#an empty box — ✰ threads

[beseojun]

ᴀɴ ᴇᴍᴘᴛʏ ʙᴏx

for @noelxbe

seojun feels a bit lost. he doesn't like feeling this way but he can't help it. he wants to get out of the danger zone and show that he deserves to be here beside the others. it's one thing he is excited about and he's getting used to living with the others. maybe he can prove himself with their performance they have to do. he wants people to have their eyes on him and show that he has the stage presence to do so. he did the same thing when he was in next gen and that turned out well for him so he's keeping that mindset from that.

that's how he ended up beside noel to practice dancing as well as singing. the other male was doing a good job at being a leader and since they were friends, he knew he could trust him with anything. stretching a bit, he looks over at noel with a small smile. "so... you nervous about performing in front of everyone?" he knows it's a lot but he can't wait to see what the others will think about their performance. he even has the mask he is gonna wear so no one knows it's him.

[trollbreak]

Anyways fun fact about me. I used to collect those paint swatches from Home Depot. I had almost a full shoebox of em before mom made me get rid of em and I dont go to Home Depot enough anymore to restart but

[neonsoundbite]

// i'm active on here but also like... not active

[woso-dreamzzz]

Goddess

Alexia Putellas x Reader

Summary: Alexia just can't help herself

WARNINGS: Minor sexual content

Alexia's mind doesn't wander during sex usually.

Why would it?

She's got you right where she wants you, like an angel as you moan out your pleasure.

You're beautiful in this position, perfect like you always are but, still, Alexia's mind wanders.

She's an attentive lover even as her gaze shifts to the bedside table.

It's from IKEA, she's pretty sure. She doesn't actually know. All she knows is you disappeared one day and came home with two flatpacks that you made Alexia build as you sat on the bed and watched tv.

You'd rewarded her with kisses, of course, but you'd also insisted she build them then and there and refused to make dinner until she did.

Your bedside table is cluttered now. There's a lamp that Alexia's never seen you use perched atop it along with your phone charger. All three of your drawers are filled to the brim with your jewellery - rings, bracelets, necklaces.

It's unfair really, Alexia thinks as she thrusts deeper, drawing a loud whine from your perfect lips as you bite at the pillow so the neighbours don't complain again.

It's so unfair that you can so easily switch between gold and silver jewellery. It's unfair that no matter what you wear, you always achieve that ethereal quality like how you always look like you've descended from upon high.

You can close your eyes, dip your hands, gentle and careful like always, into your bedside drawers. You can draw your jewellery out like they're sacred threads on a loom, reverent and awe-filled always.

It doesn't matter what you put on your body.

You have a timeless beauty that Alexia can do nothing but marvel at, in awe of you like always no matter what you're wearing, no matter what you're doing, no matter the time of day.

Marvel at you like she is now, momentarily pulled from her thoughts by you writhing under her, gasping and whining like it's all you can do.

She leans down, kissing your shoulder and hooking her chin over it so her lips can brush against the shell of your ear.

"Are you doing okay, beautiful?"

You whine, a beautiful, broken thing that has pride filling Alexia's chest.

"S-So good," You moan out as Alexia hits that one spot she could find blindfolded.

"Yeah? You feeling good?"

"Y-Yeah."

Alexia draws back, laying another soft, reverent kiss to your shoulder as she thrusts a bit harder into you.

Her mind wanders again, eyes lazily looking over at her bedside table.

Unlike yours, hers is neat.

There's no lamp on the top of it.

Her phone charger is plugged in elsewhere.

It's just a water bottle for her to drink from when she wakes up in the morning.

Her three drawers are practically empty. The bottom one holds her passport usually but that's currently packed away in her travel bag for her next away trip.

The other two are empty usually.

But not today.

They haven't been empty for the past two months actually, no matter what Alexia tells you.

Two things rest there.

Two potentially perfect things.

If Alexia could ever make a decision.

Sometimes she would open up the first ring box and stare, imagining the golden band and the beautiful diamond sparking in the early morning sun as you stretch out in the golden sunlight, sitting out in on the balcony with a coffee made lovingly by Alexia with a book that she'd recommended to you months ago.

But then the second ring box would catch her eye.

She can picture it so easily in her mind.

The silver band snuggly situated on your ring finger, bathed in the silver moonlight. You'd be fresh from your shower, wrapped up snuggly in Alexia's robe. Your head would be thrown back, laughing at whatever Alexia's said.

Both of the rings would look perfect on your finger and that's the problem.

You look perfect in anything. Any clothes. Any jewellery. Any makeup.

With or without it all.

You gasp under her and Alexia gently coaxes you down from your high, careful hands steadying your shaking body as she holds you so tenderly.

"Marry me," She blurts out when you pull away from the lazy kiss you share.

For a moment, Alexia's heart misses a bit, eyes grow wide at her own audacity.

You don't deserve a proposal like this.

You deserve to be wined and dined. You deserve a big speech filled with all the things Alexia loves about. You deserve all the promises Alexia knows how to make.

You don't deserve this even if your post sex glow has Alexia free falling for you, plummeting closer and the closer to the ground just so she can look up into the sky to gaze upon you, to look at you how you were meant to be viewed.

Like a goddess.

You deserve so much more than a post-sex proposal.

"Yes," You whisper against her lips," Do I get to choose my ring now? Or did you want me to wear each of them on different days?"

[uncuredturkeybacon]

𝚜𝚒𝚡 𝚖𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚑𝚜 || 𝚙𝚊𝚒𝚐𝚎 𝚋𝚞𝚎𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝚡 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛

in which love never ends

The sun filtered in through the half-closed blinds of Paige’s dorm room, casting soft strips of light across the hardwood floor. The room was half-packed—open boxes lined the bed, shoes spilling over the edge, books stacked in leaning towers by the door. A half-empty closet loomed in the corner like a reminder of all the time that had passed and how little of it was left.

You stood near her desk, folding up a Wings hoodie that had been sent in the mail last week, her name stitched in bold on the sleeve.

“She really said number one pick,” you teased gently, holding it up like a trophy.

Paige, sitting cross-legged on her bed, looked up at you and grinned. “She really did. Can you believe that?”

“No,” you said, smile twitching at the corner of your mouth. “But I’m proud of her anyway.”

She tilted her head, her smile dimming into something quieter, more thoughtful. “I’m scared.”

You didn’t answer right away. You folded the hoodie neatly and placed it in the open suitcase at the edge of her bed, smoothing it down like it was fragile.

“I know,” you said softly.

“It’s not the game,” she clarified, glancing at you like she needed you to understand. “I’m not scared about basketball. I’m scared of going without you.”

You walked over and sat beside her, one foot tucked under your knee, your shoulder brushing hers.

“I’ll be there,” you said, firm, not flinching.

Paige leaned her head against your shoulder. “Six months feels like a long time.”

“It’s really not.”

“It feels like it.”

You rested your hand on her thigh, fingers curling just slightly into the fabric of her sweats. She was wearing your high school tee—old and oversized, faded from too many washes. You had given it to her years ago when she’d stolen it after a sleepover and never gave it back. You never asked her to.

“You have a whole season to get through,” you said gently. “I have students to teach and finals to grade and middle schoolers to keep from launching glue sticks at each other. It’ll go fast.”

Paige let out a small breath of laughter. “You really want to be a teacher, huh?”

“I already am. I’m a TA now, remember?” you bumped your shoulder against hers. “And I’ve already got my offer letter. Same school district my mom used to work in. Orientation’s the week after graduation.”

She turned toward you, eyes soft and serious. “That’s incredible.”

“You’re incredible,” you said before you could stop yourself.

Paige blinked, looking down like she needed to hide how fast she blushed. She always got like that when you said things too directly. Too honestly.

She didn’t say anything for a moment.

Then, her voice barely above a whisper, “Are you really gonna come to Dallas?”

You turned toward her fully, one leg sliding off the bed to ground yourself. “Yes.”

“You promise?”

You reached for her hand, threading your fingers together. “I promise.”

Her bottom lip quivered just slightly, and she bit down on it like she could swallow the emotion before it broke the surface.

“You’re not just saying that to make it easier.”

“No, Paige. I mean it.” You squeezed her hand. “Six months from now, I’ll be there. I’ll be in your apartment, probably fighting you for closet space and making you pasta after away games.”

She smiled, even as her eyes welled with tears. “You can’t cook.”

“I’m learning. I made that chicken stir fry last week.”

“That was microwaved chicken stir fry.”

“Still counts.”

She laughed through her tears, leaning in to press her forehead to yours. “God, I love you.”

You closed your eyes. “I love you too.”

There were things you didn’t say—like how terrified you were of her leaving, how the thought of waking up alone in your own dorm made your chest ache. How hard it would be to fall asleep without her cold feet pressing against your calves or her late-night whispered rants about practice drills.

But you also didn’t say how proud you were watching her step into this next chapter. You didn’t need to.

Instead, you kissed her—slow, lingering, full of everything you couldn’t fit into words. When you pulled away, her eyes stayed closed like she was memorizing the shape of your mouth.

“You’ll call?” she whispered.

“Every night,” you said. “Even if it’s just to hear you breathe.”

“That’s weird,” she teased.

“That’s love.”

She leaned into your chest, burying her face in your neck, and you held her. You didn’t move for a long time.

When she left for the airport the next morning, her fingers gripped yours until the last possible moment. You kissed her like you were writing a promise into her mouth. Six months, you told her again. You’ll be there in six months.

And as she stepped through the terminal gate, looking back at you with tears in her eyes and her Wings hoodie pulled tight around her, you smiled through your own heartbreak.

Because you meant it.

And because some promises don’t need reminders.

They just need time.

Dallas felt bigger than it looked on a map.

Everything about it—traffic, heat, even the sky—seemed stretched, like someone had pulled the edges of a familiar world just far enough to make it unrecognizable.

Paige sat alone on the living room floor of her new apartment, a half-unpacked box of plates beside her and a phone balanced on her knee. Her wallpaper was still a photo of you— blurry, mid-laugh, sitting cross-legged in the grass at a park. It was from a late spring picnic, right before you both had to pretend you weren’t about to say goodbye.

She stared at the screen like it might blink and bring you back.

You answered after the third ring, your voice a little breathless. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Paige whispered. It came out softer than she meant. Her chest ached.

“Did I catch you at a bad time?” you asked.

“No. Just… sitting.”

“On the floor?”

“Yeah. I don’t know where my couch screws went. I might be living a cushion life for a while.”

You laughed—real, warm, familiar. Paige closed her eyes and let it coat the inside of her ribs.

“That’s kind of poetic,” you said. “Starting your WNBA career on the floor of an empty apartment.”

“Feels more pathetic than poetic.”

“No. I like it. It’s humble.”

Paige exhaled, and her voice cracked just slightly. “I miss you.”

The line was quiet for a second. Then you spoke, your voice gentler. “I miss you too.”

She bit the inside of her cheek. “I keep forgetting you’re not ten minutes away. Like today, I had a good practice, and my first thought was ‘I’m gonna stop by your place and tell you everything.’ And then I remembered.”

“I know,” you said. “I do that too.”

“I drove past a coffee shop the other day and almost walked in just to see if you’d be there. Even though you’ve never even been to Texas.”

You smiled, she could hear it. “You’re thinking of the one near Gampel, huh?”

“Yeah.” She swallowed. “The one where you studied and I’d show up pretending I needed help with nutrition class.”

“You did need help.”

“Whatever. It worked.”

She leaned her head back against the wall and looked around at the blank space surrounding her. The moving truck had come and gone. The furniture was in, but the soul of the apartment hadn’t arrived yet.

It was still missing you.

“How’s school?” she asked.

“Chaotic,” you replied. “One of the kids asked me today if people in the ‘old times’ had internet. I said, ‘Define old.’ He said, ‘Like 2005.’”

Paige laughed, shaking her head. “Rude.”

“I’m ancient now,” you said. “Twenty-two and deteriorating.”

“You better still have the strength to carry all your stuff up three flights when you get here.”

“Oh, I do. I’m saving it all up for the move.”

Her smile faltered. “You’re still coming, right?”

You went quiet again. Not hesitant—just letting it settle, weighty and certain.

“Of course I am.”

Paige closed her eyes. “Promise?”

“I already did.”

“I just…” Her voice trailed. “It’s hard. Not hearing your keys in the door. Not getting to see your face at the end of the day. I love my team, I really do—but they’re not you.”

“I’m not replacing anyone,” you said. “Just adding to it.”

She let that sit with her. “I want you here so bad it hurts sometimes.”

“I know,” you whispered. “Me too.”

Her voice shook. “I don’t want us to change.”

“We won’t.”

“But long distance changes people.”

“Maybe,” you admitted. “But not us. It might make things harder. But not worse.”

She nodded, even though you couldn’t see it. “I just feel like I’m floating through all this without you. The practices, the press, the apartment—it all feels… half real.”

“Paige,” you said, gentle, firm. “I am coming. I’m not drifting away from you. I’m just walking the longer path to the same place.”

She let the silence wrap around her.

“Say something else,” she said softly. “Just talk to me.”

You paused. “Okay… I hung up pictures in my room. There’s one of us from last spring. You’ve got your mouth full of apple slices and you’re giving me the middle finger because I said you looked like a squirrel.”

She laughed. “I did not.”

“You absolutely did.”

Paige smiled, small but genuine. She pictured it. You, in your tiny off-campus apartment. Talking about her like she was still part of your day. She was. You were hers, too.

“I love you,” Paige said.

“I love you more,” you answered.

The days ticked by slower than she liked.

Some nights, she fell asleep with the phone still in her hand, your voice still echoing in her ears from a half-finished conversation. Other nights, she'd stay up scrolling through old pictures, rereading texts, listening to voicemails.

Her teammates teased her about being a hopeless romantic. About how she smiled every time your name came up. About how she always checked her phone like she was waiting for someone to come home.

And she was.

Because in six months—five, now—you would.

And when that day came, Paige knew, no amount of missed calls or empty beds would matter. Because you’d be there. You’d walk through the door with a duffel bag and a tired smile, and she'd finally feel whole again.

But until then… she’d wait.

With her phone in her hand. And your promise in her heart.

The calendar on Paige’s fridge had six weeks circled in red.

It was stupid, maybe, using a physical calendar like some suburban mom—but it grounded her. It gave shape to time that otherwise felt endless. Each “X” she scribbled through a square made the space between now and your arrival just a little smaller.

But it didn’t make the missing hurt any less.

Paige sat curled on the apartment couch, legs tucked under her, bowl of cereal in one hand, phone pressed to her cheek with the other. Her hair was still damp from practice. Her whole body ached—but nothing ached more than the space beside her on the couch.

“I got a voicemail from one of my students today,” your voice said through the speaker. “He said, ‘Miss Y/L/N, I hope you feel better because math was boring without you.’ And then he just hung up. No goodbye. Just vibes.”

Paige chuckled, staring out the window at the pink glow bleeding across the Dallas sky. “You’re their favorite.”

“They’re my favorites too. Even when they call me 'mom' by accident and pretend like it didn’t happen.”

“You do have teacher-mom energy.”

“Oh, shut up,” you said with a laugh. “You miss my teacher-mom energy.”

“Painfully.”

A beat of silence.

“I’m looking at your sweatshirt right now,” you said after a moment. “You left it in my car before you moved. I wore it to bed last night.”

That pulled a breath from Paige she didn’t know she was holding. “Did it still smell like me?”

“It did. Faintly. Like that vanilla lotion you always forget to pack on road trips.”

She smiled. “I haven’t used it since I left.”

“Save it for me?”

“Always.”

She shifted, curling tighter into herself. “Today was hard.”

“Tell me.”

“Team media stuff,” Paige mumbled. “Photos, press questions, PR meetings. They asked about goals. Stats. Leadership. Playmaking. All I could think was, none of that matters until you’re here.”

You were quiet for a moment. “I don’t want to be the reason you’re not present here, Paige.”

“You’re not. You’re the reason I am.” She pressed the heel of her hand into her eye, blinking fast. “I show up every day because I know you’ll be here soon. It’s the only thing keeping me steady.”

You exhaled softly on the other end of the line.

“I’m coming. You know that.”

“I know.”

“But you need to live this part too, babe. Not just wait for me to catch up.”

Paige looked down at the rug. Her socked toe circled the same loop in the fabric she always traced when she was anxious.

“I’m trying,” she whispered.

“I know you are,” you said, gentle and true.

She listened to your breathing—steady, familiar, comforting like a lullaby only she ever got to hear.

“I got your letter,” you said after a pause.

Her breath caught. “You did?”

“It was in my mailbox when I got home today. I read it twice. I cried.”

“Yeah?” Her throat tightened. “I wasn’t sure if I should send it.”

“I’m glad you did.” You paused. “The part where you said you wake up sometimes expecting me to be next to you… that broke me.”

“It breaks me too,” she admitted.

You went quiet, and for a second she thought maybe the call had dropped. But then you spoke, voice lower than before.

“I still sleep on my side of the bed.”

Paige’s eyes burned. “Me too.”

More silence. Not awkward—just full. Weighted. Safe.

“I’ve been drafting lesson plans on weekends,” you said eventually. “Every time I write one, I imagine grading papers at your kitchen table. Coffee beside me. You half-asleep, stealing bites of my breakfast.”

“I want that so bad,” Paige whispered. “Just… life with you.”

“You’ll have it.”

“I’m scared something’s gonna change before then.”

You were quiet. “Do you feel me changing?”

“No,” she answered immediately. “No. I feel you more than ever.”

“Then trust that.”

She let her head fall back against the couch, eyes fluttering shut. “I trust you.”

“Good,” you whispered. “Because I’m not going anywhere. Even if it feels like I’m not close yet—I am. I’m getting closer every single day.”

Paige exhaled shakily. “I need you.”

“You have me.”

It was the kind of sentence Paige wanted to wrap herself in. Warm. Safe. Whole.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you more,” you replied. “Thirty-nine days.”

She smiled.

Thirty-nine days.

She could wait a little longer.

Paige had never looked at a calendar so obsessively in her life.

Thirteen days.

She’d circled the date in three different colors now. Red, then black, then silver Sharpie because it felt permanent. Final. Like a promise.

Thirteen days until you arrived in Dallas. Thirteen days until she wouldn’t have to fall asleep hugging a pillow that didn’t breathe. Until she wouldn’t have to whisper “I love you” to a lock screen photo anymore.

Her teammates noticed.

“You good, Bueckers?” Arike asked at practice after she botched a layup drill for the third time.

“Yeah. Just… distracted.”

DiJonai raised a brow. “Your girl coming soon?”

Paige glanced down at the court, tried to hide her smile. “Thirteen days.”

Arike let out a low whistle. “We’re about to meet the mysterious teacher girlfriend.”

“She’s real?” Maddy Siegrist joked from the sideline. “I thought y’all made her up for the plot.”

“Shut up,” Paige muttered, but she was grinning.

That night, her phone buzzed with a picture.

You. In the mirror. Hair still damp from a shower, her oversized Wings hoodie falling off one shoulder. The caption underneath said, “Borrowed this. Sorry, not sorry.”

Paige melted into her mattress.

“That’s the only crime I fully endorse.”

Then she FaceTimed you.

You answered almost immediately, face bright despite the bags under your eyes. “Hey, superstar.”

“Hey, thief.”

You smiled. “Caught me.”

“You look good in that.”

“I better. You left it behind for a reason.”

“I did,” Paige said softly. “So you’d have something to hold until I could do it myself again.”

Your face shifted, tenderness blooming at the edges of your eyes. “Two weeks.”

“Twelve days.”

You sighed, smiling into the phone like she’d pressed a kiss to your cheek through the screen. “I packed up my classroom today. Left a note on the desk for the next TA.”

Paige nodded. “It’s real now, huh?”

“It’s always been real,” you said. “But now it’s here. It’s close.”

Paige ran a hand through her hair, breath shaky. “I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“That something will go wrong. That the plane will get canceled. Or your offer will fall through. Or you’ll—”

“I’m coming,” you interrupted, firm, grounding her. “There’s no ‘what if.’ I’m coming. Eleven days and twenty hours. I counted.”

Paige stared at you for a long second.

“Come sleep on the call,” she said quietly.

You blinked. “You want me to fall asleep with you on the phone?”

“I want to hear you breathe,” she whispered. “I want to pretend the distance isn’t real for one night.”

You didn’t hesitate. “Okay.”

She propped her phone up on the pillow beside her. You did the same. It wasn’t perfect—fuzzy audio, a time delay—but it was yours. You talked about nothing for a while. What you made for dinner (pasta), the paper you were editing (some kid plagiarized a poem about dogs), your grocery list for when you moved in (cereal, way too much oat milk, frozen dumplings).

And then it got quiet.

Your voice came soft in the dark, “Ten days tomorrow.”

“I know,” Paige murmured. “It’s starting to feel real.”

“It is real.”

She reached for the screen, like touching glass could bridge miles. “I can’t wait to kiss you again.”

You let out a breath. “Don’t make me cry this late.”

“I just miss you,” Paige said, voice cracking.

“I know, baby. I miss you too.”

Seven days before you arrive, a package showed up at her door with your name scribbled across the top.

Inside was a box of school supplies—pens, Post-its, paper clips—and a hand-written note.

“Figured I should bring some of me to you before I physically can. Can’t wait to leave these all over your kitchen table. Love you always, Your favorite teacher.”

She cried for fifteen minutes after opening it

Four days before, she sat at a team dinner scrolling through your texts, tuning out everything else.

Her phone buzzed.

“T-minus 96 hours. Pack extra chapstick. You’re not escaping all the kisses I owe you.”

She nearly choked on her lemonade.

She didn’t sleep.

She lay on the couch in your sweatshirt, staring at the ceiling, heart galloping in her chest like she was waiting for Christmas morning.

The phone rang at 1:08 AM.

“Couldn’t sleep?” you asked.

“Nope.”

“Me neither.”

You were quiet together for a while. Then Paige whispered, “Where are you?”

You laughed. “Still in Connecticut. Bags packed. Suitcase by the door. I keep checking my flight time every ten minutes.”

“Me too,” she said. “I keep opening the guest closet to make sure I left you enough space.”

“You didn’t.”

“Guess we’ll be sharing hangers then.” A pause. “Next time I call you,” you said, “it won’t be through a screen.”

Paige closed her eyes. “I’m gonna hold you so tight.”

“I’m gonna let you.”

Two days before.

The sun in Dallas was blinding. Unreasonably bright for a city that had no idea her world was about to tilt.

Paige had just gotten home from practice, keys still in hand, backpack sliding off her shoulder when she grabbed her phone.

One new message from you.

“On the way to my last class now—remind me to tell you about the 8th grader who tried to give me a friendship bracelet today. He said it was for luck on my big move .”

She smiled. She sat on the arm of the couch and typed fast.

“That’s the cutest thing ever.”

Delivered.

No read receipt. That was fine. You were still in class.

An hour passed.

She sent another.

“Dinner’s on me when you land. I bought dumplings. Don’t fight me.”

No response.

She waited.

She called around 9 p.m.

Once. Twice.

Three rings, voicemail.

She left a message.

“Hey, you okay? I know you’ve probably got a million things going on—boxes, checklists, last-minute goodbyes—but… just call me when you get a second, okay? I just want to hear your voice.”

She kept her phone next to her pillow that night, volume up, screen brightness high.

Nothing.

One day before.

The silence clung to her.

She woke with a headache, heart already racing, the cold side of the bed feeling like an accusation.

Still nothing from you.

Paige rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.

“This is fine,” she whispered to herself. “You’re just busy. You’re probably with your family. Maybe your phone died.”

She called again.

Straight to voicemail.

She texted.

“I’m starting to worry. Just… send me a thumbs up or anything. Please.”

Nothing.

She paced the apartment, uneaten toast still on her plate, coffee gone cold in her mug.

That night, she sat on the kitchen floor in front of the fridge, phone in her lap, eyes red.

“Where are you?” “Baby, please.” “Just tell me you're okay.” “I don’t care if you’re not getting on the plane. I just need to know you're okay.”

She didn’t sleep.

Just stared at the wall.

The day of.

She cleaned the apartment top to bottom.

She couldn’t sit still. Couldn’t cry again.

You were supposed to land at 4:27 p.m.

She stared at the time on her screen—4:00… 4:15… 4:27… 4:40.

No call. No knock at the door. No text.

She scrolled to the airport’s arrival board online. Typed your flight number. Watched it switch from Scheduled to Landed.

Still nothing.

She picked up her phone again. Shaking fingers. Dialed.

Voicemail.

She left one anyway, voice cracking.

“Please don’t do this to me. Please. Just… I need you. I need to know if you’re—if you’re safe. If you changed your mind, I’ll understand. I swear, I’ll understand. Just don’t let it end like this. Not in silence.”

She hung up.

Then slumped down against the front door and broke.

Her body folded over itself. Sobs racked through her like her heart had forgotten how to beat without yours to match it. She stayed there, curled up, whispering your name like a prayer.

She didn’t turn the lights on.

She sat in the dark with your hoodie balled up in her arms and her phone still in her hand.

Her last text read, “I’ll wait by the door.”

But she never heard the knock.

Paige sat on the apartment floor again, back pressed against the kitchen cabinets. The tile was cold beneath her legs. She hadn’t eaten more than toast in 36 hours.

The dumplings were still in the freezer. She hadn’t touched them. Couldn’t.

She refreshed her texts.

Still no read receipts. Still no dots. Still no “Delivered” beneath her messages.

She called again.

Straight to voicemail.

She whispered into the silence like maybe this time the void would answer her.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” she said. “I don’t know if you’re ghosting me or if you’re gone. Please—please—just give me something. Let me hate you. Let me worry. Just don’t let me do both.”

She hung up. Laid down. Didn’t move.

She went to practice. No one said anything until the third missed shot in a row.

“Yo,” Arike called out. “You good, Paige?”

She didn’t answer right away. Just wiped sweat from her brow and threw the ball at the nearest rack.

“Fine.”

“You’re not.”

“I said I’m fine,” Paige snapped, sharper than she meant to. Her voice echoed off the gym walls like a slap.

Her teammates exchanged looks.

“Alright,” Nai said as they walked out of the locker room. “Spill. What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Try again.”

Paige exhaled, shoulders slumped. “She was supposed to be here. Three days ago.”

Nai paused. “Wait—your girl? She didn’t come?”

“No call. No text. No voicemail. Nothing.”

Nai’s face softened. “Shit, Paige…”

“I don’t even know if she’s alive.”

“Have you… talked to anyone? Like, her friends, her mom—?”

“She’s private about that. Her family… it’s complicated.”

Nai hesitated. “Did she ever give any signs that she wouldn’t come?”

“No.” Paige blinked hard. “She was excited. We planned everything down to the shelf space. She sent me a letter. She told me she was counting hours. And now it’s just—gone.”

Nai put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll figure it out.”

Paige flinched. “What if there’s nothing to figure out?”

Nai didn’t answer that.

The team had an off day.

Paige didn’t leave bed.

She watched your old videos on her phone—the ones you sent her when you used to stay up late decorating your classroom or making grilled cheese while dancing around your kitchen.

She watched them on loop until her phone died.

And then she just laid there, eyes burning.

Maddy brought takeout over.

“You need to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I didn’t ask.”

They sat in silence on the couch. Paige pushed rice around her plate without lifting the fork once.

Maddy glanced at her. “Is there any chance she—like, she couldn’t call?”

Paige’s voice cracked. “I don’t know. I’ve thought of everything. Every possibility. Car accident. No service. Anxiety. Cold feet. But it’s been over a week.”

“Have you heard anything?”

Paige shook her head. “Her phone goes straight to voicemail. Her email bounced. Her socials are dark. It’s like she fell off the planet.”

“Bueckers…”

“I keep checking the door,” Paige whispered. “I know she’s not coming, but I can’t help it. I still wake up thinking I’ll hear her keys.”

Maddy’s voice went soft. “You really loved her, huh?”

Paige nodded, eyes shining. “Still do.”

The media started noticing.

Her stats dropped. Her answers got shorter. Smiles didn’t reach her eyes.

In a post-practice interview, someone asked, “Everything okay off the court?”

She blinked, stunned into stillness.

Then nodded once.

But when she got back to the locker room, she cried into her jersey until her shoulders shook and her breath hitched and she didn’t know how to stop.

She texted you again.

“It’s been almost two weeks. Please. I’m not mad. I just need to know if you’re okay. I won’t ask anything else. Just… say something. Anything.”

She stared at the screen for hours.

Nothing.

She scrolled through every old message. Every photo. Every “I love you more.” Every kiss emoji. Every half-finished voice memo you never sent but saved for later.

She played one on loop.

“God, I can’t wait to be there. To be home. With you.”

And then, when her hands couldn’t stop shaking, she recorded one of her own. She didn’t know if it would ever be heard. But she sent it anyway.

“Hey. It’s Paige. I guess this is… my last message. I don’t know if you’re out there, or if you changed your mind, or if something happened and you’re too scared to tell me. But I still love you. And I always will. No matter what.”

She hit send.

And this time, she didn’t wait for the three dots to appear.

There was a new voicemail on Paige’s phone.

Not from you.

Just a spam number, something about her car warranty.

She deleted it without listening.

Your name—your entire thread—was now buried in her messages. She hadn’t opened it in four days. Not because she didn’t care. Because she couldn’t.

Every time she saw it, her stomach clenched. Not from love. From loss.

You had disappeared 25 days ago.

She used to count the days with hope. Now it just felt like proof that people vanish. Even the ones who swore they’d never leave.

Her texts to you had slowed. At first they’d been frantic—ten a day, calls at every hour. Then five a day. Then one. Then every few days.

Now? Nothing in almost a week.

She didn’t even cry anymore.

She just… lived.

Empty. Quiet. Going through the motions.

Practice was quiet. No jokes. No trash talk. Just the dull thud of the ball against hardwood and the squeak of sneakers she barely registered anymore.

Her shooting percentage had dropped 8%.

The coaching staff hadn’t said anything yet, but she could feel it. The stares. The sighs. The weight of eyes tracking her when they thought she wasn’t looking.

After practice, she sat on the locker room bench for ten minutes too long, staring at the wall like it might say something. Like you used to.

She pulled out her phone.

No new messages. No calls.

She scrolled to your contact anyway. Just to see it. Just to remind herself that once, there was a world where your name lit up her screen like sunlight.

She closed the app.

Went home.

Didn’t even shower.

Her phone rang.

She was mid-laundry, a damp towel slung over one arm, the apartment humid from the dryer running too long.

She didn’t check it immediately. Assumed it was Nai or maybe Coach.

It rang again.

She glanced over.

Paused.

Your name.

Your contact photo—the one she took on a lazy spring day, you in her hoodie, your cheeks pink from sun and laughter.

She froze. The call kept ringing. Her thumb hovered. She didn’t move. She just watched it ring. Watched it buzz against the counter like it hadn’t been silent for a month.

Then she let it stop. Didn’t touch it. Didn’t breathe. The screen went dark. She stood still for a long time. It rang again. Same name. Same photo. Same ringtone she hadn’t changed since the day you set it for yourself.

But this time, something cracked in her chest—not a sob, not panic. Just anger. Cold, bitter, exhausted anger.

You didn’t get to vanish for four weeks and come back like nothing happened. You didn’t get to disappear and then dial her number like it was safe to do so. You didn’t get to decide when she hurt. She watched it ring again. Didn’t answer. Didn’t move.

She whispered into the silence, voice flat, “You don’t get to do this to me.”

Then the call ended. And the phone was quiet again. And she sat down on the kitchen floor like she had the first night you didn’t show up. But this time, she didn’t cry. This time, she just turned the phone over, face down.

Let the silence reclaim the room.

The lights at Target Center always made Paige feel electric.

It was different being back here—being home. But nothing about tonight felt comforting.

She was sharp in warmups. Crisp. Clean. Cold. Her jumper was falling like clockwork. Her footwork flawless. Her body obeyed in a way her heart hadn’t for weeks.

She was pissed.

And she was going to take it out on the court.

Fans were already filling in as she paced the baseline, headphones slung around her neck, eyes unfocused as she dribbled through sets.

And then—she saw her.

Your mom.

Sitting alone. Courtside. Seat 3A. The one you said was your favorite seat cause you could watch her without getting blocked by other people.

She was smaller than Paige remembered. Or maybe just older. Her coat was folded neatly in her lap, hands clutching it like it could keep her together.

Paige’s heart stuttered.

She looked away.

Kept warming up.

Refused to let herself feel anything.

Not now. Not after four weeks of unanswered calls. Not after those two rings she let pass without lifting a finger.

She buried the sight of her behind a wall of rage. Let her heartbeat sync with the squeak of shoes, the thud of the ball, the echo of her name being announced with fire in the intro video.

And when the game started?

She was unreal.

Floaters. Crossovers. Mid-range pull-ups that never touched the rim.

By halftime, she had 18 points and 5 assists.

By the end of the third quarter, 27 points, 3 steals, and the crowd was roaring every time she touched the ball.

She didn’t crack. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink.

Not until the final buzzer sounded.

Not until she saw your mom again.

Still there. Still alone.

Waiting.

She pulled her warmup jacket on and started walking toward the tunnel, jaw tight, jaw locked.

“Paige.” She didn’t stop. “Paige, please.”

No.

No.

She kept walking. One foot in front of the other.

“She didn’t break her promise to you.”

That made her pause.

Your mom’s voice cracked through the noise like a crack in glass.

“She didn’t leave you.”

Paige’s breath caught.

She turned—slow, deliberate.

Your mom was standing now, gripping the railing, eyes already shining with tears.

“She was coming to you,” she whispered. “She never stopped loving you.”

“What did you just say?” Paige’s voice was a whisper.

The older woman’s lips trembled. “Can we… Can we talk somewhere else?”

Paige didn’t respond.

Just reached for her, fingers numb, and pulled her through the tunnel, past a stunned PR intern, down the hallway.

Into the locker room.

Empty.

Silent.

She shut the door behind them. Locked it.

Turned around.

“Say it again,” she said. Not a request. A plea.

Your mother stared at her, chest rising and falling in shallow bursts. Her voice was barely there.

“She was on her way to Dallas,” she said. “She left two days early. Wanted to surprise you.”

Paige didn’t move.

“She was so excited. She couldn’t stop smiling. Said she wanted to be there when you got home from practice, said she couldn’t wait another day. She didn’t even tell me. I found the note on the kitchen table.”

Paige’s knees buckled.

She caught herself on the edge of a bench. “No,” she whispered.

“She got in the car that morning. Early. She never made it to the airport.”

Her heart stopped.

“She was hit by a semi on I-95. Fog was thick. The driver didn’t see her. She died on impact.”

Paige didn’t breathe. Couldn’t.

Your mother’s eyes filled again. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t know—how to reach you. I didn’t have your number, not anymore. I tried social media, but…”

“You didn’t call the team?” Paige’s voice was raw.

“I tried, but they didn’t believe me.”

Paige’s hands were shaking.

Your mother took a slow step forward. “She had gifts in the car. Her famous dumplings. Your favorite lotion. And a sweatshirt she swore would make you cry. She had this whole plan. She wanted to sneak in and wait on your couch.”

Paige let out a broken laugh. “That sounds like her.”

“She loved you so much.”

“I know,” Paige whispered, the first tear falling. “I know.”

And then she couldn’t stop them.

They came all at once—weeks of confusion, silence, fury, grief—crashing over her like a wave she never saw coming.

She sobbed into her hands, whole body trembling.

“She said she was coming,” Paige cried. “I waited. I waited so long.”

Your mother stepped forward, slowly, and sat beside her. She didn’t speak. Just reached for Paige’s hand.

It was cold. Small. Familiar.

“She tried,” she said.

That was all.

And it was everything.

That night, Paige didn’t go out with the team. Didn’t talk to media. Didn’t even turn on the lights when she got back to her hotel room.

She laid in bed, clutching her phone.

Opened your last message—the one with the bracelet story.

She read it over and over until her eyes blurred.

Then she opened her voicemails. The one you never got to hear.

She hit play.

And for the first time, she let herself believe you heard it after all.

The rest of the Wings flew back to Dallas the next morning.

Paige didn’t.

She sent a text to her coach. “I need a few more days. I’ll explain when I can.” She didn’t get a reply, just three dots. “Take your time. We’ve got you.”

Your mother offered her the guest room without hesitation.

But Paige couldn’t sleep.

She sat in your driveway for almost half an hour before walking inside, her duffel bag untouched in the trunk. The porch creaked the same way it had in high school. The air smelled like cinnamon and old books. The light in the hallway still flickered if you walked too fast.

The house felt like it had been paused mid-laugh.

Your mother gave her a quiet smile. “You can go up if you want.”

Paige hesitated at the stairs.

“I haven’t changed a thing,” she added.

Paige nodded.

And climbed.

Each step was an echo.

Your bedroom door was half-closed.

She pushed it open slowly, like the room might wake up.

It looked exactly the same.

The posters. The scuffed desk. The stack of books under your windowsill. The UConn flag pinned above your bed from the day you got your acceptance letter.

It felt like walking into a snow globe—perfectly preserved, terrifyingly still.

Her legs moved without permission. She stood in the center of the room, eyes darting from corner to corner.

There was the dent in the wall where you’d knocked your chair back too far trying to recreate a TikTok dance.

There was the blanket she gave you senior year—navy blue, your name and hers stitched into the corner like some inside joke you never explained to anyone else.

There was your old lanyard, still hanging from the doorknob.

And then her eyes landed on it.

The photo frame on your nightstand.

It was them.

Her and you.

From sophomore year.

Both in hoodies, half-asleep on your porch swing. She was leaning into you, your arm around her, eyes closed. You were laughing—head tilted, light spilling from you like a secret the world didn’t deserve.

She staggered forward.

Knees hit the side of the bed.

She picked up the frame with trembling hands. Traced your face with her thumb. Pressed it to her chest like it was the only part of you left.

That’s when it broke.

All of it.

The strength. The waiting. The hope. The disbelief.

She collapsed onto your bed in sobs that felt like thunder.

Big, gasping, shoulder-racking sobs.

“Why,” she cried into your pillow, voice muffled, raw. “Why didn’t I pick you up myself? Why didn’t I call more? Send someone? Why wasn’t I there?”

The pillow soaked beneath her. Your scent still faint.

She curled into it like it could answer her.

“God, you were right there. You were coming to me—early. And I didn’t—I didn’t even get to see you.”

The photo dropped from her hand and landed face-up beside her.

Her tears made the glass shimmer.

She pressed her cheek to it.

“Come back,” she whispered. “Please, baby. I don’t know how to live without you.”

She stayed there for what felt like hours.

Maybe it was.

No one came to check. Your mother didn’t knock. She must’ve known—must’ve felt it.

Paige eventually sat up, wiped her eyes on your sweatshirt still folded at the foot of your bed.

Her voice was wrecked when she finally whispered, “I never stopped waiting for you.”

And maybe she never would.

The cemetery was quiet.

The kind of quiet that made you feel like time had paused just long enough for the earth to breathe.

It was a cool, overcast morning—no sun, no shadows. Just that still, aching gray that matched the way Paige’s heart had felt since the moment she heard the words "she was on her way to surprise you."

Your mother had told her where to go.

Plot 47. Near the far oak. The one that turns red the first in fall.

The walk from the parking lot was long.

Paige carried a bouquet in one hand—sunflowers and dahlias, wrapped in twine. You always said they looked like fireworks made out of joy. She never forgot that.

Her other hand stayed tucked in her jacket pocket, fingers curled tight like she might fall apart if she let them open.

When she reached your grave, she just stood.

Still.

Frozen.

Your name was etched in marble now. Sharp, clean lettering. Birth year. Dash. End year.

Too soon. So unfairly soon.

Beneath it, a line she recognized.

She loved loudly. She laughed often. She never said goodbye without meaning it.

Paige bit her lip so hard she tasted blood.

She knelt slowly. Placed the flowers at the base. Adjusted them twice, even though they were already perfect.

And then she sat.

Cross-legged on the grass.

Facing you.

“I thought I’d have more time,” she said quietly.

The breeze stirred the petals.

“I thought you’d walk into my apartment two days early and I’d laugh and tell you you were crazy for not telling me. I thought we’d fight about cabinet space. I thought I’d kiss you every night for the rest of my life.”

She swallowed hard.

“But instead… I’m sitting here. And this is the first time I’ve seen your name in stone.”

A pause.

“I was angry. Your mom called me after a month of silence and I was angry. I didn’t know you were on your way to me. I didn’t know you never made it.”

She looked down, hands clenched in her lap.

“I thought you left me.”

Her breath trembled.

“I didn’t know you were trying to come home.”

She looked up at the sky.

“I would’ve waited at the airport all day if I had known. I would’ve driven to Minnesota and brought you myself. I would’ve done anything, anything, to see you one more time.”

Her jaw tensed. Eyes shined with fresh tears.

“I still talk to you. Every night. I sleep in your hoodie. I make coffee and pour two mugs like an idiot.”

She wiped her face with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

“The team doesn’t ask anymore. I think they’re scared of breaking me. But I’ve already been broken.”

She took a breath.

“But I’m still here.”

The wind picked up. Rustled the oak leaves above.

“I went back to your bedroom,” Paige said. “It looked exactly the same. Like you were just at school and would be home by dinner.”

She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a small laminated photo—the same one that had sat on your nightstand. The one of the two of you from sophomore year. She laid it gently between the flowers and the stone.

“I wanted to leave this with you,” she said. “Because even if I have to move forward, I’m not leaving you. You’re still the best part of me.”

A gust of wind blew through the grass. Paige looked down.

Her voice dropped, barely audible.

“I love you,” she whispered. “And I always will.”

She sat there for a long time.

Telling you about her next game. About the dumplings she finally cooked. About the song that made her think of you last week and how she cried in the car on the way to practice.

She stayed until the sun started peeking out again. Until the clouds began to thin and the shadows returned.

Then she stood. Pressed two fingers to her lips. Then to your name.

And walked away.

The flowers swayed in the breeze behind her.

The picture stayed.

You stayed.

The cheers were deafening.

It was the second round of the playoffs. Dallas had clawed their way in, and now they were clawing their way forward. The whole arena stood as Paige walked toward center court, Rookie of the Year graphic blazing behind her.

Bright lights. Brighter smile.

But behind that smile, a tremor.

She hadn’t slept much the night before. Not because of nerves. But because the one person she wanted to share this with wasn’t there.

Would never be there again.

She stepped forward, hands steady despite the storm inside her. Her name echoed from the speakers. “2025 WNBA Rookie of the Year… Paige Bueckers!”

Applause.

Spotlights.

Cameras flashing.

A league rep handed her the trophy—sleek, metallic, engraved. Her fingers curled around it automatically. Like she was on autopilot.

She turned to the mic.

The crowd quieted.

Her voice started strong.

“Um… wow. This means the world. First of all, thank you to the league, my teammates, my coaches. The Dallas Wings believed in me the second they drafted me, and I hope I’ve made them proud.”

More cheers.

She smiled faintly.

“I want to thank my family. My friends. The fans. And my hometown—Hopkins, I love you.”

More applause.

Then a pause.

She glanced down at the trophy in her hand. Her fingers tightened.

Her voice softened.

“But… there’s someone else I need to thank.”

The arena stilled.

Paige’s throat bobbed.

“She… she should’ve been here. And she almost was.”

The crowd hushed.

Paige blinked up at the rafters like she was asking for strength from a sky that still felt too far away.

“She was the first person who told me I was going to make it here. She saw this moment before I did. She believed in me when I was tired. She reminded me why I loved this game when I couldn’t feel it.”

She looked directly into the camera.

“Thank you for loving me. For believing in me. For being the kindest, brightest part of my life. This award… I share it with you. I dedicate it to you.”

A single tear slid down her cheek.

“You didn’t make it to the game. But you made me. Every piece of me. So I carry you every time I step on this court.”

The crowd began clapping—slow, quiet. Then stronger. Louder.

Rising like a wave.

Paige stepped back from the mic.

She raised the trophy once. Small, solemn.

And whispered, not into the microphone, but just to the air.

“I hope you’re proud of me.”

The cemetery was quiet again.

Autumn had arrived. The oak tree beside your grave had started to turn—flaming reds and soft oranges bleeding down through the branches like a slow goodbye.

Paige walked the familiar path in silence.

No cameras. No team. No PR handlers. No trophy case.

Just her.

And the small velvet-lined box tucked under her arm.

She wore your hoodie. It still smelled faintly like your shampoo. It was a little too worn now, the cuffs fraying. But it was hers. And it had been yours. And that made it holy.

When she reached your grave, she knelt.

The headstone hadn’t changed. Still your name. Still that cruel little dash between two years that weren’t enough. Still that line.

She never said goodbye without meaning it.

Paige set the box down beside the sunflowers and dahlias she’d brought. The same flowers she always did.

She didn’t open the box right away.

Just stared at your name. Let the wind brush over her face. Let the silence wrap around her like a question with no answer.

“I said I’d bring it to you,” she whispered eventually.

Her fingers found the edges of the velvet. She lifted the lid.

Inside was her Rookie of the Year trophy—well, a replica. The league had sent a second version when they needed to display the original. She didn’t correct them. She was glad for it.

Because this one was for you.

She picked it up gently. Placed it against the stone.

“This was yours before it was mine,” she said. “You trained me in the off-seasons. You studied game tape with me. You kept me grounded when I got caught in my own head.”

She exhaled. It sounded like surrender.

“I know I said the words in my speech. But I needed to say them here.”

A leaf drifted down between them.

She smiled faintly.

“I miss you every day. I talk to you before every game. I look for your face in every crowd. I still text you sometimes. Even though I know the only place I can send anything now… is here.”

She touched the trophy. Then the top edge of your headstone.

“I hope wherever you are, you’re still loud. Still laughing. Still correcting my form from the sidelines and making fun of how dramatic I get during interviews.”

A tear slipped down her cheek. She didn’t wipe it away.

“I won, baby,” she whispered. “And it should’ve been us holding this together.”

Her voice dropped to something barely audible.

“But I’m still holding it for both of us.”

She leaned forward. Pressed a kiss to the marble.

And then sat beside your grave. Not in mourning.

But in memory.

She stayed until the sky turned pink behind the trees.

Then stood.

One last look at the trophy. At the stone. At the name she loved more than her own.

“I’ll be back,” she said. “That’s a promise.”

And when she walked away, the wind rustled the leaves—gentle, soft, as if the trees themselves whispered back.

I know.

[classyrbf]

Hiii, i love your blog sosomuch. can i req like angst/comfort fic nanami? maybe nanami is like a bittttttt of an ass

ARE YOU STILL MINE! — NANAMI KENTO

SYNOPSIS...you feel as though your husband has become too distant from you and your marriage is hanging on by a thread

INFO...nanami x fem!reader, nanami is bit mean, mentions of cheating but no actual cheating, angst (obvi), reader is insecure with herself, mentions of divorce, comfort at the end, not proofread

OTHER...likes and reblogs are appreciated

thank you so much anon, I hope you enjoy your request!

At first it started out with him staying at work later than usual, coming home at strange times in the night where you had fallen asleep on the couch because you were waiting for him. He’d merely just glance at you, thinking you opted for the couch rather than the bed, walking into the room to go to bed instead of waking you. Then, he started talking less, being very distant, dry with his responses every time you’d brought up an interest of yours. He’d play with his food, moving it around on the plate like a picky child while humming responses. Then, you started not seeing him at all, every morning you opened your eyes he was gone and every night you couldn’t bear staying awake any longer than needed. And lastly, you began to feel alone, the house that you shared with your husband started to feel like you were now sharing it with a roommate. Was your marriage on the brink of divorce?

Another morning, another day of waking up to an empty bed. You rolled over, the sheet crinkled from where he slept but ultimately felt cold. It was a daily routine for you now, though you can’t grow accustomed to it no matter what you do. Its disappointing. Sad. All of your friends gush about their husbands bringing them gifts, going on vacation, and the cherry on top was soon one of your friends was having a baby. You sat there the whole time, staring off into the distance because you couldn’t remember the last time kento had even got you a gift, let alone uttered a word to you.

You stared at the diamond ring that adorned your finger, contemplating if this was at all really worth it anymore. Why stay in a marriage you weren’t happy in? But before making any rash decisions, you knew you needed to talk with him before anything. That’s if you even get the chance to. Lazily dragging your feet across the kitchen floor, you opened the fridge and realized he had left his lunchbox, leaving the food you made last night. You grabbed it, letting out a deep sigh. Should you even bring it? Yes, get out the house and get some fresh air. No, you’re just gonna waste your time and he won’t even eat it.

After fully waking up, you got dressed and grabbed his lunch box off of the counter. You walked past the mirror in the hall, keys in hand before you came to a complete stop to look at yourself. Jeans and a shirt with tacky sneakers that didn’t even match. And your eye bags just added onto it. God, you looked horrible. He wouldn’t want to see you like this. Especially not at his job.

With summer breeze, you were quick to change into a pretty sundress Nanami had gotten you last winter, along with some wedged heels to top off the look. And quickly, you ran to bathroom to apply makeup, nothing too heavy but just enough to make it look like you were at least taking care of yourself properly. You smeared the pink gloss along your lined lips, leaning towards the mirror to make sure you looked good. Still, you didn’t feel satisfied, but it’ll have to do.

You sat in the car for another minute, applying another coat of mascara before heading into the building. Nerves struck through your entire body, something similar to a first date. It’s been so long since you’ve seen him, your own husband, that it now feels like seeing him for the first time. The thought made your frown as you stepped foot inside. You greeted the woman at the desk. “Hi, I’m here to drop my husbands lunch he forgot it at home. Nanami Kento.” You kindly smiled.

“Oh! You’re Mr. Nanami’s wife! Pleasure to meet you!” She bowed, smiling. “You’re free to head to his office.”

“Thank you!” Your heels click against the marble flooring, walking towards the elevator and pressing the button with a shaky hand. You wondered if he’d be surprised to see you, greet you with a kiss or a hug. You grew hopeful, imagining finally being in his embrace after so long. You smiled, stepping out of the elevator and headed down the hall towards his office.

On the other side of the door you could hear your husband laughing, talking with someone. But jealousy and insecurity buried a pit in your chest when you heard a woman laugh along with him. You barged into the office, taking site of the two sitting across the desk from one another. Your husbands eyes shot up towards you and the woman glanced over her shoulder with a confused look.

“Y/n?” He stood from his chair, walking over to you. “Sorry, this is my wife.” He awkwardly laughed, looking at the woman who was now standing.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Nanami.” She bowed, a small smile on her lips.

“H-hello.” You shakily replied, looking between her and your husband.

“What are you doing here?” He whispered, brows furrowed. From his tone, he sounded slightly annoyed, like you had interrupted something important.

“You forgot your lunch I thought—”

“I already had lunch. No need.” He easily dismissed you, shaking his head. “I’m having an important discussion right now, so I’ll see you at home.” He walked you out of his office, shutting the door behind you. No goodbye. No kiss. Not even a hug. I’ll see you at home. What a joke.

You sat in the bath, bubbles surrounding you and scented candles lit on the sink. The diamond ring on your finger glistened under the dim light as you stared at it, a sour taste forming in your mouth when you remembered earlier today. Who was that woman? Clearly she worked there, but she was so much younger, prettier, and she was making Nanami laugh. He was in such a rush to push you out, claiming he had eaten already. God, you wouldn’t be surprised if he was cheating. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. Forget the talk.

You’ve forgotten how long you’ve been sitting in here now, but you were surprised when you heard the front door open. Reaching for your phone, it was only five at night, pretty early for him to be home nowadays. You just soaked in the bath, hearing his footsteps grow closer and closer until he reached your bedroom. Nanami, noticed the bathroom light, walking in and seeing you in the tub. “Hey, honey.” It’s felt like years since he’s called you any type of pet name, or anything in general.

“I was just getting out. I’ll finish after you’ve done doing what you need to do.” You reach for your towel on the rack, before Nanami stops you.

“Woah, woah, can I not join you?” He chuckled, soothingly rubbing his hand up and down your arm.

“No. Not in the mood.” You snatched the towel, wrapping it around your body before stepping out the tub, blowing out the scented candle and grabbing your phone. “Enjoy your shower.”

“Honey, if this is about earlier today, I apologize. I was interviewing her for a position—”

“God, you really haven’t noticed it?” You were at your breaking point, on the verge of tears from all the hurt you’ve been holding in for the last few months.

“I’m sorry I don’t know—”

“I want a divorce.” The words came out of your mouth as smooth as silk, leaving him shocked.

“Wait, wait! Sweetheart, talk to me first please?” He almost sounded desperate, reaching for you as you walked away into the bedroom. He quickly followed behind you. “Say something.”

“These last few months have been hell! You come home late, leave early, I don’t even see my own husband anymore. We don’t even talk to or at least text each other. And then I walk in, seeing you laughing and talking with some woman and god, the worst comes to my head because my husband hasn’t been mine for last three months! We haven’t kissed, hugged, or even had sex in so long. And then I get all dressed up for you and you push me out of there like I’m a stranger and then you come home and act like everything is okay! I’m not okay!” You scream, tears pooling in your eyes. “I feel so alone. So jealous and insecure.” You sob, turning away from him because he doesn’t deserve your tears, he doesn’t deserve to see you so weak and broken.

“Honey, I am so fucking sorry. God, please look at me. Baby.” His soft voice makes you want to rebel against everything you’re standing for right now, wanting to turn to him and hug him and kiss him. You feel his soft hands on your shoulder. “I am so sorry for making you feel less than what you truly are.”

“Are you cheating on me?” You managed to ask through tears.

“What?!” He says shocked. “No, fuck, of course not!” He couldn’t believe his ears, turning you around on his own, pulling you to look at him. He’s not surprised you think he’s having an affair with the way he’s been acting lately. But the truth is, he’s been distant because of a surprise. “I could never cheat on you. It disgusts me to even think about it, darling.” He caresses your face gently, holding it in his hands.

“Then what is it? Do you not love me anymore?” You hiccup, staring at him with teary eyes.

“I’m madly in love with you! I know these past few months, I’ve been horrible at showing it, treating you like you’re nothing when you’re everything. If I knew this would have such a horrible effect on you, I would’ve told you sooner instead of wanting to surprise you.” He let out a heavy sigh of disappointment. Disappointment within himself for putting you in such a position.

“What? What surprise?” You looked at him confused, browns knitting together. He sat you on the edge of the bed, taking your hand in his as he kneeled in front you. “Kento…”

“I’ve been working so hard because I was planning our future. Saving up to move to Malaysia. I wanted it to be a surprise, but, I can’t keep seeing you like this. I’ve been working to save up more money, I’ve been searching for houses and talking to realtors on the phone. I’ve been exhausted, honey, but that’s no excuse for how I’ve been treating you like an afterthought.” He kissed your palm. “Please forgive me. I am so, so, sorry.” He kissed your hand again, resting his head on your lap. “Sweetheart, I don’t know what I’ll do if you leave me. Just hearing those words leave your mouth earlier scared the shit out of me. I can’t lose you. I love you so much.” He chokes back tears, holding you tightly.

You sit there shocked, completely and utterly shocked. While his actions were no excuse, you still can’t believe the reasoning behind it all. “Ken,” you mutter, running your fingers through his soft blonde hair. He kisses your hand once more, lifting his head to stare up at you.

“I’ll do anything if you just stay. I’ll do anything for you, sweetheart. I need you to know that.” Your heart pounds against your ribcage as he crawls up towards you, cupping your face. “I love you. I’m sorry. I’m so—mmph—sorry.” He kisses you between words, pressing his lips to yours. You haven’t felt his kisses in so long but it’s like they never left, feeling his firm grip on you as he kissed you so sweetly, each one filled with so much passion and desire.

“Baby, Ken, I forgive you. Okay?” You pull away. “Just…please, don’t ever do that to me again. I don’t care what it is, do not make me feel like I’m any less important. I can’t believe you’ve been working your ass off just so we could move to Malaysia, carrying the burden by yourself when you know I’m right here.” Your eyes search his.

“I understand. I’m sorry. I know I should’ve said something, I just…I don’t know. It’s doesn’t matter anymore, yeah? I’ve still got some extra work to do for the next two weeks until it’s settled, so don’t think I’m going back on my word. I swear I’m not.” He pecked your lips.

“Okay, I understand. Can I at least ask where in Malaysia?” You smiled, holding his hand.

“That, I am keeping a surprise.” He shook his head. “I just can’t wait to see the look on your beautiful face when you see it.” He quickly scooped you up in his arms, walking into the bathroom. “Shower with me? It’s been so long since we’ve—”

“Of course. I’ve missed you so much, Ken.”

His eyes glistened as he stared at you, smiling like an idiot in love. “You looked beautiful earlier today. I noticed you were wearing the sundress I had bought you. I can confidently say that it hugs you in the all right places. If there were no one in my office, I would have taken you right then and there, sweetheart.”

“Ken!” You shout in surprise, covering your mouth as you stifled back a laugh. “Please just get undressed so we can shower!”

“It’s good to see a smile back on your face.”

[rynwrites4fun]

Across The Hall (4) | Michael Robinavitch x Neighbor/Teacher ! Reader

Michael Robinavitch x F! Neigbor/Teacher ! Reader

Summary: You and Michael are catching up on home duties, tackling laundry and now grocery shopping. As you joke around in the aisles, having fun together, you’re suddenly interrupted by someone Michael knows. The encounter leaves Michael quickly defending himself, insisting that he doesn't have feelings for you, while you start to wonder if your playful behavior gave the wrong impression.

Word Count: 2880

Warnings: Age Gap (Mid 20s/ Early 50s)

Authors Note: Hello! This is prob gonna be my last post for now just because these last two weeks of May I am absolutely SLAMMED. Hanging on by a thread at my job, but I got 10 days left. I’m ready for summer. I’ll be back sometime beginning of June. Very sorry. Again thank you for all the love!!! This is gonna have to hold y’all over for a minute. - ryn

“Guess you had the same idea as I did,” you chuckle as you stand in the doorway of the laundry room.

Michael looks over his shoulder as he tosses his scrubs into the drum of the washing machine.

“Hey,” he smiles.

With your basket on your hip and holding it with one hand, you move towards the washing machine next to him.

“You’ve been neglecting home duties too?” you ask, popping open the washer and tossing in your clothes.

Michael lets out a soft laugh, shaking his head. “Is it that obvious? I’ve been running on empty lately—just trying to keep up.”

He measures out the detergent, pours it in, shuts the lid, and turns the knobs with a practiced motion before starting his load.

“I have a mountain of stuff to do…I have to go grocery shopping,” you say, rubbing your forehead as if just remembering.

You toss in a couple of detergent pods and close the washer with a quiet thud and start the machine. 

“So do I,” Michael replies, leaning his back against the washer. “My fridge is completely empty”

There’s a small pause. The hum of the machines fills the space. You glance sideways at him, then back at your basket.

“We could go together…after our laundry's done?” 

” you offer, your voice gentle, almost careful.

You’d found excuses to spend time with Michael—more than just him stepping in to help. Taking you to dinner when Aiden flaked, fixing your jammed window, carrying that heavy shelf box up to your apartment and assembling it. As much as you appreciated all of it, something had shifted.

Your friendship with Michael was growing into something solid, something you looked forward to. You found yourself craving his company, wanting to be around him more than you ever expected.

It wasn’t because you needed something. It was because being with him felt easy, calm, and real.

You wanted more than just passing chats in the lobby or quick moments in the elevator. You wanted time together that didn’t need a reason.

So when you suggested grocery shopping, it wasn’t about the errands—it was about spending time with him. Just being.

He looks over at you, the smile returning—this time slower, warmer. “Yeah,” he says. “I’d like that.”

—

You and Michael walked into the city’s grocery store, reusable bags in hand. The automatic doors whooshed open, letting in the familiar scent of produce and deli meats. Michael grabbed a cart, glancing over at you with a small smile.

“Alright,” he said, rolling up his sleeves a little. 

“What’s first on your list?”

You pulled out your phone, scanning the notes app. “Eggs. Bread. Fruit. Veggies. Stuff for dinner. Oh—sprinkle of junk food” 

He laughed. “A sprinkle?”

“Okay maybe more than just a sprinkle”

“How about you?” you asked, glancing over at him as he steered the cart forward.

“Pretty much the same as you…Minus the actual planning. I just sort of walk around until something calls to me.” He shrugs

You gave him a look. “So you’re a wander-and-wing-it kind of shopper.”

“Exactly.”

“Alright then,” you said, nudging the cart playfully. “Let’s start with my list, and if something speaks to you along the way, you can toss it in.”

The two of you start in the produce section.

You gasped, eyes lighting up as you spotted them. “Look at the tulips!”

Without thinking, you stepped closer, admiring them. “I love when they’re still closed or just starting to bloom. Not fully open—just that halfway point…”

You glanced back at Michael, smiling softly. “They’re my favorite flowers.”

You continued walking, not noticing that Michael had lingered for just a second longer.

As he passed by the cart, he glanced at the flowers again, filing it away.

Tulips. Half-bloomed. Your favorite.

He made a mental note.The two of you wander through the aisles. You grab the things on your list, while Michael picks up whatever catches his eye, things he wants, not necessarily things he needs.

You talk mostly about food. What you like, What you don’t and a few things in between.

In aisle nine, you spot a bag of Nutella Biscuits, your absolute favorite. Your friend had gotten you hooked on them.

You reach for the last bag on the shelf  and so does he.

Fingers brush.

Neither of you pulls away. Your hands linger, resting lightly over the glossy packaging.

The air shifts, quiet, still charged.

“Hey, I saw those first,” you say, raising a brow.

Michael smirks. “Pretty sure my hand got there first.”

“These are my favorites.”

“They’re my guilty pleasure.”

You narrow your eyes. “Oh don’t think I won’t fight you for these, old man—because I will.”

“Oh, you think you’re so funny,” he scoffs out a laugh.

You quickly yank the bag toward you. “Mine!”

“Come here!”

He steps forward, catching you around the waist, gently pulling you back against his chest. His arm wraps around you as he tries to grab the bag from your hands.

You shriek out a giggle. You twist and thrash against him, laughing, still clutching it. “Michael!”

“Hand it over!” he laughs

“Robby?” a voice calls suddenly from the end of the aisle.

You both freeze. Still tangled together. 

 Dana Evans, his colleague and charge nurse. His friend, the closest thing he had to a sister, stands there at the end of the aisle, eyebrows raised at the scene in front of her.

“Dana—” he says, startled. He quickly lets you go, the playful teasing evaporating as his hands fall to his sides.

“Hey,” she says, walking over with a grocery basket tucked in the crook of her arm.

You glance at Michael. There’s a flicker in his eyes, like surprise, maybe discomfort. His posture stiffens, the easy playfulness from a moment ago gone.

It almost feels like he doesn’t want her to see you together.

And that… stings more than you expect.

“Who’s this?” She asked to move closer to the two of you. 

You step in quickly, offering a polite smile and introducing yourself “…I'm his neighbor. Just… a friend.”

You don’t mean to sound awkward, but the words come out carefully, almost rehearsed—like you’re making sure they land a certain way.

Was she someone he was seeing? And here you are, being too playful, too comfortable with him. You didn’t mean to cross any lines, to overstep any boundaries. That wasn’t your intent.

“Right..” She nods. “I’m Dana,” she smiles, but gives Michael a look. 

You felt out of place—like maybe you had crossed a line after all. Like you were standing somewhere you didn’t belong.

You hold out the bag, whacking him in the stomach with it, not on purpose just out of being flustered. “I uh.. I don’t want these anymore. You can have them.” 

Michael blinked, taking the bag from you, confusion flickering in his eyes as you started walking away.

“Where are you going?” he asked, noticing the shift in your tone, in your posture.

Without meeting his eyes, you kept straight, not looking back “I just remembered—I, uh, need to grab something from another aisle.”

It’s a lie, you both knew it was, you don’t wait for a response as you turn the corner, needing more distance than biscuits.

Michael he calls after you, he watches disappear, the forgotten bag of Nutella biscuits still in his hand.

Your voice, your expression, the way you wouldn’t meet his eyes—it all hit Michael harder than he expected. He hadn’t even gotten the chance to introduce you to Dana before you slipped away.

His attention goes back to Dana. She had only laughed. “Oops. Didn’t mean to scare her off…”

“She probably thinks we’re dating,” Michael muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “With you eyeing her down like that.”

Dana shot him a look. She threw a hand up, still grinning “That’s your fault! You didn’t introduce me fast enough! I run to the grocery store for oat milk and walk into aisle nine to find my friend pressed up against a woman, playfully fighting over cookies!”

She begins to get noisy.

“So who is she?” She was waiting for him to give her more information about who you are and the moment between the two she witnessed. 

Michael rolled his eyes and placed the Nutella biscuits into the grocery cart with a little more force than necessary. “Dana, don’t start—” knowing what she’s thinking. 

“Oh, come on!” Dana said, nudging him with her elbow. “Robby, she’s cute! You’ve clearly been spending time with her. How long has that been going on?! How come you never mentioned her?” Dana asked, with a smile on her face

Michael let out a breath and maintained his composure, pushing the cart forward a few inches. “Because Dana, nothing is going on. She’s just my neighbor.”

“She looked a lot more than a “neighbor” when I entered the aisle.” Dana said with a knowing look, cocking her head in the direction you’d disappeared.

He rolled his eyes.

He started pushing his cart, turned down the next aisle, hoping the shelves of canned goods might somehow end the conversation. “Dana, please drop it.”

Dana wasn’t going to drop it. She fell in step beside him, her gaze sharp. “So you’re seeing her?”

He froze, picking up a can of beans off the shelf, his fingers brushing the label like it held the answer. “No, I’m not seeing her. She has a boyfriend” 

Dana arched her brow. “That didn’t answer the question. You’re not seeing her—but are you wanting to?”

Michael didn’t respond right away. He turned the can in his hand, then returned it to the shelf, avoiding her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. Like I said, she’s got someone.”

“But you don’t,” Dana pointed out, a note of challenge in her voice. “And last I checked, play fighting over cookies and laughing like that isn’t how you act with someone you’re indifferent to.”

He gave her a look, sharp and tired all at once. “You’re reading too much into it.”

“I’m reading what was right in front of me. Body language doesn’t lie, Robby”

Michael exhaled, dragging a hand through his hair. “She’s easy to be around, okay? She’s funny, she’s sweet. I like her company, but we’re just friends. I'm not trying to mess with someone who’s already in a relationship. I just help her out with stuff, you know be a neighbors ” 

Dana softened just slightly. “That’s not what it looks like on my end”

“Think what you want Dana, but she and I are friends. That’s all. Nothing more.”

He started pushing the cart down the aisle, leaving her standing behind. “I gotta finish shopping,” he muttered—and find you, he thought.

“We’ll continue this conversation later, Michael!” she called after him.

“No we won’t, Dana!” he yelled back in a sing-song tone as he turned into the next aisle.

—-

You were in the freezer section, staring at the wall of ice cream like you were deep in thought about flavors, though your mind was still spinning from the moment with Michael and awkward interaction with the woman Dana.

From the corner of your eye, you saw him approaching with the cart.

“So ice cream was that important, huh?” Michael said, pulling up beside you. “That’s what made you run off?”

You didn’t look at him right away. “I didn’t run off.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Uh, yeah, you kinda did. You didn’t even give me a chance to introduce you to Dana.”

“I didn’t want to be in the way…” 

“You weren’t in the way” 

Silence falls between the two of you. 

“So you and Dana?” you ask, trying to sound casual, but the question comes out a little too pointed.

“I work with her,” Michael replies. “She’s the dayshift charge nurse—”

You nod, not really sure what to say, or what exactly you’re feeling. You weren’t trying to pry. Not really. 

Then it hits you—a wave of guilt, sharp and sudden. You start replaying the moment in the aisle. The laughter, the teasing, the way you’d been so at ease with him. If Dana was someone he was seeing, the whole scene would have easily been misread. Maybe you were too comfortable. Too close. You hadn’t meant to cross a line, but now you’re afraid you had.

Before the guilt can fully settle in, Michael speaks again—his voice softer now, his eyes steady on you, like he already knows exactly where your thoughts have gone.

“Dana’s like a sister,” he says, and somehow, it’s like he’s reading your mind.

His tone is calm, even—but there’s a quiet urgency there, tucked just beneath the surface. Like he wants to be sure you hear him. Like it matters that you believe it.

You look at him “Oh… I thought you two were…”

“I know what you must’ve thought,” he interrupts gently, “but it’s not like that. Our coworkers joke that we're ‘work spouses,’ but she’s just my friend. We’ve known each other a long time. That’s all.”

He doesn’t really know why he feels the need to clarify all of that to you. He shouldn’t care what you think. But deep down, he does for some reason. 

A beat passes.

“Are you… seeing anyone?” you ask, your voice softer this time. You don’t know what made you ask. Curiosity, maybe since the two of you were sorta on the topic. 

“No,” he says after a moment, shaking his head. “I haven’t dated in a while.”

There’s a quiet honesty in the way he says it. Not embarrassed. Just real. His eyes flick up to meet yours, and for a second, neither of you says anything.

You wondered how he was still single.

Michael was kind. Steady. The kind of man who listened, who remembered little things, who made you feel like you mattered. He wasn’t flashy, but he didn’t need to be. Just being around him made you feel calm.

Any woman would be lucky to have him.

He seemed like the kind of person who wouldn’t make you question where you stood. Who would show up, say how he felt, and mean it.

You let the thought pass. 

“So…should I get Mint Chocolate Chip or Cookie Dough?” 

“Mint”

“Alright, Mint Chocolate chip it is” you open the door in the freezer section, and placing it into the cart. 

——-

“Here, let me get those—” Michael reached for your reusable bags  along with his at check out. 

“Michael, stop,” you said, trying to swat his hands away. “I can carry my own groceries.”

“I know you can,” he said, easily slipping them from your grip. “But you shouldn’t have to.”

“They’re heavy, and—Michael, no—”

“Stop arguing with me and just let me carry the groceries,” he said, giving you a pointed look.

You huffed, but there was no real heat behind it. “Fine.”

He smiled, victorious. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

The two of you walked back to the apartment, climbing the stairs to the sixth floor, reusable bags in hand—well, in his hands. You stopped in the hallway, right between your doors.

“Thanks tagging along with me,” you said, turning toward him. “And for carrying my groceries… which, I’m more than capable of doing.” You take your bags from his hands. 

“Thanks for letting me tag along, and I know you can carry your own groceries,” Michael said, his voice low and easy. “But that doesn’t mean you should have to.”

“Oh—before I forget,” Michael said, reaching into one of his reusable bags.

He pulled out a small bouquet of tulips, their soft petals just beginning to open, one of the bouquets you were admiring earlier. 

You gasped. “Michael, what? When did you get these? I was with you the whole time!”

“I have my ways,” he said with a teasing grin.

You looked at him, touched. Your pout wasn’t sad—just soft, surprised, the kind that tugged at the heart.

“Thank you, they’re beautiful” 

“Oh, here—take these,” he says with a grin, holding out the Nutella cookies like a peace offering, but his eyes are still challenging.

You shake your head. “You take them.”

He scoffs, clearly amused. “Well, you fought me for them.”

You raise an eyebrow, smirking. “Technically, I didn’t win.”

“Neither did I,” he says, shrugging like it's no big deal, but the tension in the air suggests otherwise.

A beat passes. Then, with a mischievous glint in your eye, you suggest, “How about we rock-paper-scissors for them?”

“Alright, you’re on,” he replies,

You both set your bags down with a soft thud, the hallway around you oddly quiet as you face each other.

The air feels a little charged as you both prepare. The competitive energy lingers in the air. Michael steps back, getting into position with an exaggerated stance.

“Alright ready?” He asks.

You nod in response.

"Rock-Paper-Scissors-Shoot!" you both say in unison, your hands moving in perfect sync.

You take a deep breath and throw your hand out confidently—rock.

His hand, paper, covers your rock.

“Haha! Sucker!” he cackled, snatching the bag from the ground and holding it over his head like a trophy.

You gasped, mock-offended. “You are the worst!”

“I am the champion,” he corrected, already walking in a victory strut toward his door. “Rock? Really? Rookie move.”

You shook your head, laughing as you scooped up your bags. “Enjoy them — I hope they go stale before you open them.”

He glanced back over his shoulder with a grin. “Joke’s on you. I’m opening them now.”

And with that, he tore open the bag, popped a biscuit into his mouth, and held another one out toward you — his smile softening just slightly.

“Want one?” he offered.

You hold out your hand, and he rattles the bag to get one out for you. 

“Thanks,” you said, biting into the biscuit.

You held out your hand, and he gently rattled the bag until one slid free. He placed it in your palm like it was something more than a cookie.

“I’ll see you later, Michael.”

You unlocked it, picked up your bags, and stepped inside.

“I’ll see you around,” he called, turning toward his side of the hallway.

The door closed behind you, but the smile stayed — along with the taste of chocolate and something just a little sweeter.

Tags: @im-nowhere-but-also-somewhere @beebeechaos @antisocialfiore @delicatetrashtree @xxxkat3xxx @homebytheharbor @woodxtock @letstryagaintomorrow @livingavilaloca @elkitot @annabellee88 @hagarsays @emma8895eb @the-goddess-of-mischief-writing @jazzimac1967 @lafemme-nk @kmc1989 @whos6claire @harrysgothicbitch @trustme3-13 @qardasngan @silas-aeiou @k3ndallroy @ohmystrawberrycheesecake @ay0nha @404creep @dantemorenatalie @obfuscateyummy @steviebbboi @alliegc28 @catmomstyles3 @ardentistella @madprincessinabox @circumspectre @the-one-with-the-grey-color @thatchickwiththecamera @violetswritingg

Across The Hall (1) (2) (3) (4)

[hatsukeii]

ring pop! / bsf!ushijima wakatoshi x reader

genre(s): heavy on the crack and fluff, dumb and dumber, ushiwaka is dense but loveable! childhood bsf to lovers! yay! sunshine! rainbows! candy!

warning(s): nothing, implied fem reader for fluency's sake, but please interpret this as you'd like!! i myself am non-binary, so at the very least you know the person who's writing has you in mind!! i still tried my best to keep everything gender neutral to the best of my ability!!

wc: 1490

tldr; “boyfriend? but i thought we were already dating?”

“Wakatoshi, can I have your second button?”

Petals of blooming sakura flowers replace the grey pavement beneath your shoes with a mosaic of dusty pink as you stand beneath Shiratorizawa’s famous confession tree. It’s a ritual that has been done for many graduations before your own, students would act nonchalant as they drag their romantic prospects beneath this very tree, all to ask for their second shirt button. This year, it’s your turn, your hands clenched behind your back as you rock forward, backward, forward, backward.

“What do you mean? My second button?”

“Yeah, your second button.”

Wakatoshi’s nose twitches in confusion and under the blanket of pollen from the flowers above. What’s so special about his second button, that you’ve dragged him under the Shiratorizawa tree for? His hand shoots up, picking at the thread sewn between each hole in his second uniform button. It doesn’t budge as he picks and pulls, until finally, he rips it off with force, handing it to you between pinched fingers.

“Here.” He reaches for one of your hands, linked with the other in anxiety and anticipation, and pushes your fingers apart, before dropping the button into your palm unceremoniously. You stare blankly at the small round in your hand, then at Wakatoshi’s deadpan expression.

“Toshi, that’s…that’s not how it works.”

He tilts his head in confusion, eyebrows furrowing as if trying to search your head for clues. The petals shuffle beneath your feet as you mindlessly grind your shoe into the ground, not sure what to make of this situation.

“I’m not sure what you mean. I gave you the second button, like you asked. Did I do something wrong?”

“Wakatoshi, I’m asking you to be my boyfriend.”

Boyfriend? Do you hear yourself? What nonsense, what has he been to you for the past six years, if not that?

“Boyfriend? But I thought we were already dating?”

You mind empties its contents as your jaw goes slack, a dumbfounded hum escaping your windpipe. You’re not too sure- no, you have not a single idea when that idea planted itself into his head. You’ve been subtle enough, right? And careful too! No love letters, or secret gifts, or bento boxes, just day to day, regular best friend interactions between the two of you. What could have possibly gone wrong?

“Dating? Where did you get that from??”

Wakatoshi frowns, hands moving to his pockets. A spring breeze whizzes by, filling the stale air between himself and you. That’s not very nice of you. Wakatoshi knows close to nothing about relationships, but he does know one thing: You probably should remember how you got together in the first place.

“You…forgot?” After all these years of tailing behind you at grocery stores, and weekly dinners at your house, and running to your place at a text’s notice, only to end up watching dramas all night and crying with you, and you forgot that you were dating? His voice quivers, a rush of betrayal in the gleam of his eyes stabbing at your chest as he grimaces at your confused expression, then back at the second button he just ripped off his chest that sits in your hand.

“I think I would remember if we‘re dating…but we aren’t.”

“How could you forget? I still have the ring pop from that day!”

What?

“Wakatoshi, the ring pop? From sixth grade?” At the mention of the ring pop, the fuzziness of an afternoon six years ago is wiped clean. You can almost taste the disgustingly artificial grape flavour that tingled and fizzed on your tongue, before sending you into a sugar high for hours, feel the cheap plastic ring that hung a size too big from your ring finger. You’re fairly certain that the company had discontinued that line of ring pops by now, the two pack too costly of a production for the cheap price they sold for in convenience stores.

“Yeah! I asked you to be my girlfriend with the second pop, and you said yes! You even wore the ring on your ring finger!”

His hands leave his pockets now, pointing accusingly at your ring finger that lacks a humorously large plastic ring. You’re not sure whether to be shocked or to laugh hysterically, not when Wakatoshi’s accusations of your…infidelity? are rooted in the sanctity and candour of a discontinued ring pop, until it all hits you at once. All the nights that he would drop off bags of groceries at your doorstep, your mother gleaming at his persistent service, and the afternoons of watching his volleyball trainings, his eyes glancing at you for approval at every legal point he makes, all the little times that led up to your eventual confession weren’t “best friend interactions.”

They were the actions of a boyfriend. A boyfriend, who (rightfully so) thought he was dating his girlfriend.

“Toshi…did it never occur to you that we’ve done absolutely NOTHING in all these years of ‘dating’? I mean, wouldn’t you have wanted to, I dunno, hold my hand? Or like, kiss me?”

Wakatoshi jolts backwards by an inch, hand travelling towards his jaw as he rubs it introspectively, trying to fan off the heat that is crawling from his chest to his neck. You stifle a giggle, before clearing your throat guiltily. No, you shouldn’t laugh at him. He’s trying his best to process the past six years of unrequited ‘dating’, how could you interrupt him? Do you have no heart, or shame?

“W-well, my dad’s always taught me not to do anything with anyone, partner or not, unless they asked for it first… and you never asked to. So, I never did.” He finally responds, as confidently as his stuttering voice could seem. “Besides, I assumed you weren’t the type of person to be into super-romantic dating, so I just never questioned it.”

You shake your head, smiling at the ground as you take a step towards him. Your hand grips his uniform button by your side, afraid that it might get lost in the petals if you drop it. Wakatoshi’s head darts from left to right, as if piecing together red herrings on a cork board, pinning down every interaction from sixth grade to now with thumbtacks as the strings tangle and twist.

“What about our drama nights? Was that also just being best friends?”

“Yes, Wakatoshi. That is what best friends do.”

“The grocery runs?”

“You offered to do them, and I assumed it was because you were always training late and wanted to help a friend out on the way home.”

“And the weekly dinners at your place?”

“We’re neighbours!”

You watch him groan, his face shoved into his now clammy palms. This is information overload, and Wakatoshi’s processor is melting down in front of your very eyes. He shakes his head frantically, his hair becoming disheveled. His hands run through his green locks, and land on his hips as his feet tap at the petal-covered ground.

“So, we have not been dating for six years, but you want to start dating from today onwards?”

"That is exactly what I'm asking."

Finally. He’s finally got it. The button weighs heavy in your hand, and you duck beneath his face to look him in the eye. He glances away, visibly repulsed by his embarrassment. He should've caught the signs...well, earlier. It somehow has never occured to him that a ring pop proposal might not be the most legitimate way to one's heart, and it certainly has never occured to him that it might have come off as an ingenuine attempt at securing a relationship.

"I meant it when I gave you the ring pop though."

Your face morphs into an effortless smile, the towering boy looking more timid than he ever has before. You haven't changed one bit since the day he's 'proposed' to you, from the smile lines that adorn your face, to the little pout of your lips when you grin. And as you look at him, eyes shimmering under the shade of the infamous Shiratorizawa confession tree, Wakatoshi is twleve years old again, missing a canine tooth on the top right side of his toothbed. He's pinching a long discontinued ring pop between both thumbs and index fingers, getting down on one bandaged knee earnestly to pop the big question.

"Will you be my girlfriend?"

And suddenly, you're twelve years old, standing right there, in front of him, tiny hands covering your mouth as you gasp and tell him yes, a million times over and more. Wakatoshi is 5'2 here, a whole foot shorter than his now eighteen year old self, slotting a ring pop that's two sizes too big on your ring finger, the candy diamond shimmering in the sunlight on the walk home. Except now, the ring pop has transformed into the second button of his soon to be forgotten Shiratorizawa shirt, residing in your clenched fist.

"I know. I know you did."

His eyes refocus as he snaps out of his thoughts, and he wonders if you still have the plastic ring from the ring pop, the one that means to him doing groceries for your household before his own, and showing up at your door to watch dramas all night in your bed, and helping your parents with the cooking before your weekly dinners. His eyes soften, the probing frown long gone from his face as he returns your smile with his own, cheeks pink and teeth threatening to show through his suppressed grin.

"Does this mean I get to kiss you now?"

"Yes, Toshi. Yes it does."

His hands spare no time to cup your face, pulling it up to his own as his fingers draw lines across your cheekbones. Wakatoshi's brain bursts in sparks of gold and red, and he genuinely ponders how he has lived until now without ever doing this once. He pulls away, unsure what else to do after, before sneezing in your face.

"Sorry, pollen, gross."

"Let's get out of here then, quick."

You grab his hand in your own, another sensation he isn't sure how he's lived without until now, and pull him away from the tree as you run to the school exit. He jogs behind you, and you turn around, your fingers interlocked with each other's.

"By the way, happy sixth anniversary, Toshi!"

author's note:

@catsoupki here's your long overdue ushiwaka prompt baby i hope you like you like ;P i had so much fun writing this omg i cracked myself AND my sister up like twenty times running her through what my plan was LMAOO

i too need ushiwaka btw i actually love him SO MUCH it's not funny anymore I NEED HIM SBSBSBSBSB the only other fic i have of him is genuinely some of the worst situations i've put any haikyuu character in recently so i have to treat him to a good one here ofc

anyways tags!!

@starlysama @chuuya-brainrot @fiannee @bailey-reeds

ok love u guys see u next fic bye bye

[superbat-love]

The artificial sunlight of the simulated world was glaring, warm against Clark’s skin as he struggled, yet again, to make sense of the nonsensical dating sim he’d been trapped in.

Every time he woke up, the same pastel-colored town greeted him, with the same NPCs repeating their pre-programmed lines. This world operated on rules he didn’t fully understand, forcing him to navigate a harem of girls whose affections he was supposed to win. However, his attention was fixed on only one person.

Bruce Wayne.

Except, in this world, Bruce wasn’t really Bruce. He was nothing more than an arrogant NPC love rival challenging Clark for the harem’s affections, only to meet an untimely demise in every so-called "happy ending." The worst part? Bruce didn’t remember who he truly was. He was just a shell of himself, programmed to antagonize Clark.

This time, Bruce had cornered him in an empty classroom, playing his assigned role to perfection. "You’re such a fool," he sneered. "You think you can win?"

Two dialogue options blinked into existence:

[Leave me alone.]

[I’ve already won.]

Clark didn’t choose either. Instead, he leaned in and kissed him. It wasn’t a calculated move; it was pure instinct, a desperate attempt to reach the real Bruce buried beneath the programming.

The air shimmered unnaturally, and a new text box flashed before them:

[ERROR: UNKNOWN PATH. CONTINUING MAY CAUSE SYSTEM INSTABILITY]

Bruce froze, his lips parted in stunned silence. Then he abruptly shoved Clark away, his eyes filled with confusion and disbelief. "What the hell are you doing?" he snapped, though his voice wavered, uncertainty threading through the anger.

"If breaking the game is what it takes to save you," Clark said softly, his voice steady even as the ground beneath them trembled, "then so be it."

[??? Route – Unlocked]

[formulaonecrumbs]

just wish i was older

Lando Norris x babysitter!reader

summary: lando has a crush on his babysitter.

warnings: age gap? not really tho. it’s 3 years. lando pining for a girl he can’t have.

A/N: idk if this is weird. cuz reading it back i think it might be 😭😭 did reader groom him? no but why does it feel it. i’m going crazy also a gif this time cause i have a thing for rookie lando :]

୨ৎ ୨ৎ ୨ৎ ୨ৎ

age 12 & 15

lando had crossed his arms and sat sulking on the living room couch like the world had personally offended him.

his hair was still a little messy from the argument with his mum earlier, and his tie—he’d refused to take it off—was hanging half-untied around his neck like a silent protest.

you smiled as you closed the front door behind you. “you look like a grumpy little businessman.”

lando glared at you. “i’m not little.”

“right,” you teased, dropping your bag on the floor. “you’re a very mature twelve-year-old who threw a tantrum because he didn’t want to go to a wedding.”

his cheeks flushed slightly. “i didn’t throw a tantrum.”

“you did,” you grinned, walking past him into the kitchen. “your mum told me. said you nearly cried when she made you put on the dress shoes.”

“they pinch,” he muttered, following you like a shadow.

you pulled open the fridge. “alright, rebel. what are we eating tonight?”

lando leaned on the counter, watching you. “can we have those frozen pizzas?”

“already trying to sweet-talk me into junk food, huh?” you raised an eyebrow. “what happened to please and thank you?”

he rolled his eyes dramatically. “pleeease.”

you tossed him a frozen pizza box. “get the oven started, mr. businessman.”

he smiled, and you caught the way his shoulders relaxed a little.

later that evening, after pizza and a movie he picked (some racing documentary, no surprise there), the two of you sat on the floor of the living room, surrounded by empty snack wrappers.

“you’re not like other babysitters,” lando said suddenly, his voice quiet.

you looked over at him, one eyebrow raised. “yeah? how so?”

he shrugged, tugging at a loose thread in the carpet. “you talk to me like… normal. not like i’m a dumb kid.”

you softened. “you’re not a dumb kid, lando.”

he didn’t say anything for a second. then, almost too softly to hear, “i like it when you come over.”

you smiled. “i like it too. you’re good company, even when you’re being a grump.”

he smiled, just barely. “you’re nice.”

“so are you.”

he looked away quickly, cheeks pink again.

by the time his parents got home, lando was half-asleep on the couch, his head tipped against your shoulder.

you’d left the lights low and the tv still playing quietly in the background, the empty pizza box folded neatly on the table.

his mum smiled when she walked in. “looks like he survived without us.”

you nodded, brushing his curls back gently from his face. “barely.”

lando blinked sleepily, mumbling something about not being tired, but he didn’t move from your side.

and as you got up to leave, promising to see him again soon, he looked up at you with those tired eyes and whispered, “you’ll still come even when i’m older, right?”

you smiled, ruffling his hair. “if you want me to.”

he nodded once, like that answer settled something big in his heart.

and long after you were gone, he stayed sitting on the couch, tie still loose, wondering how long it’d take to be old enough for someone like you to really notice him.

୨ৎ ୨ৎ ୨ৎ ୨ৎ

age 15 & 18

lando hadn’t needed a babysitter in over a year.

or so he said.

but when his parents had to go out last-minute and asked you to drop by—“just in case, he won’t admit he wants the company, but you know how he is”—you’d agreed without hesitation.

he opened the door like he hadn’t been pacing behind it for the past ten minutes.

“you didn’t have to come,” he said, voice deeper now, posture more guarded. “i’m not twelve.”

“good thing,” you said, stepping inside with a smile. “because you were so annoying at twelve.”

he cracked a smile despite himself. “rude.”

you looked around the house. it was cleaner than usual. like maybe he’d tried to make it look like he had it together. “so what’s the plan? you gonna ignore me the whole time, pretend i’m not here?”

“nah,” he shrugged. “you can stay if you want.”

“lucky me.”

you ended up sitting in the kitchen while he made tea—something he insisted on doing himself, like he had something to prove.

“you’re in uni now, right?” he asked, carefully pouring boiling water into mugs. “like properly moved out and everything?”

“yeah,” you nodded. “first year.”

“right.” he paused, fiddling with the teabag. “bet that’s nice.”

you tilted your head. “what is?”

“being around people your age,” he muttered. “grown-ups.”

you blinked. “you say that like you’re ancient.”

he didn’t laugh. just looked at you, eyes a little more serious than usual. “you used to treat me like a kid.”

“you were a kid.”

“and now?”

you held his gaze for a second before giving a small smile. “still kinda a kid.”

he looked away, jaw tightening. “figured.”

later, while a show played quietly in the background, he sat on the other end of the couch, leg bouncing, fingers tapping against his knee.

you glanced over. “lando?”

he didn’t look at you. “do you ever think about how weird it is that i’ve known you half my life?”

“not weird,” you said gently. “just… kind of sweet.”

he scoffed, but it didn’t sound mean. “you used to tie my shoes. now you’re off dating guys with cars and jobs and��� real lives.”

“you jealous?”

he looked at you then. properly. “you know i am.”

the silence stretched, soft and full of something unspoken.

you reached over, nudging his arm. “i promise i’m not going to disappear, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

his expression cracked for a second—just long enough to see the boy underneath, the one who used to cling to you like a shadow.

“i’m not,” he muttered. “just wish i was older.”

you smiled, eyes kind. “one day, you will be. and you’re gonna be someone really great.”

he didn’t answer. just nodded, lips pressed into a thin line, fighting a war between wanting to be grown and knowing he’s still got time to go.

and when he walked you to the door that night—holding it open like a gentleman, pretending not to watch you as you left—he didn’t say goodbye.

just: “thanks for coming.”

and in his chest, a soft ache that had nothing to do with being young…

and everything to do with how much he wished he wasn’t.

୨ৎ ୨ৎ ୨ৎ ୨ৎ

age 16 & 19

you weren’t supposed to be back.

you were home from uni for a weekend, barely enough time to breathe—let alone babysit—but when mrs. norris called in a panic asking if you could check in on lando “just for a couple hours while we’re out”, you didn’t even think twice.

you hadn’t seen him in nearly a year.

he opened the door and for a second, you didn’t recognize him.

he was a little taller now. voice deeper. shoulders broader.

but the look in his eyes—that familiar flash of something warm and too intense—was exactly the same.

“…hey,” he said, voice unsure.

“hey,” you echoed, stepping inside. “you got… taller.”

he smirked. “you got older.”

you rolled your eyes. “rude.”

you sat in the living room, both pretending this wasn’t weird.

“you’ve barely texted me this year,” he said suddenly, not looking at you.

“you stopped texting first,” you replied gently.

he went quiet.

“thought maybe you didn’t want to talk to me anymore,” you added, softer now.

“i did.” he leaned back into the couch. “i just… figured you were busy. with adult stuff.”

you smiled, but it didn’t quite reach your eyes. “doesn’t mean i forgot about you.”

his jaw clenched. “well, i didn’t forget you either.”

he made tea again. of course he did. but this time, he brought it to you like it was a date.

he sat across from you, legs bouncing, hoodie sleeves pushed up.

“you still dating that guy?” he asked, voice low.

you shook your head. “not anymore.”

he looked up fast, too fast. “…oh.”

“why?”

you shrugged. “wasn’t right.”

he paused, chewing on his lip like he wanted to say something—something big, something too much—but instead, he just said, “he was lucky.”

you blinked. “lando…”

“i know,” he said quickly, like he could read your mind. “i know it doesn’t mean anything. just… let me say it, alright?”

you nodded.

“i like you,” he said. “i’ve liked you. for a long time.”

you stayed quiet.

“i know you’re older. i know nothing can happen. but you were the first person who really saw me. who didn’t treat me like a dumb kid.”

you swallowed. “you’re not a kid anymore.”

he laughed, but there was no humor in it. “still feels like i am to you.”

“lando—”

“it’s okay,” he said, getting up. “you don’t have to say anything. i just wanted you to know. in case… i don’t know. in case you ever wondered.”

you watched him as he walked into the kitchen, shoulders tense, trying to be calm when his heart was beating out of his chest.

and you sat there, staring into your tea, knowing he was right.

it wasn’t the time.

it never could be.

THE END :>

[ilium-ilia]

Everything You Touch

simon "ghost" riley x fem!reader | previously known as "soft spot" | masterlist

Chapter Twelve: anamneses

tw: minor violence, blood

By the beginning of December, Simon has fully moved in with you. 

It’s an easy transition, considering he only has a few items to his name. Dusty hobby items and required necessities. With a few cardboard boxes and plastic totes shoved in the boot of his car, it only took one trip to your apartment to move everything over, and then only two hours after that to settle his things in with yours. Mismatching cutlery, plain and chipped mugs among your themed ones, a new toothbrush resting next to yours—it’s effortless. A gentle weaving of the threads of life. 

Each morning that you wake up with him by your side, you feel those threads begin to knot. Inseparable, ends mending until the fibers are indiscernible. He’s always on his back, snoring in the middle of the night when you find yourself rousing. You watch the gentle rise and fall of his chest and decide to make it your pillow. It wakes him. You know it does because his snoring stops, but he never speaks. Never kvetches as you nestle your skull just beneath his collarbone. There is only a soft sigh, and the resting of his hand upon your head before he’s back to snoring again. 

He rises well before you do in the mornings, always managing to slip out of bed without stirring you and vanishing deep into the apartment. Usually, you find him in the living room with a mug in hand as he watches the news, or hunched over a book. In the beginning, he tried to make you breakfast but kept managing to burn the toast, so he’s given up that chore and left it to you, but your dishes are always done and the fridge never empties. 

You love having him here—your little ghost. You enjoy the fresh redolence he leaves behind after he showers in the bathroom and the heat he brings to your bed on cold winter nights. Even when you’re at work he still visits you, withdrawing money from his account and always leaving you a tip in the form of something for lunch or a bottled drink. 

Before long, all the wretched scars Eric left behind in your home have long faded. Simon patches over them tenderly with his boots by the door and his mouth on yours. 

For him, you have become a new constant in his life. A curious creature with odd routines of movie watching, long baths, and humming to music when you cook. His little bird, always chirping with fluttering wings, nesting into his side deep in the night, eating out of the palm of his hand and cooing his praises. Simon never thought he could be loved this much simply for existing—for providing such simple amenities like care and arms to hold you with. 

Still, there are old habits that the grey matter of his brain refuse to relinquish. 

His dreams being one of them. 

“Faster! Faster!” 

Pearly white teeth flash down at him as Simon’s arms extend high in the air, stubby legs and arms wiggling in the air as he holds his nephew up. His hands stiffen to a point, elbows attempting to lock as best as they can as he mocks engine noises and fluttering propellers, though it isn’t long before giggles interrupt his facade. He demands that Simon move faster, wiggling in his grasp, more worm than he ever is in an airplane. 

“Go easy on your uncle, Joseph.” 

A warm voice bleeds into his memories, and he instantly recognizes it as his brother’s. Tommy. He sits next to their mother on the couch with the soft lights of the Christmas Tree diffusing around him, illuminating the strands of his blonde hair. His smile is jolly as he leans back on the sofa, torso arguing against the Christmas sweater that looks roughly a size too small. 

“It’s alright,” Simon assures while he places his nephew back on the ground. The boy giggles once more as he keeps his arms straight and takes off running around the small living room. Chuckling, he steps back and watches the boy play, arms crossing over his chest. “You’re a lucky man, Tom. I’m proud of you.” 

And he is. Truly. There is immense pride that swells in his chest whenever he thinks of his brother’s battle with addiction—how he broke the cycle their father had long kept himself trapped in. It took true strength to pull himself out of that hole; more than Simon could ever dream of obtaining. 

“When are you going to stop saving the world and settle down?” Tommy asks. 

Simon can only smile at the floor. “Hm… Couldn’t do better than you ‘n Beth,” he admits softly, unable to look his brother in the eyes. 

“Simon?” And there she is. Looking up from the floor, his eyes find his sister-in-law. Beautiful auburn hair kisses her shoulders as she smiles, jamming a thumb behind her. “There’s someone at the door for you. A yank.” 

He knows what comes next. It’s always the same. An echo that refuses to fade. Still, Simon keeps that smile on his face as he weaves past Beth, fists clenching at his side as his dream twists before him. A figure stands in the doorway, a soft incandescence casting a warm glow on their body, but it’s different than what he expects. It’s wrong, twisted and morphed from something he should hate into something that he loves. 

It’s you.

“You shouldn’t be here.” Simon says like a warning—a threat. Voice low and caught deep in his throat; it’s foreign. Something he’d never say to you. 

Despite his menacing tone, your cheerful smile remains unwavering. “You were the one who brought me here,” you wittily retort. 

Eyes glazing over, you look past Simon and into the living room where Joseph continues to run around, arms spread wide and mouth still blubbering airplane sounds. His mother’s rocking chair creaks beneath her weight as she taps her feet on the ground, mouth opening but no sound escaping it. 

“You can’t stop it. You know that, right?” you ask, gaze still locked behind him. 

A hand absentmindedly rises to your neck where you play with the bead necklace around your throat, but it’s wrong. That comforting green is nowhere to be found, instead replaced with a bright crimson with beads that drip and morph down your throat like liquid—like blood. It’s too tight. Constricting. Choking. Taut fingers on your windpipe, fat palm crushing the cartlidge. 

“I can. I have to. They didn’t deserve it,” Simon chokes out, voice weak. He feels sick. Like he can’t get his vocal cords to resonate loud enough to make a difference. 

“No, silly,” you say with a patronizing giggle. “I’m not talking about them.” 

You don’t look at him when you laugh. Your eyes don’t light up the way he knows they’re supposed to; the way they always do when you’re with him. His chest collapses in on itself, ribs perforating lungs until they’re nothing but useless, mangled bits of flesh within him to feed the rot. He needs you to look at him. Desperate hands reach out to cup your cheeks, tilting your head so that your gaze would fall on him, but no matter how firmly he holds you, your eyes stray. Landing anywhere but on him, they wander, never focusing on him. 

“Look at me,” he says, grip becoming so firm he can feel your skull creak beneath his strength. Still, you refuse. “Look at me!” 

“It’s okay,” you assure him, voice soft. Cataracts cloud your eyes until they’re dull like stone. He can’t peer through it. He can’t get to you. “Ghost, it’s okay. You’re okay. You can’t hold onto me forever.” 

Finally, you look at him. He thought it would make him feel better, that it would feel like home, but it doesn’t. It’s a grave six feet deep with no company but a corpse. It’s maggots wiggling between his fingers, flies sizing him up for their next meal. All breath leaves his lungs, ripped straight from his chest, never to return. 

Why are you looking at him like this? Like you’re forgiving him? 

“Come on, you have to let go,” Tommy speaks up from behind him with a chuckle. A pair of arms snake their way around his torso, constricting his chest so tightly he nearly coughs. “You can’t do this forever, Simon.” 

But there is no flesh to cover his brother’s arms. There is nothing but bone and tendon, milky white and decaying; a skeleton dragging him backwards into the crypt that’s become his childhood home. Simon’s hands fall from your face as he attempts to push his brother off of him, but the iron grip is unrelenting. 

“I told you, Ghost.” It’s you. Voice gurgling, and choking, standing in front of him with a pained smile. There’s blood. Viscous splatters stain the wood at your feet as it seeps through your shirt, blooming like a flower in spring through the cotton. Your hands press over the wound, but there’s not enough pressure in the world to save you. How long have you been like this? “You can’t stop it.” 

Simon tries to scream, but when he opens his mouth nothing but a simple, pathetic push of air leaves his throat. More hands and arms assault his body, dragging him back, heels leaving long scratches in the floor as he’s separated from you. He’s helplessly frozen in place as he witnesses the blood continue to spill from your body, all while the mangled voices of his past coo in his ear. 

“You knew what would happen.”

“Did you really think it wouldn’t go wrong?”

“You killed her the moment you entered her life, Simon.”

“It was always gonna end up like this, kid.” 

When Simon wakes, you are not in bed. 

He sits up with a start, hand flying to your side of the bed where he finds that the sheets are still warm. He’s lost something—recently. It lingers. A hole in his chest. The space in the bed. 

Simon doesn’t bother to don a shirt before he’s thudding down the hallway, bare feet slapping against the solid floor in heavy, intentional thumps. His trigger finger twitches until he wanders past the bathroom door. A cascading waterfall emanates from the shower where he hears the stream interrupted by your swaying body. Through the noise, he hears your humming. A gentle melody—something made up, meant only for you. 

Stopping, he stares at the solid wood door before placing his hand on it. Steam warms it on the other side, seeping into his palm. It’s a pale imitation. A mere mimic of the beating of your heart. 

It’s enough for now. 

Going back to his roots, Simon decides to cook breakfast. Meat. Bacon and ham. Eggs. In another life, he was a butcher. Long ago when scars hadn’t yet marred his skin. When he was still an uncle. A brother. A son. As the food cooks in its pan, he can still perfectly recall the name of the cuts and how it felt to make those same carvings for himself. These days, he tries not to think about how similar swine is to the humans he slaughters on the battlefield, or how burning flesh always smells like barbeque once the hair is done singeing. 

You exit the bathroom with wet skin and a smile that’s too bright for the thoughts lurking in his brain. Not even your jokes or gentle hand on the center of his back can rattle them into submission. He tenses beneath your touch, wordlessly moving food onto plates and holding one out for you to take. You look at him knowingly, as if you’ve traced the spine of a book, knowledge soaking into you without so much as an utterance.

The two of you silently decide that it’s going to be a lazy day. Cuddled on the couch beneath blankets thick enough to stave off the drafty window, eyes focused on the television, attention long lost and drifting into space. Simon will be leaving again. Soon. Just after the New Year. Gone on the other side of the world, whispering sweet nothings to you through an old flip phone whenever the time difference allows. 

As you fall asleep against his side, your Saturday cat nap getting the better of you, he wonders how many times life can take something from him. What the capita is. If he’s paid his debt with the flesh off of his back yet or if life wants something more tender still. Something pure.

Someone like you. 

“Are you feeling okay?” 

As you look up at him, legs still curled over his lap, Simon can’t help but think how he doesn’t deserve you. He’s a stain in this apartment; in your life. Something rotten attempting to feed the roots of an astonishing flower. But he’d never admit it. He’d never willingly see himself out. He’s much too selfish for that. 

“What?” he asks, voice rolling off his tongue with a hum. 

“It’s just that you seem a bit more quiet than usual,” you note. You squeeze his forearm, fingers curling into his skin as if to pull him back home. 

“Yeah. I’m fine, sweetheart.” His assurance comes with a kiss to the crown of your head before he’s back to watching the television, eyes dull, staring through the screen as if he’s trying to decipher the tiny cracks in the wall beyond it. 

You don’t challenge his omission verbally. Instead, you lean into him as your leg twitches, fingers massaging the muscle of his arm. He tries to wander, but you won’t let him. Dragging him back, leaving behind nothing but claw marks in your wake, pulling him beneath the waves, smothering him until he’s painfully present in the moment, far away from war and death and the blatant disregard for all things sacred. 

“Do you wanna go for a walk?” You propose the activity as if you’re talking to a dog, voice pitchy and sweet. He supposes that, in some way, maybe he is. A dog. A bloodhound. Something to attack with foul teeth and no remorse.

Still—it’s all he really is. 

Once he agrees, you waste no time springing into action. You bound forward, shutting off the television and pulling him into the bedroom to change into proper clothes. It’s not late at night, but the season steals away the sun earlier and earlier in the evenings, leaving behind nothing but small puffs of orange that line the horizon. You share your excitement to see the lights, how your mother always enjoyed this time of year because of the decorations and how she wished they would keep them up year round, turning London less into a cement jungle gym and more into a creature that breathes something other than odor. 

It doesn’t take long for you to suit up in your scarf and hat, thick coat ensuring that you won’t be troubled by the unforgiving breeze too much. Still, you talk. You fill in the silence that would otherwise devour Simon. You always do. Humming your songs, sharing your stories—you cut off bits and pieces of you and share it with him, anxiously waiting for him to taste, to see if you’re palatable. 

And he does. Simon savors it. Hands on your shoulders, pulling you closer until his lips are on yours, tongue in your mouth, silencing your rambling, more than content with the flavor. You’re a treat he knows he shouldn’t indulge in, but he’s always had a sweet tooth. 

“Ready, sweetheart?” He’s pulling his balaclava over his face, obscuring his lips, denying himself the only thing he yearns for but knows he doesn’t deserve. 

When you smile, he nearly bites through the fabric to taste you once more.

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[damneddamsy]

falling | joel miller x fem!oc (part xiii)

HEURISTIC BLOOM—Intuition blossoms where logic fails.

summary: What is a chore chart but structure in the Miller family that was falling out of line?

a/n: this turned into such a Daddy Joel chapter, so much fluff and angst, I think I just miss my dad so much these days, and this new episode was so difficult to watch. also, this is the daddiest that Joel has dad-ied in this entire series. I love every second of it; Maya and Joel just wreck my sanity. I hope you love it, too :)

word count: 13,000+

Time was the one thing Joel always hoped he’d have more of.

Not in the poetic sense, or to chase silly dreams or put things right. Back then, it was time he’d wanted only so he could spend it hating himself a little longer—then die. Quick, quiet, out of the way, forgotten. That was all he figured he deserved. One more day to survive. One more step closer to nothing.

Only now did time reveal its discretions. Each ageing moment handed to him like a sovereign of gold—finite, dear, and impossible to reclaim once lost.

Mornings came with the sweet dread of culminating, that soon waned by the closure of evenings, and so the circuit went. When everything felt too still, too good to be real. It was as if he’d wandered into someone else’s dream by mistake—some softer version of the world where the coffee stayed warm and the silence wasn’t empty. And he'd be jolted awake to cold floors and open doors any second now.

But the days kept coming. They folded into months, and somehow, a whole year had passed.

A year of birthdays, of sprinting forward, and arguments and mended fences. Of holidays cobbled together with whatever they could find—new twinkling lights held up by fishing wire, cakes made from rationed sugar and fruits born in their backyard. A year of reasons to celebrate. A year of dinners that rarely started on time because Maya needed to show everyone around the table her crayon-covered invention.

A whole year of learning what a family can be—awkward, noisy, unfinished—even when it was messy.

It was a lopsided tapestry that you stitched together with mismatched thread and too-thin patience, patched over with stubborn love and quiet apologies that never quite reached the lips. But it held, even when it creaked under the grief, betrayal, or someone slamming the door too hard.

One thread on that tapestry spiralled forward.

His baby girl, Maya, had turned two over the winter, all curls and wild energy, her tiny voice echoing through the house like birdsong—bright, persistent, impossible to overlook. She ran now—fucking bolted, really—zigzagging through the halls with the chaos of a wind-up toy, often with a sock missing, making him exhausted in ways he never wanted to recover from.

Leela cycled little chores for her on that chore chart that was pinned on the refrigerator, with pretty butterflies and yellow-red-green boxes, all of which were mostly ceremonial, but Maya took to them with solemn, almost comical seriousness. Joel had rolled his eyes then at how excessive it seemed, but these days? He saw what it did and meant.

Structure. Ownership. A sense that Maya belonged here and that this home worked because she helped it.

Setting the table for dinner became a ritual: “One for Daddy, one for me,” she’d whisper in account, carefully placing each plate and all the cutlery with two hands, and god help you if you moved one out of place. She watered a particular rosemary bush in the garden more than the rest, peering into its green leaves like it might talk back. She’d pluck weeds with exaggerated grunts of “Gotcha,” and announced with great urgency to him when the firewood pile looked “low-ish. You gotta make more.”

He’d smile and roll up his sleeves. “Yes, ma’am.”

And when he'd come down right after his shower—steam still curling in the upstairs hallway, wood floors cool under his bare feet, shirt sticking to his back as he came down the stairs, fingers combing through hair that was still wet at the nape—and there she’d be, every damn time.

On the little step-stool in front of the fridge, staring solemnly at her chore chart like it might change if she concentrated hard enough. Her brows were furrowed, sleep-crushed and intent. One hand clutching her stuffed horse, the other hovering near the velcro stars like she was solving a military strategy.

She tapped a box with her finger. “Gaw-den day.”

“Gaw-den. Close enough,” Joel murmured, halfway to the counter.

Maya whipped her head around.

He turned just in time to catch the full force of her grin. Just joy in its rawest, brightest form.

Still in that too-small pyjama set with the little stitched deer on the knees, one sleeve riding up her forearm and the other twisted under her arm where she’d probably slept on it. Her hair hung wild and crooked around her face, half-out of the two ponytails he’d wrestled in the night before, looking like she’d fought a windstorm in her dreams and won.

“Mornin’, daddy,” she chirped, teeth flashing, brown eyes scrunching into perfect little half-moons.

Joel quirked up a smile, like he always did. Like her voice stunned something in him still—every single morning.

Still not rolling her Rs properly, and goddamn if that Texas drawl didn’t hit him straight in the heart every time. That was him in there, bleeding out in the twang of her vowels. She was picking it all up—his dumb phrases, his slow way of leaning against a wall when he got tired, his dry little “hmm”s when he didn’t feel like answering a question. She was mirroring it all, not on purpose—just by being around him too often.

Joel was rubbing off on her. And it was cute as hell. Terrifying, too, in the way love always was when you had something to lose.

“Hi, darlin’,” he triumphed. “Workin’ hard or hardly working’?”

She focused back on her chart again. “Mhm.”

“Hey, where's your mama?”

“Mmmm-downstairs.”

He sighed. “As usual.”

She nodded seriously. “Okay. I gotta count firepile, too. 'Cause I didn’t yestah-day. Was busy.”

“Oh yeah?” He leaned on the counter beside her, letting one hand drop down to rub her back. “Real busy yestah-day, huh?”

Maya nodded again. “Uh-huh. I was eatin’ jam-toast. I coloured.”

Joel chuckled low in his throat. ���Well. That’s mighty important.”

“Hmph. I know,” she whispered, already hopping down from the stool. “Shoes, shoes, shoes...”

“Alright, busybee, you come right back and wash your stinky tush,” Joel informed, watching her leave with her horse bouncing under one arm and determination in every stomp of her feet.

Her giggles faded out the door. “Ee, daddy, not my toosh!”

And it was the same way when she fought with Tommy. Even now.

Not the kicking, screaming kind anymore—those had been toddler tantrums. These were verbal scraps now. Loud as hell, sure, but laced with theatricality and the kind of absurd logic that only a two-year-old could weaponise. Always over something stupid, too. A missing biscuit. A cheating accusation in Go Fish. Once, Tommy bragged he’d launched a rock clean over the river, claiming it had “cleared the bend, swear to God.” Maya narrowed her eyes, tiny fists balled on her hips.

“Uncle, you liar,” she declared at the table.

Tommy, ever the instigator, leaned into it with the earnest of a man falsely accused. “Now hold up. Who you callin’ a liar?”

“’S too far... throw.”

“Maybe you just got short arms, squirt.”

Her eyes went wide, affronted. “Not squirt!” she yelped. “Ma-ya. Maa-yaa.”

“Whatever, squirt.”

Then came the stomp—always the stomp—little boot heels pounding off to file a formal complaint with Maria, who didn’t intervene unless something got broken, or someone cried.

Joel just watched it all unfold with quiet amusement, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning. That was his kid, through and through. Fire in her chest, loyalty to a fault, bullshit radar honed to lethal precision. He couldn’t decide if he was proud or worried. Probably both.

Maria handled it better than he did. She had a knack for plucking Maya up mid-meltdown, nestling her against a hip, and talking her down with soft logic and firm affection. No nonsense. No coddling.

Maya, all indignant, fists balled at her sides, came up to her. “He did it again! You gotta beat him, auntie—just pow, pow. Go.”

“Strong-armed by a munchkin,” Tommy mumbled to Joel.

Maria crouched, scooping Maya into her arms with a practised sigh. “Even wild things gotta learn when to walk away, baby.”

There was this maternal gravity there that Maya orbited around without quite realising it. Joel watched the way Maya always crept to Maria’s side when they walked together, or how she listened to her in that unusually still, owl-eyed way she reserved for her mother.

Ellie, on the other hand, was chaos incarnate.

Despite all her grumbling—I’m not babysitting, Joel, I got shit to do—she’d somehow slipped into the role of older sister with barely a stutter. Maya idolised her. Trailed after her like a shadow. Happily took to her when she gave her piggybacks every other evening. Ellie taught her how to whistle through her fingers, and how to spit (which Joel outlawed immediately), and how to sneak treats from the back of the pantry without anyone knowing, especially as Joel, the sucker he was, always fell for those delighting Bambi-eyes routine of hers.

“You distract Joel,” Ellie would whisper, squatted low like they were plotting a heist. “I’ll go for the loot.”

Sometimes Maya clung to her like ivy, curling up beside her on the porch while Ellie fiddled with her switchblade, asking questions about patrol, or hummed tunelessly on her guitar. Other times, she’d give Ellie the boot with all the ceremony of a royal dismissal.

“You go home now,” she’d say, small hand making a shooing gesture toward the door. “You go. Go back.”

Ellie never took it personally. Just smirked and ruffled her curls. “Fine, little shit. I’ll tell Dina you said no to those crayons you wanted so bad.”

Maya would hesitate. Glare. Cross her arms. “Fine.”

It was all ridiculous. It was all perfect. She was perfect.

And Joel couldn’t help but marvel at how she navigated them all—Tommy’s loudmouth energy, Maria’s constant warmth, Ellie’s storm-bright orbit. She was learning how to hold her own. How to give and take. How to love.

And through it all, Joel was utterly wrapped around her finger, watching his little girl fold herself into the arms of a world he used to think was too broken to offer her anything good. She could get away with just about anything if she smiled at him just right, even now.

He pretended to be stern, sure—“Put that back, trouble,” he’d grumble, trying not to grin his face off as she paraded around the house in his muddy boots, dragging his big-ass guitar behind her by the tuning pegs, impersonating him—“That ain’t a toy.”

“My guitar!” she’d giggle, shooting off.

And that would be that. Even Maya knew the truth: she had him beat.

Nowadays, he never really played that damn guitar for himself anymore. Not in the way he once had, back when music was the only place he could put his grief without it looking him in the face. These days, the strings still held sorrow, sure, but it wasn’t a wound he was nursing in secret. It was a tether.

These days, the strings answered to her. To Maya.

And most evenings, without fail, she’d find him out on the porch. Joel would settle there with a quiet grunt, sinking into the porch swing, guitar propped across his knee.

And she’d come, right on schedule—like a moth to the low twang of a G chord.

He’d barely get through tuning when he’d hear the soft little thump-thump-thump of bare feet coming up behind him.

And there she’d be. All two-foot-nothing of her. Wearing that flannel dress that was cut from his old shirts, a nappy that probably needed changing, curls stuck to her forehead, big, brown eyes shining, and she’d let out a huffy sigh, like she was bone-tired from a long day of being two years old.

“Play f’me,” she’d demand simply, climbing onto the swing with zero grace and a lot of conviction.

Joel would glance down at her. One of the shoulder-bows to the dress undone, one sock rolled halfway off, fingers idly picking at a tear on his jeans.

“Am I your jukebox now?” he’d ask, squinting at her with mock suspicion.

She’d giggle a 'hee-hee' sound, not even looking at him. She tapped her chest twice with a little closed fist. “Daddy, my song. Sing Maya song.”

“You ain’t got no song,” he said—always said, every time, even though he already knew what was coming.

“Comma comma song,” she insisted, nodding so hard her curls bounced. “My song.”

The same fucking Handyman song.

He'd lost count of how many times he’d played it—possibly near a thousand by now, judging by the muscle memory in his fingers. But it never got old, not once, not even when he was tired. Not even when his hands ached. Not even on days when he’d spent the morning scrubbing infected blood from under his nails or patching up a busted wall in the town’s greenhouse.

He exhaled, long-suffering, and booped her nose. “Fine. Only ‘cause you’re so damn cute.”

“Cute,” she echoed with a proud little nod, like it was her idea.

Sometimes, on good days—on golden ones like this—he’d plop her into his lap, seating the big, old guitar across both of them. She’d giggle every time like it was a surprise that it was so heavy, the guitar’s body practically swallowed her, tiny legs kicking out with the effort of balancing it. Joel would guide her tiny hand to the strings, his own fingers still holding the chords steady on the frets.

“Easy, baby girl,” he’d murmur, soft at her ear. “Right there. Ready?”

She bounced a little on his leg. “Th-wee-too-one,” she whispered.

And then she’d strum with those baby fingertips, turning red. A phantom pain radiated from his own at the sight.

The tune was always offbeat, too hard or too soft, a mess of squeaky rhythm and muddled chords—but she sang. Loud and proud. Off-key. Adorable. It didn’t matter if she got the words wrong; if she forgot them halfway through, then she made up new ones.

He'd sing with her, a smile in his voice. “Here is the main thing that I wanna say, I'm busy 24 hours a day—”

“Come-a, come-a, come-a, come-a, come, come!” she squealed, kicking her heels.

“Goin’ way too fast,” Joel laughed under his breath, trying not to lose rhythm. “You’re worse than your uncle.”

“I good,” she insisted, pushing her little hands against the strings with all the wrong pressure.

“You loud.”

“Comma, me-hee-ee!” she shouted.

Joel looked down at her—at that messy head, those little shoulders leaning back against the chest she’d lived all her life—this was the same girl who, not that long ago, couldn’t even sit up on her own. The wobbly little thing who used to clap wildly just because he’d hit a clean chord, laughing like it was magic. Now she wanted to sing with him. Be part of his music, even if her sweet songbird voice cracked mid-line because she got distracted by the callouses on his knuckles or the breeze.

His baby was growing up. Too soon for his liking, but so beautifully, too.

Although Joel thought he knew her. He knew everything about his little girl. Knew how she liked her toast slathered with jam, which socks were the “slide-y” ones, the exact pitch her voice hit when she was about to cry, or lie. He knew her world like a worn trail—knew how to keep her on her feet, fed, clean, and loved.

But some things she did still knocked the wind out of him.

It was late one evening, the fire burning low on the hearth, dinner cleaned up, when Joel had settled into the armchair with Maya curled up in his lap, the way she always did, back pressed to his chest, her fingers idly tracing that old scar on his forearm. He picked up the same book they’d been reading for weeks—The Three Pigs—half asleep himself, his voice a gravelly drone more than anything else.

But Maya pushed it aside.

“No,” she declared, already sliding off his lap. She padded across the rug, tugged at the bookshelf with both hands, and wrestled out a hardcover that had seen better days—corners frayed, spine puffed out from water damage.

She carried it over like it weighed five pounds and dropped it with a proud thud in his lap.

“This one,” she huffed.

Joel managed a quiet laugh. “Feelin’ turtles tonight, huh?” he muttered, shifting as she climbed back up his lap, settling in between like a cat.

He reached for the book—One Tiny Turtle—but she didn’t hand it over.

Instead, she squinted at the cover, nose scrunching in that comically serious toddler way. Then she looked up at him, one hand on the book, the other already halfway to his face.

“Daddy, glasses,” she said, tapping his neck like she was reminding him of something important. “I need ‘em. Gimme.”

Joel blinked, caught off guard—and then smiled. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked. Ever since he’d started needing the damn things—fixing small screws had turned into a guessing match more than a skill—Ellie and Dina had teased him mercilessly. Maya, on the other hand, had become fascinated. She treated the glasses like mystical antiques, often pulling them from his shirt pocket with the solemnity of a librarian.

“You wanna wear ‘em?” he asked, playing along. “Ain’t gonna help you. Your pretty eyes are fine.”

“Gimme ‘em,” she insisted, already snatching them up and jamming them on her tiny face, where they slipped halfway down her nose, looking exactly like an overworked professor three grades deep into bedtime.

“Wow,” she gasped. “I see you. I see turtles now!”

Joel bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Goddamn if she wasn’t the most adorable thing he’d ever seen. “Alright, careful with those,” he warned, settling his hands around her middle again to keep her from toppling off his leg.

She cracked the book open herself. Thumbed through a few pages with the consideration of someone handling sacred text. Then stopped. Planted a tiny finger on the first line.

And she started reading. Not guessing. Not parroting back his voice.

Maya was reading out loud.

“The moon was hi-guh... and the... wa-wa-ter was cold. But the ly-tuh-lee... little... tur-tuh-le... turtle... swam fah-st. Fast... lick-ee the ti-dee.”

Her voice was light, soft and lilting—like the story was a secret she was sharing with herself first, him second.

Joel stared at her, heart thudding like someone had snuck up on him.

Maya turned the page, tracing the next words carefully. Eyes squinting. “...pa-st the fish. And fa-w, fa-w aw-ay.”

Then she looked up, glasses sliding down, all earnest pride, like she expected to be graded. “I read’d it, Daddy.”

And for a second, Joel couldn’t find his breath because all he could think was: what in the everloving fuck?

He’d thought she was just memorizing the damn thing—he’d read it enough times to her, he’d been the one to guide Maya’s little finger across sentences these past months after all. But this wasn’t that. She was making sense of letters. Decoding. Connecting shapes to sound, sound to story. Stringing together syllables. Her lips moved just slightly before each word, like she was solving a fucking puzzle on the fly.

She wasn’t even three. And somehow—she was reading.

He didn’t show it. His face didn’t know how to do that kind of surprise anymore, not without breaking something open. Instead, he cleared his throat and gave her a quiet nod.

“You sure as hell did, sweetheart,” he said, low, a little hoarse. “You’re my little miracle, aren’t you?”

Maya lit up, her whole body beaming, and turned back to the book with purpose, flipping the page with the flourish of a person on a mission.

“Yeah. I read more for you. See. I named this turtle Marco, Marco Turtle...”

He only watched her, one arm wrapped loosely around her, the other hand resting at the edge of the paper, not quite knowing what to do with it. Her teeny heartbeat raced against his ribs.

And his mind was rushing ahead.

He should’ve been overjoyed. And in some ways, he was. But beneath the pride—deep in the gut, where old instincts still lived—a darker, ancient feeling bloomed. Fear. The same kind that gripped him when Leela stayed up too late with equations in the margins of tear-stained notebooks.

Because Maya was clever. Leela-clever. That quiet, effortless sort of brilliance that didn’t ask permission to exist.

And he knew what being brilliant cost. He’d seen it grind Leela down, chewed through her sleep, her peace, her joy. Seen how the world didn’t know what the hell to do with someone like her. How it tried to shrink her, dull her, use her up.

His Maya... she was still so little. She was supposed to have more time. She was supposed to play in the dirt, throw tantrums, and mispronounce things until she was five or six. Not sit here with a picture book and read like the words had always belonged in her little mouth.

A new grief in him began, a grief for a childhood barely started, already being outpaced by her mind.

And that was when the other things—the more obvious things, the ones he’d been too honeyed by daily bliss to see clearly—began to needle at him.

The future was closing in faster than he thought it would.

Their non-literal home was beautiful. A little too beautiful. Big, white, built from the creation of what once had been someone’s dream—stained glass in the sidelites and transom, a clawfoot tub in their oceanic bedroom, floorboards worn soft in the middle. It had charm. Soul.

But to Joel, nowadays, it had also started to feel like a keep.

Because Leela didn’t leave it until absolutely necessary. She stepped out onto the porch now and then, took Maya to the berry brambles, and walked to Tommy's occasionally. But she never involved herself. Not in the way Maria did, with her council meetings and community firepit nights. Not like Ellie, loud and cursing with her mess of teenage friends at the bar counter.

No 'friends.' No card games. No loitering on porches just to gossip. She was polite, moved through the town like a ghost too gentle to haunt, present when she had to be—but Jackson never really got to know her beyond her genius.

And in the beginning, Joel hadn’t pushed it. He’d respect that, protect her space with the quiet, dogged devotion he always had.

Trauma didn’t heal like a cut for his girl. It festered. Seeped into the walls. Made a home in the bones. He, of all people, knew what it was to be gutted by life and left walking around in your own ruin. Leela needed the quiet, needed to rebuild the walls around herself brick by careful brick, and if she’d found peace inside the four corners of their home, who was he to challenge that?

But then came Maya. Changing everything by just growing.

And with it came the slow, unsettling realisation that Leela’s fear was becoming an inheritance.

It hit him hardest one bright afternoon when Maya, who tagged along with him to run a quick errand—sticking to his leg like a barnacle—flat-out shrieked at the entrance of the general store.

“No, no. We go back, Daddy,” she'd begun from the street.

She’d been unusually clingy that day, and instead of nudging her to stay behind with Leela, he’d bundled her up and brought her along. Figured it’d be like before, when she used to ride tucked under his arm or babble at him from his hip. These days, she was brave. Intelligent. She liked counting fruit, pointing out colours, proudly telling him which apples were “juicy.”

But the second they stepped inside, she broke down. She wanted the fuck out of there.

She’d sobbed it over and over, tears wetting her little dungarees and boots, fists balled to her face, breath hitching, while Joel knelt beside her, stunned. His girl never reacted like this. Not to stores. Not to anything. So why now?

“Maya, hey, hey—look at me,” he’d tried to talk her down softly, rubbing her tiny arms, “we’re just getting fruit. Then we’ll go back, baby girl. You like apples, don’t you?”

But she’d kept wailing. Deep, frantic. Panicked. Like something invisible had reached into her and flipped a switch labelled hazard.

Joel could feel the eyes now. People watching from behind shelves and crates, faces folding into awkward sympathy, some barely disguising the discomfort. He barely registered any of it.

All he could think was—Goddamn, my baby's scared. Not because the prospect of the store was frightening, but because home was all she knew. Because her world had been drawn in close, little, familiar, tight, and any step outside of it was an immediate danger.

Still in a daze, he took Maya home soon enough. Held her, fed her favourite berries while she calmed down. Didn't say anything to a blank-faced Leela, not then. Just watched the way Maya wrapped herself around her mother’s neck and didn’t let go. Like they were still one body, one breath.

“I like here, Mama,” Maya had whispered to her.

“Then we stay here, okay? As long as you want,” Leela had assured, stroking Maya's hair.

And Joel lay awake that night, staring at the ceiling with a bitter pill stuck in his throat. A knot he couldn’t swallow down.

It wasn’t Leela’s fault. It wasn’t. But it wasn’t fair either—not to Maya. She deserved to hear laughter from kids near her age, sing rhymes with her friends, and go on playdates.

Because he’d seen these kids now. The world had made a lot of them—survivors, ghosts, raised in silence and scarcity, oriented by conditions that safety meant solitude. That hiding meant living.

He didn’t want that for his little girl. Didn’t want Maya to inherit the isolation. The fear. The belief that outside meant trouble and inside meant control.

So Joel started trying. Small things. Subtle at first.

Long, frequent walks to the grocery store with Maya. More dinners at the barbecue restaurant with Tommy and Maria. He’d sidle up to the couples gathered near the café, folks trading gossip and laughter, and being the stone-faced bastard he was, he would grumble something half-funny, trying to wedge himself—and by extension, Leela—into the rhythm of the town. It wasn’t natural for him—this mingling shit, but he he did it for his family.

And Leela came, most times, only for Maya.

At the playground, where the older kids laughed too loudly in a game of tag, he would squat beside Maya, pointing out. “You wanna play with them? Go on, baby girl. Say hi. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with trying.”

But every time, he’d see the same thing.

The exact moment Leela would freeze beside him, hands tightening around the strap of the canvas grocery bag she carried like armour. The subtle tension in her jaw, her mouth a thin line, standing there in hurt.

And Maya, watching her mama, would duck behind Leela’s legs like clockwork. Her caution. Her withdrawal. A mimicry that cut Joel deeper than any outburst could.

“I want home,” she’d parrot, deadpan, robotic. Already backing up.

Joel felt it like a slap.

And later, in the kitchen, he’d let it out. Not yelling, he didn’t yell much anymore, but his voice would scrape low, pressure building in the seams. Snaps over nothing. A dish not rinsed. A cabinet left open. Laundry left out on the clothesline. The wrong kind of silence. Long nights standing in their bedroom corridor, arguing too quietly for Maya to overhear.

“She’s starting to copy you,” he’d say, jaw working.

“She’s two,” Leela would shoot back.

“Exactly, darlin’. She needs to know the world ain’t all gonna hurt her.”

“The hell it isn’t. She’s with her mother. She feels safe. What’s wrong with that?”

He’d go still. Always did, at that line. Because he understood it, on a level few others would. But that didn’t make it right.

He’d exhale through his nose, run a hand through his hair like it could scrub the ache out of his scalp, fighting the impulse to strike the wall. He fucking hated this.

“She’s brave because her mother is braver,” Joel would mutter finally, eyes on the floor. “She’s gotta know there’s more than just closed doors—”

“How do you know, Joel!” she interrupted with a hiss.

He shut his eyes on instinct, “—and being safe. There’s living, Leela. Not just staying alive.”

Leela would go quiet then, in sorrow. Quiet, aching sorrow leaking shame, and didn’t ask for forgiveness because it didn’t believe it deserved it.

And sometimes—rarely—Leela would cry, just a little. He’d see it in the shimmer at the edge of her lashes, the way she turned away to hide her face in the crook of her arm. And he would stand there, fists clenched uselessly at his sides, hating the way his love kept crashing into her fear. Hated himself for adding to it, even as he knew he had to.

Joel knew it wouldn’t be quick or easy. Fear never lets go without a fight. But he also knew this: he loved Leela and Maya too much to let them stay inside forever.

In that quiet, stubborn tapestry Joel kept tucked away in the back of his mind—the one stitched from all the things he didn’t say aloud—plenty of threads held it together.

Two stretched, bounding forward: Maya, Ellie, both new, young and wide-eyed, full of questions and sunlight, weaving joy into every corner of the future he still dared to imagine.

The other ran deeper, coloured red as blood: Leela—tired, brilliant, proud. Fraying at the edges, pulled too tight in places, but still threaded through every part of him. She was the pattern he couldn’t unpick, no matter how much it hurt. Woven into the very fabric of him, even as she came undone.

But things between Joel and Leela lately have been... rocky. Worse than that.

And if you’ve followed it this far, you probably know by now—Leela was never really around to know what was happening, and she never really forgave Joel. Not for that.

Even though he told himself he did it for her—for them—the price he paid was her trust, and once broken, it didn’t come back easily. He couldn't even blame her.

Because he’d done this. He’d done the one thing she couldn’t forgive—not yet.

Took her work, the mammoth of a legacy she built with trembling hands, in the dark, decimal by decimal, proof by proof, pouring herself into it like it was the only piece of hers that mattered. And he took it, slipped out in the middle of the night like a goddamn thief with her notebook stuffed into his pack and headed south without a word.

Caltech. The Fireflies. Fucking death of good.

He went thinking he was doing it for her, for all of them, trying to scrape some meaning out of this wreck of a world, trying to give her back the future that had been stolen. But in the end, what he gave her was another theft.

He hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her. Hadn’t believed she could survive the heartbreak of hope, not after everything.

But she’d survived worse, hadn’t she?

And now—she was surviving him.

She didn’t scream or accuse him. No, that wasn’t her way. Just looked at him afterwards like he was a stranger with her blood on his hands. And in some way, he was.

She withdrew, inch by silent inch, until the space between them felt like a raging ocean. Her life shrank down to two absolutes: the work and Maya. And Joel went past it, a bad, breathing memory.

At first, it was small. She missed family dinners to entertain her workshop, tolerated his touches, his little kisses, his stupid jokes, his try-hard conversations at night before they fell asleep. She still kissed him goodnight—light brushes of the mouth, like habit, like politeness. He tried to meet her there, tried harder than he had in months.

But something in her had already begun to turn inward. Soon, she stopped laughing. Stopped touching back. And the kisses stopped, too. Not abruptly—just faded, like colour bleeding from cloth.

She began to stay up late, diving headfirst into that goddamned hard drive, pouring over its files until her eyes were red and raw from the blue light.

One night, after he had put Maya to bed and the house fell into its accustomed hush, Joel found Leela in the kitchen, hunched over her notebook at the island, bathed in the amber lights above the stove. Her pencil moved in relentless bursts—fast, jittery, like it was chasing her thoughts before they escaped.

Joel lingered at the doorway for a second, cracking his knuckles nervously, just watching her. Then he padded in quietly and slid behind her chair. He rested his hands lightly on her shoulders, thumbs pressing into the knots he knew so well.

She stiffened for half a second worth of instinct—then relaxed, but only just. Her pen didn’t stop. Her eyes didn’t leave the page.

“You eat anything yet?” he asked, his voice barely more than a murmur against the crown of her head.

“Mhm,” she hummed, not really answering.

“What was it?”

“Um. Bread.” A shrug. A scratch at her nape. “Leftovers, I think. Bread.”

He didn't know whether to laugh or yell at her.

He dipped lower, pressing a kiss to her temple. Another at the corner of her jaw. “Been thinkin’,” he murmured, “tomorrow, maybe we take a walk. Just us. Creek trail’s thawed out. Might even find some of those frogs Maya keeps talkin’ about.”

She nodded absently, shifting forward so his lips barely brushed her skin. “Mhm. We’ll see.”

Joel lingered. He let his hand trail from her shoulder down her arm, fingers curling around her wrist. Then, almost shyly, he leaned in again, tried for her mouth, the edge then the soft bow of it—a gentle, building kiss, just enough to say I miss you. Come upstairs with me.

But she barely turned her head when his fingers traced down her chin and throat. Her lips caught the edge of his, then returned to her notes like nothing had happened.

“Joel,” she refused quietly, nearly apologetic. “I’m... I need to get this down before I lose my train of thought.”

Joel pulled back. Swallowed. “Got it,” he said.

His hand drifted off her wrist.

Sooner than later, the bed went cold. Her pillow stayed smooth. Her scent disappeared from the sheets. No creak of the mattress at midnight. No rustle of her turning toward him, murmuring, half-asleep. He waited a week. Then three months. Told himself she was just tired. Overworked. He even left the light on for her on most nights. But her side stayed untouched for weeks. And then it wasn’t her side anymore. Just empty space.

She made no scenes, but she made no room either. Joel became a fixture—like the porch railing, the boots by the door. Something that used to belong but now just takes up space. Just empty space.

Because he knew he deserved it. Knew it wasn’t just one thing, or one mistake. It was the thousand small betrayals: the silences, the avoidance, the cowardice of a man who thought keeping the truth buried would keep the peace. And now there was this quiet, unbearable nothing between them. A stillness too loud to ignore.

Back to square one, he guessed. Back to being the man who didn’t know how to fix a goddamn thing he loved without wrecking it first.

Even Maria had started to notice, asking questions with too-soft eyes when Leela's silence crossed into the summer. The quiet between them was too loud not to.

“She’s not talking to you,” she had stated to him earlier, before he left for patrol, her tone too casual on the surface.

Joel shook his head. “Ain’t her fault. Just let her be.”

“You’re not talkin’ either.”

He gave a humourless exhale, more through his nose than his mouth. “Not much left to say.”

Maria was quiet for a beat, then added, softer, “That’s not true. You just think it’ll hurt more if you say it.”

Joel finally looked at her, eyes shadowed under the brim of his hat. “What do you want to hear, Maria? That I fucked up? That I’d give my goddamn right hand to take it back?”

Maria didn’t blink. “I want you to stop pretending everything’s fine.”

He looked away again, the line of his shoulders rigid, like holding back a landslide. That one landed hard.

“I just… I don't know how to fix it without breakin’ more of her. Or losin’ what I have.”

Maria sighed. “You lived too long, Joel,” she said. “You think that makes you harder, but really… it just made you scared.”

Yes, she was right, but damn if he knew what else to do when every word he spoke just seemed to push her further away.

So, Joel didn’t bother explaining. How could he? How could he put into words the way he'd tried to buy redemption with silence? How could he justify betraying the one woman who had ever truly seen him—not just the survivor, not the killer—but the father, the man?

So he didn’t. He just tried like a goddamn fool, and wedge himself back into the corners of her world.

He started learning to cook on his own, fumbling through her spice rack like a man disarming a bomb, holding tiny jars of sumac, baharat and saffron. He burned rice more than he cared to admit, sliced his knuckle on a dull knife trying to dice onions the way she did, and measured out cumin in those labelled spoons. All of it for the smallest chance that maybe—she’d sit beside him again. That she’d taste what he made and remember the man she used to love.

Most nights, he got nothing more than a nod. Other nights, not even that.

He started taking early patrols, slipping out before the sun had even begun to crack over the mountains—just so he could be back in time for dinner, hoping that his presence might feel less like a shadow. He tried being quieter, helpful than usual, and patient. Cleaned up after Maya’s tantrums without a word, patched the leaky faucet no one had asked him to touch, restocked the pantry with the dried apricots that Leela loved. He’d traded two .44s and a good knife for them. Worth every bullet.

One long, back-breaking afternoon, he planted sunflowers beneath the kitchen window—tall, defiant things, yellow like August heat—so they’d be the first thing she saw when she came down for her morning coffee.

The next day, he stood leaning against the counter when she ambled in, silent as always. She poured her tea like it was a chore, staring out the window.

He tried again. “Sunflowers’re yours,” he said, voice quiet, encouraging. “Figured they’d like it there. Morning light looks good on them, right?”

She didn’t look at him or say a thing. Just took her cup and left.

He stayed where he was for a while, jaw working, hand flexing against the edge of the counter like he could squeeze the silence into something that didn’t feel like regret.

Still, it wasn’t enough. And he blamed every bit of himself. He did this, now he had to face the music.

Another promising evening, he stood by the stove with his heart in his throat, ladling out bowls of a chickpea stew he knew she couldn't go a week without. It smelled right—he was sure of it. That same sweet earthiness she used to hum over. He had Maya set a plate for her and sat her on his hip, fresh out of a nap and giggling, pointing at the pot and declaring it “orange soup.”

When Leela emerged from the hallway, hair hanging in knots, picking dirt off her fingernails, he looked up too quickly. Hope gave him away every time.

“Hey. I made us an early dinner,” he said, soft, stupid and hopeful. “Figured you'd get hungry soon. Come, sit.”

She paused, eyes drifting from the table to his hand, then to him.

“Thank you,” she said, and took the bowl from his hands without sitting down. Bent over and kissed Maya’s temple, her voice dipping into a gentle whisper for their daughter. “Maybe give her a bath tonight. Wash her hair, too.”

“Yeah, thought as much,” he hummed.

Maya was the only glue, a scared hope that all wasn't lost, and the one place Leela hadn’t drawn a line in the sand. She didn’t keep Maya from him or poison her against him. The one harness in this well-oiled rope he balanced on.

Then Leela turned, bowl still in hand, and headed straight for the basement door.

Joel stood there, hand still hovering over the back of her empty chair, feeling like he’d just been left out in the cold.

“Leela,” he tried, just once, not loud. “You don’t have to eat down there.”

She didn’t look back, just kept walking. And the door closed behind her.

He sank into the chair anyway, across from the spot she'd left bare, with all that love bottled inside him, rattling like a storm in a glass jar, praying for a crack. A fissure. Anything.

He hadn’t expected a goddamn earthquake to bring it all down.

Not a fight. Not another bout of silence. Not even the slow, invisible corrosion that had been eating away at their days, their hours, the quiet spaces between words.

It happened deep into August, nearly three months since they last spoke to each other past monosyllables, on a night so thick with heat it felt like the world itself was holding its breath. No wind, no clouds, no moon. Just stillness. Then, from beneath the floorboards, a low, aching groan—ancient, half-buried stirring in its grave.

Joel heard the first crash a moment later—metallic, jagged, unnerving. Then another. And then a sound he felt in his spine more than his ears: a raw, feral wail echoing up from the workshop. Hers.

He stilled where he sat, his back against the headboard, Maya's small body rising and falling steadily on his chest. She didn’t wake. Just sighed in her sleep, lips parted, her tiny fist knotted in his shirt.

He held still, listening, hoping it would pass. He lay perfectly still, willing it to be nothing. He definitely imagined it. Maybe a cabinet door slamming in the draft. But he knew better; the house didn’t make sounds like that on its own.

The noise came again—sharper this time, something being slammed into oblivion, beaten past recognition.

Joel exhaled and moved gently, untangling himself from Maya’s grip. He laid her into the centre of the bed and ringed her with pillows, a soft, uneven wall meant to keep her safe in the night.

Maya stirred, a little sigh hitching, eyes fluttering open with a blink.

He rubbed her back gently, managing a smile for her. “Hi. Go back to sleep,” he murmured.

But she didn’t. Instead, she looked up at him, her lashes damp, her voice tiny and confused. “Mama’s mad ‛gain.”

Joel couldn't even hide his dejection anymore, he simply let it run rampant on his face as she watched. He soothed a hand over her curls, pressing a kiss to her crown. “Mama doesn’t mean to be. Her heart’s real loud sometimes, that’s all.”

Maya flinched when another crash echoed. Joel felt it through her whole little body.

“Scary mama,” she whispered.

“Oh, baby girl,” he sighed, stroking her tiny cheek, swallowing hard. “Just close your eyes, okay? Daddy’s gonna help her out, and I'll be right back.”

She reached out to him blearily, tiny palm patting at the slope of his nose before she returned the fist beneath her head. Her eyes drooped shut, and she was snoring away in moments.

For a moment, he just stood there, watching her, making sure. Listening.

Another crash came from below.

What the fuck was this twisted part of his good life? He rubbed a hand over his face and turned toward the door, limbs heavy with sleep—or maybe it was dread. Probably both. He moved barefoot down the stairs, each step dragging him toward something he already knew he couldn’t fix.

The basement light glared beneath the doorframe, a thin blade of gold effusing onto the floor from a room already burning. He opened the door with a huff and descended the stairs, the wood creaking beneath.

The stale air hit him first—dense, electric, scorched, metallic. Burned circuits, hot solder, and beneath all that: the sour, unmistakable scent of grief when it’s been left to smoulder too long.

And then he saw her.

Leela was surrounded by wreckage—tools flung wide, cracked motherboards strewn across the concrete like broken bones. He counted at least three, maybe more. One was still beneath her boot, the delicate circuitry crunching under the force of her heel. Her hands were trembling. Her cheeks streaked with silent, unrelenting tears she hadn’t wiped away—like her body was crying without permission, leaking sorrow that had nowhere else to go.

She didn’t look at him. Didn’t even acknowledge the sound of the door or his footfalls.

Joel stood there, rooted. For a moment, he didn’t know whether to speak or retreat. His mind scrambled for anything useful to say, but everything in him stilled as he watched her unravel.

It wasn’t the outburst that gutted him. It was the restraint.

This wasn’t rage. Deeper. Exhausted. A woman clawing at the walls of her own brilliance, trying to outrun the weight of everything she knew and everything she couldn’t fix. Trying to make sense of a world that refused to make sense back then. Performing an autopsy on their own dreams.

She brought her boot down again. Another snap. Another grunt. Another piece of her pursuit fractured beyond repair.

He had come down here expecting a storm. But what he found was the wreckage left in its wake.

Joel cleared his throat softly, the sound awkward in the charged silence. “Leela, honey.”

She didn’t look up. Just stood there, staring at the crushed remnants of the board beneath her foot. Her shoulders were tight, her breathing uneven—quiet, little gasps like someone trying to stay underwater.

Then finally—she grunted. “What do you want?”

It wasn’t a challenge. Or even anger.

Just... hollow.

Joel stood there, caught on the threshold, hands clenched at his sides like restraint might anchor him. The question hit harder than any destruction. He hated how she said it—like he was an interruption. A ghost. A reminder.

“What do I want?” he echoed. He stepped inside the room fully. “I want you to be done with this shit. Christ, baby. Look at yourself.”

She didn’t answer. Just swiped the back of her wrist across her face. The tears smeared into skin already marked by sleeplessness, a black bruise of exhaustion under each eye. Her lip trembled—not rage, but from how close she was to shattering. She was holding herself together with splinters.

“This ain’t just about bein’ tired. Or obsessed,” he said, low and hoarse. “This is—you’re gone. I don’t know where you went.”

The silence after that was like stepping into a vacuum. Thick, suffocating, vast. She didn’t argue. Just turned to a statue mid-collapse, crumbling from the inside out.

Joel scanned the room—the half-burned schematics, the warped breadboards, the soldering station with a fresh burn mark across its edge. This wasn’t tinkering anymore. This wasn’t research. This was a crash-out. A gradual collapse with no bottom.

And then he said it. The thing he’d been building toward for days.

“You’re gonna pack all this up,” he gestured at the blown circuits, the melted boards, the scribbled chalk math on the blackboards and ruin, “and give it to the folks at the dam who know what the hell to do with it. Then you’re comin’ home. You’re gonna focus on—us. On our family.”

Her head turned, slowly, like rusted hinges catching. That word—family—cracked her open. Her eyes, rimmed in red, shadowed and hollow, fixed on him like a dagger pressed to skin.

“And that’s all I am to you now?” she asked, brittle. “Maya’s mom?”

Joel’s jaw clenched. “Don’t be twistin’ what I said.”

She let out a sound—a laugh, but it bent at the edges, twisted bitter, hollow.

“I’m a dead loss with what I want, so now I've got to be your pretty little wife?” Her voice sharpened, cracked. “Raise a kid, cook dinner, smile at the table, be grateful you stayed?”

“What the hell are you talkin’ about?” Joel’s voice rose before he could stop it. “I’ve been patient with you. You won’t talk to me. You won’t let me close. And every day I keep thinking—maybe today’s the day she comes back to me. And every day, I get a little more scared that you won’t. Because I've been holdin’ this goddamn house together with sweat and prayer for months, Leela. It’s almost a year, know that? A whole fuckin’—and I’ve been raising your daughter—”

“Oh, she’s mine now?” she snapped, hot and fast.

Joel put his hands on his hips, defeated. “Look, I ain’t doin’ this with you. Let’s go.”

“Then what are we doing? What is this?”

“Just come upstairs,” he pleaded. “You need sleep. You need a bath. You need somethin’ besides this... fuckin’ hole.”

That should’ve been the simplest thing. An ask. A mercy.

But her stare didn’t budge. She looked at him like she didn’t recognise him anymore. And then, breathing hard from exertion, she lashed out:

“She is mine, Joel. You’re not even her dad. So, stop trying.”

It hit like a punch. No—worse. Like a betrayal he hadn’t earned but somehow always feared. He stood there, breath gone, the echo of her words stretching long and cruel between them. Because she’d reached for the thing that would cut deepest, and used it.

He swallowed. His jaw clenched. Leela didn’t push, and good call on her part.

So he stepped forward, one step, daring. “Say it again.”

She looked at him, eyes wet but infuriated. “Why? So you can tell me how much you’ve lost? How you stayed? How you tried? How my daughter loves some bitter, traitorous nobody more than she loves her own mother?”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t rise to the bait, however painful it seemed. “This is where you apologise.”

Leela scoffed, a sharp, bitter sound scraping from the back of her throat. “Go to hell.”

Joel didn’t budge. “I’m still here, Leela. Enough.”

Her head jerked up, eyes flashing. “For what!” Her voice splintered and rebounded off the walls.

Joel ran a hand down his face. He didn’t even know where to put the pain anymore, even his heart began to hurt from pounding for him.

He sighed, and the words slipped out, even if he didn't mean a word. “I can't fuckin’ stand you sometimes, you know that? Because you're so hung up on this idea of some crazy mended future, and you can't even see what it's becoming anymore.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “My crazy future. So why are you still here?”

He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. I still love you. Hurt me, and I still love you so much.

She sniffled. “I don't have to need you either. Get out.”

Joel’s eyes flicked to the floor, the ruined circuit boards, the mess of her mind made physical. Her body, thin and drawn, stood there like she was being held together by stubbornness and string.

“No,” he stated. “I’ll do whatever the hell I want.”

Her face twisted like that hurt more than anything he’d said.

“What do you want from me, Joel?” she asked again, quieter this time. But it wasn’t resignation—it was panic. Like she’d realised she didn’t have anything left to give. Her voice frayed at the edges, folding in on itself.

“I can’t even breathe in here. You do everything. You try for me. You wait outside the basement like that’s gonna fix something. But it won’t. None of this will.”

Joel took a step forward. Hands half-raised, like he wanted to touch her but didn’t know how. Didn’t know if he was allowed anymore.

“I don’t know what else to do, Leela,” he said. His voice cracked, thick with helplessness. “I feel like I’m losing you every goddamn day.”

She sobbed—sharp and sudden—and turned away like the sound embarrassed her. Her head dipped, and she laughed. Or maybe cried. It came out strangled, twisted. Like both, like neither.

“I look at you,” Joel said, quieter now, like the words had been sitting in his chest too long, wearing grooves in his ribs, “and I see everything I failed. And everything I want back.”

For a moment, nothing moved. And then a sound cracked from her—ugly, half-choked, something between a laugh and a sob that scraped up from too deep to name. She shook her head with a sharp, miserable little twist, like she already knew how this ended. It had ended before it began.

“This ain’t home without you, Leela.”

Her hands clawed into her hair, fingers curling tight like she wanted to rip it out by the roots. Like she could shed the skin of who she’d become—strip it away until there was nothing left but bone and breath and silence. Something that didn’t feel like a complete failure.

He watched her like a man witnessing an earthquake from the inside out.

“I’ll keep sayin’ sorry, or whatever you want to hear,” Joel said, thick-voiced. “I don’t care how long it takes. I’ll say it quiet, I’ll say it loud. You don’t owe me a damn thing, baby. But I’m still here.”

He didn't want to, but he did. He saw her fall.

Her knees buckled. No grace in it, no dignity. She just crumpled like her body finally gave up the lie of holding it all together. Her spine curved, arms wrapped around her stomach like she was trying to hold in everything that had been spilling out for months—grief, frustration, exhaustion. Rage she never let herself feel because there wasn’t time. Because someone had to keep going.

Joel crouched but didn’t reach for her. He knew better. Knew how to read this language. Knew what pain looked like when it didn’t want an audience. He simply knelt there, watching. Helpless. Waiting. The woman he loved, the mother of his child, was falling apart, and all he could do was bear witness. He hated every nerve in his body that stayed up.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, barely more than a breath. “I’m sorry, Joel. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”

He shifted, careful not to crowd her, just enough so his knee brushed against hers—a tether, a promise. He didn’t dare reach out. Not yet.

Her face was a mess—blotched, red, tears carving lines through grime and sweat, her hair damp with sweat or maybe the shower, maybe the storm inside her. His girl looked like she’d fought through hell and come out burned.

“I’m not like this,” she rasped. “I’m not. I’m good. I didn’t mean it—I didn’t—”

He shook his head. “I know, baby. It’s okay.”

She made a noise, somewhere between disbelief and pain. Her hands lifted again, trembling, gesturing weakly at the walls around them. At the chaos. The notes, the sketches, the scrawled equations bleeding across paper like veins, all bent and burned and ruined. Months of work, ruined in a flash of fury. Her own hand, the one that had once traced formulas, had torn it down.

“I just—” Her voice cracked again. “It’s so loud. I don’t know where to start. Every time I try, something else falls apart. I can’t get one thing right. There’s so much... I can’t do it.”

Joel’s eyes followed hers. The room was wrecked. But more than that—she was. She had been holding too much for too long, and he hadn’t seen it. Not the way he should’ve.

And now he saw it all.

She wasn’t just trying to solve some goddamn problem.

She was trying to stitch back a world that didn’t exist anymore. Trying to take her guilt and her grief and her brilliance and turn it into salvation. Trying to prove she was still worth something. That what she carried still mattered.

Alone.

And he'd let her.

He’d been here in body, sure. Since Jackson. Since he crawled back into her life with guilt in his throat and calloused hands holding sorry after sorry. But he hadn’t been here. Not the way she’d needed. Not in the way a man shows up for someone he calls his wife. The kind of presence that steadies and shoulders some of the burden without being asked.

Penitent rather than a partner.

Joel looked around the room. At the wreckage. At the math and madness scribbled across the boards and torn pages like she’d tried to write her way out of grief.

Honestly, what had this world ever done for her? Fuck all. So, why was she killing herself to save it anyway?

And suddenly, he hated every second he hadn’t noticed. Hated how long she must’ve been screaming in silence while he’d been too careful, too sceptical, too wrapped up in his own guilt to see hers unravelling.

Trying to hold up the whole damn sky on her own—had been doing it so long, so quietly, he’d convinced himself she could. And she was failing. Of course, she was failing. Because no one could do what she was trying to do, not alone.

She needed help, and she didn’t know how to ask for it. And he—a goddamn idiot—had waited for her to say it instead of just stepping in.

Joel reached, then, slowly, intentionally, and touched her hand. Just enough to let her feel him—his warmth, his presence, the endurance in his callused palm.

She didn’t flinch.

He didn’t move for a beat and let the moment breathe.

Soon, gently—like easing a spooked animal out of hiding—he curled his hand around hers, not rushing to fix anything. Her skin was cold, fingers limp and damp with tears, and trembling just beneath the surface.

He eventually moved, pulling—guiding. “C’mon. I got you.”

One hand to her elbow, the other soft against her back, bracing her like a beam might brace a house half-fallen in. She didn’t resist. Her body rose with his, hesitantly, hovering, breathing as if testing the air after too long underground.

She stood as if she were shaking off rubble.

Joel balanced her the whole way. No words, only the grounding pressure of touch.

“There you go, you’re okay,” he murmured.

He led her carefully out of the wreckage—out of the tangle of torn-up notes and shredded pages, burnt edges curling like dead leaves, formulas smeared with ash and ink and tears. The broken pieces of her mind lay bare.

He brushed her hair behind her ears and eased her down onto the bench, where the tubelight came through, flickering, pale and overcast, gentle on her skin. She looked so little there. Infinitesimal enough to vanish with the atoms.

Joel crouched back down again, joints complaining. He was too old for this shit, but he wasn’t leaving the floor until she could sit still without falling apart.

He reached for the circuit board—the one she’d spent so many nights with. It was cracked down the centre, the soldering that had once been meticulous now dangled loose and broken, thin as veins, blackened at the ends.

He turned it over in his hands. Felt the story in it—weeks of effort, nights of silence, calculations done under flickering lamplight while the world slept around her. And still, she kept chasing the answer, even when it broke her.

His thumb ran along the fracture like he was tracing a scar.

Then he looked at her.

Her cheeks were blotched, streaked with tears. Her lip was trembling, bitten raw. Her dark eyes met his—wide, watery, tired—and she didn’t look through him.

“You don’t need to prove anything,” he said quietly. His voice was low, rasping from disuse. “Not to me. Not to the goddamn world.”

She turned her face away, jaw clenched. But she didn’t stop crying.

Good. Let her cry. Let it out, all of it. He’d take it if she couldn’t anymore.

He gathered another piece of the circuit board. Laid it next to the first.

“You’re not a machine,” he murmured. “You ain’t some miracle factory. You’re a human being. And I’ve been sittin’ back… watchin’ you wear yourself raw, tryin’ to fix what the whole world broke. And I let you.”

His voice cracked, rough at the edges. He swallowed it down.

“I should’ve seen it. I should’ve known. Done something.”

He picked up a scorched page of calculations, the edges curling inward like a dying leaf. Rubbed a thumb over a still-visible string of symbols. Her handwriting. Her mind.

“You wanna know the truth, Leela?” he said. “I didn’t leave you back then ‘cause I didn’t care about what you thought. I left ��cause I couldn’t stand the way you looked at me. Like I was supposed to be strong enough to carry what you were carrying. I wanted to prove I was.”

He placed the page gently beside the board.

“That ain’t your fault. That’s mine, I was a fuckin’ idiot. I should’ve stayed anyway.”

He looked at her again, this time not hiding the hurt in his eyes. When the silence stretched, there was a shift—pain passing between bodies like breath.

“I don’t know the first thing about this stuff. These numbers. Science. But I know what it’s doin’ to you.”

He held up one of the broken pieces. The metal glinted faintly in the light.

“I know the woman who built this. And I know she doesn’t deserve to be carrying this weight with no one in her corner.”

He looked at her again. Straight on.

“I’m here now. I ain’t goin’ anywhere. And I don’t give a fuck if all I can do is sweep up the mess and sit there while you do your thinkin’. If that’s what help looks like—I’ll do it.” His voice dropped, full of quiet conviction. “Every damn day.”

Again, Leela stayed quiet, but her breath caught—just once—like something had snagged inside her chest, when the ache had gone too deep to speak.

Her shoulders eased, fraction by fraction, like a muscle learning it didn’t have to brace anymore.

And in her eyes, there was an immense fragility—believing and flickering and terribly human. An apostate remembering the taste of faith.

Instead of reaching back for her, Joel kept gathering her work, careful as a man piecing back the bones of something once living and sacred. As if, by putting it all back together, he could stitch her back together too.

He finished stacking the last of her notebooks, aligning the bent corners, smoothing the wrinkled pages. He reached for a pencil that had rolled to the floor—held it in his palm like it was something precious.

Leela moved, quiet as a mouse, stepped forward and folded herself into him—arms around his shoulders, forehead tucked into the crook of his neck as if she were collapsing into the only shelter left in the world.

Joel let it happen, felt her chest heave once, twice—then the sobs came. Raw, desperate things that shattered out of her like she'd been holding her breath for months and finally let go.

“I'm failing everyone,” she cried, “I can't do it.”

Her fingers fisted in the back of his shirt, pulling him closer. She clung to him, trembling, too small, as if the second she let go, she’d come apart entirely.

Joel gathered her in because he really was made to do it.

“Shh,” he whispered, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other rubbing slow circles along her spine. “No, you're not. I got you, baby. You’re good.”

And Joel finally made up his mind: he'd hate every unreliable finer feeling of his that had prompted him to wait for her to speak first, to break, and to ask for help. When all she needed was to hold the line when she could not, to stay and witness her break without turning away.

Because if she was going to fall again, then he’d be the one beneath her.

X

“Wait, what the heck am I looking at?”

Leela’s voice cut through the quiet like a scalpel—sharp, precise, more bewildered than anything. Tired, wary, somewhere between mildly offended and uncertain if this was a joke she was supposed to laugh at.

Joel didn’t answer right away. Just kept blowing on his coffee, like it might scald him if he tried too hard to drink it.

He had learned quickly how to deal with Leela, a long time ago: don’t rush her, don’t explain too much, and definitely don’t pretend you had it all figured out. She hated that most of all—when people acted like her confusion was an inconvenience. When they filled the silence with noise instead of letting her sit with the unknown.

She moved across the kitchen—slow, stiff—and stopped short in front of the fridge. He didn’t have to look. He knew what she was staring at. Had stood there late last night, hunched over the table with a ruler and a stub of pencil, scratching things out and rewriting them again, until it looked more like a high school science project than an act of love.

Under Maya's bright little chore chart, there, crooked, solemn and idiotic, pinned under two rusty Eiffel Tower magnets, was another chore chart. Handwritten. Across the top in Joel’s blunt, slanted handwriting: “LEELA’S WEEKLY—” something; it was smudged. He’d started with “Schedule,” crossed it out, and written “Plan.” And added in block letters, “/BATTLE STRATEGY.” The paper hung a little too long at the bottom—he’d used lined notebook paper and scotch tape to extend the grid—and one corner curled like it was already losing patience with the idea.

And under “Wednesday,” in Joel’s square, uneven handwriting again, the words: “Eat lunch (real food). Take a nap. Go outside. No work after 10pm.” Under that, in tiny script: “NON-NEGOTIABLE.”

Joel sipped his coffee.

Leela squinted. “Are these colour-coded?”

He shrugged. “Tried to make it easy to read.”

She pointed at a particularly crowded column. “You wrote ‘Eat lunch’ three times.”

“One’s for emphasis.”

She kept scanning, her movements more cautious now, like this whole thing might be a trap.

“‘No work after 10pm,’” she read aloud. She turned toward him, arms folding across her chest with that trademark expression he’d come to know: equal parts disbelief and interrogation.

“You seriously put that under the ‘Basic Humaning’ column?”

He met her gaze square-on. “Sure did.”

Her eyebrows twitched upward. She looked back at the paper. “‘Sanity hygiene’? ‘Minimum viable joy’? What does that even mean?”

Joel cleared his throat. “That’s the Maria column. Kicked me for calling it ‘mental maintenance.’”

Leela’s brows knit. “This one says ‘fun thing on purpose.’ As an actual task.”

“People do that,” Joel said. “Fun. For fun. Apparently.”

She didn’t reply right away. Only kept reading. Slower now. Her voice dipped, softer, touched with suspicion—less ‘you idiot’ and more ‘what are you doing? What the hell are you up to?’

Then her finger slid to the bottom row. “‘Sleep with Joel’, ‘hug Joel’, incentive column,” she read aloud.

There was a pause. She turned to him again, arms still folded, head tilted—not quite menacing, but enough to imply a threat. “Open to debate.”

“Open and shut.”

She shook her head, amused. “I don’t see your name anywhere in these boxes.”

“Wasn’t writin’ it for me.”

Her lips twitched. Just a flicker of a smile in incredulity, like something forgotten trying to remember itself. “You made me a sticker chart.”

Joel took another slow sip, felt the heat on his tongue. “Sticker chart’s comin’ next week. Gold stars for consistent dinner and makin’ it to bed before midnight.”

Leela stared at the sheet like it was an alien relic. An artefact dug up from some long-dead civilisation. Structure. Routine. Care. Absurd.

“Joel…” Her voice was quieter. Not mocking now—dampened, like she was trying not to wring it out too fast. She looked at the chart again. The attempt. “Do you really think this is gonna work?”

Instead, he set the mug down gently, both palms pressing flat against the counter. His back ached. His knees popped when he shifted. His jaw felt raw from a night of clenching—his whole body a roadmap of sleepless desperation, of wanting to fix something with his hands when it had never been about his hands at all.

“I think you’ll ignore half of it,” he said quietly. “And I’ll spend every day reminding you not to.”

He paused. Swallowed. “I think I should've done this months ago. Shoulda pushed harder. Or softer. I dunno. But I sat on my ass for too long waiting for things to fix themselves.”

A silence fell, full of old grief and new beginnings.

He scratched his jaw. “So I’m tryin’ different.”

Leela stood still. Her arms had dropped. Her posture wasn’t so tight now, her shoulders less guarded. She was staring at the chart like it might disappear if she blinked. Or like it had teeth and she couldn’t decide whether to pet it or run.

Joel followed her gaze. The damn thing was crooked. One of the magnets had slipped. The ink was too dark in some places, almost illegible in others. He’d written “Tuesday” twice.

But it was tangible. A stupid little map of care and the system. His way of saying I see you without breaking open and bleeding all over the floor.

The truth was, he hadn’t made it just for her.

He’d made it for them. For mornings that felt too long and nights that never really ended. A shape to help her stay upright when the days got too abstract to touch.

Because Joel didn’t have the words for what he wanted to say—but he knew how to build things. Structure was the only language he trusted when words didn’t cut it.

And sometimes, Joel's love looked like a dumb, dorky timetable on printer paper.

She reached up slowly, fingers brushing the paper, and tapped the Wednesday box. “Guess I'd better find some real lunch.”

Joel nodded, watching her. Heart caught somewhere between relief and disbelief. “And sleep with Joel.”

She turned to him, that crooked smile threatening again. “You know if you wanted to get me into bed, you could’ve just said so. This is a lot of paperwork.”

Joel snorted. “Shit. All this trouble for nothin’.”

Her lips finally gave in, curling into something half-amused, half-amazed, like she couldn’t quite believe he’d done this. That he’d thought this far ahead.

“I mean, you wrote ‘kiss Daddy’ in two places, every day. Were you hoping I’d never kiss you past twice a day?”

He clucked his tongue. “Daddy ain’t above beggin’ if it gets him lucky.”

Leela let out a breath—almost a laugh. Joel didn’t say anything, just reached for his mug again like it was the only way to keep from doing something dumb, like touching her.

Instead, she leaned in. Just enough for her lips to brush the curve of his shoulder. “Sticker chart seduction,” she murmured. “Real subtle.”

Then, softly: “Even cowboys need structure now, hm?”

Joel exhaled, half-laugh, half-sigh. “Damn right.”

The sight of her up close was too much and not enough at once, especially after all this time. And when he finally did move, it wasn’t rushed—it was devout. One hand rising to her face, the rough pad of his thumb brushing the hollow beneath her eye.

“You don’t have to fix anything for me,” she told him, certain. Her eyes were on the chart still. Like she couldn’t look at him. “I know that’s what this is. You see a loose hinge, you grab a hammer.”

“It’s not a hammer,” he said. “It’s a piece of paper and a few dumb rules.”

Her hand brushed his chest, then stilled, curled into the fabric of his shirt. “So,” she sighed, barely above a whisper, “nothing has changed, right?”

A second passed. Maybe two.

He leaned in, dipped his head, and caught her lips between his. No warning, no easing. There was nothing neat left to care about.

It was a low, breaking thing—his mouth against hers with months of silence behind it. Months of sleeping back-to-back. Of not reaching. Of pretending not to care when he was drowning. Of hurtful words, hissed arguments. Enough of all that.

And he needed her now—hungry, desperate, clumsy. Been too fucking long.

His palm slid to her soft nape, drawing her in, anchoring her there like he’d never let her drift again. His other hand found her hip, then her waist, then lower still, grabbing a fistful of her ass to pull her flush against him. He groaned into her mouth when she didn't resist, when she pressed back with the same aching urgency, and it was as if she’d been drowning in the same quiet.

She tasted like sleep-deprived mornings and bitter coffee, and made a soft sound—half-shocked, half-something deeper—as Joel swallowed it down.

His kiss deepened, jaw flexing, tongue brushing hers. He wasn’t thinking anymore. It was instinct, need, hers. All of it. The years in his hands, the apology in his grip. The want.

And it would’ve gone further. Would’ve tipped into something messier, deeper—right there in the kitchen, barefoot and half-dressed—if not for—

Smack.

A tiny palm struck the back of Joel’s knee. Right below the old joint that always stiffened in the mornings.

“Ha!” Maya squealed, triumphant. “Too slow!”

He jerked ike he’d been hit with a cattle prod, buckled, slammed his hand against the counter for balance, breaking the kiss with a grunt. Leela let out a startled breath, stumbled back, eyes wide, lips kiss-bitten.

Joel spun around, dazed and blinking, to face the pint-sized homewrecker now grinning up at him. She’d just won a game of ambush tag today, a stupid fucking idea he knew would bite him in the ass eventually.

“Maya—Jesus, baby girl—terrible timing—”

“Eee, you’re kissin’ Mama!” she announced, gleeful and scandalised, jabbing a finger toward him. “Onna mouf!”

Leela moaned, buried her face in her hands, looking like a teenager caught necking behind the school gym, red-eared and stupid with guilt.

Joel, though, had it in himself to roll up his sleeves with exaggerated slowness, already grinning down at the little terror despite himself. “That’s it, trouble. You’re gonna get it now. C'mere.”

Leela had just enough sense to step aside as Joel lunged, catching nothing but Maya’s gleeful squeal as she darted around the kitchen island. He made a slow, clumsy swipe—missed her on purpose.

“Missed me!”

Joel leaned back against the counter with a sigh of theatrical defeat. “To fast for your old man.”

Unfazed, Maya rounded back and dragged the wooden stool across the kitchen with the stubborn determination of a forklift.

“Y'all wee-d,” she declared, puffing as she pushed.

“You're wee-d,” Joel grumbled.

“I check my chores now.”

Maya climbed up like she was scaling Everest, grunted once with effort, and slapped her chubby hand against the chart taped to the fridge. She studied it with a serious frown before she noticed the bigger, uglier chart that hung above hers.

“This one,” she muttered, pointing to the new addition.

Joel nodded, still trying to calm the leftover heat pounding in his chest. “Mama's chart. You like it?”

Maya’s eyes widened, scandalised all over again. “Mama has chores?”

Leela exhaled, shoulders slowly dropping from her ears. “Apparently.”

Maya tilted her head, squinting at the columns as if trying to decode their secret adult language. Then, thoughtfully, she asked, “Do I get stahs for kissin’ Mama, too?”

Leela made a choking sound—not quite a laugh, not quite a protest. Joel grinned, crooked, and shot her a look over Maya’s head.

“Y’know,” he drawled, “that depends.”

Leela narrowed her eyes. “On what?”

Joel leaned a hand on the counter, going all casual. “On whether the kiss has a happy ending.”

Leela made a strangled noise, and with the stiff dignity of someone backing away from a live grenade, she turned to the sink and pretended to be very invested in rinsing out a clean mug.

“Oh, Joel,” she murmured under her breath, restraining laughter, without looking at him.

But he just picked his coffee back up for a sip, smug as shit.

Maya, meanwhile, was undeterred. “I can do a big kiss with a happy end,” she announced. “I can kiss Mama wight onna mouf!”

Joel coughed a laugh.

Leela gave him a warning glare, but it was ruined by the way she was biting her lip to keep from smiling.

“I think Mama’s gonna need a new reward system,” Joel murmured for her ears only. “Stahs, kisses onna mouf, maybe somethin’ extra for makin’ Daddy real happy.”

Leela turned just enough to look at him sidelong. Her mouth twitched. “Careful,” she said softly, “Daddy’s dangerously close to incarceration.”

Joel leaned in until his lips brushed the shell of Leela’s ear, his breath warm and ragged.

“Kinky,” he said.

And just like that, they were toeing the line again—right there in the kitchen, and before Leela could answer—before she could react to the slow-burn hellfire that was Joel’s mouth near her ear—there was a clatter behind them.

Maya had knocked over the stool.

She stood it, blinking innocently, hands still mid-air like she hadn’t decided whether to be surprised or proud. Then she calmly declared—

“Shit.”

X

Safe to say, the shitty chore chart actually worked.

Joel wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Maybe another few weeks of silence. A slow thaw, if they were lucky. A note left somewhere in her tight, efficient handwriting, letting him know Leela was still breathing, still eating, still surviving—but nothing more. He wasn’t prepared for this.

He closed Maya’s bedroom door quietly behind him, catching the latch with his thumb so it wouldn’t click, walking out of there more like a man escaping a sweltering sauna—shirt damp at the collar, temples sweating, back sore from leaning over her crib for too long. Her little body was finally limp with sleep after a thirty-minute campaign of bribery, back rubs, and whispered negotiations that made hostage diplomacy look easy.

Earlier, she’d kicked the blanket off for the third time and rolled over with a defiant grunt. “Not sleepy. Turtle time. Westin’ my eyes.”

Joel had sighed, rubbing her back in slow circles. “Westin’ them? That’s what people say before they start sno-win’.”

She giggled, a hand over her eye. “You snore, Daddy.”

Joel paused. “No comment.”

That earned him another sleepy giggle. She yawned right after, one of those full-body ones that made her fists curl and her toes point, and he knew he had her.

“Westin’,” she sniffed, “my...”

He kept patting, kissing her palms, both her eyes, her tummy, humming nonsense—old country songs, half-remembered ballads—until her breathing evened out and her fist crept toward her mouth, an old habit she pretended she’d outgrown.

Now, on the other side of the door, he stood in the hallway and let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. His knees cracked when he straightened fully. Christ. The things he did for that kid.

But when he stepped into the bedroom, every quiet ache evaporated.

Leela was there.

Not just drifting in and out to grab fresh clothes or the bathroom. She was in bed. Seeing her there, in their bed, the bed that had been so empty without her, it knocked a gear loose in his chest.

Her back rested against the headboard, duvet tucked around her like a neat envelope, knees tented, lamp casting a warm golden pool across her lap. Her long, thick braid was falling apart, little wisps of hair framing her face, and she was bent forward over a small embroidery hoop, working her needle through one of Maya’s little shirts—some new animal she had taken a shine to, if he had to guess. Turtles, definitely turtles.

Her nightstand—the one he still stocked with water every evening out of sheer habit—held her voice recorder and a few stray hair ribbons. For a moment, he just stood there like a dumb fuck who had forgotten how doors worked, caught somewhere between stunned and stunned stupid.

Then she looked up.

And smiled. “Hi, Joel.”

That single smile cracked across her face like sunlight breaking through the overcast sky, and he felt the ridiculous urge to cover his face just to keep from weeping like some idiot.

His peace and home had staggered back to him in that stretch. It wasn’t fair, the way he obsequiously ached for her even now. After all they’d been through. After the walls, the silence, the weeks she’d spent sleeping in the guest room, or nodding off at her desk, avoiding the bed like it burned.

He’d lived with the distance for a vicious while—so, the sight of her again, curled into the space they used to share, made him want to drop to his knees and thank whatever cruel world they lived in for giving her back.

“Huh?” she said, holding up the little alarm clock on her nightstand. “No work after ten?” Her voice had a tease to it. “Check.”

Joel blinked, then scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah.”

“Chore chart actually works,” she murmured his exact thoughts, almost to herself, with a half-smile.

He huffed a breath through his nose and stepped inside slowly, the way you would approach a miracle. If he moved too fast, it might vanish.

Something about the way she said it—it should’ve felt easy, but it landed heavy in his chest. She hadn’t slept next to him in months, and the few times she did, she stayed curled on the far edge, as if gravity pulled her toward the wall instead of him.

And now here she was—like this wasn’t strange at all. Like she didn’t feel the difference in his bones.

He sat on the edge of the bed, hands resting on his knees, wooden. “Good to know it helps.”

She must’ve sensed it, too, because her hands slowed. She held the shirt loosely, the thread caught mid-pull. She finished her stitch eventually, snipped the thread, and set the shirt and hoop aside on the nightstand.

“I’ve been a difficult mess,” she said. Quiet. Unapologetic. Not defensive, not dramatic—just… true. “I haven’t been fair to you either.”

He rubbed at his jaw. His default. That old, worn-out gesture for when he didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t good at this kind of talk. Not the naming of feelings. Not the raw stuff. He could fight for her, kill for her, track every goddamn change in her breathing—but when it came to this kind of truth, he always faltered.

So instead, he shrugged. “Nah. You were gettin’ through it. However you had to.”

Her eyes flickered, her gaze drifting sideways. “I wasn’t with you,” she said. “I was in the same house, and it might as well have been a whole other continent.”

Joel breathed in through his nose, slow, as if that might anchor something inside him. He wasn’t angry. God, how could he be? He was just tired. Tired of the ache that came from not being able to fix it. From hearing her cry and standing on the other side of the door with his fists clenched and heart breaking.

“Look,” he mumbled. “I ain’t interested in tallyin’ up who gave what when. You needed space. I gave it. It happened, we move on.”

“I know,” she said, so painfully soft. Almost shy. “Sorry, Joel.”

“Don't have to say it,” he sighed.

“Alright. Sorry.”

“Jesus.”

Leela’s lips suddenly curled as her eyes slid back to him, and there it was—that spark. Mischief, restrained and warm. The part of her that used to tease him in the mornings just to see if she could make him smile before coffee. The part he hadn’t seen in weeks.

“I believe one of the incentives,” she began lightly, “was... ‘sleep with Joel’ today.”

He stared.

Not out of lust—though his body certainly answered with a long, slow, hardening ache—but out of disbelief. Wonder. The cautious kind. Like seeing a wild animal approach the palm of your hand. She hadn’t touched him in weeks. Months. He’d gone to sleep with a ghost every night. And now she was here, playful and real and warm.

Still her. Still bruised around the edges. But her.

“You keepin' track of that bullshit?”

She tilted her head, braid sliding off her shoulder. “Maybe?”

“And you checkin’ it off?” he asked, rougher than he meant to.

She leaned in slightly, voice a little huskier now. “Depends. Are you still available for incentive-based tasks?”

His heart gave a full, aching thump. He let a slow grin tug at the corners of his mouth. “Hell,” he said, “I’ll fill out the whole damn chart if it gets you in this bed again.”

She huffed a laugh. “I starve you too much. Never realised how important... it is.”

He turned toward her, one knee pressing deeper into the mattress. She smelled like soap, clean cotton, hot showers, and something that might’ve been bergamot. Just all woman. She slid her legs toward him, tentative, and he leaned in, bringing his hand up to fold the hair from her face.

“Beautiful girl,” he muttered.

She leaned into his palm, kissing it, hand finding his wrist, slender, sure. She touched him like she remembered everything about him—like she hadn’t forgotten a single inch. The way his pulse jumped when she got too close. The way his mouth parted slightly when she brushed the base of his hand.

“I missed this. You, all of you. Even when I couldn’t say it,” she confessed.

Joel felt a crack, right there in the middle of his chest. Like someone had reached in and twisted the muscle until it remembered how to hurt.

He bent forward, careful, his forehead touched hers, and he closed his eyes.

“I’m right here,” he murmured. “Ain’t going anywhere.”

Her breath caught faintly—and then she leaned in, nose stroking his, dark eyes fluttering shut. The distance between them collapsed without ceremony. A quiet fall back into place.

“Do you wanna sleep with me?”

Joel leaned back half an inch, eyes finding hers in the low light. “Gonna have to be more specific, darlin’.”

Leela huffed softly through her nose, and her eyes—God, her eyes—held that glimmer of mischief again. “Just lie down, Joel.”

He let out a breath that was half a laugh, half surrender. He eased back into the bed, boots off, shirt shed, the mattress dipping under his weight as he slid beside her.

“Alright, get in here,” he grunted, opening his arms for her. “Mother and daughter, all the same. Y’all only want Daddy when the night comes creepin’.”

Her snicker was muffled into him. “Would be wrong if she weren't.”

His arm curled around her waist, pulling her in until she was well-accommodated against him, her back to his chest, his large hand splayed against her belly, thumb sweeping slow arcs under the hem of her shirt.

Later, much later, the house lay in silence, only the soft ticking of the old clock in the hall marked time, and moonlight filtered through the bedroom window in silver strokes.

Joel stayed awake long after her breathing softened. Her body stayed in his warmth, bare skin wrapped in linen and Joel, and her cheek pressed into his bicep like she’d always belonged there.

“Beautiful girl,” he whispered again. She really was, he really meant it. She was the prettiest girl out there, someone who definitely would have hung off a billionaire's arm on the cover of gossip mags had it not been for the hand of fate.

He hadn’t learned how much he missed Leela until she was this close, and still not close enough.

His hand drifted slowly, tucking a loose strand of hair back into her braid. Then the tip of his finger traced the soft line of her nose, down to the curve of her lips. They parted with her breath, unguarded in sleep.

He swallowed down a laugh when he realised that someday, Maya would grow into this face. He saw it now—the angular set of her dusky jaw when she got adamant, the exact shape of her scowl, the way her lashes swept her cheek when she napped against his chest. It was all Leela. She’d been stamped onto their girl like an echo.

He touched her hand next—her pretty hand, bare on the pillow beside her, half-curled in sleep, how it looked so much smaller when she wasn’t holding a pen.

Long, lonely fingers. Wide, neat nails. The faintest veins surfacing under honey-brown skin. He counted the lean tendons, the way they ridged delicately over the bones. And there—a small scar just above her knuckle, the origin of which she’d never explained. He ran his thumb over it, like smoothing an old memory.

How they were always doing—fussing with Maya’s collar, knotting her own braid, attempting to patch up his worn boots again—and yet, they slept empty now.

His eyes caught on the curve of her ring finger. Bare. Waiting.

He imagined it full. A gold band resting, maybe a tiny diamond tucked into the metal like a secret, a ring that maybe had his name engraved on the inside, hidden against her skin, a ring she never had to take off, even to shower. And when they walked through town together, it would glint in the sun, and people would know.

That was Joel Miller’s wife.

That was Joel—with his home, his someplace where a warm hand waited for his.

He kissed that very knuckle, then laid their joined hands between them on the sheets, her fingers still lax in sleep, but his closed tight, as if to hold what he'd almost let slip away.

Not again. Not ever.

X

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[scealaiscoite]

.☽༊˚ a hundred assorted prompts

¹⁾ raspberry lip gloss

²⁾ pajama bottoms

³⁾ a silver lighter

⁴⁾ fresh honey

⁵⁾ flushed cheeks

⁶⁾ a fogged-up mirror

⁷⁾ the imprint of a belt buckle on skin

⁸⁾ helium balloons

⁹⁾ a broken cocktail glass

¹⁰⁾ old playing cards

¹¹⁾ chipped green nail polish

¹²⁾ a brown leather wallet

¹³⁾ bullet holes in a wooden wall

¹⁴⁾ seashells lined up along the curve of a spine

¹⁵⁾ beaded curtains

¹⁶⁾ pomegranate seeds

¹⁷⁾ a carabiner heavy with keys

¹⁸⁾ fresh-cut orchids in a pottery vase

¹⁹⁾ vending machine cigarettes

²⁰⁾ an out of date map

²¹⁾ a creaky wooden gate

²²⁾ a minifridge stocked with budweiser and paracetamol

²³⁾ snapdragons growing between pavement slabs

²⁴⁾ smudged yellow eyeshadow

²⁵⁾ slept-in braids

²⁶⁾ library books that’ll never be returned

²⁷⁾ a pink-tiled shower

²⁸⁾ a honeybee on a linen shirtsleeve

²⁹⁾ burnt popcorn

³⁰⁾ watching an eclipse from bed

³¹⁾ a black lace bralette

³²⁾ a tattered patchwork quilt

³³⁾ blue raspberry bubblegum

³⁴⁾ a rusted fishing rod and a dried-up lake

³⁶⁾ the taste of whiskey on someone else’s lips

³⁷⁾ rose-scented candles burned down to the wick

³⁸⁾ crescent-shaped coffee stains on a wooden tabletop 

³⁹⁾ odd socks 

⁴⁰⁾ a loose thread on a jumper sleeve

⁴¹⁾ warm sheets on cold skin

⁴²⁾ amber-tinged perfume

⁴³⁾ gold jewelry 

⁴⁴⁾  a calloused palm against a soft cheek 

⁴⁵⁾ a busted headlight

⁴⁶⁾ sunrise from a jail cell

⁴⁷⁾ hand tattoos that weave around fingers

⁴⁸⁾ coconut shampoo

⁴⁹⁾ a doorbell sounding in the middle of the night

⁵⁰⁾ ladybugs crawling across a headstone

⁵¹⁾ grass stains on blue jeans

⁵²⁾ a loaded saddlebag

⁵³⁾ a dusty wine cellar

⁵⁴⁾ a bikini top draped over a bedpost

⁵⁵⁾ snow in july

⁵⁶⁾ dirt-red mountaintops

⁵⁷⁾ goosebumps in a heatwave

⁵⁸⁾ an empty dinnertable

⁵⁹⁾ a fresh manicure and bruised knuckles

⁶⁰⁾ zombie movies

⁶¹⁾ bitten lips

⁶²⁾ dark eyes full of tears

⁶³⁾ a soft cast in summertime

⁶⁴⁾ stale coffee in paper cups

⁶⁵⁾ frozen peaches on a black eye

⁶⁶⁾ acrid smoke

⁶⁷⁾ bound hands

⁶⁸⁾ animal tracks

⁶⁹⁾ unwound vhs tapes

⁷⁰⁾ cartoon plasters

⁷¹⁾ lipstick marks on shirt collars

⁷²⁾ silver bangles

⁷³⁾ sharing a coat in a downpour

⁷⁴⁾ fields with grass at waist-height

⁷⁵⁾ daisy chains up to your forearm

⁷⁶⁾ rolled-up shirtsleeves

⁷⁷⁾ the smell of bleach in a dark room

⁷⁸⁾ a shared sleeping bag

⁷⁹⁾ a new haircut

⁸⁰⁾ swimsuit tanlines

⁸¹⁾ perfume clinging to a pillow

⁸²⁾ lollipops dangling between lips

⁸³⁾ a badly-timed grin

⁸⁴⁾ old books

⁸⁵⁾ tongues stained from slushies

⁸⁶⁾ waking up in a hailstorm

⁸⁷⁾ dying sunflowers

⁸⁸⁾ colourful sunglasses

⁸⁹⁾ the last pew

⁹⁰⁾ tall, rattling windows in a storm

⁹¹⁾ six missed calls

⁹²⁾ sticks of incense burned down to the last

⁹³⁾ bunk beds

⁹⁴⁾ matching sets

⁹⁵⁾ ruined mascara

⁹⁶⁾ a boxing ring

⁹⁷⁾ stained glass windows

⁹⁸⁾ fairy forts

⁹⁹⁾ a cluttered bedside table

¹⁰⁰⁾ a hangover in the evening

[soulsnatcha3000]

Second Glances

human!remmick au x black fem oc

Summary: Liana has been a good wife to a man who stopped noticing. When the quiet, observant new neighbor moves in, she doesn’t mean to get close—but Remmick sees what her husband never does, not anymore. One conversation turns into many, and soon, the lie isn’t where she goes—it’s where she feels like home.

Warnings: Mentions of marital strain and emotional neglect, romantic tension, implied infidelity, slow burn, southern cultural references, heavy themes of loneliness and longing

a/n: hiii, I’ve been thinking about this all day and had to start writing it! Im also working on the preacher boy ff requested by @thugger-wugger (here) and the Remmick x Bo Chow x oc ff. Imma make this a series!

I’ve got plans to get to the other requests too—it might take a little time, but I promise they’re coming!

until then I hope you all enjoyed reading this!

✦ ♡ ✦ ♡ ✦ ♡ ✦ ✦ ♡ ✦ ♡ ✦ ♡ ✦ ✦ ♡ ✦ ♡ ✦ ♡ ✦ ✦ ♡ ✦ ♡

Liana folded his shirts the way he liked them—sleeves tucked in, collars crisp, stacked in color order. She set them in his drawer without a word. No thanks. No glance. Just the sound of the closet door shutting behind him.

She didn’t expect much anymore. A nod at dinner. Maybe a goodnight if he wasn’t too tired. But every now and then, something inside her ached loud enough to remind her she was still in there—beneath the routine, beneath the silence.

Ever since the accident, she’d hoped he’d open up, that something would change. A year had passed, but the gap between them only widened. He was still the same—quiet, distant, lost in his own world. And she? She was just there, waiting for something to spark again, but it never did. He shrugged her off, and she wondered if that was what she deserved. Everyone else seemed to get his attention—his work, his friends, his own unresolved grief. But her? She’d become just another part of the background.

Her husband hadn’t always been like this. They’d once shared a closeness, a warmth that made their small home feel like a world of its own. But ever since the accident, the distance between them had only grown. It had been nearly a year now—long enough for her to stop hoping he’d open up, long enough to wonder if she was merely a shadow in his life.

She couldn’t blame him for the way things had changed. People grieve differently, and the accident had been traumatic for both of them. But every day felt like a slow unraveling, like a thread being pulled from something that had once been whole. And now, with every quiet meal and unspoken word, it felt like that thread was about to snap.

That afternoon, she noticed the moving truck across the street. Someone new, finally. The house next door had been empty for months, lawn overgrown, porch sagging with disuse. Now, a man stood on the curb in worn jeans and a grey t-shirt, lifting boxes like it was nothing. He looked… serious. Not unfriendly. Just quiet, like the kind of person who listened more than he talked.

She couldn’t help but watch for a few moments. The unfamiliarity of it all, the newness, the hint of something fresh that she hadn’t felt in so long, made her pause. She never expected much of the world outside anymore, but maybe—just maybe—it was time to take a step beyond the silence.

It was the small things, like this—watching the man work, noticing the way he moved with purpose—that made her realize how much she’d shrunk back. How much she’d let her own life grow stagnant. And yet, when she looked back at her own front door, the echo of her husband’s absence weighed heavier than any moving truck ever could.

She wasn’t sure how long she could keep pretending.

Maybe it was time. Time to finally acknowledge that this marriage, this routine, might not be enough anymore. Time to admit that she was already living in a divorce without ever signing the papers.

Later That Day

The clock ticked slowly, marking time as the day moved on in its usual silence. Liana had cleaned, organized, and puttered around the house as she always did. Her husband came and went, absorbed in his own world, his quiet disregard for her presence like a background hum.

And then, just as she was finishing up dinner preparations, she heard a knock at the door.

She wasn’t expecting anyone. But when she opened it, there stood Remmick, his posture just a little stiff, like he wasn’t quite sure what he was doing there. His hands were empty, but his eyes held something warm—a curiosity, maybe, or maybe an unspoken question.

“Hi,” he said, his voice low, the British lilt in his accent smooth and grounding. “Sorry to bother you, but I realized we never properly introduced ourselves. I’m Remmick, your new neighbor.” His eyes flicked briefly to the house behind her, his gaze soft but calculating, as though reading the space between them.

Liana blinked, taken off guard by the sudden appearance of this man at her door, the same one she’d seen through the window earlier. Her stomach tightened, and for a moment, she didn’t know what to say.

“Oh,” she finally stammered, forcing herself to sound composed. “I’m Liana. Nice to meet you.”

Her heart skipped in her chest, but she tried to focus on the casualness of the moment, forcing herself to stay calm. “We haven’t had a chance to say hello yet.”

Remmick’s gaze softened as he looked at her, his eyes briefly scanning her face, studying her in a way that made her feel seen. It felt odd, but not unpleasant—like someone paying attention to the details that others might overlook.

“I thought I should introduce myself before the whole neighborhood gets to know me,” he said with a half-smile. “Plus, I could use some help with figuring out where the best place is to grab some food around here. Any recommendations?”

Liana hesitated, her mind racing. Should she invite him inside? Offer to help him settle in? Would it be too forward?

But before she could respond, her husband appeared at the door, walking down the hallway from the living room. His expression was guarded, like he wasn’t sure why she was talking to the neighbor. Or maybe he just didn’t care.

“This is Remmick,” Liana said, trying to keep her voice steady, feeling an odd lump in her throat. “He just moved in next door.”

Her husband’s response was distant at best, just a quick nod of acknowledgment before he turned back to head inside. No introduction, no real interest in either of them. And that was the moment it hit her.

She had been standing here, so eager to engage with Remmick, so hungry for something, anything that felt real. But the person she’d once shared everything with hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge the new man who’d just entered their lives. The realization cut deeper than it should have.

Liana took a breath, ready to change the subject, but then something clicked. She had caught the slight lilt in Remmick’s voice, that rhythm of his words, something that reminded her of conversations she’d overheard in the past, something distinctly different from the local cadence.

She tilted her head, her curiosity bubbling to the surface. “Are you Irish?” she asked, before she could stop herself.

Remmick blinked, clearly taken aback by her sudden question. He blinked, a small smile tugging at his lips. “I am,” he replied with a soft chuckle. “From Dublin. How’d you know?”

Liana smirked, crossing her arms. “It’s the accent,” she said, a little more confidently now. “I’m not an expert or anything, but it’s hard to miss.”

His grin widened, the light in his eyes flickering with something that felt warm, inviting. “Fair enough. I suppose it’s a bit more obvious when I’m actually speaking, huh?”

Liana laughed lightly, feeling the tension ease just a little. For the first time that day, she didn’t feel like she was just playing a part. She wasn’t pretending to be something she wasn’t for her husband’s sake. Remmick had cut through the usual static, just by being himself. And, damn, that felt good.

Her husband, now standing at the doorway, cleared his throat, but Liana didn’t look his way. She didn’t need to. She didn’t want to.

“Well,” Liana said, shaking her head slightly, “if you ever want some recommendations, I’m happy to help. I know all the good spots around here.”

Remmick’s eyes softened, his voice lowering just a little. “I’ll take you up on that,” he said with a sincerity that caught her off guard. “Tomorrow then?”

Liana nodded, feeling something in her chest twist as she gave a slight smile. “Tomorrow.”

As he turned to leave, the brief, fleeting moment they shared lingered in her mind. His presence had felt real, something tangible in the midst of all the quiet that had taken over her life. She closed the door behind her, standing there for a long moment before she shook her head, pushing away the thoughts that kept resurfacing.

The door clicked shut behind her, and the second she turned around, there he was—leaned against the counter like he hadn’t just acted like a damn ghost five minutes ago.

Liana crossed her arms. “You know you could’ve tried to engage with him.”

He rolled his eyes. “Didn’t know meetin’ new folks was at the top of my to-do list.”

She gave him a look. “He’s our neighbor, not a stray dog. You could’ve said something. Shown the man you got some sense.”

He shrugged. “Wasn’t in the mood.”

She laughed, but it wasn’t funny. “Right. Never are.”

He sighed, already pushing off the counter like he was done. Like that was the end of it. “You’re reading too deep into it, Li. It’s not that serious.”

“It is when it’s every damn thing,” she said, heat in her voice now. “Not just today. Every day. You been walking around like you don’t live here. Like I don’t live here.”

He stopped in the hallway, didn’t even turn around. “Ain’t like I asked for all this.”

Liana paused mid-step, her back toward him, hand still on the fridge door. She turned slowly, squinting. “The hell is that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged, all tired breath and no eye contact. “Just sayin’. I ain’t the one asked you to fold my shit or play hostess or act like this house is some damn showpiece. You the one doin’ all that.”

Her mouth parted, and for a second, she couldn’t even speak. The words hit her in the chest like a slap.

“I’m sorry—what?” she said, voice sharper now. “You act like I’m out here beggin’ for gold stars. I do it ‘cause it’s what you’re supposed to do for someone you love. But I ain’t seen you lift a damn finger or even thank me in—God knows how long.”

He finally looked up, his face set. “You act like I’m the villain every time I breathe.”

“Nah,” she said, stepping closer, fire rising now, “you act like you don’t even see me. Like I’m some ghost floatin’ through this house, just cookin’, cleanin’, takin’ care of shit—and for what? So you can keep pretendin’ like that accident didn’t mess us both up?”

He flinched at that, but she didn’t stop.

“It’s been almost a year. A year, and you still shut down on me like I’m askin’ you to relive the whole thing every time I try to talk.”

He set the towel down with a sharp flick. “I talk to people.”

“Yeah,” she snapped, “everybody but me.”

The silence between them crackled—loud, hot, stifling.

She crossed her arms. “No. You just let me stand there, lookin’ stupid, tryna be polite while you can’t even fake interest in someone new movin’ next door. God forbid you pretend to give a damn about something.”

He scoffed and turned away, and Liana stood there, jaw tight, pulse hammering. She wasn’t yelling. But she felt like she could’ve.

Like her whole body was one deep breath away from breaking.

Silence. Again. The same kind that had been filling their house for months—thick, choking silence. The kind that said everything without saying a word.

She shook her head, biting the inside of her cheek. “I’m not gon’ keep beggin’ you to show up.”

And with that, she turned away, jaw tight, eyes stinging. She didn’t even realize her feet had taken her out the kitchen to the living room and right back to the window until her hand was already moving the blinds.

And there he was.

Remmick. On his porch, sipping something from a mug, arms folded like he was thinking deep about something.

Liana exhaled, low and slow. “Mm,” she muttered under her breath, lips curling just a little. “My goodness that man is fine…”

Then she caught herself, straightened up. “Girl, get it together.”

——————

That night, Liana went to bed without another word. No resolution. No warmth on her side of the bed. Just the hum of the ceiling fan above her and the dry, distant sound of crickets chirping through the open window. Her husband hadn’t even bothered to say goodnight. But then again, he rarely did anymore.

She lay awake for a while, staring at the ceiling, eyes dry. Nothing left to cry about.

The next morning, sunlight pushed through the gauzy curtains in long, golden strokes. Liana stirred beneath the covers, body heavy, mind numb. But the rhythm of routine—the one she’d lived in for years now—eventually tugged her out of bed.

She made the bed first, corners tight like her mama taught her. Dusted the shelves in the hallway, wiped down the kitchen counters, watered the thirsty plants that sagged in their terracotta pots. The bathroom faucet still squeaked when she turned it on, and she made a quiet note to remind him to fix it. Again. Though she knew he wouldn’t.

By the time she got to folding laundry, the heat had already settled into the house like an uninvited guest—thick and slow. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand and made her way to the bathroom.

She took a lukewarm shower, letting the water slide over her skin and wash away the sour taste of yesterday. She took her time—washed gently, scrubbed her skin soft, brushed her teeth until her mouth felt fresh again. She oiled her scalp and moisturized her legs with cocoa butter, letting the scent rise like something holy.

Her box braids—neat, waist-length, and dark as coffee beans—were gathered up into a high ponytail to keep them off her neck. No fuss, just practical. She checked the mirror once, then turned away.

She didn’t bother dressing up. It was too damn hot for all that. She slipped into a faded ribbed tank the color of sage and a pair of soft, worn-in denim shorts. The kind that hugged her hips without trying too hard. Her gold hoops went in out of habit. A swipe of gloss to keep her lips from cracking. That was it.

Liana slid into her sandals, grabbed her canvas tote from the hook by the door, and stepped out into the sun.

The air hit her like a wall—thick, buzzing, the kind of southern heat that made you feel like you were walking through molasses. The town was still waking up. A few folks already out on porches, rocking slow, sipping sweet tea from mason jars, flies buzzing lazily around them like they’d made peace with the annoyance.

She climbed into her car and rolled the windows down, letting the wind touch her face as she eased onto the road. The radio played low—some old soul tune humming through the speakers. She wasn’t headed anywhere in particular. Maybe the market. Maybe the café where the cobbler tasted like something her grandma used to pull from the oven with bare hands.

Anywhere that gave her space. That let her move without questions.

And as the streets rolled by—storefronts she knew by heart, sidewalks cracked by time—Liana felt it settle in her bones

She wasn’t in a rush. Not today.

The place was small, cozy, the kind of spot with real wood tables and sunlight that warmed your skin through the front windows. A little chalkboard by the door read “Peach Cobbler’s back.”

And then, she saw him.

Remmick.

Liana smiled to herself.

He was posted up at one of the tables on the patio, coffee in hand, shades on, leaning back like he’d been waiting on her and didn’t mind one bit.

“You punctual or just greedy?” she asked as she walked up.

He grinned without missing a beat. “Little of both. You came, though. That’s what matters.”

“I said I’d take you,” she said, pulling out the chair across from him. “I ain’t in the habit of sayin’ things I don’t mean.”

He raised his cup in a small toast. “Duly noted.”

She ordered her coffee and a biscuit from inside, then came back out to join him, settling in with a soft exhale. The morning sun was bright but not unbearable yet, and a slight breeze stirred the air just enough to make it tolerable.

“So,” he said, sipping. “You the type to start with breakfast or dessert first?”

She tilted her head. “Ain’t even ten yet and you talkin’ cobbler?”

“I’m just sayin’—priorities.”

She laughed, warm and real. “We gon’ do both. But we’re startin’ here, ‘cause this biscuit about to change your life.”

He leaned in like he was ready for the sermon. “That so?”

“Trust me,” she said, breaking the biscuit in half. “This right here? It’s strawberry jam with hazelnut spread.”

Remmick leaned back in his chair, giving the biscuit a skeptical once-over like it might bite him first. “Strawberry jam and hazelnut?” he repeated, tone flat.

Liana didn’t flinch. Just tore off her piece and popped it in her mouth. “Trust me. You’ll live.”

He snorted, still staring at it. “You sure? Sounds like somethin’ a kid made by accident.”

“Don’t knock it till you try it.”

He finally took a bite—hesitant at first, then slower as the taste hit. He chewed in silence, chewing like he didn’t wanna admit it was good. Then, with a deadpan shake of his head

“…Nah, that’s proper, that is.”

Liana smirked. “Mhm. Thought so.”

He wiped his mouth with a napkin, still chewing. “Still sounds mad, though. You ever think maybe you got strange taste?”

“Only when I’m dealin’ with you.”

That pulled a laugh out of him—low, rough, honest. He leaned in, elbow on the table. “Yeah? Could be worse.”

They shared their food, passed bites back and forth, talked in between sips of coffee. She told him about her favorite hidden spots in town, the ones tourists didn’t know to ask about. He listened, not just hearing her but paying attention—and that felt rare.

Every now and then, his knee bumped hers under the table. Not on purpose, but not exactly by accident, either.

They stayed longer than planned. The sun climbed higher. Her coffee got cold. But she didn’t rush. Neither did he.

Eventually, she glanced at the time. “Alright, next spot ain’t too far. You still got room?”

He stood with that slow, easy confidence of his. “Absolutely. Lead the way.”

And just like that, they walked off down the sidewalk together, the summer heat curling around them, the day just beginning.

✿✿✿✿✿ ✿✿✿✿✿ ✿✿✿✿

⋆˚✿ y’all come back now ✿˚⋆

[bumblesimagines]

Grateful You're Mine

Request: Yes or No

Summary: Princess Helaena finally weds the man she's been engaged to since they were children. She finds married life to be more than she expected.

Pronouns: He/Him/His, M!Reader

CW/TW: Typical GoT/HOTD warnings, arranged marriage trope, fluff, they match each other's freaks and social levels, canon divergent/au since the twins aren't Aegons, literally nothing else just short and sweet

Crazy we hardly got to see the pleasant and happy girl she was described as 😔 WFMF coming soon!! just thought i'd give some other characters attention for once

~~~

As consciousness seeped into her body, the sweet smell of flowers filled her nose, powerful yet not overwhelming enough to irritate her. It took her brain a few moments to catch up and remind her that she no longer resided within the dreary walls of the Red Keep, but instead in her new home in Highgarden. She rubbed at her eyes with her knuckles gently and pushed herself into a sitting position, her eyes sweeping around the room before settling on the empty spot in the bed beside her. 

"Good morrow, Princess Helaena," Her handmaiden, Maecy, greeted with a friendly smile as she set down a tray with food to break her fast and herbal tea to warm her body. 

"Good morrow," She responded sleepily, slipping her legs free from underneath the blankets and wriggling her feet into the slippers beside the bed. "Has Lord (Y/N) gone somewhere?" 

Her handmaiden smiled knowingly, her slender fingers picking up one of the brushes set on the vanity. "I cannot say, My Princess. I am afraid I have been sworn to secrecy for the time being." 

Helaena's head cocked to the side but she nonetheless nodded silently and stood up, shuffling across the room to retrieve a slice of honeyed bread. She sat down on the comfortable chair and began eating, savoring each bite and licking her fingers clean as Maecy began delicately brushing her hair, untangling knots and smoothing the frizz out with oils. Once finished with her breakfast, Helaena stood up and blinked owlishly at Maecy when the brunette remained rooted in her spot instead of gathering the clothes she'd be wearing for the day.

Before she could question her, the doors parted and Helaena turned around, a smile immediately gracing her features upon seeing her new husband enter. (Y/N) returned it and walked forward, a servant following with a box in her hands as the doors shut firmly behind them. Helaena eyed the box curiously, her brows furrowing questioningly at him. 

"Do you recall that drawing you really liked of the beetle?" He asked her, leaning down to pluck a leftover grape from her plate and plop it into his mouth. Helaena gave a slow nod and he brightened, peering over his shoulder to nod to the servant. "I had a gift made for you."

Helaena watched as Maecy and the servant worked together to take the lid off before she gaped at the sight of a pretty soft blue dress with white accents. They lifted it from the box to showcase its full beauty, and her heart leaped in her chest at the lovely white design of a stag beetle threaded into the bosom area of the dress with small white flowers around it. She pressed her fingers to her lips, her pale lilac eyes widening as she fully absorbed the beauty of the dress. 

(Y/N) watched her, fingers fiddling with the sleeves of his shirt. "Do you like it?" He questioned somewhat nervously only for the nerves to fade at the sound of Helaena's giddy giggle. She nodded and leaned forward, pressing a chaste kiss to the corner of his lips that made his skin warm. 

Eagerly, Helaena allowed Maecy and the servant to help her dress, the two women giggling softly under their breaths at the way Lord (Y/N) turned around despite the two having wed the week prior. When they finished, Helaena studied her reflection in the mirror, her teeth clamping down on her bottom lip at the wave of excitement and giddy rushing through her veins. The compliments and coos from the women were swiftly overshadowed by the way her husband's eyes lit up at the sight of her. 

"It is truly lovely," Helaena spoke softly, clutching the skirt to walk better as she strode forward before releasing it to take his hands into hers. He smiled again, rubbing his thumbs over the back of her hands soothingly, just as he had done under the table during their wedding celebrations when the music and loud chatter had become overwhelming for her. "Thank you." 

"Mother thought the fabrics would have been better in green but I've always thought you looked lovelier in blue." (Y/N) told her and she felt her own skin warm, a breathy and shy laugh escaping past her lips. He released one of her hands to brush back one of her silver strands, his eyes softened and filled with genuine warmth. 

After witnessing the loveless marriage between her parents and the chaotic marriage between Aegon and his Lannister wife, Helaena grew to fear her own wedding would be a miserable one. Her marriage to (Y/N) had been arranged by her grandsire after her mother dismissed the idea of her marrying her own brother and rejected her older half-sister's proposal to wed her to one of her sons, although he remained a stranger for many years until the Tyrells expressed their desires to see their heir with children of his own. 

She'd been nervous that day, and her mother's own anxiety hardly helped her own, but when (Y/N) stood before her with a pink hydrangea in hand and his eyes averted to focus on the floor beneath them, she realized she had little to fear. When they'd been left to wander the garden with a handmaiden trailing behind them, the awkward air faded with ease once she began speaking of her beloved crickets and the small creatures she found most interesting and he told her of the flowers that attracted certain creatures. A spark had seemingly ignited, one fueled the night of their wedding day when he offered to lie to their parents when she'd grown too nervous to consummate the marriage. 

"Oh," (Y/N) brightened once more. "You must see the garden at this time of year, Helaena. There's butterflies in every corner." 

And so they took a stroll through the garden, taking in the floral scents in the air and the vibrant rows of flowers with butterflies, other winged insects, and even a few hummingbirds bouncing from flower to flower.

Her mother had been right when she told her a girl of her disposition would do well within the peaceful walls of Highgarden; everything about Highgarden felt calming. The Red Keep had a tense air to it with its gloomy weather and near-suffocating residents but those who resided in Highgarden appeared more carefree and happy. Helaena enjoyed it, enjoyed being in a place where she received smiles instead of judgemental glances. 

Unlike in the Keep where time passed agonizingly slowly with little to nothing new happening, Highgarden always seemed to be bursting with life and music. Helaena found herself passing time with her husband in the garden, her hands focused on beginning an embroidery of a pretty butterfly she spotted whilst (Y/N) drew a flower with his chalk on paper. Things were silent between them yet merely spending time beside him satisfied her, allowing her to work with a small smile on her face. 

When they finished with their respective pieces, they returned inside and ate lunch in the quiet of their bedchambers. Helaena watched the servants scoop up the plates and take them away, cleaning the table and curtsying before swiftly leaving the room and leaving her to turn to look at (Y/N). His head remained tilted toward the balcony overlooking the large maze, his eyes distant but expression content. 

"Husband," Helaena roused him, bringing him back to the present. She licked a crumb off the owner of her lips and straightened up in her seat, casting Maecy a glance. "What do you think of having children?" 

"Babes are loud and messy." (Y/N) responded, leaning back into his chair and swirling around the last of his tea before bringing it to his lips. "It would be... nice to have some, though. I think it would please Mother to have grandchildren and Father would surely dote on them." 

"I'd like to have some soon," Helaena revealed. She'd always been told she'd make a lovely mother. "A boy and two girls, I think, would be nice. Mother claims Hightowers oft' have many boys, though." 

"We can have as many as you desire."

Children, Helaena came to learn, were rather interesting little creatures that brought forth such wonder and intense feelings out of her. Helaena simply couldn't get enough of watching her newest little one sleep cradled in her arms, her rosy cheeks more apparent from the complexion she'd inherited from her mother. Daenys gave a small yawn and squeezed her eyes before parting them to reveal the violet beneath. 

"Someone has finally awoken," Helaena murmured, tilting her head to look at her husband. He held a book in his hands, one about different flowers documented across Westeros, with their sleepy twins nestled between his arms. She reached out to run her fingers through Jaehaerys (H/C) hair, unable to bite back the smile when he nuzzled further into his father's chest. 

Carefully, (Y/N) set the book aside and scooped Jaehaerys up to settle him at his mother's side before he took Daenys into his arms, eyes crinkling with joy when she cooed at the sight of him. "I hear your nieces and nephews may give Queen Alicent some gray hairs." He chuckled. "It is no wonder why she visits as often as she does." 

"Maelor and his siblings have inherited much from their parents, I suppose. A lioness in gold forced to live in the cold will always have her claws out... and Aegon's never been... easy." Helaena spoke, her arm sliding around her only boy and the future heir to Highgarden. The look (Y/N) sent her way made her chuckle, lightly shrugging her shoulders. "I am certain he is a good father even if he may not be.. an adequate husband."

"If you say so." (Y/N) murmured, leaning down to nuzzle his nose against Daenys just to hear her burst with giggles. Her dozing sister parted her eyes at the sound and eagerly moved closer, eyes wide with adoration as she took in her new sibling again. Her father sweetly stroked the back of her head, tilting his arm so she'd have a better look at Daenys. "Though, he is as good of an uncle as Prince Aemond. He has already sent the finest jewels for Daenys."

"It's not so bad being married to a Targaryen, then?" Helaena asked teasingly, leaning toward him to rest her chin upon his shoulder. 

(Y/N) huffed a small laugh and kissed the side of her head. "Yes, it's not so bad. It's lovely, if anything, dearest." 

[lvrclerc]

✶ UNTIL SUNSET

summary: you wake up in charles' bed, your ex... or whatever you are after last night. now that it's very clear neither of you has moved on, it's time to face the consequences of your actions, what they meant and the scariest thing of all ─ the past.

F1 MASTERLIST | CL16 MASTERLIST | PT1: UNTIL SUNRISE

pairing: charles leclerc x ex!f!reader

wc: 6k

cw: mentioned sexual content (part one), suggestive but no smut, miscommunication, relationship issues, break-up, fights, avoidance, angst, second chance, happy ending, english is not my first language.

note: your honor they're so i love you i'm sorry by gracie abrams, wanted to write a full fluffy epilogue paragraph but also i think the way i ended this fits the reader and charles perfectly 🫶

THE FIRST RAYS of sunlight threaded carefully through the blinds, softly brushing against your closed eyelids as if not to wake you too abruptly. The distant chirping of the birds stirred you first, and you rolled over, the silk sheets smoothly sliding against your bare legs, the warmth of Monaco’s summer mornings washing over your body like a wave onto the shore. The smell hit you second, sultry and familiar, hints of amber, cedarwood, and salt ─ it wrapped you in its arms, languidly whispering memories against your skin, coaxing you back into that drowsy haze. You would have spent a lifetime there, in the embrace of ignorance.

But the cold, empty space beside you pulled you out of sleep.

This wasn’t home anymore, no matter how long it had been before, or how it may have felt yesterday night. Your eyes fluttered open.

The space where Charles had been only hours ago was empty, freezing in his absence and you found yourself grazing the space where his arms had wrapped around you. His imprint on your skin, on the sheets, had already begun to fade. For a moment you stared at it, pulse thrumming against your ribcage.

Were you as foolish as to expect anything different?

A lump formed in your throat, and you exhaled trying to stabilize yourself, and your feelings, pushing yourself up on your elbows. The room, now lit up by the rising daylight, was exactly as you remembered it ─ clean, organized, his ─ except for you. Your clothes were still scattered all around the room, his nowhere to be found, and you picked them up with shaky hands and blurry eyes. It always ended like that, with you and Charles, except this time there wasn’t a relationship to hold onto when the night faded.

The food had gone cold. You hadn’t touched your glass of wine in over twenty minutes. You’d texted him twice and there was no answer.

Around you, the restaurant buzzed softly with the clinking of silverware, the warmth of low candlelight, and the sound of presence. Of other people being fully and properly loved. You looked down at the small gift box still sitting unopened by your plate. Wrapped in gold, with the bow made just the way he liked.

You waited another fifteen minutes before you called the waiter and asked him to pack it all up.

By the time you made it home, the straps of your dress dug uncomfortably in your shoulders, you had your heels in hand and your heart was entirely numb. It still broke when you crossed the threshold, wiping the mascara off your cheeks, and Charles was in the kitchen. As if nothing had happened, as if it was another evening ─ he had a towel wrapped around his waist, his phone in hand and probably not opened on your conversation, hair still damp from his shower.

He looked up and smiled casually. “Hey, you’re home early, I thought your job would have kept you an hour longer.”

You stared at him, and barely concealed anger and disappointment slithered their way in your words. “They would have, but they gave me the night off for our anniversary.”

His smile dropped.

Charles took in your outfit, the expensive shoes at the front door, the small package in your hand. He didn’t say anything at first. He just stood there, caught somewhere between disbelief and the dawning realization of what he’d forgotten.

“Shit, mon amour, I─”

“Don’t,” you cut him off, your voice as hollow as you. “Don’t give me any excuses. Just… say it. Say you forgot.”

He stepped closer, but closing the space between you wouldn’t let you breathe, so you stepped back to keep the distance. “I waited two hours. I booked the restaurant, Charles. I left work early, wore the dress you liked so much you bought it for me, I even brought your goddamn gift, and you─” A bitter laugh escaped you, and you threw the golden wrapper on the couch. “You didn’t even text.”

Charles was crumbling in front of you. “I lost track of time,” he muttered. “I was on sim, and then the meeting with Fred went longer than I expected and─”

You put the takeout bag you asked for at the restaurant on the counter in a deafening noise, your voice finally cracking. “You weren’t busy. You just didn’t remember.”

The silence came back like a slap.

Charles opened his mouth. Closed it. “I said I’m sorry. I─ I can’t do anything else right now, if you’d let me just make it up to you I─”

“I want you to care.” You were tearing up this time. “I want you to stop treating something like this as something that just… happened. Like it’s not a pattern.”

He stared at you and, wordlessly, brought you to his chest, encasing you in his arms. You knew this dance, and the steps of it, so you fell into it with practiced ease. When his eyes searched yours, wiping the tears on your cheeks with his thumbs, he kissed you.

It was desperate. Quiet. And he was trying to silence the fight with his mouth, too scared of what else he might say or do that could mess it up further. You gave in so easily, just because you needed to feel loved by him, and he needed to show you did.

This was always what happened. You’d cry, or scream, and Charles would say sorry with his hands, his fingers, his tongue, his stomach pressing against the curve of your spine, with kisses against your throat instead of a conversation. And you’d pretend it was enough.

That night, you let him make love to you like a peace offering. But it wasn’t peace ─ it was postponement. Again. The eye of a never-ending storm.

The memory was such that you almost missed it when you opened the door of his bedroom, too caught up in your emotions and the need for escape. But there it was: from down the hall came the quiet clatter of pans, the subtle shuffle of movement from the kitchen.

You entered the space in confusion. The unmistakable scent of fresh coffee lingered in the air, warm and grounding, utensils were lying around the counter along with a silver bowl dripping with batter, the window was cracked open and the sound of the radio echoed against the wall in the quiet of the room.

And Charles was in the middle of it all.

His broad, bare back was facing you, sweatpants hanging low on his hips. The muscles in his shoulders flexed with every movement as he busied himself with whatever he was preparing. Warm threads of sunlight caressed his skin and the nape of his neck, and you swallowed, heart lodging itself somewhere between relief and dubiety. For a moment, you just stood there, unsure what to do with the fact he hadn’t left.

He chose to turn around at that moment, dropping a crêpe onto the plate sitting on the counter along with two mugs. One for him, one for you. Looking up, his green eyes set on you, the sunshine hitting them just right to get your heart stuttering. “Oh, t’es debout ?” Then, he shook his head, as if to remember to speak English even in his half-asleep haze. “I didn’t expect you to be awake so early. I made breakfast.”

You silently sat down on one of the stools as Charles slid a mug toward you, and the movement was enough to set you back into a natural rhythm: Charles cooking, the crêpes a tinge of brown instead of beige, you humming to whatever song was playing, even if you didn’t know the melody. And it was nauseating: he still made the coffee the way you liked ─ milk and half a sugar, mug not too full because otherwise, your stomach would hurt, even though he took a larger, less diluted one. Memories of last night blinked in your mind, a sore reminder.

“How did you sleep?” Charles asked casually, sitting in front of you with a tired smile. He looked at you as if you were a mirage, unreal.

You took a sip of the cup in your hands, the warm liquid sending shivers in your body. This, too, was painfully familiar ─ ignoring the issue, acting as if nothing happened, as if last night was just a memory. You knew how this went. You could pretend, play along, act surprised when it all came crashing down for the hundredth time, disregarding the quiet glances and the unspoken words. Treating this as just another morning.

You could, but you wouldn’t. Not this time. The weight in your chest was too heavy, the mix of feelings swirling in your stomach too confusing. Too much time had passed.

And for once, you were tired of pretending that didn’t matter.

You set your mug down on the table. “We always do this, Charles,” you said in a whisper. “And I don’t want to anymore. We need to talk.”

His eyes left you, instead sitting with shame on the marble of the counter instead. “I know I─ I just wanted to wait for the right moment.”

“And when would the right moment be?” You asked, bitterness slipping in your voice like belladonna. “When I’ll end up in your bed again? And then we’ll postpone this conversation again?”

Charles’ flinch is subtle, but you catch it. You always do. The pattern of him is something you would never allow yourself to forget, even in the acerbity of the past. 

His fingers flex against the counter, knuckles tightening to a throat bobbing as he swallows ─ like he’s trying to force down an answer before it escapes him. “You know it’s not fair. You know I’m just trying to- to fix it. Everything.”

“It’s not enough. It never was.”

Charles’ gaze flashed to you. This time, there was something dangerous about it, the same light shining in his pupils during a race. “Really? You were the first to run away when things got hard. You never let me make it up to you, reassure you, or love you correctly. How is that enough? For me?”

The curtains were drawn tight against the city lights. The time was nearing two in the morning, but the adrenaline in Charles’ veins hadn’t worn off yet. He was talking─ about the race, the heat, how the strategy almost didn’t work. You were curled up against the pillows, eyes on him, assessing him like a storm in a bottle.

He looked radiant, alive. He always did after a good race weekend. He never did after a weekend with you, you thought.

“I wish you could’ve seen it from the garage,” he grinned, collapsing on the bed beside you, still in his Ferrari tee. “The energy was─ insane. I missed you down here.”

Did he really? Doubts infiltrated your every thought. You smiled, but it didn’t quite reach your eyes. “I watched from the paddock lounge.”

“Still,” he said, turning to face you, brushing a strand of hair from your cheek, “not the same.”

You hummed, noncommittal. His hand stayed on your face a second too long. You didn’t lean into it. “You okay?” Charles asked.

Hesitancy. Then─ “Do you ever… get tired of this?” Your voice is small when you speak up against the dead of the night.

He frowned. “Of what?”

“Of always leaving.”

His hand dropped from your cheek, the loss of contact so sudden you thought he might have taken it the wrong way. Nothing in his expression or behavior could indicate so, but the nagging voice in the back of your head taunted you with the feeling. “Where is this coming from?”

“It’s just.. I feel like your life is always…,” I feel like it’s going somewhere I don’t belong. You’re always running, and I’m always waiting for you to look back. Waiting for the version of you that remembers where home is. Yet, you didn’t say it. You couldn’t. So you just applied half-smile on your lips like you’d do with a gloss. “I don’t know, just curious I guess. Don’t mind me, I’m just tired.”

Charles paused. Searched your face. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. You should take a shower before you fall asleep.” You sat up, pulling the covers tight around you as armor. He didn’t move. Just kept watching you, because he knew something was wrong but didn't know where to look for it. He wanted to say something. Wanted to stay. But he didn't. And you didn’t comment on it either, too caught up in your own head.

“You should really go,” you said, pushing him further away.

You stayed staring in the empty of the room long after the shower turned on. Long after the water stopped. Long after his arms found their way around your waist when he crawled into bed and whispered I love you against your shoulder.

You didn’t answer. You just pretended to be asleep.

The words flew like bullets in the softest parts of your flesh, and the brutal force of them could have made you double over. You knew he didn’t mean them ─ right now, he saw you as he would another driver on track, an enemy to take over, so he would do whatever it took, even if that meant hitting where it hurts. 

But there, exactly right there, was the source of all issues. 

You were a statistic in his life. Numbers iterated by his race engineer in his ear during a narrow turn. You weren’t his lover, his ex, his maybes and what-ifs. And it was always the problem, what haunted you during most of the nights he was away and most of the nights he was there. And that’s what broke the dam.

A sharp, hollow laugh escaped you. There was no sarcasm or anger behind it, just… emptiness. “You know what’s actually not fair, Charles?” Your fingers tightened ever-so-slightly around the mug, and you could feel the coffee starting to cool down. “Being second place.”

Your eyes rose to meet his. He was angry, lost, all those things he used to hide so carefully. This conversation was a long-time coming ─ it was what you always carefully set aside, put on a shelf to consider for a split second before walking away, leaving it to rot like a museum antiquity. You would take a look at it later, you’d tell yourself as you’d whisk yourself away with false promises of comfort. You never did ─ but right now, there was nothing else standing between the vomit of your words apart from the ridiculous hope of a maybe.

 “You never like coming in P2,” you said, and your voice wavered. “It makes you feel worthless. So tell me, why should I like it? Get accustomed to it? I was always second, Charles. Always the one waiting for you to make time, waiting for you to even remember I exist in between races and media obligations and whatever else fills your life. You said you loved me. You said it, and I remember it clear as day, but I─”

Your breath hitches, your hands shake, your vision blurs. “You’re always searching for more, and more, and more and I have never felt like I was enough for you.”

The silence in the room feels deafening. The radio quieted down, the birds stopped chirping, and the warmth of the early morning had been replaced by the gradual cold of the settling day.

Charles was staring at you, and you couldn’t tell if the light was playing tricks on you or if the green of his eyes was brimmed with tears. He exhales through his nose, pressing his palms against the counter like he needs something to keep him steady. “That’s not true,” he says, but there’s no fight behind it.

You shake your head with a sad, half-smile. “Isn’t it?”

He doesn’t answer. You don’t know if you want him to.

“You don’t even realize you do it. I know racing will always come first, I signed up for that when we started dating, and I never asked you to change that. But I can’t keep pretending it doesn’t break me when you forget I’m there. When I’ve been here since the beginning. How afraid I am.”

There it was. You loved Charles, you couldn’t pinpoint if it halted at some point in time, but you were so irrevocably scared that it held you back ─ scared of not being sufficient, scared of loving someone whose world never stops moving. It was a terrifying concept, and yet you were rooted in it. His lips part, but you’re not done. Not yet.

“I loved you. But sometimes, it’s exhausting. Loving you feels like running after something I’ll never catch. That’s why I left.”

The clock read 1:12 AM.

You sat on the couch, wrapped in the soft throw blanket Charles got you from a layover in Tokyo. It smelled like him. Like home. And it made your chest hurt.

His flight was supposed to land yesterday. He hadn’t answered your text all day. The key turned into the door just as the silence was starting to crush you ─ you didn’t even flinch when the door opened. Your arms were around your knees, eyes burning into the floor. Charles barely had time to drop his bag at the entrance, pulling off his cap and making eye contact with you, before your voice sliced through the air.

“You were supposed to be back home yesterday,” the tension in your voice was barely contained. “Technically, two days. We’re past midnight.”

He blinked. “I know but things ran late- there was a last minute sponsor thing, I’m sure you saw and-”

“You said you’d be home.” The harsh flatness of your voice shut him up instantly, teetering between fury and heartbreak. Suddenly the air was thicker, and the room was too small for the both of you. “Two more days than what you told me. You didn’t even text me, didn’t even call me back.”

He stepped forward, approaching you like a wild animal, only fueling the feelings roaring in your stomach. “I’m sorry, I should’ve told you, but it was just one more─”

“It’s never just one more thing, Charles!” You snapped, voice louder. “It’s always something. A meeting. A delay. An interview. Someone else.”

Charles inhaled, jaw tight. “You’re making this into something it doesn’t have to be.”

That was the wrong thing to say. You got up, cover falling from your shoulder and discarded onto the ground. “I waited on that couch for six hours. I lit a candle, I made dinner, for fuck’s sake!”

“Because I was working!” His voice rose as well. “I was busy! It’s my job─”

“And you think I’m not?! I bend my entire life around your schedule. Around races and flights and simulator sessions. I shrink myself to keep up with you but god forbid I ask for time and consideration!”

“I never asked you to do all of that! I never asked you to wait for me if that’s how you feel. Do you really think I’m doing this for fun? That I want to be away from you all the time?”

“No, I think you want a relationship that fits into your calendar like a PR obligation,” you spat. “And it feels like you’re prioritizing everything over it because it isn’t! Every time you miss a date, every time you forget to call me back, every time I cry alone because you don’t have time for a relationship you claim to care about─ you’re choosing everything else over me!”

Charles’ expression darkened, that’s when you knew you struck a nerve. “Well, maybe if you weren’t so damn scared all the time─”

Silence. The temperature of the room dropped a few degrees. “What?” You whispered.

Charles breathed out hard, like he already regretted it. But you weren’t letting him off the hook now. “Say it.”

“You push me away before I even get the chance to show up for you,” he snapped. “You act like I don’t care when you won’t even let me try. You’d rather assume the worst than risk trusting me─ like you’re just waiting for me to fuck it all up!”

“Because you always do!”

Now you were both yelling at each other, screams bouncing off the walls. “Then why are you still there?!”

“I don’t fucking know!” You shouted back. “Maybe because I love you, and I keep hoping that maybe one day it’ll be enough for you to love me back!”

His chest rose and fell in sharp movements, eyes glassy mirroring yours. But he didn’t move. Neither of you did.

“I do love you,” he whispered.

A bitter laugh escaped you, overflowing with heartbreak and exhaustion. “Yeah, well. Not enough, apparently.”

Silence fell onto the room again and this time, it carried the sound of finality. Like the stillness before a storm breaks a city─ and you refused to be collateral damage.

So you grabbed your coat, yanking it off the back of the kitchen’s stool in a swift move, and already heading for the door. “Don’t,” Charles interrupted, getting in your path. “Don’t do this now, we’re just tired, it’s─ it’s just too much emotion. We’ll talk in the morning and─”

“No.” You sidestepped him. “I have no mornings left in me, Charles. There is no morning. I’m tired of waiting.”

You turned your back to him. His voice cracked as he said your name. Just your name. You paused, just a second. “I don’t want this to be the end,” he said, voice hollow.

You looked at him ─ the man you’d build a whole life around, the man you loved ─ and something inside you cracked. A second wasn’t enough to make someone stay for a lifetime.

“It already is.”

You walked out, slammed the door so hard the walls trembled. Left him in the wreckage of what was once yours.

Charles’ breathing is uneven, like absorbing every word like a punch to the stomach. His hands curled into a fist, squeezing tight, and you couldn’t tell if he was fighting the urge to reach for you or if he was frustrated with the situation. When Charles felt something harshly, it usually washed over everything. “Loved?”

You shook your head. “I don’t know, Charles. But I think you’re focusing on the wrong thing.”

“No, no I─” He ran a hair through his curls, completely disheveled. His voice was low, rough, overflowing with emotions you couldn’t name. “Fuck, Y/N, do you think I don’t hate myself for that? That I don’t see what I do to you? I know, mon amour. I know. It kills me.”

The pet name choked you a little, the context vastly different from last night and still it felt more intimate than skin slapping against skin. His gaze was too intense, his words too sharp. Your eyes stung as you looked away. “Then why do you keep doing it?”

“Because I don’t know how to stop,” Charles admits, and his voice breaks in the middle. “I don’t know how to be with you without screwing it up. I tell myself I’ll do better, that I’ll balance everything and I’ll give you everything you really deserve, but then the next race comes, the next event, and suddenly I─” He stops himself, pressing his lips together. You can see his shoulders, still bare, shaking a little. His next words are broken.

“Suddenly you’re not the first thing on my mind anymore. And I hate that. I hate that you ever feel like you have to compete with this life when you’re the only thing that ever mattered outside of it.”

Your breath catches, your heart twists. Because Charles looks at you like he wants to cradle your world and bring all of its splits and cracks back together. Because you believe him, you always have, and that’s an issue.

As your arms wrapped around yourself, a desperate attempt to hold yourself together, you said: “Then what now, Charles?” Your voice is small and tired. It comes from the deepest part of yourself, and you can barely recognize it. “Because I can’t live like this again. I won’t.”

The silence after your words stretched uncomfortably and so far you almost felt it swallow you. Charles moved, just slightly, shifting his weight off the counter. “Then tell me how to fix it.”

“I already did. I just─ I don’t know if you can.”

“But I want to,” the look he gave you was bare, and for once he didn’t try to hide how scared he was. No facade, no pretending. “I want to try again. I want to fight for this. For you.”

You bit the inside of your cheek. “You say that now, but when things get hard again? When the season takes over, and you forget what day it is because you’re too focused on fixing something on track? I’ll become the.. thing you come back to only when you remember. I’ll be the thing you squeeze in between free practice and press.”

“That’s not what I want, Y/N. And I need you to understand that’s not- that’s never how I wanted you to feel. You’re more than this, so much more and─”

Your brows pulled together. If you said something, you knew you’d choke on it. His fingers sat next to yours and, similarly to last night, innocently brushed your palm.

“I love you,” Charles said.

The words landed like a quiet implosion. He’d said it before, of course. But now… they came like a confession, a plea.

Love was still there, even after a year apart, even after all of the ugly and broken shards lodging in open wounds, but it just wasn’t enough.

Love by itself cannot hold two people together if everything else is keeping them apart. Love is not time, it doesn’t fill the empty spaces where presence should be, it’s not a pause button stopping life from going forward, love is not enough─ not when the nights stretch long and lonely, when “I’ll do better” starts to sound like a well-rehearsed lie, when the ache of missing someone that is technically still yours is worse than losing them completely. Love alone cannot bridge the gap between being wanted and being prioritized, of having to beg for a space that should have already been yours.

“I love you,” Charles repeated, softer now. “And I know I’ve done a shit job showing it. I messed us up. But I’ve been in love with you through it all. We can fix it. I can do it. I just need you to let me.”

And the most tragic part? Sometimes, love still lingers long after everything else has fallen apart.

You swallowed hard, an ache dangerously crawling up your throat. “I─ I don’t─” The hesitation in your voice broke his face a little more, as if your pain carved something in him.

You stepped off the stool, eyes searching for the bag you dropped next to the door as you were planning your escape earlier. It was still there, next to your heels. You hadn’t planned on staying, and everything for you was too suffocating to think rationally. Charles’ eyes followed the trajectory of yours in silent understanding. He knew you wouldn’t say it back, not yet─ it doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

After a pause, you spoke up. “I need time.”

He nodded slowly, acknowledging your decision. And he wasn’t begging, he wasn’t stopping you, and he simply watched you as you took up the hoodie draped over the couch to look more presentable when you went outside, and helped you find the pair of sneakers you left at his place. He helped you leave, and it made you a little breathless.

But then, right as you reached for the door, he finally said something.

“This weekend. Monaco.” His voice was rough, so much he swallowed, and the hand he had on the door handle curled. Still, his eyes were steady. “If you want to try… If you think we’re worth the risk─ come to the Grand Prix.”

The light coming through the windows caught on his hair, on the curve of his cheekbone. He looked too much like a ghost, a memory─ but he was real. Painfully so.

“And if I don’t?”

He exhaled and when he answered, it was quieter than before. “Then I’ll finally have a reason to let you go.”

You didn’t say anything.

The door closed gently behind you.

The crowd was thunder.

The heat shimmered against the pavement, sweat clung to the back of your neck and the Paddock Pass around it, weighing on you awkwardly. It’s been a long while since you had to wear one, and you had to acclimate to the renewed feeling of the accessory. The ecstatic ambiance was now almost foreign, and new staff members were waltzing around who didn’t recognize you. Things changed around the Ferrari Monaco paddock, it didn’t feel as welcoming to you as it had once been.

But you still came. That had to count for something.

You made your way to the back of the garage, your feet sure of their way even with the numerous changes in your environment. It felt louder, shinier, but beneath the gloss of the year spent apart, it was still the same─  the familiar scent of oil, burnt rubber and adrenaline. Some things just couldn’t be forgotten and your entire presence there was proof of it. 

Your hands were shaking, gathered in front of you as your eyes darted from left to right, seeking the flash of crimson and the name stitched across it. You hadn't realized you were holding your breath until you spotted it.

Leclerc.

You saw him before he saw you.

His hair messy due to the balaclava in his hand, half-zipped race suit sitting on his hips, head bent as he adjusted his gloves. Everything about him was focused. Composed. Untouchable.

Except you had touched him─ seen the dark places, known him better than anyone. Standing there now felt like trespassing inside a version of your life you weren’t sure you still had the right to claim. Your heart threatened to burst out of your ribcage, and you couldn’t calm your breathing even if you tried. The need to run away, swallow the heartache, and never look back took a hold of your guts. It would be easier.

But it’s not what you wanted. This time, you were taking the risk.

And slowly, like he could feel your gaze on him, Charles looked up. His green eyes set upon you like a moth to a flame.

The buzz of the staff working around you faded away and you just stared at each other, unsure of what to do until he started walking toward you. Charles was scanning you, taking you in as if he was afraid you’d vanish at any gust of wind. An illusion, the strain of an hourglass ─ you self-consciously tucked a strand of hair behind your ear.

He looked beautiful, like he had aged in the five days separating your last conversation. You think you did, too ─ the many conversations you had with Bridget and Jaime around cups of coffee or something stronger, the late nights spent wondering to yourself, the early mornings spent on Bridget's balcony asking the setting sun if it was worth it. Everything. All of the emotions you went through in such a short time might have transformed the person you were ─ or maybe it was the 365 days spent searching for it.

“You came,” Charles said, breathless.

A small, unbelieving smile tugged at his lips, yet so loud you couldn’t help but give him one back. “I was wondering if you still knew how to race.” It came out lighter than you expected.

The laugh he let out was half choked, half relieved, like he was trying to process the fact you were really there. The shine in his eyes was unmistakable ─ glassy, unspoken. Hope, guilt and everything. “And I was wondering if you were going to show up.” His voice dropped a little. “I wouldn’t let myself believe it until I saw you.”

The red lanyard around your neck brushed against your chest like a second heartbeat. “I didn’t know I was coming until I woke up this morning,” you admitted. Then, you glanced back up. “But here we are.”

“Here we are,” he repeated.

It was so simple, but somehow it shattered something in you ─ the gentleness of it, how hopeful it was. Just a simple truth: you were both there, sitting in the openness that only comes with the possibility of a new beginning. The crowd cheering behind you felt like it was cheering for you.

Your hands twitched in front of you and for one aching second, you were there, still in it. The pain, the wanting, the past clawing at your backs but the tiniest thread of the future right there between your fingers. Because it wasn’t too late.

Because this time, you both wouldn’t let it slip through your fingers.

Noticing the restlessness of your fingers, Charles held out his, a silent question, sweeping them against yours. You didn’t hesitate when you let him hold them ever so gently.

“Now what?” You asked. The bitterness when you spoke those exact words five days ago was nowhere to be found.

“Now,” he breathed out. “I’m winning this race. Even if I don’t, I’ll finish it. I’ll come back to get you and we’ll go for coffee─ the place you like so much near the beach, with the stupid chairs that hurt your back but you always go there anyway because the croissants are that good.” You laughed a little at that, and he basked into it. “And we’ll talk. A lot. About what it means, and what we want. I’ll listen, for good this time, to everything. Alright?”

“You think you’ll have the time after the race?” It was a joke, but it came from too far deep to be amused.

Charles’ answer was immediate. “I’ll make it.”

So small, so certain, they curled around your heart and made it sit still. It was so vulnerable─ raw in a way you hadn’t seen from him in a long time. Not from a smokescreen or a podium, just him, the man you fell in love with.

He reached out, brushing the pad of his fingers against your wrist. “I know it won’t be easy, but I’m ready to do anything. If it means sitting in those─ god-awful chairs until the sun sets then so be it. I’ve already lost you once, and I’m not going to do it again.”

The silence that followed felt sacred, the world holding its breath for you even though everything around you was so loud. “So,” Charles started again. “Are you going to be there when I’m done with the race?”

The unspoken question was obvious. Are you going to leave again? Are you scared? Are you letting me in? 

You spoke your answer as surely as he did. “I’ll be there. Because I love you too.” You finally said it back.

He nodded once at your words, just barely, like he couldn’t really believe you uttered them, or even meant it. You did. You do. He brought your fingers to his lips, shakily, a good-luck ritual that felt brand new.

And as he left to walk to his car, he shot you a smile, which you gave back teary-eyed, and the rays of sunlight surrounding you made it feel like spring ─ the soft breeze blowing your hair back, carrying hopes and beginnings. Because in three hours you’ll be in that Monaco café, and Charles will be sitting in front of you, and you’ll order a different drink than you usually do, and you’ll talk.

And you’ll start anew.

And this time, it would be enough for both of you.

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