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leclsrc · 1 year

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more than anyone ✴︎ cl16

genre: childhood friends to enemies to lovers (a mouthful), smut, humor, Fluffff!!!!, angst

word count: 13.7k

You moved out of Monaco at fourteen with an unrepaired friendship hanging by a thread. Ten years and a whole lifetime later, you’re forced to work with him confront it all over again.

auds here… hi hi hi!!!! HAPPY 4k to us guys!!!!! i am so insanely thankful for all of u and i will make this a longer note when i wake up tomorrow because i have so much to say but have this for now. i hope u like it,i love love love u guys forever also i changed the banner because i wanted to

nsfw warnings under the cut!

18+ because... penetrative sex, semi public sex, praise central, size kink (pretty tame smut in auds world)

You know it’s bad when your assistant-and-friend-aka-friendsistant (her vernacular) Rachel walks in with a free coffee without a quip about how dependent you are on this exact order of coffee (she’s a millennial, so caffeine and lack thereof are in her arsenal of Funny Jokes). You fear you didn’t correctly anticipate just how bad it was going to be when she stays instead of leaving to work on your schedule, combing a few fingers through her fringe and sitting herself on your couch stiffly. Maybe you’re intuitive, maybe you spend too much time with Rachel and you can spot the way she scratches at her eye, maybe both—but it’s bad.

You don’t take a sip from the Starbucks that sits idly on the coaster, opting to watch the latte sweat instead. You do stare, though, at Rachel’s stagnant posture, scrutinizing her every movement. She takes a few deep breaths and drops the bomb.

“David sent me to tell you he has good news. But there is, um. Bad news.” Dread writhes through you at the mention of your manager with bad news, and you clear your throat to compose yourself.

“What’s going on?”

She purses her lips. “He’s on his way over here. Just…” She cocks her head sharply to the glass door of your home office, expression antsy. “Sorry. Wait for him. I can’t tell you anything yet.”

You take a swig from the pity coffee. “Am I getting blacklisted?”

“God, you dumbass, no—” She makes an incredulous noise, but before she can open her mouth to elaborate, your manager walks in with an excited expression on his face, pocketing his Juul to take a seat by your table. His smile is the radiant one of a man over forty with a comical amount of Botox.

“Rachel told me you had”—you stifle the adjective—“news.”

“That I do, yes.” He hums, tracing the edge of your table. “Did you enjoy Paris Fashion Week?”

Beside the brash Frenchmen, God-awful timezone differences and consequent calls at half past three, hungover show attendances, posing for pictures until your ankles blistered, and a temporary diet of black coffee, cigarettes, and stale croissants—sure, it was fun. It was your job to attend anyway, your obligation to shake hands with important people and be photographed in designer clothing and benefit from the PR, but how often could people call work fun?

“Sure.” You take another gulp off your coffee. “It was… fun.”

“Well, since your movie’s doing well,” David pauses and hums, “how do you feel about another few weeks of fun?”

“Like Paris Fashion Week—weeks… this month?” You frown, eyebrows knitting together. Is this a new Vogue thing? You’re not sure how many updates they give the schedule, but you wouldn’t mind too much if you could travel again for a little bit. “So soon after spring? Did Anna want this?”

“Iiiit’s, er, Vogue’s new project. Capsule shows in Europe, coastal and summery. She wanted an exclusive guest list. She asked for you by name,” David says smugly. “Well, she called my office, granted. But to ask for you—”

“Are you fucking serious?” You stand up, and if you hadn’t had some fix of coffee you would’ve gotten dizzy. “David, tell me you’re serious.” Time seems to have suspended itself as you await his answer—which, if affirmative, would be a pretty big deal to you.

“Yeah, I am.” He plays off a grin. “She loved your movie with Greta, and would love to send you to Europe to do PR on a few shows and pair up with some guests on a couple features. Exclusive stuff.”

You sit back down, mouth slack. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe it.” Your eyes dart to Rachel, who’s caught between a smile and an awkward purse of her lips. “Fuck! This is huge, David.”

“Yeah—okay, yeah, it is.” David shifts in his seat and crosses, then uncrosses, his legs, then his arms. He stutters for a second. “Good and bad news, remember?”

You blink a few times. You’d nearly totally forgotten the fact that this good news—and it is overwhelmingly good—comes with a bout of bad news, so bad apparently that it’s noteworthy enough to state alongside this massive deal. But it’s. Fine. It’s whatever. Worst case scenario, you’re going to need to fucking swim to Europe sans oxygen canister.

“So… the shows? Events, and shit?” He watches, waiting for you to signal that you follow. When you nod, he continues, averting his gaze to the face of his Patek. “They’re all in Monaco.”

Wrong.

“Monaco.” You repeat, deadpanning your delivery. It’s not out of the ordinary, the glitz and coast of the city being a perfect venue for high fashion. But Monaco is different for you, vastly different, and you tend to avoid the place to the best of your abilities. “Monaco. Are—you’re sure?”

“Mmm,” he hums in affirmation. “I know, I know you’re not exactly privy to Monaco because, bleh, childhood shit, whatever. But this—like you said, this is huge! And I don’t think we should jeopardize that.” He pulls a piece of paper from the folders tucked in his arm and waves it around.

“Well—yeah, I suppose. I’ll deal with it.”

“Yeah.” He sucks his teeth, eyes gliding over the scenery of L.A. that your window offers. “Okay, that’s it, so. Byeandhaveagoodlunch.” He slams the paper onto your desk, jostling you a little, but as he makes his exeunt, Rachel raises her arm to stop him.

“Is that it, David?” She asks, an edge to her voice.

You pick up the paper as they make hushed, stifled conversation, and find that it’s a call sheet of sorts, listing all the collaborators traveling to Monaco and what or who they’re in charge of, or paired up with, there. Models, athletes, celebrities, influencers—all making TikToks, or appearances, or brand deals, or interviews, or YouTube videos, the whole shebang.

“Yeah,” says David dismissively—nervously? “That’s it.”

You search for your name. “Okay. Um, hey.” Rachel turns to you, trying to catch your eye, which is busy scanning the sheet. “Did, um—did David mention you’re paired up with Charles Leclerc for a feature? Because you are. Paired up with Charles Leclerc for a feature, I mean.”

David sucks his teeth. “Thank you very much for graciously reminding me of that, Rachel.”

Still half-distracted and growing increasingly worried with the exchange happening in front of you, you make haste in your search—eventually, you find your name, printed in plain letters beside one you’ve wished to never read over ever again.

“Wait, my Charles?” You pause and look up, suppressing a yell as your eyes widen, and you blunder over a pathetic self-correction. “I mean—no, sorry—Charles, as in Charles Leclerc? I can’t work with him, you know this!”

“Wh—well, Vogue apparently wanted a really good Monaco-born pair and they seriously lucked out on you two. Also,” Rachel says, adamantly defending herself, “you’re always saying you can work ‘with anyone’!” She raises two comically vigorous air quotes to further her (moot) point.

“I didn’t ev—I never say that,” you lie straight through your teeth, mouth dry. You definitely do. You can place all the exact moments. “I would’ve known if I did. Rach—David—I cannot, absolutely cannot work with Leclerc. He’s my… we…” You shut your eyes and sneak two fingers upward to massage your temple, slowly caving into defeat.

David makes an oh well face and shrugs passively. “Fine. Then it’s either Anna Wintour’s special job that will help the Academy campaign or not meeting the ex-bo—”

“—friend.” You look up to cut him off, eyes narrowed. “Ex-friend.”

“Alright, kid. Suuuure.” David leans against the back wall of your office as Rachel comes to comfort you, her eyes already sympathetic and droopy. It shouldn’t be so bad, right? She asks sweetly, nudging the latte closer to your catatonic figure. You have seen him since, anyway.

With a despondent gaze, you just remain silent, refusing to state the negative aloud, opting to stare at the latte. At your disagreeable silence, Rachel continues, tone anxious: You have seen him since. Right?

You moved out of Monaco at fourteen, right after the school year finished and your father had gotten the opportunity to transfer out. The whole thing would’ve—should’ve, even—been a sentimental affair, full of tears and dramatic caresses of your bedroom wall, whispering thank yous to the city air in French and Italian, but it wasn’t. Months prior, you’d been preparing yourself for this kind of goodbye; but when it came to it, you merely kissed your extended family goodbye and slept en route to the airport, silk sleeping mask pulled taut over your shut eyelids. The only thing you left in the city was a letter written only to Gi and Cha about how much you’d miss them, with your email address scribbled at the bottom for an added touch, in case they felt like sending you longer messages.

“Do you two at least get along?” David asks, noting how genuinely aghast you appear.

“It’s not that simple.” You tap a nail against your desk a few times. “But I think it’ll be fine. I hope, at least. We used to be… good friends? As teenagers.”

You feel like an alien hearing yourself talk about it, talk about him and the whole circumstance a decade later. Your friendship with Charles was the only thing that mattered to your adolescent self, all lemonade stands and long car rides and stealthy conversations about your futures (racing and acting, respectively). It was happiness, in what you consider to be its truest form, it was lovely and real. And it ended abruptly, no goodbyes, no nothing.

“So it’s a no.”

“I’m just saying it’s impossible for me to work with him, and in Monaco no less?!” Your eyes are wild with frustration and anxiety at the prospect of your past whipping you in the face, full-fledged. “I don’t even talk about the guy or the city, how can I spend time with him there?”

“Are you seriously going to junk this amazing fucking opportunity just because of some petty childhood fight?” David’s tone is comparable to that of a dad’s, scolding and horrified, almost. “Look. If you don’t take this, career-wise, it doesn’t mean much. You get paid a shit ton, you’ll survive—you’ll do well. But emotions-wise? Maturity-wise? Be the bigger person and do it—I mean it.”

You stare back at him because you know he’s right. “Maybe it won’t be a big, long feature?” Rachel offers as some advice, some comfort. “If you reject it, his team will know, and so will he.”

And yes, you were fourteen, and yes it was petty and unexplainable even for fourteen—but there was a catalyst to all of this, a reason why the move became easy and forgetting childhood memories became second nature. A reason why you’re selective with who you make contact with from home. A reason why Giada and Charlotte are selective with topics they choose to bring up with you.

So, fuck it, really. That’s how you end up in Monaco, booked for the next three weeks, sharing a studio and public appearances and a 24-hour shoot with the last person you’d ever want to be in a room with. Ten years later—the person still is, and no doubt will always be, Charles Leclerc.

—

“MAMAN!” Charles’ voice was loud, loud, and so incredibly loud. You followed not far behind, legs running at full speed to try and leap onto his lanky figure and wrap an arm around his head to quiet him. It’d been futile: he ended up at the dining table facing his family with a victorious smile on his pink face. He breathed heavy, waiting for everyone to turn their attention to him.

“Charles,” you chimed in warningly, breathing even harder with the effort you had exerted to chase him from the sidewalk to here. “Don’t.”

“Guess who got the lead spot in the recital.” He slowly turned to point at to your angry face, and then bent, rifling through his already messy, grubby knapsack for something that he raised with glee: a headress that read…

“But-ter-cup.” Hervé sounded amused when he looked at your fuming expression. “You?”

“Yes, Papa! Maybe, just maybe,” he sing-songed, using the term wrong yet again, “she got the titular role!” He walked over to you and placed the headress square on your head, beaming.

“There is no titular role in a school recital,” you seethed, burning with embarrassment. Your stellar academic record had apparently granted you incentive to be centre stage during the routine year-end recital, where years were lumped into twos or threes (in your and Charles’ cases, Years 8 and 9) and the student body would dance or sing a variety of teacher-selected music.

In your case, it was Build Me Up, Buttercup, complete with choreography you’d be practicing over the next month and a half. Charles laughed at your pouting expression, didn’t stop laughing even when you’d both sat down and twirled through forkfuls of spaghetti, didn’t stop chuckling even when Lorenzo got the turn to speak and he started talking about how Bringing Up Baby was his movie of the month.

You allowed him to laugh—even laughed yourself at some point—because all day, you’d been absently wondering how you’d break the news about your moving away to him.

—

Charles is not okay. He’d gotten off a red-eye from a short vacation stint, and now he’s back in Monaco, sleepy and a bit jetlagged, being briefed on brand deals and press junkets he has to accomplish by three p.m. today. “On the dot, sharp,” said his assistant, like the two didn’t just mean the same fucking thing. He’s patient, though, smiling through the exhaustion, through the dressing room, the tape around his waist and legs to measure clothes for this fashion… thing.

“A meeting for Ferrari, two TikToks, a vlog for your personal YouTube channel, three stories by noon… oh, and in the next few weeks, you’re going to film a Vogue-sponsored 24 Hours With… with—”

“D’accord, thank you,” he cuts in, already exhausted from the spiel alone. He’s a professional; no matter what people believed or what gossip rags liked to say about him, he maintains a well-kept reputation of being polite and kind to people he works with. Maybe it’s the jetlag, maybe it’s the lack of sleep, maybe it’s the heat outside, but today he just wants to close his eyes and sleep for days.

But the assistant follows, clipboard and Excel sheet and all, still spouting all his media obligations lest he forget (and mark his words, he definitely will). “Sorry,” he says. He’s new, probably assigned as a part of the Vogue team, lanky and tall and nervous looking. “I’m new. I’m Greg.”

Briefly, Charles is left alone to stare at his tired reflection while the assistants reconvene and connect. There’s several of them, each assigned or already committed to a different celebrity. Charles should know more details, but there’s only so much reading of a call sheet he can do before he’s conked out on Ambien; he trusts he’ll be around people much more famous than he is, probably American or English, actors and athletes alike. He’ll figure it out.

Yeah, she’s almost ready. Is Charles here? One of the assistants says, a bright-eyed American. They need to be introduced before 11. Her voice is quiet, quick and hushed, and Charles has to focus to hear what she’s saying. Greg chips in with something he can’t decipher; in response, the American whispers, Yeah, I’ll get her to sign it for you. Bring Charles out in five.

In five, he is indeed being brought out to the lobby of this hotel; the outdoor area is decked out with models, cocktail tables, Vogue signage and a carpet for pictures. It’s even busier inside, wait staff and event coordinators conversing in angry, aggressive French—table settings, mineral water, extra forks are needed. Greg keeps a steady pace transporting Charles through the indoor throng, and at 10:59, Charles is outside, by the pool.

“Um, right, yeah. Okay, uh—wait here. Your partner—not really partner, but like, mate? Fuck, definitely not. Um, partner. She’s on her way heeere…” He checks his phone. “Okay. You caught her name, right?” Charles nods to fend him off. “Okay. So, wait here.”

There are cameras taking pictures of him when Greg departs, some microphones waved his way; in the distance he spots fans waving crazily, sporting Ferrari merch. Charles is doing what he’s told (waiting, maybe posing a bit) when an even bigger crowd appears, surrounding one person; with their arrival, ameras click even faster, and an uproar follows. Greg waves him over, pointing at the person frantically, so Charles smiles, extends a hand, and when the crowd parts—

There you are, in all your glory. Pink dress, hair clipped into a bun, a tanline on your exposed skin, lithe hand coming up to shake his. Your eyes are flat but the lack of expression doesn’t inoculate them from beauty; they remain sparkling and pretty all the same. Cameras snap the interaction, seemingly innocent, seemingly the first.

He fights, he really does, to keep his hands shaking yours. He forces himself not to hug you, press a kiss to your cheek even if that might look friendly, caress a hand across your cheekbone, brush the tendrils of hair out of your eyes. It’s a valiant effort.

A valiant effort that pays off because, as soon as you’re ushered into a room by yourselves, your smile turns into a scoff; your hands are kept to yourself, slipping a pair of sunglasses on, and; underneath them, your eyes begin to roll. “I need a drink,” you huff, not even looking at him.

You’re on two couches opposite each other, in what he assumes to be a foyer to a hotel room that’s much bigger than the one he was in earlier. A-list fame and that. The girl he’d seen earlier scurries off, mumbling something about a martini. Greg, beside him, goes: “Do you need a drink, too?” But he shakes his head.

“Are you voluntarily working for this guy, Greg?” You refer to his assistant by name, offering a sarastic, honeyed smile. You adjust the strap of your dress and he blinks his gaze away.

“Oh, no. I mean—yeah. Kind of. I was assigned to him.”

“It’s okay, I don’t expect you to do it of your own will,” you joke, crossing your legs.

Charles laughs dryly. “Who asked?”

“So he speaks…” You ping off his retort without missing a beat, a sardonic smile playing at your lips.

“In the two minutes we’ve been around each other, you’ve insulted me and my assistant. I’d prefer silence, your highness.”

“Aww, did my joke and asking Greg a question piss you off?” You suck your teeth. “You must be fun at parties.”

“Do you two, um. I don’t want to, like, overstep, but do you know each other?” Charles notices that Greg’s forearm is signed by you and realizes he has no allies here, with an inward grimace. “Or if you don’t, like, are you two just… not in good moods or something?”

The girl comes in then, saying here’s the martini and catering you a sweaty glass with a smile. You offer up the empty space beside you, patting the white leather for her to sit down on. Your eyes meet his again briefly, catty and a bit challenging, before you turn back to the girl. “Sit.”

Maybe Charles spends too much time with Max, because he’s starting to become more and more inclined to getting the last word in lately. “Bossing people around, eh? Fame really does change you.” He offers a smile of his own.

“She’s my assistant, Rachel,” you say sweetly, but your smile is gritty. “We need to check my schedule.”

He wants to slap himself. “Too busy to open your calendar?” Nevermind, he’s a god.

Your sarcastic smile drops. “And what’s on yours? P6 this week, P7 next, DNF after?”

Fuck. The tension is so thick at this point, it’s almost steaming hot. Both the assistants stare at you, waiting for Charles to wedge something in, but he bites himself back. Thankfully, right as the silence just begins to settle like oil on water, the door swings open and one of the coordinators steps in, noisily rattling off the week’s plans and proclaiming you’re both free for the remainder of the day before things pick back up—Schiaparelli show at noon, both of you, front row—tomorrow.

The four of you filter out of the room, and you make a quip about your autograph on Greg’s arm, which grants your assistant some face time with Charles. She turns to him, combing a hand through her hair and furrowing her thick eyebrows. “Hey, I’m Rachel, by the way.”

“Charles.”

“I know,” she says sheepishly. “Listen. I know you two have history, she—we—she’s, um, told me about it before. I don’t know the whole story, and I’m not… like, I’m not saying I do, so I respect it, whatever it is. But I hope you can find it in you to work with her properly. It’s a huge gig for you both. So—yeah, uh. Great job, and good luck.”

She smiles with a nod before exiting the room, leaving Charles alone and stirring with thoughts and memories woken from wild unrest.

—

“Alors,” Charles had said, not turning from his position in front of your vanity mirror. He’d been picking at his face, stopping only when you tsked at him not to. “What is the problem?” His eyes flicked over to you, your lying figure on the bed exhaling little puffs of frustrated air to the ceiling. “Are you missing the recital?”

“Quoi? Non.” You gnawed at your lip, accepting your defeat. You couldn’t lie for much longer, not when you’d been keeping this under wraps for two months. “Listen. Charles.” He nodded, clearly preoccupied with something. “Charles.”

“Hmm?”

“Can you ple—look at me.” Your voice hardened.

He’d noticed it then, the curt cutoff of your voice, the absent look in your eyes. He knows you even through a mirror, even in the low light of your room. “Desolé. This pimple won’t go away.”

“Charles,” you said, groaning but allowing yourself to laugh. “Listen.”

“Okay.” He turned to face you, a spot on his chin red from how long he’d been scratching at it.

You shrugged then, suddenly scared to deal with the realness of it all. You didn’t understand why you felt so torn. “It’s something to do with me,” you said.

“Yeah.”

“I’m moving.” You rubbed at your nose, the cold draft coming in through the window causing you to sniffle. “Out of Monaco.”

A beat. “What?”

You closed your fingers around your necklace, scratching absently at the divots of the pendant. One, two, three little dips in the gold locket, tiny but comforting. “Yeah. In a few months, like, after school. It’s Papa—his job. It’s a whole thing.”

“Europe?” You shook your head. America.

“What… well, what does that mean, then?” His expression didn’t waver but if anything did, it was his eyes—desperate, seeking more answers, wanting them with a guttural, belly-deep desire. You’re his best friend, so if he has to let you go in this life, he at least needs to know everything about the move.

“We’ll keep in touch,” you reassured, kicking your leg to further your point. “You were bound to get busy with karting anyway, so it’s like. Ça revient au même.”

“It isn’t the same,” he said, his voice thin and cracking.

“You’ll be fine.”

“You have a very misguided idea of who I am.”

“Shut up. Come off it,” you laughed, sitting up straighter. “We’ll call everyday, and I’ll meet all the famous people who’ll get me a real acting job, and I’ll come for the holidays or summer or something. Things won’t change. Not that much, at least.”

“Maybe, just maybe.” He pauses. “Will you be here for my birthday, at least?” He’d made a big deal all year of his turning sixteen on the sixteenth.

“Charles,” you sighed.

“No, yeah. I get it.” He looked down, rubbing his thumbs together, like he’s just been hit across the face. He will tell you one day it felt infinitely more painful than that. But at the time he shook his head and looked up at you, reached his pinky to yours, a thin slip of paper around the finger that matched your interlocked one, and didn’t say anything else.

Just: “We’ll be okay.”

—

You could pin a lot of adjectives on Monaco: picturesque, without a doubt; warm, glamorous, but you’d sooner die than pin the word home over it. The city is sprawling even with the little surface area it possesses, and only few things seem familiar. Your lodging is a hotel in Monte-Carlo, a penthouse suite that requires you to travel very little. It feels like a vacation.

And you embody the role of a vacationer very well—the first five, six days of your stay in Monaco went great, mainly appearances that lasted a few hours at most and several junkets to promote Vogue and your latest film, before you were free to do whatever you wished. You’d gone the touristy route already: shopping more times than you could count, trying your immense luck at the casinos, and eating at Michelin-starred restaurants; eventually all the fun blurred into each other and you found solace in naps instead.

Your troubles are not far behind, however, and they finally come after you on Day 7. The event coordinators had informed Rachel, who in turn informed you, that the first of next week’s agenda would be a photographed tour of the Musée Océanographique de Monaco, a grand seaside building right at the edge of the water. Today is, apparently, a day for you to “fraternize with” Charles, which meant you would once again need to put a façade over your less-than-kind appearance toward him.

Those are the concluding words of David’s very firm text, encouraging (read: coercing) you to settle things with Charles into some approximation of civility. You resolve things by calling him to skip over the awkwardness that comes with texting. It takes you all of twenty minutes and twice your body weight in courage to press the green telephone button.

“B’jour,” he goes, his voice quick. French people (he will hate that you called him French, even if it was just in your head; you relish in this) always talk rapidly. After some silence, he clears his throat: “Hello?”

Butterflies—some form of them, whatever—flutter in your stomach. “It’s me.”

He drops formalities and adopts a disinterested voice. “Huh. What do you want?” The butterflies have rotted to death.

“I need to talk to you.”

“To insult me again?” He sounds a little amused even over the phone, a breath of laughter landing in your ear. “Bah, I get it. We are enemies. You have no interest in reconnecting, et cetera. C’est tout ce que tu as à dire? I gotta go.”

Your face warms at his accusatory tone. “Wow, leave it to a guy to be charming, huh?”

“Why should I be charming with you?”

“At least be polite,” you taunt, but your voice lacks its usual edge. On the other line, Charles lets his own defiant tone ebb downward.

At least be polite. It’s the least he can owe you after ten years of forgetting. It wasn’t as if you two had a mutual agreement then, in 2013 when you moved away, to stop becoming friends. For months before you moved out, he completely stopped talking to you, like he’d forgotten you two were even connected, were even friends. What little words you two shared became petty and abrasive, and suddenly Monaco lost its color. The closeness you had with him, which for so long you’d convinced yourself was once-in-a-lifetime, was ripped from you, robbed from you—by him, no less, which hurt all the more. You’d given up on finding out why at some point. You waited for him to reach out. Maybe, you told yourself, just maybe, it would take a few months, a year.

Ten years of radio silence. He owes you that: politeness.

“It doesn’t matter,” you say to nobody in particular, in an effort to segue into the topic of your choosing. “Look, we’re supposed to be friends. In… on camera, at least. It’s disastrous if we look like we, you know, hate each other. We need to be professional.”

“For the cameras,” he says back, solemn.

“Yeah.” You wind a finger through your hair. “Just… for the sake of civility.”

You hear his little hums of consideration. “D’accord,” he says after a few minutes. “Truce, then.”

“Sure.” You smile a little. “I have to go.”

—

You were halfway through your mess of clothes when your mum peeked through your door, her hair held back by a headband. “Call you yet, poppet?”

“Non,” you said, decimating your voice to a monotonous murmur. You looked up from the dress you’d been folding and offer a half-hearted, sardonic smile. “Je t’ai dit qu’il ne le ferait pas.” You were right: he wouldn’t call. What difference did a month make, anyway? This time, though, the usual victory of being right settled into an ugly disappointment in the pit of your stomach.

You wanted so badly to be wrong. To clamber to the telephone, to your Skype, to your cellphone, any of the three, and see his name flashed across the helm or his voice in your ear. Maybe he was dialing your number now, to ask if you wanted to grab dinner after the year-end recital, or to update you on karting, or to tell you Pascale wanted lunch.

She could tell, as all mothers can, that you’d been upset. The knit in your brows that didn’t go away, the bottom lip being chewed, the tight clutch of your fingers over the already-folded dress. She sighed. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“It’s fine.” Your voice came out sharper than you intended and you have to roll it back, recede it, to sound more relaxed, more at ease. “It’s… fine. I’m fine.” She knew better than to pry, closing the door softly to continue packing up the living room.

You heaved a dry sigh to express the nausea that came with his absence. It began a month ago, two days after you first told him about it and poked at the zit on his chin. He’d buried his head in your shoulder until tears seeped into the cotton sleeve of your shirt, and you let him. You felt guilty, after all, for keeping it a secret for so long. You would leave in September, you told him. We have time.

Two days later he walked you home as always, on the “dangerous” side of the street, lanky legs skipping to the tree in front of your house. You pointed at the beginnings of clementines on its dewy branches, smiling, inviting him in, but he remained leaning against the trunk, playing with his mop of hair that covered his forehead.

“Bah, trop dramatique,” you said, poking fun. Lorenzo had showed you both some art house films he studied in class, and with the bout of French cinema, you and Charles had grown obsessed with making fun of overdramatic stills that often included the classic leaning-against-a-surface. “Come on, Mum made bouillabasse, I smell it.”

“We need to talk,” he eked out awkwardly. “I have something important to tell you.”

You dropped your knapsack, leather scratching against the concrete of the steps to the front door as you walked over to him. “Ouais?”

“I…” His lips moved, wobbled, but nothing left, so he shut them and his eyes, like he was considering something. His breathing slowed into one rhythm you find yourself unconsciously matching, just two kids looking at each other in the dusky breeze of Monaco, the orange sun casting shadows over the clementine tree. You closed your hand over his, a tight clamp over his knobby wrist with certainty. “I…”

“Say it.”

“I want to.” His eyes were shut. Exhale. Inhale, open. “I… I’m going… going home.”

You breathed out apprehensively and relaxed. “Oh.” You blinked. “That’s it?”

“Ye—ouais. Yeah. I gotta.” Already he was climbing to the gate, waving a half-hearted goodbye. “Save some for me, oui? Bye.”

“Charles,” you warned after him, voice tinged with concern. “That’s it, promise?” Your hand flexed around air.

“Cross my heart!” The last thing he ever said with any bit of something genuine.

—

You reunite with Charles at a meeting; under the guise of your truce, he makes the barely-necessary small talk. The rest of the staff file out of the restaurant in due time, but you both stay. You ask about Lorenzo and Arthur, leaving out questions you’d rather not listen to him answer, and he tells you they’re both alright. That his mum asks about you sometimes. That makes you smile. He asks if you’re still dating the guy you’d most recently been partnered with in Us Weekly.

“God, no. We never even dated, the… um, tabloids always make shit up.” You purse your lips. “Anyway. Is Lorenzo still in film?” You ask, turning your head a little. You don’t think you’ll ever forget his affinity for cinema.

“Not professionally, but I still sit through hours-long… you know, reviews, and stuff.” He laughs when he sees you laugh, eyes half-closed and meeting the ceiling.

“He introduced me to some of my favorite movies, especially when I got into acting and I was kind of… like, I wanted some inspiration, acting-wise. But not my actual favorite movie.”

“Which is?” He segues into a more personal topic. “Is it still Bambi?”

“Oh, it was, for the longest time!” You almost squeal with excitement. “Not anymore, though. It’s been dethroned, ha ha. I think it’s… I’d say it’s maybe Casablanca now.”

“How American.”

“Shut up.” Your face warms. “It’s so romantic. When he says—when he goes, um. We’ll always have Paris. And then, God—when Ilsa goes, I said I would never leave you—and Rick goes, And you never will… isn’t it so classic? Romance movies nowadays are—I, I, I… I get scripts sent to me that are just so bad, and they’re either too idealistic or too pessimistic, or too indie or too commercial, and.” You sigh. “It’s like nobody gets love right anymore.”

“Us Weekly disagrees,” he says weakly, after a period of silence.

“Stop,” you laugh warningly. “And don’t act like you’re not being paired up with different girls, too.”

For a minute you sit with the realization that you’ve both been keeping tabs on each other all these years, even just a little bit. It’s a bit jarring, it’s a bit warm, it’s a lot confusing. You make a move to ask for the bill but Charles is quicker, opens his mouth to implore your presence.

“Come see me tonight.” He says it like he didn’t mean to, like it escaped him on a whim, a blurted out confession born out of your memories and conversation. His voice is dreamy, faraway. “Earth to…?”

“Wh—sorry. Fuck.” You clear your throat and deduce your next words. “Where?”

“I’ll text you. A club, near your hotel.”

“Yeah… yeah, sure.” You hum an affirming noise.

—

Your name is on the list, though you’re sure it doesn’t matter whether or not it was. No ID is needed, and paps catch a bouncer being dispatched to guide you through the nightclub toward the elevated area with significantly less people. It’s low-lit, smoky, vaguely blue and purple, smelling of flows of alcohol and fresh ice. An Azealia Banks song is playing, pounding through your head.

Tabloids don’t care about nightclubs. They care if you come out drunk or with a smidge of snow under your nose, neither of which have happened to you; entering is fair game, a fun affair, especially in a district like Monte-Carlo. You don’t have any explaining to do, not even to questions like are you clubbing with your professional Vogue collaborator, Charles Leclerc?

The collaborator in question is the first to greet you, getting up and approaching you with a smile so obviously tense. The picture in front of him is like if he’d conjured up a forlorn fantasy of his to life—your hair fell loosely over black lace, a hand pinched around the hem of your dress. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

“So.” He realizes he’s in charge of the socializing, and turns to properly introduce you. “Um, guys, this is my—friend—you already know”—he fusses over your name, which everyone in the world knows, anyway—“and these are my friends. Pierre, Alex, George, Lando, Daniel… you know Joris.” He points to each guy's face as he goes, eliciting a beam every time he gestures.

You wave with a polite smile before you station yourself beside the only one you know: Joris, with whom Charles shares a longtime friendship. He greets you first, with a side hug. “Long time.”

“Yeah, it’s been.” You watch him turn toward the low table, and back around with two shots, offering them to you with haste.

You thank the Lord that he makes quick, dextrous work of it, and before long you’ve downed a glass or three of some strawberry four seasons thing, socializing with the different people around the table. One of them, Lando, talks about your latest film for five whole minutes (“I rated it five stars on Letterboxd. I left a review, if you wanna see”) before he leans close and asks: “Are you his girlfriend?” His is obviously referencing Charles, and you pull back from the proximity to shake your head.

“No,” you holler to emphasize it. “We used to know each other. I grew up here.”

“Oh shit! Native!” He whoops, offering you another glass. This must be your fifth, maybe, fifth G&T or Cosmo or something or other of the night. You take it, drinking as you walk, planning to collect your bag to take with you to the bathroom—another hand takes yours, though, dragging you down the steps. Halfway through, you realize it’s Charles.

“How’s the drink?” He asks, brows straight.

“That’s all you wanted to ask?” You raise your voice above the bass. “Someone needs to teach you fucking… proper small talk.” A laugh involuntarily bubbles past your lips, eyes crinkling.

He laughs, too, despite himself. “Non, I was—I was just asking. We should—I brought you over here to—so we could…” He realizes he’s been talking too fast without getting to the point and pauses, resetting himself with a pinched sigh. “Dance.”

Your heart pulses. Dance? You hear yourself ask. For wh…Why?

“For the sake of the truce.” His voice is light. “We should try being closer.”

“We were close once,” you say, loose. “Did you forget?”

He’s looking right at you, and you’re warm all over. “How could I?”

It feels too real. Not the words—yes the words—but the alcohol, the alcohol is what you’re referring to, and all those shots and drinks suddenly seem not as harmless as they’d seemed earlier. You scan the periphery for the WC sign and try your best not to look deranged on your way there, offering the same pretty smile to recognizing passersby. Behind you, Charles calls out; but you wave him off, heaving dryly.

The restroom is clean because the nightclub is outrageously expensive; you push yourself into the available stall that’s in your direct path and crumple above it. You heave. Heave some more. Nothing comes. The nausea rises and recedes, so you decide to wait it out.

The bathroom door hauls open, bringing with it a few seconds of noise before it swings heavily onto the frame again, sealing the sterile silence. The momentary return of the bass from the dance floor sends your head spinning all over again and you freeze, willing yourself not to wind up hurling your guts into the toilet. It’s a futile effort, though, because you’re feeling nauseated beyond your limit again, and you need water and maybe a salve or something.

“This stall is open,” somebody says, a chipper American voice that grows in volume as it nears you. A gasp follows, and then: “Oh, my God. Are you okay?”

You turn, your face flushed and lips parted. “I’m so sorry. I just—I’ve been nauseous all night.”

“I have water,” she answers, reaching her arm outward, as if seeking it. “Carmen, the water!” A bottle of Evian is thrust into her hand by another girl (Carmen, you presume), and she doesn’t hesitate to bend next to you to feed it into your mouth. She stares for a second, then goes: “On the off chance I’m lucky, and you’re the famous actress, by the way, I just want to say I’m a huge fan of your work.”

Eyes wide, you lock eyes with her and pull away from the water. “Oh, God. Yeah, that’s me. I’m so sorry—this is so humiliating.”

“It’s not—it’s normal,” she assures, nodding. “We’ve all… y’know, puked into a club toilet before.” From the stall doorframe, Carmen nods. “What’d you drink?”

“Fruity stuff,” you recall, eyebrows knitting at the memory. “And shots.”

They both grimace at the same time, knowing the exact feeling, the exact taste, it seems. “Are you heartbroken or something?” Carmen asks; Lily shoots her a look that can only really mean don’t ask the world-famous actress if she’s heartbroken. But you laugh it off, shaking your head.

“No. There’s a guy, though, and he’s… we’re… it’s a lot. I think I thought alcohol would absorb all of it, but… clearly, it did not.” Your lips simmer into a straight line and you’re quiet for a few moments before remembering you’re on a dingy club floor being supported by two nice girls who are strangers. “Anyway! Sorry. I’m clearly, um, delirious.” You get up on semi-wobbly feet, swallowing the nausea as you go.

You walk to the sink, and behind your back, the girl and Carmen share a telepathic exchange (should we ask her to elaborate? Yes! Should we really? Fuck, no.) You rinse your mouth out, washing your hands and focusing on your reflection—your tired eyes, your smudged lip gloss, your fussed-up hair. You turn after rinsing, offering a small smile. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing,” says the first girl, offering her hand and a tube of lip gloss. “I’m Lily, by the way. And just so you know—I’m so sure that guy has nothing on you.” Carmen, beside her, nods in solidarity, and your heart blooms.

Your smile grows as your hand shakes hers, accepting the lip gloss. “You’re too kind. Thank y—”

“Lil? Baby, are you puking?” Comes a disembodied male voice from the door, ajar ever so slightly. Lily visibly cringes and walks over to the door, pulling it open further. On the other side—the detective of sorts—happens to be Alex, who you’d been introduced to a few hours ago. At the sight of you, his eyes widen with recognition.

“We’re fine. Leave us alone,” replies Lily in a conspiratorial whisper. “Carmen and I have a new friend.” She doesn’t even need to drop your name; your face alone is enough to make people recognize who you are.

Alex, however, refuses to admit defeat. “Try harder next time.” He pumps his eyebrows. “We were introduced earlier.” He looks up and waves to demonstrate his truth; when you smile back, Lily’s jaw drops as she turns to her boyfriend again, aghast.

“What the hell? How?” A pause. “No offense. It’s like. Two levels of fame, right there.”

He makes a pinched face. “She’s Charles’… friend? I don’t—coworker? Something, something. They were both vague about it. Actually, George and I were talking about it, and we both think something is up. With them.”

“Wait—you might be right.” Her eyes are hyperfocused, and her voice drops to a whisper for a second. “Let’s talk about it at the hotel.”

You and Carmen watch their hushed exchange, and eventually Alex leaves you three alone again with a loud goodbye, which allows Lily to rejoin your conversation. “Sorry,” she says with a smile. “That was my boyfriend, Alex. I didn’t know you two were introduced! He told me you knew Charles?”

“Oh.” Your shoulders relax. “Yeah, um. We knew each other as kids, but I moved away and we kind of—we drifted apart, so. I’m here on a business trip, and he’s just welcoming me.” You try to reduce the decade-long mess into a sentence.

“So you’re friends?”

“Yeah.” You feel like vomiting all over again.

—

The sky’s a searing blue at noon, silver clouds lining the horizon. Charles has to press a finger to the high point of his cheek to test if he’s sunburned from the heat, and the cameras catch it; he doesn’t doubt the fans will spin that into something cute later. You’re somewhere else on the property, this big, massive thing of a museum that’s crashed into by the waves.

He remembers Andrea first telling him about this whole arrangement. He and the team had deliberately left out any mention of you, like they could predict the immediate veto. He wonders if you knew, or if you, too, had been surprised when seeing him, a ghost of your past looking into your eyes. He wonders if you, too, are now in this endless emotional turmoil. Inside there’s a photoshoot ongoing, with you but also with some models in varying aquatic-related poses to convey the intent of the building; he’s done his share of pictures already, just needs to sit down with you for an interview.

“And a B-roll of you guys, um, like, walking, like—around?” Greg’s voice invades his head again, the nervous man beside him running through a to-do list like this is boot camp.

You’d left him hanging at the club—he couldn’t blame you though. A truce hardly called for the bringing forth of memories you two are now supposed to have buried beneath you. Memories he buried first. But alcohol had loosened him, and maybe you had, too, your eyes in the vaguely bluish light and your smile.

He wishes to apologize. He makes up some excuse and finds you nursing an Evian by a faraway corner, against a screen of stingrays. Your eyes widen when you see him, in recognition. He waves and then, with a thumb, gestures to the catering outside.

You end up by the water eating one of the caterer’s churros, a recommendation he deems “very special.” (“Have you worked with these caterers before?” “No.”) It’s also his excuse to cheat on his diet and eat a churro or three—chocolate dip included, always. You rave over the taste, smile, enjoy the view. Charles realizes this looks deceivingly like a date, and at the same time realizes he would not stop to correct someone if they assumed so.

“Our truce seems to be working.” You say in-between chews, voice flat but eyes bright.

“It seems so. I owe that to my personality.”

You really laugh at that. “I didn’t know you had one. It’s very fit for someone as unapproachable as I am.”

“Who said that?”

“No, noth—nobody.” You comb a lock of hair behind your ear. “Aw, putain. I’m ruining my lipstick. Pat’s going to kill me. I look awful.” There are no reflective surfaces around you to affirm your statement, but you sound so sure of yourself.

He smiles. He enjoys the illusion, the mask that you two seem to wear, albeit involuntarily. The chocolate syrup he squeezes on your little paper box of churros. The muttered back merci when he’s finished. Your flushed face, eyes darting from the delicacy to the ocean, eyelashes fluttering, lips smiling, curving into a laugh at some random realization. Briefly he imagines what he might tell somebody if they stopped to ask if you were dating.

Some old woman, French accent and short in stature. You two are so cute. Si mignon! And she would ask how you two met. Charles would tell her the story. But that is imagination. He blinks out of it and focuses on the beauty in front of him, so very real.

“No. You are very pretty, you know.” He says then, and it’s taken him all his nerves and then some just to wrangle it out of his mouth and past his lips. Anticipatory, he watches you, waits for your response.

You comb the hair out of your face messily, licking over the cinnamon sugar on your lips; then you smile up at him, turning your head in question. “Sorry,” you laugh, and his heart’s frozen because it’s the prettiest sound he’s ever heard. “What did you say?”

The wind roars in his ears, so Charles barely hears himself when he says, stuttering, “What? Nothing, I said nothing.”

You make a face—confused, suspicious—but all your allegations quell once you bite into another churro, stepping yourself a path along the area. Having blocked off the building, production staff and models are all that populate your surroundings, big headphones and even bigger cameras, rolling around racks of monochrome and Hermés, Birkins to match Loro Pianas. It’s easy to get lost in a crowd—in a city—where everyone looks the same, and knows the other’s name. Perhaps that’s also why, even at fourteen, you were excited to leave, he thinks.

“The coast was always my favorite part about the city.”

He notices. The way your eyes have softened, become more fond than when you’re in the centre of it all, in the bustle. Here it’s busy, but less busy; the distinction, perhaps, matters. Your gaze is not one of distaste, of disdain. It’s nostalgic, homesick, yearning. He supposes he describes this gaze so well because it’s the way he catches himself looking at you over the week.

“I wanted to…” He trails off. “I wanted to talk to you because, ah. I’m sorry. It was foolish of me to put you on the spot last night. I should’ve been more… yeah. I’m sorry. I hope you’re okay.”

You stare at the sea and nod quietly. Instead of responding, you launch a story: “I always…” You’re clearly lost in a different sphere of thought, and you have to fall quiet while finding the right words to say. “I remember, um. In Year 3, we—I came here with my mum. And I was super mad, because I got, like, three mistakes on my Maths paper?” You laugh and he does, too, but more because your storytelling is so effortlessly enthralling and funny and he needs to shut himself up.

“Anyway.” You pace around again, and he follows. “So, I’m mad, and she’s trying to cheer me up, buys me glace and everything, but no. So I go sit myself on a random bench. It must’ve been around here, I think.” You look around and point at an empty area. “There. But it’s—they must’ve ripped it out. Whatever. So yeah, I’m sitting there, and moping, and all of a sudden All You Need is Love by The Beatles comes blaring into the entire area.”

Charles’ eyebrows knit confusedly. “What, the bench area?”

“No—the whole pier, I guess? Like, it was loud, I almost jumped. And then this guy comes in holding this huge—this, um, board? Sign? Poster? And he’s got half the pier in on his whole thing, and I’m totally… it was just… yeah.” You smile. It’s the biggest smile he’s seen on you since you got here and the fact that he’s even around to see it gets him all warm.

“So what happened?”

“It was a flash mob. You know those—yeah, they’re usually insufferable, but that one was a little calmer. Nobody was, you know, dancing and yelling. It was just a bunch of people cheering and all, and the guy was actually proposing to his girlfriend. It was so cute.” You sigh a little, a brief exhale of air, and it turns into a smile. “I’d love that.”

He raises his eyebrows and, despite himself, laughs. “Vraiment?”

You turn to him, ready to defend yourself, mid-laugh. “Heeey. Everyone says they find big, romantic gestures cheesy, but I think deep down, if you trust the person enough, you’ll like it. Maybe not a proposal, though—can you imagine the pressure?” You pause. “But I don’t know. There’s something so nice about just knowing that person loves you so much they think it’s worth it to share it to everyone around you. So even if it’s cheesy, I wouldn’t mind much. You?”

“It’s cheesy for me,” he disagrees, shrugging. “But I see your point.” Truth be told, he didn’t see you as a romantic type—but all he’s ever seen you do lately is work, and even back in childhood, all you ever did was study. He likes learning these little facts, ones you wouldn’t share in interviews—likes knowing you feel comfortable enough to share with him. “Dancing is a bit overboard.”

“Oh, definitely.” You throw your head back to laugh, eyes half-shut and crinkled and reflecting the sun. Would you look the same if he was dancing to The Beatles, proclaiming all the words he hasn’t had the courage to say?

—

Next question is who your first love was—we’re rolling in three…

“First love?” You laughed a little, facing the camera to continue your Screen Test interview with W. The questions had been candid and lovely, but they were about your career, which you answered with familiar ease. First love is different—uncharted, private territory. But you’d realized all this too late, and the director called go, and you let words spill out of you like a bag popped open.

“I want to be funny and witty and say acting, but that would be a lie. Um, my first love was a childhood friend. We lived near each other, our parents were friends, and I… I really did, I liked him a lot. But these—there were so many factors at tension with each other, like me moving away in 2013—that’s, what, six years ago now? And us being young and not really knowing how to communicate. When you’re a teenager, you’re kind of just like, oh, no worries, um, that’ll sort itself out, and then you grow up and look back and realize, these things never do. But I miss him a, a, a… a lot, and I think of him always.” Your smile didn’t reach your eyes when you looked at the camera again. “We learn a lot from childhood loves.”

Cut. Lovely. Just lovely.

“Thank you, Lynn,” you said with a small smile. A pause as silence creeps up onto the room, and then, quieter: “Could we omit that? I—sorry. I could answer anything else. First kiss, or something? I’m sorry, I just. Sorry.” For the first time in five years, you realize, you’ve conjured his memory again.

—

“Okay. What else do you remember?”

“I… do you remember the recital song?”

“Of course I do! The dance is… that’s a different story.” You’d been at Charles’ hotel room earlier to go over some video shoot regulations for a 24 Hours With video you’re doing in a few days. You stayed because—that’s beyond you at this point, and you’d rather not delve into the rationality of it all. You’re content with thinking about how nice this conversation is, a trip down memory lane.

“The dance, mon dieu, the dance.” He smothers a hand over his face, smiles fondly. “You were at the center!”

“Stop. Stop,” you protest, letting laughter settle into quiet. “It’s crazy, you know? How we… like, we share a life. Not—but like, we had a whole childhood together.”

“And nobody knows.” It’s not something you keep a secret on purpose—it’s just that neither of you feel like name-dropping the other. Some stories have surfaced, but none of you have fully commented. Somehow, that’s a good thing for you.

“Do people ask?”

“People ask, yes.” His accent is a reminder of your past—you’d once had the same thick wraparound, the loose reign over English you’ve now grown to master. Now your accent is a lot thinner, to the point where it’s barely perceptible, and if it is, your coworkers and fans call it cute, chic, use it as a jumping off point to ask where you grew up. But in this hotel room, legs folded underneath you and glass of wine in hand, you have no coworkers or fans, it feels like; no one to perceive you but Charles. Charles and his accent, nostalgic and so very his, which you wouldn’t describe as anything but home.

“What do you tell them, then?” Quickly, you add: “The truth, or…?”

“That we knew each other as kids,” he says, smiling absently. “That is the truth, no?”

You cover a smile with the rim of your wine glass, nodding. There’s no revisionist history in that statement, but it hides a lot of the truth, the nitty gritty of it. You know it, he knows it, you both know it. “What would you want me to say?” His voice is soft and thin and imploring, so different from the boisterous voice he uses in public, from the slurred voice you heard in the club. This sounds real. This sounds like a conversation you would’ve had years ago in your childhood bedroom before everything went—

“Nothing, that’s fine.” You cut your own reverie off, clearing your throat. You even laugh, to alleviate the tension, but he sees right through you so many years later. “Unless you’re privy to telling people how we didn’t talk for months before I left.”

He blinks, smothers a palm over his face again, and sighs, eyes meeting yours. “I’m sorry. I don’t—I… I’ve wanted to bring it up.”

“I’m not mad.” It’s a half-lie. “Okay, no—I am, a bit. It just—it would’ve been nice to hear it two weeks ago.”

“I know.” He doesn’t even need to say it, but him saying it sends a low thrum of reassurance in you. Charles has found, in the two weeks of being in your company, that he accomplishes a sense of self—a sense of quiet, a sense of privacy—when he’s alone with you. Perhaps it’s your natural ability to bring out the best in people, to talk and loosen tongues and make everyone around you feel safe. Or, and this is on a likely front, maybe he misses being one of those people.

He pretends he’s back to last week after another club rendezvous left you tipsier than the first time, dropping you off at your hotel room with two hands taut at your shoulders, one pinching a keycard. You’d been muttering something under your breath, stumbling as you went—you weren’t tripping too much, really; he didn’t need to hold you, but he told himself he had to—and leaning against the doorframe of your room, staring at him blankly. When he met your eyes, you said: maybe, just maybe. Just those three words. If he tries to remember right, you’d been smiling, but he was sufficiently tipsy, too, so he could just as well be wrong.

He does remember a few things right. The eyeliner smudged across your lower eye, lipstick smacked to a point where it looked like you wore none, beads of salt by your lip, your hand wrapped around your necklace.

The silence is anything but awkward; still, he resolves to break it. “When you were drunk last week.” He looks up. “You said—you kept saying, maybe, just maybe.”

A laugh escapes you, stilted and a bit nervous. “Oh. That was—yeah, okay.”

“What’s it mean?”

“You seriously don’t remember?” You’re laughing for real now, your hair bobbing with it, eyebrows furrowed to emphasize your confusion. “Oh, my God. Charles, it’s all you ever said in Year… what, 7? I don’t… anyway. But when we were maybe twelve, I…”

Momentarily, you’re stunned by the memories of him—you’d forgotten they were even there. You press a few fingers to your lips and clear your throat. “Sorry. Yeah, I, um—I think you heard it in a movie or read it somewhere, and for ages it was your favorite saying. Maybe, just maybe.”

“I don’t underst—”

“—You were always just saying it,” you cut in, laughing, your voices layering as you discuss the origin of his former favorite term. “No, you really—”

“I don’t—I do not ever remember say—”

“—Well,” you say, “I remember.” He stays silent for a few seconds, the intensity of your stare and the little smile on your face and everything beating down on him. For a split second he thinks of opening his mouth and getting on his knees and telling you everything, all the apologies, all the things unsaid in the months and years you became strangers. He seriously does. The pressure is almost physical, beyond overwhelming.

“I have to go.” You swallow the lump in your throat, disentangle your legs and clamber off the couch, setting the empty glass on his coffee table. “Good?”

“Yeah,” he says, blinking. “Yeah. Take care. Should I drive you?”

“God, no.” You laugh breathily. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He closes the door after you leave, stares at it, as if that will conjure you back to him. It occurs to him, jolts him almost, that he’d almost let slip a quiet utterance of love you as you slipped out. His stomach boils. With thankfulness over not having said it, he wonders—or with regret?

—

“Best friends now, are you?” Lily, Carmen, and Rachel look up to the sound of your voice, their serious faces breaking out into smiles. If you could chart the time you spent here, there are definitely people you’ve spent the most time with—these three are at the top of the list. You hang your coat and drop your Chanel bag on the entryway seat, already picking up on the British noises of Love Island UK from the telly.

“Wait, so she’s hooking up with him?” Lily asks, confused; her train of thought is cut off by your flopping onto the bed. “Hiiii. Where’ve you been?”

Muffled by the bedspread: Charles’ place.

Silence. The television switches off and you hear the precarious preparation of three girls readying themselves for a debrief-or-sobfest of a lifetime, a noise you’ve heard and partaken in countless times over your life. You suddenly feel too watched, too spectated; you break the quiet by looking up, displaying your tear-streaked face.

“Talk to us,” Rachel encourages, her voice raspy with unuse (Love Island will keep one occupied and quiet for hours on end). Three of them are touching you in some way or other, reassuring grips on your hair or shoulders. “Did you two fight?”

And, oh Christ, fight? It’s not like you’re dating. You aren’t even halfway to that (not that you want to be, but that’s a discussion for another time). The idea of a fight with him is so terribly juvenile, so horribly reminiscent of secondary school and Monaco and being together and being friends. You can’t fight with a guy who’s not your boyfriend. You can’t fight with a guy you’re not close to, for Chrissake. You squeeze your tears out of your eyes and breathe hiccups out.

“Do you want gelato?” No, no.

“Love Island?” In a minute.

The truth is, you want both, but you really just want to sort everything out with Charles. It was no use—hating each other was futile, but pretending everything was fine in some pathetic attempt at a “truce” seemed even worse. You just want to talk everything out, even if it excavates feelings you’d once been able to suppress.

“What kind of crush doesn’t disappear after ten years?” You ask through tears. It’s almost funny, but the question comes straight from the heart. “I’ve dated guys, lived across the world, started a whole new life pretending he never—pretending we were—fuck. Pretending he didn’t exist. It was—I’m not lying, it was easy, pretending. But one glimpse—I see him one time and suddenly it feels like all of it was in vain. It’s the same crush I had before, coming back, like it’s never going to leave me alone.”

“Maybe it’s not a crush,” says Lily, slowly.

“So what is it then?” You ask, hopelessly. What is this—this revival of memories? This little feeling, this sense that no matter where he is or what he’s doing, you’ll be just as in tune when you reunite even if it takes a decade? A decade spurred by months of being given the cold shoulder? What kind of magic is that?

She doesn’t answer, because you already know.

—

“Hey Vogue—I’m here with Charles Leclerc, and we’re here to take you along with us on all our little adventures here in Monaco.” Your smile is rehearsed, the perfectly-orchestrated blend of fun and serious, and when the cameraman calls cut, it falls into a more natural resting face. It’s the one Charles turns to and observes for any signs of a grudge.

The day is busy, which is precisely why it was chosen as the film day: three shows in the morning, press junkets for your movie and Charles’ season in the afternoon, and then a gala in the evening, hosted and attended by Anna Wintour herself.

The day’s business is only trumped by its tension, which reaches its crescendo in the janitor’s closet of the fourth floor of your hotel. It’d begun with a fight over the color palette, then a fight over last conversation you shared, then a fight over him fucking up the color palette, and then kissing against the door. Ironically enough, this floor houses a fair number of honeymoon suites.

It’s ironic beause hardly anything about this is or should be romantic—it’s a temporary fix, a pause from the turmoil, his hand squeezing your thigh. He’s gentle but you feel his possessiveness, lingering longer, higher and higher up until he’s playing with the high hem of your skirt. You knot your fingers in his hair, smell the shampoo and hairspray and cologne in the wispy curls there.

He kisses your jaw, then downward, until he’s licking, nipping at your throat. Charles.

“Yeah?” His voice is rough against your pulse point.

“Make it—we gotta—quicker.” Your hands tremble, heart hammering loud and bold in your chest. His voice is sure, gravelly, quiet, and you have to focus on something—so you centre on his hands, up your thighs and slipping under the lace of your skirt, bunching the fabric up around your hips. His hands, big and calloused, fingers resting on your hipbones, on your ass.

He’s hard against your thigh, straining against his jeans. You could cry. “I want more.”

“I know, baby. I know.” The pet name, so new but so natural, sends you into a dopamine rush.

You squirm when he doesn’t let up on his touches, over every inch of your body, groping you. He wants to take his time—he hates that he can’t—and counts on the possibility of a next time. You pull him in for a spit-slick kiss, needy and whimpering, sloppy and tongues knotted. It feels good—fuck, it feels like this was all you were ever made for, his touch.

You buck your hips into the air desperately. “We really—fuck. We don’t have time.” Cameras, a shoot, a video; reminders ring in your head like alarm bells. He nods, goes I know, and you pick up the strain in his voice as he tugs his jeans down just enough to rub his clothed cock under your entrance, hard and drooling through the fabric.

You moan softly. “Please, I can take it,” you breathe. You’ve never been this wet, this worked up, this teased. You need to feel him, be full of him; he presses you flush against the door with a hand at the small of your back to keep it from aching too much, and drops forward as he pushes into you. Your noses brush and he goes deeper, air thick and muffled with little moans and whimpers.

His mouth is against your jaw, thrusting slowly to get you used to the size of him. The angle gets you dizzy, draws a burst of wetness out and gets you clenching around him. You’re flushed and sweaty, moaning. Feels s’good. So good, Charles, so, so good. He fucks harder, the door rattling, dirty talk cooed from his lips to your ear: Yeah? Feels real good? You’re so good for me, baby, come on.

Your needy voice, needier movements, are driving him crazy, getting him to fuck you harder, licking over his lips as he watches you fall apart on his dick. Relax, he slurs. You squeeze around him and moan, wretched and raw. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. You’re so big. You’re getting his dick wetter and wetter with every thrust, shiny and drooling with cum.

Yeah? He says it so well, the best kind of reassurance. Come on, we don’t have time, baby. Let me feel you cum.

I know— you whine. I’m cumming—it feels too good—

You cum first, thighs shaky around him and lip curling into your teeth. You lean forward, mouth to his shoulder, and bite at the cotton. Fuck, he grunts, and releases then, a groan spilled into your hair. You watch, laughing breathlessly, and feel the world click into something different.

You two will do anything, apparently, but talk this all through.

—

The gala is big and extravagant and you’re seated not with Charles this time, but with a roster of celebrities straight out of an LAX red-eye. Anna is at the table adjacent, andy you were able to talk to her about the experience, though not without leaving out bits with Charles in them.

You’re beside Florence and she’s talking about something, about a new movie she’s working on, and you chip in with jokes and laughs but your smile doesn’t really reach your eyes. You’re still caught in a web of fragile confusion. “I need to excuse myself for a moment,” you say after a while, after you’ve done nothing but smile and push broccoli puree around on your plate.

Consolation comes with isolation, at least tonight, at least right now. You find an empty balcony on the third floor, stare into the black sea. You try and try to remember what life was like three weeks ago, but it’s irrevocable now, the change that’s come since then. You tap the glass of your beer bottle against the marble banister, solid and probably expensive—a match for the rest of the hotel, you realize. It’s starkingly clean and smooth, and white, the kind of things you’d only say about a marble banister when you’re trying to avoid an adult introspection.

Behind you: “Are you okay?”

In response, you say, “We shouldn’t have had sex.”

Charles settles himself into a spot near you, not totally beside but not too far—he, too, holds onto a bottle of beer. There are fancier drinks around, but somehow the dry taste of ale is all that brings you comfort right now. Your gears turn and, without prompt or question, you spill yourself forth.

“It was hard, when you didn’t… when we didn’t talk, and you didn’t ever tell me why, so I didn’t know anything. I keep remembering it, even now, what—ten years later, ha ha, even after… I don’t know, after the fact. We’re supposed to have moved on from shit that happened to us when we were fifteen but I’m finding it to be the hardest thing in the world. It was so… like, I had no trouble saying goodbye to anything else but you. And I’m famous now, my life is a whole thing, a—this whole party, and I’m supposed to… fuck.” You shut your eyes, and you can feel, through the thick fog of embarrassment and delirium, the tears that stain your cheeks. “It’s like. You know when you’re a teenager and you see all of it in movies and TV, this, like, moment where you’re staring at someone from across a room, and you’re smiling and talking to other people and you’re happy because you know in a few hours, you’ll be with that person anyway? At home, rearranging furniture, feeding the dog, eating leftovers? That… I always thought you’d be that person for me. Maybe because you were the only—you know—the only love I ever knew, and now, what. Four? Boyfriends and ten years later, you might expect me to feel differently—hell I expect myself to feel differently, but, unfortunately for you and me, I don’t. Sorry. I’m not—I’m not drunk, or anything.”

He stares at you, his expression soft and unreadable. It feels like it’s just the two of you in the world today, twenty-somethings, ten years later, unearthing all you left buried. “I…” he says, before pausing. “I’m sorry for leaving.”

You nod in response.

“I always thought you would forgive me.” His face is sullen and handsome and your heart seizes. “I wanted to be your person.”

“How could I forgive you without an apology?” Your voice comes out fragile. “I leave in three days. You’ve fu—you’ve… you’ve kissed me, had sex with me, flirted with me. You’ve done everything but that.”

“I did apologize. I don’t think it was enough, but—”

“But you didn’t,” you reply, a jagged response. “You never said anything.”

“I wrote you.” His eyebrows knit. “I wrote you.”

“You wrote me.” You repeat, deadpan. Your head spins with it. “What, a letter?”

“An e-mail. Before your first film came out—2014? A year after you… yeah.” He’s quiet and timid and nervous. “I forced Gi to tell me your address.”

“I didn’t… I wasn’t using that e-mail anymore. I haven’t in years.” You pinch your nose and let the silence settle like fine dust onto the room, an unspoken bomb that explodes over the both of you, raining regret and unsaid words. “I have to go.” You push yourself off the banister, turning already to the doors of the balcony. He stops you before you can step any further, a hand closed over your wrist, rough and warm.

“If you find the message,” he says, “will you read it?”

“I don’t plan to,” you lie. “Goodnight.”

—

From: Charles Perceval Leclerc <[email protected]>

Date: 14 October 2014

To: You

Subject: Urgent!

hey buttercup, I asked Giada for this email address. my bday in 2 days. Will you be home for Xmas this year btw? ill show you some new places that open ed + we can bike around. mum misses u a lot too. parfois je souhaite que tu ne partes pas… not sometimes but always. i think i need to edit this a little let me try ag

From: Charles Perceval Leclerc <[email protected]>

Date: 14 October 2014

To: You

Subject: Buttercup

j’appellerais mais je ne pense pas que tu veuilles répondre. it’s been more than a year since you moved out, in two days i’ll be celebrating my second birthday w/o you. i’ve been karting a lot, things are looking up, just like we always said they would :) just want to say i miss you a lot, and i hope you’re doing good. i would say i hate radio silence but i know it’s my fault all this happened in the first place. i’m sorry i stopped talking to you last year when you were moving away. i was being childish, but the truth is it was the only way i could handle it - by pretending we werent friends at all… i don’t want to make you pity me or anything (ne pense pas que je suis) but yeah you’re my best friend and you always will be. i’m sorry for being a knot head.

i was always scared to tell you but it’s been there since forever: i love you. i should’ve enjoyed your months here instead of leaving you in the air. i know i ignored you but it’s the 1 thing i regret. should’ve done a lot more, i know.. but i didn’t. we have a lot of promises i broke because i was being selfish. i kept the paper ring to remind me. remember that? we had a “playground wedding” when we were 5/6?

tu ne me dois rien - i just want you to give me a chance to make you happy, even if it’s just in the way we’ve always been (as friends). if you write me back i’ll try and fly there. mum is always asking me if we’ve talked yet. if not, that’s ok. i love you all the same and i will love you as you reach your dreams. this will never change.

charles

p.s: est-ce que je te manque?

p.p.s: call me if you can and wish me a happy birthday?

—

“Rachel, I would sooner die than wait another two hours for the tarmac to clear again.” You try to up the firmness in your voice but it fails, only serving to make you sound less angry and more agitated. When all you get in response is a muffled I’m coming! you grumble and hang up the phone. Your plane was delayed all of three times, and the instant it arrives and is scheduled to take off on time, your friendsistant is nowhere to be found.

Lily and Carmen had thrown you a goodbye party the night prior, with sprinklers and music and cocktails, and promised to be on the next flight to L.A. Vogue and David had emailed you for a job done spectacularly, and to watch out for the videos and interviews’ release dates. Twitter is raving about your movie. Everything should be good, and yet, it’s not.

You check your inbox. IM COMJNG LILTIERALLY IM RUNNING THRU AJRPPRT!!!!!! You scoff again, hoping the plane doesn’t somehow take off for the fourth time, and take a seat on the VIP waiting area sofa again, shaking your now-empty chai latte. The room, sectioned off from economy and business, is fairly full.

A woman paces over to you, a bright grin on her face. “Hi. I’m a huge fan.”

“Thank you,” you smile, despite your tiredness.

“This is so embarrassing—but do you happen to have the time?”

“Sure”—you tap your phone open—“half past four.”

“Great,” she says. “Thanks, Buttercup.”

You’re opening your mouth to say you’re welcome, but it catches like cotton in your throat. You watch her depart like nothing happened, a strange feeling settling in your chest. You have barely any time to answer it, because a flight attendant is tapping you on the shoulder, addressing you by name, thankfully. She maintains a tone of professionalism all throughout her announcement that the aircraft under your name will have to evacuate the runway in ten minutes or less.

“I know, I know—I’m just, um. I’m waiting for somebody. She should be near now, though.”

“Tremendous. Merci, Buttercup.”

“Wh—” You stutter, blinking and watching her leave. “What?”

She doesn’t turn, walking to the kiosk to exchange information with her coworkers. You look around the airport, for a camera hidden somewhere maybe. Perhaps you’ve been unknowingly listed in some Impractical Jokers skit.

Rach hurry you text instead, leaning back and hoping you’re in some grandiose delusion. Your phone dings. Omw promise! It reads. Then: Look up buttercup

Your head snaps upward faster than you can register what you’ve just read, matching the opening notes of a song you’ve grown all too familiar with in your lifetime. The opening beat to Build Me Up, Buttercup flows like honey through the room’s intercom and floods it with life.

Mouth agape, you watch as the staff and guests perform the routine you’d learned at fourteen, complete with hops and turns you were too embarrassed to do even then. They’re smiling and whooping themselves and each other as they go, finishing the entire first verse before turning collectively to the entrance of the room. There, in all his glory: Charles, wearing an entirely too-small headdress that reads Buttercup, worn dusty from years of being stored away.

He’s dancing, too, closer to you. You refuse to budge for the express purpose that he dance some more, which he complies with, though not without an eyeroll and an exasperated sigh. Your heart beats with something irregular and warm. You’d told him about this before. He’d listened.

The music settles for a little and the dancers do, too, so he takes the time to raise his sign. Will you forgive me? It reads. No pressure. Except kind of. You laugh, throwing your head back at the gesture, at this entire affair that must have taken some amount of effort to prepare. As the lyric comes on, so does his sign: I need you… more than anyone, darling.

He drops the sign when you approach him, arms crossed over your torso. He removed the headdress and places it gingerly on yours. “I believe that belongs to you.”

And, hyperaware of all the eyes and yet the complete lack of cameras—you’re grateful for it—you finally, finally, finally pull him in for a kiss. You’ve kissed before, done your worst, but still means volumes to the both of you.

In-between kisses and cheers (from voices belonging to Lorenzo, Rachel, Lily—so many familiar ones), he says it again: “I’m sorry. I’ll make it all up to you.”

“You better,” you tease into his lips, smiling. “I know. I love you.” Ten years later—your person still is, and no doubt will always be, Charles Leclerc.

#f1 #charles leclerc #charles leclerc fluff #charles leclerc imagines #charles leclerc drabble #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc smut #f1 x reader

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fanfictionroxs · 11 months

Text

(Custody) Battle of for the Bastards!

Can y'all imagine the custody battle over Jace, Luke & Joffrey aka the 'bastards'?

Rhaenyra: Strongest claim because she's the mommy who doesn't give a single shit about the bastard nonsense of their society and protects her kids like a dragon protecting its hoard. Screw everyone. SHE is the queen and her firstborn WILL be her heir and the rest WILL be well settled!

The judge loves her!

Harwin Mr. literal heart eyes at his babies: STRONGest claim lmao. He is fine with standing by the sidelines and watching his sons call others 'father', but he WILL commit murder and breakbones if you try to steal them. Nurturing comes very naturally to him and he is super sweet with his kids!

The judge loves him too!

Leanor: ADOPTION RIGHTS! JACE IS MY FIRSTBORN, LUKE IS MY HEIR AND JOFFREY IS NAMED AFTER MY DEAD LOVER! MY SONS!

The judge loves him three!

Deamon: I CUT OFF HEADS FOR THOSE KIDS! I TAUGHT JACE AND LUKE WHAT BEING A MAN IS! I RAISED JOFFREY! *bares teeth* MINE!

The judge is terrified, "sir put your sword away this is a legal proceeding" bangs gavel "order order" daemon cuts the gavel with his sword and gets thrown out of court!

Incoming Aegon ii, Aemond and Daeron with 'Uncle rights' custody papers to lay claim on their handsome, wise, strong nephews they 'hate' so much.

The judge wants to go home because he married these kids with their nephews (?!@#$) yesterday sweet home westeros!

Alicent behind them: Bastard 1 & I have the same bad posture; bastard 2 & I take the same anxiety meds; I am the father AND the evil step-mother, your honour *Larys trying to stab Harwin in the background*.

The judge sets the courtroom on fire!

Jace: Wins the custody battle because eldest daughter syndrome rights :)

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deanbrainrotwritings · 1 year

Text

— ALL I WANNA DO

SUMMARY : aka. part 2 of jump on into the fire. in which she finally makes a decision about ben’s previous offer to start a family together.

PAIRING : soldier boy x supe!reader (f)

CHARACTERS : billy butcher, hughie campbell

WARNINGS : nsfw (18+), smut, mutual masturbation, cum play, dacryphilia (Ben, *said scoldingly*), angst

WORD COUNT : 5.9k

A/N : title from splashh song. daydreaming is so fun, this is the birth of my imagination as i watched the boys. also, i chose the reader’s super name to be ‘guardian’ bc I play too much destiny 😔. edited this to be part two of jump on into the fire Xx

To say things were awkward and tense between her and Soldier Boy was an understatement. Even the rest of the team could feel the tension between them, but since Y/N tried to be as discreet as possible about their relationship, they chopped it up to her being upset at him. Especially after the events at Herogasm.

She could have handled the situation better, but the implication that he liked her, as in enough to have kids with her, set alarms off in her head. He put her on the spot and she wasn’t ready for that for multiple reasons.

For one, she didn’t always buy that pathetic, wide-eyed look he’d give them when he was talking about his mistakes, because he didn’t really feel all that bad about it. He’s a soldier, those were just collateral damage, casualties that occurred as he did his job, and so it doesn’t actually matter to him, and it probably never will. The problem wasn’t that he was evil, because he wasn’t, that was all Homelander. The problem was that Ben simply didn’t care. He’s a soldier meant to be ordered around, it didn't matter if he was right or wrong.

That night, just for a few seconds, she stopped seeing him that way. He said something sweet and instead of laughing it off or saying ‘shut up’, she actually liked the idea of being his, of starting a family.

That realisation was terrifying.

What would the rest of the team say? Even without MM, Annie, Frenchie, or Kimiko around, she could imagine their faces if they ever found out that she and Ben had a complicated relationship. Especially MM, and she empathised with him the most. She felt like she was betraying them, for what? A crush?

“You alright, Guardian?” Butcher asked, standing next to her. He was trying to analyse her, trying to get into her head and why she was now staring off past the glass door. She looked at him, eyes flashing up to his face and then to his posture, curiously tilting her head to the side at the sudden interest he had in her spaciness.

“Yeah, why?” She asked, looking away from him to stare out the door again, the nice view from the Legend’s place. She knew he’d probably, finally, bring up the awkwardness between her and Ben, his sudden sour mood, and the way he hadn’t tried to make a move on her since that night. Or maybe Butcher was going to sweep it under the rug like he seemed to be doing these days, focusing mainly on the fact that both her and Ben were still getting the job done properly. At least she was.

Ben seemed to have a lot of other stuff going on and what had happened at Herogasm made it clear that he wasn’t as okay or as in control as he liked to pretend he was. She was there after all, when Ben had confessed to Hughie that he’d blacked out, with those wet, puppy-dog eyes, claiming to be a good guy.

He was a bully, but more than anything, Ben was truly pathetic. He wanted to be the best, to stay at the top, to prove he was worth more than anyone else, and he hated it when anyone threatened that. It’s why he was on board with ending Homelander. It’s why he treated everyone around him like complete shit, especially if he felt they were trying to rise above him.

“Soldier Boy don’t want you to come,” he said bluntly, gazing at her without much of a fuck about how she’ll react. She quickly turned to look at him, confused and irritated as soon as those words came out of his mouth.

“What the fuck?” She glared at him, but mostly, she was pissed at Ben. Could he not tell her that himself? Then Butcher had the audacity to chuckle at her reaction and she narrowed his eyes. He only raised his hands with a smirk on his face when she shoved him for laughing. “Assholes!” She didn’t wait for him to say anything, just rolled her eyes and started to walk angrily to where Ben was now changing into his uniform.

When she slammed the door open, the doorknob cracked a hole into the wall and she could hear the Legend shout asking what the noise was but she couldn’t give two fucks about answering. Ben turned around to look at her, his face was serious at first when he zipped up the front of his suit, but then he froze when he saw her fuming.

“Why the fuck are you benching me?” She heard some shuffling by the door and she glared at Hughie and Butcher who were being nosy, only catching Hughie scrambling away and pulling Butcher with him.

“I’m not benching you,” Ben started, turning away from her unnecessarily to cover his chest with the heavy armour piece. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”

“I’ve been doing this alone for years. I don’t need you to protect me.” She narrowed her eyes at his back, staring at him as he practically ignored her. This was probably the longest conversation they’ve both had since that night, but the room was still thick with awkward and even sexual tension that set her skin on fire. “I’m going, fuck you if you don’t like it,” she said firmly after a few minutes of silence.

“The fuck you are,” he replied angrily, finally turning around to face her.

She hated herself, the way her body was already reacting to his hard stare. With his stupid green eyes practically boring into her, trying to force her to listen to him rather than get in the way of his focus. Because he knew he’d be too busy worrying about her getting mind-fucked to actually focus on anything. He could get Butcher and Hughie killed, but actually he didn’t give a shit about them, he could get her killed.

He couldn’t tell her that. If he did, she’d push him further away than she already had. To think he fucked up the one good thing he saw coming out of this shit mission, the one good thing in his entire miserable and disappointing life. He wanted her so bad and he wished he could take back what he said so things weren’t awkward between them. Because having her in any way that he could get her was better than this, but it was already out there. The implication of what he really wanted from her.

He couldn’t force her to want it. He couldn’t force her to like him. Hell, he didn’t even like himself. He was a fucking disappointment, so why would she think he was more than that? He was a fool and she was better than him. She didn’t sign up to work for Vought, she didn’t wear some stupid fucking suit for a slut, or get paid for saving the lives of the people in her city. She doesn’t give a shit about fame. She’s just her.

Y/N L/N, with a normal, boring job, and a secret life living up to the name her city gave her, the Guardian.

“Give me one good reason why it’s too dangerous for me to go.” She crossed her arms over her chest and waited expectantly for him to give her something. She knew he’d have way too many things to list and that each one would mean nothing to her. So, all he did was glare at her, cursing softly under his breath knowing he wasn’t going to win this argument, but fuck if it didn’t make him like her more.

It hadn’t gone as bad as Ben had thought it would go. Y/N didn’t get injured or even have to fight at all. Whether he’d liked it or not, he has Hughie to thank for that. There was no struggle or any big fight that broke out when they found Mindstorm with Hughie and Butcher, who was now awake.

Dan was distracted with Hughie and from a distance and at an angle, Ben threw his knife at Dan’s eye, preventing him from using his abilities on them. Y/N had been shocked, almost as much as Hughie when he’d bashed his head in with his shield, but the news he’d gotten from Mindstorm was something that left him feeling conflicted and angry, but most of all completely disappointed after calling Homelander.

“Everything good?” He heard Y/N speak up from the doorway. He forced himself to smile at her, not because he didn’t want to see her and wanted her to go away, but because he didn’t want to show that anything was wrong. Nothing was wrong anyway, not necessarily, he just didn’t want to believe that Homelander was his son, but it all made sense. Homelander was as disappointing as Ben’s father thought he was. Basically, Homelander was not the son Ben would have liked to have had.

“Yeah,” he responded, eyeing her every move guardedly. She shut the door behind her and looked around the room at first, probably expecting him to have had some granny or a sexworker in the room. He rolled his eyes, but knew she had every reason to think that about him. When she saw no one, she walked closer to him and he straightened up a little since she clearly was here for more than just small talk.

She didn’t seem to be avoiding him anymore, but that didn’t make him feel any better. She practically rejected him that night and made him feel unwanted. He still remembers the sting he felt when she just brushed him off. Earlier, she’d been pissed at him for slapping Hughie, for abandoning Butcher, and for being insensitive about the nun and the priest he’d killed, and he knew probably other things he did made her angry, but she got over it quickly. Despite having seen him lose it on more than one occasion, she always seemed to see straight through him and he hated it. Like right now, she tilted her head to the side slightly and her eyes moved across his face, trying to and succeeding in easily getting a read on him.

“Liar. You can’t hide that pathetically sad look on your face. You look like a kicked puppy,” she chuckled, looking away to trace random patterns on the surface of the table she leaned against. He narrowed his eyes at her and scoffed, looking away to stop her from doing that again, even though he missed hearing her and seeing her. “You’re not gonna tell me what Mindstorm said to you?” She bit her lip, watching his reaction to her question.

“Stop doing that,” he warned, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth thoughtfully. He looked up at her again, really took her in because he missed her despite what she might think about him and despite the irritation she made him feel when she tried to get him to open up or talk about his feelings like he was some sissy. He couldn’t help his next actions, the expression on her face was so gentle and troubled that he found he’d somehow closed the distance between them and thoughtlessly pulled her into a kiss to ease all those things from her face.

He expected her to hit him or push him away, hell, all of those things, but she just stood there for the fleeting moment in which he pressed his lips against hers. When he pulled away, just slightly, he tried to gauge her reaction and saw mostly confusion on her face. He licked his lips and gently held her face, frustrated and needy for her, but all he did was gently brush his thumbs across her warm and soft cheeks.

“You don’t hate me,” he said quietly. It was the one thing he was sure of at this point. No one really treated him like he was a person. They were scared of him, for good reason, or they just needed his abilities. Not her. She wasn’t scared of him, not always, and she definitely wasn’t using him despite working with Butcher which she met through Maeve.

His brows were furrowed, just watching her curiously as she gazed at his face, analysing every twitch in his face, every change in expression. Her mouth opened slightly to respond, but she mimicked his face, brows furrowing as she thought about why she just couldn’t hate him the way everyone else did or even why she wasn’t afraid of him.

To be fair, she didn’t know anything about him except from what she’d seen of him getting tortured. Somehow, that meant more to her than all the people that died while he was doing his job. Somehow, her feelings for him seemed to sprout and bloom despite knowing how MM felt about him. She cared about the team, probably more than they cared about her, and that made Ben angry. They didn’t deserve her and neither did he.

She should have been afraid, she should hate him the way everyone else does, especially with knowing he’s killed dozens of innocent people, with his temper that would drive him to be unnecessarily violent, the toxic masculinity that exuded from him. He was everything she’d hate in a person, but for some unknown reason, she didn’t hate him. She wanted to help him get better and to be there for him every step of the way. As foolish as it sounded, she felt she could fix him or at least soften his personality because so far, she’s learned all the reasons why he is the way he is, and she thinks given the chance, he could actually change. Not that he’d ever let her help him.

That was why she was so panicked when he’d shown genuine care and interest in her. What if she gave him the chance to be with her? What if she ended up falling for him only to be discarded once he was bored with her? What if he was incapable of changing and he treated her just like he treats everyone else? If he loved the Countess and he treated her the way he did, why would it be any different with her?

He interrupted her thoughts with another kiss, a gentle and almost sweet kiss that was so unlike him. It was meant to put her at ease and it nearly did, she felt her stomach flutter either nervously or because it made her swoon. She felt how loosely he held her face, giving her an out, and easy escape from being anywhere near him. And even though her mind once again screamed at her to get out, her feet were planted where she stood and she started to kiss him back just as softly.

HIs beard tickled the skin around her lips, but she didn’t mind. Instead, she had memories of other times she’d felt that when he kissed her, times where he worshipped every inch of her body with his mouth, and had his head buried between her legs. Her heart was beating quickly and roughly in her chest at the feeling of him kissing her so gently, for the first time, it wasn’t rough and careless. His lips moved tenderly and slowly against hers, stealing the breath from the lungs and making her knees weak.

She’d never been kissed quite like that and she didn’t think Ben even had the capacity to give someone a kiss like that. He was gentle and he wasn’t pressing, but there was still a hint of desperation and need for her that made her cling to the straps on his thin waist.

His warm hands slowly moved from her face to the hem of her shirt, which he played with contemplatively before simply moving them underneath it. He grasped her hips and tugged her forward until she was pressed tightly against his body with a quiet moan from her being muffled against his mouth. He could feel all of her even when clothed fully, but the soft and flimsy material of her sleepwear only triggered all the memories he had of her own body being trapped beneath his. The way she felt so perfect under his hands, every curve and every dip of her body felt as if it had been sculpted just for his touch.

He pulled away from her plush lips just to pull her shirt up and off her body. Carefully and deliberately, he stripped her, dragging his hands and mouth along her form to replace every article of clothing removed from her. Her skin started to heat up the longer he took, her body tensed with each teasing touch of his, waves of shivers following every touch, kiss, suck, and bite. And soon, she was standing naked in front of him. Her skin was flushed and she was breathing as heavily as he was. Her eyes just stared up at him, filled with an endless conflict and desire that he understood, but it also hurt more than he’d like to admit.

Still, she was the one who slid her hand to the back of his neck to pull him back down for a searing kiss. Her fingers threading through his hair, keeping him close as he busied himself with taking his suit off with her help. He was impatient with himself, undoing every buckle and loosening every strap, zipping everything down as swiftly as he could until he was as naked as she was.

This was new for him. He wasn’t in a frenzy to fuck. He took his time, moved slowly, watching her desire for him bloom the longer he took. Suddenly, it hit him that it felt different and new.

He stared down at her, eyes sweeping over the expanse of her face as he slid his hands down her back and he bent his knees to reach the back of her thighs. Looking up at her and the way she looked down at him, it turned him on. Like he was worshipping her. It was short-lived when she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him control of her body. He moved forward with her in his arms, her legs wrapped around his waist and he kissed her neck and shoulder, nuzzling her sensitive skin and inhaling the clean scent of her skin.

Her uneven breaths and the little sighs that slipped from her parted lips spurred him on the whole way to the bed he’d claimed as his own. He placed his knees on the soft mattress and carefully dipped her until she let go of him and let herself bounce slightly against the soft sheets. There was a little smile on her face when he gazed down at her, and for once, she wasn’t thinking about what her team would want or how anyone would feel if they saw her with Ben, she focused solely on what she wanted and how she felt.

At that moment, everything seemed to click. When she reached out for Ben’s face, he leaned down to meet her resting his arm by her head. Her fingers once again tangled in his soft hair when he sealed her lips with his in a purposeful kiss, firm and full of promise before he moved his mouth down to her jaw. His teeth grazed her jawline, sliding down until he bit gently at her pulse point, drawing a gasp and a little moan when he swiped his tongue across the spot and sucked possessively. Her fingers tightened in his hair, her nails pushing into the muscle of his shoulder.

Heat flooded between her legs and she arched her back, his hand sliding up her side and under the curve to hold her in place. She couldn't decide whether to squeeze his legs in attempts to close her own or to open them wider for him. He pretended not to notice that and continued to kiss her neck, his lip lingered on her skin, proprietorial and ravenous as they trailed down her body. He took his time and made sure his mouth had been on every inch of her skin as he moved lower, biting at her collarbones and sucking on the skin above her breasts.

Little by little, she became more impatient. His plump lips wrapped around one of her nipples, lapping and sucking so her breathing would pick up. He slid his hand up from the arch of her back to tweak her nipple and pinch it between his forefinger and thumb, on the edge of being painful and pleasurable. Her clit throbbed, desperate for him to pick up the pace or give her what she wanted, and she could feel just how wet she was as the air around them hit her core.

She could have touched herself if she wanted, but she liked the torture, the ache that grew between her legs just waiting and letting him take his time with her body. It was hard to stay in control and she pulled roughly at the soft strands of hair that she clung to in order to stop herself from ruining the fun. Everything felt so sensitive and a million times more delicious, as if induced by drugs, but there was something about him that gave her that high every time. Maybe it was the fact that she’s never quite been fucked or touched like this before.

He’d look up at her every now and then, smirking occasionally at the sight of her with her head tipped back, moaning and squirming impatiently. He gently teased her skin with his nose, trailing his lips down the centre of her stomach, squeezing her sides when she wiggled her hips to get his attention. He smiled and nipped at her hip bones, dragging his bearded mouth across her thighs while avoiding where she clearly needed him.

Eventually, there was no part of her body that was untouched by his mouth and hands--except for her aching and wet cunt. But when he got to it, he just huffed out a breath over her dripping cunt to watch her squirm and lifted himself back up her body. He pressed a hard kiss to her neck and then kissed her lips, his tongue easily entering her hot mouth. They both moaned into each other’s mouths as he practically devoured her mouth, firm and needy while holding the back of her neck and tilting her head so he could kiss her as hungrily as he wanted.

“You’re so goddamn delicious, doll.” He pulled away from her breathlessly, his lips wet and swollen. He sat back on his legs, enjoying the sight of her looking just as wrecked as he felt. She was flushed and warm and her hungry eyes were slowly dragging over his face and down his body. She licked her lips when she got to his cock, hard and throbbing and leaking at the tip.

“Ben,” she murmured, a hint of neediness in her voice that made him smirk. Using her elbow to lift herself up, she reached over to wrap her hand around the base of his cock before he could continue to tease her.

“Shit,” he groaned. His hips bucked into her hand and she slowly started to lift her hand up, thumbing some precum over the soft head, and squeezing all the way down until he let out a strangled moan.

“Touch me,” she whispered, and even though he detected it being a command more than a plea, he complied. He dragged his hands up the back of her thighs and spread her legs, his hooded green eyes glued on her glistening folds.

“Fuck, you’re so fucking wet for me, sweetheart,” he praised, dragging two fingers from her slick entrance to her clit. He lifted the wet fingers to his face and she blushed when he inhaled the scent of her arousal before slipping the two fingers into his mouth with a satisfied moan. “Christ, you taste so good.” He brought his fingers back to her pussy, pushing his two fingers into her entrance, his fingertips curled to rub against her walls everytime he pushed them in and out, going deeper and deeper, slowly, and only going fast when he felt the way she expanded inside.

“Holy fuck, Ben,” she gasped, her pussy squeezing his fingers and gazing up at him with her pretty glazed eyes.

Even in her dazed state, she continued to jerk him off with quick, stuttered and uneven tugs. He could feel his own orgasm beginning to form with the way she was looking at him, his stomach tightening when his eyes flickered down to her hand, now wet and coated in his precum.

She moved her hips eagerly against his hand and only stopped when he flattened a large hand on her stomach, a small cry leaving her lips when he added a third finger into her squelching cunt. “That’s right, baby, cum on my fingers,” he encouraged, lowering his hand to her pelvis to quickly massage her clit with his thumb.

“Shit… Ben,” she hissed, letting her orgasm wash over her, wave after wave of pleasure making her body shake. He groaned softly, shoving his fingers deep into her cunt to brush his fingers against the sensitive spot deep inside over and over until she collapsed onto her back, her hand becoming still on his cock to wrap around his wrist instead.

“That’s my good girl,” he lauded, slowly slipping his fingers out of her. She murmured his name softly at the praise as he slid his hand up and down her sides comfortingly and stared down at his fingers. They were coated in clear slick and creamy cum that made his mouth water. “Shit, look at that,” he chuckled, licking his lips. He leaned over her, shoving a clean hand to the back of her head to grasp her hair. With a harsh pull, he forced her eyes open so she could watch him lick away her release from his fingers. “Make me cum and I’ll fill you up,” he promised, then shoved two of his saliva-coated fingers into her mouth, thrusting them in and out of her mouth the way he would if it was his cock.

He scooted closer, close enough so that her thighs were thrown over his and his cockhead brush against her stomach with every quick drag of her hand on his wet cock. He purposely pushed his fingers deeper into her mouth, moaning softly when she gagged momentarily and closed her eyes to blink tears away when he kept shoving them as deep as he could into her throat.

“No, no, look at me, honey. You’re so fucking pretty when you--oh, fuck,” he rasped, grunting softly in surprise. His cock twitched excitedly as hot tears flowed down her cheeks and she moaned softly when he tightened his grip on her hair. He came with a soft growl of her name, spilling hot and messy on her stomach and breasts, feeling an overwhelming intensity in his orgasm while gazing into her watery eyes. He didn’t know if it was the eye contact, or the way her eyes glazed over with tears with her lashes sticking together that pushed him over the edge, but whatever it was, it made him cum faster than they both expected.

“Jesus, Ben,” she laughed softly, releasing his now limp cock. He just panted heavily, leaning back on his legs with his head tipped back and his eyes closed. He basked in the aftershocks of the mind-blowing orgasm he just had with his hands on her hips and she licked her lips while wiping away tears from her cheeks and eyes.

He looked back down at her once he recomposed himself, catching her playing with his cum splattered on her chest and in the middle of lifting her fingers into her mouth. She looked at him and snickered when she saw the look on his face as she started to lick at the cum on her fingers, his eyes darkening and his cock hardening all over again.

“I can’t get enough of you,” he muttered, leaning down to kiss her roughly. She moaned softly, pleasantly surprised when he rocked his hips against hers, sliding his cock through her folds and over her clit teasingly. He reached between their bodies and lined himself up with her entrance, easily thrusting into her with a snap of his hips.

He carefully rocked his hips against hers, lifting himself up slightly so they parted from the searing kiss to gaze down at her. Her eyes fluttered open, but she didn’t protest, just slid her hands along the hefty planes of his back, stopping only when she got to his broad shoulders to hold onto them. He stopped suddenly after letting his eyes drift over her face, then he hid his own in her neck and slid his arm under the small of her back.

“Homelander’s my son,” he mumbled against the connection between her neck and shoulder. She froze and her eyes widened when she deciphered what he’d said and slid her hands from his back to push at his shoulders, but he didn’t budge. “That’s what Mindstorm told me,” he added quietly.

“What the fuck, Ben?” She grumbled, yanking his hair in attempts to get him off her, but he just growled and swivelled his hips defiantly. “You’re gonna tell me that now?” She protested and he gave an unhumourous nod into her neck, lifting himself up just to kiss her to distract her from what he’d blurted out. She kissed him back begrudgingly with her eyes open.

“I knew you’d react this way,” he said softly against her lips. She bit his lip roughly and he hissed, pulling away to glare at her and was met with a fierce glare from her.

“Yeah, fuck you,” she muttered, squirming angrily in attempts to get away from him. She felt used, as if he’d hide that from her just to get a quick fuck.

“Please,” he whispered, pulling out when he realised she wasn’t giving him a chance to explain himself.

“Please what?” She spat, shoving him away to think about what he just revealed. Out of everyone she’s ever met, Homelander was someone she truly despised. He was an utter piece of shit and he had a long list of vile traits that she despised in people, supe or not. He was a fucking child and he was out of control, no one ever having told him ‘no’ his whole life. “What the fuck do you want from me?” She asked, moving away to pace around the room or even to leave Ben the same way she had before.

“You know what I want,” he retorted, suddenly it wasn’t about Homelander. Fear of being left alone again made Ben grab her arm to stop her from getting out of bed. “You’re not fucking stupid, sweetheart,” he reminded, gently tugging her back to him. She didn’t budge, but she looked over at him when he let her go. She caught a glimpse of the resignation on his face, the vulnerability she’d rarely seen on his face, before he could mask it. She sighed in defeat, deciding to hear him out after all.

“Ben…” She sat on the bed, facing him and reached out to brush his hair away from his face. He moved away from her touch, sitting at the edge of the bed with his back to her. She dropped her hand in her lap and watched him, her eyes drifting to the large window in front of him that let her see what he could no longer hide from her.

“If you’re not gonna say what I wanna hear, don’t say anything and get out,” he said harshly, his shoulders slumped and overall, he looked defeated. She’d expected him to lash out or to hear how he didn’t want to kill Homelander, but it was probably worse to see him like this.

“Ben, it won’t work out.” She said it softly, but it hurt him like a million knives in the chest. In reality, the hurt he felt hearing her say that didn’t compare to the forty years of torture he was put through in Russia.

“It could work… I could make it work,” he said quietly, “when we’re done with Black Noir and Homelander, and I will kill him… It’ll just be you and me, Y/N. Maybe… we can start a family somewhere else, far away from all this bullshit.” He looked over his shoulder slightly just to read her face when she remained quiet.

She chewed on her lip, frowning as she considered his words. He was still willing to kill Homelander, his son. That should be worth something. He actually wanted something normal when he was done with this and she was more surprised than doubtful of his words. He spoke so softly, as if he’d had this plan all his life and finally found someone who could fill in the faceless mother of the children he wanted in his fantasy. He was willing to retire and he wanted that with her.

After spending years being an abusive and toxic asshole, then wasting decades more of his life being tortured, it made sense to her that he just wanted to cherish the rest of his time doing shit he’s always wanted rather than trying to prove he was worth something. In many ways, being a father could fulfil that need to prove he wasn’t a complete disappointment. After he’d been told that so much by his father, he was incapable of seeing himself as anything but a disappointment. This was his way out and she could easily open that door up for him.

Or she could slam that door in his face like a coward. She could continue to be too afraid to be hated by a team that didn’t give two fucks about her. Why she prioritised their opinions on her puzzled her as much as Ben being vulnerable right now.

“Get out,” he muttered, staring at her with his face hard. She blinked and focused on him again, her mouth fell open to say something, but he turned away and was sitting straight. The walls he’d let down were up again, probably stronger than ever before, and she made her way over to him on her knees, sliding her hand up his neck to cup his chin and tilt his head back so he’d look up at her.

He stared at her with steely eyes, but she kissed him, painfully squeezing his chin until he moaned and opened his mouth to let her tongue slip past his lips. He reached up to wrap his fingers around her wrist, silently telling her to loosen her grip and she did, kissing him firmly, saying everything she couldn’t say with the heated kiss. He melted into her, turning slowly until she had to pull away to accommodate the new position he was kissing her in.

“I’m not gonna let you push me around and tell me what to do,” she murmured between kisses, moving up the bed with him until her head was settled against the fluffy pillows.

“I won’t do that,” he promised, taking his soft cock in his hand and jerking it until he was stiff and ready again.

“There’s a lot more,” she murmured distractedly.

“I can imagine,” he laughed softly, gently pushing himself into her, placing a soft kiss on her lips.

➥ your sword versus my dagger

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#soldier boy #soldier boy x reader #soldier boy smut #the boys #the boys smut #soldier boy x y/n #soldier boy x fem!reader #soldier boy x female reader #3.3

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whirlybirbs · 1 year

Note

I DIDNT ASK YOU TO CARE ABOUT ME 😭😭 YOU KNOW WHO

; — webs && whispers | miguel o'hara

summary: set pre-atsv. he's the hero. you're the villain. but, that's been changing, hasn't it? pairing: miguel o'hara / villain!reader (gender neutral) tags: pre-established 'situationship' aka hero v. villain, enemies to lovers, sexual tension thick enough you can cut it with a butter knife, established reader pseudonym a/n: ... the people asked, so the people got *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

EARTH-928B. NUEVA YORK. MANHATTAN. WEST & 13TH. 11:56 PM.

"You're a hard spider to find these days."

Miguel feels irritation slip up his spine long before the phantom shift of your voice meets his ears. It's a hazy sound, like a chorus of susurrations converging into one.

In the last few months, he's grown accustomed to it.

Miquel, however, isn't sure he'll get used to the way you slip in and out of space like the flea on the tightrope. Here nor there, always lurching between the frames in reality, always ephemerally present. And the sound — voices of past, present, and future all overlapping at once, then: silence.

In a disjointed stutter, you're suddenly close — encroaching on his personal space in a way that makes his lip curl. A flash of fangs emerges beneath his mask.

His back is still to you.

"I'm not in the mood, Whisper."

Beneath your mask, your face twitches. He sounds exhausted — though that isn't entirely new for Nueva York's un-friendly borough-stalking Spider-man.

"Are you ever?" you quietly chirp as you stalk up beside him; you cross your arms, "I'm inclined to think you're avoiding me."

Up here, on a penthouse roof backlit by the nightlife above and below, you watch tension ripple into his shoulders as he rolls his posture back. That black mask hasn't left the horizon. Tar-black eyes stare out over the city, only narrowing slightly at your accusation.

"We aren't friends."

He turns to walk away.

In a rush of hushes, you appear directly before him.

"Mierda—!"

"Sorry."

"We talked about that, Whisper," Miguel leans his weight onto one leg, reaches up, and pinches his brow through his mask, "It's called personal sp—"

You roll your eyes. You straighten up and move to step back, but — instead — shift a meter backward. You talk over him.

"Personal space, right, sure, Spidey," you slip towards the edge of the building, planting a boot on the lip of the ledge. You wind your arms tighter around yourself, "You're ignoring my question."

"You never asked one," he grits; against his better judgment, he moves to your side at the ledge.

"It was implied."

"I've been busy."

"Too busy for your nemesis?" you tsk and click your tongue.

He's looking at you now.

"Please. 'Nemesis' is hardly the correct title."

You scoff. Your shoulders bob. "Oh? C'mon then, Spider-bite, what is?"

It's a fair question — one that Miguel wasn't sure he has the answer for.

In the beginning, this little tango was rife with explosive violence, scalding anger, bloodied knuckles, and sworn endings. You were a terrorist, fated to exploit and destroy the people whose mistakes made you: Alchemax. He was the hero, destined to protect and serve the people of Nueva York. Good and bad.

Constant. Like the rise of the sun and the fall of the moon. Spider-man versus Whisper. Frontpage headlines. Time and time and time again.

Then, something shifted. Miguel can't remember when it began, or why... But, the collisions of fists became a tandem of fists. A team-up brought on by — was it Mysterio, maybe? You never liked the guy.

Lyla remembers. She remembers everything. The footage from the incident is shaky — blame the multiple CCTV views all meshed together in a hot tangle of the canon-relevant plot.

Spider-man is down on his luck. On his knees. Mysterio: laughing. Vitals: dropping. Three ribs: broken. Mask: compromised. Lyla's footage swivels inward, the sight of Miguel's one eye. A rageful carnelian smithed hard into a pained gaze.

Then, you. Standing: tall. Voice: rageful. Fists: lit with power and already cracking across the opalescent globe of Mysterio's helmet.

SPIDER-MAN IS MINE.

Yours.

When did that happen? When did you begin to see his side, when did you begin to admire the safe consistency he built in this city? When did you envy it? When did the rage fade at the thought of him? When did something more tepid, more comfortable crawl in?

You turn your face upwards; there's a when moment your masked gazes connect. For a moment, things are still. Slow. There isn't danger here, nor hatred nor anger. The tension is different. Palpable still, but it feels like swallowing roses more than blood.

He looks away first.

"Try 'Number One Annoyance'."

His voice is distant.

You hum. "Care to enlighten your 'Number One Annoyance', then? You've been gone. People have noticed."

He was afraid of that.

Miguel exhales tightly. "Get out of here, Whisper."

He can feel your scowl. Then, your physical form flickers for a moment. A wash of emotions is present — a tell. In the past, that was how he knew you were going to snap. Now, in this context, he isn't quite sure what to make of it. There's a rush of voices, smothered quickly by a grounding inhale.

You're quiet for a long moment then. Miguel's chest is tight — it's guilt.

"I'm only asking because I care," you finally say; it's like it's been wrenched out of your chest by his own clawed fist. It's an admission as quiet as the shadowed hushes that follow your every warp through space.

He reacts coldly. The only way he knows how to these days. "I didn't ask you to care."

The claws twist.

Another fast crackle, transparency pulsing quickly through your spine and nerves. Here nor there. Ephemerally calm. Like the ocean before a storm. Your face twists fast to his. Mask be damned. Miguel can see anger.

Guilt. And the dawning realization this was a mistake.

"It's better if I do this alone," comes the follow-up. It's... gentler. Still cold. Harsh.

You look away. "Do what?"

Your eyes stay affixed to the horizon. Spider-man doesn't move. The stirring in your chest hurts. Hurts worse when you realize he's right. After all, he's the hero and you're the villain. You both have roles to play. Parts to act. The show must go on.

"...A part of you knows I can't tell you that."

You sigh, rolling your neck, "You're right."

"...And a part of me wants to tell you."

It's quiet. Nearly inaudible. But you hear it. And you can't help the loose grin that flashes across your face at the admission. Your scoff is more like a huff. Gloved palms slip to your hips as you step back from the ledge.

Suddenly, the tension is different. Lighter. Like it was a handful of weeks ago before he disappeared into the woven stream of time.

Miguel follows suit. Beneath his own mask, his expression has lightened.

"Yea?" you ask, stepping back like a prey recognizing the hunt.

Miguel steps forward, shrugging easily. His voice is almost playful. "Yea. But, y'know, last I checked you're wanted on a new charge of grand larceny—"

"Oops. Sticky fingers," you chitter with a waggle of your hands. He watches you slip downward and through the fabric of space. You emerge behind him in a whisper of wind.

Miguel is quick, he catches your hand with a web and tugs. You let yourself land in his grip — his black-gloved hand wraps around your wrist. He knows you're allowing this. You could easily wash away through the air, manifest around him in any three-meter radius.

The closeness is tight.

"While the Spider's away..." he tsks.

Your glove slips around the web and tangles it tightly in your fist. You push back and move around him. He's allowing this. His arm crosses behind his back. You absently admire the ripple of muscle there.

Then, you unceremoniously kick the back of his left knee and he crumples. The grip on his hand is tight. Miguel grits his fangs.

"Play nice," he warns.

"I've known you long enough to tell when you're stalling, you know," you let slip the chirp with a sly look at the black and red Spider-man.

On cue, there's the hum of a patrol copter over your shoulder. A few blocks away, still, but it's coming. Somewhere, in the bowels of the city, sirens begin.

[ BOLO ALERT, MOST WANTED. ALIAS: WHISPER. ]

"If you leave now, you'll beat them by a minute," he says slowly, "Sixty-five floors is quite the trek."

You loosen your grip and gently shake the web from your hand. Miguel rolls his shoulder. You slip through time, landing before him in a low squat.

Your voice is sincere.

"Try not to be a stranger."

"No promises."

"I'd never ask for one," you call over your shoulder as you stand and move towards the far ledge. Your costume, as pitch-black as the darkest night, is light in red and blue from the arriving patrols.

Just like that, in a haze of voices and a whisper of time, you're gone.

And Miguel is left to himself on that rooftop, again.

#webs & whispers #spider-man x reader #spiderman x reader #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel ohara x you #miguel o'hara x y/n #miguel o'hara reader insert #spiderverse reader insert #spiderverse imagine #miguel o'hara imagine #atsv x reader #atsv

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sharkboywrites · 1 year

Text

"You're Just a Boy, You Are No Man, And Nobody You Know Will Understand"

TWST dorm leaders finding out stealth ftm reader is trans

Reader is a trans man and implied to pass, misgendering, mentions of dysphoria, reader is on their period in Leona and Malleus's parts, mentions of reader's chest (non sexual), can be read as platonic or romantic

A/N: The idea for the title is a lyric from "things to do" by Alex G. When I played twst I kinda just always saw myself, being yuu in game, as a stealth trans man, because why would they need to know I'm trans?

Riddle Rosehearts

It really hadn't been intentional when he found you changing, he was just suspicious as to why you didn't change in the boys locker room with every other student after gym. Of course this hot head doesn't tolerate any rule breaking and you weren't changing where you were supposed to! If you didn't feel comfortable then you could use a stall like everyone else!

After changing himself, quickly in order to catch you, he stormed off to find you and managed to catch a glimpse of you at the end of the hallway, entering a bathroom. Now he could have waited until you left the bathroom to confront you, but he decided that catching you in the act would be better and he could give punishment accordingly. (Yeah, to say he doesn't exactly think when he's mad is a fair assumption.)

What he hadn't expected was to walk in on you with no shirt, and you struggling with some type of bra-looking thing (man does not know what a binder is I'm sorry), and being the dignified man he is, let out a loud yelp, and walked back out of the bathroom as quickly as possible.

Standing outside of the bathroom waiting for you to finish, his mind raced. What did you have on? Why were you wearing that? Did he really just walk in on you changing? What was he thinking?

He felt himself tense up as he heard the door next to him squeak open. You walked out in your regular uniform and quite honestly looking more nervous and upset than he did. When making eye contact with you, he straightened his posture and gave you a genuine apology. "I'm truly sorry for walking in on you during an inappropriate moment! That was irresponsible of me."

You quickly and nervously accepted his apology as students started to crowd the hallways, walking to their next classes, and ran off. He really hated how upset you looked in that moment, and mentally beat himself up for the rest of the day for his stupid decision. Crewel even had to get his attention during alchemy. Embarrassing.

Later that day, around 7 pm, he got a text from you. You two never really texted, only had each other's numbers in case of emergency (aka Ace and Deuce getting themselves in trouble). You had asked him to come over to ramshackle to talk. He felt anxiety rising in his chest, but knew he needed to talk to you, so he promptly sent a quick text back and made his way over to your dorm.

That night the two of you had a very deep talk. you explained everything to him, from being trans, to the binder, and why you changed in the bathroom. While Riddle wasn't 100% educated on things like these, he understood and made sure to let you know he supported you and could always to come to him, even if he's bad at comfort, when he saw you tearing up.

After that you two defiantly grew closer. In any situation he saw that could out you, he made sure to cover for you, even if it was against the rules. If you wanted to come out, he'd be there to help you, maybe talking to people like Trey and Cater first, and would collar anyone who dares disrespect you.

Leona Kingscholar

Shark week has to be the worst part of the month. Varying on how bad your period gets from small cramps to doubling over in the hallway and almost passing out me, it still brings a wave of discomfort with your body and some heavy feelings, and you doubt in your current situation birth control would be easily available.

You aren't dumb. You know the second you got close to Leona, or any other beastman for that matter, he'd immediately be able to smell the blood on you. Animal traits or whatever. So the most logical thing to do was avoid Leona at all costs.

Or not. Leona was not happy that you were avoiding him. Just like how you aren't dumb, he isn't either. He knows somethings up, and he won't let it slide. As much as he likes to pretend, he really does care about the people close to him, and he enjoyed your (less annoying than everyone else's) visits.

He managed to corner you on one of your worst days. You were bleeding so much you were honestly concerned for your health and worried if this was normal. There was absolutely no way Leona wouldn't notice with his sense of smell. And he did notice.

You could see a slight shift in his expression from anger to concern the second he smelt blood on you. And cornered in that empty hallway, you gave in and told him everything about being trans.

Honestly Leona couldn't care less about it, he was more concerned about your physical state. Please don't throw up in the school hallway. "So what, I don't care how you were born. You look like shit and that's what's concerning ."

He dragged you down to the garden to nap with him, because when you're on your period, napping is all you can do to make yourself feel better, and even made Ruggie run and get you some chocolate and ibuprofen from the nurse. He could tell from Leona's stare that he shouldn't ask.

After that Leona became more protective of you, not because he sees you as weak or sees you as a woman, but because he's genuinely concerned for you and how you're feeling after how miserable you looked when he found out (although he doesn't show it). If anyone tried to make you upset, he'd be right there by your side (no one in their right mind would fight with Leona) and whether you decide to come out in school or not, Leona has your back.

Azul Ashengrotto

Listen, Azul gets it. he's insecure, he doesn't like his body and got bullied for it for most of his life. He can level with you about how your feeling and will always awkwardly be there if you need him. All it really took for the two of you to get closer was to see each other on a similar level.

Honestly, you knew something had been up when the Leech twins invited you to go swimming with them. I mean who would agree to that? It was you, you agreed because you decided it was finally time you got closer to the octo trio. There was one problem though.

You only had swim trunks and a shirt, which knowing how water works, would only stick to your chest the second you got wet. Why did you agree to this again? So while the two eels swam off into the water with you giving a promise to "join them later" you sat on the beach trying to figure out exactly what you were going to do.

You couldn't see him, but you heard Azul approach you from behind and sit down next to you. His face saddened when you opened up to him about being afraid to go into the water because you "didn't like your body". At that moment he knew exactly how you felt, but his attempts at comforting made it clear that he didn't exactly know your situation.

After you explained yo could see his face flush red, but he made an attempt at comforting you. He stood up and took your hand, pulling you up with him. He slowly walked the two of you into the water, only up to your ankles though. "Don't worry, no one here is going to judge you. I know it's hard but you can do it."

Neither the tweels or Azul made any comments about you or your body. After you saw Azul whispering to them, Floyd even made some comments about how it was "just us guys" and Jade referred to your day as a "boy's day out".

After this, not only did you have Azul behind you, you also had some very intimidating eels to support you. Azul would make sure no one would talk bad about you. Anyone that did ended up getting roped into a contract with him. While life may be hard this way, you'd always have the octo trio there for you.

Kalim Al-Asim

As usual, Kalim was throwing a massive party at the dorm, and although you're not very fond of parties, you went for Kalim. He was honestly so happy you came, he loves seeing you honestly, and you stuck to his side for most of it.

Walking around with him had unfortunately made things slightly worse for you, Kalim was extroverted after all and everyone wanted to talk to the host of the party. You had received many, not ill intended, comments from people ranging from "I didn't know they let girls into NRC" and "is this your new girlfriend Kalim?". While these people didn't mean any harm, only asking innocent questions, they cut deep. Near the end of the part you ended up walking off and into Kalim's dorm room.

A little while later, Kalim came in, he knew you would be in there after all. He sat down next you on the bed with a concerned look and asked if you were okay. Obviously you weren't and right there, in Kalim's arms, you broke down and told him everything, how you were trans and how that comments were so hard for you. he didn't say anything, only held onto you until you were done.

Once you finished crying, he hugged you tightly and ran off. He came back a few minutes later with some water and snacks. After you gulped down a bottle of water, he held you close again. He gave small assuring rubs to your shoulder and watched some youtube videos with you to try and make you feel better. For once, kalim wasn't so talkative, and you appreciated that.

After that incident you had never once been misgendered at scarabia again. Kalim had made it clear to everyone in the dorm that you were a man and nothing else, after all Kalim is one of the best friends a person could ask for. "I want you to know that to me and everyone at scarabia that you are the bravest man, and we all appreciate having you here. you deserve to be here."

Vil Schoenheit

He wanted you to be in a photoshoot. That was it, that was what made everything around you crumble. He wanted to measure you, put on makeup, take photos and it was all to much.

Apparently he wanted you in the photoshoot because of your "naturally pretty face" and it was just too much to deal with. you stood in the dressing room looking at yourself in the mirror, your mind pointing out every little detail that was "too feminine" and tears filled your eyes.

And that's when he walked in. THE Vil Schoenheit had just walked in on you crying before a photoshoot. He didn't look angry at you however, more concerned. He walked over to you and took your face in his hands. While he did fuss over your ruined makeup a bit, he was more pressing you into telling him what was wrong. were you overstimulated? Were the clothes uncomfortable? Were the lights too bright?

You broke down in the man's arms and while he was hesitant about smearing your makeup on his clothes, he relented and held you. You were able to tell him what was wrong through al of your cries and you could hear him call out something to one of the workers. Eventually you were given a water bottle and calmed down.

Vil sat there assuring you that these "feminine things" didn't make you any less of a man and that if anything needed to be changed to let him know. I mean did you really think Vil "fuck gender roles" Sheonheit would really judge you for this?

After this he found some more fitting clothes for you and made sure you were on comfortable whether on set or with him casually. He was honestly the best person to go to when struggling. He always helps you based on what would look more masculine on you and he wouldn't ever let anyone make fun of you. "How you look or what you wear does not affect you or your gender. To me and to everyone here, you are a man."

Idia Shroud

Now how in the word did this happen? how could Idia Shroud, the boy who stays in his room all the time, figure out you were trans? Well it's a bit of an awkward situation. Ortho had invited you over to their dorm for a sleepover because he wanted his big brother to get out there and start talking to people , other than the ones on his computer (much to Idia's disagreement). Honestly the three of you had an awesome time playing video games and hanging out, even if it took time for Idia to warm up to having you there.

That was until it came time for bed. Knowing Idia he probably would have preferred to stay up until the sun came up, but you and Ortho definitely weren't doing that. When you changed you had put on pajama pants, a tank top, and a hoodie. You had to take off your binder because obviously you can't sleep with it on (or at least you shouldn't be).

You honestly thought you would have been fine, but through the night it had ended up getting hotter, most likely due to the two boys beside you with literal fire hair. You guessed it would have been fine taking off your hoodie as long as you woke up before the two of them to put it back on. But you didn't, in fact you woke up to Idia staring at you. When you woke up you couldn't tell what was wrong until you remembered you weren't wearing your hoodie or a binder. You quickly sat up and threw your hoodie back on, muttering a small apology. you could hear him give one too, but it was quiet,

After you had left you ended up messaging Idia about the situation, and he actually ended up being surprisingly cool about the whole "being trans thing". I mean he's on the internet 24/7 so it isn't surprising that he would know about it. He even apologized about the staring and said that he didn't "mean to be a pervert" and was just caught of guard which made you laugh a bit.

While Idia isn't the most confrontational person (Ortho however is(some people found out the hard way)) he's always there to give you support and as he said "Honestly how you were born doesn't matter. You're a chill person now and that's all I care about."

Malleus Draconia

Just like Leona and other beastmen, fae like Malleus have a heightened sense of smell, but unlike Leona, you didn't know that.

When you had woken up that morning to the usual monthly discomfort, you knew you'd be having the worst time of your life. You somehow managed to drag yourself out of bed and put on your regular clothes along with a pad (for some reason Sam has them in stock in the shop, you have no idea why) and made your way to class.

Classes that day were miserable, but you pushed your way through it despite everything. Once you had finished your classes for the day, Malleus had approached you to ask if you wanted to spend time together. He stopped himself and looked down at you with his usual "disappointed but also concerned" face and asked if you were alright, being very vague about it.

You did the usual lie of saying you were fine, but as if whatever gods there are in this universe hat you with a burning passion, you were hit with the worst set of cramps imaginable. Holding your waist you tried to assure Malleus wasn't having it.

He picked you up like you weighed basically nothing and with one flash of light you found yourself back in your dorm room, which was a bit of an embarrassing mess due to both grim being grim and you panicking with your sudden "situation". Malleus didn't seem to mind as he set you down on your bed and sat next to you, that same look of concern still on his face.

There in your room you told Malleus about what was going on and why you were bleeding so much. You could see him relax knowing you weren't in danger and that this was just a natural thing. You may or may not have had to explain the concept of a period to Malleus because let's be honest he's clueless.

After that he brought you some food and medicine to try and help, but once again he's clueless. You appreciated the effort though. He stayed there for the entire night making sure you were okay and according to him "To me it does not matter how you were born and how you are physically. To me, you are a man, and a gentle, kind, brave, and helpful one at that."

While life may throw many obstacels your way, Malleus assures you that you are perfect the way you are and that he is always there for you.

I'm not sure if I like Idia and Malleus's parts because I need go to bed lol, ty for reading and have a nice day.

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