fingers in, fucking you at a quick pace.

"Abs-" You choke out, hands reaching for her.

Abby smiles, love clear on her face.

"You sound so pretty y/n"

You pull at Abby's hair and she sucks at your nipples as she fucks you. You're sure there will be hickies all your neck come tomorrow.

"Fuck, Abs I'm gonna-"

"Come for me"

You come, shaking in her arms. Abby sucks her fingers clean, grinning at the brilliant shade of red you turn in response. You pull her in for another kiss before murmuring,

"Your turn"

Abby sheds her cargos, climbing back onto the bed. You slide your fingers through her wet folds, eliciting a sigh from her as you sink two fingers in, curling them to hit her gspot. You're maintaining a regular pace when Abby speaks up,

"That feels so good- but can you add another?"

You blink, but smirk as you obey her request. You speed up your pace, three fingers disappearing in her dripping cunt quickly, Abby's whimpers growing louder with every thrust.

"Fuck- y/n, I'm gonna come-"

Abby whimpers as she comes, growing tight around your fingers as she grips the headboard above your head.

You smile at her, sucking your fingers as payback for her earlier stunt, and she just laughs, rich and warm.

"I'm glad we both feel the same way about each other" Abby says, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear.

"I think we always have" You admit, hands cradling her face before drawing her in for another kiss. Abby's eyes are relaxed, her grin wide. You continue, smiling softly-

"You won't lose me, Abs. You never have, and you never will."

✦ ─────────────────────────── ✦

#abby anderson #abby anderson x reader #abby anderson smut #abby anderson tlou2 #tlou2 #abby anderson the last of us 2 #the last of us 2 #Abby Anderson switch!#abby x reader #canonAbby!#abby anderson fluff #abby anderson angst #the last of us #the fireflies

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the-odd-shu · 7 months ago

Text

Lab shenanigans

Characters: Viktor, Jayce, Reader

A thread following the chaotic trio that is, laboratory illustrator!Reader, Viktor and Jayce being unsupervised in the lab.

Note this takes place during season 1:

Gender Neutral!Reader who got hired as the lab illustrator because neither Jayce nor Viktor can draw and they need an illustrator to document all their official papers with recognisable diagrams of their inventions.

The next part

Masterlist

Reader who was just freshly been employed as the lab illustrator, sitting diligently at their new desk whilst Jayce fetches the research folder and Viktor tinkers away in the background.

Reader who lets Jayce set down the heavy folder on their desk, which holds all of the pair's research as well as hundreds of cruedly drawn sketches of inventions such as the Hexclaw and early drafts of the Hexgates, drawn by both himself and Viktor. (They are not drawn well, and it is only because most of the drawings are labelled with big, obnoxoious arrows that you actually know what you're looking at).

Jayce pausing in his explanations of the tech on each page and his promises to pull everything out of storage when you need it for a refence, slowly trailing off when he catches sight of your reaction to the drawings: "Why are you making that face?"

Reader who is diligently flicking through the pages and trying not to crack up at the poorly drawn stick figures, and the messy, uneven parallel lines of wires and robotic arms, and the scribbled oblong that is supposed to be one of the gemstones. They're not half bad attempts from people who focus their energy and time into math equations and flowery research papers, but that doesn't mean they're not amusing to look at.

"What face? I'm not making a face."

Reader turns all of their attention down to the pages and proceeds to fail at smothering their snort as the concept sketch of one of the Zaun suits. They push the folder back along the desk, to create enough space to prop their elbows on the table, to pinch the bridge of their nose hard to try and school themselves into some form of calm.

"Why are you laughing?" Jayce asks, sounding geniunely confused.

Whilst Reader tries to save face by responding, "I'm not. I'm just- uh, coming to terms with how much work I have ahead of me."

Jayce frowns.

The commotion has caught Viktor's attention.

"Well, it is a lot." Jayce allows, "but we won't rush you. The deadline is months away after all, and if-"

His words fade into the background in your mind as Viktor chooses then to roll over on his wheelie office chair to see what's going on, only to immediately grin in understanding. He rolls his chair up on the adjascent side of your desk, mouth pulled into a wicked smirk as he points to a particularly wobbly zaun suit drawing. "That would be one of Jayce's masterpieces."

Jayce lets out an offended noise, whilst Viktor takes malicious joy in flipping through the folder to point out which other drawings were done by Jayce. Most of them are wobbly and uneven, but have clearly been mapped out with steady, slow care.

In retaliation, Jayce swipes the folder out of Viktor's gleeful hands, and pointedly flips to a fresher page dated back to a couple of days ago. You catch a glimpse of the title 'hexcore', scrawled across the top in confident letters, before Jayce is turning the folder back to you and loudly proclaiming the work of art as Viktor's.

[The ‘hexcore’ has been drawn with wobbly, uneven lines that lacked the sleek, parallel look of the actual subject, with poorly recreated runes that did not at all take into account perspective or foreshortening.]

Reader loses it at the attempt, whilst Jayce and Viktor continue to squabble with one another in the background.

I just NEED all three of them to spend countless hours in that laboratory getting stuck in their respective tasks (creative Vs Scientific) and all three of them come out aching and satisfied by the time the janitor comes round to kick them out for the night, despite doing jobs that require different parts of their brains. The overlap of countless, almost unsolvable equations, with the hours of staring at a blank page and slowly but surely coaxing out an image, it just so precious to me somehow.

Bonus points of course, if Jayce and Viktor are getting really into a scientific debate across the room by the chalkboard, flinging enormous words back and forth at one another, whilst Reader slowly dies inside trying to make the metal part of an invention LOOK like metal.

I just need Reader allowing the background muttering and excited exclamations to sooth them as they carefully draw another diagram above a neatly scrawled out text box of the pair's latest concept.

Jayce: “Yes! That could work! What do you think, Y/n?”

Reader: Head snaps up at being addressed. “Uh…”

They blue screen as they come back to reality and realise they haven’t moved in hours and their back and neck desperately ache from the movement. They're suddenly starving, and hungry, and really need to pee, but didn't notice before because they were so engrossed in their work. Kind of like how the other two get about their research.

Viktor being a night owl and working on projects late into the night.

Jayce being smart and taking cat naps on his desk because he's an early bird, but a deadline is coming up and he refuses to be defeated by exhaustion.

And then you have Reader. Who is not being supervised in the kitchen, where they've made their fifth coffee and with shaking, caffeinated hands, they begin pouring in a generous helping of a Piltover energy drink.

Viktor hears the can pop.

He says your name warningly. "You better not be making that culinary monstrosity again."

Instead of responding, they knock back the whole mug in desperate gulps, ignoring the rancid taste and shivering from the mix of burning liquid with the pop of hundreds of tiny bubbles.

The mug gets slammed loudly back on the counter. Viktor sighs heavily and pushes his wheelie chair towards Jayce's desk.

He wakes him up, with a prod of his cane into his side.

"I'm about to have a breakthrough." He explains quickly motioning to his desk. Blary eyed and clearly not fully awake yet, Jayce nods along. Viktor points dramatically to Jayce and then in the direction of the kitchen. "You're on assistant duty for the next half an hour."

The tiredness leeches out of Jayce's face. "They didn't-"

"They did."

"But they've already got caffeine shakes!"

"Tell that to the sound of the kettle bubbling away and the pop of a can lid. It has already happened Jayce. All we can do now it keep the damage to a minimum."

On silent feet, Reader's shadow appears on the other side of the desk. Both men jump. The light overhead casts their face into shadows and somehow makes their eyes glow. It is a terrifying sight.

Viktor recovers first. "We need to put a bell on you!"

"Kinky. Now, whatdoyouwantmetodrawnext?!" Their assistant rushes out in a single breath.

And both scientists pale. It was already beginning then.

The next four hours consists of Jayce struggling to keep his eyes open whilst Reader pokes fun at him and offers up their 'creation', Jayce firmly declining and trying to get on with his work, whilst Viktor keeps to himself and snorts periodically at the banter.

Reader draws and draws and then rubs out, before diligently getting back to drawing again. There is a frenzy to their marks. A wildness to their eyes. The scratch and scritch of their pen, getting lost amongst the sound of cogs turning and screws tightening and Jayce's yawning. So much so that when it suddenly ceases, neither of the scientists notice at first.

Not until Viktor asks for a warm tea, only for the previously eager assistant not to respond. He lets out a fond sigh, Jayce straightening up from his own work.

Reader is passed out on their sketchbook, having FINALLY crashed.

Viktor gets up to make his own tea.

Jayce shrugs off his jacket, and puts it over their shoulders as a makeshift blanket. The man has such broad shoulders that it practically swallows the assistant from sight, but they do not stir.

"That'll give them an awful neck ache tomorrow." Viktor observes aloud.

Jayce snorts. "Maybe it'll be enough of a punishment to stop them making that foul concoction."

"Unlikely."

Jayce just shakes his head and collapses back onto his desk and lays his head down on his arm. "Ten minutes." He mutters out before closing his eyes.

Viktor hums. And by the time he gets his tea back to the desk, his partner is out like a light, just as he had predicted.

"I CANNOT believe you're making me do this Jayce." Viktor exclaims sarcastically.

"Viktor. Please let me get that cog for you. Just this time. Please!"

"Oh no, no, do not get up on my account." Viktor firmly dismisses as he shimmies down his cane, one hand over the other all the whilst making exaggerated groaning noises.

Jayce is practically vibrating in place. "Please! It is literally all the way under that side board. Can I just slide it out for you? You can pick it up yourself."

"Oh no, do not strain yourself!" Viktor insists, sitting himself down on the floor, one hand holding his cane up as he shoves his other arm under the side board.

"VIKTOR!" Jayce all but whines, and takes a step forward.

"Ah!" Viktor immediately reprimands. "Y/n get the spray bottle!"

You've been watching the entire scene in amusement from your desk. Quietly giggling at Viktor's ribbing and Jayce's desperation to be useful. They make a rather amusing duo.

Jayce's eyes have jumped up to you. Frozen mid-step, eyes pleading.

You grin, pointedly reaching across the gap between yours and Viktor's desks to grab said spray bottle.

On the floor, Viktor makes a triumphant noise, before straightening up and brandishing the cog above his head. "Got it!" He exclaims, before slamming the blasted thing onto the side board. Then he tries to clamber back up his cane to his feet. He is unsuccessful as his leg decides not to co-operate this time.

He sighs. "Jayce." He says heavily, "as punishment for making me get down here in the first place-"

"What?! I've literally been-"

"As reprimand for your dastardly crimes. You are obligated to offer me one hand. But ONLY one, or your punishment shall evolve into death by spray bottle." Dramatically, he holds out his hand to his exasperated partner.

In support, you give the spray bottle a little squeeze in Jayce's direction, to which he shoots you a dark look. You merely grin back.

Then Jayce offers Viktor his hand, their fingers wrapping around the others wrist. "Slow." Viktor instructs, as he readjusts his legs into the right position. Jayce nods.

Then Jayce gently pulls Viktor up as Viktor balances between his feet and his cane.

"Thank you." He says, patting Jayce on the cheek, before promptly turning on his heel to retreat back to his desk.

They're so silly, I love them so much.

The next part

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zeltqz · 1 year ago

Text

call me or not, it's up to you pt 2 | haitani ran

☰ — synopsis : you finally called ran back after a disagreement with your boyfriend.

☰ — pairing : haitani ran x fem!reader ☰ — length : 5.8k words ☰ — contents : nsfw and 18+ contents, mentions of violence, protected sex, protective ran ☰ — notes : this has been in the drafts for WEEEKS but i had to post for my mans birthday, couldn't miss it

On the way home, Ran’s peaceful drive was interrupted by the sound of his phone ringing. Initially he would’ve ignored it, but one glance to where his phone was sitting in the cup holder, he almost lost control of the wheel seeing your name. The streets were fairly empty at this time of night, so nobody was disrupted when he pulled over abruptly, clearing his throat before answering.

“Hello?”

Soft sniffles filled the car from where his phone was connected to his speakers, and his concern grew significantly. “Ran?”

“Why are you crying?” he asked, fingers tightening against the wheel as he waited for you to continue.

You paused briefly, exhaling exhaustedly. “A—are you busy right now?”

“No.” He started driving again, slowly. “But why are you crying?”

“I need you to pick me up. If that’s not too much stress for you. I, um, I really need help.”

“Sure, I mean. Send me your location.” You murmured a soft agreement and he heard your fingernails tapping against the screen, a notification message sliding down his screen seconds later. “Why do you need help? Talk to me.” Ran leaned forward to connect his GPS to your location.

“It’s a long story,” you sighed. He could hear your teeth clattering together as you shivered. It was incredibly dark outside right now, the skies pitch black, streets tinted orange from the streetlights, and the heavy rainfall that’d been plaguing the city for the last few hours.

“We have time,” Ran responded simply. He could practically feel you hesitating. “(Name) I need the full story here. Talk to me while I come get you.”

You pressed your lips together tightly, wrapping your arms around yourself as you shivered, goosebumps erupting on your skin. Your shirt was soaked through at this point, your jeans soggy and the lack of a coat made you certain you’d catch hypothermia later.

“I—uh. Basically I got into an argument with um, Masato. You know him? He’s the um, dude from my story. A month ago?”

“I’m aware,” Ran responded dryly.

You swallowed thickly. “Yeah well. He was driving me home and we got into an argument because I didn’t like how he was flirting with one of the waitresses at the restaurant. And then he wanted to check my phone. I said no of course, but not because I was cheating or anything. I just didn’t like how he kept deflecting whenever his issues was brought up. But anyway, the argument escalated and he basically kicked me out the car and left me stranded god knows where. All the buses stopped running an hour ago, and the nearest train station is a 45 minute walk away. I have no money so I can’t call a cab. My wallet is in his car…and everything is just such a mess. I don’t have a jacket, I’m cold and I just don’t know what to do.”

By the time you finished your voice was tiny, and the sniffles came back as you fought from crying. Ran could practically picture your face right now, all teary eyed and sad and his grip on the wheel tightened immensely.

“I’m about fifteen minutes away, baby. Okay? Is there anywhere warm you can get to?”

You looked at your surroundings. A lone empty highway, with a diner in the distance, the words “OPEN 24/7” flashing in neon lights. “Yeah. There’s a diner around here.”

Ran looked at the map on his phone and confirmed the location of the diner with you. You nodded and he told you to get there quickly and he’d order you something once he got there. You thanked him and hung up, slowly making your way inside. You felt like a crazy person when you walked in, clothes soaked and wetting their floors as you made your way to sit down by the heater. A few concerned employees and customers glanced at you, but you ignored them in favour of wrapping your arms around yourself, a pitiful attempt of creating warmth.

Ran’s speeding managed to cut the fifteen minute drive into eight, and you were too busy staring at the table, tracing the wooden pattern with your eyes to see him pull into the parking lot. It wasn’t until the bell rang as he walked did you finally look up and meet his gaze.

He rushed over to you and you stood up quickly, wrapping your arms around him. He dropped his head to rest on top of yours and he could feel you shaking against him.

“You alright?” he asked and you nodded, not removing your head from his chest. He wrapped his arms around you tightly, feeling you clutch onto the front of his shirt.

“Um excuse me?” The two of you broke apart, staring at the waitress that stood a few feet away from you both, a notepad in her hand. “Are you two ordering anything?”

“You hungry?” Ran asked, looking down at you. You shook your head. “Thirsty?” You thought for a minute before nodding. “Hot chocolate for the lady please. Put marshmallows, whipped cream, whatever’s available in there.” He handed her his credit card and turned his attention back to you. “Look at me.”

You tilted your head up to look at him and he reached a tentative hand out to your cheek, cupping it. Your face was wet, from tears or the rain he didn’t know, frankly he didn’t care. His thumbs wiped some of the water away from your cheek, tracing over your features softly.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, wiping at your own face.

“For what?”

“For calling you like this. I didn’t want you to see me like this again. This is so embarrassing.”

Ran dropped his hand down to your arm, soothing the goosebumps erupted on your skin. “Take this.” He shrugged his jacket off his shoulders and you held your arms out as he helped you fit in through it.

“I look ridiculous,” you said with a teary laugh.

“You look cute.” He pinched your cheek and you pushed his hands away, a small smile on your face despite it all. The waitress came with your drink and the two of you sat down. He watched you take small sips of your drink, avoiding his intense eye contact.

After you finished your drink, he reached forward and wiped some whipped cream from the corner of your mouth. His thumb traced down to your chin, lingering for a few seconds before pulling away.

“Thank you for the drink.” You pushed the mug in the middle of the table, wrapping your arms back around yourself. “I’ll pay you back—”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Your eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t want you—”

“You just told me your wallet is gone. How are you going to pay me back?”

“...I’ll get it back—”

“Like hell you are,” he interrupted and you sat back, looking at him shocked. “You’re never seeing that man again. I’ll make sure of that.”

You scoffed, shaking your head. “Unbelievable. I didn’t call you so you can control every aspect of my life again Ran.”

He leaned forward, elbows resting on the table. “Why did you call me then? Last I recall, you have plenty of other friends that have cars.”

“T—that doesn’t matter why I called you, Ran,” you spluttered, not sounding the least bit convincing. His eyebrows rose and so did your temper. “I’m serious. I called you because you were the first person I thought of. You’re thinking too much about it.”

“Sure. If that’s what you believe,” he said, tone dripping with condescension that made you roll your eyes. Times like this is when you realised that missing Ran is completely different than actually being around him. He was insufferable and you remembered exactly why you had to break things off.

Ran stood from the table, dusting his clothes. “I’ll take you home. Come on.” He held his hand out.

Reluctantly you stood, grabbing your phone and storming past him, ignoring his hand. He simply smirked and followed after you. You waited outside his car, standing by the backseat with your arms crossed, his jacket over your head acting as an umbrella.

He unlocked his car and you slipped into the back.

“You can sit up front,” he suggested, shrugging when you stubbornly shook your head, staring resolutely out the window. He rolled his eyes, a light smirk still on his face. He drove at a slower speed than he usually would when he saw you starting to doze off against the seats, driving around in circles just to give you enough time to rest. You woke up an hour later, rubbing your eyes and blinking to adjust to the bright lights.

Looking around you realised you were parked in a familiar looking garage, the car empty. You slipped out of the car and into the house, walking through until you entered the living room. Ran was seated on the couch, watching tv and texting on his phone.

“Uh, Ran?” You approached the couch and he casted a glance in your direction. “Why am I here?”

“You really thought I’d take you home after that story you just told me on the phone?” His nose scrunched as he flipped through the channels. “I’m not stupid.”

“Okay, Masato isn’t like a serial killer or something. Relax. I’m safe at home.”

“Any right minded man that would leave a girl stranded on the streets in the freezing cold is definitely a cause for concern alright. You’re not going back there till I take care of things.”

“Oh. And by “take care” you mean getting your men to kill him? That’s it?” He stayed silent and you groaned. “I can’t do this. I’m tired, Ran. You know I hate violence. I don’t want the man dead either—”

“Well I do.”

“Good thing it’s not your call then,” you shot back, frowning. “This is my life not yours. You don’t get to decide who gets to stay in it or not.”

He tilted his head back and looked behind at you, the smile on his face turning into more of a smirk. “Do I get to stay or na?” You rolled your eyes and he reached behind him, grabbing your arm and pulling you closer to the couch. “Well?”

You shrugged, looking down at him. “I dunno.”

Shrugging his jacket off your shoulders, you folded it neatly and slung it on the back of the couch. “It’s complicated Ran,” you said, placing both hands on either side of his head, on the back of the couch.

“Doesn’t have to be.” He grabbed one of your hands, caressing your knuckles.

You found yourself hard pressed to look into those violet eyes of his staring intently back into yours. “Ran…it’s not that simple.”

“It can be. You just don’t like simple.”

You forcefully removed your hand from his. “Excuse me?”

“You always feel like shit has to be complicated in order for it to work. I noticed that you know?” You scoffed, and he rolled his eyes. “Don’t act dumb. We dated for seven years, I think you’d know a person after that long.”

“Crazy because if I were to sit here and say false things about you, then you’d just deny them because I don’t know better than you. Isn’t that right?”

“Nothing about what you say about me is false. You know this,” he said with an exaggerated sigh. He reached in his pocket, putting a cigarette into his mouth.

“So if I called you cold and manipulative, would you say I’m correct?”

He lit his cigarette and tossed his head back to look at you, exhaling smoke from his mouth. “You wouldn’t be wrong, no. But you’re only focusing on the negatives.” He reached his hand out again and you hesitated for a split second before grabbing his hand, allowing him to pull you back closer.

“I can’t think of any positives.”

He rolled his eyes. “Sure.” He took the cigarette out of his mouth and patted the spot on the couch next to him. You walked around the couch, sitting beside him, cringing at the feeling of your wet clothes on his leather couch.

He put the cigarette back in his mouth and examined you. “You’re still cold.”

“I’m fine.”

He wrinkled his nose, exhaling smoke through his nostrils. “Go shower. Wear some of my clothes.”

“Are you sure?”

He waved in the general direction of his bathroom and you thanked him. You returned back to the living room half an hour later, wearing one of his shirts that were too big for your body. Flopping back on the couch beside him, he offered you a cigarette to which you shook your head.

“Anyway back to me,” Ran said. You rolled your eyes. “You really can’t think of any positives to describe me? Come on, think deep.”

“This is starting to sound like couples therapy,” you stated dryly, He didn’t respond, just continued staring at you. “I dunno,” you said, picking at the skin on your lips. “Like, you’re funny I guess? You’re sweet, and caring in your own twisted fucked up way. You’re protective in a way that is a perfect mix of just good and overbearing. You’re fucking annoying sometimes too and—”

“Woah woah woah. Going off topic, a little bit?”

You smiled, a genuine laugh leaving your lips and Ran’s heart fluttered at the sight. He slung an arm over your shoulder, tugging you closer. You sighed, resting your head against his shoulder, closing your eyes when he kissed your forehead.

“I missed you a lot, you know?” You hummed in response, snuggling up beside him. When Ran had came back home and let you sleep in his car, he turned the heating on in every room in the house for you. The fact you still snuggled close to him for warmth made him smile a little bit. “Didja get my voicemail all those weeks ago?”

“Yeah.” You shifted to look up at him. “Gave me a bit of an ego boost not gonna lie,” you admitted.

He looked down at you. “Why’d you take so long to call me then?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm and level, to not show any betrayal of emotion. You didn’t respond and looked at the tv, distracted by your thoughts. He jostled you lightly. “Hm?”

“I don’t know,” you finally said after a few seconds. You looked back up at him. “I was petty and hurt still and part of me wanted to make you jealous.” You laughed lightly. “Was pretty shitty of me. I wanted to call you, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. And I shouldn’t have left you hanging like that. But I’m sorry, Ran.”

Ran hummed, the sound vibrating from his chest into yours. He looked away from you, staring at the television with an unreadable expression.There were many times you couldn’t understand what he was thinking. Ran was a man with an unbreakable exterior, and you could only think of one time in your eight year long relationship when you actually managed to crack through that hard shell of his.

When you found out Izana had died and Ran had gotten himself and his friends arrested. He was released a couple hours later and you came to pick him up from the station. It was hard seeing him more quiet than usual. He barely said a single word to you when you took him home and spent the night with him. That night was when you finally saw Ran cry for the first time and it was overwhelming for you. He wasn’t balling with tears, just a few drops and you wiped each tear drop away with your thumb. That night was so memorable for you and it stayed in your mind all those years later.

Right now he had that same unreadable, blank expression on his face as he stared at the television, his fingers softly grazing the unshaven stubble on his jaw. You looked up at him, chin on his shoulder and waited for him to finish his thoughts.

“What’s his full name?” he asked after a long moment of silence.

You swallowed. “Why?”

He shrugged. “Just curious.” You were looking at him weirdly, eyes roaming over his face as you tried to uncover any hidden agendas he might have. It still pissed you off how irritatingly good his poker face was.

Squinting at him, you slowly pulled back to sit close beside him, fiddling with the loose string on the sleeve on your shirt. “Promise you won’t…hurt him?”

“I won’t… not kill him,” he said with a smile that grew when you looked up at him exasperated. “I just wanna ask him some questions, s’all.”

You nervously chewed your bottom lip raw by the time you decided. You sighed. “It’s Masato Hirakawa. He’s my accountant,” you told him and Ran shifted on his side to look at you better. “He asked me out one evening and I said yes. We didn’t make things official until like two weeks ago and then that’s when things started going downhill.”

“Whaddya mean?”

You scrunched your nose. “We got drunk at a club last week and Yuzuha drunkenly mentioned the voicemail you left me and I just laughed it off but Masato looked confused and asked what we were talking about. I told him not to worry about it and he got upset, thinking I was hiding shit from him which made no sense because you left that voicemail before we were even official so I wasn’t cheating. But he didn’t care. He then went down a rabbit hole once he figured out your name and started like internet stalking you. He was googling everything he could find about you, was stalking your Instagram, seeing your lifestyle and he took whatever he was feeling out on me.”

Ran’s eyebrows slowly rose as he considered what you just said.

“Not physically,” you quickly added upon seeing his reaction. “No I mean he would get mad and yell at me, then one night he accused me of being a gold digger and using him for his money and I reminded him just because he’s an accountant that he’s not some millionaire and he needs to calm down. He started ranting and raving about you at any given time and it just got annoying. Every time I was on my phone he thought I was having an affair with you even though we haven’t been in contact in a literal year.” You laughed dryly.

“It was so stupid. And for what? It was only a week and it made me feel like I was just so…” you paused, trying to figure out the right words. “I don’t know. I just hated it so much. Then today with the car I slept in the car and he took my phone and listened to the voicemail you left and then was convinced that I was sleeping with you while seeing him and he woke me up by yelling at me and stuff. Then kicked me out.”

“Is that why you called me?”

You nodded, fingers trembling as you played with the string. “I’m sorry, by the way. I didn’t mean for all this to happen. You were just the first person I could think of helping me in that moment. I didn’t—”

“Stop stressing.” He grabbed your wrist and you let go of the string as he guided your hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss to your knuckles. “You calling me back was the best thing you could’ve done.” You smiled wryly, meeting his eyes for a few seconds before looking away. “Come here.”

Slipping into his lap, he cradled you against him. “You mad at him?” he asked and you nodded. “Let me take care of this? Please?”

“I don’t know…”

“I won’t kill him if that’s what you’re so scared about. Just wanna spook him a little,” he said, making you giggle.

You looked up at him and nodded. “Just a spook. Promise?” His eyes dropped down to your lips and your face heated up when you realised where his gaze was trained.

He leaned down and kissed you softly, his hand rising to your cheek., looking searchingly in your eyes for the longest two seconds of your life. “I promise,” he whispered against your lips before pulling you in for another kiss.

Twisting your body, you turned to loop your arms around his neck, his hand sliding over your knee to pull you over, straddling his lap. His hands slipped under your shirt, rubbing up and down your back. He pulled away, smirking. “No bra?”

“It was wet from the rain,” you mumbled, kissing him again. He groaned into your mouth, all decorum gone as moved his hands to your chest, cupping your breasts, your nipples already hard and poking his palms.

“Mmm take this off,” he said, tugging at your shirt.

You shut him up, kissing him again as your hands flew to his shoulders, your whole body warming at the feel of solid muscle, still prominent even through his shirt, underneath your palms. “Take yours off shirt,” you replied, biting his bottom lip with a smile.

He rolled his eyes. “Unbutton me then.”

Now it was your turn to roll your eyes, his smile growing as you got to work, unbuttoning them one by one, your skin growing hot at black ink peeking through. He shrugged his shirt off and your hands flew right back to his shoulders, running them down his chest and letting your fingers trace along his abs.

He sat up and kissed under your jaw. “Now your turn.” You cupped his face as he sucked, your fingers moving to his hair, tugging when his tongue licked and sucked harder.

You pushed him back and he watched you lift your shirt up and over, stretching in the process and tossing it to the other end of the couch. He licked his lips as his hands flew to your hips, fingers dipping shallowly against the band of your panties, snapping them back against your skin. You kissed him sloppily again.

His hands slipped under your thighs, lifting you up and carrying you as you squealed, legs wrapping tightly around his waist as he carried you to his bedroom. Depositing you on his bed, he wasted no time climbing on top of you, pinning your wrists to the mattress as he kissed down your body.

He latched onto a nipple, his tongue snaking around it as he licked and sucked. The warmth of his mouth and his hands tweaking your other nipple were making you dizzy, biting your bottom lip hard as you began to get restless. He kissed down your stomach, his hands pushing your legs apart.

“Holy fuck, you’re so fucking wet,” he breathed, eyeing the wet patch in your panties. He peeled them away and ran his finger through your folds, smirking at the hitch in your breath. “All we did was kiss.”

“S—shut up,” you hissed, irritation turning to pleasure when he swirled his finger around your entrance, and he had to bite his lips to keep from groaning when your hips started stuttering, a silent plea for him to go further. He slowly sunk his finger in and you gasped, back arching against the bed. He pulled out before sinking fully in, teasing you with only the tip of his finger.

You irritatingly looked at him. “Stop being a fucking tease,” you complained, trying to shimmy your body further down the bed, needing more of him. Ran grabbed at your hip, stilling you and you whined loudly.

“Easy.” His voice was light and playful and that only angered you even more. Idly pumping his finger in and out of you, he added another and you writhed, restlessly moving to fight back the heat forming in your abdomen. His fingers curled against that spot that had you melting against the sheets. When you were least expecting it, your eyes closed and head thrown back, he leaned forward, wrapping his lips around your clit, and sucked.

You moaned loudly as his tongue began working at your cunt, licking sloppily like a man starved. Slipping his fingers out, he parted your folds with two fingers, eyes trained on the way your pussy was gleaming with a mixture of your slick and his saliva.

“Fuck,” he breathed. He looked up at your body, over the curve of your breasts. “Sit up for me. Wanna see that pretty face.”

“Nn-nn,” you said, shaking your head, writhing against the sheets as he buried his face back into your pussy, sucking obligingly at your clit. His tongue was making you feel everything at once, his fingers sliding back into your pussy making your hips stutter, your body was heating up, and you could feel the incoming pressure of an all familiar orgasm building until it stopped.

Ran simply stopped his ministrations and stilled his fingers in you, the thickness of his two fingers sitting in your pussy has you gushing a little more around them, and your clit felt cold without his mouth.

You sat up and stared confusingly at him. “Why’d you stop?”

He presses a longing kiss to your inner thighs. “You didn’t wanna cooperate with me. So why should I give you what you want?” You groaned loudly as he smiled, lips curving against your skin. He continued to lather kisses to your thighs, coming dangerously close to your pussy and just when you’d get your hopes up, he’d move back to your thighs.

“Ran, please.” You moved your hand to his hair, trying to tug him away from the marks he was leaving against your thigh but he was nothing but stubborn. “Rannnnnnnn,” you groaned.

“You know what I was want,” he stated simply, and your face scrunched imperceptibly. “You’re so cute when you do that.”

“Ran I’m serious. Eat me out or I’m leaving.”

He arched an eyebrow at you. “So bossy.” He looked up at you and you were still partially glaring at him. He smiled. “Keep looking at me just like that.” His head lowered, ignored hearing you call him a masochist under your breath and smirked at the sound of your breathing hitching, effectively shutting you up as he licked a stripe up your slit.

The eye contact was overwhelming and hard to maintain, especially when he slipped two fingers back inside you without warning. You were struggling to keep your eyes open and effectively failed, shutting them as his lips sealed around your throbbing clit. The pressure was re-building and your hands flew to his hair, gripping tight and tugging as you chanted his name over and over again as you came.

Ran sat up, swiping a hand over his mouth as he rearranged you on the bed, wasting no time and letting you catch a breath before he pinned your wrists to the mattress with one hand, sloppily reaching for a condom in his bedside table with the other.

He grabbed a condom and you watched as he rolled it on in record time, his eagerness rolling off him in waves as his hands darted straight to your hips, lifting them up at an angle, fingers digging into your skin as he slid his cock in slowly. His mouth fell open at the tight warmth stretch of your pussy, a low groan escaping him.

You raised your arms up and he let go of your hips, leaning down to let you accommodate him, wrapping your arms around his neck as your legs locked around his waist. He slid his arms under your back and held you back just as tightly, his hips pressing flush against yours.

You almost whined at the feeling of being so full, the thickness of his cock nestled between your walls dizzying. He pulled out and slowly pushed back in, his pace speeding up as you started to let your moans out. He buried his face into your neck, inhaling that sweet perfume you always love to overspray on yourself, taking in the heat of your naked body below him, and began littering your neck with kisses, sucking hard at your skin till it bruised.

Your hands flew to his neck, taking your nails up and down and dragging red long streaks onto his skin. He pushed himself up, hands on either side of your head and began snapping his hips until you got louder. The bed was squeaking, your voice was getting higher, and the wet sounds of your pussy reached your eyes making you feel hot.

“I’m close,” you whimpered, gripping onto his arms, and he grunted at the bite of your nails digging into his muscle.

“Me too baby.” He pressed down on your stomach with a firm hand, hips slowing down to slow but deep thrusts. You could feel his cock stretching you out as he hit deeper, his hand applying more and more pressure until it was unbearable. You came with another loud cry, his hips stuttering against yours before he cusses and pulls out abruptly, your body cold and empty and you push yourself weakly onto your elbows to watch as he sprays his cum on your inner thighs, painting them white. He tapped his cock against your pussy, sliding it up and down your wet folds before exhaling deeply.

He sat back onto his knees and examined your spent body, how your eyes were unable to stay open for more than three seconds without slowly closing shut.

He moved to lay beside you, gathering you in his chest.

“Wait. I need to clean up,” you muttered, trying to keep your legs open to chase away the feeling of wet cum in your inner thighs.

“Who cares,” he grumbled, hand sliding down your leg to throw it over his hip. “Sleep with me. It’s almost 3 am.” He fell asleep not even a second after finishing his sentence and you rolled your eyes, a fond smile on your face.

Ran was nothing but a deep sleeper, and you took advantage of that to brush his hair out of his face and cup his cheeks, playing with his nose as he slept soundly in front of you. It took an hour for you to fall back asleep and you woke a few hours later.

Rolling onto your side, you slapped around for his laptop on the bedside table and opened it,wincing at the bright screen. Through the blindness you were able to make out the time as 8am. Carefully you slipped out of bed and took a brief shower before heading to his kitchen.

Ran was able to sleep through mainly anything, even his alarms, but the sounds of you clattering around his kitchen effectively did succeeded in waking him up. He snorted once he checked the time, mumbling “this girl,” under his breath and slipped out of bed to take a shower and brush his teeth. Whatever you were cooking ended up taking nearly a whole hour and you re-entered the bedroom with a tray full of food, Ran had been reduced to idly scrolling on his phone, scratching his stomach.

“Good morning,” you chirped, climbing onto the bed and placing the food on his lap.

“Morning baby.” He pressed a kiss to your forehead and you smiled at him. “What’s all this?”

“I felt bad about um, getting you to pick me up yesterday so I wanted to uh, treat you I guess.” You sat beside him, resting your head on his shoulder and looked up at him. “I barely cook so you better finish every single thing on that plate.”

He snorted and pulled you in for a kiss. “I appreciate it. Thank you.”

“No thank you. Seriously. I really owe you one Ran.” You smiled shyly at him before clearing your throat. “Now shut up and eat.”

He rolled his eyes when you grabbed the fork, forcefully stabbed the eggs and held it up to his mouth. “Say aaah.”

He stared blankly at you until you glared at him. He sighed and opened his mouth, the smile coming back in your face in full force as you fed the fork into his mouth. He chewed and you were already restabbing the fork on the plate to pick up some waffles when he stopped you.

“I can feed myse—“

You shoved more food into his mouth. “Is it good?” You asked, trying not to laugh as you saw him struggling to chew with his mouth full. He nodded once he swallowed, kissing your forehead again and gathering you back into his chest.

“It tastes amazing. My baby so talented. Come here.” He brought you back in for another longing kiss, his hand cupping the back of your head. You pulled away and removed your head back to his shoulder, tracing your fingers across his chest as he ate. He pushed the plate to the side once he finished and turned to face you. “What’re you doing today?”

You hummed and spread your hands flat against his stomach, feeling the slow rise and fall of his chest. “Me and Yuzuha are going to Masato’s to pressure him into giving me my shit. If he doesn’t then I’ll call the police.”

He wrinkled his nose at the idea and you went back to dragging your finger across his skin, tracing his bellybutton.

“I don’t want you going over there.”

“Relax. Hakkai and Mitsuya are going to be there too incase he wants to try something.” He wrinkled his nose again and you turned to look up at him. “Okay don’t be like that. They’re strong!”

“All it took for me was a brick and he was out.” Ran laughed when you rolled your eyes.

“You’re not immortal, you know. Smashing anyone over the head with a brick would knock them out!”

“All I hear is excuses. Besides I thought you said you’d let me handle it, hm?” He jostled you playfully and you shook your head.

“I was thinking about it and I really do not want you and your goonies to torture the dude until he’s on the verge of death. I hate him but I don’t want to hurt him either.”

“You’re too nice for your own good you know? People will take advantage of that,” he stated calmly and you sighed, settling back beside him.

“…I know.”

“So let me handle it,” he proposed. You weren’t looking at him so he tilted your face back to his, forehead pressing against yours. “Let me take care of it. And you.” He laced your fingers together as you stared him deeply in the eyes, letting him attempt to persuade you.

After a few moments you bit down on your lip and sighed. “Okay. Take care of it but I don’t wanna hear what you do or say to him. Alright?”

His grin turned wolffish and he pressed another kiss to your forehead. “You don’t gotta worry about a thing. Just get some sleep,” he said as he gently laid you back down on the bed and tucked you back in, “and let handle everything for you.”

#—tr </3 #ran x reader #haitani ran x reader #ran haitani x reader #tokyorev x reader #tokrev x reader #tokrev #haitani ran smut #ran smut #ran haitani smut #tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo rev x reader #tokrev smut

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tiktaalic · 7 months ago

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pa said the well's run dry he said the bank came out yesterday and said we're gonna have to sell the blog and get work in the city like the rest of folks less we can come up with something real quick. he was all ready to sign the papers today but i begged him to wait to give me time to find something anything and he sighed and said he could give me a week and not a minute more. and i nodded and i cried because he was right when he said there was next to nothing i could do and even if i did find a miracle. all our neighbors shuffled off weeks months years ago because the posts dried up and the bank came knocking. i break open my piggy bank hoping there's enough drafts in there to tide us over. i sit there. and i have to decide if it's worth spending everything i have just to buy us an extra day. and i know this extra day will consist of walking around mute and shellshocked. and i decide. it's worth it. i give pa all my drafts and he looks at me and shakes his head and his voice cracks when he says i better keep hold of those for getting settled in the city. i could fight him. i don't. i leave all my drafts on the table and storm out the back door. there must be something. they must have just missed it. pa says he knows this blog better than anyone. but i grew up here, same as him. and as much as he loves it, i love it more. when i was seven years old he tore the place apart looking for me after i wandered off. but i wasn't lost. i'd found a tag to play in, happy as could be. he never found me, or the tag, i just wandered back out when i got hungry. it's pa's blog, but it's my home. i know where the creeks and streams and ponds are. i know if i look hard enough, i can find a new posting well.

day one, i strike out. i wake up before dawn. i come in after dusk with no posts to show for it. pa's boxing up our plates when i walk in. he doesn't say anything. i don't either.

day two, i wander a further. yesterday, i was following a map with areas of interest marked in order of likelihood of success. today, i pick a direction and walk. i have more to show for it, if only barely. i get home with one bucket of posts. pa tells me i should keep them.

day three i wake up because pa's dragging furniture into the yard for a yard sale. when i ask him what he's doing he says he'd rather be paid flop drafts by our neighbors than flop drafts by the bank. i walk back inside. get my map. i get home after midnight with empty hands.

day four. when i wasn't looking, the cold single minded determination turned into fear. i'm realizing i'm running out of time. i'm realizing the reason pa didn't put up a fight is because he knew there was nothing out here. i could kill him. what kind of farmer depends on one well? my heart isn't in it today. i head out after noon. i'm back before dusk. there's been a stack of empty boxes sitting outside my room since pa told me the news. i haven't touched them. tonight, i take one and put away some of my things.

day five. there's more ground to cover. it's more out of a sense of completion than anything. so that when we're in the city, i can say, i did everything i could. i looked everywhere. this was the only option. i stop midday for a rest. the ground i put my palms on is curiously softer than the rest. i dig. it comes away easily. it turns into mud. heart thudding in my ears, i keep digging. the mud gives way to a trickle of posts. ears roaring. i keep digging. hands covered in mud. the trickle turns into a stream. i start yelling for pa. i'm too far from the house for him to hear me, but i'm not thinking about that right now. i'm thinking about the posts in front of me, clear and fresh. text posts. gifs. amvs. there's enough to live another twenty years on this blog. i splash my face. i laugh. i fill my bucket. i'll have to bring more. we'll have to get the pump set up. because there are enough new supernatural posts here for me and my children to build a life.

#etxt

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writingoddess1125 · 4 months ago

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My Darling Dove Pt. 2

König x Plus Size FemReader

Sooo I had to re-write this. The sex scene was so bland in the original draft sorry for the delay!

Warning: Fluffy and Smut Yeah! Fluffy Smut!

Prequel <-

Part 1 <-

Support me on Kofi

Masterlist <-

"Now My Darling Dove, allow me to show you how much I adore you and your body"

You blush deeply as you look up to see your husband sliding his hands up your scrubs- before stopping as he felt something cold hit his fingers which made his face scrunch up as he knew it was your chain necklace.

He pulled at the necklace in mildly annoyance, seeing the large ring he had given you on it.

You playfully roll your eyes, knowing he always fussed about that. However he slides his hands out from under your shirt slowly, now looking to him confused.

"It's common practice, I can't wear gloves and a big ring when wo- Eep!!" He grabbed you suddently and pulled you further down- his hands down directly on your chest grabbing at the cross stitch of the fabric as you looked up to him.

"I love doing this~" He said with a cheeky smile as he tore open the front of your scrub driving a soft Squeak from you. A deep blush on your cheeks as your husband no less rips the clothes from your body.

Now a blushing mess you are laid there in what remained of your clothes, He had even ripped up the pretty set of matching underwear like they were no more then damn paper. You sent him a playful glare, Knowing damn well he could have just slide them off you-

He just wanted to do it for his own glee.

"You're a little pervert" You giggle as you playfully toss one of the peices of the absolutely destroyed bra at him. Which he grins at.

"That is were you are wrong Liebling-"

He says playfully, leaning down running his hands up your now naked body. No matter how many times he had seen you, ran his large hands over your body. It still felt like the first time he saw you, giddy and excited as he leaned in close pressing his forehead gently against yours.

"I'm a big one~"

You can't help but let giggles leave you as he capture your lips in a deep kiss. Running his hands over your form feeling every curve and dip of you having mapped it out from memory.

He manages only briefly to tear his lips from you. Fast he tugs down his pants and boxers in one fluid motion, Tossing them somewhere to be handled later. His cock sprung free- almost angry in appearance, It was no surprise he was large- he was a big man afterall but still it couldnt help but amaze you everytime.

You feel him settle between your thighs fully a soft moan leaving you as he teasingly pressed against your waiting cunt, a feeling of warmth going through you as you felt pleased with the gentle and sweet love making that was to greet you.

But it seemed that wasn't the case this time-

König was fast to move both of you, switching your positions as he moved you up above his waist. A look of surprise on your face as you looked down at König from your new position.

You blush deeply as you are saddled on his lap, your hands on his broad chest to keep steady as he held you over his cock with a grin- his grip damn near bruising to keep you in place.

"There we are~"

He purred out, Embarrassment burning in your chest. Those thoughts of insecurity starting to creep into your head once more, as you looked to your husband.

"F-Felix I don-"

Before you could even start what König considered bullshit about riding him he grabbed your hips hard and thrusted up into you. A loud moan breaking through your voice as you threw your head back, the stretch of him a welcomed return.

He grinned as he rolled his hips up into you slowly, watching every way your face in pleasure- A heavy groan leaving him, It had been a while due to his last mission and you felt like damn heaven wrapped around him. "Fuck I missed this~"

A breathy moan leaving you as you started to carefully shift on him, matching the roll of his hips. Hands still on his chest you begin to move.

Your moans were like music to König as he watched you fuck yourself onto him- Feeling every bit of his cock and chasing your own pleasure as you moved as needed. König keeping his hands firmly in your hips to guide you.

"So good for me Perle~" He moaned out softly. Feeling you pick up speed, He couldn't help himself as he started to thrust into you, hearing that picked up moans. The sweet whimpers and movements of your body.

One hand traveling down from your hip to between your legs as your rode him, Pressing the pad of his thumb against your clit as you moved. Earning a loud moan that ripped through you feeling you tighten which drew a hiss from him in pleasure.

"Fuck! Y-Yes Please Please!~ More!" You moan out, too high from the growing pleasure to care of moaning out.

Not letting up at this point as he couldn't help himself but take control at your command.

"W-Wait!~ Close! C-close!" You manage out barely, a messy mix of heavy moans and panting. Feeling like he was drilling into you, Finding that sweet spot to abuse as he thrjsted hard, you matching them as you sunk down down once more as you loudly moan out his name.

Your orgasm hitting you like a truck as you tremble and clench around him like a vice. König grunted as he felt himself cum snapping his hips hard, slowly rocking his hips as the both of you rode out your highs.

Hands still on your hips he looked at you- the way your head was tilted back still coming down from your orgasm, a vision to behold.

A few moments passed, managing to catch your breath before feeling him lift you from his cock and yourself being titling you back which surprised you as you tumbled off König lap back flat to the bed once more with a soft oomph, the cold air so suddenly meeting between your legs making you whimper slightly.

Prepared to scold him for once more letting you fall back to the mattress without warning it was forgotten fast-

That was till like the devil himself he appeared between your legs, Grabbing your ankles at lightning speed as he grinned down at you. Moving to his full height on his knees as he kept your ankles secured in his large hands- you look down your brows scrunched together at how he was already ready to go again.

"The Hell Felix!? How are you ready again?-"

You huff out confused by this as all, his bounce back was a bit too fast even for him.

"Little help-" He winked, you narrowing your eyes a bit trying to think what that ment.

'Little help?-'

Your brain cycling through when he could have- Before Remebering him digging threw the drawer when you were still on the bed, and you never did see exactly what he took out but for a second it did look like a fabric? or Was it a wrapper of some? Wait where was it? What was it?-

You look him right in the eyes and it tells you all you need to know-

He took something.. He fucking took something!

"You littl-!"

He didn't allow that sentence to leave you before he thrusted back into you. Your back arched as a choked moan left your lips, Still far too sensitive from your previous orgasm- However it seemed König wanted just that.

Thrusting into you hard and fast as he looked at you-

Listening to those broken overstimulated moans of yours- past the point of even able to form words. He didn't hold back either, watching the way your body jolted and moved with each powerful thrust- ypur legs shaking as he holds them apart to get the best angle into you, tilted forward to hit your g-spot like it was a damn target hearing your cries of bliss from under this.

The noises being made where down right sinful, The hard slaps of skin at his down brutal thrust against your soft thighs- hearing the gasp and whimpers you made with movement. A burning pride building up in his chest at hearing such beautiful noises.

Your toes curling as he held your ankles still in his grasp- fucking you through your climax, his own close as his hips started faltering quickly after as he felt you squeeze around him- A growl practically leaving him as he felt himself cum, Pressing into your quivering walls. Panting hard as he released your legs, feeling them fall to either side of his hips and large hands pressed into the mattress next to your head.

Pulling out gently as he knew you would be extra sensitive, A soft whimper from you also confirming it as he leaned back a bit.

He couldn't help but just marvel at you- Taking you in for a moment before pausing and mumbling something. Leaning down over you carefully with a deep focus in his eyes.

"Irgendetwas fehlt, Liebling"

He pulled the big pretty ring from around your neck gently, tossing the chain of the necklace most likely were his clothes were tossed. Sliding the ring back in its rightful place on your hand.

"There we go~"

König said with pride, pulling back to take in your appearance.

You laid there, a dazed look in your eyes as you panted- the rise and fall of your body from trying to catch your breath damn near hypnotic to him. Looking at your legs still shaky from the last two orgasms he had pulled out of you, paired with the pretty sight of his cum still dripping down your thighs.

With the final touch being the ring put back on your finger. Seemed to complete the picture in his brain.

You look up him, seeing how he stared down at you as you saw the burning desire in his eyes and his damn near cocky smirk at you before he grinned brightly.

A breathy laugh leaving you- Already knowing damn well he was far from done by just his stare.

"Ready for another go Dove? I did promise afterall to make sure you knew how much I fucking adore you"

He said with a smile- his accent somehow thicker as he still caught his breath a bit, grabbing your hips to turn to over on your stomach you fisting the sheets with a blush starting to form on your face, gripping your hips as he started at your ass as it was in his eyes a gift from God.

Sliding up quick he planted himself between you-

Before his knee slipped from the side of the bed not realizing he was on the very edge.

"Scheiße!" He yelled as he pulled you with him to the floor next to your bed. You still grasping the blankets as you gave a soft yelp as the two of you toppled to the floor.

Now both of you now a bit of a mess on the floor as König had landed on his back smacking the back of his head on the carpet and you rolling off onto his chest with a nice unglorious smack extra loud too from both of your sweaty bodies.

...

A laugh ripping through you both now settled on the ground next to the bed. Now looking to each other with bright mirrored smile as you guys laughed.

"I love you so much" He said softly. You placing a soft kiss on his lips as he placed his hands around your naked waist.

"I love you too~"

He grinned at this as if his crush had told him they liked them back, his large hand caressing your cheek as you leaned into his touch.

"Ich kann mir kein Leben ohne dich vorstellen Täubchen" (I can't imagine a life without you Dove)

You felt butterflies in your chest all over again as you knew those words- It was the same ones he had whispered to you the day he had married you.

You lean down and kiss him, with every bit of love you could as the two of you held each other on the floor.

He pulled back gently first, looking to you with love- Then a wicked little smile as he rolled the two of you over on the floor with his signature cackle to settle himself back onto you earning a loud laugh from you.

It wasn't till the early morning did you two manage to stop-

You sat at the front desk of the medical bay when your shift rolled around, Seeing the passing glances of your peers as you went through your paperwork for the day.

A solid blush still on your cheek as you knew they were staring at the very clear hickies that decorated your neck like some sort of badge of honor- and they couldn't see it under your scrubs but the mild carpet burn on your knees that also seemed to be a reminder to you.

But most of all was the pretty ring now on your hand for all to see and know damn well who placed it there.

#x reader #cod mw3 #cod mw2 #cod x female reader #cod x reader #call of duty thoughts #call of duty modern warfare #call of duty #konig smut #cod konig #konig #konig x you #konig x reader #könig smut #könig x reader #könig x fem reader #x plus size reader #x female reader #x fem!reader

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jewelleria · 1 year ago

Text

I don’t usually talk about politics on here, if ever. But it’s been almost six months since the conflict in the Middle East flared up again, and I’m finally ready to start. Here are some of my thoughts.

I say ‘flared up’ because this has happened before and it’ll happen again. Because, even though what's currently going on is absolutely unprecedented, those of us who live in this part of the world are used to it. Let that sink in: we are used to this. And we shouldn’t have to be.

But I use that term for another reason: I don't want to accidentally call it the wrong thing lest I come under fire for being a genocidal maniac or a terrorist or a propaganda machine, etc., etc.—so let’s just call it ‘the war’ or ��the conflict.’ Because that’s what it is. Doesn’t matter which side you’re on, who you love, or who you hate.

This post will, in all likelihood, sit in my drafts forever. If it does get posted, it certainly won’t be on my main, because I'm scared of being harassed (spoiler: she posted it on her main). I hate admitting that, but honestly? I’m fucking terrified.

I also feel like in order for anything I say on here (i.e. the hellscape of the internet) to be taken seriously, I have to somehow prove that a) I’m “educated” enough to talk about the conflict, and b) that my opinion lines up with what has been deemed the correct one. So, tedious and unnecessary though it is, I will tell you about my experience, because I have a feeling most of the people reading this post are not nearly as close to what’s happening as I am.

How do I explain where I live without actually explaining where I live? How do I say “I live in the Red Zone of international conflicts” without saying what I actually think? How do I convey the fear that grips me when I try to decide between saying “I live in Palestine” and “I live in Israel”? I don't really know. But I do know that names are important. I also know that, due to the various clickbaity monikers ascribed to the conflict, it would probably just be easier to point to a map.

I haven't always lived in the Middle East. I've lived in various places along America’s east coast, and traveled all over the world. But in short, I now live somewhere inside the crudely-drawn purple circle.

If you know anything about these borders you probably blanched a bit in sympathy, or maybe condolence. But in truth, it’s a shockingly normal existence. I don't feel like I've lived through the shifting of international relations or a war or anything. I just kind of feel like I did when COVID hit, that dull sameness as I wondered if this would be the only world-altering event to shape my life, or if there would be more.

I've been told that, in order for my brain to process all the horrific details of the past six months, there needs to be some element of cognitive dissonance—that falling into a sort of dissociative mindset is the only way to not go insane under the weight of it all. I think in some ways that’s true. I have been terrifyingly close to bus stop shootings when my commute wasn’t over; I have felt my apartment building shake with the reverberations of a missile strike; I have spent hours in underground shelters waiting for air raid sirens to stop.

But. I have also gone grocery shopping, and skipped class, and stayed up too late watching TV, and fed the cats on the street corner, and cried over a boy, and got myself AirPods just because, and taken out the trash, and done laundry on a delicate cycle, and bought overpriced lattes one too many days a week. I have looked at pretty things and taken out my phone because, despite it all, I still think that life is too short not to freeze the small moments.

So I'd say, all things considered, I live an incredibly privileged life—compared, of course, to those suffering in Gaza—one filled with sunsets and over-sweetened knafeh and every different color of sand. One that allows me to throw myself into a fandom-induced hyperfixation (or, alternatively, escape method) as I sit on the couch and crack open my laptop to write the next chapter of the fic I'm working on.

But there are bits of not-normalness that wheedle their way through the cracks. I pretend these moments are avoidable, even if they’re not.

They look like this: reading the news and seeing another idiotic, careless choice on Netanyahu’s part and groaning into my morning coffee. Watching Palestinian and Jewish children’s needless suffering posted on Instagram reels and feeling helpless. Opening my Tumblr DMs to find a message telling me to exterminate myself for reblogging a post that only seems like it’s about the war if you squint and tilt your head sideways.

These moments look like all the tiny ways I am reminded that I'm living in a post-October seventh world, where hearing a car backfire makes me jump out of my skin and the sound of a suitcase on pavement makes me look up at the sky and search for the war planes. They look like the heavy grief that is, and also isn’t, mine.

Here's the thing, though. I know you’re wondering when the ball will drop and my true opinion will be revealed. I know you’re waiting for me to reveal what demographic I'm a part of so that you, dear reader, can neatly slap a label on my head and sort me into some oversimplified category that lets you continue to think you understand this war.

No one wants to sit and ruminate on the difficult questions, the ones that make you wonder if maybe you’ve been tinkered with by the propaganda machine, if you might need to go back on what you’ve said or change your mind. We all strive for our perception of complicated issues to be a comfortable one.

But I know that no matter what I do, there will always be assumptions. So, while I shudder to reveal this information online, I think that maybe my most significant contribution to this meta-discussion spanning every facet of the internet is this:

I am a Jew.

Or, alternatively, I am: Jewish, יהודית, يَهُودِيٌّ, etc. Point is, I come from Jews. And, like any given person, I am a product of generation after generation of love.

I'm not going to take time to explain my heritage to you, or to prove that before all the expulsions and pogroms, there was an origin point. If you don’t believe that, perhaps it’s less of a factual problem and more of an ‘I don’t give weight to the beliefs of indigenous people’ problem. But, in case you want to spend time uselessly refuting this tiny point in a larger argument, you can inspect the photos below (it’s just a small chunk of my DNA test results). Alternatively, you can remember that interrogating someone in an attempt to make their indigeneity match your arbitrary criteria is generally not seen as good manners.

Now, let’s go back to thathateful message (read: poorly disguised death threat) I received in my Tumblr DMs. I think it was like two or three weeks ago. I had recently gained a new follower whose blog’s primary focus was the fandom I contribute to, so I followed them back. I saw in my notes that they were going through my posts and liking them—as one does when gaining a new mutual. Yippee!

Then they sent me this:

I tried to explain that hate speech is not a way to go about participating in political discourse, but the person had already blocked me immediately after sending that message. Then, assured by the fact that I surely would never see them complaining about me on their blog (because, as I said, they blocked me), they posted a shouting rant accusing me of sympathizing with colonizing settlers and declaring me a “racist Zionist fuck.” Oh, the wonders of incognito tabs.

Where this person drew these conclusions after reading my (reblogged) post about antisemitism…. I'm not actually sure. But I greatly sympathize with them, and hope that they weren’t too personally offended by my desire to not die.

For a while I contemplated this experience in my righteous anger, and tried to figure out a way to message this person. I wanted to explain that a) seeing a post about being Jewish and choosing to harass the creator about Israel is literally the definition of antisemitism and b) that sending a hateful DM and refusing to be held accountable is just childish and immature. But I gave up soon after—because, honestly, I knew it wasn’t worth my effort or energy. And I knew that I wouldn't be able to change their mind.

But I still remember staring at that rather unfortunate meme, accompanied by an all-caps message demanding for me to Free Palestine, and thinking: the post didn’t even have any buzzwords. I remember the swoop of dread and guilt and fear. I remember wondering why this kind of antisemitism felt worse, in that moment, than the kind that leaves bodies in its wake.

I remember thinking, I don’t have the power to free anyone.

I remember thinking, I’m so fucking tired.

And before you tell me that this conflict isn’t about religion—let me ask you some questions. Why is it that Israel is even called Israel? (Here’s why.) Why do Jews even want it? (Here’s why.) But also, if you actually read the charters of Islamist terrorist organizations like ISIS, Hamas, and Hezbollah (among others), they equate the modern state of Israel with the Jewish people, and they use the two entities interchangeably. So of course this conflict is religious. It’s never been anything but that.

But I do wonder, when faced with those who deny this fact: how do I prove, through an endless slew of what-about-isms and victim blaming, that I too am hurting? How do I show that empathy is dialectical, that I can care deeply for Palestinians and Gazans while also grieving my own people?

There's this thing that humans do, when we’re frustrated about politics and need to howl our opinions about it into the void until we feel better. We find like-minded souls, usually our friends and neighbors, and fret about the state of the world to each other until we’ve gone around in a satisfactory amount of circles. But these conversations never truly accomplish anything. They’re just a substitute, a stand-in catharsis, for what we really wish we could do: find someone who embodies the spirit of every Jew-hating internet troll, every ignorant justifier of terrorism, and scream ourselves hoarse at them until we change their mind.

But, of course, minds cannot be changed when they are determined to live in a state of irrational dislike. In Judaism, this way of thinking has a name: שנאת חינם (sinat hinam), or baseless hatred. It's a parasite with no definite cure, and it makes people bend over backwards to justify things like the massacre on October seventh, simply because the blame always needs to be placed on the Jews.

So when a Jew is faced with this unsolvable problem, there is only one response to be had, only one feeling to be felt: anger. And we are angry. Carrying around rage with nowhere to put it is exhausting. It's like a weight at the base of our neck that pushes down on our spine, bending it until we will inevitably snap under the pressure. I’m still waiting to break, even now.

I wish I could explain to someone who needs to hear it that terrorism against Israelis happens every single day here, and that we are never more than one degree of separation away from the brutal slaughter of a friend, lover, parent, sibling. I wish it would be enough to say that the majority of Israelis (which includes Arab-Israeli citizens who have the exact same rights as Jewish-Israelis) wish for peace every day without ever having seen what it looks like.

I wish I could show the world that Israel was founded as a socialist state, that it was built on communal values and born from a cluster of kibbutzim (small farming communities based on collective responsibility), and that what it is now isn’t what its people stand for.

I wish the world could open their eyes to what we Israelis have seen since the beginning: that Hamas is the enemy, Hamas is the one starving Palestinians and denying them aid, Hamas is the one who keeps rejecting ceasefire terms and denying their citizens basic human rights. Hamas is the governing body of Gaza, not Israel. Hamas is responsible for the wellbeing of the Palestinian people. And Hamas are the ones who are more determined to murder Jews—over and over and over again, in the most animalistic ways possible—than to look inwards and see the suffering they’ve inflicted on their own people. I wish it was easier to see that.

But the wishing, the asking how can people be so blind, is never enough. I can never just say, I promise I don't want war.

When I bear witness to this baseless hatred, I think of the victims of October seventh. I think of the women and girls who were raped and then murdered, forever unable to tell their stories. I think of the hostages, trapped underneath Gaza in dark tunnels, wondering if anyone will come for them. I think of Ori Ansbacher, of Ezra Schwartz, of Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali, of Lucy, Rina, and Maia Dee, of the Paley boys, of Ari Fuld and of Nachshon Wachsman. I think of all the innocent blood spilled because of terror-fueled hatred and the virus of antisemitism. I think of all the thousands of people who were brutally murdered in Israel, Jews and Muslims and Christians and humans, who will never see peace.

My ties to this land are knotted a thousand times over. Even when I leave, a part of me is left behind, waiting for me to claim it when I return. But when I see the grit it takes to live through this pain, when I see the suffering that paints the world the color of blood, I look to the heavens and I wonder why.

I ask God: is it worth all this? He doesn't answer. So I am the one, in the end, to answer my own question. I say, it has to be.

Feel free to send any genuine, respectful, and clarifying questions you may have to my inbox!

EDIT: just coming on here to say that I'm really touched & grateful for the love on this post. When I wrote it, I felt hopeless; I logged off of Tumblr for Shabbat, dreading the moment I would turn off my phone to find more hate in my inbox. Granted, I did find some, and responding to it was exhausting, but it wasn’t all hate. I read every kind reblog and comment, and the love was so much louder. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 🤍

Source Reading

The Whispered in Gaza Project by The Center for Peace Communications

Why Jews Cannot Stop Shaking Right Now by Dara Horn

Hamas Kidnapped My Father for Refusing to Be Their Puppet by Ala Mohammed Mushtaha

I Hope Someone Somewhere Is Being Kind to My Boy by Rachel Goldberg

The Struggle for Black Freedom Has Nothing to Do with Israel by Coleman Hughes

Israel Can Defend Itself and Uphold Its Values by The New York Times Editorial Board

There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive by Peter Beinart

The Long Wait of the Hostages’ Families by Ruth Margalit

“By Any Means Necessary”: Hamas, Iran, and the Left by Armin Navabi

When People Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them by Bari Weiss

Hunger in Gaza: Blame Hamas, Not Israel by Yvette Miller

Benjamin Netanyahu Is Israel’s Worst Prime Minister Ever by Anshel Pfeffer

What Palestinians Really Think of Hamas by Amaney A. Jamal and Michael Robbins

The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Understanding Hamas’s Genocidal Ideology by Bruce Hoffman

The Wisdom of Hamas by Matti Friedman

How the UN Discriminates Against Israel by Dina Rovner

This Muslim Israeli Woman Is the Future of the Middle East by The Free Press

Why Are Feminists Silent on Rape and Murder? by Bari Weiss

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artsninspo · 4 months ago

Text

006 | Richmond Inc.

「 ✦ full library & archive ✦ 」

「 ✦ aaron pierre & characters library ✦ 」

⇚ 005

♠ summary: Thrust into leadership, Lorence battles pressure, secrecy, and an enigmatic boss—until his unexpected attentiveness causes things to heat up more than expected ☕.

♠ pairing: Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre - Rebel Ridge) X Lorence Cole (Black Fem OC)

♠ word-count: ~2.6K

⌖ - Richmond Inc. HQ

The new demands of my position are both a gift and a curse as I’m required to expand my knowledge base and think as a leader. There’s an element of freedom that I've been robbed of in this new position. There’s no time for fresh ideas and innovation in the same way there's no freedom to make mistakes. There’s no one to ask to review the work I have - I'm the final step in the pecking order before the other’s at my level look and ultimately Richmond’s eyes scan over it. I’d be lying if I said the thought doesn’t unnerve me. Dissatisfaction on his face and the scolding that will undoubtedly follow is a nagging inevitability. I’ve sat through so many briefings that I miss doing the work. This week has been an overwhelming barrage of discourse, planning and preparation. We’ve gone over logistics and transportation which is my specialty. Monaco is a logistical and transportation nightmare but I’ve taken all the necessary notes to make sure everything goes off without a hitch. Which includes sending one of my best agents there in person to scope out the scene and get the necessary measurements and blueprints. It’s my first major assignment and with my budget sky’s the limit. Consulting for the organization responsible for the formula one race's security is not something I ever considered in the realm of possibility; so I make the most of it. I add to my list of tasks and lock the documents before going over my new operating budgets. I still have money to spend but until my best guy is back I can’t be sure where the resources will be best allocated. I’m researching local charities in the area when Richmond appears in the doorway. It’s his first time stopping by all week and I can’t say I’ve missed the light eyed giant.

“Sir” I stand.

“Cole, I’ve received preliminary drafts from all the other teams. Is there something you require assistance with?” He asks, leaning in the doorway. He’s in a white knitted sweater today looking too casual for a man like him.

“I thought we had another week” I respond, disregarding how his arms fill out the otherwise cuddly, cozy ensemble, transforming it into something different altogether.

“I like to look over things by the project’s midpoint,” he explains, folding his arms.

“Well, I’m new and I didn’t know that” I swallow daring to meet his eyes.

“We can go over what you have for now,” Richmond says entering my office. I straighten, hating his presence and proximity. With Richmond it isn't walking on eggshells, it's like walking on glass barefoot. I stand walking over to the table and pressing the projector button. I unencrypted my files and show him what I’ve been working on. He watches attentively, his eyes scanning through the details projected in front of him.

“They’re color coded by threat level” he says perceptively interpreting the markings I have on the 3D map model of the area the races will take place in.

“Yeah, it determines what will work in terms of an emergency exits.” I state, explaining my process.

“So you don’t only look at routes?” He asks.

“No, when I develop my plans I consider routes, danger, closures, alternate routes and transportation that is as discreet as possible while being resilient and agile” I explain and he nods zooming in on my tablet.

“You’re looking for places to land helicopters? Possible counter sniper positions.” He says interpreting my work in seconds. Impressive isn’t the word. Nothing is explicitly stated there’s just circles, dots, x’s and stars in a variety of colours.

“Yeah” I nod and he looks from the tablet back to me, with a ghost of a smirk on his lips, only for it to be gone as soon as it appears.

“You’re doing Jameson work for him.” He comments.

“I understand why our teams are separate but I think all aspects should inform each other” I swallow and his expression hardens.

“That’s not your job. It’s to take direction. No one should be fully informed of the other's actions in case of leaks. Your team needs to be agile. Keep your work to yourself” he orders going back to his military facade.

“With all the testing you still don’t trust us?” I ask and he scowls. His jaw sets before clicking as he clenches it.

“It’s not about trust. It’s about what a person gives away during torture. How can I protect my team from that? The rules are in place for a reason. Adhere to them” he orders again but his eyes are more sensitive. If I were a psychiatrist I could diagnose his paranoia and mood swings but as a civilian I table my judgement.

“The non patronizing way to say that is; follow protocol Cole” I quip before he gets carried away and it ends poorly.

“I don’t care if you don’t like my delivery. At least you’ll be alive not to like it” he comments standing. I can't help the sharp look I send his way. If he were anyone else I wouldn’t put up with it. “Good work” he says finally but somehow the praise falls flat.

“Have you lost a lot of people?” I ask and the tension in his shoulders answers the question in an instant. His expression sobers.

“I’ve seen a lot of death,” he nods. I look him over before nodding. It at least explains his incessant over preparation and commitment to structure, secrecy and preventative measures.

“I’m sorry,” seems the only appropriate response.

“You won’t have to be if you follow protocol. Your safety equipment needs to be fitted before we go wheels up, go see Cassandra. I’m scheduling you for some extra hand to hand” he says adding more to my plate.

“I don’t have time for extra hand to hand, I’m behind” I tell him pointing to the projections.

“No you’re not” he swallows. “You’ll fry your brain if you continue staring at blueprints. Movement will serve you more than sitting at your desk” he says parroting what I’ve heard from Jameson. I wonder if it's advice Jameson has commandeered from the Boss.

“Okay” I concede. RIchmond seems surprised by my concession but he nods, slipping his hands into the pockets of his trousers. Cassandra appears in the doorway and I let out a relieved breath.

“I hope you’re being nice.” she says, looking him over. Richmond doesn’t dignify her with a response. “Are you finished or can I steal Cole - her safety second skins are in” Cassandra says.

“We’re done and I have ten minutes” he says looking at his watch. I go along with them walking to his office suite instead of asking questions. Two suits wait in a box in his conference room. One is my perfect nude shade, it nearly looks like mesh but it's made of something stronger. It’s fully opaque and when I hold it up I frown wondering what in the T’Challa Black Panther, Richmond has paid for me to wear.

I raise a brow. “What’s this for?”

“Protection, no burns, cuts or bullets can pierce it. A safety precaution” Cassandra responds.

“Try it on,” Richmond says, stepping out of the room.

“Please!” Cassandra scowls at him as she closes the door. I hold it up again and wonder what else money can buy. I head into the ensuite and I undress quickly. I step into the unitard that fits almost like a second skin. I manage the nearly invisible zipper at my side and look in the mirror. I look remarkably naked and tense up when I see shaded contouring that could pass for real hips and ass.

“Need help?” I hear Cassandra ask from outside.

“Uhh?” I respond and she giggles.

“That’s exactly how I felt - can we come in?” she asks.

“I guess” I responded, not quite sure. I remind myself I’m not naked as I leave the bathroom and re-enter the conference room as they come in. Cassandra’s eyes scan me.

“Toes are wonky” she says to Richmond whose eyes are glued to my body.

“The suit is wonky” he comments with eyes on my breasts. “May I touch you?” he asks without making eye contact.

“Ok” I respond unsure if no is even an option and he stands behind me pulling the material taut until I can feel it on my chest and stomach like a corset. When I look behind he hes standing with a handful of the suit.

“That’s how it should fit” he tells Cassandra, sparing a look her way. The suit feels completely different with this kind of tension. He grapes lower, gathering the same amount of fabric in the small of my back. I feel like a doll in his care as he manhandles the suit. It’s oddly erotic, or maybe it’s been too long since a man has had his hands on me. He goes to do the same around my hips but there’s no stretch left.

“Can you see if there’s any give?” he asks as if he hasn't already probably made at least five HR violations. I oblige finding some give.

“Hold it like that” Richmond demands and I wonder if he’s this bossy in bed. Girl, get your head out of the gutter!

“Cassandra test its resistance” he says and Cassandra comes over with some sort of scanner gun reading all over my body noting weak points with a red marker as well as what needs to be removed.

“The suit has to fit like a glove, it’s most effective when the fibres are extended to their limit they interlock creating … well armour.” she explains.

“What if I have to pee?” I ask being practical.

“You’ll get a zipper once everything else fits seamlessly” Cassandra explains. It’s another level of overkill.

“Does everyone wear these?” I ask.

“They aren't required for smaller scale events, I always wear mine for the big ones” she explains. Richmond is still staring at me and it makes me feel naked, the proximity, the physical toughness, the attention. My body hums like a starving stomach craving sustenance. I’m gonna need to see a therapist for sure, I think looking away from him and back to Cassandra who clears her throat.

“Mr. Richmond, you have a call in two” she says to him and he nods, peeling his eyes from my ass.

“Ensure it fits perfectly...Please” He says, taking one last look at me. He looks at Cassandra who nods with a smirk on her lips before leaving.

“I’m gonna go change” I announce heading into the restroom. When I get out I hand her the suit.

“Is he always so hands on?” I ask, a little unnerved.

“Hands on… he was with me but he was a lot less attentive and there was a lot more back and forth bickering until he pulled it so tight I couldn't breathe comfortably.” she discloses amused.

“I’m pretty sure that’s wrong of him” I remark.

“Terry’s like family - he’d never actually hurt me and lord knows he could” she huffs sitting on the conference table. Her disposition makes me think of them like siblings opposed to coworkers. The most toxic workplaces have the ‘family titles’ it's definitely a red flag.

“So how was your first week?’ she beams crossing her legs but my mind is on how it felt to be constricted in his hold and hugged by the suit.

“I’ve only considered quitting right now” I smile and she laughs.

“I came to your office because I was sure there was going to be fireworks. Terry was too but with how at ease he was I'd say you’re doing amazing on your first assignment. What was his feedback? I can help you decode its meaning to stay on his good side.” she smiles and I’m excited until I realize there was none.

“He just told me to stick to the protocol and that I did a good job. Oh and he prescribed extra hand to hand” I explain and her eyes light. Her smile widens like a Cheshire cat and she shakes her head.

“He’s setting me up to fail isn't he?” I ask, afraid of some humiliation ritual test.

Cassandra shakes her head. “No Lorence, it means you're keeping him up at night. He must think you're one of the best”

“I don’t copy.” I confess.

“The best agents are all the same Lorence and they never leave their people behind when shit hits the fan. He doesn't think you’ll be tripped up by the plans so he’s preparing you for the people.” she explains.

“Do I have anyone but him to fear?” I ask.

“No, that’s how I know you’re keeping him up. The guys that we’d need to fear see us as menu options - they don't know we’re trained to kick their ass and so they never have security with them. They’re easy to outsmart before things get ‘hand to hand’” Cassandra explains and it’s consistent with training. I get a reverie of the intensity in Richmonds eyes as he held the extra fabric of my suit taut, again. I never put much stock in her words before.

“I think you're wrong. Richmond doesnt look like he needs help attracting women. I’m sure you’ve had to shoo away your fare share.” I respond.

“Are you kidding?! He’s a work-a-holic. I've only seen him flirt for better access. His indiscretions are kept from me if they exist” she comments. “Come on, let's go shopping for after hours in Monaco - I have a few party invites with an open plus one slot.” she winks and it sounds like a good way to relax and enjoy the rest of the day. Retail therapy is still therapy after all.

Cassandra and I end up in the heart of the city in stores with names that English speakers need tutorials to pronounce. Cassandra can sell salt to a snail because she convinces me to indulge in whims that are unfamiliar and then she swipes the company card stating outfits while on vacation are somehow a business expense. Paranoia makes me set aside the amounts in case it’s some test or something the Boss intends to scream at me for later. But for the rest of the night from shopping all the way to my night routine I’m a little uneasy. Terry Richmond’s ability to rattle me is unmatched. Whether in anger or cloaked kindness. The intensity of his expression is imprinted in my mind.

I lay awake in bed slightly amused by the irony of Cassandra’s words. At least if they’re true I’m keeping him from sleeping too. It feels like some consolation for all he’s put me through. Maybe my haywire feelings are the result of something akin to Stockholm syndrome. The result of that stupid test. His gaze comes back to me again and the attention held within them. My body heats as recognition clicks into place, its reaction starts to make sense. After years of feeling unnerved and unsure I’ve read the first real emotions from him. There was real sincerity in his eyes. No resentment or animosity. Maybe hints of more complicated emotions but at its core it seemed to be pure preoccupation with my safety.

My body seems to settle at my brain's recognition of the day's events. The anxious energy leaves my body and I settle when it becomes clear to me that before all else my boss wants me to be okay. Before I take my last conscious thought, I promise to move forward with Richmond with that at the forefront of my brain.

authors note: what are you doing if you're Lorence and the boss gets all close and touchy feely? Fight, freeze, call HR - I have to know! Let me know what you think in a comment or reblog 🖤 if you enjoyed things heating up dont forget to comment, reblog and like!

007 ⇛

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