#and needed to make it everyone elses problem

[cheftsunoda]

someone stop me, i’ve got too many ideas

max x reader x kelly

reader is also the kid of a former f1 driver (maybe Senna or Schumacher) i have absolutely no ideas for a plot, maybe the relationship is exposed while max is streaming idk, love ya

hearts don’t always break in two — mv1 + kelly piquet

smau+blurbs

max verstappen x !schumacher reader x kelly piquet

yn and max have known each other since age 5. they had been there for each others ups and downs and even fell in love. max and yn dated from age 15 to 17 and then the world became too much. yn got busy with her modeling career and max busy with racing. but feelings like theirs don’t just fade. max never stopped loving yn, not even when he fell for kelly. and yn—despite the string of men she tried to lose herself in—never stopped loving max either. as for kelly? she always knew. she saw the way max looked at yn, felt the electricity in the room when they were near. and oddly enough… she didn’t mind. the schumacher girl had a pull of her own—one kelly found impossible to resist.

fc : annie.shr on ig

(a/n) : omg baby you have the best ideas. i literally was so excited to write this one that i dropped everything else i was doing. love you dearly and i am working on your alexandra request as we speak. and highkey i think this is some of my best writing like to date. so i hope you enjoy. put my whole pu$$y into this.

also ik ppl have mixed feelings about kelly but please no hate. she is the mother of max’s child and you do not know her personally. she is a beauty and max is clearly very in love with her so all that matters is he is happy! thank uuu:)

—

gossiproomx

3,090,201 likes.

gossiproomx : in honor of yn schumacher making her return to the paddock this weekend— i am reliving my maxyn phase because they are my faves and will never be forgotten. (i have nothing against kelly— these two were just endgame for me) (still are) (max pls kiss her when you see her. i need it)

—

view 287,090 other comments.

username00 : if max doesn’t spiral the second he sees her, what’s the point.

username0 : these pics raised a whole generation of delusional wattpad girls and i stand by that.

username1 : max looking at yn the way he used to would cure 85% of my problems. the other 15% would be solved if she looked back.

username5 : mick walking around this weekend knowing everyone is watching his sister and max like 👨‍🦯👨‍🦯👨‍🦯

username7 : maxyn was my roman empire and it still is. i think about that pic of them on the floor every single day.

username10 : if max doesn’t fold the second he hears her voice i’m boycotting red bull.

username11 : @/lando film updates pls.

↳ lando : no. fuck you guys. you are never appreciative for what i give. always bitching that its too shaky or not in focus. im doing the lords work just shut up and be grateful

liked by username11 and gossiproomx

↳ gossiproomx : pleaseeee lan. we will be nice.

↳ lando : doubt it. im only filming for myself so i can rewatch it and cry.

liked by username11 and gossiproomx

—

f1gossipgirls

5,100,203 likes.

f1gossipgirls : YN Schumacher has officially made her paddock comeback, arriving alongside her brother Mick. So far, she’s been spotted catching up with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton in the Ferrari garage, and even seen chatting with Lando Norris and his dad. Notably absent from her rounds? Any proximity to the RedBull garage… Max, blink twice if you’re suffering. We’ll keep you updated as the drama unfolds.

—

view 750,072 other comments.

username00 : “notably absent from the red bull garage” no because my heart hurts.

username0 : kelly better be gripping that man’s hand for dear life rn.

username1 : she looks so beautiful 😭 every time i see her, mick or gina i just want to hug them and pinch their cheeks

username5 : no but like. imagine being max and seeing her laugh with lando. i’d crash the car immediately.

username7 : mick showing up with yn like a protective german golden retriever we love to see it.

redbullracing : i have sent out like 5 brand reps to try and collect her but no one has reported back to me. i love them as much as you do.

liked by f1gossipgirls

↳ username00 : admin you’re so funny pls don’t go bald or lose your job

↳ redbullracing : trying my best💔

liked by username00 and f1gossipgirls

username10 : the way he’s probably just watching her from behind the screen like 😐🧍‍♂️ baby come back

username11 : @/lando wtf are you doing?? you’re supposed to be playing wingman not charming her.

↳ lando : can’t help that the ladies love me 😎

liked by username11 & f1gossipgirls

↳ username11 : if you don’t do something i am hiring an etsy witch. say goodbye to that wdc

↳ lando : OKAY OKAY. ILL FIGURE IT OUT JEEZ.

liked by username11 and f1gossipgirls

—

It felt like every step I took was echoing in my chest. The paddock hadn’t changed much—still buzzing with energy, still filled with the scent of fuel, sunscreen, and over-priced espresso. But somehow, it all felt different this time. Maybe because I wasn’t seventeen anymore, trailing behind Max like his shadow. Maybe because the ghosts of who I used to be were waiting for me around every corner.

Mick walked beside me, hands in his pockets, silent but steady—like he always was. I could feel the tension in his shoulders though. Protective older brother mode had been activated. He’d barely let me breathe since I stepped off the plane yesterday.

“You good?” he asked under his breath as we passed the Haas hospitality unit.

I gave him a small nod. “Yeah. It’s just… weird.”

He looked down at me. “We don’t have to stay long.”

I shook my head. “No. I need to do this.”

And I did. For myself. For the girl who used to dream about these paddock walks and race weekends. For the version of me who had fallen in love here, and the one who had left with a broken heart still beating for someone who wasn’t mine anymore.

The Ferrari garage was the first familiar refuge. Charles spotted us before we even reached the entrance and immediately pulled me into the kind of hug that squeezed the air out of my lungs.

“Finally,” he muttered into my hair. “We missed you.”

“You mean you missed me,” I teased, pulling back.

“No, Lewis did too,” he said, smirking.

Right on cue, Lewis appeared like a vision in head-to-toe Ferrari gear, sunglasses on, arms open.

“Long time, Schumi,” he said warmly, enveloping me in a hug that made me feel eight years old again, watching him battle my dad on the track.

“You two are being nice. Suspiciously nice,” I said with a raised eyebrow as Charles handed me a coffee.

“Because you look like you haven’t slept in a week and we’re trying not to scare you off,” Lewis said softly, his tone shifting. “You okay?”

I wanted to lie. I always did. But something about standing there, surrounded by two people who knew, made it impossible.

“I’m here. That’s… something.”

Charles reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze. “You’re stronger than you think.”

I wasn’t so sure. Because every time someone looked over my shoulder, I felt my body brace—hoping, dreading, needing to see him. But he wasn’t there. And that was worse.

After an hour or so, Mick and I wandered toward the McLaren garage, where we nearly bumped into Lando and his father, Adam.

“YN?” Lando grinned, eyes lighting up like a kid on Christmas. “Holy shit, you’re really here.”

I smiled. “In the flesh.”

He pulled me into a quick hug and stepped back, looking me up and down like he was trying to process it.

“Jesus, Max is gonna—” He stopped himself, glancing at Mick. “Never mind.”

I forced a laugh, but my chest tightened.

Lando’s dad, Adam, stepped forward, all charm and warmth. “You look so much like your mother,” he said with a soft smile. “It’s good to see you again.”

“You too,” I replied, surprised by how sincere I felt.

We chatted for a few minutes—Lando throwing in a few ridiculous jokes, Mick side-eyeing everyone like he was five seconds away from tackling anyone who so much as mentioned Max’s or my Father’s name.

But even with all the friendly faces, the familiar laughter… there was still a hollow ache. Because I hadn’t seen him. Because I wasn’t sure I could handle it when I did. Max Verstappen had always been gravity to me. Even when I tried to fly away. I glanced across the paddock for the hundredth time, my eyes lingering on the empty stretch between the McLaren and Red Bull garages. He wasn’t there. Not yet. But he would be. And when that moment came… I honestly didn’t know whether I’d fall apart—or fall back into him.

—

I thought I’d escaped for the day. Lando and Mick had been playing their roles as protective older brothers- keeping me as far away from Max as possible. I stopped when I noticed a small girl appear next to me.

“Miss Schumacher?”

I turned, instinctively straightening my shoulders. The rep looked young. Nervous. Holding a tablet like a shield.

“I… uh, sorry to bother you,” she stammered. “But… Max asked if you could… come by. Just for a few minutes.”

My heart fell into my stomach.

“Now?” I asked, voice tight.

She nodded. “He said just… you. He didn’t want to cause a scene.”

Lando’s eyes narrowed instantly. “She doesn’t owe him anything—”

“It’s fine,” I cut in, my voice quiet. “I’ll go.”

Lando looked ready to argue, but I gave him a look. One I hoped said—Please don’t make this harder than it already is.

So I followed the Red Bull rep through the maze of motorhomes and hospitality tents, every step heavier than the last. My mind raced with possibilities. What would I say? What would he say? Would Kelly be there? Did he want to apologize? Or worse—say goodbye? We stopped in front of a nondescript meeting room. The rep gestured to the door, then backed away. I hesitated. And then I opened it. It was silent inside. Cool. Dim. Just one chair pulled out at the table. A water bottle. And him. Max. He was standing with his back to me, facing the far wall, like he was afraid if he looked at me too soon, he’d break.

“Max?” I said, voice barely above a whisper.

He turned slowly. And the second our eyes met, it felt like everything inside me cracked open. He looked tired. Not physically—but in that way you only get when you’ve been carrying something for too long. His eyes—still impossibly blue—held something I wasn’t ready for. Relief. Pain. Love.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he said softly.

“I wasn’t sure I should,” I replied.

Silence settled between us like a storm cloud.

“I didn’t know how to do this,” he admitted, stepping closer. “I thought maybe if I just… saw you. If I could look at you again and remember how to breathe—maybe I could finally say everything I never did.”

My hands curled into fists at my sides. “Then say it.”

He swallowed hard, eyes never leaving mine. “I’m sorry. For letting you go. For not fighting harder. For pretending I could ever love someone else the same way.”

My chest tightened. “You didn’t pretend very well.”

Max’s eyes closed for a second, like the truth physically hurt.

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said. “You were modeling in Milan, Paris, New York. You were becoming you, and I didn’t want to be the reason you held back. And then Kelly came into my life, and—”

“You fell in love with her,” I whispered.

“I did,” he said honestly. “But I never stopped loving you.”

A single tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it. Max stepped forward instinctively, but paused like he didn’t know if he still had the right.

“You were everywhere,” I said. “Every man I dated. Every time I stood in front of a camera and tried to smile. You were always in the room, even when you weren’t. And she knew, didn’t she?”

He nodded. “Kelly’s smarter than I’ll ever be. She never asked me to stop loving you. She just… hoped I could figure it out.”

“And did you?”

“I did the second I saw you again,” he whispered. “I never really stopped being yours, YN.”

The silence between us stretched. Painful. Beautiful. I took a step forward.

“You broke my heart,” I said.

“I know.”

“And I don’t trust you.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“But I still love you.”

He breathed in sharply. Like he’d been holding his breath for years and finally exhaled.

“Then let me try,” he said. “Not to erase the past. Just… to prove I’m worth a future.”

I didn’t answer. But I didn’t leave. And when he finally reached for my hand, I let him. Because maybe love didn’t need to be perfect. Maybe it just needed to survive long enough to come home.

—

I left before he could say anything else. Before I could change my mind. Before my heart betrayed me more than it already had. My fingers trembled as I opened the door and stepped into the sunlight, everything suddenly too loud—too sharp. The weight of Max’s words still clung to my skin like smoke. My chest was tight, lungs refusing to work properly as I wove through the paddock. I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have let him say all those things. And I sure as hell shouldn’t have let myself believe, even for a second, that we could rewrite a story already written in ink. Because Kelly still existed. And she wasn’t a footnote. She was a chapter he chose. Even if he claimed he never stopped loving me—he didn’t stop loving her either. And I couldn’t live with being the person who cracked something that hadn’t even shattered yet. A sob escaped my throat as I ducked behind one of the trailers, pressing my hand to my mouth. I didn’t want anyone to see me like this. Especially not here. Not in this place, where strength was currency and weakness became headlines.

“YN?”

I froze.

And then a beat later—

“YN.”

Mick.

I wiped at my face furiously, turning just as he rounded the corner, worry etched deep into every line of his expression. His gaze swept over me—red eyes, trembling hands, broken posture—and something in him snapped.

“Who do I need to kill?”

I laughed. It was wet, bitter, short-lived.

“No one,” I croaked. “Not yet, anyway.”

He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “What happened? Did someone say something to you? Was it Max?”

I looked away, which told him everything he needed to know.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he muttered, jaw locking. “I told Lando to keep him away. I told him—”

“It wasn’t Lando’s fault. Max asked for me. I thought I could handle it,” I said quietly. “But I was wrong.”

Mick’s expression softened just slightly, but the tension didn’t leave his shoulders. He was vibrating with fury—protective, sharp-edged fury that only brothers were capable of.

“He hurt you again?”

“No,” I whispered. “That’s the worst part. He told me everything I ever wanted to hear.”

Mick blinked. “So…?”

“So I can’t ruin what he has with Kelly. I won’t.”

“Are you serious?” he snapped. “You’re sobbing behind a trailer and he’s walking around with two women’s hearts in his hands. You think you’re the villain in this story?”

“I think I’m the only one trying not to be selfish.”

Mick exhaled hard, dragging a hand through his hair. “You always do that. You put everyone else’s happiness ahead of your own. Even when it kills you.”

“I’d rather break myself than break them,” I said, voice barely audible.

He stared at me for a long moment. “That’s not love, YN. That’s martyrdom.”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Because maybe I was the villain. Or the coward. Or maybe just the girl who never stopped loving someone she was never supposed to belong to. Mick pulled me into a hug, and for the first time all day, I let myself fall apart in someone else’s arms.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured into my hair. “Even when he doesn’t.”

And I clung to that. Because right now, it was the only truth I had.

—

The house was too quiet. The kind of quiet that made your ears ring. That made your thoughts too loud. I’d been pacing the same living room floor for nearly an hour, hands twisting the hem of one of Mick’s old hoodies I’d stolen years ago. I hadn’t turned on the lights. I didn’t want brightness. I didn’t want clarity. I wanted to disappear into the dark and pretend I didn’t still feel Max’s voice in my bones. 

I didn’t mean to call. My fingers just moved. Like muscle memory. The way they always did when everything got too much. The phone only rang once before he picked up.

“Liebling?” Sebastian’s voice cracked something wide open in me.

“Hi,” I said, trying to sound normal.

I failed. I always failed with him. And maybe that’s why I loved him so much.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he said gently, like he was already sitting next to me with a cup of tea and that soft little crease in his brow.

“I saw Max today,” I whispered.

Silence. And then a soft, steady breath on the other end. “Ah.”

I sat on the couch, pulling my knees to my chest. “He told me he never stopped loving me.”

Sebastian didn’t speak.

“He said… he loves her too. But that he was always mine first. And part of me wanted to believe it so badly. Part of me wanted to run straight into his arms and pretend it would be enough this time. But I couldn’t. I just… couldn’t.”

“I know,” he said softly. “Of course you couldn’t.”

“I wanted to,” I admitted. “God, I wanted to. But she’s good. She’s kind. And I’m not selfish enough to shatter her life just to glue mine back together.”

“YN…” His voice was so heartbreakingly gentle. “You think loving someone that deeply is selfish?”

“I think trying to take him back when he already belongs to someone else would be.”

“You’re not trying to take anything,” he said. “You’re just trying to feel, and that’s not a crime. You’re allowed to want things, even if they hurt.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “What if I’m always the one hurting?”

“You won’t be,” he promised. “Not forever. You are not someone people forget, YN. You’re someone people carry with them—like a compass. Like a melody they can’t get out of their head.”

“Even Max?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Especially Max.”

Tears slipped down my cheeks again. I didn’t even try to wipe them.

“I’m tired, Seb,” I whispered.

“I know you are, Schatz.”

There was a pause. And then, “Your dad would’ve told you to kick Max in the shins and then make him work for it.”

I laughed through the tears, chest aching with the sound. “You’re not wrong.”

“And I’m telling you,” he said firmly now, “that you don’t owe anyone anything. Not even him. You just owe yourself the grace to heal.”

I closed my eyes and let his words sink into me like sunlight on skin.

“I miss you,” I said.

“I miss you too,” he replied. “Now go drink some tea, take a long shower, and text me when you’re safely in bed. Or I will call Mick and ask him to camp out on your floor like you’re twelve again.”

I smiled for the first time in hours. “Fine. Bossy.”

“Only because I love you.”

“I love you too, Seb.”

And when we hung up, I sat in the quiet again. But this time… it didn’t feel so heavy.

—

third person pov 

Kelly Piquet wasn’t blind. She had always known that YN Schumacher was more than just a chapter in Max’s life. She wasn’t even a past tense. YN was a pulse. A thread running beneath everything. And today, when Max came back from the Red Bull motorhome quieter than usual—less like a man, more like a ghost—Kelly didn’t need to ask what had happened. She just knew. He didn’t speak when she walked into the room. His shoulders were hunched, fingers interlaced tightly, jaw ticking like he was holding his breath. It was the most unsettled she’d seen him in a long time. She took a seat across from him on the couch, crossed one leg over the other, and tilted her head thoughtfully. No fire. No ice. Just the cool, unreadable stillness that came with already knowing the answer.

“You saw her,” she said softly.

Max glanced up. “Yeah.”

Kelly smiled—small, but not unkind. “And?”

“I told her I never stopped loving her.”

A beat of silence. Kelly nodded like she’d been expecting it. “And she?”

“She left. In tears. Said she didn’t want to ruin what you and I have.”

“Ah,” Kelly hummed. “Very her.”

Max’s brow furrowed. “You’re not… mad?”

Kelly’s laugh was quiet and almost amused. “No, Max. I’m not mad.”

“But I—”

“You love her,” she said plainly. “You have for a long time. You tried to bury it. I tried to ignore it. But it was always there, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Kelly leaned back into the couch, her gaze steady. “I always knew you were hers. Not because you didn’t love me, but because there was a part of you I never had. And I don’t want to be with someone who still belongs to someone else, even if they’re too scared to say it out loud.”

Max swallowed hard, throat tight. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

“Of course you didn’t,” she said with a shrug. “But love doesn’t ask for permission. It just shows up and wrecks the room.”

She stood slowly, graceful as ever, and moved to the window, looking out at the paddock. “You know what I think?” she asked.

He looked at her cautiously. “What?”

“I think you two are too damn stubborn for your own good. She’s busy trying not to hurt me, and you’re busy trying not to hurt anyone, and in the meantime, you’re both bleeding out for no reason.”

He blinked. 

Kelly smiled, just a little. “Max. Be honest about what you feel. I’m not walking away over the truth.”

Max blinked, uncertain. “You’re… staying?”

“I didn’t say I’d stay forever,” she replied calmly. “But I’m not going to run just because your heart is messy. People are messy. And I’ve always known part of you belonged to her.”

She walked over and touched his arm—light, controlled, nothing desperate in the gesture.

“I didn’t fall for you expecting neat and easy,” she said. “And I’m not afraid of history, Max. I’m afraid of silence. Of pretending. So don’t lie to me. Don’t lie to yourself.”

Max looked down at her, guilt tightening his features. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“And yet you’re doing it anyway,” Kelly said softly. “Not with YN. But with how long you’ve been pretending she’s not in every room with us.”

He exhaled, almost broken. Kelly’s fingers curled gently around his. “So here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to take a breath. You’re going to stop spiraling. And we’re going to figure this out together. Like grown-ups. Not like the scared kid you were when we started this.”

“You’re okay with me loving her?” Max asked, voice raw.

“Not necessarily,” Kelly said, with a dry smile. “But I’m okay with the truth. Because if there’s any chance you can close that door—with clarity, not confusion—then I want you to do it.”

“And if I can’t?” he whispered.

Kelly’s expression didn’t flicker.

“Then we’ll decide what that means. But not like this. Not in guilt. Not in chaos. We don’t end like that.”

Max stared at her, the weight of everything between them heavier than ever. And yet… her steadiness grounded him.

Kelly leaned in, kissed his cheek, and whispered, “Go to her, Max. But do it with your eyes open. And come back to me with answers. Not ghosts.”

She stepped back, still looking at him like she knew exactly what this meant. Like she’d already done the math. And she wasn’t afraid of the result.

—

your pov

I wasn’t expecting anyone. The day had been long—emotionally draining in that slow, silent kind of way that made your chest ache without reason. I’d finally let myself unwind: hoodie on, hair wet, popcorn in hand, and some random Formula E replay humming in the background just loud enough to distract my brain from wandering back to Max. Always Max. So when the knock came, soft and polite but firm, I froze. No one knocked like that unless they were very sure of what they wanted. I set the popcorn down and padded barefoot to the door, a strange sense of déjà vu tightening in my stomach. I opened it—And there she was. Kelly.

Elegant, poised, unreadable. Standing at my door like she belonged there, like this wasn’t the weirdest, most emotionally charged fever dream of a moment I could imagine.

“Hi,” she said softly. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

She looked perfect, of course. Calm and expensive and untouched by the kind of spiral I’d been living in since I left Max in that room. Meanwhile, I was in yesterday’s sweats and a hoodie with a small tear in the sleeve.

Still, I stepped back. “Um… no. Do you… want to come in?”

“Only if you’re comfortable with that,” she said gently, already scanning the inside of my flat like she was taking mental notes. “I just wanted to talk.”

Something inside me said don’t, but I nodded anyway. “Sure.”

She walked in slowly, like she was floating. There was no tension in her body, no anger. That, somehow, was worse. Kelly didn’t sit. She wandered. Paused at the framed photo of Mick and me as kids. Glanced at the cluttered bookshelf. Her eyes lingered on a little trinket Max had given me when we were seventeen.  I felt suddenly exposed. Like I hadn’t cleaned up enough, like I hadn’t guarded enough. Finally, she turned to face me.

“I’ve wanted to meet you properly for a long time,” she said, voice low and even.

I frowned, unsure if I should sit or stand or melt into the floor. “Why now?”

Her smile was small, soft, and far too knowing. “Because now I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

My stomach dropped.

“I’d rather understand than pretend,” she added.

I looked down, heart thudding uncomfortably. “I never wanted to come between you and Max.”

“I believe you,” Kelly said, stepping closer, her tone kind. Not warm, exactly. But kind. “That’s part of why I’m here.”

I didn’t know what to say. I felt like I was being dissected—but politely. Elegantly.

She studied me for a moment longer. “He’s loved you for a long time. But that doesn’t scare me.”

I blinked. “It doesn’t?”

“No,” she said. “Because love isn’t a contest. It’s a conversation. And I’m not here to fight you, YN.”

She smiled then—soft, almost affectionate.

“I’m here to get to know you.”

I couldn’t stop staring at her. “Why?”

“Because if you’re going to keep holding pieces of the man I love… I’d like to know whose hands they’re in.”

Silence. Then Kelly tilted her head, calm as ever. “Dinner?”

My eyes widened. “Dinner?”

“Just the two of us,” she said, voice velvet-smooth. “Nothing dramatic. I’ll even let you pick the place.”

I didn’t answer right away. I wasn’t sure I could. Because somehow, Kelly Piquet inviting me to dinner was more terrifying than if she had shown up screaming. And yet… I nodded. Because a part of me needed to understand her too. And maybe—just maybe—I wanted to see what game she was playing. If it was a game at all.

—

I thought she might cancel. Some part of me assumed the invitation would vanish like a mirage. That she’d come to her senses and realize sitting down to dinner with her boyfriend’s once upon a time—and possibly still—in love with him ex girlfriend was a terrible idea. But she didn’t cancel. She showed up exactly on time. She wore a silky black blouse and dark-wash jeans that looked like they belonged in a Vogue editorial. Her hair was up in that effortless twist. Her earrings were small but sparkling, and her perfume smelled like money, like memory, like danger. I wore something neutral. Simple. Something I wouldn’t regret.

The restaurant was quiet, tucked into a leafy corner of Monaco with candles on every table and linen napkins that made me feel like I should whisper. We got a corner booth, far from prying eyes. The hostess looked at us like she recognized both our faces, but said nothing. Kelly ordered red wine. I didn’t. We didn’t speak at first. Just sat across from each other, quietly flipping through menus that neither of us were really reading.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” I said finally, forcing my voice not to shake.

Kelly glanced up, amused. “I wasn’t sure about you, either.”

I smiled despite myself. “You’re not what I expected.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What did you expect? Cold? Cruel?”

“Maybe. Or passive-aggressive.”

She chuckled softly. “I’m sure I’ve had my moments.”

Silence again. But it wasn’t tense. Not exactly. It felt like a game of chess, where every word was a move and every glance had weight.

“I meant what I said,” she said quietly, tracing her finger along the stem of her wine glass. “I’m not here to accuse you. I’m here because I wanted to know you.”

I nodded. “And what do you think so far?”

Kelly tilted her head. “You’re beautiful. Smarter than people probably give you credit for. And guarded as hell.”

My breath caught.

She smiled like she’d won something. “Did I lie?”

“No,” I admitted. “I just didn’t expect you to be so…”

“Disarming?” she offered.

“Charming,” I said instead.

We ordered food we wouldn’t finish. We talked more than I expected. She asked about modeling, about growing up with Mick, about my father. And when she listened—really listened—it felt like standing under warm light in a room I didn’t realize had been cold.

“You miss him,” she said gently after I mentioned Michael. “Your father. How he was before.” 

I blinked back the sudden sting. “Every day.”

She reached across the table then, without hesitation, and touched my hand. It was a small gesture. But it undid me.

“You don’t have to be brave with me,” she said. “I know what it’s like to lose someone and pretend you’re fine. You don’t have to do that here.”

I didn’t answer. I just let her hold my hand a moment longer than polite. And when I looked up, her expression had softened in a way that made my chest ache. There was something else in her eyes now. Not pity. Not suspicion. Curiosity. Admiration. Want. The shift was subtle—but it was there.

“I thought you hated me,” I whispered.

She laughed under her breath. “I tried. You’re incredibly hard to hate.”

I swallowed, pulse picking up. “You flirt like someone who shouldn’t be flirting.”

She leaned in slightly. “And you blush like someone who’s not sure if they want me to stop.”

My breath hitched. The air between us was suddenly electric—quiet, private, dangerous. I didn’t know what to say. Maybe there wasn’t anything to say.

She let the moment linger, then pulled back with a smile like a secret. “I’m not trying to confuse you, YN.”

“You’re doing it anyway.”

Kelly nodded, her eyes still fixed on mine. “I think I’m confusing myself, too.”

We sat in silence again, but this time it hummed. Like something new was being built from the ruins of something old. At the end of the night, when we stood from the table and the waiter brought the check, she paid without hesitation.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said, half-laughing.

“I wanted to,” she replied. Then, a pause. “I want a lot of things lately.”

She didn’t elaborate. But as we stepped outside into the cool Monaco air and she walked me to my car, she touched my arm and looked at me with that calm, careful intensity again.

“This isn’t over,” she said softly. “I don’t mean you and Max. I mean… this.”

My throat tightened. “This?”

“You and me.”

Then she smiled, kissed my cheek like it was the most natural thing in the world, and turned on her heel, disappearing into the night like a storm that hadn’t hit yet. And I just stood there, hand pressed to my face, wondering if I’d just walked into a whole new kind of chaos. And if I wanted to.

—

f1gossipgirls

5,031,045 likes.

f1gossipgirls : Well… this was not on our 2025 bingo card. In a twist that no one could’ve predicted, YN Schumacher and Kelly Piquet were spotted having dinner together in Monaco tonight—yes, that Kelly (Max’s current girlfriend) and that YN (his very unforgettable ex). Sources say the two looked remarkably close—smiles, soft touches, deep conversation. No tension, no drama… just chemistry? 👀 If you somehow missed the history— YN and Max were childhood sweethearts turned teenage lovers, and Kelly is his long-term partner now. So what exactly does this dinner mean? We have so many questions. Thoughts? Theories? Prayers? Because we’re not sure the paddock is ready for whatever this is. 

—

view 209,552 other comments.

username00 : i wanted drama and instead i’m lowkey shipping them?? like… do i need help?

username0 : sooo does this mean kelly and yn are… 👀 talking? getting along? plotting? falling in love? all of the above?

username1 : not kelly PIQUET joining the yn fanclub?? mother recognized mother. that’s all.

username5 : can someone PLEASE check on max. man probably dropped his Red Bull mid-sip when he saw this

↳ redbullracing : we are on it.

notlando6969 : i just KNOW max is pacing around the kitchen right now like “they’re talking?? about what?? ME???” 🧍🏻‍♂️

↳ username5 : bro stop making burner accounts and go check on your man AND WOMAN.

↳ f1gossipgirls : we know its you lando. cut the shit.

↳ lando : y’all are all so mean.

—

third person pov

Max was sitting on the couch when Kelly walked in—phone still in his hand, screen dimming from the dozens of notifications he hadn’t stopped scrolling through. He didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at her with that quiet, burning confusion he always got when something mattered too much.

Kelly set her purse down gently. “You saw?”

Max blinked once. “Hard to miss when the entire internet is screaming about it.”

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t look guilty. Just… calm. Collected. Like she had expected this. Max stood slowly. “You went to dinner with her.”

“I did.”

His jaw tensed. “Without telling me.”

Kelly took a step closer. “Would you have let me go if I had?”

He didn’t answer. Just stared at her like she was some puzzle he couldn’t figure out. A book in a language he used to know by heart and had forgotten somewhere along the way.

“I just—” Max ran a hand through his hair. “What was that, Kelly? What are you doing?”

She met his eyes, steady. “I’m getting to know her.”

He blinked, breath catching.

“And?” he asked, voice softer, almost a whisper.

Kelly tilted her head, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I think I like her.”

And then she walked past him—unbothered, barefoot, and humming lightly under her breath as if this was the most natural thing in the world. Leaving Max standing there, stunned and still very, very unsure of what was happening. Or what was coming next.

—

yn_schumacher

liked by kellypiquet, mickschumacher, maxverstappen1 and 9,002,007 others.

yn_schumacher : photo dump w all my faves

tagged : mickschumacher and kellypiquet

—

user has disabled comments on this post.

—

4 weeks later

I don’t know what I expected when Kelly invited me over. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t overanalyze the way her voice softened when she said, “Just come. I’ll cook.” I didn’t let myself spiral over the fact that Max would be there. I told myself it was just dinner. Casual. Harmless. But nothing about this situation has ever been harmless. Kelly and I had been together nonstop these last few weeks, both of us catching feelings for each other while we were both still tied to him. The elevator ride up to their apartment felt longer than it should’ve. My reflection in the mirrored walls betrayed every emotion I was trying to suppress—hope, nerves, the tight pull of guilt blooming in my chest. Kelly opened the door barefoot, her hair up in a loose bun, wearing one of those effortless silk dresses she somehow always made look regal. She smiled when she saw me—genuine, like she’d been waiting all day.

“Hi,” she said, and I swear to God, it hit me like a wave every single time.

“Hi,” I managed.

The apartment smelled like garlic and lemon and something faintly sweet. Jazz played softly in the background. There were candles on the table. And Max. He was standing by the kitchen counter, sleeves rolled up, drink in hand. Still, still Max. Same unreadable expression, same quiet intensity. His eyes found mine the second I stepped inside, and for a moment, it felt like we were sixteen again, hiding from the world and pretending time wasn’t running out.

“Hey,” he said, and it was soft. Almost unsure.

I nodded. “Hey.”

We sat. We ate. The food was good—of course it was, Kelly was good at everything. She carried the conversation with grace, like she knew we were both choking on everything we weren’t saying. Max barely looked at me. I tried to ignore the way it stung. The night wore on like slow honey. Heavy. Sticky. And then, somewhere between wine and dessert, Kelly stood up. She rested a hand on my shoulder, light and lingering, and turned to Max with that careful, pointed look I was learning meant more than she ever let on.

“I’m going to step out for a bit,” she said. “Max…”

She waited. Waited for him to meet her eyes. Then she glanced at me, smiled almost bittersweet, and said, “I know my feelings for her. You tell her yours.”

And just like that, she walked out. Left me alone with the boy I loved before I even knew what love was. Max stared at the table for a long time. He didn’t speak. Neither did I. The silence between us was loud enough to drown out the music still playing from the speakers. I could feel my pulse in my throat. Finally, he looked up.

“Do you ever think,” he started, voice hoarse, “that maybe we weren’t supposed to end?”

It was a whisper. A fracture in time.

I blinked. “All the time.”

He swallowed hard. “When I saw you again… in the paddock… it felt like I was breathing for the first time in years.”

I could feel tears rising, but I refused to let them fall.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I thought I didn’t deserve to. I have Kelly. I had you. And somehow I lost both.”

He stood slowly, walked around the table, and stopped just short of me. I didn’t move.

“Kelly knows how I feel,” he said, voice low. “She always has. But this… you and her… it’s real, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “I didn’t mean for it to be. I didn’t plan it. But it’s… safe. And warm. And she sees me.”

He stepped closer, so close I could feel the heat radiating off his skin. My breath hitched.

“So did I,” he whispered.

I looked up at him, and for the first time in years, I let myself truly see him. Not the world champion. Not the headlines. Just Max. Just my Max.

“I still do,” he said, eyes searching mine.

And before I could speak, before I could stop it or brace for it—he leaned in. And kissed me. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t cautious. It was everything we had buried. Everything we had swallowed for the sake of time and timing and other people. His hands came up to cradle my face like he was terrified I’d disappear. Like he’d waited years for this one breath, this one second, this one sliver of a chance to rewrite history. I kissed him back. Because I’d never stopped loving him. Because the ache had never left. Because nothing in the world had ever felt more right—or more wrong—and I couldn’t bring myself to care.

When we finally pulled apart, our foreheads rested together, breathing hard, hearts pounding in sync.

“I never stopped,” he whispered. “Not once.”

And neither did I. But I couldn’t say it. Not yet. Because I had feelings for Kelly too.

—

The kiss still lingered on my lips like a bruise. Max hadn’t moved, and neither had I. We stood there, pressed together by years of longing and guilt, by feelings we’d never buried deep enough. Our foreheads still touched, our breathing still uneven, our hands still unsure of what came next. I didn’t know how long we stood there. But the sound of the front door opening was like a needle to a bubble. Max pulled back just enough to look at me—eyes wide, like he’d just remembered Kelly existed. Like we’d both forgotten. And then she walked in.

Her feet padded gently against the floor, the scent of her perfume curling through the air before she even appeared fully in the doorway. Calm, composed, radiant. She looked between us, one hand still on the doorknob, expression unreadable. Max took a step back. My stomach dropped. My mouth opened.

“Kelly—”

She tilted her head, eyes flicking to me. “So… I’m assuming you kissed.”

Neither of us responded. She smiled like it wasn’t a surprise.

“Good.”

That caught me off guard. I blinked. “You’re not mad?”

She walked toward us slowly, like this was all happening exactly as she’d expected. Her coat slid off her shoulders and onto a chair. She crossed the room, graceful and unbothered, until she was standing just a breath away.

“No,” she said simply. “Why would I be?”

I swallowed, heat crawling up my neck. “Because I kissed your boyfriend.”

“My boyfriend,” she repeated gently, “has been in love with you since we met. I was never going to compete with that.”

She turned to Max. “And you…” her voice softened, “you’ve loved her longer than you’ve known what love even was.”

Max didn’t deny it. And I couldn’t breathe.

“But you love him,” I said, voice cracking. “You love him and I—” I hesitated, my chest tightening. “I love him too. But I also think I… I might be falling for you. And I don’t know what to do with that.”

There. It was out. Everything. Kelly stared at me for a long moment. The kind of moment where time felt suspended. Then she laughed. Soft and real. Her whole face lit up.

“Darling,” she said, stepping closer and brushing a strand of hair behind my ear, “that was my plan all along.”

I froze. “What?”

“I invited you to dinner that first night knowing what would happen. I knew Max would see you and remember everything he tried to bury. And I knew I would see you and…” She paused, her fingers lingering on my jaw now, eyes impossibly gentle. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.”

I stared at her. “But why?”

She smiled. “Because loving one of you was never enough.”

Max was silent behind me, but I felt his presence like a pulse.

Kelly looked between us. “I love him. And I’m in love with you. And you two—God, the way you look at each other…” She shook her head, her voice a whisper now. “You’re everything I want. Both of you.”

My breath hitched. I looked at Max. He was watching Kelly like she’d just rearranged his entire world. Then his eyes met mine again—so full of emotion it made my knees weak.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I admitted, voice shaking. “But I don’t want to lose either of you.”

Kelly stepped forward, wrapping her arms around me. I melted into her like it was second nature. Max joined us a moment later, one arm around my waist, the other slipping around Kelly’s back. The three of us stood there, tangled together, no longer pretending. Kelly’s voice was the last thing I heard before the tears finally slipped free.

“Then we don’t have to choose. Not anymore.”

—

yn_schumacher

liked by kellypiquet, maxverstappen1, lando & 10,001,203 others.

yn_schumacher : when in mexico or whatever they say.

—

user has disabled comments on this post.

—

maxverstappen1 has added two posts to his story!

seen by yn_schumacher, kellypiquet, mickschumacher and 7,920,115 others.

{caption 1 : beautiful views} {caption 2 : angel}

lando : ?? answer your phone.

↳ maxverstappen1 : no.

↳ lando : oh but you can answer that.

↳ maxverstappen1 : you are lucky i am so blinded by love bc normally i would just threaten to snap you in half.

liked by lando

↳ lando : awwwww have fun maxie

mickschumacher : i have so many words to say and all of them would land me in prison.

↳ maxverstappen1 : you can threaten me when we get back. you can yell all you want.

↳ mickschumacher : looking forward to it.

—

It was early. Not racing weekend early. Just Mexico early. The kind where the sunlight peeked through the gauzy curtains like it was shy, and the only sound was the ocean humming in the distance and the ceiling fan ticking lazily overhead.I was the first one to wake up. Or at least I thought I was, until I shifted and felt Max’s arm tighten around my waist, pulling me back into him with a sleepy groan.

“You’re not allowed to move yet,” he murmured into the back of my neck. “Vacation rule.”

I laughed softly. “What if I have to pee?”

“Hold it,” Kelly’s voice came from the other side of the bed, muffled by a pillow. “Or take me with you.”

I twisted around just enough to look between them. Max’s hair was a mess, falling into his eyes. Kelly had one leg slung dramatically over both of us, her silk sleep shirt barely hanging onto one shoulder. We looked like a tangle of limbs and tangled hearts.

“Okay,” I whispered, smiling, “new rule...no one moves unless it’s for coffee or kisses.”

Kelly rolled over to face me, eyes still half-lidded. “Mmm. I’ll take a kiss.”

I leaned in, pressing a soft one to the corner of her mouth. She smiled lazily, caught my jaw with her hand, and pulled me in for another—longer, warmer. Familiar now, but never dull. Max made a sound somewhere between a growl and a sigh behind me.

“Not fair.”

“Then come here, Verstappen,” Kelly said, still grinning, reaching past me to grab at his face.

He kissed her over my shoulder, then kissed me. We were all laughing through it—quiet and content and stupidly in love. Later, we finally rolled out of bed—only because Kelly threatened to starve if we didn’t. Max cooked breakfast shirtless in the outdoor kitchen, and I swear the man did it just to show off. He burned the eggs slightly, but I didn’t care. He looked happy. So did she. We ate on the patio with our feet propped up on each other’s chairs. I took a picture of Max feeding Kelly a bite of fruit, her sunglasses perched on her head, her mouth open in a fake gasp like she was being spoiled.

“I’m posting this,” I warned.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Kelly teased.

“I absolutely would.”

Later that afternoon, we took a boat out. Max drove it like he was qualifying. Kelly kept yelling at him in a mix of Portuguese and English, her arms flailing wildly, laughing too hard to be mad. I held on for dear life, screaming until Max slowed down just to shut us up with kisses and apologies.

There was a moment—just one—when the sun was setting, and the three of us sat in silence at the front of the boat. Max had his arm draped over my shoulders, Kelly’s head rested on my lap. The sky was painted in impossible shades of gold and coral. And all I could think was:

This is the kind of love you never plan for. The kind that breaks every rule, but fits anyway. The kind you fight for. The kind you stay for.

Kelly looked up at me then, eyes glowing in the sun, and whispered, “You look happy.”

I smiled, fingers brushing through her hair. “I am.”

Max kissed the top of my head. “We all are.”

And for once, it wasn’t complicated. It was just us. Exactly where we were supposed to be.

—

maxverstappen1

liked by yn_schumacher, kellypiquet, lando and 14,754,992 others.

maxverstappen1 : hard launch..? or whatever it's called.

yn, my first love, my angel. i do not deserve your forgiveness or love but somehow you found a way to give me both. i will love you forever.

kelly, i don’t think you’ll ever know what you’ve done for me. you loved me when i didn’t have the words, this — all of this — only exists because of your heart. you gave me space to love her, without ever asking me to stop loving you. and now? i get to love both of you, because you believed in something bigger than fear. thank you for being my home.

tagged : yn_schumacher and kellypiquet

—

view 992,547 other comments.

username00 : “my first love, my angel” I am SOBBING in a grocery store rn someone come get me 😭😭😭

username0 : yn and kelly are so hot together. im gay as hell.

username1 : shoutout to kelly piquet for being the most emotionally mature, quietly powerful woman alive.

liked by yn_schumacher

danielricciardo : poly verstappen era was not on my 2025 bingo card but i respect it deeply

liked by maxverstappen1, yn_schumacher and kellypiquet

lando : Never seen Verstappen this soft. I don’t know whether to hug you or roast you.

liked by maxverstappen1, yn_schumacher and kellypiquet

mickschumacher : Still watching you. But… I’m proud of you. Treat her right. Both of them. Always. 🫡

liked by maxverstappen1, yn_schumacher and kellypiquet

yn_schumacher : love you both forever and always. my angels.

liked by maxverstappen1 and kellypiquet

—

yn_schumacher

liked by kellypiquet, maxverstappen1, mickschumacher and 14,090,020 others.

yn_schumacher : since max decided we are hard launching...

i’ve spent a long time trying to outrun the past. trying to forget the way it felt to lose something that once felt like everything. but then max came back into my life…and kelly walked right in like she’d always been meant to stay. i never thought i’d find peace in something so complicated, but loving both of you has been the easiest thing i’ve ever done. max — you were my first love, and somehow still the one who makes me feel safest. kelly — you saw me, truly saw me, and chose me with such softness i didn’t know what to do with it. thank you for giving me space to come home. thank you for making room for love that doesn’t fit inside the lines. this isn’t traditional. it isn’t simple. but it’s ours. and that makes it everything.

tagged : kellypiquet and maxverstappen1

—

user has limited comment access on this post.

maxverstappen1 : you are my heart, always. thank you for loving me again. thank you for choosing both of us. forever.

liked by yn_schumacher and kellypiquet

kellypiquet : and i’ll never stop loving either of you. you are everything, yn. always have been. always will be. 🤍

liked by yn_schumacher and maxverstappen1

mickschumacher : i always knew max would be a schumacher somehow. sigh. happy for you, sis:)

liked by yn_schumacher and maxverstappen1

lando : can someone PLEASE write this into a Netflix special. i’ll fund it.

liked by yn_schumacher and maxverstappen1

↳ yn_schumacher : ily but i am going to block you.

liked by maxverstappen1 and kellypiquet

—

[byrdiboo]

This is something I've tried to beat into people's heads whenever they tell me they "just use AI for this one little thing" That is one little thing you're not learning from and it's usually the basis for everything else you're doing. "I wanna make a game but don't know coding so I made ChatGPT write the code for me" Cool, so you're proudly admitting you learned absolutely nothing about how your game works, meaning when anything goes wrong you'll have no idea how to find the problem or what to do about it, and can't even ask the original writer because they don't exist. If you go to some tech forum and find some post that does the thing you're trying to do, even if you just copy+paste you're still likely going to glean *something* from the forum. At the very least, you've learned how to find help, and if you need further help you can just...ask the people involved because they're probably still around doing the same thing. The old scolding of "if you put as much effort into learning as you put into cheating you'd have passed anyway" implies *effort* Effort is good actually. Begging everyone to stop willingly handing their higher functions to the Hallucinating Plagiarism Machines (TM).

Whenever I think about students using AI, I think about an essay I did in high school. Now see, we were reading The Grapes of Wrath, and I just couldn't do it. I got 25 pages in and my brain refused to read any more. I hated it. And its not like I hate the classics, I loved English class and I loved reading. I had even enjoyed Of Mice and Men, which I had read for fun. For some reason though, I absolutely could NOT read The Grapes of Wrath.

And it turned out I also couldn't watch the movie. I fell asleep in class both days we were watching it.

This, of course, meant I had to cheat on my essay.

And I got an A.

The essay was to compare the book and the movie and discuss the changes and how that affected the story.

Well it turned out Sparknotes had an entire section devoted to comparing and contrasting the book and the movie. Using that, and flipping to pages mentioned in Sparknotes to read sections of the book, I was able to bullshit an A paper.

But see the thing is, that this kind of 'cheating' still takes skills, you still learn things.

I had to know how to find the information I needed, I needed to be able to comprehend what sparknotes was saying and the analysis they did, I needed to know how to USE the information I read there to write an essay, I needed to know how to make sure none of it was marked as plagerized. I had to form an opinion on the sparknotes analysis so I could express my own opinions in the essay.

Was it cheating? Yeah, I didn't read the book or watch the movie. I used Sparknotes. It was a lot less work than if I had read the book and watched the movie and done it all myself.

The thing is though, I still had to use my fucking brain. Being able to bullshit an essay like that is a skill in and of itself that is useful. I exercised important skills, and even if it wasnt the intended way I still learned.

ChatGTP and other AI do not give that experience to people, people have to do nothing and gain nothing from it.

Using AI is absolutely different from other ways students have cheated in the past, and I stand by my opinion that its making students dumber, more helpless, and less capable.

However you feel about higher education, I think its undeniable that students using chatgtp is to their detriment. And by extension a detriment to anyone they work with or anyone who has to rely on them for something.

[marvelouslymarly]

So I saw something that said you’re taking requests? If that is true, can I request a Bob Reynolds x reader where reader is perpetually cold and uses Bob as a heater?

Warmth [Bob Reynolds x female!reader]

“Hold me in this wild, wild world - ‘cause in your warmth I forgot how cold it can be”

Pairing: Bob Reynolds/Robert Reynolds/The Sentry x fem thunderbolts!reader

Requested: Yes✨️ (requests are open!!)

CW: none, it's just fluff!! (well, maybe some awkward!Bob but idk if that needs a warning)

Masterlist

Word count: ~5k

[A/N: [y/nn] = your nickname]

[A/N #2: I'm sorry it took me so long to write this one! Uni's been quite stressful lately, and apparently, it's much harder for me to write when it's for someone else🥲 but I loved the challenge, so I'm looking forward to getting more requests!!! Hope you enjoy😊]

This is not beta-read oopsieee

Ever since you moved into the Watchtower, you’d been freezing perpetually. This wasn’t something that was new to you. Not entirely. The heating at your old place had always been set to a cosy 71°F because, even in a thick hoodie and fuzzy socks, you were used to constantly having cold hands and feet. In school, people used to make fun of you for wearing sweatshirts well into June when most of them had long put away their long-sleeved clothes. Now, in the Watchtower, you were lucky if someone turned the thermostat up to 65°F. John and Bucky - but especially John - would go on about how they couldn’t handle it if the apartment got too warm, arguing that they tend to run hot because of the serum. But Bob and Alexei never seemed to be too opposed to leaving the thermostat set to a temperature that didn’t have the rest of you feeling like you were living in a cold store.

“Why can’t you girls just put on a hoodie if you’re cold?”John moaned and turned on the AC before sitting down in his usual armchair, sweat stains on his shirt from his morning jog.

“Because having the AC on full blast is bad for the environment. Just get over yourself,” Ava tried to reason, getting up from the couch and turning down the AC again.

“It’s four supersoldiers living here. And three women. That’s clearly a majority. If you’re cold, you should put on some warmer clothes,” John retorted, joining Ava at the thermostat once more.

“John, you cannot play the ‘I am a supersoldier’ card every time you’re losing an argument,” Yelena rebutted, her Eastern European accent thick, and rolled her eyes. “Bob and Alexei don’t seem to have a problem with setting the AC to a temperature everyone feels comfortable with.”

“Alexei basically loves to sit around in his robe and tighty whities and Bob’s probably just too much of a wuss to say anything,” John snapped and looked at Bob who had been really quiet this whole conversation. Hearing his name caught Bob’s attention, having him look around the room, trying to figure out what he’d done.

“Hey, there’s no need to get personal, Walker,” you interfered, looking up from your book. You met Bob’s eyes and sent him a soft smile. He relaxed a little, his shoulders dropping back to their usual level. You stretched out your leg and poked his side with your foot, getting a small smile from him in return.

“I’m not the one who’s making this personal, Yel-"

Walker quickly shut up when he heard heavy footsteps coming down the hallway and turned to see Bucky walk into the living room, an annoyed expression on his face.

“Okay, what’s going on here, and who started it?”

“Walker!” The four of you said in unison, and Bucky sighed loudly, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his right hand.

Walker looked around the room, an exasperated look on his face, and his finger pointed at his own chest.

“How is this my fault? Besides, Bob, are you fucking kidding me? You can’t speak up for yourself but then you’re ready to throw me under the bus the second you get a chance?” There was an angry sneer on John’s face and when your gaze fell on Bob once more, you realised that he’d shrunken into the couch cushions, seeming considerably tinier than he actually was.

“Sorry, Walker, but I’m on the girls’ side on this one.”

“Of course you are,” John muttered, rolling his eyes again and turning to walk to his room, when Bucky’s arm landed across his chest.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Bucky asked, his voice filled with frustration.

After the discussion that ensued, you’d all agreed to keep the temperature of the common rooms to a more agreeable 69°F, still very much to John’s displeasure. Eventually, everyone seemed to get used to the temperature in the shared living spaces. Well, that was everyone but you. You blamed it on bad circulation and an iron deficiency that you couldn’t quite seem to shake completely. So, you put on a sweater and some fluffy socks most times you left your bedroom and tried to tell you that it was ok - that, maybe, you just took longer to get used to the temperature shift between your bedroom and the living room or kitchen.

But then there was that one day where the AC malfunctioned, and none of you could figure out a way to shut it off. God, that was probably John’s favourite day of the year because he finally got what he wanted all this time. After desperately trying to stay warm in your room, you gave up and figured that maybe you’d be warmer in the living room with the afternoon sun streaming in. Yelena and Ava were sitting in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, trying to warm themselves in the sun, quietly bickering about John who was lounging on the couch, wearing a tank top and shorts, his bare feet on the coffee table. He had a smug smile on his lips when he saw you come into the living room, wearing a thick cardigan over your oversized hoodie and sweat pants. You’d shoved your feet into the warmest pair of slippers that still fit over the thickest socks you had, but yet, you still felt cold.

“Where are you going? The Arctic?" John laughed, sitting up straighter to get a better look at your outfit while you walked around the back of the couch, looking for a cosy spot to read. You didn’t reply, just sent him an annoyed glare and then pulled your cardigan tighter around your frame.

“Guess it’s not just the temperature that’s freezing in here,” he muttered under his breath and slumped back down in his seat.

“You know, you can just shut up. You get that, right?” Ava countered and closed her eyes against the sun, leaning back onto her elbows.

"What did I say now?” His arms were stretched over his head, completely oblivious that his joke from before wasn’t funny at all.

“John Walker, if a woman tells you to be quiet, you should really be quiet,” Alexei told him, shaking a raised index finger into John’s direction and looking at John over the edge of his newspaper, his head cocked forward.

John didn’t say much after that anymore, just mumbled a few words into his beard. It got quiet again in the living room, everyone going back to what they were doing before you entered the living room. But you couldn’t concentrate on your book, annoyed by the way your cold toes touched each other inside your socks and how there was a constant flow of cold air coming from the exposed vents hanging from the high ceiling. Even the throw blanket you’d grabbed from the edge of the couch a few minutes after sitting down in the bean bag by the window didn’t seem to keep you warm enough. You put the bookmark between the pages of your book and then set it aside on the floor before pulling the blanket up under your chin, shivering slightly.

“God, it’s so cold,” you muttered, rubbing your arms under the blanket and trying to generate some heat. “Did Bucky say anything about when they’ll come around and fix the AC?” you asked, looking at Yelena and Ava.

They shook their heads, Yelena telling you that Bucky had tried to get some people down here but didn’t have any luck. With her face turned to the window, she look like a cat basking in the sun.

“Apparently they’re all too busy with installing ACs all over New York,” Ava added and shrugged her shoulders, a sorry expression on her face.

“Hey, [y/nn], if you want, you can come and sit with me. I give great dad hug! Yelena can confirm. Right, Lenochka?” Alexei opened his arms invitingly and let his eyes wander between you and Yelena, whose face pulled an embarrassed grimace.

“Dad, please don’t take this the wrong way. But I don’t think [y/n] wants a dad hug from you, right now.”

“That’s really nice of you, Alexei,” you thanked him, sending him a kind smile.

He nodded, his shoulders slumping a little, but his bright grin didn’t falter. “Always! You are family now!”

It was then that Bob and Bucky walked into the living room, carrying seven cups of hot cocoa, whipped cream in a can, a packet of mini marshmallows, and some cookies between the two. They set the mugs down on the coffee table and told us to get together.

“OK, Bob and I have made the executive decision that we’re gonna drink some hot cocoa and have ourselves a lil movie night.”

“Bucky, it’s 4 in the afternoon,” John noted, looking at his wristwatch, and Bucky sent him a glare.

“If you don’t wanna join us, then suit yourself, Walker. I bet Valentina still has some paperwork you can take care of, if you really wanna work,” Bucky schooled him, sitting down in his usual spot on the couch.

“No, no. It’s fine! Movie time it is.”

The team all cosied up on the couch, leaving a spot between Bob and Yelena for you. You plopped down, pulling your knees to your chest and wrapping your arms around your legs, hoping you’d stay warmer this way.

“Want some blanket [y/n]?” Bob offered and lifted the blanket he’d put over his legs a second before. You reached over to him, your fingers brushing against his as you pulled on the fabric a little. His fingers were warm, toasty even, and your eyes went up to meet his gaze.

“How are you not freezing?” you asked him, your fingers staying wrapped around his for a moment, hoping to coax some of his warmth.

“Well, I kinda run hot…” His voice wobbled a little, and he gulped, his cheeks turning pink. Bob averted his gaze, his eyes moving down to your hand slowly slipping into his, but you could still see him bite his lip nervously.

“Wish that was me right now, to be honest,” you mumbled and put his hand on your cheek, leaning into his palm. “I feel like I might actually turn into a fucking ice cube every second now.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s a perk in situations like these…” His thumb swiped over your cheek instinctively, a soft smile on his face, and then his eyes sparkled a little, going wide. “You could… come a little closer. Maybe I can help you warm up?” Bob motioned his head for you to move on over and put his arm out for you.

You didn’t have to be told twice, quickly scooching over to him and putting your head on his shoulder. The second his arm wrapped around your back, it felt like a warm and cosy blanket being placed around you, the citrusy-yet-earthy scent of his cologne enveloping your senses. You got a little more comfortable, putting your feet between his crossed legs. Bob’s hand dropped to your knees, rubbing up and down your shins, the friction creating a soothing warmth on your skin.

“Wait, I wanna cuddle, too,” Yelena exclaimed, scooching over, too, and throwing her arms around the two of you. Her head came to rest against your back, and she hummed as her fingertips drew lazy patterns on your knees.

You stayed like that for a while, Yelena eventually lying down in the space that you’d left vacant by moving to basically sit in Bob’s lap and falling asleep, soft snores rumbling behind you every now and then. At some point, your knees had fallen against Bob’s chest, and you’d cuddled up closer to him, his cheek resting against your temple.

“Are you getting warmer?” He asked, looking at you from the corner of his eyes, and you nodded, the comforting warmth of his embrace slowly lulling you to sleep as well. His hand moved from its resting place on your ankles to your cheek, and he ran his thumb over it again.

“If you wanna nap, I’ll keep you safe from turning into a popsicle, ok?” There was a certain easy playfulness to his voice that made your heart skip a beat.

You nodded drowsily and burrowed your face in his neck, closing your eyes against the flickering lights emanating from the TV. With the hot cocoa warming you from the inside and Bob’s arms wrapped around your frame, it didn’t take long for you to get swept off to dreamland.

Bob’s voice woke you up a little later, his breath hot against your ear: “Hey, we’re ordering take out, you want something?” His thumb was caressing your cheek again, and your eyes fluttered open, trying to blink away sleep. “What are you getting?”, you mumbled groggily and wiped at your eyes, slowly pulling away from him.

“Chinese. We’ve already gotten mini spring rolls and wontons but we weren’t sure what you’d wanna eat,” Bucky told you, looking at you from behind Bob. He smiled at you and then handed you his phone. “Get yourself something nice, Val’s paying.” Bucky sent you a wink and then leant back against the couch, his eyes back on the TV.

~~~

You were tossing and turning in your bed, the covers pulled up under your chin in a futile attempt to stay warm. The cold had crept into your very bones, and nothing seemed to help anymore. You’d tried tea and more hot chocolate and even made a cup of hot milk with honey, hoping that it’d warm you up enough to fall asleep. But it had been almost an hour of tossing, and you were getting fed up with each tick-tock of the clock hanging over your bedroom door.

You turned on your phone and looked at the lockscreen, a too bright 1:47 am glaring back at you. You sighed and locked your phone again, turning onto your side and pulling your legs to your chest. Images of earlier that day ran through your mind like a film through a projector, the only thing missing being the rattling noise of the cooling fans and the motor. Memories of Bob’s arm slung around your shoulder, his hand rubbing up and down your upper arm. His blue eyes flashing over to you every now and again as if checking to see you’re still you and haven’t turned into a human icicle. His other hand was drawing loose patterns on the bare skin from where your joggers had ridden up above the thick socks. You hadn’t even noticed at first. It felt too natural for him to hold you like that. Especially after having yearned to feel his hands on your body in any way for so long.

His touch had sent tiny sparks through you, like bursts of electrical currents, and with them came a pleasant warmth. A warmth that made your insides heat up in a way that the hot chocolate couldn’t. You ached to feel this warmth again. To feel the childlike excitement that ran through your veins while being in his arms. To have his delectable scent cloud your senses with every inhale.

You longed for his warmth so much that you hadn’t noticed yourself get up out of bed. You only realised when the cold of the door handle crept up through your fingers. You pushed the handle down, trying to be as quiet as possible, knowing that your door tended to creak when opened too quickly. Not that any of your other team members should’ve been awake at this hour, but still, you wanted to ensure that no one knew about your night-time stroll. Deep down, you were scared that Bob would open the door. That he’d be awake to find you standing at this doorstep, shivering from the low temperatures in the Tower.

Once you reached Bob’s bedroom door on the other side of the apartment, you let your hand hover for a second, your blood rushing in your ears and your heart skipping a beat or two. Taking a deep breath, you knocked on his door as softly as possible, barely making any noise. You could hear faint shuffling from the other side of the door, the groan of the bedframe under Bob’s body. You waited, quietly counting in your head. Then there were footsteps but they stopped again. You imagined Bob standing on the other side of the door, unsure if he’d imagined the rapping at this door. You inhaled, held your breath for a second, exhaled. Then again. The tips of your fingers rested against the cool wood, tingling. You wanted to knock another time, but your brain didn’t seem able to send the signal to lift your hand and knock again.

Just as you found yourself turning towards the door, the door handle moved downwards. The door opened a smidge, and your eyes travelled upwards, slowly, like those of a scared animal. Blocking the warm glow of the lamp on his bedside table, Bob’s eyes met yours, and then his eyebrows hitched up, just for a split second before a smile took over his features.

“[y/n]?” His voice was barely above a whisper, hoping to protect the serene tranquillity of night. He opened the door a little wider and you realised that he was only wearing a pair of boxers. They sat low on his hips, and there was the tiniest trail of hair running down from underneath his belly button and disappearing into his underwear. You shook your head, trying to peel your gaze from his hips and remember why you’d come here. “Are you ok?”

You nodded, your hand brushing away a strand that had fallen into your face. You tried to come up with an appropriate explanation, one other than ‘hey, I’m cold, can we have a cuddle?’ but you found yourself at a momentary loss of words.

“Oh no, I think you’ve turned into a popsicle, after all.” His words were followed by a soft chuckle, and your eyes went to the floor. You suddenly felt incredibly stupid for leaving your bedroom and walking to his in the middle of the night.

“I… I think I should go back, uh, to my room,” you murmured, your hand lifting to have your thumb point in the direction of where you came from. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” You turned again, and just as you were to take the first step, Bob came up behind you and put his hand on your shoulder. Warmth radiated through your arm and chest, and you felt yourself lean into his touch a little.

“[y/n], wait. You didn’t wake me up.” His grip on your shoulder tightened a little, and he added: “God, you really are freezing…”

“Yeah, well… you run hot and I run cold…”, you murmured and you let your head fall.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make fun of you… Do you… I mean…”, he stammered, trying to find the right words. “Do you wanna come inside? I could… I mean, we could… you know…”

You looked over your shoulder and saw his Adam’s apple bop up and down as he gulped, unease taking over his face in the shadows.

“Do you want a hug?” He finally offered and scratched the back of his head.

“Yes, please.” The words fell from your lips before you had the chance to stop them, so you bit down on your bottom lip, trying to stop any more from escaping. You rolled your eyes at yourself, took a deep breath, and then turned back to him, your mind getting hazy from all the back and forth. “Yes, I would really like a hug right now?”

The softest ‘ok’ came from Bob, and he opened his door to let you step into his bedroom. He opened his arms, and you walked up to him. The second his arms wrapped around you, you felt the tension fall away, and you melted into him. Into the warm glow that enveloped you. You buried your head against his chest, closing your eyes, and wrapped your arms around him, too. His muscles tensed and then relaxed again under your fingertips, getting used to the cold of your touch.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled and looked up at him, pulling your head back a little.

“No, you’re good, sweetheart,” he put his head on top of yours and pulled you even closer. Your heart bloomed at the pet name, adding to the warmth taking over your body with every second he held you close. He closed the door, pushing at the wooden slab with his foot, and let his fingers run through your hair.

“Can I stay with you tonight?” Your words were hesitant, barely audible in the darkness of his room. You hoped that the darkness would just swallow them. That Bob couldn’t feel the way your heart was racing and how it skipped a beat whenever his thumb brushed over that one spot on your back. “It’s just that it’s so cold in my room and I can’t fall asleep when…”

You could feel his head bop in affirmation before he even uttered the words: “Of course you can stay here tonight.” You didn’t know just how badly he tried to suppress the urge to add ‘you can stay here every night’. The words were on the tip of his tongue, threatening to burst free. Instead, he pulled away from you and then motioned to his bed.

Bob walked over but you stayed in your place at the door, watching him lift the covers and then climb in. That’s when he looked up and frowned for a split second before he patted the mattress.

“Don’t worry, I won’t bite.” He sent you a sheepish smile and winked at you, earning a breathy laugh from you.

Mustering up every little ounce of confidence, you shuffled over to him and climbed into bed next to him. You didn’t plant yourself right next to him, no, but left a little gap, suddenly feeling like you were a teenager again and sitting in bed with your crush for the very first time. You clasped your hands over the covers and tried to hide the smile at your own nervousness. You might kick ass on a daily basis, but sitting in bed with Bob seemed to be your very own final boss.

“You can come closer, I don’t mind,” Bob assured and opened his arms again, inviting you to scooch over.

“I don’t know why I am so nervous,” you lied, looking over at him and biting on your bottom lip anxiously. “I mean, we literally cuddled earlier… in front of everyone else…”

“Right? I mean, it’s not like we haven’t done this before,” he agreed and you could see his cheeks turning pink. “I could, uh, put on a shirt if you want. If you feel more comfortable then.” He pointed at his wardrobe and shrugged his shoulders.

“No, that’s ok.”

Your eyes travelled down his face. Over his throat. Stopping to watch the vein flutter under his skin quickly for a second. His chest rose and fell with every inhale and exhale. Your gaze moved further down, following the trail of hair that disappeared under the blanket and then to his hand.

“I'm sorry, I tend to… freeze when I'm nervous.” When you realised the unintended pun you laughed at yourself, and then looked back at his face. There was a smile tugging at the corners of his eyes, and you realised the nervousness abate.

You scooched closer to Bob and let him wrap his arm around your shoulder, pulling you close to bridge the distance. He put his head against your temple, and you cosied up against his chest, your hand resting on his pectoral muscles.

“Did you have another nightmare?” You asked him, your gaze travelling up to him slowly.

“Why do you ask?” His voice was filled with confusion, and he met your eyes.

“Well, you said you were already awake when I knocked… it's quite late, so,” you explained and let your fingers trail up his chest, running along the edge of his collarbone.

“Oh! No… I just couldn't get my mind to quiet down,” he revealed, his eyes following the movement of your fingers. The vein in his neck started to pulse more quickly, and you let your finger run over it slowly, carefully.

“I'm sorry…Anything in particular?” You looked at him from underneath your lashes and smiled at him.

His eyes wandered to your lips and stayed there for a second before he looked away, over to his bedroom door.

“Uh, no,” he chuckled, and then his eyes flitted to you for a brief second before leaving your gaze again. He did this often when he lied to John or even to Yelena. “Just this and that, you know.”

“Yeah, I get that, too, sometimes.” You put your head on his shoulder again and tried to hide the smile from spreading. “We should probably try and get some sleep, though.”

You could feel Bob nod his head again, and then he scooted down, pulling you with him. Your leg snaked over his thigh, tangling itself with his legs and his left hand found your elbow. He started drawing loose patterns on his skin again, and you could hear his heart skip a beat with your head resting on his chest.

“Are… are you warm enough like this?” His hand left your elbow and he made to pull up the covers.

“Yeah, you're pretty hot, so…” You could hear him choke on his spit a little, his body turning away from you while he tried to catch his breath again. “I mean, you're pretty warm. Body temperature wise…” You sat up, your hands clasping together in your lap while the heat rose up your neck, making your cheeks burn.

When he caught his breath again, he ran his hand over his face and chuckled softly.

“Yeah, of course,” he looked at you from over his shoulder and took a deep breath. “Of course that's what you meant.” He coughed once more and then turned back to you.

“I mean, why would you mean anything else?” Bob shrugged his shoulders, and there was a sorry smile on his face.

“Why wouldn't I? It's not like you aren't hot, you know… It's just... We're teammates, right?” You were scrambling for words, your hands getting clammy with every passing second. “And just because I think you're hot doesn't mean… that doesn't mean you feel the same about me, so…”

His eyes went wide, and suddenly, you were scared he'd choke again. He turned around fully, his hands moving all over the place nervously.

“Please don't choke again,” you begged him and moved back on the mattress. Your feet were on the floor as the regret set in. “I think, I… I’m just gonna… Go back to my own room.”

You stumbled back, readjusting the shirt you were wearing, and tried to make your way to the bedroom door in the dim light.

“Wait. Stay, please!” Bob hurried after you and stopped you, his right hand resting on your left arm. His left hand cupped your cheek, and you closed your eyes, scared to find pity in his gaze. “Please, look at me.”

You obliged him, meeting his eyes, and you were surprised when you found no pity in them. Only the softness radiating off of the smile that was spreading on his lips.

“You don't even realise how wrong you are about me not feeling the same way about you…” There was a certain something about the way he said those words. Like he'd wanted to get them off his chest for a long time. “And I don't care about us being teammates.” He puffed out his chest a little, and you snickered at the image in front of you.

“Bucky would kill us, if he knew,” you laughed and he shrugged, his thumb brushing over your cheek.

“Last time I checked, I'm kind of invincible. But still, it'd be a good reason to go, you know.”

You nodded at him, a big grin on your lips. There was a flutter in your tummy, like butterflies from being in love for the first time. When he leaned down to you, his fingers on your chin to pull you closer, your breath hitched, and your eyes flitted to his lips.

“Can… can I kiss you?” His words were soft and so quiet you weren't sure if you'd heard him right. But you found yourself nodding anyway, turning your head upwards a little and closing your eyes. The kiss was timid at first. Slow and tentative. Barely there.

But when he realised you wouldn't pull away, he sighed quietly and deepened the kiss. You melted against him. His arms wrapped around you, and your hands went up into the hair at the back of his neck. And suddenly, you felt a warmth spread through your whole body, making you think that you'd never felt warmth before.

_____

Taglist (if you want me to add you to future projects, just let me know):

@flaneurpastel

[hypertechnica]

exploring unexplained darkner lore: WHEN does a darkner gain consciousness, exactly?

alternate title: WOODY THEORY IS ACTUALLY RELEVANT BUT NOT IN THE WAY WE THOUGHT??? MAYBE???

there are so many unanswered questions regarding how darkners and dark worlds “work” and i’m really fascinated by the worldbuilding put out so far - but we still don’t really know what the deal is, not really.

the way ralsei explains dark worlds in chapter 3 basically tells us what we already know, but explicitly - darkners are objects in the light world. they’re not “real” and derive “purpose” from being needed by lightners (which is a whole can of worms.)

as evidenced by lancer’s “all gone!” reaction to susie asking where his dark world went in chapter 2, sealing dark fountains DOES effectively destroy the world, but not necessarily the people inside it (if you decide to recruit them.) there’s an obvious ethical dilemma here that’s been on people’s minds since chapter 1 came out. to me, the biggest question is:

does the dark world always exist, inaccessible to lightners, or is it physically created and destroyed on the same day? are the fountains portals or creators?

the repeated phrase “the unending pillar of darkness that gives my body form” (ralsei’s unused manual)/“the dark fountain that gives the world form” (tv time credits) (there might be more instances im forgetting idk) does imply the latter, as well as the descriptions of “creating fountains” “making dark worlds” as opposed to, say, “opening doors” to them.

but the concept of time here is… weird. darkners consistently refer to the past, every dark world we enter has history, darkners even speak of people from other dark worlds! and the histories always parallel what happened to their corresponding object and space in the light world. chaos king is bitter and hates lightners because they abandoned him and everyone else - because they’re toys left in an abandoned classroom. cyber city doesn’t have this problem because they’re situated in a computer library regularly used by lightners, but queen is struggling with the internet outage. kris’ living room is… a child of divorce. and chapter 4? man i don’t even know. the darkners in the church are so cryptic i haven’t been able to analyse it properly.

so if darkners remember their lives as objects, were they always alive, or were they created by the fountains and “implanted” with those memories? are they even “real” memories?

chapter 3 raises the most questions regarding this. tenna KNOWS kris, watched them grow up. ramb comments on how kris and their friends used to play make believe WITH THE SAME OBJECTS we know now - im failing to remember the line but i know it mentioned how queen and king were at war! and in chapter 4 it’s revealed that dark worlds are warped by the mind that creates them. this raises so many questions - are all objects in the light world sentient and able to communicate with each other, just invisible to lightners? or are objects “summoned” into consciousness with memories of their lives automatically created for them?

and that made me fucking realize. ARE DARKNERS LIKE THE TOYS IN FUCKING TOY STORY???? THINK ABOUT IT. TGINK ANBOUT IT

tenna’s past with spamton is a huge indicator of this - they were business partners, right? and they had a falling out because of a mutual misunderstanding involving the mysterious person calling spamton and making him a Big Shot. well, how the hell did spamton know tenna, if they’re from different dark worlds?

in what i’m fairly certain is game tenna’s last piece of dialogue in the sword route, he says “they never should have brought that computer home…”

spamton knows tenna and mike before tenna’s dark world is created. they communicated and had a relationship before ANY of the dark worlds were created if we take “1997” as the literal year of spamton being a big shot. all because the dreemurs brought a computer home, allowing tenna to meet spamton… now, you could argue that this is because the prophecy is controlling everything, but we already see ways in which the prophecy has been contradicted, so i’m uncertain if the prophecy has THAT strong of a hold on the world. (if that ages bad in the next ten years womp womp)

AND. although we don’t know if this is every object or just objects that have previously been animated via fountains, but tenna shows signs of sentience even in the light world!!! y’all know the line of dialogue with mettaton where he plays a “salacious music video”!!!! look!!!!! THE OBJECTS ARE SENTIENT ITS FUCKING TOY STORY

DARKNERS EITHER LITERALLY LIVE AS SENTIENT OBJECTS (LIKE TOY STORY, THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER, ETC) OR IN A MORE ETHEREAL SENSE LIVE ON A SEPARATE PLANE OF EXISTENCE AS DARKNERS BUT CAN ONLY DIRECTLY INTERACT W LIGHTNERS WHEN A FOUNTAIN GIVES THEM ANTHROPOMORPHIC FORM

WAITER! MORE WOODY THEORY PLEASE gets shot 57 times

[lowrisemiller]

ᴠᴇʟᴠᴇᴛ ᴄʀᴏᴡʙᴀʀ

this one-shot is inspired by lana del rey’s unreleased song velvet crowbar

javier peña x DEA!fem!reader

javi gif from @perotovar divider by @uzmacchiato

you came to Colombia from New York with a badge, a mission, and no intention of getting attached. but months later when you’re scarred, restless, and unable to forget what you and javier peña went through—you’re not sure what’s left to hold onto. until one night, he shows up at her door, and nothing feels like duty anymore.

masterlist | 7.8k words | photos do not depict what reader looks like | mentions drugs, canon narcos talk, javi has a real bad drinkin problem, allusions of violence, reader gets kidnapped, slooowww burn, lots of javi pov!, smutty smut smut, he loves suckin on tits sue me, munch!javi duh, surprise surprise they hit it raw (DONT DO THAT), soft sex lots of I love you's, little bit of javi receiving head, & riding

I was addicted to you but I didn't know it .✦ You were afflicted by booze .✦ You didn't show it huh .✦ Life is a velvet crowbar Hitting you over the head .✦ You're bleeding but you want more .✦ "This is so like you," I said “Put yourself on back to bed.”

Bogotá smells like rain and grit, like wet stone and burnt coffee and something darker that never quite washes away. You step off the plane in the thick of the rainy season, boots hitting pavement slick with oil, and you already know the city will not be kind to you.

You’re DEA. Five years in New York. Undercover buys, dead drops, informants with trembling hands and blood under their nails. You were good at it, good enough to get noticed. Good enough to be transferred. Now you’re here, knee-deep in the worst war on drugs the agency’s ever seen, and they’ve dropped you into it like you’re a match in a powder keg.

They told you you’d be part of something bigger. That your experience was needed. What they didn’t say—what they didn’t need to say—was that you were walking into a man’s world. A dirty, blood-slicked one that doesn’t make room for women unless they’re bleeding, bruised, or biting back.

Not that you’re entirely surprised. You came from the Big Apple after all.

They talk over you at meetings. Call you mamacita under their breath. Smirk when you offer suggestions. You learn fast that respect isn’t given here. It’s taken.

So you take it.

You drag a cartel runner out of a brothel in the south side of the city, in the middle of the bustling street, cuff him with his pants around his ankles, and drive him back yourself with a cracked rib and half your blouse stained red. The next day, no one calls you sweetheart. They still don’t like you, but they know better.

The job is constant. Always moving. Surveillance, raids, interrogations, bullshit. Colombia eats agents alive. You see it in the eyes of the rookies, the twitchy ones. They come in wide-eyed and go home in body bags or not at all. You’re not sure which you’ll be yet.

You hear about Peña before you meet him. Always just out of frame, the center of every whispered rumor.

He’s the hotshot. The one who plays dirty, drinks harder than he sleeps, and somehow stays three steps ahead of Escobar’s men. Murphy says he’s bad news. Carrillo says he’s driven. Everyone else just says he’s dangerous—and not just to the people he’s chasing.

You try not to care. You’ve dealt with men like him before. Charisma surrounds him like smoke. Charm like a loaded gun. But the name lingers in your mind long after lights-out.

You see him for the first time at the embassy, late at night when the halls are empty and the fluorescent lights hum low overhead. He’s leaning against a doorframe, shirt wrinkled and stained with something too dark to be wine, tie hanging loose like a noose around his neck.

He looks at you like he already knows everything. You slow your steps, your gaze catching on the way his fingers twitch, like he’s halfway through lighting a cigarette that isn’t there.

“You’re the one from New York,” he says, voice low and rough around the edges.

You nod. “That’s me.”

He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t even blink. Just let his gaze drag across your face, down to the holster at your hip, then back up. “Welcome to hell, agent.”

And then he’s gone, footsteps fading down the corridor like smoke curling under a door.

You stand there a moment longer, heart thrumming in your throat, before turning away.

Later, when you finally sleep, you dream of velvet and blood and a man with whiskey eyes who looks at you like he’s already seen the ending.

The first time you’re assigned to work with Peña, it’s a stakeout.

No briefing. No welcome. Just a sharp knock on your door at 6:12 a.m., and when you open it, he’s standing there coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other, aviators hanging from the neckline of a sweat-damp shirt.

“Grab your shit,” he says. “We got a lead in Teusaquillo.”

You don’t ask questions. Not because you trust him—hell no—but because you’ve learned that here, time spent talking is time someone else uses to get away.

The ride’s quiet. Bogota unfolds around you in soft gray morning light, all crumbling walls and rust-stained rooftops. Peña doesn’t speak, doesn’t even look at you. He just drives with one hand on the wheel, the other resting on his thigh, a half-lit cigarette dangling from his fingers.

You steal glances. You can’t help it. He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t care that you’re studying him.

You’d call it arrogance if it didn’t feel so... hollow. There’s something hollow in him. Like the violence carved out everything else and left a man made of leftover smoke and sinew.

He parks two blocks from a mechanic’s shop with boarded-up windows and an upstairs flat rumored to belong to one of Escobar’s lieutenants. You settle in. Binoculars. Radio. Notebooks. The usual. But the air’s heavy. The kind of thick that presses behind your eyes.

Four hours pass in silence. Five.

You learn the way he fidgets when nothing’s happening: thumb tapping his thigh, tongue pressing against his back molars like he’s chewing on words he won’t say. Every so often, he scribbles something in a small notebook. Names, maybe. Codes. You can’t tell.

Around hour six, you finally speak. “You always this quiet?”

Peña doesn’t look at you. “You always this nosy?”

You let the silence return, but this time, it hums with heat.

It rains at noon. Of course it does.

You shift in your seat and ask if he wants coffee, stretching your arms out, cracking your back. He doesn’t answer right away. He just exhales slowly through his nose, watching the rain hit the windshield, before he finally says, low, “Only if it’s black.”

You bring him a lukewarm cup from the vendor down the street. When you hand it to him, his fingers brush yours for half a second.

It feels like someone flicked a live wire against your skin.

He must feel it too. For the first time that day, he looks at you. Really looks. And you see it: the wreckage behind his eyes. The wear and tear. The man running on fumes and sheer defiance.

You think, fleetingly. 

 My baby’s on his eighth life, darling.

The thought disturbs you.

The bust happens fast. A kid leaves the upstairs flat with a duffel bag and nervous hands. Peña’s out of the car before you process the door slamming shut. You’re right behind him.

It unravels into gunfire in under three minutes.

You drop to one knee behind the car as bullets crack overhead. Peña’s already returned fire, teeth bared, eyes bright. He moves like he’s dancing with death, like he’s done this so many times it’s boring now.

Someone’s screaming. Maybe it’s you. Maybe it’s the kid with the duffel. You don’t know. You just fire and move and breathe until the world stills.

Three bodies lie crumpled in the alley. None of them are yours.

When it’s over, you’re sweating and shaking. Adrenaline still rattles in your bones.

You turn to him. “You good?”

He lights another cigarette with a trembling hand, breathes in deep. Then he mutters, almost absently, “You’ll get used to it.”

You want to scream at him.

Get used to it?

To the blood, the stink of it, the way your hands still feel the shape of the trigger even when it’s over?

But you don’t.

Because part of you, a dark, unspoken, shameful one is already used to it. 

Maybe always was.

He walks off to talk to Carrillo. You stay behind, staring at the blood pooled in the gutter. Your hand still trembles as you try to light your own cigarette, but it slips between your fingers twice before you finally get it.

Peña doesn’t come back for you. He knows you’ll follow.

And you do.

That night, you can’t sleep.

You lie awake in your tiny apartment, sheets tangled around your legs, fan clattering in the corner. Your body’s sore. You smell like sweat and smoke and steel.

But it’s not the mission that keeps you awake.

It’s him.

His voice. The shake in his hands. The moment he looked at you like he saw every flaw and fracture and welcomed them. Like he wanted to press his fingers into your broken places and call it comfort.

You roll onto your side and stare at the wall.

You don’t want to want him. You really don’t. But already, it’s there. Rooting itself deep. Curling around your ribs like vines.

Javier Peña is a slow kind of ruin. And you—God help you—you’ve always been a sucker for a long fall.

It’s been four days since Peña showed up to work.

At first, no one blinked. He was known for disappearing—trailing informants or losing track of time in cartel dives but by day three, even Murphy was checking his watch more than usual. You tried not to care, tried to convince yourself that agents burn out all the time.

But when his informant turned up dead in the Zona Rosa and Peña didn’t answer his radio, something shifted.

Murphy looked up from his desk, jaw clenched. “Something’s wrong.”

He’s got one kid and another on the way. A wife who’s already half out the door. When another lead comes in at the last minute, he gives you the keys to the Ford Bronco and says, “Just check on him. Please.”

You don’t answer. You just drive.

His apartment’s in a building that’s seen better decades. Faded tile, dim hallway lights, a sour mildew smell that clings to the peeling walls. You knock once, wait, knock again—harder.

No answer.

You press your ear to the door and hear it. The dull clink of glass. The buzz of a radio left on some Spanish station, low and mournful. A body shifting against leather.

You don’t hesitate. You pick the lock and slip inside.

The place is dark, except for the gray-blue light spilling in through the window. A record’s spinning in the corner, half done. The couch is soaked. Not in blood—thank God—but in spilled bourbon and sweat. And there he is.

Javier.

Flat on his back, half-dressed, arm thrown over his face. There’s a bottle on the floor beside him and at least two more empty on the coffee table.

You stand there for a long moment, arms crossed, jaw tight. He doesn’t even stir.

Your voice cuts the quiet like a scalpel.

“This is your big plan, Peña? Drink yourself into a coma and hope Escobar turns himself in?”

He groans, low in his throat, like he’s just now dragging himself back to consciousness. Doesn’t open his eyes. Doesn’t move.

“Didn’t ask for a babysitter,” he mumbles, voice gravel-thick.

“No,” you snap, “you didn’t. But you stopped answering your radio. You missed the last two intel briefings. You didn’t even show up when Vargas walked.”

He shifts, turning his head toward the ceiling, one eye cracking open just enough to look annoyed. “Why do you care?”

That catches you. Harder than it should.

You don’t answer right away.

Because the truth—the real one, the one pressed up against your ribcage isn’t for him to know. That you do care. That you haven’t stopped thinking about him since that goddamn stakeout. That every part of this job makes you feel more numb, more wrecked, more like him.

You move closer, but not enough to seem gentle. You kick an empty bottle out of the way, hard enough to make it clatter against the wall.

“You don’t get to disappear, Peña. Not now. Not when people are counting on you.”

He laughs dry and mean. “People don’t count on me. They tolerate me.”

You crouch down in front of him, low enough that he has to look at you.

“Murphy’s worried. Carrillo wants you benched. And me? I walked into this apartment half expecting to find your rotting corpse.”

He flinches. Just barely. But you see it.

His voice is quieter now. “Then why the fuck are you still here?”

You pause. Let the air thicken between you. Then say, soft but sharp, “Because I didn’t want you to drink your own regrets alone.”

That lands.

His face tightens. The mask he wears that’s cool, untouchable, cynical slips, just for a second. Enough for you to see the exhaustion underneath. The guilt. The part of him that knows he’s falling apart and doesn’t care enough to stop it.

You stand again, dragging your gaze over the mess he’s let himself become.

“I’ll be back in an hour. If you’re still here when I return, I’m dragging your ass into a cold shower and then straight to Carrillo. You’ll wish you’d died when I found you.”

You walk to the door.

Just before you open it, he says your name.

Quiet. Hoarse. No apology in it. No plea.

Just your name, the way someone might say it in the dark to remind themselves they’re not alone.

You don’t look back.

You just say, “Sober up,” and leave the door open behind you.

It’s been a week since you found him in his own personal graveyard of booze and guilt. A week since he said your name like it was something sacred, then disappeared into silence.

He came back to work the next morning clean-shaven, wearing a shirt that didn’t smell like whiskey, hair combed and expression unreadable. Murphy gave him shit, Carrillo gave him orders, and you gave him nothing.

Not even a nod.

It wasn’t punishment, it was survival. Whatever passed between you in that apartment, it’s a crack in the wall neither of you knows how to patch. So you kept the silence and he respected it.

But he’s different now.

Not better. Not worse.

Just... watching.

You feel his eyes sometimes. When you walk past. When you speak in meetings. When you laugh, when you don’t. He’s not hitting on you he never did. It’s not sleazy or careless. It’s quiet. Careful. Like he’s waiting for something.

Like he’s still thinking about the fact that you didn’t look back.

You’re in the records room when he finally speaks to you again.

It’s late. The embassy’s mostly empty, the halls hushed. You’re surrounded by heat-stained files and the buzz of a dying fluorescent light. You’re tired, sweating under your blouse, hair tied back with a pencil you forgot to remove.

The door creaks behind you. You don’t need to turn around to know it’s him.

He doesn’t say your name this time.

“Didn’t think you were the type to stay late.”

You slide a folder back into its drawer. “Didn’t think you were the type to come back.”

He huffs something like a laugh, quiet and sharp. Then, softer, “Touché.”

You don’t face him. You just keep filing.

“You want something, Peña?”

“Just saw the light on,” he says, “and thought—”

You cut him off. “If you’re about to say something stupid like ‘thanks,’ don’t.”

Silence.

Then: “Wasn’t gonna.”

But he doesn’t leave. He steps into the room and leans against the metal cabinet nearest you, arms crossed. His shoulder brushes the edge of yours—just enough contact to feel it, not enough to call attention to.

“You ever wonder why we do this?” he asks after a beat. “Why we stay?”

You glance at him, frowning. “Because if we don’t, Escobar wins.”

“That’s the company line.” He meets your gaze now, his own unreadable. “I mean you. Why you stay.”

You should shut it down. Should tell him to get out and take his existential bullshit with him.

But instead, you say, “Because I’m good at it. Because it’s the only thing that makes me feel like I’m not wasting space. Because when it’s quiet, I start thinking about all the people I didn’t save.”

It’s too honest. It slips out raw.

You don’t meet his eyes again. You just move to the next drawer.

But Peña doesn’t flinch. He shifts closer. Not enough to crowd you—he never does—but enough for you to feel the warmth coming off him.

“I think about that night,” he says. “You kicking my bottle across the room like you wanted to kill me with it.”

You smile despite yourself. “I still might.”

“You could’ve reported me. Could’ve let Carrillo have my badge. Would’ve been easier.”

You close the drawer. Turn to him. “Would’ve been cowardly.”

His expression softens. Just barely. The hard angles of him blur under the soft buzz of the dying light.

“You scare me a little, you know that?” he says, voice low.

You blink. “That supposed to be a compliment?”

“It’s supposed to be the truth.”

You let the silence stretch this time. Let it sit.

There’s something simmering between you now. Not fire. Not yet. But heat. Potential.

He reaches past you, grabs a file he has no reason to touch, lets his fingers brush yours as he does.

This time, you don’t pull away.

And when you finally speak, your voice is quieter. Thicker. “This changes nothing.”

He nods once. Serious and firm. “I know.”

But he doesn’t move. Neither do you.

He can’t stop thinking about her hands.

That’s the thing. Not her mouth, not her ass—though God knows his brain’s tried to go there out of habit. But no. What keeps looping through his skull at night, in the dark, is the way her fingers looked pressed against his chest that night on the couch.

The callus on her trigger finger. The precise anger in her grip when she shoved the empty bottle away from him like it insulted her personally. The way her hand shook, just once, when she thought he couldn’t see.

It’s pathetic. He knows it. But he thinks about her hands when someone else’s are on him.

The woman in his bed tonight smells like coconut oil and cheap cigarettes. She’s some informant’s cousin—or maybe she said she worked at the bar in El Cartucho. Doesn’t matter. He doesn’t ask.

She moans his name like she means it, like she knows him.

She doesn’t.

He’s already halfway gone.

He rolls off her when it’s over and lights a cigarette he doesn’t want. She tries to cuddle. He gets up and shrugs his jeans back on, muttering something about early meetings. She doesn’t press. They never do.

By the time he’s back in his car, windows rolled down, sweat drying on his skin, he’s already thinking about her.

Not the woman he just fucked.

Her.

The one who hasn’t so much as smiled at him since she landed in Colombia. The one who walked into his filth-stained apartment and looked at him like he was still worth saving.

He’d rather be punched in the face.

He’s seen it happen to other men—DEA guys who get that wide-eyed thing about one of their own, fall into bed with someone who carries a badge and a temper, only to get left holding the guilt when the mission takes her out first.

Not him. He keeps his women outside the building, off the books, out of the way.

Except... Now he doesn’t want any of them. Not for more than a night.

And he doesn’t want her either.

He wants her gone. Out of his head. Out of his space. But every time she walks by—blouse clinging to her spine in the Bogotá heat, voice calm and sharp in meetings, he finds himself holding his breath.

And when she leaves the room, he has to exhale.

He watches her sometimes. He hates himself for it.

From the breakroom. From the side of a hallway. From the back row of a briefing.

She doesn’t even glance at him anymore. Not since the records room. Not since she looked him dead in the eye and said this changes nothing.

He believed her.

But it had. It changed everything.

He still flirts with the receptionist. Still lets his fingers linger when passing intel to the blonde who runs field logistics. Still makes some dumb comment when the ambassador’s wife brings lunch to the office.

But he never touches her.

Never jokes. Never asks if she’s free Friday. Never offers her a light for her cigarette when she’s outside, leaning on the brick wall like she’s holding the building up by herself.

Because she’s not like the others.

She’s the kind of woman who makes you want to quit drinking—not because she asks you to, but because you suddenly want to deserve to be seen by her again.

And that’s the most dangerous thing in the world.

He dreams about her sometimes. In the dreams, she never says a word. Just looks at him the way she did that night—tight-lipped, furious, afraid.

In the dreams, he always wakes up sweating. Alone.

Sometimes it’s the best part of his day.

He hangs on to all those little moments that occur during the day.  

Like when she passes him a manila folder one morning during briefing—fingers grazing his knuckles, just barely. He feels it like a fucking static shock. He doesn’t flinch, but it coils deep in his stomach.

Later, he’ll forget what the folder even said. But he won’t forget the brush of her hand.

Another day. It’s hot. She’s got her sleeves rolled to the elbows and a smear of dirt across her cheek from a bust in the jungle. He watches her gulp down lukewarm water from a dented thermos, her throat flexing, eyes closed.

He has to look away.

When he lights a cigarette, she asks for one. Doesn’t look at him when he hands it over. Doesn’t thank him, either.

Still, he holds that image like it means something.

He dreams of her in that records room.

Not naked. Not moaning his name.

Just standing there, arm crossed, and sweat on her brow.

He wakes up hard anyway.

She starts wearing her hair down. Probably not for him. But maybe.

He watches it stick to the back of her neck. He thinks about moving it aside. He thinks about kissing the skin underneath. He thinks about what she’d do. How she’d slap him, shove him against the wall, maybe kiss him right back.

He doesn’t do it.

A month passes like that. And then, everything breaks.

It’s supposed to be clean.

In and out. Intercept a delivery. Get the courier. Bring him in before breakfast.

They don’t even get a scream on the radio.

Just static.

Then Carrillo’s voice: “We’ve lost eyes on the second vehicle. Peña, respond.”

He’s already grabbing his vest before the words finish.

She was in that car.

The wreck is still smoking when he gets there. Blood on the ground, no bodies. Signs of a struggle. Boot prints. Drag marks. Her weapon on the gravel, clip half-ejected, as if she’d tried to reload mid-scramble.

He finds a smear of blood on the passenger door.

Too much to ignore. Not enough to prove she's gone.

He doesn’t wait for backup.

He doesn’t wait for anything.

He just starts hunting.

Three men die in an alley within the hour.

He doesn’t even ask the first one a question—just shoots him in the kneecap and watches the others panic. The second gives up a name. A warehouse. East end. Off the grid.

He doesn’t thank him.

He doesn’t feel anything.

The warehouse is rotting, windowless, stinking of rust and piss. He doesn’t go in there quietly.

The first two men barely have time to look up. The third draws a gun. Javier shoots him in the throat.

He’s breathing like an animal now. Can’t hear anything over the pulse in his skull. His blood feels radioactive.

Then he sees her.

Tied to a chair. Hands behind her back. Duct tape on her mouth. Blood crusted at her temple.

But she’s breathing.

And she’s looking right at him.

He moves like he’s underwater. Crosses the floor in seconds but it feels like years. Drops to his knees in front of her, pulling a knife from his belt.

Her eyes are wide. There’s no fear in them.

Just recognition. Relief. And something else.

Something fragile.

He cuts the tape from her mouth, and she gasps in air, voice ragged: “You came.”

He can’t speak. He just cups her face, thumbs brushing dried blood, trying to convince himself she’s whole. Her cheek presses into his palm like it’s the only thing holding her up.

“I thought—” she starts, then chokes on it.

He shakes his head. “No. Don’t.”

“I thought I’d never see you again.”

And now he’s the one breaking.

“I would’ve burned this whole city down,” he says, voice shaking. “I would’ve leveled it.”

She closes her eyes, leans forward until their foreheads touch. Her breath fans over his lips. “You didn’t have to come.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

The others arrive twenty minutes later.

He doesn’t let go of her until the medics make him.

Even then, his hands hover—like he might need to grab her again. Like she might disappear.

She doesn’t.

She looks at him over her shoulder as they load her into the van. And for once, she does smile. A small one.

Not wide. Not flirtatious.

But real.

And it guts him.

He goes home that night, covered in blood—some hers, some theirs, some his.

Lights a cigarette.

He doesn’t sleep.

He doesn’t dream.

Just stares at the wall and thinks of the way she whispered You came, like he wasn’t the one who needed saving.

She didn’t mean to start thinking about him.

It wasn’t part of the plan. Bogotá was supposed to be all work. Just another station. Just another hunt. Get in, track Escobar, do the job.

She’d dealt with worse than this before—misogynists, cartel hits, bad coffee. She could’ve handled it.

But not him.

Not Javier Peña.

It started small. The cigarette passed between my fingers. The quick glances over briefing reports. The way his eyes found you across rooms he had no business being in.

At first, you thought he was just another man trying to get under your skin.

Then he stopped trying.

And it got worse.

Before the mission, you’d dreamed about him. Not even a sex dream. Just a quiet one. His shoulder against yours on a bench. His hand on your knee. The kind of domestic nothing you didn’t let yourself think about anymore.

You woke up unsettled. Then got in the SUV. Then got taken.

And the whole time you were being dragged through that hell, wrists zip-tied, head pounding, all you could think was: I’ll never see him again.

Not your parents. Not Murphy. Him.

It should’ve scared you more than it did.

Now it’s three days later, and your apartment feels like a jail cell.

You’re healing. Bruised ribs. Scrapes. Nothing major, nothing deep. The medic said you were lucky.

You don’t feel lucky.

Your hands still shake when you’re pouring water. Your dreams are full of gravel and duct tape. And behind all of it is him..

Not the version from the office. The version who found you.

Bloody. Breathless. Eyes like thunder.

When he said I would’ve leveled this city, you believed him.

And you haven't been able to shake the way he said I didn���t have a choice.

It’s almost dark when the knock comes.

You don't expect it to be him.

You open the door anyway, and there he is. Standing in the hall like something scraped raw. His jacket’s slung over one shoulder. His shirt’s wrinkled. He smells like smoke, sweat, and aftershave.

For a moment, neither of them speaks.

Then:

“I should’ve called,” he says, voice low.

You blinked. “You don’t call.”

His mouth twists at that—something between guilt and a smile.

“I wanted to see if you were okay.”

“You saw the report,” you say, stepping aside anyway.

“I didn’t believe it.”

You stand awkwardly in your living room, hands stuffed in his pockets like he doesn’t trust them. You’re in a pair of shorts and an oversized tee, hair damp from the shower, still smelling faintly of antiseptic.

“Did you come here to check on me,” you ask, “or because you needed to see it for yourself?”

He doesn’t answer right away.

Instead, he looks at you—really looks at you—for the first time since the warehouse. Eyes tracing your bruises like they’re war maps. Stopping at the butterfly bandage near your temple. The tenderness at your ribs.

Then he swallows hard.

“I needed to see you,” he says.

You sit on the edge of the couch. He doesn’t.

The silence stretches.

Then you say softly, “You killed six men looking for me.”

“Seven,” he says. “One of ‘em just didn’t die right away.”

Your throat tightens. “That supposed to make me feel better?”

“No,” he says. “It’s supposed to tell you I’d do it again.”

You finally meet his eyes.

And there it is.

That shift. The thing they’ve both been dancing around since day one. It’s not about sex. Not anymore. It’s about something bigger. Louder. More terrifying.

He cared.

And now they’re both stuck with that truth.

“You scared the shit out of me,” you say.

He nods. “Right back at you.”

“You shouldn’t have come alone.”

“I always come alone.”

You snorted. “Yeah, I know.”

He breathes out a laugh at that. Runs a hand through his hair.

Then: “Can I sit?”

You gesture to the space beside you.

When he sinks into the couch, the cushion shifts. Their knees touch.

It’s the first time they’ve been this close since that night in the records room. But it’s different now. Slower. Like every inch is charged with memory.

You turn toward him. “Why are you really here?”

He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t look away.

“I’ve been trying to forget about you,” he says.

Your breath catches.

“Thought if I slept around enough, drank enough, worked enough, I’d stop.”

You stay quiet.

“I can’t,” he says finally. “I can’t stop.”

Your voice is just above a whisper. “You respect me too much to flirt. But not enough to stay away.”

He closes his eyes for a beat. “That about sums it up.”

And then he leans forward, forearms on his knees, head in his hands.

“I fucked this up,” he mutters. “I let you get taken. I—”

You grab his wrist.

Not gently. Not softly. Just firm.

He looks up.

“You saved me.”

He searches your face like he’s not sure he’s allowed to believe you.

“I didn’t come out of that warehouse afraid of you,” you say. “I came out knowing exactly who I’d trust to come for me.”

Something in him breaks open then.

He doesn’t kiss you.

He doesn’t touch you.

He just leans in until their foreheads rest together in the quiet.

They stay like that. Breathing the same air.

And maybe that’s all they need right now.

He’s been to her apartment more times in the last three weeks than he has to his own.

At first, it was to check on her. Drop off meds. Bring her dinner when she wouldn’t remember to eat. Make sure she wasn’t trying to get back in the field too soon.

Then she started teasing him about it. Called him Nurse Peña. Said he should get her a little bell to ring when she needed things.

And somehow—somehow—he didn’t run.

She laughs more now.

Not a lot. Not like it’s easy. But it happens.

The first time she laughed at one of his stupid jokes, he almost dropped the coffee mug he was handing her. The sound startled him. It was warm. Unforced. Real.

He didn’t think he’d ever hear her laugh like that.

Didn’t think he’d deserve to.

There’s a new rhythm between them now.

She gives him shit about his taste in music. He tells her she grinds her teeth when she reads case files. They eat on her couch and sometimes fall asleep watching badly dubbed telenovelas with the volume low.

It’s not domestic. Not exactly.

But it’s the closest he’s had in years.

He flirts with her now.

Just a little.

She rolls her eyes every time. Calls him a menace. But she never tells him to stop.

He brings her a sandwich one night after a long debrief. She’s got her feet up on the coffee table, bandage finally off her temple, a yellow legal pad in her lap.

When he sets the sandwich down, she glances up. “Will you always feed me when I’m injured?”

“Nah,” he says. “Only when you look like you’re gonna forget to eat.”

“Oh, so now you care about my nutrition.”

“Wouldn’t want you to pass out mid-briefing. Then Murphy would cry and I’d have to console him.”

She snorts. “I’d pay to see that.”

He grins. “I’d charge you.”

She tosses a crumpled sticky note at him, and he dodges it like a pro. “So rude,” she says.

He shrugs. “You like me rude.”

And it’s there—again. That flicker.

She looks at him a second too long. Then shakes her head and opens the sandwich.

He watches her take a bite and pretends it doesn’t do anything to him.

He doesn’t fuck around anymore.

No informants. No girls at the bars.

He doesn’t have it in him. Not now. Not since every time he closes his eyes, he sees her in that warehouse chair and remembers how empty the world felt until she looked up at him.

She’s healing.

Not just the bruises. The rest of her. He can see it. In the way she stretches without wincing. The way she walks like she owns the floor again.

But there’s still a mark on her. Something permanent.

He knows. Because he’s got it too.

She catches him watching her one night, and instead of brushing it off, she asks softly, “What?”

He almost says I thought you were gone.

He almost says I haven’t slept properly since.

He almost says Don’t get hurt like that again. I don’t think I’d survive it.

Instead he says, “Just making sure you’re alive.”

She blinks. That’s all. Doesn’t make a joke. Doesn’t deflect.

She just says, “I am.”

And for the first time in weeks, he breathes like his lungs aren’t on fire.

She’s been cleared to return.

He knew it was coming. Could feel it in the way she moved it was less careful, more sure. The bruises had gone from purple to green to nothing. The bandages were long gone. Her eyes had that fire again.

But it hits him harder than he thought when she says the words.

“I’m cleared. Back in the field next week.”

He nods. Stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray on her windowsill. Says something like, that’s good, or you ready?

She doesn’t answer right away.

Just stands in the kitchen, twisting the ring of condensation on her glass of water. She’s in one of his old shirts again—says it’s softer than hers—and it’s hanging off her like it always belonged to her.

Then she says it, quiet, like a sin:

“I never wanted to get better.”

He freezes.

She keeps staring down at the glass like it’ll forgive her for saying it.

“Not really,” she murmurs. “I mean—I knew I couldn’t stay like that forever. I didn’t want to be helpless.”

“But?” he hears himself say, voice low, unsteady.

She finally looks at him.

“But if I got better… I figured you’d stop showing up.”

He could laugh. He could make a joke.

But nothing comes out.

Because something’s burning in his chest now ugly, raw, relentless, and it’s got nowhere to go.

He crosses the room without thinking. Leans on the counter across from her. Close enough to feel her breath.

“You think I only came because you were hurt?”

“No,” she says. “I think you only let yourself come because I was.”

That wrecks him.

Because it’s true.

He should say something else. He doesn’t.

Not for a full minute. Just lets the silence sit there between them, thick and humming like power lines in the heat.

She breaks it first, whisper-soft: “It’s been nice. Having you.”

And that’s it. That’s the moment.

That’s when the thing he’s been swallowing for weeks claws its way up his throat and refuses to die quiet.

“I love you.”

Her eyes widen.

She doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.

He steps back, like it’ll soften the blow.

“Fuck,” he says under his breath. “I didn’t mean to—”

“You did.”

“Yeah,” he rasps. “Yeah, I did.”

She still doesn’t speak. Just walked closer to him. 

Stops in front of him.

And when she reaches out, he thinks she’s going to slap him or shove him or say something final.

Instead, her hand lands flat on his chest. Right over his heart.

Her voice is wrecked. “Say it again.”

“I love you.”

She closes her eyes. Like she needs it to settle. Like it hurts.

Then:

“I love you too.”

He doesn’t kiss her.

He could. He wants to—God, does he want to—but something tells him this isn’t about that. Not yet. Not tonight.

Instead, he pulls her in.

Arms around her. Her face against his neck. Her hand fisting in the back of his shirt.

He holds her like a man holding the thing he almost lost.

Like she’s air and blood and whatever’s left of his soul.

And she doesn’t pull away.

They stay like that for a long time.

No words. No next steps. Just the heat of skin against skin and the quiet promise: this is real now.

And when he finally leans back and presses his forehead to hers, he says, “You’re going back in the field. I can’t stop that.”

“I know.”

“But I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know that too.”

And somehow, that’s everything.

And when she pulls back enough to meet his eyes, her voice is barely there. “Stay tonight?”

He nods. Doesn’t even pretend to play it cool.

“I was already going to.”

He didn’t mean to fall asleep. But her body was warm beside him, curled into the crook of his arm, wearing his shirt and nothing else. And for the first time in years, his chest didn’t feel tight. For the first time ever, he wasn’t running.

So he let go. Just for a moment.

And when he wakes—it’s to her fingers tracing his chest, lazy and slow.

“Javi,” she whispers.

He blinks, meets her gaze in the low light. Her voice is hushed, but her eyes are wide awake. Wanting.

“I don’t want to wait anymore.”

She’s over him before he can speak, thighs slipping around his waist, mouth already on his.

And it’s soft at first. Like every kiss they almost shared. Like every moment that made him ache.

He wraps his arms around her waist, palms splaying across her bare back. She’s not wearing panties. Just his shirt, hitched up around her thighs.

And she smells like sleep, vanilla, and him.

“Baby,” he breathes against her lips. “You sure?”

“I’ve been sure,” she says. “Since the first time you bled on my floor and tried to leave without saying thank you.”

He huffs a laugh. And then he kisses her like he’s starving.

She peels the shirt off slowly. Her nipples are already hard, pebbled from the air and his gaze. He sits up, chest to chest, and buries his mouth between them.

“I dreamed about this,” he murmurs against her skin. “Fucking dreamed about your tits in my mouth.”

Her fingers tangle in his hair, tugging gently as he suckles at her breast, teasing the other with his thumb. She gasps when he scrapes his teeth lightly across her nipple, then soothes it with his tongue.

“I’m gonna take my time,” he says, looking up at her. “You deserve that.”

She lies back when he pushes gently at her waist, guiding her onto the sheets.

And he gets between her legs like it’s the only place he’s ever belonged.

Her thighs fall open for him without hesitation. And she’s soaked—slick and glistening, flushed with heat and arousal. He doesn’t touch her right away. Just presses a kiss to the inside of her knee, then higher, then higher—

“Javi—”

“I’ve waited too long for this,” he whispers, breathing hot over her folds. “I’m gonna taste you, baby.”

And he does.

Tongue dragging slow through her heat, lips wrapping around her clit like a kiss. She cries out—his name on her lips like a plea. He groans into her, drunk on her, grinding his hips into the mattress as he eats her like a man half his age.

She fists the sheets. Her back arches. He flattens his tongue and devours, letting her ride his mouth, letting her fuck herself on his face.

“You taste so sweet,” he groans. “Fuck, I could live here. Come for me, cariño. Give it to me.”

She does—with a sob, legs trembling, body shaking against his tongue.

And he doesn’t stop until she begs.

He’s on her before she can catch her breath. Mouth bruising hers, hand stroking his cock between them.

“Condom’s in my wallet,” he says roughly.

“No,” she gasps, wrapping her legs around his waist. “I want you. All of you.”

He nearly comes right then.

He pushes into her slow. So slow. They both groan—hers high and broken, his deep and reverent.

“Jesus, you’re tight,” he pants. “So fucking perfect. You’re gonna ruin me.”

Their foreheads press together. Hands clutch. Bodies lock.

He moves like he’s worshipping her—like she’s holy and he’s been faithless his whole life.

And she moans every time he bottoms out. Whimpers when he pulls out nearly to the tip and slides back in, thick and hard and home.

“I love you,” she whispers. “I love you so much.”

He chokes on his own breath.

“I’ve never—never loved anyone like this,” he gasps. “Fuck, baby. You own me.”

They come together, trembling and breathless, clinging like the world might end if they let go.

She’s grinning.

“What?” he asks, brushing her hair back.

“I’m not broken anymore.”

And then she flips them.

Her mouth is on his neck before he can blink. Her nails drag down his chest. She slides down, wraps her lips around his cock, and moans.

“Holy fuck—” he gasps, gripping the sheets.

She sucks him deep, slow at first—then faster, wetter, until he’s bucking up into her mouth.

But before he can come, she stops.

Straddles him.

Guides him back inside.

And rides him hard.

Her hands on his chest, hips slamming down, tits bouncing, his name falling from her lips like a threat and a promise.

He grabs her ass, helps her grind deeper.

“You wanted rough, baby?” he groans. “Wanted me to fuck you like I’ve been dreaming about every goddamn night?”

“Yes—yes, Javi—fuck me—”

He flips her, fucks into her hard and fast, hair fisted in his hand, her face buried in the pillow.

“You’re mine now,” he growls. “You hear me? Mine.”

She screams when she comes. Screams.

He spills into her moments later, biting her shoulder, whispering I love you again and again and again.

They fall asleep like that.

Skin to skin. Heart to heart. No lies. No walls.

Just them.

Finally.

divider by 🏷️ @zevrra @xodilfluvr @littlejoels @millersdoll @gothcsz @inbred-eater @grayandthyme @mysticalgalaxysalad @amyispxnk @aj0elap0l0gist @bluekat707 @yellowbrickyeti @romancherry @wayward-dreamer @xfanficluvrx @mystickittytaco @axshadows

[therobotmonster]

On that recent Disney Vs Midjourney court thing wrt AI, how strong do you think their case is in a purely legal sense, what do you think MJ's best defenses are, how likely is Disney to win, and how bad would the outcome be if they do win?

Oh sure, ask an easy one.

In a purely legal sense, this case is very questionable.

Scraping as fair use has already been established when it comes to text in legal cases, and infringement is based on publication, not inspiration. There's also the question of if Midjourney would be responsible for their users' creations under safe harbor provisions, or even basic understanding of what an art tool is. Adobe isn't responsible for the many, many illegal images its software is used to make, after all.

The best defense, I would say, is the fair use nature of dataset training and the very nature of transformative work, which is protected, requires the work-to-be-transformed is involved. Disney's basic approach of 'your AI knows who our characters are, so that proves you stole from us' would render fair use impossible.

I don't think its likely for Disney to win, but the problem with civil action is proof isn't needed, just convincing. Bad civil cases happen all the time, and produce case law. Which is what Disney is trying to do here.

If Disney wins, they'll have pulled off a coup of regulatory capture, basically ensuring that large media corporations can replace their staff with robots but that small creators will be limited to underpowered models to compete with them.

Worse, everything that is a 'smoking gun' when it comes to copyright infringement on Midjourney? That's fan art. All that "look how many copyrighted characters they're using-" applies to the frontpage of Deviantart or any given person's Tumblr feed more than to the featured page of Midjourney.

Every single website with user-generated content it chock full of copyright infringement because of fan art and fanfic, and fair use arguments are far harder to pull out for fan-works. The law won't distinguish between a human with a digital art package and a human with an AI art package, and any win Disney makes against MJ is a win against Artstation, Deviantart, Rule34.xxx, AO3, and basically everyone else.

"We get a slice of your cheese if enough of your users post our mouse" is not a rule you want in law.

And the rules won't be enforced by a court 9/10 times. Even if your individual work is plainly fair use, it's not going to matter to whatever image-based version of youtube's copyreich bots gets applied to Artstation and RedBubble to keep the site owners safe.

Even if you're right, you won't have the money to fight.

Heck, Adobe already spies on what you make to report you to the feds if you're doing a naughty, imagine it's internal watchdogs throwing up warnings when it detects you drawing Princess Jasmine and Ariel making out. That may sound nuts, but it's entirely viable.

And that's just one level of possible nightmare. If the judgement is broad enough, it could provide a legal pretext for pursuing copyright lawsuits over style and inspiration. Given how consolidated IP is, this means you're going to have several large cabals that can crush any new work that seems threatening, as there's bound to be something they can draw a connection to.

If you want to see how utterly stupid inspiration=theft is, check out when Harlan Ellison sued James Cameron over Terminator because Cameron was dumb enough to say he was inspired by Demon with a Glass Hand and Soldier from the Outer Limits.

Harlan was wrong on the merits, wrong ethically, and the case shouldn't have been entertained in the first place, but like I said, civil law isn't about facts. Cameron was honest about how two episodes of a show he saw as a kid gave him this completely different idea (the similarities are 'robot that looks like a guy with hand reveal' and 'time traveling soldier goes into a gun store and tries to buy future guns'), and he got unjustly sued for it.

If you ever wonder why writers only talk about their inspirations that are dead, that's why. Anything that strengthens the "what goes in" rather than the "what goes out" approach to IP is good for corps, bad for culture.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Running To You 5

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, control, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Sister series to Just What I Needed

Summary: You’re rescued by a man who you don’t even know is a real hero.

Characters: nomad Steve Rogers

Note: a stressed out steve rogers plus a cutie. it bloomed from the theory of Steve’s beard being a symbol of his darker side, or a darker state of mind. In the wat that he would usually pride himself on a neat appearance but lets himself go a bit when he’s not at his best.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

The door hits the frame, waking you from a fraught slumber painted with dreams of sludgy shadows. You sit up and the cot rocks slightly, knocking on the wall as you steady it. Your heart races before you recognise Steve and the night before comes flooding in. The smell of jasmine is still overwhelming.

Steve sighs and jiggles the handle. He keeps trying to make the door stick. You rub your eyes as you turn your legs over the edge of the cot.

"Is it broken?" You ask.

"Looks like. Didn't even notice last night," he lets it go and faces you. "With everything else... good thing I stayed."

"Um, yeah. Thanks," you scratch your shoulder. "Sorry you had to sleep on the floor."

"No problem. Like I said, could be worse. You could be seriously hurt."

"Uh, I guess," you stand up. Your shorts stick and you tug the legs free from between your thighs. You should put on real clothes. "I'll call the landlord."

"You said it took him a while before to fix it." He tuts.

"Sure but, this is worse, I'm sure he'll come right away," you shrug. "You've done enough. Really. I feel bad."

His eyes wander around and his forehead creases. "I can fix the door. I'd rather make sure it's done."

"Steve--"

"It's easy. Won't take much."

"Well, er, Steve, I appreciate that but I have some stuff to do."

"Oh yeah? I can help," he offers.

You sigh. "No, you shouldn't. I-- I already feel awful waking you up--"

"You'd feel worse if you didn't," he insists. He grips his hips as he stares you down. "I still mean what I said last night. This place isn't safe for you."

"There's people worse off."

"I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about you."

You shrug. He's impossible to argue with but you know he means well. You appreciate that he worries yet you feel bad for the same thing.

"I gotta take these packages down to the post office." You change the subject.

"Great, I'll go with you," he says.

You look at him. "If you want. I'll get dressed."

"Mind if I try to freshen up in the bathroom?" He asks.

"Erm, sure."

You open the small set of drawers next to your cot. You take out a pair of denim capris and a square neck tee. The bathroom door clicks and you check to make sure he's gone. You quickly change then look around.

Your phone. Last night, you never went to find it. It fell out in the hall during your struggle with Mike. You chew your thumb as you look at the door. You're nervous at the thought of seeing him again.

You grab your purse instead and check your wallet. There's that at least. You take out your rolling cart and focus on filling it with the small packages.

Steve emerges. "Your turn."

"Oh, yeah," you smile and cross the apartment. "Thanks."

You flit past him into the bathroom. You wash your face, brush your teeth, moisturize. You tidy your hair and skip the mascara, only smearing on a layer of gloss.

As you come out, Steve stands at the small kitchenette. He shuts the mostly empty cupboard. You cringe.

"You looking for something?" You ask.

"I was going to try to make you breakfast," he turns and leans on the short counter.

"Oh don't worry about that."

"Clearly you're not. There's a can of beans and half a bag of rice in there." He rebukes.

You wince, "Steve, I'm fine. I don't eat breakfast."

"And is that a choice or a necessity?"

You huff and hug yourself. "You're making me feel bad."

"I'm not meaning to. I'm concerned." He once more frames his hips in disapproval.

"It's nice that you care, really. It's just food."

"How much does it cost to do all this? You breaking even on that pine soap?" He wonders.

"I do okay. I keep the lights on," you march to the cart and shoulder your purse. "I have to get this in the mail or I won't get paid."

He sucks his teeth but doesn't argue further. He nears and puts his hand on the cart handle next to yours. "At least let me get this."

"Uh, okay," you crinkle your nose. The smell of jasmine is starting to really bother you. It almost smells like burning plastic.

You go out into the hall. You glance around but don't see our phone. If it wasn't smashed, it was probably snatched. Steve rolls the cart out and turns to the door. He uses one of the mixing sticks you use to jam it shut.

"It will have to do. There a hardware store near here? I'll grab the lock while we're out."

"Sure. On the way back," you say.

He follows you outside. The cart rattles loudly. Your nerves too.

You're embarrassed. He's seen more of your life than anyone has. He just doesn't get it. You'd rather scrape by on your own then go back to before. The idea of another boss breathing down your neck, feeling up your skirt-- No, that's not going to happen.

"You okay?" He asks, startling you out of your gloom.

"Oh, yeah. Thinking."

"About last night? Mike?" He suggests.

"A little. More about the candles I wanna make with the beeswax I ordered." You drone. "Oh, and reusable food wrap."

"Huh," he clucks. "You got a lot of ideas."

"I like making things. It's peaceful."

"Fair. I always enjoyed drawing." He says. "Before... well, it's been a while."

"Really? You draw?"

"Novice at best," he snorts.

"Hey, Rogers, how's it goin', guy?" A man passes by and salutes. Steve offers him a tense smile and his throat bobs.

You look back as the man struts on. That was strange.

"You know him?" You ask.

He shakes his head, "can't remember from where."

"Oh, yeah, that's always awkward."

You continue down the block and make your way to the post office. You hold the door as Steve pulls in the cart. He brings it to the counter and helps you unload the labeled parcels. The employee behind the counter scans them.

"New customs policy, there's an amount owing, miss," the clerk stands at the till. "Two-hundred and seventy three."

"What? I paid online? How can they change?" You squeak.

"I don't make the prices," he shrugs.

"Oh..." you blink. You don't have that much money. You don't even have two dollars and seventy three cents."

"No problem," Steve reaches into his back pocket. "American Express?"

"Yes, sir," the clerk stares at Steve before he points to the swipe machine.

"No, Steve--"

Too late. The machine chirps as his payment goes through. He slides the card away and tucks his wallet into his pocket.

"Receipt?" The clerk asks.

"Sure," Steve waits then takes the slip. "Have a good day."

"You too, Cap."

The reply tugs at your brain. Cap? That's an odd epithet.

You leave the post office, stewing in a new boil of humiliation. He just had to do that. You wring your hands behind your back anxiously.

"Thanks for that. I'll pay you back."

"Oh, you will. And I know exactly how," he declares. "You are going to eat a proper breakfast."

He points across the street to the small diner on the corner.

"No, that's not--"

"That's what I want. Fair trade."

"You must think I'm a real loser," you murmur.

"I don't. I think you're in hard times but a little help isn't a bad thing," he counters. "Besides, I'm trying to show you I'm listening. You want this business to work so I'm making an investment. Because I trust you." He reaches up with his free hand and touches his beard. "And I know you make quality stuff."

🩷

You walk out of the diner with leftovers. Breakfast was much more than you expected and you hate to waste food. Steve drags the cart with no uneaten bounty of his own. A man his size could easily clear at least another plate.

"Thanks, Steve. That was really good," you preen.

"I like the local places. You can tell they use real ingredients."

"Oh, yeah," you agree. If only he knew the amount of ramen you eat...

"Coffee's decent too. That's what really gives it away," he continues on. "Oh, the hardware store, where was that?"

"Not far," you assure him.

You guide him to the small shop with a bunch of plants outside and a spinning rack of seeds. You go inside, single file as the narrow aisles crowd Steve's large figure. He finds the right section and browses intently. He grabs a handle and a deadbolt. You mull the price tags. That's another line in the ledger.

He pays. Again. You don't even try to pretend you can. He's probably already figured you out.

Back on the street, you're hit with the stench of smoke. You scrunch up your face and look at Steve. He lifts his nose.

"Fire," he says.

"Oh... no." Sirens blast by you as a fire truck honks. Traffic honks back, inconvenienced by the emergency. You watch the big red engine turn the corner, toward you building. "Must be close by."

"Must be," he says as you cross the street.

The cart bounces, empty so it jars over each crack. As you come in sight of your building, your heart plummets. The fire engine is right in front of the apartment. The thick grey smoke billows up from the windows, curling around the brick walls.

"No," you gasp and hurry forward. "It can't be."

"Hey, sweetheart, don't get too close," Steve grabs your arm. "Smoke inhalation is dangerous."

"My apartment! My stuff!" You squeal and drop the container, fighting him to no end. He's strong. Inhumanly so. You look at his hand. "Steve, let me go."

"I can't. You'll get hurt."

"I'm not going to go inside. I'm not stupid."

"Let them work. They're the only ones who can do anything," he argues. "You'll just be in the way."

You pout. He's right. That doesn't make this any easier.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he clings to you.

You shake your head and gape up as flames lick outside and furl around the brick. You stagger and press your palms to your cheeks. Even if they do put out the fire, it's too late. After last night, you just can't believe this. Why does everything have to go so wrong?

🩷

"They'll have to keep investigating. That much damage, they can't permit entrance," Steve explains from your vantage.

You stay clear of the other residents, crowded around the firemen and other emergency personnel. They're a hoard, raging at the innocent. You're upset but not angry.

"It's a structural hazard. Same as you need a permit and inspections according to the building code," he continues on. "These things..." he sighs.

You drop your head. You stare at your shoes. You almost laugh. What a waste of time. The profit you make from those packages won't make a dent in surviving this. If you hadn't been so adamant about getting them shipped, you might have been able to save your apartment, or at least a few things.

"I got room. You can crash with me."

"Steve..." you utter.

"Well? Unless you got somewhere else?"

"No," you confess weakly. "I don't."

He's quiet for a moment. "Sorry. I know how that feels and that's not what I meant. But you got me now, doll. Not everything is lost, right?"

"Cap?" A fireman approaches. "Hey, you here about the fire? You hear something?"

Steve's jaw ticks and he looks over tersely at the man in his heavy helmet. "No, I--"

"This isn't some terrorist stuff, is it?" The fireman asks. "I mean, why else they sending you?"

"I was passing by," Steve twitches. "I'm not working right now."

"Ah, gee, I'm sorry. I just figured..." the man looks between you. "Sorry for bothering."

Steve purses his lips and rolls his eyes. He's irritated. You fidget next to him.

"Sorry, about that--" he begins.

"Are you a fireman?"

He shakes his head as his mouth slants. "Not exactly. I... I deal with emergencies though."

"Right..." You think. There's something you're missing and it feels so obvious.

"Mama," a child's voice trickles through. "It's Captain America."

You peek over to a young child points in your direction. You look back at Steve as he rubs the back of his neck. He smiles sheepishly.

"Really, I'm just Steve," he says.

[astrae4]

LAB PARTNER LOCKDOWN | wang yixiang

pairings — &team’s nicholas x reader (highschool au)

genre — academic rivalry, forced proximity, romance, and a tinge of angst hehe (wc. 11.2k)

synopsis — Nicholas and you have been academic enemies since year one. A departmental glitch assigns the both of you as long-term lab partners for a term-long research project with 70% of your final grade. The biggest problem? There’s only one workstation — and way too much personal space to invade.

warnings — This is not gender neutral, reader has female anatomy and etc. informal language , alcohol, slightly suggestive scenes, cursing, and they’re also lowk mean at certain points lawl…

note — I’m super proud of this one !! It was originally supposed to be max 3k words and then i got carried away…My &team addiction has been rising nonstop GRRR.. also lowkey this was supposed to be posted last week but I got SALMONELLA 😭💔 like no way bro… i lost 4kg bc of it too… PLEASE REBLOG i worked so hard on this 😇

more works: navigation | &team!masterlist

CURSE THIS SCHOOL and curse the obnoxiously outdated school app everyone’s forced to use that LITERALLY breaks down at least once per week. No way was this happening to you right now. Absolutely no. freaking. way.

You scanned your eyes at the name next to yours—saw how the name Wang Yixiang harassed your eyes in the register despite the fact that you were supposed to be in a group with Harua as decided by the drawn lots back at lecture. And one more thing… This project affects, like, 70% of your term grade.

Now, it’s not like you’ve been partnered up with a delinquent or a freeloader. You could have definitely gotten worse mishaps ( like Fuma right now who has realized that he’ll need to do his group work alone since his partner is a no-show ). In fact, many people would be incredibly happy to be working with Yixiang, or as they call him—Nicholas. I mean, why not? He ranks top 5 in chemistry and isn’t fussy about his work when with others.

But that’s the problem. There are two emphasises here that we need to acknowledge. First: he’s in the top five. Who else is in the top 5, you wonder? Yeah—you. Which, truthfully, wouldn’t be a problem since you don’t have any rivalries with the other top scorers and are actually quite friendly with them. But then, you also have to remember that Nicholas’s “isn’t fussy about his work when with others” does not apply to you.

The both of you had been in the same class since year one of high school and unfortunately for the both of you, had a homeroom teacher that supported academic rivalry through class rankings and verbal comparisons so your class would have morale to study harder. The good results? Your class average ended up to be the highest of all the other classes in that grade. The negative results, however, consisted of you two never seeing eye to eye and being incredibly competitive against each other as the two top scorers of year one’s grade.

Tensions were always high between the two of you when introduced in the academic field, and friendship outside academics diminished before it could be formed because of the pride built from the rivalry you both held.

Even when year two came and you both weren’t classmates anymore, Nicholas and you would always compare your scores to make sure the other didn’t beat one another academically.

Now, in your final and third year, you feel your stomach churn at the thought of having to spend a whole term with your arch nemesis in school—even if it’s for a grade and even if being with him is actually a good advantage to your score.

A bit dramatic? Yes—but is this very much valid? Also yes!

“Professor Lee, please reconsider—“

”[name], I’ve already told you that I put it in the register already..I’m sorry.. I know it was my mistake for not checking before inputting the names, but I can’t change it anymore.”

“But—“

”Dislike me that much, partner?” A teasing voice cuts you off midway through another complaint. That annoyingly deep voice which reminded you of the bane of your existence—

“Nicholas,” you muttered with a grumble.

“[name],” He muttered back mockingly, before turning his eyes to Prof. Lee, “Professor, as much as I dislike most of [name]’s ideas—“ ( you rolled your eyes ) “—she’s right here. Can’t you change our partners to the original? I mean, it’s not even our fault the system glitched. That old app needs to be rebooted immediately.”

Your professor sighed, rubbing his tired eyes, “Like I said with [name] just now, I can’t anymore because it’s been inputted in the system. Look, I don’t see why you both are so opposed to this as well. It’s not like you were partnered with someone inefficient. You’re both two of my best students, getting that A would be easy together.”

You and Nicholas kept silent because the both of you were awkward like that. What the teacher said was valid so there really was no counter-argument for that. Still, despite the silence your professor could see how much you two wanted to disagree.

“Look, I’m sorry for my mistake but look at it this way. You can’t be having this rivalry forever, ok? You both are going to leave highschool soon so it’s best to leave with good memories and no resenting feelings.”

You and Nicholas let out a collective, “Yes, Professor Lee.”

”Alright, you should go back to class,” Professor Lee concluded, returning back to the teacher’s lounge.

It was silent as you heard the door close. Upset, you made a beeline to Econs 3 without saying a word. You were about to turn to the corridor when a hand held your wrist. The moment you turned, that same hand dropped as if it was touching fire ( Um, rude? ).

”What,” you snapped.

”Look—I don’t like this anymore than you do but I really need the grades—“

”For your Lune Uni scholarship?” you finished his sentence, remembering his words from back then.

”Um—yeah,” he answered awkwardly with an even more awkward smile, “You too right? For &University?”

You blinked in surprise, “You remembered?”

He narrowed his eyes at you questionably, before retaliating, “You remembered too.”

You raised your brow in an I-dare-you manner, and he raised his hands in faux surrender. It then went to another awkward silence before he broke it once more.

“Look—so uh, like Prof. Lee said. Um, you know—we should, um..” said Nicholas in an attempt to form a sentence. You let out a small pfft, automatically remembering that he isn’t the best at finding his words despite the fact that he can speak 5 languages ( especially with all the times you saw him public speaking. ).

Deciding to put him out of his misery, you finished his sentence, “We should cooperate and put the rivalry to a truce?”

He scratched his head sheepishly at having you finish his sentence for him, “Yeah, truce.”

As you head to class, you think that maybe—just maybe—it won’t be too bad after all.

You take back your words. Nothing in this world was as frustrating as your partnership with Nicholas other than breaking your nails when you just got them done. Here you are, trying to pick a topic—A topic—for your project and this alone is taking you guys way more time than it should be.

So what if you want to play it safe!? It’s 70% of your grade. Nicholas, on the other hand, wants to pick a risky gamble; says that ‘since it’s a big part of our grade we can’t follow the norm.’ Like? Ugh! If it weren’t for the fact that you just did your hair last night, you’d be stress-holding it like there’s no tomorrow.

And, to top it all off, this stupid high school has the smallest workstations you’ve ever worked in. To be fair, you guys did get individual workstations so there will definitely be no one copying off one another or distracting each other, but it’s just…small. Each group was given one table full of materials, two plastic chairs, and a cupboard; all mushed in together in a 10-by-10 foot room. Still, you feel it hard to breathe in this enclosed space as your heart palpitates ( in anger of course ) in front of the boy.

“Nicholas, can’t you understand!? I need to get a safe 100!” You frustratedly said, raising your voice slightly at the man in front of you.

“A hundred isn’t going to cut it! We need to do something that can turn heads and get us a scholarship! If we can make it work—“

“And if we can’t?! Mind you, I’m better at this subject!”

“Only by 1 point. Unlike your 3 point deficit from my score in Physics,” bit back Nicholas.

You threw your hands up in irritation, and though it’s embarrassing you swear you can feel tears swelling up your eyes. ( Don’t blame a girl for having tears as her coping mechanism! ) At this point, you just wanted it over with. Usually when you’re with Nicholas you feel like you can banter with him for ages, but today has been quite harsh for you.

First, you tripped on your carpet when you woke up panicked, then your milk spills on your uniform so you had to change—which then made you miss the bus and that made you then use your savings begrudgingly for an overpriced taxi because dear Lord will you be late and miss your chance in getting the year-end attendance award.

You genuinely cannot handle this day any longer.

“Fine,” you say in defeat, your voice exasperated as your hand massages your hurting, wet eyes.

“What?” Nicholas asks, in disbelief at how easily he won this.

“I said fine,” You snapped, your eyes meeting his—a mistake. Now he can see your tearful eyes and now you’re embarrassed. He notices too, and you hate how you know he did because his body just freezes in place at the sight of your tears.

Awkwardly, he asks, “Are you sure?” but the bite in his tone is non-existent by now. Now, he’s apprehensive, like a typical blundering high school boy.

”Yes. We’re done here, right?” You speak stiffly, and though you asked a question it was more to an indefinite command as you took your bag and left without his answer.

You can hear a small ‘Yeah.’ before you closed the door, leaving the poor boy in the dark to your situation.

Goodness, you’re genuinely so embarrassed. Topping the day off with having your arch-nemesis in academics see you cry? All you want to do is bury your head in the bed and never wake up again.

…

It’s not until the next morning that you had the displeasure of meeting him again.

“Here,” a voice cuts you and Harua’s conversation.

Nicholas’s hand is in front of your table, laying down a small carton of banana milk—your favorite brand.

‘What the heck?’ Is what you almost said out loud. Because truly—what the heck. Why in the world is he placing banana milk on your table like he’s giving it to you and you’re buddy-buddies? Better yet, how did he know you like banana milk, or that you like it in this specific brand most? Wait, but it technically might not just be for you, right..?

”It’s for you, quit looking dumb,” Nicholas cuts, giving you that don’t-be-nonsensical look.

You quit staring at him, then looked at the drink like it’s a suspicious entity, then made your eyeballs go right back at him before saying in a deadpanned voice, “What for?”

Not really a question and kind of rude—but hey! Are you going to take back your words? Nope!

You’re starting to actually believe you made the right choice when Yixiang rubs the back of his neck in awkwardness. You hear Harua snort beside you like he knows something you both don’t.

( Spoiler alert: he knows all. )

“What she means—“ cuts Harua, which made both your gazes fall upon him, “—is what’s the occasion?”

You’re confused by his intermission because Harua barely puts himself in the narrative, but he gives you a look that tells you to be nice and well—if your best friend’s telling you to be nice then you’re being nice.

( You know when moms would be like—“So if your friend is jumping off a cliff will you jump also?!” when they’re mad at you and you give them the my-friend-did-it-too excuse? Yeah, you absolutely would jump the bandwagon. )

“Yeah, that’s what I mean. It’s not my birthday today,” You responded nicely.

“Oh.” He replied, but then realized his mistake.

”Oh???” Harua and you both questioned.

“No! Wait wait— it’s not that I thought it was your birthday!” Nicholas panicked, flinging his hands around, “I know your birthday isn’t for another three months, okay? It’s just—I felt bad since I made you cry yesterday and you were super duper addicted to this brand during junior year so—“

“You made her cry!?” Exclaimed Harua, standing up in offense.

“I didn’t mean to!” Cried Nicholas. ( haha you see what I did there? )

“Yo—guys, chill…” You intercepted, also beginning to stand up once the story went overboard, “I didn’t cry because of you, I just had a bad day and blew it up on you.”

It was silent for a moment as you three stood in a triangle form.

“Oh.”

Now, you’ve seen Nicholas get red a handful of times. During PE where he’d get red after running too much, when he’s with Eujoo and Maki and they’d make him laugh so much that you could hear his voice from across the room, or when he’s frustrated during debates and arguments. One thing you rarely see, however, is him getting red out of embarrassment. Call you childish? Sure—go ahead. But you were sorta loving this moment. It was a side you’ve barely seen on him before. In a way, it’s sorta…

“I’m leaving,” Nicholas declared quickly, “Meet me Wednesday in the lab so we can get started real quick. Bye.”

Harua laughed like a menace as he watched Nicholas leave, but your eyes drifted towards the banana milk—untouched on your desk. You picked it up, before opening the straw and stabbing it through the plastic and taking a sip.

Not poisoned. Nice.

“Cute…” You muttered subconsciously, only to freeze after you realized what you said.

Please, please, please—

“No way.”

Fuck.

Slowly, your gaze turned to Harua who looked like he just hit a jackpot in his mind.

“No.” You denied strongly.

“No way—“

“No!”

Harua grips your shoulders with both his arms, his mouth dropping in shock.

“You like him!”

“NO!”

“You do!” Harua shouts in desperation for you to stop denying, but you will never stop denying, even as he shakes your shoulders while saying these cursed words.

“He’s my enemy!”

“He’s only your academic rival and school ends this year!”

“I disagree—“

“You find him cute!”

“I don’t! That was for you!”

“Thank you! But do not deceive the truth!” Harua almost shouted, “Mark my words! The truth will set you free, [reader]!”

“AHHH!” you shout.

Your breath heaves, as you sit up abruptly. Sweat leaves your skin like water on melted ice, and the blanket drops down dramatically to the floor.

A nightmare. A nightmare on the former morning terrorizes you still even in your sleep as you pant harder to collect the oxygen needed to recover your absolute damnation of a night terror.

You close your eyes, your body hitting the bed in an attempt for more shuteye.

And there he is again.

Nicholas. His smirk is branded behind your eyelids like some cursed watermark. He’s leaning over your shoulder—correction, imaginary Nicholas is leaning over your shoulder—pointing smugly at a mistake you didn’t even make. His voice, obnoxiously clear: “I told you it was C, not D.”

You know it was D because yours didn’t even end up wrong. You got half a point after explaining to Mr. Min why you were right and Mr. Min did admit he made a mistake.

You open your eyes and throw your pillow at the wall. It hits the calendar.

The calendar you only bought because it had pictures of sheep and just so happens to be in Nicholas’ favorite color. Not that you knew that. Not that you cared that you knew that.

You groan, dragging your hands down your face as you give up at the thought of sleep. You sit up, then attempt to stand. But then, your pen rolls off your desk with a dramatic clatter—his pen. Okay, technically yours now, but you both reached for it at the same time during bio lab last week and you pulled rank. Since then it’s lived on your desk like a stolen trophy.

You swear the ink still smells like his cologne.

How does ink even smell like cologne? You don’t know but it just works.

“Stop it,” you mutter to the air.

“Stop what?”

Harua, ( not him again! ) your best friend, roommate, and the reason for your distress, stands at the doorway holding a bowl of cereal like the bearer of divine judgment. Why’s he even in your dorm this early in the morning? You knew that giving him your password would bite you back in the ass one day.

“Nothing,” you lie instantly, which is pointless. Harua has known you since the Jurassic era and reads your face like it’s the front page of a scandal magazine.

Harua steps inside and eyes the mess—blanket, pillow, pen on the floor. “Another dream?” he asks, tone casual, as they pick up the pen and twirl it. “Let me guess. He insulted your handwriting again and then offered to tutor you in statistics despite the fact that you’re only worse than him by a point in stats ranks.”

You scoff. “Don’t flatter him. As if I’d ever need help from him.”

“Uh-huh,” Harua says, walking slowly around your room like a detective. “So the pen isn’t his?”

“I—maybe? Who knows? Pens are universal. Pens migrate. That pen’s probably been through multiple owners. Nothing special.” You mutter ignorantly, picking up your blanket and going to the bathroom to wash your face.

“Mm. And the calendar in his favorite color is just… a coincidence.”

“Yes.”

No.

Harua leans against your bookshelf, crunching cereal obnoxiously. “You’ve said ‘he’s annoying’ at least twice a day for the past month. You know what that is?”

“Yes. It’s consistency. I am a woman of my word.”

“Ding ding ding! False—it’s obsession.”

You shoot them a death glare. “I hate him.”

Your best friend shrugs. “You know, some people hate people in a quiet way. You, though? You hate him like you’re waiting for a Jane Austen monologue. It’s theatrical.”

You throw a used sock lying on the bathroom floor at his head after you turn off the tap. It misses. You curse gravity.

Harua opens their mouth for another wisecrack—and that’s when your phone rings.

Your heart doesn’t drop. It stutters. ( Completely different, by the way. )

You glance at the screen.

Nicholas.

Why is he calling you this early? Why is he calling you at all?

You hesitate. Then answer. “It’s not Wednesday yet.”

Nicholas’s voice comes through, scratchy and smug, just the way you loathe. “Relax. I’m not calling for a casual chat. Prof. Lee added a new variable to the lab setup—wants us to tweak the data model before class.”

You want to curse Professor Lee.

“…Now?”

“In twenty minutes. Don’t be late. And bring your notes. The real ones,not those sketchy margin doodles.”

You scowl, “I don’t doodle.”

The call ends before you even finish that sentence. Rude.

You stare at the screen like it had genuinely insulted your bloodline.

“What’d he want?” Harua asks, chewing slower, eyes gleaming with unholy interest.

You stand, already yanking on a sweater. “Academic crisis. Lab. I have to go.”

“So you’re saying you’re willingly running off to meet him?”

“I’m running off to protect my GPA, thank you very much. This has nothing to do with him. This is entirely scientific. Controlled conditions. Utterly platonic. No variables of emotional interference. Clean data.”

You’re rambling and you know it, but you’re halfway out the door now.

Behind you, Harua snickers. “Sure. Totally platonic. Just don’t mix up your data with your feelings.”

You slam the door shut before he can say another word.

But not before grabbing his pen.

For accuracy, obviously.

Not sentiment.

Definitely not sentiment.

Weeks go by and assignment after assignment gets tossed left and right at you, as if that wasn’t enough, preparation for finals starts grilling you down to the core of overworking. You feel absolutely cooked by everything the past weeks, and you feel it taking a toll on you physically as well, since it seems that the soon-to-come summer’s heat wants to run by early this year.

The sweltering atmosphere highly distracts you sometimes, but what can you do when your school’s too focused on putting extra ACs only on classrooms where the teachers work?

Once again you curse this school.

( You know you shouldn’t since you don’t want to attract bad energy, but at this point cursing the school has become a second language to you. )

You wipe the sweat off your forehead as you sit in the lab room, that’s basically turned into a sauna now. The small desk fan hums pathetically in the corner, spinning weakly like it’s being kept alive by sheer willpower. Genuinely, these moments make you hate how dedicated you both are to your grades. Who else in the world would work in a room that’s nearly 40 Celcius just for chemistry?

And naturally, you’re also trapped here with him.

Nicholas leans against the edge of the lab bench, scribbling notes, his own hair sticking slightly to his forehead. He’s already ditched his outer layer, now only in a fitted black tank top, that absolutely no one asked for, but is unfortunately very present and very sore on the eyes.

You tear your eyes away. Focus. You’re here for chemistry. That’s it.

“This concentration’s off again,” Nicholas says, voice smooth but annoyingly calm despite the heat. “You measured too fast.”

“No, I didn’t,” you snap back, a little sharper than necessary. “The equipment’s just old. Like this entire school.”

Nicholas tilts his head, amusement flickering in his eyes. “Or maybe you’re just impatient.”

You inhale sharply. Breathe. No, you’re not getting baited today.

“It’s one milliliter, Nicholas. The universe won’t collapse because I moved one milliliter faster than your grandma pace.”

He chuckles under his breath and leans in closer to check the data points, and you have to physically restrain your traitor of a brain from noticing the way his shoulder muscles shift as he moves. The way his jaw clenches ever so slightly when he reads.

The heat isn’t helping.

“You always get defensive when I’m right,” he murmurs.

You scoff, glancing at him. “You always say you’re right, even when you know I am.”

“That’s because I usually am.”

“Oh, you’re unbearable.”

“And yet, here you are.” His voice lowers, teasing. “Voluntarily spending hours with me. In a room. Alone.”

You roll your eyes, leaving the conversation to end there. It’s another round of silence, although not awkward like you expected silence to be when with him. It doesn’t take long before he says something again, though.

“We still need to finalize the error margins,” he says, voice steady. “We’re not going to be able to calculate the final reaction yield until that’s sorted.”

“I know,” you mutter, already scribbling calculations. “You act like I haven’t been doing this with you for the past four weeks.”

“Well, sometimes you get sloppy when you’re tired.”

You shoot him a glare. “I’m perfectly capable, thank you.”

“I never said you weren’t.” He pauses. “You just zone out a lot lately.”

“I do not—”

You stop.

He raises an eyebrow, a tiny smirk forming, but you refuse to give him that satisfaction. You point at your notebook instead. “Focus on the data.”

“Right.” He clears his throat, scribbling again. “Did you finish that lab report for Mr. Min’s class yet?”

You wonder why he’s talking so much today. Unnecessarily too.

“Barely. I’ve rewritten the conclusion like five times because he’s impossible to please.”

“His standards are brutal,” he agrees, voice softer. “I spent two hours reformatting my graphs yesterday because he said the fonts weren’t consistent.”

You snort. “Of course you did. You live for perfect formatting.”

“Well, yeah.” He tries to grin but it wobbles a bit, and he quickly looks back down at his notes. “I mean… it looks cleaner that way.”

For a moment, neither of you speak. Just the buzzing fan and the faint scratching of pens fill the space.

The air feels heavier now—not just from the heat, but something else lingering. You shift uncomfortably, your skin feeling stickier by the second. You tug at your collar.

“Ugh,” you mutter, “how is it this hot already? It’s not even officially summer yet.”

Nicholas exhales, fanning himself with one of the worksheets. “I swear this room absorbs heat on purpose.”

“It’s probably alive,” you joke flatly. “Like some cursed creature feeding off our suffering.”

He chuckles, but it sounds breathier this time, like even laughing takes too much energy in this weather. “Honestly, I believe it.”

You glance at him—only for a second. But you catch the way his neck glistens slightly under the lab lights. The way a drop of sweat trails down the side of his jaw before he quickly wipes it with the back of his hand.

You look away fast.

What the heck! Your brain is doing that thing again where it starts noticing details it has absolutely no business noticing. You don’t know why it does that, but it genuinely needs to stop.

“It’s hard to focus when it feels like I’m being slow-roasted alive,” you mumble, half hoping to break whatever weird tension is creeping in, “I’m starting to feel bad for the ducks my dad roasted last summer.”

Nicholas laughs loudly, but responds in a voice that comes out a little softer. “Yeah. Same. My older sister would bring me to buy roasted pork during the holidays and I feel like I’d relate to the vegans now.”

You swear his gaze lingers on you a beat too long. You can feel it, burning through the side of your face. The fan clicks as it rotates again, blowing hot air your way like it’s mocking you both.

Then, out of nowhere, his hand reaches across the table to grab the pipette, fingers brushing against yours. Brief, but enough to send a spark straight to your stomach.

Neither of you acknowledge it.

Neither of you move.

You can feel your heartbeat hammering in your ears now.

“Uh,” he says, voice catching slightly, “can you… pass me the data sheet?”

You wordlessly slide it over, careful not to let your hand tremble. Why is it so quiet all of a sudden? Why does the air feel thinner? You hear him exhale again, sharper this time.

When you glance up—which was a mistake—he’s already looking at you.

Except—his gaze isn’t at your eyes anymore.

It’s lower.

Your breath stutters for a moment, chest rising a little too quickly. You freeze.

The space between you suddenly feels dangerously nonexistent, like one wrong move would snap the thread holding you both in place.

You open your mouth to say—something, anything—but nothing comes out. Nicholas looks equally frozen now, like his brain is short-circuiting alongside yours.

His lips part slightly. His eyes flick back up to meet yours.

And then—

BANG.

The door swings open with dramatic timing.

“Ah! Found you two!” Mr. Lee walks in, wheeling in a battered old fan like some twisted guardian angel. “Finally got this thing running. Should help cool you guys down.”

You nearly launch yourself backward, stumbling upright like you’ve been jolted out of a trance. “Yes—uh—thank you, Mr. Lee. Great. Amazing. Perfect timing.”

You catch a quick glance at Nicholas, who’s already looking down at his notes again, furiously scribbling like his life depends on it. His ears are flushed red.

You pretend not to notice.

( You absolutely notice! )

Mr. Lee wheels the fan into place, plugging it in with a loud click. The old machine rattles and whirs like it’s struggling to wake up from a coma, but soon enough, a weak but steady breeze starts moving through the room.

“See? Much better!” Mr. Lee smiles, completely unaware of the catastrophic moment he just interrupted. “I’ll leave you two to it. Don’t overwork yourselves.”

You force a polite nod, voice refusing to cooperate yet. “Right. Thanks.”

Nicholas mumbles something that might’ve been “thank you” too, but it comes out so quiet you’re not entirely sure if he even said it.

And then — he leaves.

The door swings shut behind him with a soft click.

Silence crashes into the room like a tidal wave.

The hum of the fan fills the empty space between you now. You stay standing for a second longer than necessary, not sure whether sitting again might physically kill you.

Finally, you force yourself to lower back into your chair.

You can feel Nicho’s presence like he’s a gravity field pulling at your skin. You refuse to look. Absolutely refuse.

Your eyes flick to your notes. They’re blurry. Probably from sweat. Hopefully from sweat.

“So,” you say after a moment, your voice coming out drier than intended.

“So,” his voice echoes, and you don’t miss how his voice cracks just a little.

You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from reacting.

“Back to the error margins?” you try, because pretending none of that just happened seems like the safest option.

“Yeah,” Nicholas says quickly. “Margins. Right.”

He flips through his notebook too fast, a few loose sheets slipping out and fluttering to the floor like traitors.

You bend down to grab the papers at the same time he does.

Of course.

Of course you do.

Your heads nearly collide, and both of you freeze mid-motion, faces inches apart again, as if the universe hasn’t already played this joke on you enough today.

Nicho’s hand hovers just above yours, fingers twitching awkwardly like he’s debating whether to move or not. His breath is shaky this time — you can hear it. Feel it.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, voice a little hoarse now. “I wasn’t— I mean—”

“It’s fine,” you cut in quickly, way too quickly.

Neither of you move immediately.

The fan groans in the background like it’s watching a slow-motion disaster.

You both pull back at the same time, eyes darting anywhere but at each other now.

The heat isn’t helping.

The fan isn’t helping.

Nothing. Is. Helping.

You hear Nicholas clear his throat again. His voice is quieter when he speaks next.

“I… I think I need to check the solution again.”

“Yeah. Go ahead.”

“Right. Cool.”

He stands up — a bit too fast — knocking his chair slightly before steadying it, pretending like that didn’t just happen.

You keep your eyes laser-focused on the paper in front of you, gripping your pen harder than necessary to stop your hand from shaking.

This is fine.

You’re fine.

Everything’s fine.

Everything sort of turned out just fine, actually.

Contrary to your beliefs, the following weeks after the incident seemed normal. You both had practically—and silently—agreed to ignore what had happened. Though you suppose it isn’t technically all that normal with the way the both of you would stiffen up in response to any ‘almost’ physical contact or the way your daily bickerings had changed in tone. Less bite, more talk.

What used to be fights on shallow scores and academic achievements have turned to playful banters like right now.

“Ugh, you like tomatoes? That’s weird,” Nicholas grunts in disgust at your food preference.

“Not as weird as your love for zucchini," You respond without missing a beat.

“Tomatoes are slimy!” He whined.

“And zucchinis aren’t?” You retorted.

“As much as I’d love to watch my show—“ Cuts Harua, “I believe me and [reader] have social studies.”

Before you could tell Harua to shut up, however, another man comes over swinging his arms over both you and Harua’s shoulders.

”What show?”

You swerved your head to the familiar voice, surprised to see Taki of all people in A Maths. Taki was someone easy to talk to; funny though a bit dense. He’s been hanging around you and Harua after you three got grouped for a project in History. However, he’s also someone who swore to never step foot in ‘Hell’s class’ ( His words, not yours! ), so you were surprised as to why he’s here in all his glory.

( Quick commercial break for Taki’s OOTD! His outfit is first welcomed with an orange and yellow striped sweater and cream pants, then meticulously accessorized with a pink hat and finally topped with his khaki boots! )

You can already imagine Nicholas’s judgmental nose.

“Taki? What are you doing here?” You asked.

Before Taki could answer, however, Nicholas voiced out, “Who’s this?”

You don’t enjoy the tone in his question at all.

Harua does, though. You can tell he does.

”Taki!” Taki replies, “From 12C. You’re Nicholas right?”

”Yeah,” replied Nicholas tightly.

It seemed as if Nicholas had a lot more to say, though Taki didn’t let him continue as he picked up the conversation left off with you.

”You know Asakura Jo? From my class—12C?” Taki asked.

“Jo?” You echoed, “Yeah, I know him. We used to be in the same class together.”

Taki then dropped a bomb—”Can you go on a date with him?”

”What?”

”Come again?”

”Yo.”

The last one came from Harua as all three of you had similar responses.

“Yeah, Jo’s never been on a date before and his mom’s been pressuring him to go to a relative’s wedding with a partner,” Taki spoke matter-of-factly, like this is the most normal thing ever.

“Ohhhh, so it isn’t because he’s interested in me?” You asked tentatively.

Taki paused, before thinking over the question, “I mean, probably? I dunno, I never asked.”

”I’m not sure..”

“C’mon [reader], it’s just one day. Help the poor boy.”

“Why does it have to be with [reader]?”

Ah, you sorta forgot Nicholas was here.

Before you could retort in offense, Harua beat you to it.

“Why, jealous?” He teased.

You gave Harua a warning look at the same time Nicholas defensively denied the accusation.

“Of course not,” He replied, giving Harua a judgemental look, “It’s because we have a project together and that’d take [reader]’s time.”

Maybe it was the tone of his annoying voice, or maybe it was the face he made when he denied it pretty harshly; but an ugly feeling bubbled in your chest. In a way, you were offended as to why the thought would disgust him that bad though you’d do the same.

You blame Nicholas for your decisions today and future you’s misfortune.

“You know what? Sure.”

”Serious?” You heard the enthusiasm in Taki’s voice before you saw it.

“What? The project—“ Nicholas started, his brows furrowing.

”I’d be gone at most for one weekend only, don’t be dramatic,” You retorted him with sass, then turned to Taki, “Text me Jo’s number?”

”Sure!”

From across you, you see Harua give you a questioning look. You signal him a small ‘later’. Harua nodded subtly, before taking this as a cue to move on from the topic.

“We should go, Social Studies starts in 5.”

“Ok,” you respond, before turning to leave with them. Of course, you don’t exit before saying a sarcastic goodbye to Nicholas, who was left with an unreadable expression as he joins his friend Maki for Physical Edu.

Do you regret your actions?

Yes.

…Would you do it again if time rewinded?

Also yes.

…

You find yourself in a random person’s wedding the next weekend, regretting all your actions albeit with a handsome escort on your arm.

You and Jo had been acquaintances for the longest time. He’s always had moving classes with you, and even shared a homeroom with you last year; however neither of you had really made an effort to be close though you both share many similarities. For one, Jo’s also ranked in the top 5, and is actually holding the number one spot for Chemistry.

Your escort is wearing a black tuxedo and a blue bowtie, looking a lot more at ease than you are ( Rightfully so since this is his family event… ). You on the other hand wore a soft blue dress to match with Jo.

There’s one word to describe this experience overall: awkward.

All you’ve done so far was smile and laugh when everybody else laughed; sticking yourself to Jo’s arm the whole night.

You know no one, and the jokes his family made about the two of you being cute together had you almost digging a hole for yourself out of embarrassment.

Thankfully, Jo seemed to sense it as he brought you to the dance floor—away from his relatives.

Still—it isn’t what the fiction stories you read when you were 13 made it out to be—that’s for sure.

You want to go home.

You make a note to yourself mentally: don’t go to a wedding for a first date.

Jo’s hand rests lightly on your back as you step away from the dance floor, heels already beginning to ache. He offers you a glass of water and a tired smile.

“You okay?” he asks, voice low and gentle.

You nod, managing a small smile in return. “My cheeks hurt from all the smiling.”

That makes him laugh—an actual laugh, not the polite chuckle he’s been giving his relatives all night. “Yeah. You were kind of frozen for the first half.”

“I was panicking,” you admit, dramatic for effect. “Your aunt asked if we were dating, and I forgot how to speak.”

Jo grins, the tension between you both finally softening. “You could’ve just said yes to mess with them.”

You snort. “And give them hope? I don’t have the heart.”

The two of you share a quiet moment, watching the party go on without you both. It’s not romantic. Not a single spark or lingering gaze or even that disney movie moment. Just two people in the same corner of chaos, making it work.

“You’re actually really easy to talk to,” you admit to him at the end of the night, genuinely surprised.

Jo shrugs, before joking. “I feel the same. I was actually sort of nervous when K broke the news to me at first. This wasn’t a bad first date.”

You give him a look. “It was a wedding.”

“Still counts.”

You laugh, and it feels real this time.

“Alright, alright. Should I say thank you for today and give you a bye bye kiss?” You teased.

Jo laughs quietly, his ears growing slightly flushed. “The ‘thank you’ is a must since this distracted you from your studies, no? Though I think I'd save the both of us from that second suggestion.”

The night ended shortly after the parting goodbyes, and Jo made sure you were in the cab safely before he left to go home with his family, waving a little too dramatically as you stepped in. You appreciated it. He had made the night easier.

All in all, you don’t completely regret coming today.

The cab ride home is blissfully silent. You bask in the silence as you recharge your social battery.

Once you’re back inside your dorm and the shoes are off, you dial Harua before your brain can convince you not to.

“Heyyyyyy, how was it? Did you two kiss during the slow dance?” Harua’s voice comes through way too loudly for 11 p.m.

You flop onto your bed. “Absolutely not. It was… fine. Jo’s nice. Actually, he’s great.”

“Oh?” comes another voice—Taki. You didn’t even realize he was on the other end of the call too.

You groan. “Taki, why are you here?”

“I live for the tea,” he says cheerfully. “So? Spill. Don’t tell me I successfully played cupid?”

“Ha! Yeah right. I mean, it wasn’t awkward after the first hour. We kind of… clicked? But not like that. There’s no spark. He’s more like…” You pause, thinking. “Like a quiet teammate. Supportive, but you know it’s not going anywhere.”

“Like a co-op partner in a romance game,” Taki offers.

“Exactly.”

There’s a beat of silence.

Then Harua, teasingly: “So, not like Nicholas then?”

You freeze. Taki gasps so dramatically it echoes.

“WAIT WHAT.”

“Harua,” you hiss.

Harua laughs. “Oops.”

“WAIT WAIT WAIT,” Taki says again. “YOU and Nicholas?! Since when?!”

You groan and bury your face into a pillow. “It’s not like that—”

“Yes it is,” Harua says, far too smug. “I’ve seen the way he talks about you.”

“There is tension,” Taki adds thoughtfully. “Now that I think about it…”

You toss the pillow aside. “Okay first of all, we’re not talking about this. Second of all, we are absolutely not talking about this.”

“Mhm,” they say in unison, completely ignoring you.

You hung up the phone quickly.

You don’t like him.

You don’t like the way he annoys you with his taunts whenever he gets a higher score. You don’t like the way your neck hurts when you speak to him because he’s too goddamn tall for no reason. You absolutely don’t enjoy how he has a habit of licking his lips 24/7 as if he never puts lip balm on. And it ticks you off especially when he’s frustrated during lab nights because the solution won’t work; resulting in him messing up his hair and uniform—tie loosening and eventually distracting you from your work.

You don’t like Wang Yixiang.

You’re convinced you never will.

“How’s your date?”

The question bombards your face before you’re even able to step foot inside the cramped lab. A question from your incredibly annoying project partner this early in the morning about your personal life? Not the best way to start the day.

Somehow, you feel satisfied at the slightly pissed tone of his voice. You don’t know why—probably because you pissed him off, actually.

Right?

Anyways.

“Why so curious?” You teased, basking in satisfaction at the sight of his furrowed brows and sharp gaze; his jaw locked in a sliver of tension you just know he’s trying to not show.

“Can I not be curious about my partner? I believe I have the right to ask a friendly question,” He retorted in that competitive tone he’d use when being challenged, his eyes narrowing down on you.

Maybe it’s the way he said partner, or perhaps it’s the look on his eyes right now—like you’re prey and he’s about to hunt you down. It sends shivers down your spine. You feel vulnerable under his meticulously calculative gaze. That, however, isn’t even the worst thing about this situation.

The worst part?

You don’t completely hate it.

“Jo’s nice, it was enjoyable.”

”Yeah?” He challenged ( as if it was a challenge ), stepping closer to you, “Sure he was, though knowing you I’d bet you wanted to run back to your bed the moment you stepped inside that place.”

You scowl at how precisely he guessed your thoughts—as if he knew you like an open book.

He doesn’t.

“Hit a nerve knowing I was right?” He taunted, now directly right in front of you; looking down at your eyes.

He doesn’t.

“You wish,” You say, low and steady, placing a hand on his chest and pushing him back just enough to reclaim a sliver of space.

He doesn’t budge. Not really.

Instead, he lets out a scoff—dry and amused in the most irritating way. “Jo must have really low standards then.”

You blink. Did he just—?

“I mean,” Nicholas continues, cocking his head slightly like he’s still deciding whether to go for the kill, “no offense, but you couldn’t even make it through first year orientation without hiding in the bathroom. And weddings are worse. High-pressure, noisy, way too many people—you don’t really handle that well.”

There it is. The line.

A beat of silence stretches between you. Your pulse ticks in your ears.

“…I didn’t realize you thought I was so incompetent,” you say quietly, voice tight.

His expression flickers, but it’s too late.

“Oh, come on,” he says, but you’re already stepping back.

“Don’t worry,” you say with a sharp smile. “Next time I go somewhere public, I’ll bring flashcards. Wouldn’t want to embarrass your standards.”

He exhales through his nose. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Isn’t it?” you snap.

And then you say something—something you shouldn’t. You don’t mean to, it just slips, like instinct.

“At least Jo’s standards don’t go with an ego, that’s why he’s able to maintain his childhood friendships.”

That hits. You see it in the way his jaw clenches, in the way his eyes dart to the side, the hurt buried beneath the irritation. For one dizzying second, you regret it.

You knew it was a sensitive topic to talk about. After all, Yuma was his closest friend for the longest time. Their friendship break off was super public during the end of second year.

But the silence that follows is worse than anything else.

No comeback. No sarcasm. Just cold, heavy nothing.

“Whatever,” you mutter, grabbing your notebook and heading to your seat.

He doesn’t stop you.

He doesn’t say a word.

And for the first time since this whole stupid partnership started, neither do you.

The both of you worked in silence the next few days.

For the first time in your high school rivalry, both your angers were silent.

It’s not like you didn’t try to awkwardly ignore it like you always do with tough situations, but the former did not budge from his pledge of silence despite the academic risks.

The only thing that meets your questions and demands is passive-aggressive silence. Somehow, that ticks you off more than it would if he said shit—even if the said shit hurted.

Fine. You think to yourself.

That’s how he wants to play this out.? Ha! You want to laugh.

You’ll show him play.

…So you go to Jo.

It’s Taki’s idea, actually—some half-serious suggestion made while he was eating lunch and scrolling his phone. “If Nicholas is gonna keep acting like a moody drama prince, just ask Jo. He’s smart and actually nice. Like, a functioning human being.”

You hadn’t thought about it seriously at first. You doubt Taki meant it seriously as well when he suggested it. But after another day of working in silence with Nicholas—where you asked a question and got nothing but the blank stare of a man spiritually throwing darts at your forehead—you decided it was worth a shot.

Which is how you ended up here, after school, in the quiet corner of the library with Jo Asakura.

He leans across the table, pencil in hand, walking you through a particularly stubborn question on your returned chemistry project report. His voice is soft, steady. The kind of voice that doesn’t make you feel stupid for asking something twice.

“So—if you think about it,” Jo says, tapping the edge of your worksheet, “hydrogen bonds aren’t as strong as covalent ones, right? But in water, they matter a lot because of how they stack. That’s what gives it the surface tension.”

You frown slightly, trying to picture it. “So it’s weak… but it’s the repetition that makes it significant?”

“Exactly!” he lights up. “On their own they’re not impressive. But together, they’re stable. Resilient.”

You nod slowly, scribbling down notes to change your model. “Weirdly poetic.”

Jo smiles. “You say that like chemistry isn’t poetic.”

That makes you huff a laugh. “Tell that to my last quiz grade.”

“Well, that was because you forgot to label the electronegativity scale,” he points out gently, “and you better be quiet about that before I tell Harua and he jumps on you because 93 isn’t a bad score.”

You groan and drop your head on the table. “Okay, traitor. I came here for help, not betrayal.”

Jo laughs. “Not betrayal, just honesty. I’m a Libra, I have to be.”

You lift your head just enough to give him a side-eye. “You’re not about to tell me you believe in astrology.”

“I’m not saying I don’t,” he says, cheeky.

You roll your eyes but the smile creeps up anyway. “You’re lucky you’re useful.”

“Wow. And I thought we were bonding.”

You are bonding! In fact, you’re having the most fun you had the entire stressful week with Jo. So much fun that you didn’t realise that the spot you sit on right now was a certain partner of yours’ favorite library spot.

…

He didn’t mean to find you.

He was walking back from his locker, totally minding his own business. Really. He just happened to pass the library. That’s it. That’s the whole story.

That was—of course, until he heard your laugh.

He should’ve kept walking. Should’ve been the bigger person. Should’ve remembered he had better things to do. He definitely does. Probably. He’s not even supposed to care about you anyways—he’s supposed to be rightfully, undeniably pissed at you.

But instead, he stopped.

And now he’s frozen outside the library’s glass doors, watching you lean across the table with Jo Asakura.

Your pen is twirling uselessly between your fingers. You haven’t written anything for a solid minute because you’re smiling. You’re smiling at Jo.

The guy who wears turtlenecks unironically and probably apologizes to the old, battered school vending machines if they were to break down before giving the dude his drink?

He didn’t even like Jo.

Jo, with his annoyingly perfect notes and calm voice and weirdly charming nerd energy. Jo, who’s explaining something about hydrogen bonds like he invented the damn periodic table. Jo, who—what the hell is he doing sitting in his seat? Scratch that—what are the two of you doing sitting in his beloved library spot?

Jo ( and you ) is sitting in his seat. Explaining his part of the project. Making you laugh.

Nicholas grips the strap of his bag hard enough to turn his knuckles white. It’s like a slap on his face—sharp and annoying.

It shouldn’t be a big deal. You’re just… talking. About chemistry. School stuff. Group project things. It’s fine. Completely fine.

Actually, it’s better this way. Yeah! It is. You know what, he doesn’t even have to talk to you anymore this way! He just needs to finish this stupid project and then graduate and hit the sails to never, ever see you again for the rest of his life!

…Except your smile’s the kind of smile you used to aim at him when you’d beat his ass up during arguments.

Except you’re laughing, and you haven’t laughed around him in over a week.

Except Jo looks so comfortable next to you, like he belongs there. Like he was always the one helping you. Like he knows you.

Nicholas scowls and shifts his weight like it’ll shake off whatever this weird ache is in his chest.

You’re just… you’re mad at him. That’s all. You needed help. You asked someone else. Jo was there. It’s not a big deal. It’s logical. He would’ve done the same. It’s useful to him, even. He doesn’t care. This is fine.

He doesn’t care.

He doesn’t—

…

Okay, what the fuck is this feeling?

His fingers curl tighter around the strap of his bag. His jaw’s locked and he’s not even sure when that happened. His stomach’s doing this twisting thing, like it’s trying to strangle him from the inside out ( Does that count as murder if your organs are the ones to kill you? ).

This is so dumb.

He’s Nicholas for god’s sake. He doesn’t get flustered. He doesn’t get jealous. He doesn’t care who you laugh with, who you sit next to, who makes you feel seen or safe or whatever.

He doesn’t care.

…

No.

No, wait—

Oh.

Oh, shit.

He cares.

He really fucking cares.

He likes you.

He likes you.

And he just realized it standing outside a library like an absolute idiot while Jo Asakura makes you laugh.

Awesome. Fantastic. Perfect.

He’s so, so screwed.

It’s around midnight—the day before your project submission date. The time is ticking and the moon runs uphill.

Technically, you’re done with the project by now. Is there such a thing as too much rechecking for a grade as big as this, however? No.

So you’re still in the lab at midnight, when all the other groups have already clocked out for bed. The fan Professor Lee provided buzzes on the corner, and your irksome partner is on the desk rereading the paperwork.

Your hands work tirelessly to check that the model is presentable for the ninth time, analyzing every aspect that could go wrong just to make sure.

The silence is unbearable, though you hate to admit. In a way, you’ve missed being able to banter with Nicholas. The silence is hurting you more than you’d thought. You’re not sure why.

This is your rival you’re talking about. Has been since the first year of high school. You don’t understand why your heart aches in the presence of his silence. You don’t know why you can’t just ignore it like you usually do.

You don’t understand anything much right now.

It’s weird. Because this is the same person whose name you’d find first when class schedules are released. This is the same person whose timetable you know like the back of your hand. The same person who enjoys strawberries more than anyone else you know. The same person who’d rather use up all his allowance on clothes than food.

When it comes to him, you’d usually understand. Know, even.

You’re about to part ways anyway since the universities you’re both aiming for are at different ends of the city. You won’t see him much—not unless you both want to arrange something anyways. For some reason, that made your chest tighten.

You look at your notebook. It’s filled with your incessant jots of notes that no one can understand but you. No one’s been able to make use of your words because your lazy handwriting is unreadable.

Harua once asked if it’s a hidden language you used to store in all your genius tips to be in the top 5. You laughed.

Words after words on plans and notes on the project filling your eyes. Small rants about Nicholas are written here and there. You neared the beginning of the notebook.

It’s a journal on your orientation day.

Same day you almost had a whole breakdown because the atmosphere overstimulated you. You remember trying to write down Economics notes to calm you down. Your inked pages are written in blue.

Fiscal Policy: Government use of taxation and spending to influence the economy. Expansionary: Higher Government spending or lower taxes → lower higher aggregate demand (AD)

You stare at the red ink.

It’s Nicho’s handwriting.

You remember him coming out of the auditorium also, water in hand. It was the first time you met him. Before the competition, before the rivalry, before you knew him.

He sat next to you on the floor. Said nothing about how panicked you seemed. Just pointed out your notes and said ‘It’s higher, not lower.’

You were too baffled to respond back then so you let him use his red inked pen to make the correction.

You shut your notebook fast and shove it in your bag like it’s sin reincarnated as an object. You ignore how the notebook gave you a weird thought. You ignore how the pen in your bag is the object of your weird thought’s pen.

You finish tightening the final bolt on the model, then take a step back with a sigh. It’s done. For real this time.

The lab is still lit with its sleepy fluorescent glow, the fan still whining in the corner like it’s as tired as you both are. The model is perfect—or as perfect as it’ll ever be. The paperwork’s double-checked, the formatting obsessively tweaked. It’s over. There’s nothing left to fix.

He closes the folder of paperwork. You wipe the last bit of glue off your hands. With a silent agreement, you begin packing up.

The building is quiet when you start leaving. Deserted hallways stretch endlessly under flickering fluorescent lights. You walk side by side, but still not speaking. Not really. There’s still a space between you, stretched taut like a thread ready to snap.

You pretend to fiddle with your bag longer than necessary, sneaking glances. Nicholas is quiet again, arms crossed as he stares out the window into the dark campus. His profile is sharp in the moonlight, expression unreadable. This time, the silence doesn’t feel cold. It feels charged.

You clear your throat. “So…”

Nothing.

You sigh, slinging your bag over your shoulder and heading for the exit. The hallway is eerily quiet at this hour—lights dimmed, lockers lined up like ghosts in the dark. You reach the parking lot gate, the chill of midnight air crawling beneath your sleeves.

The campus parking lot is practically empty. A few cars left overnight, streetlights buzzing overhead. It’s colder than you expect—it must’ve dropped five degrees while you were inside.

��Wait,” comes his voice, finally.

You freeze mid-step, turning.

Nicholas catches up in two strides. “Here,” he says, tugging his jacket off with a rough gesture and shoving it toward you.

You blink. “I’m fine—”

“It’s cold,” he says shortly, eyes flicking everywhere but your face. “Just take it.”

You open your mouth to argue but… it smells like him. Stupidly warm. A mix of laundry powder and something distinctively Nicholas—you can’t name it, but it always lingers near his desk and notebooks.

You grumble something under your breath and slip it on.

That’s when the drizzle starts. Just a soft mist brushing your cheeks.

Of course.

“Of course it rains now,” you mutter, half to yourself.

Nicholas exhales a dry laugh. “Of course.”

A pause.

“Funny how you only start talking when the weather’s dramatic,” you shoot, voice clipped. “Did the rain turn your social settings back on?”

You expect a smartass comment. What you get is silence.

Then: “I wasn’t ignoring you for fun,” he says, low. “I was—figuring things out.”

You snort, beginning to get annoyed. “Oh, please. You’ve been sulking and acting like I keyed your car ever since I asked Jo for help.”

“You could’ve asked me,” he snaps.

“You weren’t talking to me!”

“I needed space.”

“And I needed a partner!”

The rain thickens.

You’re both soaked now, but neither of you move. Water runs down your temples, along your jaw. Nicholas’ hair is sticking to his forehead.

“Why do you even care?” you ask, voice rising. “You clearly couldn’t stand being around me the past few days.”

“Because I do care!” he shouts back, eyes wild. “Goodness—do you think I’d spend this much time arguing with someone I didn’t care about?!”

That makes you go silent.

The air cracks, like the clouds above.

Nicholas breathes hard, chest rising and falling. “You asked why I shut down,” he mutters. “It’s because I didn’t know what to do with it. With you. With… this.”

You stare at him.

“This rivalry thing—it’s a joke now. I kept trying to pretend that was all it was. Just competition. Academic tension. Who gets the higher score.”

He laughs bitterly. “Turns out I can memorize a whole semester’s worth of Biology but I can’t figure out what to do when I see you smiling at Jo like that.”

Your heart lurches.

He swallows hard. “I hate that he gets it easy with you. I hate that he doesn’t get on your nerves. I hate that he doesn’t get under your skin like I do.” He steps closer. “But mostly, I hate that I can’t stop thinking about you—because that means you win.”

You look up at him—drenched, messy, eyes fierce.

And somehow still… soft.

He exhales. “You win, okay? You win. You’ve had me wrapped around your finger since the first time you corrected my chemical equation.”

You blink once. Twice.

And the realization—your realization—hits you like a train.

No more denial.

“…Nicho,” you say, voice barely above the patter of rain.

“What now?” he says, tired.

“Kiss me.”

His head jerks. “What?”

You step closer, fingers brushing the front of his shirt. “Just shut up and kiss me.”

And he does.

Like he’s been holding back for years.

His hand braces on the lamppost behind you, the other cupping your cheek with soaked fingers. The kiss is inexperienced, but it’s real—it’s honest. It tastes like rain and resentment and something soft underneath that neither of you know how to name yet.

You kiss him back like you mean it.

It’s not gentle.

It’s desperate and messy and rain-soaked. His lips crash into yours like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he doesn’t hold on tight enough. Your hands fist the lapels of his shirt, tugging him closer, melting into the heat of him despite the cold.

The rain pours harder.

You don’t care.

Neither does he.

He pulls back after a while—just slightly, breathing hard. His forehead rests against yours.

“…We’re gonna get so sick,” he mumbles.

You laugh, breathless. “Like that’s the first thing in your mind right now.”

You don’t move. You just stand there, tangled in each other, in the middle of an empty parking lot at midnight, with rain running down your spines and a hundred unspoken words finally said.

You close your eyes, still feeling his hands on your waist.

You just pray the rain doesn’t get you both sick tomorrow.

The submission of your chemistry project felt like giving up your baby. It was slightly melancholic—you were sort of attached to it at this point after months of hard work on that. Except in this case the baby was unwanted, so you’re also happy to get rid of it.

It felt like the end of an era. A very long, academically traumatic, sleep-deprived era. But it’s over. Finally.

And that weight—the suffocating, soul-crushing, caffeine-fueled stress—seemed to lift the second you hit “submit.” For the first time in weeks, maybe months, you could actually breathe.

So what do you do with that sudden emptiness?

Eat, obviously.

All-you-can-eat Korean BBQ was the only correct choice. It’s been tradition ever since middle school—just you and Harua, elbow-deep in bulgogi and regret, trying to eat your exam trauma away. But this time it’s not just the two of you.

The whole class is here, filling up the big, noisy, smoky restaurant with overlapping conversations and the clatter of tongs on hot grills. People you’ve sat next to for years. People you’ve argued with, borrowed pens from, partnered with, grown up beside.

Now that it’s over—your final year of high school—you realize something that hits you harder than the delectable grilled pork in front of you: you probably won’t ever see half of them again.

You sit with Harua and Taki, the three of you forming your usual chaos corner at the end of the long table. Taki is already two cans of soda in, dramatically fanning himself from the spice while Harua is absolutely unbothered, folding lettuce wraps with the elegance of a trained professional.

“I’m telling you,” Harua says, tossing a piece of grilled pork into his wrap, “our Economics teacher is going to miss me the most. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

“You traumatized her,” you reply flatly.

“She loved it.”

Taki, through a mouthful of kimchi, chimes in, “You’re both delusional.”

You’re laughing, genuinely. You almost forget how exhausted you were. Almost forget that under the noise and chatter, Nicho is sitting just a few seats down—close enough that you can hear his voice when he talks, far enough that you can’t look at him without being obvious.

It’s not awkward though. It’s weirdly… exciting.

Because no one knows. Not yet.

You’re keeping it secret—for now. You both agreed. It’s easier this way, and honestly? A little fun. There’s something oddly thrilling about hiding in plain sight. Passing glances, little smiles. Knowing something no one else does.

That doesn’t stop people from trying.

“So,” one of your classmates says loudly across the table, “are you and Nicholas ever gonna tell us what was actually going on between you two? You’ve been rivals since year ten, and now you’re suddenly… what? Chill?”

Your brows lift, chopsticks frozen halfway to your mouth.

Here we go.

You smile a little too nicely. “We’re graduating. Gotta let it go sometime, right?”

“Oh c’mon,” someone else teases. “Not even one last dramatic insult before the school year ends?”

You shrug, popping a bite of rice into your mouth. “No point. Besides, university is a fresh start. I can’t waste brainpower on high school grudges.”

There’s laughter. Some teasing. Then the subject shifts.

But from your peripheral vision, you see Harua narrow his eyes at you.

You avoid it. You avoid him like the plague ( you know that if anything slipped he’d be the first to catch on ), which only makes his suspicion worse.

Later, when everyone’s had enough meat to feed a small country and Taki’s complaining that he might pass out from fullness, you start planning your escape.

“I’m going to get ice cream,” you say, standing and stretching your arms.

“You literally just ate three plates of brisket,” Harua mutters.

You grin. “Still have space for dessert.”

“Want me to come?”

“Nope! You and Taki are on dish duty.” You pat Harua’s head before he can argue and gesture toward the chaotic aftermath on his end of the table—used tongs, sticky wrappers, crumpled tissues. “I believe in you.”

Harua glares, but you’re already slipping away.

The convenience store next door is cool and quiet, fluorescent lights humming above neatly lined freezers. You head straight for the ice cream section—and find Nicho already there.

He doesn’t look surprised to see you.

“Let me guess,” he says, reaching for your favorite flavor without even asking. “You suddenly got the urge for dessert after dinner with thirty people.”

“Bold of you to assume I didn’t actually want dessert.”

“You think I don’t know your tells by now?” he says, a faint smirk playing on his lips.

You take the pint from his hand, fingers brushing. “I didn’t exactly see you fighting to stop me.”

He laughs softly. “Was hoping you’d come.”

You lean against the freezer door, looking at him. Really looking.

This boy. This irritating, brilliant, emotionally repressed boy who once called you stupid in a lab report and then stood in the school’s parking lot confessing like it hurt to breathe if he didn’t.

He steps a little closer.

“I missed you today,” he says quietly, like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“We sat at the same table.”

“Not the same,” he murmurs, eyes flicking to yours.

You exhale. “I wanted to say something, but…”

“I know.” His hand finds yours. Not tightly. Just enough. “We’ll tell them when we’re ready.”

“Until then?”

“We meet by the ice cream freezer.”

You laugh, leaning in just enough that your forehead rests against his. For a second, time stalls. There’s nothing but the soft hum of lights and the rhythm of your breaths.

“I really like you,” you whisper.

“Good,” he says, lips brushing your forehead, “Because you’re stuck with me.”

There’s not much words exchanged from thereon. His lips breathlessly on yours as his cold hands cup your face gently. A quick exchange before the need for secrecy befalls the both of you once more.

Thank goodness you’re not wearing lip gloss.

You end up buying two pints. One for the group. One for the two of you. No one questions it.

Harua gives you a look, of course. Taki is too busy dying from a food coma to notice anything. The night goes on.

And somewhere between the clinking glasses, the greasy chopsticks, and the chaos of old memories—

You realize something else.

This is the end of a chapter.

But maybe, just maybe, it’s the beginning of a better one.

Thank goodness your school never put money on upgrading that class app, no?

— THE END. —

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© astrae4 2025 | please don’t copy, translate, or plagiarize my works on all platforms!

[karcatgirl-vantas]

"books aren't literature"?

well, it's not as if there's an answer key on it.

as far as i know, "the future of nutrition lies with chemistry" does not replicate.

humanity hasn't achieved anything great.

i'm not convinced the question asker knows what this question means.

we need to stop needing borders.

better sort of fighting than fighting, innit

probably most or all the cultures who got there before the most recent arrivals, but as decolonializing proceeds this question will hopefully become much more complicated.

i can say with certainty that "there is no such thing as intellectual property" is not among our current problems.

some of the data, i imagine. maybe nothing tho

i'm not convinced the question asker knows what this question means.

pretty much the same reason everyone else does.

democracy is nationalism's ally, but nationalism is democracy's enemy.

i have a truly marvelous list of factors accounting for the success of the gay rights movement in the west that this margin is too narrow to contain.

edward snowden is not a villain.

this depends overwhelmingly on what the boys eligible for free school meals were hoping to get out of oxford and cambridge, but it will probably involve gender-integrating all involved institutions.

no, cooperatives fail for normal reasons.

nah.

the thesis of capitalist liberalism is that the purpose of the state is to make this be true.

i'm not convinced the question asker knows what this question means.

unfortunately, yes.

holy shit, an ask game thats actually good

[carlislefiles]

exigent circumstances | fushiguro toji, geto suguru, gojo satoru, kamo choso, kong shiu ╰►you were theirs—once. and maybe that should’ve been enough. but time��s a cruel thing, and distance doesn’t make the heart grow anything but restless. now you're just the ghost in their playlists, the contact they never delete, the dream they still wake up reaching for. they're trying to move on, really. but they see you everywhere. and god help them—they want you back. 13.4k words

a/n: ladies if a man ever does something that makes you want to break up with him...do it and don't take him back. however, this is not real life, so enjoy <3 also!! before anyone asks, I know I usually include nanami in these kinds of headcanons, but bsffr you would never break up with that man. I kinda feel the same about suguru, but I get a lot of requests to include him more in my posts, so I tried :] warnings: toxic relationships, kissing, cussing, mental health, eating habits. writing suguru in a way that isn’t at least vaguely yandere is hard for me, but I tried my best!! shiu's kind of giving stalker as well.......ignore pls....or don't if you're into that sort of thing.....

the breakup hadn’t been amicable, per se. there were no screaming matches. no shattered plates, no cruel words hurled like knives across the room. that wasn’t toji. not anymore. maybe a younger version of him—one with more hair-trigger rage and less to lose—would’ve made a scene. but this version? the one that had you in his bed, in his arms, in his life? he didn’t yell. he didn’t beg. he didn’t stop you. and that might’ve hurt more than if he had. because toji wasn’t a complete asshole. not to you. not really. he just…couldn’t be what you needed. and worst of all, he knew it.

he loved you. that wasn’t the problem. the problem was—he didn’t know how to show it. couldn’t accept it when it was offered. love wasn’t a language he spoke; it was one he flinched from. one he turned his back on. so when you left, he let you go. and somehow—somehow—he’s still living with that. if you ask him how, he won’t be able to give you an answer.

he’s always been a prideful man. it’s the closest thing he has to a constant. pride was what kept him standing after every job that should’ve killed him. what kept his back straight even when it felt like the weight of the world had settled between his shoulder blades. what drove him to perfect the art of surviving. of staying just dangerous enough to keep everyone at arm’s length, and just charming enough to keep someone like you in his bed. but pride is a fatal flaw. one day, it’ll be the reason he dies.

you knew that about him. you knew what he was when you started sleeping with him. he never pretended to be anything else. he was a killer, a ghost, a name spoken in half-whispers and urgent hushes in criminal circles. he lived on the edge of ruin, always one wrong move away from bleeding out in a stairwell somewhere. assassins don’t live safe lives. they don’t fall into routines, and they sure as hell don’t do domesticity. so maybe that’s what drew you in at first. maybe it was the thrill, or the way he flinched when you patched him up. maybe it was how he softened just a little—almost imperceptibly—when you made him dinner or let him sleep longer than he meant to.

you didn’t fall in love with what he did. you fell for the rare slivers of vulnerability he tried so hard to hide. you just wanted to love him. that’s it. simple. stupid. human. you wanted to cook for him, care for him, wrap his wounds and hold his hand while he drifted off to sleep. but toji didn’t love himself. chances are, he never would. and as much as you tried to tell yourself that your love could be enough—just maybe—it wasn’t.

he never let you take care of him. you’d bring him leftovers from that place he liked, and he’d wrinkle his nose and say he wasn’t hungry. you’d run him a bath and he’d pretend not to notice. you’d cuddle up beside him in bed and whisper that you loved him, and he’d grunt. or nod. or roll over. at first, it was almost…endearing. the gruffness. the tough guy routine. you could see through it. you knew him—better than he knew himself, sometimes. that scared him. made him shut down. push you away. maybe that’s what hurt most. not that he didn’t love you because he really did, in a way he never had with anyone else. but that he wouldn’t let himself accept your love.

it was a rainy night when it all fell apart. you knew he was just getting off a job. you hadn’t heard from him in hours, which wasn’t unusual. radio silence was part of the deal. but something told you—something nagging and insistent—that he’d need patching up tonight. so you went over. you packed a small kit. some bandages, antiseptic, painkillers. the leftovers were still warm in your bag. comfort food. nothing special. just something small to say, I care about you. I want you to eat. I want you to rest.

when you let yourself into his apartment, he was already there. shirt off, bruised, bloodied knuckles, maybe something fractured in his shoulder from the way he was favoring it. he looked exhausted. and fuck, he looked beautiful. even now. especially now. but you knew that look in his eyes before he even spoke. that cold, hardened thing. the wall slamming down.

"I told you not to come by tonight.” that was how it started.

you tried not to take it personally. you were used to this version of him—the one who needed space after a job. the one who pushed before he could be pulled. you sat down the food, offered to help him clean up. he said he’d handle it himself. you moved to tend to his wounds anyway, and he swatted your hand away. not hard, but enough to make you freeze. "I said I'll handle it.”

your jaw clenched. the room felt colder than it had when you’d walked in. “you haven’t eaten all day,” you said, a quiet offer laced in concern.

“I'm not hungry.” the same damn routine. but tonight, it wasn’t just frustrating. it was heartbreaking.

he was digging in deeper. not softening. not melting beneath your presence like he usually did. you tried—god, you tried—but it was like slamming into a wall over and over and pretending you weren’t bleeding. finally, you stepped back. "I can’t help someone who won’t help themselves.” you hadn’t planned to say it. but once it was out there, hanging in the air between you, you couldn’t take it back.

toji blinked. that hit harder than any punch he’d taken tonight. “is that what you think I am?” his voice was low, rough, disbelieving. “some helpless fucking case?” and he was. so obviously, he was, but the last thing he wanted was your pity. 

“no,” you said, and meant it. "I think you’re scared. I think you’re used to being alone. I think being loved makes you feel like you’re going to lose something.” he didn’t answer. didn’t blink. didn’t move. you reached for the bag by the door. “if you don’t wanna be loved, I won’t force it on you, fushiguro.” you didn’t even call him toji. that was how he knew it was over. the door clicked shut.

he didn’t move for a long time. eventually, in true toji fashion, he punched something. the wall closest to him. the drywall cracked, groaned under the force of his fist. his knuckles split open again. he didn’t even flinch. he didn’t sleep that night. and when he finally picked up his phone to call you—because fuck, he needed to—you didn’t answer. you didn’t answer the next time he called. or the next. or the one after that. eventually, he gave up. he’s never been good at chasing things. not people, not dreams, not feelings. but you—you made him want to try. still, he let you go. 

but he didn’t let go of worrying. he made shiu check in. quietly. casually. never anything that would alarm you. no weird shadows outside your apartment window. just enough to know you were okay. lights on. you walking to work in the early morning, head down, headphones in. cold, but well. unbothered. unreachable.

toji was breaking into fucking pieces. how did he let that happen? how did he have you—warm and real and kind—and still fuck it all to hell? he thinks about it every day. every hour. he hasn’t taken a job since. can’t. not like this. he knows if he tried, he’d get his ass handed to him. his head and heart are still on the floor of his kitchen from the night you walked out. they haven’t gotten up since.

"if you don't wanna be loved, I won't force it on you, fushiguro." it echoes in his head a billion times a day. fushiguro. you hadn’t called him toji. and you hadn’t been angry. you’d been hurt. and that’s so much fucking worse. anger he could take. he was used to anger. he knew how to fight that. but this—this soft heartbreak in your voice, this quiet grief, this sadness… it gutted him. you weren’t yelling. you weren’t blaming him. you were hurting for him. and because of him.

when he finally goes back to work, he keeps it simple. easy. safe. safe in a way toji fushiguro has never been. bodyguard gigs. escorting some teen sorcerer to-and from schools. roughing up punk kids who harass girls outside clubs. low-stakes shit. nothing that would get him killed. nothing that would leave him too bloodied for reflection.

you never asked him to quit. not once. not even when he showed up at your door with busted ribs and a slash across his chest. you never demanded it. but maybe you should have. toji thinks you deserved better. more. everything. and if he couldn’t be it then, he’ll try now. even if he never gets you back, he’ll try. because it’s what you’d want for him. and now, all he wants is what you want.

you told him once that you just wanted to love him. that all you wanted was to make him happy. and the fucked-up part is: you did. you made him happy in a way he never thought possible. and he squandered it.

he doesn’t eat much these days. works out like a lunatic. trains until he can’t think. runs until his lungs scream. anything to keep from feeling. he goes to bed early. wakes up before the sun. starts learning how to cook—simple things. tries to make onigiri. burnt the rice the first time. it stuck to his hands. didn’t know you had to wet them first. he still ate it. didn’t taste like much. not the food. just…memories. you laughing in the kitchen, your hands wet, the rice perfect. he remembers you patting the little triangle into place, offering it to him like it was a love letter made of carbs. he goes to the store and buys a case of your favorite soda. downs it while it’s cold. doesn’t taste it either. he tastes you. the memory of you. what it felt like to be loved. and despite how hollow he feels, how gutted and aching and fucking lost—he’s getting better. slowly. quietly. imperceptibly. maybe not whole. but better. 

he thinks about you and what you’re doing now. you weren’t really the boyfriend type. even with toji, date night usually consisted of takeout on his couch. so at least there was that: the knowledge that, even if you had moved on—as much as it fucking ached to think that—you probably weren’t dating anybody else. shiu says he hasn’t seen anyone at your place, but who knows. well, toji knows. knows you. he thinks back to the things you said. he helps himself now. loving himself might be pushing it, but he’s learning to swallow that pride-shaped lump in his throat. take care of himself. maybe, maybe, maybe. maybe you’d have him back. 

he texts one night, late. he’s drunk; you’re probably asleep. hey. he doesn’t expect a response. he watches typing bubbles appear next to your contact info. disappear. reappear. and then they go away, and they don’t come back. 

it comes to a head on a too-bright sunday morning in june. two full months since he last saw your face. he’d thought about running into you at the store. on the street. at that little ramen place you liked. but you’ve been ghost quiet. no texts. no calls. no sighting. for all he knew, you’d moved on. irony is, he hadn’t had a single thought that wasn’t about you since you left. your cooking. your perfume. your stupid cotton sleep shorts. the way you smiled at him like you saw through all the shit and liked what you found anyway. he’s walking down the street, half-asleep. planning to buy rice and seaweed and maybe, if he’s feeling brave, some umeboshi. he’s getting the hang of onigiri now.

that’s when he sees you. just—walking. headphones in. face soft and faraway. you’re not going to work—it’s sunday, and you're dressed casual. you’re headed toward a little shop that sells coffee grounds and handmade mugs. you used to drag him there once a week. called it your “coffee church.” you look peaceful. you look like you’ve moved on. and toji, idiot that he is, considers hiding. ducking into an alley. pretending he’s not there.

but then—your eyes meet his. it’s not dramatic. no gasp. no stumble. just a slow blink, a slow breath, and a look that crawls over him like you’re taking him in from scratch. like maybe you forgot just how good he looked. and yeah, the caveman part of him roars a little at that. she’s looking at me. she likes what she sees. my girl.

but the rest of him? the human part? the part you once held in your hands so gently? he just feels sad. pathetic, maybe. but that’s the word. he wants to cry, almost, and it’s so fucking embarrassing. he’s standing awkwardly, like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. which is rare for toji. he’s all swagger and confidence on a good day. this is not a good day.

“...toji,” you say.

flat. noncommittal. but hey—at least it’s toji and not fushiguro. two months, and all you have to say is his name. he gives you a little nod. casual. like this isn’t the moment his entire world shifts back into orbit. “hey.” silence. you look like you could walk away. he wouldn’t stop you. he’d let you go again, even if it kills him.

but then—“wanna walk with me?” he asks. you hesitate.

he shrugs. “just…a few blocks. I won’t talk your ear off.” and you agree. and toji loses his fucking mind. you’re here. you’re real. you’re alive and well and in front of him. not a dream. not a memory. not a cruel, waking hallucination. his chest squeezes so tight he thinks this might be what a heart attack feels like. he’s pretty sure you just looked at him like you used to. soft. sweet. a little amused. like you saw him—not the body count, not the paycheck, not the devil-may-care smirk he wore like armor. you looked at him like you remembered.

and he panics. internally, at least. externally, he’s trying very hard to stand still and look cool, which is ironic because inside he’s already on his knees, forehead pressed to the fucking pavement, begging you to forgive him. he’s scrambling through every sentence he rehearsed in the mirror. all the words he’d never said right the first time. please. I didn’t mean to push you away. I didn’t know how to let you love me. I'm trying. I've changed. I still—he moves before he realizes it. a step forward. his arm halfway raised. his mouth opening around the start of that well-crafted apology—"I don’t want apologies, toji.” your voice stops him cold. soft. firm. unshaking.

and maybe it’s not anger in your voice—but it’s not yearning either. you cut the legs out from under him with four words, and he stands there, empty-handed, heavy-hearted, caught in the spotlight of his own regret. all that buildup. all those speeches. all that pain, coiled tight in his chest. and you don’t want apologies. you want something else. and toji has no idea if he’s capable of giving it. but god, he’s going to try.

you walk side by side. it’s quiet. easy. tense, but not painful. “I'm not…trying to push anything,” he says after a few minutes. "I just… been thinkin’ about you. a lot.” you don’t respond. just let him keep going. "I fucked up. I know that. didn’t even try to say I didn’t. I wasn’t good to you. not how I should’ve been.” he rubs the back of his neck. avoids your eyes. looks almost… boyish, for once. "I never really learned how to let someone love me. not until you. and by the time I figured out what that felt like…I'd already ruined it.” the sidewalk stretches out in front of you like a lifeline. you don’t say anything. he doesn’t expect you to.

“I've been workin’ on it,” he says quietly. “on… me. not for anyone else. just… if I ever got the chance to see you again, I wanted to be better. not just say it—do it.” he looks at you now. eyes soft. vulnerable. none of the sharp edges you used to cut yourself on. "I don’t know if you’d ever…want me again. but I'd be good to you. if you did.” your throat feels tight. the sun is warm on your face, but your eyes sting. “and if not,” he adds, “that’s okay. just glad I saw you again. you look good.” it’s not okay, but he can’t say that. he can’t force you to care. he doesn’t have to. 

you stop outside your building. look up at the steps. you could walk up them right now. close the door on this chapter again. it would be safe. logical. expected. but love isn’t logical. and neither is hope. you turn. eyes on him. no invitation. just possibility. the door doesn’t latch behind you. and that’s enough.

toji stands frozen. a long, slow ache blooming in his chest where all the sharp things used to be. you left the door open. you. left the door open. he doesn’t think. doesn’t weigh it. doesn’t ask what it means. two strides and he’s following. the stairwell light flickers. you’re one step up, just far enough away to still leave him behind. he reaches for you—your wrist, soft and sure in his palm—and you turn. eyes wide. lips parted. surprise written across your face like you didn’t expect him to chase you. like you didn’t know he still would.

and then he kisses you. not sweet. not slow. like he’s trying to breathe you in before the door closes after all. one hand grips your waist. the other steadies him against the wall. he pours it all into the press of his mouth—everything he can’t say. sorry. please. don’t go. not again.

you gasp once, but your hands are already sliding up his chest, curling into his jacket. you kiss him like you never stopped. maybe you didn’t. when he pulls back, it’s barely. his breath trembles. your nose brushes his. you’re still close enough to ruin him. "I love you,” he says, barely a whisper. raw. wrecked. your eyes widen. and fuck, that kills him. that surprise. like you didn’t know. like he ever made you doubt it. he wants to gut himself. carve out the parts that ever let you feel that unloved.

but you don’t look away. you stare back at him like you’re seeing something new. or maybe something old. something forgotten. you don’t say it back. not yet. you don’t have to. your hand lifts. fingers press to his chest. not pushing. just grounding. you glance toward the door—still ajar. just enough. then back to him. you nod once. and he gets it.

geto didn’t do casual. that was never on the table. not with you—not with anyone. and certainly not with the two of you together. at least, he wouldn’t have used that word. you wouldn’t either. but still—relationships didn’t come naturally to you. they didn’t come naturally to suguru either, maybe, but he wore them like they did. like muscle memory. like he’d practiced in secret until he could do it flawlessly. you tried not to let that make you envious.

but he was just so good at loving you. he texted before grocery runs to ask if you needed anything. he remembered every birthday. every soft anniversary. even things you didn’t celebrate. he left bouquets of your favorite flowers in the kitchen each week without fail. always the right colors. always the right stems. he drove you everywhere. kept your fridge stocked. learned how you took your coffee.

and he never expected anything in return. he did these things like breathing. like loving you was second nature to him. your love for him was never in question. not really. but returning that love—mirroring it—felt like trying to dance in shoes two sizes too big. awkward. sloppy. off-tempo.

suguru dated like someone who knew you long before he ever kissed you. like the romance was inevitable. fated. and maybe that’s what scared you. the inevitability. the certainty. because now, you felt like you had to perform. to be on all the time. to earn what he gave so freely.

you tried to explain it once—quietly, in his car. he’d driven you home after dinner, parked outside your building. his fingers loose on the wheel. the engine idling low beneath the hum of cicadas. “it just feels like I'm constantly…behind,” you said, eyes on your lap, hands twisting in your sleeves. “like you’re already halfway through a thought I haven’t caught up to yet. like I'm supposed to be someone I'm not.”

he blinked, slow. “is that something I've made you feel?”

“no.” and that was the worst part. “that’s the problem.” because suguru’s love was gentle. steady. unrelenting in its patience. and all you could give back was effort. small thank-you texts. an awkward smile when he brought you coffee. a hand reaching for his beneath the table—sometimes. when you remembered. you didn’t move like a girlfriend should. you didn’t wake up and feel at home in someone else’s arms. you never had.

but suguru did. he was home. he was always all in. “I'm not trying to make you earn it,” he said then, turning toward you. his voice was so soft it hurt. “you’re not behind. or broken. or whatever story your head is telling you. you’re just… you. that’s all I want.” and you believed him. you really did. but love doesn’t land when you’re made of broken receivers.

a week later, he brings it up. you're curled on his couch, full and sleepy after dinner. he’d made jasmine rice—your favorite. the apartment still smells like garlic and toasted sesame. your phone is somewhere deep in your bag. for once, you’re not thinking about it. and then he says it. lightly. offhand. like it’s a logical next step. "I was thinking,” he begins, “maybe you should move in.” you freeze. you don’t gasp, don’t act dramatically shocked. but you go still. and when he sees it—that flicker of fear you didn’t hide fast enough—his smile falters."I mean,” he adds gently, “only if you want to. I just thought… we already spend most nights together. it might make things easier. more…natural.”

natural. there’s that word again. you nod too quickly. “yeah. maybe.” and that’s where it ends. you don’t talk about it again that night. but something in you cracks open, quiet and trembling—and it doesn’t close again.

you start counting his kindnesses. like tally marks. like debt. you keep wondering when he’ll stop. when he’ll see how clumsy you are with soft things. when he’ll finally realize: you love him. but you don’t know how to be someone who deserves him.

it’s late. raining. your sleeves are soaked through by the time you buzz his apartment. he answers in sweatpants and no shirt. eyes bleary with sleep and something like worry. “hey,” he says. instantly awake. “what’s wrong?”

you take a breath. you’ve already decided. "I can’t do this anymore.” the look on his face is devastating. you try again. "I don’t think I know how to be loved like this.”

he steps forward, slow and careful, like approaching a wounded animal. “you don’t have to know how,” he says. “you just…are. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not asking you to change.”

"I know.” your voice is raw. “that’s why it’s worse.” because he deserves someone who says yes when he asks her to move in. someone who doesn’t flinch at long-term. someone who doesn’t look at his love like it’s a test they’re bound to fail. "I love you, suguru,” you whisper. “but I think I'm just going to keep hurting you if I stay.”

he shakes his head. his voice cracks. “you’re not hurting me. this—” he gestures helplessly, “this is what hurts.” then his hand lifts, just a little. not to hold you. just to remind you: I'm still here. you take a step back. he falters.

this is how you leave a man who would never leave you. not with shouting. not with slammed doors. but with too much silence. with fear so old and rooted that even love can’t pull it loose. you think of the woman who will come after you. she’ll be open. easy. warm. she’ll say yes. she’ll laugh easily. kiss him in the cereal aisle. she’ll never make him doubt. he’ll move on. eventually. and you’ll always wonder if he loved her the same way he loved you. quietly. fully. with everything.

your hand finds the doorknob. he doesn’t stop you. but just before it clicks behind you, you hear it. soft. almost swallowed. your name. that’s all. you close the door before you can turn back.

suguru tries to give you space. tries. but geto suguru doesn’t do anything halfheartedly, least of all love. he was all in from the first moment. the moment you looked at him like he wasn’t too much. like he wasn’t a man with too many ghosts in the passenger seat. he’d fallen fast and hard—and even now, weeks later, he still feels like he’s falling. only now, the landing is gone. he doesn’t understand it. not fully. he’s tried to walk himself through it, a hundred times over, pacing the floor of his apartment in the early hours of the morning. you were in his arms. in his life. in his fucking bed. you were his. so what scared you away?

he doesn’t want to blame you, so he blames himself. he always has. maybe it was asking you to move in—maybe that was the moment it all shifted. that wasn’t supposed to be pressure. that was supposed to be comfort. that was supposed to be him saying: you don’t have to do this alone anymore. he just wanted you close. wanted to know where you were when it rained. wanted to see you there when he got home. wanted to kiss your temple in the morning and not watch you slip out the door like a ghost. but now? now he’s alone. with his silence. with his certainty. because suguru’s not confused about how he loves you. he’s just broken over the fact that it wasn’t enough to make you stay. he doesn’t reach out at first. respects the boundary. tells himself it’s better this way. that maybe you need time, maybe space will do what words can’t. but it eats at him. the not-knowing. the quiet. you’re like a song stuck in his teeth. a scent in his sheets that refuses to fade.

he tries not to text. fails. types and deletes messages by the dozen. thinks them, but doesn’t send them. you okay? did you eat today? are you cold at night without me there? instead, he checks in through your friends. nothing direct. just soft, careful questions. how’s she doing? is she okay? she’s still going to work, right? they’re kind. some of them know the truth. some of them don’t. one of them tells him, “honestly...I thought you broke up with her.” he almost laughs. almost. that would’ve been easier. cleaner. at least then he could hate himself for something he did.

but no. this was worse. you left because he loved you too much. because you didn’t know how to accept that love. that thought guts him. he should’ve seen it. should’ve known. you’d always been a little hesitant when he praised you. always stiffened when he touched your face too tenderly. always flinched when the compliments came too close to your ribs. he thought you were just shy. or slow to trust. he didn’t realize it was you. your head. your story. that old lie, the one that clung to your bones like rot: I don’t deserve this. god, he’s furious with himself. how did he not dig deep enough? how did he not notice that the woman he loved more than anything was still looking for reasons not to be loved back?

it’s a long couple of weeks. he doesn’t take care of himself. doesn’t really sleep. stares at the messages he never sends. works half as hard, trains twice as much. his body aches. not nearly as much as his chest. he sees you once. from across a busy intersection. you’re walking with a coworker, maybe a friend. someone smiling at you, telling you a story. you’re nodding. but you’re not there. your smile doesn’t reach your eyes. your shoulders are hunched forward like you’re bracing for a hit. you still walk like the world expects too much from you and you’re afraid to disappoint it.

and suguru realizes: you’re not okay. you’re not better off. you’re surviving. not living. just like him. and that breaks something in him all over again. because he let you walk away thinking you were the problem. thinking you’d hurt him by leaving. when really, all he’s ever wanted was to love you in a way that made you feel safe. not cornered. not small. not wrong. and now he wonders if you’re curled up on your couch, pretending you're okay. eating less. sleeping worse. pushing yourself too hard. telling yourself it’s what you deserve.

and it makes him want to scream. because no. no, you don’t. you deserve everything. every flower. every hand held. every quiet night with someone who loves you fiercely and doesn’t make you earn it. you deserve him. and he's going to prove it. but not with flowers. not with soft words. not with a love so loud it scares you all over again. he’ll do it gently this time. he’ll knock before coming back. and he’ll wait for you to open the door. and you open the door for him.

it’s a well-timed flu that breaks the ice. he’d texted a few times—half-hearted replies from you, then nothing. but when you finally call, he doesn’t even let it finish ringing before he’s answering with a breathless, “hey.”

it hits fast. a fever that lays you out like a truck hit you. skin hot, bones aching, room spinning. you tell yourself it’ll pass. that you can sleep it off. but by morning, you’re worse. dizzy when you try to stand. your hands won’t stop shaking. you can’t think straight. you don’t remember pressing call, but suddenly, you’re whispering his name into the receiver like it’s a prayer.

and he answers. “it’s okay,” he says immediately, steady and calm. “I've got you.” he’s there twenty minutes later. you hear the key in the lock—his key, the one you never asked for back—and then he’s in the doorway, rain in his hair, jacket dripping, eyes scanning until they land on you, curled and sweating on the couch like something wilting. “jesus,” he breathes, kneeling beside you, palm to your forehead. “you’re burning up.” you try to sit up. you don’t make it. he catches you like he always does. “you should’ve called sooner.”

you want to say I didn’t think you’d come. but all you manage is a whisper: “didn’t know who else to call.”

he doesn’t blink at the mess. doesn’t flinch at your clammy skin or the sweat-soaked blankets. he just sets his bag down and gets to work. suguru doesn’t move with panic—he moves with purpose. “let’s get you into something clean, okay?”

you nod, barely conscious. he undresses you slowly, carefully, his eyes on your face the whole time. soft apologies leave his mouth when you wince. he finds your favorite sleep shirt, pulls it gently over your head, smooths the fabric over your spine like he’s memorizing you again. not with hunger, with reverence. he changes the sheets one-handed while the other keeps you steady, propped against his side like something precious. he works fast, efficient. like he’s done this a hundred times before. because he would, wouldn’t he? he’d do this every day if it meant being near you. you spill tea and he doesn’t blink. just steadies your hand, presses the mug back to your lips. “it’s the good kind,” he murmurs. your kind. the one from that little store across town. he’s kept some in his bag.

later, when your fever spikes again, he’s already ready—cool cloth pressed to your temple, thumb stroking gently down the bridge of your nose. when you start to shiver, he crawls into bed behind you, wraps himself around your body like armor. you make a small sound in your sleep and his hand spreads over your stomach, warm and wide and grounding. “you don’t have to do anything,” he murmurs. “just rest.” and you do. you drift, wake, drift again. every time, he’s still there.

you catch him watching you once, just after the fever breaks. you’re pale, eyes glassy, but when they meet his, something cracks in his chest. his breath shudders. “missed you,” he says, quiet as a confession. you don’t answer. just reach for his hand. weak, but steady. he squeezes back. you’re miserable. fragile. barely holding together. and he’s never looked more whole. not because you’re suffering—god, never that—but because even now, even after everything, you still chose him. still called. and he came. of course he came.

you wake to light. soft, gray morning light bleeding through the curtains—quiet and cool. you're warm, dry, and blanketed in the stillness that only follows a fever. your head no longer feels like it’s splitting open. you can breathe again. your mouth tastes like sleep and medicine. your first thought: better.

the second: he’s still here. suguru is sitting at the edge of the bed, back to you, scrolling through his phone. he’s changed—probably sometime in the early hours—but everything else about him is the same. still close. still watching over you. you shift beneath the covers. he turns immediately, like he’s been waiting for you to stir. “how do you feel?” he asks, voice low, soft around the edges.

you hesitate. because now that your mind is clear, so is the guilt. the shame. the clarity that always comes after a storm—seeing the wreckage, realizing what you've done. who you let in. how much you still want him. “I'm okay,” you say, barely above a whisper. “thank you.” he nods. you push yourself up slowly. “you should go home.” he blinks—slow, confused. “you’ve been here for two days,” you say, forcing a lighter tone. “you must be exhausted. go sleep in your own bed. I'll be fine.”

his brow pulls just slightly. “you want me to leave?” 

you don’t answer. because you don’t. but having him here—loving you so gently, so completely—only reminds you of what you gave up. what he could have had if you weren’t so twisted up inside. “it’s okay,” you say, eyes locked on the blanket in your lap. "I can take care of myself now. you don’t have to keep doing this.”

his voice is calm, sure. "I want to.”

you shake your head. “that’s not the point.”

"I think it is.”

you exhale. “you shouldn’t have to take care of someone like this. someone like me.”

that hits him. he’s quiet. his hands curl slightly in his lap. his jaw tightens, then eases.

“you’re not a burden.”

you flinch. "I didn’t say I was.”

“you didn’t have to.” silence. heavy. close. you don’t mean to cry. but the tears come anyway—quiet, slow, unwelcome. you swipe at them fast, but he notices. of course he does. he shifts closer, still not touching. just steady. present. “you don’t have to be perfect for me to stay,” he says, gentle and resolute. “you don’t have to be better first. you don’t have to earn this. I'm not here because I should be. I'm here because I love you.”

you shut your eyes. hard. "I don’t want to hurt you again.”

“then let me stay,” he says. “let me love you the way I want to. let me be here—even if it’s slow. even if it’s hard. even if you’re scared out of your mind. I'm not leaving. not unless you tell me to.” you finally look at him. he looks tired. he looks beautiful. he looks like he’s never been more certain of anything. you open your mouth. to argue. to apologize. to give some noble, fractured reason why he shouldn’t do this to himself. but before you can speak, he reaches out—gently bracketing your hands in his. “no more pushing me away. not for my sake. that’s not your job.”

your lip trembles. “you don’t know what you’re asking.”

"I do,” he says. “and I want all of it.”you collapse into him before you can change your mind. he catches you instantly, pulls you into his chest, arms locking tight around you like he’s anchoring the both of you. you feel his breath stutter. one hand slides into your hair. the other rubs soft, slow circles into your spine. he’s shaking too. he missed you. god, he missed you. and now that he has you again—this time—he’s not letting go.

your relationship with gojo is fun. that’s how most people would describe it. hell, that’s how you would describe it. he’s the life of the party. mr. fun. mr. loud-laughs-and-bad-jokes. everything with him is light, fast, full of motion. and you love that about him. you do.

you’ve known mr. perfect a long time.

but you’re in love with satoru. the man underneath. the one he barely lets anyone see.

and sometimes—only sometimes—you catch glimpses.

like now.

he’s lying on the couch in full daylight, arm slung over his eyes like a magician halfway through a disappearing act. he hasn’t moved in hours. the tv is on mute. his water bottle is unopened. his phone keeps buzzing.

you know what this is. he’s having one of his migraines—the kind he pretends he doesn’t get. the kind that slips in after too many days with infinity up. the kind that only hits when he forgets to be invincible.

you stand in the doorway, watching.

then you pad across the room, sit gently beside him.

“satoru.”

his arm stays where it is. “m’fine.”

“you’re not.”

“sure I am,” he says, voice light. dismissive. that fake-casual tone he’s mastered over the years. but it doesn’t land. it sounds like a lie. like a tired echo from someone who’s always supposed to be okay.

you’re quiet for a moment. then you say, “you can take it off. with me.”

he hesitates. then lifts his arm, just a little, to look at you. his eyes are bloodshot. his smile is faint. "I don’t know how.”

it’s the closest thing to a confession he’s ever given you. and it shatters something in your chest.

but it doesn’t change anything.

later, you’re washing dishes. he’s pretending to help—towel tossed over one shoulder, phone in hand, dry plate in the other. he keeps showing you dumb tiktoks. keeps laughing like he’s okay.

and you keep smiling, because that’s what you do. you perform together. that’s the deal.

but halfway through a plate, your smile cracks. and he notices.

“hey,” he says gently. “what’s going on?”

you shake your head. “nothing.”

“come on. don’t go quiet on me now.”

you dry your hands. lean against the counter. “do you ever turn it off?” you ask. “the jokes. the mask. the perfect guy act.”

he blinks. like the question caught him off guard. like no one’s ever asked.

“not really,” he says, after a pause. "I don’t think people would like what’s underneath.”

"I would.”

silence. thick. sharpened at the edges.

“would you?” he asks, voice suddenly low, stripped of charm. “even if it’s not fun anymore?”

you meet his eyes. “I'm not asking you to be miserable. I'm asking you to be real.”

“I'm trying,” he says. his voice cracks. and that’s how you know: he means it. he really does. but he’s terrified. he doesn’t know who he is without the shine. doesn’t know if there’s anything under all that glow still worth loving. and you’re just so tired of waiting for him to trust you with it.

that night, you sit at the edge of the bed. he’s quiet. legs stretched in front of him, back hunched like he’s trying to take up less space. like even his body knows how heavy his name is. you reach for his hand. he lets you take it. "I don’t want to break up with you, satoru,” you say. satoru, never gojo. never.

he laughs—small, humorless. “but you’re going to.”

you nod. "I don’t know what else to do.”

he doesn’t argue. no grand gestures. no sparkly, last-minute charm. he just presses your hand between both of his. holds it like it’s the last thing anchoring him here. “you could stay,” he says, exasperated. pleading, even.

"I can’t, satoru. not if it’s not real.”

“I'm sorry,” he whispers.

you close your eyes. "I don’t want sorry. I want you.”

"I don’t know how to be him.”

"I know.” you lean forward, kiss his temple. one last touch. one last mercy. you leave before sunrise. quietly.

it’s hard to hide. gojo tries. god, he tries. he cracks the same jokes. wears the same shades. laughs too loud, too early in the morning, like if he can just be enough, no one will notice the hollow ringing in his chest. but it’s different now. forced. empty. a shell of joy. everyone sees it.

you used to be everywhere—tucked against his side during late-night hangouts, teasing him over mispronounced takeout orders, dragging him outside to look at stars he pretended not to care about. now you’re just…gone. quietly. no blow-up. no ugly goodbye. just a clean vanishing act. and the absence is deafening. shoko doesn’t ask. nanami doesn’t ask. even yuuji, bless him, doesn’t ask. but they all know.

the migraines come more often now. he doesn’t mention them. just disappears—locks himself in his apartment, blinds drawn, phone face-down, fists curled against his temples like pressure might keep you from slipping through his fingers a second time. there’s no one to tell him to put his blindfold back on. no one to scold him for overusing those bright, beautiful eyes. he stares at the sun anyway. punishment. self-inflicted. as if your absence wasn’t already sentence enough. sometimes, he falls asleep in yesterday’s clothes. on top of the blankets. phone clutched like a lifeline, screen cold against his cheek, waiting—for a text that never comes. you don’t reply. you don’t even leave him on read anymore.

but he still leaves voicemails. never long. never dramatic. just soft little echoes of you: “hey. saw this tree on my run this morning. leaves are turning. thought you’d like it. you always got weird about fall, remember?” “you made me start drinking coffee like you. less sugar. I get it now. it’s honest. doesn’t try too hard,” "I miss you. every day. even the good ones. especially the good ones.” he doesn’t know if you listen. sometimes, he calls just to hear your voicemail greeting. you still haven’t changed it. you sound happy in it. that’s the part that kills him most. he texts too. not memes anymore. not anything funny. photos. snippets of a life that keeps happening without you: a sunrise over the skyline, a flyer for a new cat café that made him think of you, his hand wrapped around your mug—the girly ceramic one with the little strawberries. you hated how cute it was. he never let you throw it out. “sunrise wasn’t as pretty as you,” “the mug’s still here. not washing it until you come get it,” “did you ever finish that book you were reading?”

no replies. not even read receipts. still, he sends them. because what else is he supposed to do? he doesn’t date. doesn’t flirt. doesn’t try. wouldn’t be fair. he’s not over you. he’s not even out of the wreckage. he thinks about the night you left. not the tears. not the silence. just the moment you said his name—satoru, not gojo, not babe, not anything easy or playful. just satoru, like you were begging him to be real, just once. and he couldn’t. not fast enough. not deep enough. so you left. and it didn’t just break his heart. it ruined him.

you were the one person who didn’t care that he was the strongest. who didn’t love the spectacle. who stayed when the glitter faded and his smile cracked. who saw him—bone-tired and bright-eyed and broken—and still wanted him anyway. and he couldn’t meet you there. he couldn’t show up. and now you’re gone.

it’s been a month. a month without your voice. without your laugh echoing through his apartment. without your toothbrush next to his, your fingers in his hair, your presence anchoring him to something real. he starts showing up late to meetings. stops wearing matching clothes. eats poorly or not at all. his sunglasses sit untouched on the dresser. his phone stays glued to his hand, never ringing.

shoko notices first. starts bringing coffee again—the way you used to. sometimes it’s bitter on purpose. sometimes there’s a muffin. she never stays long. just enough to look at him and leave aspirin like a warning. suguru lingers longer. he brings groceries. rearranges the fridge. cooks one night, flips through channels on the tv until satoru sinks beside him like gravity’s gotten stronger. another time, he leaves two tickets on the table. they go unused. no one pushes. but they see it. he’s a dying star now—still bright, if you squint. still warm. but folding in on himself.

it gives way at a party. shoko’s house. too many drinks, too many eyes, too much noise. satoru slips away. orders a car. doesn’t remember the ride. remembers your building, though. the numbers on your door. the way your name still makes his heart bruise.

you answer on the third knock. barefoot. tired. not surprised. not quite angry. just done. he tries to smile. tries to speak. the words come wrong. slurred. too much or too little. he ends up on his knees, face pressed against your stomach like it might hold him together.

you sigh. frustrated. your hands twitch toward your temples. “satoru.”

he grins. lopsided. broken. “hi.”

“you can’t just do this.”

"I know.”

“you don’t just crawl back when you're lonely.”

“I'm not lonely,” he says, then winces. “okay. I'm very lonely. but that’s not why I'm here.” 

you cross your arms. “then why?”

he blinks slowly, lips parting. his chest heaves with the weight of it all. then—"I took it for granted.” his voice breaks on the word it. “you. us. I thought you’d always be there. like the sky. like—like air. I didn’t know I was suffocating without you until I was.” you scoff. but it’s soft. familiar. he hears the exasperation, but also the crack in your armor. he stumbles forward. trips over nothing. collapses to his knees and wraps his arms around your waist like a drowning man clawing at land. “I'll change,” he breathes, face buried in your stomach. "I swear. just—let me come home. I'll be better. I am better. I—hic—I'm your satoru. I'll be whatever you need.” you sigh. loud. frustrated. your hands move automatically to your temples like you’re trying to rub away the fact that this is happening.

but when his shoulders shake, when you realize he’s crying—actual, hot, humiliating tears soaking through your shirt—you curse under your breath. and then your fingers are in his hair. soft. soothing. so familiar that he melts. he breathes in sharp, wrecked, and exhales against your shirt like it’s the first clean breath he’s taken in weeks. you guide him to the couch. he’s heavy and clumsy, mumbling something into your shoulder about missing your laugh, your smell, your hands.

later, he’s on your couch. mumbled apologies fading into sleep. a blanket draped over him. water and tylenol on the table. you watch his chest rise and fall. then go to bed. in the morning, he wakes up slow. the worst hangover of his life. the apartment smells like your shampoo.you walk out in pajama pants. a tired look in your eyes. he sits up, wincing. you don’t speak. just pour two mugs of coffee. set one down in front of him without comment. he drinks it. bitter. familiar. no declarations. no more begging. just your knee bumping his under the table. and for the first time in thirty-one days, he breathes.

the next weeks aren’t perfect. but they are real. you're sitting on a bench in the park. his hand resting over yours. no crowd, no noise. he doesn’t perform. just sits, quiet and present. when you ask what he’s thinking, he opens his mouth. closes it. looks at your hand instead. you nod. that’s enough. suguru throws another get-together. normally, satoru would be the first to arrive. this time, he texts: “not coming. think I need to stay in.” he brings home your favorite takeout. doesn't explain. just climbs into bed beside you, your bowls in your laps, your toes tangled under the blanket.

one day, he gets a migraine. he doesn’t hide. texts you. “head’s bad today. can you come over?” you do. you sit beside him on the bed, fingers in his hair, lights low. he drifts off with your hand in his, the pain dulling at the edges. another night, he burns dinner so bad the smoke alarm screams. you find him waving a towel, swearing like it’s personal. you laugh. he sulks. you eat cereal in bed. later, when the lights are off, and your breathing is steady, he whispers into the dark: “I'm scared. that I'll mess it up.” you find his hand. squeeze once. he doesn’t say anything after that. just holds on. a little tighter. he’s still scared. he still shines too bright sometimes. still stumbles over the parts of himse

no one expected you and choso to become what you did. you were a sorcerer. quiet. capable. always exhausted. always moving like there was something chasing you—not just curses, but time, regret, grief. you’d seen too much too young. lost more than you could count. you didn’t love easily. didn’t trust easily. but choso made it feel…possible. he wasn’t like the others. not polished or loud or charming in the usual way. he was awkward sometimes. a little too still, a little too intense. but he listened. he remembered. he cared.

not just the big things. the little ones. the way you liked your tea. the way you twisted your hair when you were lying. the sound of your breathing when you slept, and how to match it so you’d feel safe even in dreams. he was gentle in a world that didn’t know how to be. he didn’t flinch at your scars. didn’t blink at your worst days. he just loved you—completely, without performance, like it was instinct. and you? you tried to let him in. you really did.

there were nights when you curled into his side, listening to his heartbeat like it might steady your own. afternoons where the world slowed down long enough to believe this could last. moments when you looked at him and thought: maybe I could stay. he made a home out of silence and small comforts. he was steady hands and slow mornings. a warm meal waiting for you after missions. a forehead kiss and, please be careful. you didn’t have to talk much. he always knew. and maybe that was the problem. because choso saw you too clearly.

he could tell when you hadn’t slept. when you were lying. when something inside you had splintered and you were trying to keep the pieces from showing. he asked you once, gently, what scared you more—dying, or watching someone else die because of you. you couldn’t answer. not then. maybe not ever. and then the missions got harder. the injuries worse. you started staring too long at your own reflection, wondering if the person in the mirror was someone you still recognized.

and slowly—without realizing it—you started pulling away. at first, he just thinks you’re tired. he’s seen the way the work drains you—how long the missions are, how bloody they get, how quiet you are after you come back. so when you stop texting him goodnight, when you stop leaning into his touch, when you stop meeting his eyes for too long, he gives you space. the kind of space he thinks love is supposed to give.

choso doesn’t know much about relationships. he’s lived long, but not lived much. this is his first time being in love like this. romantic love. tender love. terrifying, breathtaking, warm-in-the-chest love. and you’re the first person he’s ever wanted to give that to. at first, he doesn’t have the language for it. but he learns fast. he learns that you like to sleep with the window cracked, even in winter. that you can’t fall asleep unless you hear him breathing next to you. that you hate your laugh but he thinks it’s the most beautiful sound in the world.

he learns that love is quiet. it’s showing up. it’s bringing back your favorite food even when you didn’t ask. it’s not touching you until you reach for him first. it’s watching your favorite movie just to memorize the parts that make you smile. his love for you is total. it makes him nervous—every time you touch him, every time you look at him like he matters. he didn’t know he could be something soft. someone needed. he wakes up next to you some mornings and has to remind himself it’s real. and then you start pulling away.

it’s small at first. less physical touch. less eye contact. fewer I love yous—and when they come, they sound strained, like you’re saying them through a wall. he doesn’t know what to do. he panics in that quiet, internal way. his thoughts spiral. did he say something wrong? did he stop doing something he was supposed to be doing? is this just part of being human—losing things? he tries harder. tries cooking more, touching more, remembering more. he texts you twice if you don’t answer the first time. he leaves little notes around your apartment when he knows you’re too tired to talk. he doesn’t ask you what’s wrong because he’s scared of the answer.

and then, one night, you give it to him anyway. you sit him down. you’re calm, your tone measured—too measured. you tell him that it’s not him, it’s you. that your life is too heavy. that the work has taken too much. that you don’t know who you are anymore and it’s not fair to drag him down with you. you tell him you’re scared of losing him. that love like this isn’t meant to last for people like you. that it’s better to cut it off now before it hurts more later. he listens. because that’s what he always does—he listens when it hurts.

and then, quietly, softly, he asks, “did I do something wrong?” and when you say no, that this is just how it has to be, he nods. but his heart drops out of his chest and lands somewhere he can’t reach. because this love—his first—wasn’t something casual. it wasn’t something he expected or planned for. it was everything. it was you.

but if keeping you means hurting you…if his presence is too much, even if he doesn’t understand why…then he’ll do the hardest thing he’s ever done. he’ll let you go. he walks away slowly. like something ancient inside him is dying all over again. his hand lingers on your doorframe longer than it should. when he finally leaves, he doesn’t look back. and you don’t stop him. but when the door clicks shut, the silence that follows is unbearable. for both of you. because love like this doesn’t just vanish. it stays. it lingers. and for choso—who finally found something beautiful in a world that never gave him beauty—there’s no forgetting. only missing.

choso doesn’t understand. he replays your words over and over, trying to make them make sense. you left because you were afraid of losing him. that’s what you said. but what does that even mean? is loving someone not worth the risk of hurting? was he…not worth it? he doesn’t know. he tells himself you just need time. space. that once the fear passes—once the exhaustion wears off, once you remember what you had—you’ll come back. you’ll knock on his door, eyes tired, voice soft, ask him to hold you like you always used to. he checks his phone too often. trains harder than he needs to. lingers at the places you used to be, half-expecting you to turn the corner, scolding him for spacing out. you always noticed when his mind wandered. 

but a week passes. then another. you’re not at the training dojo. you don’t show up to the weekly meetings with yaga. you don’t text. don’t send word. you’ve taken on mission after mission, burning through cursed spirits like you're trying to outrun something—maybe even him. he hears it from someone else. that you’re barely sleeping. that you’ve refused help. that you’ve come back injured more than once and insisted you were fine. it doesn’t fix anything. it doesn’t fill the space you left behind. you're not coming back to him, and that knowledge seeps into his bones like a poisonous molasses. 

the ache doesn’t come all at once. it starts as a hollowness. a missing mug on the kitchen counter. an extra toothbrush that never got packed. a hoodie you forgot—he keeps it folded, untouched, like you might need it someday. he still buys your favorite snacks when he’s out. sees them on the shelf and grabs them without thinking. they sit unopened in his cabinets like artifacts. he doesn’t sleep well. his dreams are scattered—flashes of you in his arms, half-formed words that dissolve when he wakes. he reaches out instinctively in the dark sometimes, and his hand closes around nothing. it’s more than heartbreak. it’s devastation. it’s confusion. 

choso’s never felt this before. this missing that sits under his skin like rot. this constant pressure in his chest, like he’s halfway through crying but the tears never come. he doesn't understand why he can't just get over it. you left. you said goodbye. you made the choice. so why does he still feel like he’s the one who failed? he doesn’t talk about it. not really. not in full. he just gets quieter. 

he stops going to the markets with his brothers. he doesn’t eat much. doesn't listen to music. doesn’t really live—just exists in the spaces where you used to be. because you taught him how to love. and then you left. and now he doesn’t know where to put all of it—the warmth, the instinct, the want. it has nowhere to go. it just folds in on itself and festers. 

every time he closes his eyes, he hears your laugh. the one you let slip when you forgot to hold yourself together. the one that made his chest feel like it might split open with joy. he’d do anything to hear it again. even once. he still hopes you’ll come back. that’s the worst part. not that he lost you. but that some small, desperate part of him still thinks he hasn’t. that maybe one day, you’ll show up again—tired and frayed at the edges, finally ready to be held. finally ready to stop running. finally ready to let yourself be loved the way he always wanted to love you. but until then, he waits. and the waiting becomes its own kind of grief.

he hears it late. a mission gone wrong. you, unconscious. bleeding out. shoko worked on you for hours. ijichi’s shirt stained with your blood. words like internal damage and nearly didn’t make it swirl around him like static, but only one thing matters: you're alive. barely. but alive. he goes to you. the med bay is quiet, lit in that sickly way only hospitals and sorrow know. half the lights are off, but the ones still burning are too bright. the place smells sterile and wrong.

and there you are. sitting upright in the hospital bed, knees pulled to your chest, blanket clutched in your fists like it’s the only thing tethering you to the earth. your eyes are unfocused. dull. tired in a way he’s never seen. you don’t see him right away. you’re smaller like this. fragile. faded. when you do look up, it’s slow. disbelieving. you don’t say anything. neither does he.

he just walks to you. each step deliberate. each breath heavier than the last. he stops at your bedside. you stare at him like you don’t know if you’re dreaming. like maybe you are. maybe this is another version of the nightmare. but he doesn’t fade. he’s here. and for a long time, that’s all either of you can manage—breathing in the same space again. then, his voice. low. barely there. “did you stop loving me?”

your breath catches. your whole body stutters. then, sharp and immediate: “no.” it guts him. that no—not hesitant, not thoughtful, just pain-soaked and instinctive. you look down like you regret everything except saying it. and that’s enough. he exhales. shoulders heavy. his hands flex at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them—hold you, fall apart, both.

you don’t look up. he doesn’t push. he just kneels. sinks to the ground beside your bed like gravity has claimed him. his head drops forward. his fingers hover near yours but never touch. his breathing is uneven now. tense. quiet. there are no more words. just a long, aching silence between you, where everything you both wanted to say—I missed you. I was scared. I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t know how to stay without breaking—exists without sound.

then, finally, your hand moves. to his hair. tentative. familiar. you curl your fingers through it the way you always did when you couldn’t sleep. and he breathes again. not fully. not freely. but enough. you don’t ask him to stay. you don’t have to. he pulls the chair closer, sits beside you. doesn’t let go of your hand all night. and when you fall asleep, his thumb is still brushing over your knuckles like a promise.you wake to the sound of quiet breathing and the gentle pressure of a hand still holding yours.

choso hasn’t moved much. he’s watching you. not startled, not relieved—just there, like he never left, like he never meant to in the first place. the light through the blinds is soft. not quite dawn. you’re tired in every sense of the word. body, mind, heart. everything aches. but somehow, it’s easier to breathe than it was yesterday. you sit up. he does too. the blanket slips from your shoulder; he fixes it. your eyes flick toward him. you don’t ask why he’s still here. you know.

later, you’re sitting at his place. it’s quiet. cleaner than you remember. or maybe it’s just emptier, and you notice that now.

he doesn’t press you to talk. doesn’t ask for explanations. just brings you tea in a mug he never got rid of, the one you used to claim even though it was chipped and ugly. you stare at it for a long time before taking a sip. he watches you from across the table, posture still, gaze unwavering. his mind is racing. you love him. you said you did. so why did you go? he’s scared too. of course he is. he’s always been scared. of loss. of blood. of watching something good die in his hands. but that fear made him want to hold you tighter. tuck you into his chest and keep you safe. your fear made you run. he doesn’t understand. but he wants to.

you speak eventually. few words. quiet. careful. like you’re placing glass on a shelf that might collapse. something about how loving him made you feel like you had something to lose again. something that made death real. how you were afraid that if it ended, you wouldn’t survive it. and how you left because you wanted to hurt less. choso listens. he doesn’t interrupt. doesn’t nod too fast or reach for you too soon. he takes it in. you love him, and it terrified you. that’s all he needed to hear. that fear—he knows it. he's lived in it. but now, it doesn’t push him away from you. it pulls him closer. he thinks about how easily you could’ve died. how close he came to losing you without even having the chance to fight for you. that won’t happen again. 

you don’t speak. you just breathe. shallow, uncertain. your hands are folded in your lap, your shoulders hunched like you’re preparing for impact even now, even after everything. but choso doesn't let you float away. he sees it—the drift in your eyes, the way you keep slipping out of the moment, already retreating into that place where love is dangerous and endings are inevitable.

so he moves. not rushed. not shaking. he stands, takes two steps forward, and gently pulls you to your feet. your balance stumbles for a half-second, caught off guard—but his arms are already around you. warm. solid. steady. they lock around your shoulders like something anchoring. not desperate. not crushing. just real. your face presses into his chest. his heart is loud. not panicked—alive. he buries his nose in your hair. and everything slows down. he holds you like you’re the answer to every question he didn’t know how to ask. like if he lets go, you’ll be gone again. like this is the first moment he’s truly breathed in weeks. his hands splay against your back, not moving. not coaxing. just tethering. here. now. still.

you don’t say anything. you just lean into him. let him carry the weight. let him stay. and he does. because love isn’t loud. it’s this. it’s arms around your body when your mind starts to slip. it’s holding you here. with him. where you’re safe. where you’re home.

you weren’t supposed to be anything to each other. shiu was your handler. your point of contact. your superior. you were a weapon. clean, efficient, silent. the kind the criminal world likes best—sharp enough to kill, disciplined enough not to question why. it was never personal. not at first.

the missions were brutal. bloody. he sent you out and watched you come back half-alive. you’d give him your debrief like a soldier giving up a secret, every word delivered through grit teeth and bruised lungs. he rarely said much in return. just nodded. lit a cigarette. filed the report. but over time, things changed. he started waiting up. he started noticing the way you walked when you were favoring an injury. the way your voice went flat when a mission had gone worse than expected. the way you never sat with your back to the door.

you noticed, too. how he always had painkillers on hand. how he stocked your favorite drink without ever asking. how he stood just a little too close when someone tried to intimidate you. no confessions. no declarations. just long nights spent in low-lit rooms. fingers pressed to bandaged skin. the heavy silence that came after both of you had killed something that day. the intimacy was quiet. dangerous. fragile in a way neither of you acknowledged. it wasn’t love. not officially. not until it was. and by then, it was too late.

you’d been wanting out for months. the fatigue had crept in slowly—bone-deep, soul-deep. a crack in your armor that widened with every mission. every kill. every body. it wasn’t the blood that did it. it was the feeling—the numbness after. the knowledge that you'd become everything you swore you wouldn't.

you stopped recognizing yourself. and the worst part? shiu saw it happening. he watched it take root in you. the dread. the weariness. the self-disgust. but he didn’t try to talk you down or sweet-talk you into staying. because he couldn’t. he knew the job better than anyone. he was part of it. you were part of it. it was a machine, and he didn’t know how to live outside of it.

so when the mission went bad—really bad—he wasn’t surprised when you broke. you came back covered in blood that wasn’t yours. limping. glassy-eyed. he patched you up in silence. tended to your wounds like he always did. you flinched when he touched your ribs. he noticed. said nothing. the room smelled like alcohol and metal. your eyes didn’t meet his once. he knew something was ending. he just didn’t know how soon.

you didn’t leave with ceremony. just a note on his desk. no explanation. no goodbye. just a few short lines, scrawled in your rough, clinical handwriting. I can’t keep doing this. don’t look for me. I won’t be back; you’ll survive this. 

that was it. when he read it, he didn’t react. not outwardly. he finished his cigarette. closed the file on the desk. and stared at the chair where you used to sit during briefings, a towel slung over your neck, blood drying on your collar.

you were gone. and he knew—really knew—that you weren’t coming back. no one walks away from a life like this easily. unless they’ve already decided they’re willing to die for the chance to be someone else.

he gives it a week. not because he believes you’re coming back. but because that’s how long it takes to get your file pulled. where you were last seen. what apartments have utilities in your name. credit card traces. a parking ticket. it’s not hard.

you moved to a quiet neighborhood. the kind of place where people smile at you in the elevator. where nothing explodes and no one bleeds out in the stairwell. the building is nicer than your old one. big windows. soft lighting in the halls. a security system that’ll never notice him. you’ve probably been saving for a while. probably made this plan months ago. that part guts him the most. you were leaving the entire time you were still in his bed. still kissing him goodbye before missions. still telling him to pick up milk on his way home.

and now he’s just a phantom, watching from the street. every night, he sits in his car across from your building. engine off. cigarette lit. the cherry glows dim in the dark while he watches your window. you leave your lamp on late. always have. sometimes it’s a book in your hands. sometimes just you, curled in a blanket with nothing but your thoughts. he watches until the light goes out. then sometimes longer.

you got a job. a desk. a building full of civilians who don’t know your name used to be whispered in the dark by people who were afraid to die. he finds out you’re a low-level assistant. coffee runs. schedule coordination. filing paperwork in triplicate. he bets you hate it. you hate being told what to do. you hate small talk. you hate fluorescent lights and cheap coffee and 9 a.m. meetings.

but you’re there. every day. trying. so he makes sure it’s worth it. your manager’s a prick. shiu makes one visit—low voice, direct eye contact, a hand on the guy’s desk and the tiniest flash of steel. two weeks later, you’re promoted. shiu never considers calling you; telling you.  he doesn’t want thanks. doesn’t want credit. he just wants you to have something good. even if it’s not him. plus, he doesn’t think you’d answer if he called. 

he doesn’t sleep much anymore. drives the city in loops. makes toji take more jobs so he has something to do with his hands. something that isn’t reaching for someone who isn’t there. he schmoozes clients. drinks too much. smokes too much. stops going to the convenience store across from his place. the hot dog cart. the diner. your ghost is everywhere.

he thought you’d been soft for him. gentle. yourselves, in whatever stolen pieces you were allowed. he thought maybe you weren’t just fucking each other for the thrill or for comfort. he held you when you were too tired to stand. cooked for you. rubbed your shoulders until you fell asleep. he let you into his home. his life. the parts no one else ever got. and you gave him a sticky note.

toji makes fun of him a lot. rolls his eyes when shiu ignores calls. cackles when he sees him watching your window like a man mourning something he never named. "didn’t know you went for the sentimental ones,” toji smirks. shiu flicks ash onto the sidewalk. doesn’t answer. because you are obviously not the sentimental type, and maybe he wasn’t sentimental before you. maybe he didn’t believe in attachment. or softness. or permanence. but you ruined that.

you left, and now there’s a you-shaped crater in every part of his routine. and shiu kong—cold, composed, professional—lets himself ache. not in the ways people see. but in the silence. in the nights spent staring at a lamp across the street. in the cigarettes that never taste like anything anymore. and the worst part is—he’s not even angry. he’s just empty.

he doesn't expect to get you back. you’d have left the opportunity open for him if you’d wanted to rekindle. you hadn’t. it’d been radio silence for a whole season.  that’s not why he watches. not why he checks your window at night, not why he listens for your footsteps on the stairs or tracks your walk to the station. you look okay. tired, some days. stressed. but… okay. you smile sometimes. even laugh. he can live with that. he doesn’t like it. but he can survive it. as long as you're breathing. whole. not bleeding out on some stairwell while he fills out paperwork and pretends he never cared.

he was never going to come back. not really. not until he saw the man. some fucking co-worker, shoulder to shoulder with you at the café near your office. laughing too loud. leaning too close. asking something that makes your mouth tilt—half-amused, half-caught off guard.

you don’t say yes. but you don’t say no. and that’s what breaks it. not the light in your window. not the sticky note. this. the idea that someone else might be trying to earn a version of you they didn’t bleed for. that someone might get to touch you—softly, clumsily, like they haven’t memorized your scars. it’s stupid. it’s petty. it’s enough.

he’s at your door before he can talk himself out of it. leaning against the frame like he doesn’t feel like he’s going to be sick. cigarette clamped between his lips, fingers twitching. the air is cold. his chest is colder. you answer in pajama pants and an oversized shirt, blinking against the hallway light.

you look surprised. not angry. and that’s almost worse. because it means you didn’t think he would come. and he can’t figure out if he’s insulted…or if you’re right. you don’t ask why he’s here. not at first. you just step aside. he walks in like it’s muscle memory.

different layout. same furniture. all new energy. everything smells like lavender and clean laundry now. it makes him want to set something on fire. he paces once. doesn’t sit. flicks ash into the sink because that’s the closest thing to control he has left. he doesn’t ask how you are. he asks about the guy. low. sharp. is it serious? are you seeing him? are you fucking him?

you flinch. the calm dissolves. and now, now, you’re angry. not because he asked. not even because he showed up uninvited. because it’s been ninety days. because he said nothing. because he let you go—like it didn’t kill him—and now he’s jealous?

now? it spirals in silence. the room heavy with all the words neither of you said when it might’ve mattered. he wants to apologize. he doesn’t. he wants to take it back. he can’t. so he just stands there. breathing too hard. looking at you like you might be the last thing that still makes sense to him.

you wait. and when he doesn’t move, you ask—quiet, bitter: “why are you here?” he doesn’t answer right away. just crushes the cigarette in the sink. stares at the cherry as it dies.

then finally, voice rough: “because I had to know if you meant it.” meant the leaving. meant the silence. meant that three months of an empty bed was what you wanted. because shiu can take a lot. but he can’t take not knowing. he doesn’t say anything else. doesn’t ask for you back. 

he just looks at you, stripped down to nothing but need—raw, rotted, and quiet. the kind of hurt a man like him doesn’t know how to name. and waits. shoulders tense. jaw locked. ash on his fingertips and desperation in the way he’s breathing, like each second without you is an open wound. you should kick him out. kick his ass. kick something. you don’t.

instead—three steps. three steps across the kitchen and your fingers curl into his collar and you kiss him. hard. furious. starving. your chapstick smears across his mouth, warm and tinted and all over the cigarette taste he never bothers to hide. he tastes like cloves and burnt sugar and memory. like home. he makes a low, rough sound—guttural—and then he’s kissing you back like he’s drowning. one thick hand wraps around your waist, the other spreads wide across your spine, pulling you in like he’s afraid you might vanish again. he kisses you like you’re a secret he wasn’t supposed to learn—but can’t stop repeating. he kisses you like the world ended yesterday and you’re the only thing left worth saving. he kisses you like he’s praying and you’re the only god that ever answered. he kisses you like you're a promise he’s terrified to break.

you ache for him in a way that’s sickening. god, it’s been too long. too many nights alone. too many mornings pretending you didn’t miss him. you don’t know how you ever walked out the door. you don’t know how you ever looked at this man and thought I'll survive without him. you won’t. you can’t.

but the kiss breaks—like glass under pressure. reality crashes back in, cold and clean and cruel. your breath catches, mouth dragging away, body trembling. "I can’t—” you choke. "I can’t come back, shiu. I can’t be that girl again.” your voice cracks. your hands drop. your eyes blur. you never cry. and here you are, breaking open. 

and shiu—hard, cold, untouchable shiu—drinks it in like water. this. this is what he came for. not sex. not closure. not revenge. this. your truth. your honesty. the part of you that still wants him but doesn’t know how to live with it. he leans in. nose brushing yours. and he shakes his head—slow, firm, final.

“you don’t have to be her,” he murmurs. rough, barely a whisper. "I just want you.” just you. not the weapon. not the girl who followed orders. not the one who could gut a grown man without blinking. just you. head tucked under his chin. bare and breathing. soft only for him. his arms slide around you like steel. you melt. and he holds you. the cigarette burns out in the sink behind him. and for the first time in months, the bed won’t be cold tonight. because you’re here. and you’re his again.

[thesimstree]

15 Best Sims 4 Photoshoot Lifehacks: Tips, Mods, Poses & Screenshot Editing

We’ve all been through situations with ruined photos because someone photobombed, we missed the perfect sunset, or had to round up party guests who wandered off... The list of little things that can go wrong during a photoshoot is endless. We already wrote a detailed guide on how to take pictures in The Sims, but now we want to share a collection of quick lifehacks to help speed things up.

1. How to make your sim look the right way for a photo

Want your sim to look right at the camera or at a certain spot? Here’s a simple trick:

1) Hit pause in the game

2) Switch to first-person mode with Shift+Tab

3) Turn your sim’s head with the mouse in the direction you need

4) Unpause so your sim turns their head

5) As soon as their head is turned, hit pause again

6) Exit first-person mode with Shift+Tab

7) Snap the screenshot!

Plus, it’s a great way to get more “alive,” imperfect shots :)

2. Better camera

Better Camera Overhaul-V6 by @sulsulduck fixes common camera issues in The Sims 4 gameplay: removes camera bounce off objects, tweaks movement speed on upper floors, lets you flip the camera upside down and bring it all the way down to ground level, makes movements smoother, adds click-and-drag movement, and fixes sim tracking bugs.

3. You can ask friends to lend their characters for photos

If a big event is coming up (a wedding, graduation, etc.), you’ll definitely need a lot of sims. Finding them for photos is, of course, no problem: you can always hit up Pinterest and download a bunch of decorative sims.

But if these characters need to be active participants in the shot, not just standing around in the background, the search gets a bit trickier. Especially if it’s not just a huge event, but something really important to you. Everything has to be just right :)

First off, we recommend looking for the right sims among your friends in the community – chances are some of them share your taste in aesthetics.

4. Looking for sims in themed groups

Another way to find sims is through various themed groups and channels. Totally obvious tip, but sometimes we forget about these huge archives. 

5. Lots for shooting in the street

If you need to do a shoot on a busy street, it’s definitely easier to find a ready-made lot. Even better if those lots don’t use CC content. We're sharing links to two great CC-free options for you. Perfect for city photoshoots.

Street without CC + Decorative Sims + Traffic Accident Location by LiZok

New York Street by emeraldstories

6. Separate save for photos

If you set up photoshoots for your sims a lot and often, you know that very often afterwards you need to shoot something else. In your main game, you might have already moved on from that scene, changed everyone’s outfits, and sent them home, but in a special save just for photos everything stays right where you need it.

We suggest getting everything ready for the event in your main game (dress the sims, place the lot, gather all the participants), then make a copy of that save just for screenshots.

7. Check out ready-made saves for cool lots

For your game, not every save from another creator has to be perfect: you can just save the lots you like and use them as locations for your shoots.

8. Slow down time in the game

One of the most important parts of a photo is lighting. While you’re searching for the right angle, moving things and posing everyone, the best light can be gone. Instead of messing with the in-game clock, you can slow down the passage of time using the Command Center.

Click any computer in the house – MCCC Settings – Gameplay Settings – Game Time Speed

Set it to 100–200 for comfortable shooting.

9. Don’t forget to take photos with the in-game camera too

Sometimes we take tons of screenshots, but forget that it can be nice to keep memories of certain events right in the sims’ own house. Use the in-game camera to take photos that’ll stay in your sims’ inventory. After that, you can turn them into fun home decor. You can make them into paintings, calendars, and more. For this, use the Photographic Memory 2.0 mod by @ravasheencc.

10. Clubs for background characters

Basic tip: group other sims into clubs. This helps keep them together so they don’t wander off. Plus, they’ll look great on camera in the background, doing something interesting and bringing life to your photos.

11. How to pose mermaids underwater

To figure it out, check out this clear video.

12. Make sure styles in the shot match

We’re talking about the characters, of course. If all your sims in the photo are made in Maxis style, one Alpha sim next to them will look odd. Try to keep the style consistent for each shoot. If everyone is styled the same way (doesn’t matter if it’s all Maxis, all Alpha, or a mix on everyone) – that’s perfect.

13. Adjusting character height

If you’re not happy with how the sims look next to each other in terms of height during a shoot, it’s easy to fix using positioning in Wicked Whims. Just turn on positioning and use the up-down arrows.

Click on the sim – Wicked – Actions – Enable Positioning

This also helps solve issues with poses that mess up the height.

14. Put sims in poses so they don’t wander off

If you don’t need certain sims in the shot at the moment, the easiest way to control them is to put them in a pose. This keeps them from leaving the lot too early, or photobombing the background. Once they’re in a pose, use Wicked Whims positioning to move them out of the way so they don’t get in the shot.

15. Post-processing screenshots

Screenshots done up like polaroids look super cozy. If you like that style too, check out the Photokako site. It really streamlines and speeds up the process.

For even more editing options, there’s the DAZZ CAM app. It lets you enhance screenshots right from your phone. By the way, that can be a lot more convenient for getting pics ready for social media.

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[operationandre]

cal and andre meeting during silent lunch.

the two boys had been acting up in their classes, disrupting teachers and causing all types of problems with other students. cal wouldn’t shut up while andre wouldn’t do what was asked of him.

their teachers finally had enough of the boys’ attitudes. they had already reached out to their parents, which didn’t help, so they needed to do something else. they knew that they couldn’t really put them in time out—that wasn’t appropriate for middle school kids. one thing they could do was put them in silent lunch.

the boys were sat away from all other students during their grade’s lunch break. they got their food and sat across from one another. a teacher positioned herself at the end of the table, letting the boys have their own room but making sure they stayed quiet.

andre stared at his plate the entire time. cal stared at andre. both of them were terribly awkward and didn’t know how to communicate. cal tried to talk multiple times, asking who andre was and why they had to be quiet, but he was shut down every time.

after lunch, cal followed andre into the hallway and introduced himself. he didn’t know who andre was or why he was in silent lunch, but he somehow knew they were both trouble incarnate. he knew andre was just like him, maybe less hyperactive but that didn’t matter.

andre hated cal at first, but the blond boy grew on him. they both kept getting in trouble, kept having to sit next to one another, and kept meeting up in the hallway.

after a while, cal started showing up by andre’s locker after school. andre had no idea how cal found out where his locker was, but he didn’t mind. they became close friends quickly. on the outside, they were polar opposites, but everyone soon realized they were eerily similar.

[someone-writing]

Today's menu:⋆. 𐙚˚࿔ Headcanon 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

Pleasure to meet you, Doctor Spencer Reid gender neutral!reader

Spencer Reid... is a man who, in my eyes, eats the raisins from the mix of dried fruits and nuts. (In that “no one else wants them, so I will” sort of way... this may not be just about raisins.)

Spencer Reid... is not a bad cook, but he religiously holds to the recipe, so in case he is missing something extremely specific, he doesn't know how to work around it.

And he neither knows for how long to mix some things to not over-mix them, nor how much boiling is too much, etc.

Give him a recipe that requires measuring to micrograms and cooking for exactly 17 minutes, 25 seconds and 4 milliseconds, and he is a Michelin chef.

Give him your granny's recipe with 'Bake for 12–17 minutes and add a spoon of salt', and the man will be screaming in despair over how big that spoon is supposed to be, and he burns the thing to a crisp because he's scared to underbake it.

Spencer Reid... who would love to share clothes with his partner, but only under the condition that he will still know where to find them later.

Spencer Reid... who supports the academic rebellion against the publishing companies because research should be accessible to everyone. (Ehm... he would maybe even be one of the archive donors under a fake name...)

Spencer Reid... was a kid who took his time and learned sign language the moment he found out that one of his old neighbours back in Vegas had hearing problems.

Spencer Reid... is not a picky eater because of his childhood, but he avoids some types of food because of their texture when he can (for example: dried dates, soggy cornflakes, overripe bananas, and pears).

Spencer Reid... never really played any games, but Penelope made it her crusade to teach him how to play Mario Kart. (He is surprisingly good at it.)

Spencer Reid... has one pair of shoes he’s been buying for several years in a row at this point (those black sneakers), and he no longer even bothers to try them on in the shop. The moment they have a hole at the bottom, he just walks to the shoe shop, grabs the box in his size, checks that they don’t have any manufacturing defects, and pays for them.

Spencer Reid... is a man who smiles and waves back at smiling children when they wave at him first. Because they deserve to meet happiness and goodness while they still can. And hey... it’s just a smile. That’s the bare minimum.

Spencer Reid... is a man who cannot watch medical dramas with his partner—or unsupervised either. Because that man yaps about the medical inaccuracies and has to bite his tongue every time to not scream “Chest compressions! Chest compressions! Chest compressions!” when one of the characters whips out a defibrillator in a case where the patient's heart has stopped.

Spencer Reid... who is a cat person, but if he had a dog, it would be an English Cocker Spaniel called Remi, who was supposed to be trained as a search and rescue dog.

But she was too sad when she didn’t find the training figurines alive, so they had to remove her from the program and offered her for adoption. And so... the search and rescue dog found the man who needed to be found.

Spencer Reid... takes his time when the day of 'Bring Your Kid to Work' comes. He always hangs around to speak with the kids who are left behind—too shy to ask anything, or in general not really included—and answers every question they may have. (He is surprisingly the favourite agent, but he himself doesn’t know about it.)

Spencer Reid... who would crawl on his knees up the stairs from hell to heaven for his partner, but at the same time doesn’t need them to be with him 24/7.

Just the idea of sharing a flat with them makes him happy. Just the idea that behind that wall is the one person who loves him is enough. (He is like a turtle—he is hidden most of the time, but he loves the idea of closeness that is not completely obvious.) Being near them, letting them sleep on his shoulder, watching them move around the shared space, or hearing them hum from the living room—and the man is a puddle on the ground.

Spencer Reid... in my eyes, is a man who doesn’t mind dog-ears and broken spines on books. He wouldn’t do it purposefully to destroy the book—no, he has respect for the thing. But for him, those are the signs that the book was read again and again, and that it was well loved.

When he gets his hands on old antique books, he lingers a bit longer on the places where the spine is broken, trying to figure out what might have caused the previous owner to stay on that particular page longer than the others.

In his eyes, books are supposed to be worn down by time, by the hands that held them and turned their pages. Books are supposed to be read and loved.

Spencer Reid... is a man who appreciates those whimsical designs you can find on canned fish and boxes of matches, because he knows that even something so... useless and mundane got enough care from someone.

Something small for today :] And this may or may not be the canon for Spencer that exists in my stories so... yeah, maybe we will meet Remi one day And I'm definitely planning to write more of those head canons Hope you enjoyed! Underline note for the recipe: I'm not a native speaker, 'pardon my French' and any mistakes, but we're cooking in freestyle here

[chasingthepoguelife]

It’s even worse when you have to watch everyone else in your life have the things you’ll never have and you can never talk about how it makes you feel because you don’t need pity and adding more problems to your life

i think i really am destined to be alone and wish for things i will never have.

[berylanisoptera]

Crack theory(?) time because I have thoughts and it’s cool, shut up/j

ERAM is definitely Ramb. In this essay I will- Ramb “stole” the shadow mantle as Seam put it… but I’m thinking since Seam was taken away from the Dreemurr house (considering some dialogue suggesting at one point they were on Asriel’s side of the room), he kept it safe for Kris, since…

The shadow mantle’s is something that protects from Dark Type Enemies, or as I now believe thanks to a theory I’ve seen running around: Kris’ childhood blanket. And I’m just. I’m thinking about Ramb,,,, Chosen by this weird ass kid, not because of his use to them, but because they found some strange enjoyment in playing with him. He’s just a power strip. Meant only to be used at the bottom rung of the corporate ladder (considering EVERYTHING is plugged into a power strip, and Tenna thinks of him as useful, but the lowest of the low), but this weird ass kid somehow decides that HE is more fun than any other toy.

But as Kris “grows up”, The holidays stop showing up, Asriel moves out for college, and Kris just. stops playing games, stops doing anything other than getting out of bed when their mother tells them to, going to school when Toriel drives them, and going to bed right when they get home. no friends, no nothing, barely living… He needs to do something. And when Kris finally makes that Dark Fountain, he gets that chance. The chance to get Kris to have fun again. Not with any regular toy. Nuh-uh. Kris is a strange one. They wouldn’t want just any mass produced toy. Not some blasted line from A to B. Ramb knows they would want to choose something entirely different.

But Tenna keeps mucking it up. Making them play his way “until they like it”, even though they never will. Tenna has good intentions, but he’s missing the point. Kris isn’t like everyone else.

But that’s the problem with Ramb too. He doesn’t understand why Kris made the fountain. He can’t begin to comprehend that some otherworldly being is controlling them. And even then, Kris has grown up. The same things might not be ‘fun’ anymore, but at this point, Ramb has built his entire ‘ego’ as some pippins call it, on the fact that he knows and was chosen by Kris. That’s why he holds onto the mantle. Because in some twisted fashion, just like Tenna, he thinks he knows what’s best for him. Hence… The entire Sword Route. It’s Ramb’s way of giving Kris “Freedom” while fundamentally missing what freedom Kris wants. it’s still a line. There’s no other choice but to slay monsters and get stronger. But as ERAM says after you defeat them: “That’s what I wanted to see! Flickering red, like pretty little flames!” May I remind you that we don’t control Kris’ expressions? They were feeling something.

“Without play, the knife grows dull” Though this line is threatening, it’s also very telling. Kris isn’t playing anything anymore from Ramb’s perspective. Their life had become one blasted line. But at least with one last game, Ramb was able to at least give them SOME feeling. Excitement, rage, fear, who knows. And not only that, but he gave them the shadow mantle. The one thing that can shield from the dark and make the fight at the end of the chapter at least POSSIBLE for the reasonably sane player. (Not talking about you, No-Hit players.)

….Anyway, TLDR;

Ramb has the same motivations as Tenna and I believe in Found Family Uncle Honorary Dreemurr Ramb.

[mrs-delaney]

Hide | Chapter Fourteen | Angels Like You

✨ Catch up on Hide before reading this chapter ✨

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pairing: joe burrow x riley carter (oc) word count: 10.5k ish requested: no ⚠️ just a little warning: joe gets hurt in this one—not graphic, but it’s serious—and the emotional vibes are very much “something’s not right.” if that’s a tough headspace, skip or pause as needed.

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Author’s Note: posting two days in a row?? wild. who is she??

work’s been a little slow this week so i’ve been writing in between meetings (sorry to my boss..even though he sees me fuckin' around). this one’s a bit shorter, but it felt right to give it its own space.

this chapter's got that underlying hurt—you know, where nothing's actually exploded but everything still feels wrong somehow. not broken exactly, just... uneasy. like everyone's walking on eggshells but trying to pretend they're not. that's kind of where we are right now.

this part of the story is loosely based on real events. creative liberties were taken. timelines were bent.

thanks for being here. i really mean it. 💛

Taglist: @wickedfun9 @starsyoongi @amiets2 @palmettogal508 @throwaway12356123 @lilfreakjez @destinyg237

August 26

Joe walks off the sideline still thinking about Riley's voice when she hung up on him days ago. The preseason game against the Commanders just ended—they won, 24-17—but he spent most of it watching from the bench, his mind three thousand miles away. He played one series in the first quarter, handed off twice, and that was it.

"Good game, Joe," someone calls out, maybe a coach, maybe a teammate. He nods without really seeing them, already pulling his phone from his locker.

Still no response to any of his texts. It feels like an eternity of silence.

Joe showers quickly, throws on sweats and a hoodie, and ignores the team bus idling outside the stadium. Instead, he calls Sarah.

"I need a jet," he says without preamble.

"Tonight? Joe, you just played—"

"Tonight. To LAX. How fast can you make it happen?"

There's a pause. Sarah's been his assistant for two years; she knows when not to ask questions. "Give me an hour. Where are you going from LAX?"

"I'll figure it out when I get there."

The drive to the private airfield outside Washington gives Joe time to think, which is both a blessing and a curse. He keeps replaying Riley's voice from that phone call—When push comes to shove, I'm the problem you need to manage—and realizing she wasn't wrong.

He tries calling her again as he waits for the jet to be prepped. Straight to voicemail, same as it's been for days.

"Riley, it's me again," he says after the beep. "I know you probably don't want to hear from me right now, but... just call me back. Please."

He hangs up and immediately wants to try again, but forces himself to put the phone away. If she wanted to talk to him, she would have by now.

The pilot doesn't ask questions about the last-minute flight or why Joe looks like shit.

He pulls out his phone and stares at his last text to Riley: Still hoping you'll be there Saturday.

She never responded. Which means she's probably not coming to Cincinnati. Which means this thing between them might actually be over, might have ended with that terrible phone call where he said all the wrong things and she hung up on him.

Joe opens a new message and starts typing: I'm coming to see you.

He deletes it. Tries again: We need to talk.

Deletes that too.

The truth is, he's terrified she'll tell him not to come. That she'll say she doesn't want to see him, that they're done, that he's too late. So instead of giving her the chance to reject him, he's just going to show up and hope she'll at least let him explain.

It's not his usual approach—Joe plans things, thinks them through, weighs the options. But planning hasn't been working when it comes to Riley. Every time he tries to be careful, to manage the situation, he makes it worse.

Maybe it's time to stop being careful.

The flight attendant offers him dinner, but Joe's stomach is too twisted to eat. He accepts water instead and uses the wifi to book a rental car, then immediately second-guesses the choice. Should he take an Uber? Less traceable, but also less reliable if Riley wants him to leave quickly.

God, he doesn't even know if she's home. For all he knows, she could be anywhere—New Orleans, Nashville, Colorado, literally anywhere. He hasn't heard from her team either, despite texting Pete directly yesterday.

Joe stares out the window at the dark expanse of America passing below and tries to figure out what he's going to say when he sees her. I'm sorryseems inadequate. I was scared sounds like an excuse. I love you feels true but not enough - not when love hasn't stopped him from hurting her.

His phone buzzes with a text from his dad: How'd the game go?

Joe types back: Fine. Flying to LA.

The response comes quickly: Good. Bring her home.

It's such a simple statement. Bring her home. Like she belongs there, like she belongs with him. Even though they haven't met her yet.

The pilot's voice crackles over the intercom: "We'll be beginning our descent into Los Angeles in about twenty minutes."

Joe's hands start to sweat. Twenty minutes until he finds out if the person he loves still wants anything to do with him.

He tries her number one more time. It rings once, twice, three times, then goes to voicemail. 

"It's me," he says. "I... I'm sorry about everything. About the phone call, about not being there when you needed me, about being an idiot. I'm going to try to fix this, okay? If you'll let me."

He hangs up and immediately regrets it. He should have said more, should have explained, should have told her he was coming. But it's too late now.

The rental car is waiting. Joe plugs Riley's address into the GPS and drives.

The drive from LAX to Laurel Canyon takes forty minutes. Joe's locked in now, the way he gets before big games. One objective: get to Riley. Everything else is noise.

But what if she's not alone?

It's been days since they talked. Days for her to decide she's done with his shit, done with being treated like a secret, done with dating someone who chooses his image over her every time it matters. Someone like maybe Dom.

Joe pushes the thought away and focuses on driving, on the narrow roads and expensive houses hidden behind gates and perfectly manicured hedges. Riley's neighborhood is quiet, peaceful, the kind of place where showing up unannounced at midnight might get the cops called.

He turns onto her street. Her house sits at the end of a curved driveway, lights on in the living room. Her car's the only one there.

Joe parks on the street and sits in the rental car for a full minute, staring at her front door. This is it. This is where he finds out if he still has her or if he's lost the best thing that's ever happened to him.

He gets out of the car and walks to her door.

Once he reaches her front door he just stands there, hand raised to knock, suddenly terrified of what comes next.

* * *

Riley sits cross-legged on her living room floor, acoustic guitar balanced across her lap, surrounded by scattered pieces of paper covered in crossed-out lines and half-formed verses. It's past 1 AM, but sleep feels impossible when her chest is this tight with words that need to come out.

She strums the same chord progression she's been working on for the past hour, humming a melody that feels too raw to sing at full voice yet. The notebook beside her is open to a page that reads:

Baby, angels like you can't fly down hell with me I'm everything they said I would be

She stops playing and scratches out the second line, tries again:

I'm everything you didn't want me to be

That's not right either. Riley sets the guitar aside and pulls her knees to her chest, staring at the mess of papers around her. Days of not responding to Joe,  days of writing songs that all sound like goodbye letters she'll never send.

Her phone sits face-down on the coffee table, silent since she finally set up the new one yesterday and saw all his unanswered messages flood in at once. She'd read them, all of them, but couldn't bring herself to respond. What was there to say? That she missed him? That she was tired of feeling like a problem he needed to solve?

Riley reaches for the guitar again, finds the melody, tries a different approach:

They say that misery loves company It's not your fault I ruin everything

The knock at her front door makes her freeze mid-strum.

She glances at the clock on her phone. 1:23 AM. Who the hell shows up at her house at 1:23 in the morning?

The knock comes again, more insistent this time.

Riley sets the guitar aside and pads to the front door in her bare feet, wearing an oversized t-shirt that hangs to her mid-thigh and shorts that disappear under the hem. She expects to see Pete through the peephole, or maybe Andy having another late-night crisis about some girl.

Instead, she sees Joe Burrow standing on her doorstep in sweats and a hoodie, looking like he just traveled three thousand miles to be there.

Which, apparently, he did.

Riley stares through the peephole for a full ten seconds, convinced she's hallucinating. Joe doesn't make grand gestures. Joe doesn't show up unannounced. Joe definitely doesn't fly across the country in the middle of the night.

But there he is.

She unlocks the door and opens it slowly, not trusting her voice yet.

"Hi," he says simply.

Riley blinks at him, still processing. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to make sure you get on a plane to Cincinnati."

Riley stares at him. "You... what?"

"Your flight. Tomorrow. I need to know you're still coming."

She opens her mouth, closes it again. Of all the things she might have expected Joe to say, this wasn't one of them. "You flew here to ask me that?"

"I flew here because I fucked up…again."

Riley stares at him for another long moment. "You got that right," she says finally. 

She steps back from the door, and Joe takes it as an invitation to come inside. The living room is covered in evidence of sleepless nights: papers scattered across the coffee table and floor, her guitar propped against the couch, lyrics scrawled in her messy handwriting.

Riley closes the door behind him and crosses her arms, suddenly aware that she's barely dressed and he's standing in her living room in the middle of the night like this isn't completely insane.

"Shouldn't you be in Maryland?" she asks, trying to find her footing in this conversation.

"Game ended hours ago." Joe's looking at the papers around her guitar, probably reading the fragments of lyrics she's been working on. "You've been writing."

"I've been doing a lot of things." Riley moves to gather some of the papers, suddenly self-conscious about him seeing her raw thoughts scattered everywhere. "What do you want, Joe?"

"I want to know if you're coming to Cincinnati tomorrow."

Riley stops collecting papers and looks at him. "Why would I be coming to Cincinnati?"

"Your flight. You had a flight booked."

"Had being the key word." Riley sits down on the edge of her couch, putting some distance between them. "I canceled it."

Something shifts in Joe's expression. "When?"

"The other day. I'm exhausted with this, Joe."

"I know. That's why I'm here."

Riley looks at him for a long moment. "You think showing up fixes it?"

"I think not showing up definitely doesn't."

She's quiet, processing that. Joe stays where he is, not moving closer, not trying to crowd her space.

"My team lost their minds when they saw the headlines," he says finally. "Started talking about damage control and how this could affect my image. And I listened to them instead of calling you back first."

Riley doesn't respond right away.

"I panicked. When I saw those photos, when I heard what people were saying... I thought about protecting myself before I thought about protecting you."

Riley wraps her arms tighter around herself. "That's the problem, Joe. When things get hard, your first instinct is to pull away from me, not toward me."

"I know."

"Really? Do you Joe? Because this isn't the first time. Every time there's any kind of pressure or scrutiny, you treat me like I'm the complication."

Joe runs a hand through his hair. "You're not a complication."

"Then why do I always feel like one?"

Joe is quiet for a long moment. "Because I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to have you in my life and deal with everyone else's opinions about it. So when things get complicated, I default to what I know - protecting what I can control."

"At least you're honest about it. But Joe, I can't keep being the thing you sacrifice every time you get scared." Riley shifts on the couch, pulling her knees closer. "I know I'm not easy. I know my life is messy and unpredictable and nothing like what you're used to. But I can't keep wondering if you're going to choose me or choose everyone else's opinion of me."

"I'm trying to figure out how to do that.  Choose you."

Joe moves closer, crouching down in front of the couch so he can see her face. "Don't give up on this. On us."

Riley looks at him, eyes tired. "This hurts, Joe."

"I know. I don't want to hurt you. Stay with me while I figure it out?"

She studies his face like she's looking for something she's not sure is there. "You keep asking me to wait while you figure it out. But what if you don't? What if this is just who we are?"

"I don't want it to be."

"Wanting isn't the same as changing." She's quiet for a moment. "But yeah. Okay. I'll stay."

"Even though you shouldn't."

"Probably because I shouldn't."

Joe takes what feels like the first deep breath he's had in days.

He reaches for her hand, and she lets him take it. Her fingers are cold, and he realizes she's been sitting here for hours writing, probably not taking care of herself the way she does when she's processing something hard.

"Come here," he says quietly, and gently pulls her up from the couch.

Riley stands on unsteady legs, and Joe wraps his arms around her, pulling her against his chest. She melts into him immediately, her face pressed against his hoodie, and he can feel some of the tension leave her body.

They stand like that for a long moment, just holding each other. Joe rests his chin on top of her head, breathing in the familiar scent of her shampoo, feeling the relief wash over him that she's here, that she's his, that she said okay.

Riley's arms tighten around his waist, and Joe realizes she's crying - not sobs, just quiet tears that soak through his hoodie.

"I missed you," she whispers against his chest.

"I missed you too," he says, his voice rough. "So much."

* * *

They stay like that, wrapped around each other in her living room surrounded by scattered lyrics and the evidence of her sleepless nights. It's relief and comfort and the simple fact that they fit together, even when everything else feels broken.

Riley pulls back just enough to look at his face, her hands coming up to rest against his chest. "You hate grand gestures."

"I had to. I was going crazy."

She studies his expression, searching for something. When she finds it, Joe leans down and kisses her.

It's soft at first, tentative, like he's not sure if this is allowed. But Riley's hands fist in his hoodie, and she kisses him back with weeks of missing him, and Joe makes a small sound against her mouth that goes straight through her.

"Bird," he breathes against her lips.

"I know," she whispers. "I know."

She takes his hand and leads him down the hall to her bedroom, and this time it's different from every other time they've been together. Slower, more careful. Like they're both afraid the other might disappear.

Joe pulls off his hoodie while Riley sits on the edge of her bed, just watching him. When he reaches for the hem of her oversized t-shirt, she lets him pull it over her head, and then they're skin to skin for the first time in too long.

"I thought I fucked this up forever," Joe says quietly, his forehead resting against hers.

"You didn't," Riley says, even though they both know how close he came.

When he touches her, it's with reverence, like he's memorizing every inch. When she moves against him, it's with a kind of desperate tenderness, like she's trying to pour all her forgiveness into the space between their bodies.

It's not gentle, not really. They cling to each other, pace quick and rough, both of them chasing relief and something like grace. Neither of them talks. Just the sound of skin and breath, desperate and seeking, like they're trying to say I'm sorry, I love you, don't leave again—all without words.

"Joe," Riley breathes against his mouth, her hands fisted in his hair.

"Me too," he says back, his voice rough.

She pulls him closer, desperate. "Don't—" she starts, then stops, but Joe knows what she means.

"I won't," he promises against her throat. "I'm not stopping. I'm not going anywhere."

When she's close, she whispers his name like a prayer, over and over, and Joe has to bite down on her shoulder to keep from falling apart completely.

"Please," she whispers, and he knows what she needs.

"Come on, baby," he murmurs back.

When Riley comes, it’s quiet, her body shaking with it, face pressed to his shoulder. Joe follows right after, everything tightening at once, her name muffled against her skin.

After, they don’t move. He just holds her, breathing her in, as if he could anchor himself to this moment and never let go.

"Come back with me," Joe says eventually. 

"Joe." 

"Please, Riley." 

"You know I will." She sighs. "When do you want to leave?" 

"In the morning? When we wake up?" 

"Okay."

She settles back against his chest, and Joe feels something ease in his chest that's been tight for days. It's not fixed - he knows that. The conversation they had in the living room doesn't solve the fundamental problem between them. But she's here, and she's his, and tomorrow they'll figure out the rest.

* * *

Early September 

Riley stares out the airplane window at the darkness below, her reflection ghostlike in the glass. The red-eye from Cincinnati to London is half empty, which means she has an entire row to herself to spread out and pretend she's not exhausted down to her bones.

Thirty-six hours. She could have stayed in London, slept off the jet lag, maybe seen a show in the West End. But no—she flew to Cincinnati instead, burning through her only real break because she thought things might be different after LA. Thirty-six hours of watching Joe slip right back into the same patterns that broke them apart in the first place.

Her phone buzzes with a text from Pete: Safe flight. Get some sleep. Love you.

She types back: Can't sleep. Too wired.

What she doesn't text is that nothing has changed. That Joe flying to LA, showing up at her door, asking her to stay with him—none of it actually fixed the thing that's wrong between them.

Yesterday afternoon, Joe's living room:

"The Steelers run a lot of zone coverage on third down," Joe muttered to himself, remote in hand, rewinding the same play for the fourth time.

Riley looked up from her book—she'd given up trying to have a conversation twenty minutes earlier. "Joe."

"Mmm?" He didn't look away from the screen.

"Remember when you said you were trying to figure out how to choose me?"

That got his attention. He paused the film and turned to her. "I am trying."

"Yeah? Because this feels exactly like it did before."

Joe's jaw tightened slightly. "It's Week 1, Riley. This is important."

"And I'm not?"

"That's not what I said."

But Riley could see it in his face—the same look he got whenever football took priority. The same wall going up.

Riley shifts in her seat now, curling sideways against the window. The flight attendant offers her a blanket, which she accepts with a tired smile.

Her phone lights up with a message from Joe: Miss you already.

She stares at the text for a long moment before responding: Miss you too.

But the truth is she doesn't just miss him—she misses who he used to be with her. The Joe who would actually turn off his phone. Who cared about her day, not just the parts that fit around football. This version feels like someone else entirely.

This morning, Joe's kitchen:

"I can drive you to the airport," Joe offered, grabbing his keys.

"It's fine. I called a car."

"You sure? I don't have meetings until noon."

Riley could see he was already mentally somewhere else—probably thinking about practice, about the game plan, about everything except the fact that she was leaving again. "Yeah, I'm sure."

He kissed her goodbye at the door, distracted and quick. "Text me when you land?"

"I will."

But they both knew he probably wouldn't see it until hours later, buried between messages from coaches and teammates and everyone else who took precedence during football season.

Riley closes her eyes and tries to find a comfortable position. Seven more hours until London, then a full day of interviews where she'll have to smile and talk about her music while running on no sleep and too much caffeine.

Her phone buzzes again. A text from Andy: How was Cincinnati?

She types and deletes three different responses before settling on: Fine.

It's not fine, though. Nothing about this feels fine. Joe said he was trying to figure out how to choose her, but the moment football season started, everything went right back to how it was before.

She's still the only one reaching. Loving him is starting to feel like chasing him.

Riley looks at her phone again. Joe's "miss you already" text, her automatic "Miss you too" response. A week ago, that exchange would have made her heart race. Now it just feels hollow.

When did she become the only one reaching? When did loving him start feeling like chasing him?

Seven hours to London. Seven hours to figure out how to smile and talk about her music while pretending everything's fine.

For the first time since that night in her living room when Joe asked her to stay with him, Riley wonders if she should have said no.

* * *

September-1st Game of the Season

Riley - 2:47 PM London time (9:47 AM Cincinnati): Good luck today baby. I know you're going to be amazing.

Riley - 3:15 PM: Thinking about you. Wish I could be there.

Riley - 4:30 PM: Still no response? Everything okay?

Riley - 5:45 PM: Joe?

Riley stares at her phone screen in her London hotel room, watching the delivered messages pile up with no response. She's been up since 6 AM doing BBC Radio interviews, but all she can think about is Joe's first game of the season starting in an hour.

Riley - 6:00 PM (1:00 PM Cincinnati - Kickoff): Game's starting. I'm watching on my laptop. You've got this.

She settles into bed with her laptop balanced on her knees, the NFL app streaming the Bengals vs. Steelers game. The hotel room is dark except for the glow of the screen, and Riley pulls a blanket around herself as she watches Joe take the field.

Riley - 6:23 PM: You look so focused out there. Doing amazing.

Riley - 6:45 PM: I have no idea what's happening but you look good doing it.

Riley - 7:30 PM (Halftime): They're winning but you've got this. Second half.

The Bengals are struggling. Pittsburgh's defense is relentless, and Joe's getting pressured on every play. Riley finds herself holding her breath every time he drops back to pass, texting encouragement she knows he won't see until after the game.

Riley - 8:15 PM: That hit looked bad. Are you okay?

Riley - 8:47 PM: Come on baby. One touchdown. You can do this.

Riley - 9:20 PM (Game ends, Bengals lose 21-10): I'm sorry. You played your heart out. You'll get them next time.

Riley - 9:45 PM: Joe? Just want to make sure you're okay.

Riley - 11:30 PM: I know you're probably in meetings or with the team. Call me when you can?

Riley - 1:15 AM: Are you ignoring me?

It's nearly 2 AM London time when Riley's phone finally buzzes with an incoming FaceTime call. She answers immediately, and Joe's face appears on screen—hair still damp from the shower, jaw tight with frustration.

"Hey," she says softly. "Are you okay?"

"No, I'm not okay. We lost." His voice is flat, exhausted.

"I watched the whole game. You looked good out there, even though they kept hitting you—"

"Riley, I don't want to talk about the game."

She blinks, taken aback by his tone. "Okay. I was just... I was trying to be supportive. I sent you texts all day."

"I don't check my phone on game days."

"What?"

Joe rubs his face with his hands. "I don't talk to anyone the day before or day of games. I go dark."

Riley stares at him through the screen. "You never told me that."

"I thought you knew."

"How would I know that? You've never mentioned it once." Her voice gets sharper. "I stayed up all night watching your game, Joe. I've been worried sick because you weren't responding to anything."

"I can't be thinking about texts when I'm trying to prepare."

"I wasn't asking you to respond during the game. But before? After? Some acknowledgment that your girlfriend exists?"

Joe's expression hardens. "This is exactly why I don't talk to people on game days. I can't deal with this right now."

"Deal with what? Me caring about you?"

"I lost, Riley. I threw two interceptions. The last thing I need is—"

"Is what? Support? Someone who care about you trying to be there for you?"

"I need space to process this."

Riley feels something cold settle in her chest. "Space from me."

"Space from everyone."

"But especially me."

Joe doesn't deny it, and that silence says everything.

"I can't do this," Riley says quietly. "I can't keep being shut out of the most important part of your life."

"Football has to come first during the season. You know that."

"I know that football is important. What I didn't know is that means I don't exist."

Joe's jaw tightens. "That's not fair."

"Are you kidding me? When do I come first, Joe? When do I get to matter?"

"Riley—"

But she's already ended the call.

Riley sits in her dark hotel room, staring at the black screen of her phone. It's 2:30 AM in London, and she has morning interviews in six hours. But all she can think about is the look on Joe's face when she asked when she gets to matter.

Like it was a question he'd never considered before.

Riley's phone buzzes less than five minutes after she ended the call. Joe's name appears on the screen.

She stares at it for two rings before answering.

"What?"

"Don't hang up." Joe's voice is quieter now, less sharp. "Please."

Riley doesn't say anything, but she doesn't hang up either.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I shouldn't have taken the loss out on you."

"No, you shouldn't have."

"And I should have told you about game days. I assumed you knew, but you didn't. That's on me."

Riley shifts against her hotel pillows, exhausted. "Joe, I stayed up all night to watch you play. I was trying to support you."

"I know. And I appreciate that, I do. I just... I don't think clearly after losses."

"It's not just about tonight. It's about me not knowing basic things about your life. About feeling like I'm always on the outside of the most important part of who you are."

Joe is quiet for a moment. "I'll try to be more upfront about what game day stuff looks like for me. What the season looks like. I don't want you feeling shut out."

"Okay."

"Are we okay?"

Riley closes her eyes. She's too tired to fight, too tired to explain again why this hurt. "Yeah. We're okay."

"Get some sleep. I know you have early interviews."

"Yeah. I do."

"Riley?"

"What?"

"Thank you. For watching. For caring. I know I didn't say that before."

"You're welcome."

After they hang up, Riley lies in the dark staring at the ceiling. Joe apologized, promised to be more communicative about his boundaries. It should feel like progress.

Instead, it just feels like another conversation where she has to adjust her expectations to fit his world.

Riley sets an alarm and tries to fall asleep.

* * *

Riley sits cross-legged on the floor of the rehearsal studio, still catching her breath from running through "Lonely Is the Muse" for the tenth time today. The mock stage setup towers behind her—lights, risers, even a replica of the LED backdrop that will follow them around the world. Her phone is propped against her water bottle as she FaceTimes Joe, who's presumably at home in Cincinnati.

"You should see this setup," she says, angling the phone so he can see the stage. "It's insane. Andy designed this whole lighting sequence that syncs with the guitar solo in 'Lilith,' and Pete's been working on these harmonies that—"

"That's cool," Joe says, but his attention seems split. Riley can see him looking at something off-camera.

"Are you listening to me?"

"Just checking something real quick." He looks back at the phone. "Sorry. The stage looks good."

Riley tries not to let her irritation show. "We've been rehearsing for twelve hours a day. I'm exhausted but also kind of terrified and excited all at the same time. Tour starts in three weeks."

"You'll be great. You always are."

"I hope so." Riley shifts, tucking her legs under her. "Actually, I was thinking—you have your bye week coming up, right? End of October?"

"Yeah."

"You should come here. See the rehearsals, hang out while we're in prep mode. I could show you around the studio complex, introduce you to everyone properly." Riley's voice gets more animated as she talks. "You could watch us work through the setlist, see what this whole thing looks like from the inside."

Joe is quiet for a moment. "I don't know, Riley."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I mean, bye weeks are usually when I catch up on rest. Recovery. I don't really go anywhere during the season."

Riley frowns. "But it's your week off. And I'm asking you to come see something that's really important to me."

"I know it's important—"

"I don't think you do. Because it feels like you think my work is just a fun little hobby compared to yours."

"That's not true."

"Then why won't you come?"

Joe runs a hand through his hair, looking uncomfortable. "It's complicated."

"How is it complicated? You get on a plane, you come to LA, you spend time with your girlfriend. What's complicated about that?"

"Riley, we're still laying low, remember? After the whole Ethan thing? My team thinks it's better if I'm not seen—"

"Your team thinks it's better if you're not seen with me."

"That's not what I said."

"It's what you meant." Riley's voice gets sharper. "Joe, that was two months ago. How long are we supposed to hide because my drunk ex made a scene?"

"It's not hiding, it's being smart. The season just started, and things are going well, and I don't want to create any distractions—"

"I'm a distraction."

"No, the media attention is a distraction."

"Same thing." Riley stands up, pacing the small area in front of her phone. "God, we're right back where we started, aren't we?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're still more worried about how things look than about being with me. Nothing's actually changed."

Joe's jaw tightens. "Come on, Riley. I've been trying to be better about communication—"

"Communication isn't the only problem, Joe. The problem is that you don't want to be seen with me. The problem is that I've flown to Cincinnati three times in the past month, but you won't come here once because you're worried about your precious image."

"Riley—"

"When's the last time you came to my world? When's the last time you made an effort to see what my life looks like instead of me always fitting into yours?"

"I came to your show in LA—"

"You came to my show in July with your friends, and that's it." Riley's voice cracks slightly. "I'm about to go on tour, Joe. This is the last chance we have to spend time together before I'm gone for months, and you're worried about people taking pictures of us."

Joe is quiet, and Riley can see him processing what she's saying. Finally, he speaks. "I just think it's better to be careful right now."

Riley stops pacing. "Better for who?"

"For both of us."

"No, Joe. Better for you. This is better for you." She picks up her phone, bringing it closer to her face. "I'm tired of being your secret. I'm tired of being the thing you have to manage and protect and hide from the world."

"You're not—"

"I am, though. That's exactly what I am." Riley's voice gets quieter, more defeated. "You know what? Forget I asked. Enjoy your bye week. Rest up, recover, do whatever you need to do."

"Riley, don't hang up. Let's talk about this."

"What's there to talk about? You made your choice. You always make the same choice."

"That's not true."

Riley looks at him through the screen, this man she's been trying to love despite how hard he makes it. "Name one time you've chosen me over what's safe for your career. One time."

Joe opens his mouth, then closes it. The silence stretches between them.

"That's what I thought," Riley says quietly.

"Riley—"

But she's already ended the call.

Riley sits in the empty rehearsal studio, surrounded by the elaborate stage setup that represents months of planning and preparation for the biggest tour of her career. In three weeks, she'll be performing these songs for thousands of people who love her music, who've been waiting for this moment almost as much as she has.

And the person she wants to share it with most is too worried about his image to show up.

She picks up her guitar and starts playing the opening chords to "Lonely Is the Muse," letting the music fill the silence Joe left behind.

* * *

Late October 

Riley sits on Joe's couch, watching him ice his shin for the third time since she arrived two hours ago. He's been rotating between the couch and the kitchen, restless and irritated, moving the ice pack every few minutes like he can't get comfortable.

"How long has it been bothering you?" she asks, setting down her coffee.

"Couple weeks." Joe adjusts the ice pack, wincing slightly. "It's fine. Just annoying."

"Have you had it looked at?"

"Yeah. They said it's minor. Just needs rest."

Riley watches him fidget with the ice pack, his jaw tight with frustration. She flew in this morning from LA, using her one day off between rehearsal blocks to see him, and he's been like this since she walked in the door—distracted, moody, barely acknowledging that she's here.

"You've seemed off," she says carefully. She's been watching his games when she can, trying to understand his world better after their last fight.

Joe's head snaps up. "What?"

"In the games I've watched. You just look... frustrated. More than usual."

"Since when do you analyze my games?"

"Since I'm trying to understand what's going on with you." Riley shifts on the couch to face him. "You look different out there."

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine. You're limping around your house icing your leg every twenty minutes."

Joe stands up abruptly, the ice pack falling to the floor. "It's just a minor thing. Shin splints or something. It'll heal."

"Joe—"

"I don't want to talk about it."

Riley stares at him as he paces to the kitchen, his movements stilted and careful. She's seen him frustrated before, but this feels different. Angrier. Like he's mad at his own body for betraying him.

"I'm trying to help," she says when he comes back with a different ice pack.

"I don't need help. I need this thing to stop hurting so I can play."

"Maybe you need to take some time—"

"I can't take time. We're 4-3, Riley. Every game matters."

"Your health matters too."

Joe laughs, but there's no humor in it. "My health matters when we're winning. Right now, I need to play through whatever this is."

Riley watches him settle back on the couch, immediately shifting to find a comfortable position for his leg. "Is this why you've been so..."

"So what?"

"Distant. Moody. Harder to reach than usual."

"I haven't been moody."

"Joe, I texted you good morning three days ago and you responded with 'ok.'"

"I was busy."

"With what? Icing your shin?"

Joe's expression darkens. "Don't."

"Don't what? Point out that you're taking your frustration out on me?"

"I'm not taking anything out on you."

"Then why does it feel like you resent me being here?"

Joe is quiet for a long moment, staring at the ice pack on his shin. "I don't resent you being here."

"You haven't asked me about tour prep once since I got here. You haven't asked about my day, about the flight, about anything. I might as well be invisible."

"I've got a lot on my mind."

"I know. Your shin, the games, the pressure. I get it. But I'm here, Joe. I'm trying to be supportive, and you're acting like I'm bothering you."

 Joe looks at her then, and for a moment his expression softens. "You're not bothering me."

"Then what's going on? Because this feels like more than just a sore leg."

Joe runs a hand through his hair, a gesture Riley recognizes as him trying to find words he doesn't want to say. "Everything's off right now. My timing, my accuracy, my decision-making. And this stupid shin thing is making it worse because I can't plant my foot right."

"So fix it. See a specialist, get treatment, whatever you need to do."

"It's not that simple."

"Why not?"

"Because if they think it's serious, they'll want me to sit. And I can't sit. Not with how we're playing."

Riley stares at him. "You'd rather play hurt than take care of yourself?"

"I'd rather not let my team down."

"What about letting yourself down? What about letting me down by shutting me out every time something goes wrong?"

Joe's jaw tightens again. "That's not what I'm doing."

"But that's what it feels like. From where I'm sitting, it feels exactly like what you're doing."

They sit in silence for a moment, the tension thick between them. Riley watches Joe adjust the ice pack again, his movements careful and frustrated.

"Maybe I should just give you some space," she says finally.

"You don't have to do that."

"Yeah, I do. You clearly don't want company right now."

"Riley—"

But she's already standing, heading toward the stairs. "I'm going to go read or something. Let me know if you need anything."

Joe doesn't argue, doesn't get up from the couch, doesn't try to stop her.

Riley goes upstairs to his bedroom and closes the door behind her. She sits on the edge of the bed, staring at her phone, wondering why she keeps coming back to someone who makes her feel more alone when she's with him than when she's actually alone.

Twenty minutes later, she hears footsteps on the stairs. Joe opens the bedroom door quietly, like he's not sure if she wants to see him.

"Hey," he says from the doorway.

Riley looks up from her phone. "Hey."

"Can I come in?"

She nods, and Joe walks over to the bed, sitting down beside her with a slight wince as he adjusts his leg.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly. "I've been an ass."

Joe runs a hand through his hair. "This thing with my shin, it's got me all fucked up. I can't plant my foot right, and it's throwing off everything. My throws, my reads, my timing. Everything feels off."

Riley turns to face him. "So why take it out on me?"

"I don't know. Because you're here, I guess. Because it's easier than dealing with the fact that I might be losing a step."

"You're not losing a step. You're hurt."

"Same thing in this business."

Riley studies his face, seeing the frustration and fear he's been hiding behind his moodiness. "Joe, you can talk to me about this stuff. I want you to talk to me about it."

"I know. I just... I don't like feeling weak."

"Being hurt isn't weak. Being an asshole to the people who care about you is."

Joe looks at her, and for the first time all day, he really sees her. "You flew here to see me."

"I did."

"And I've been treating you like shit since you walked in."

"Pretty much."

Joe reaches for her hand. "I'm sorry, Riley. Really. I don't want you to feel like you're not welcome here."

Riley squeezes his hand. "I just want to help. I want to be here for you when things are hard."

"You are. Even when I'm too stupid to appreciate it."

They sit in silence for a moment before Joe lies back on the bed, pulling Riley down with him. She curls up against his side, careful of his injured leg.

"I'm sorry I made you feel like you didn't matter."

Riley lifts her head to look at him. "Do I matter?"

"You matter the most Birdie."

* * *

November

The pocket collapses faster than Joe expects.

He's got Ja'Marr running a comeback route, sees the window opening, but Baltimore's pass rush is relentless tonight. Roquan Smith is coming hard from the left side, and Joe feels the familiar pressure that means he's got maybe half a second to get rid of the ball.

He steps up in the pocket, trying to buy time, but the protection breaks down completely. Bodies everywhere, purple jerseys converging. Joe scrambles right, looking for an escape route, the ball still tucked against his chest.

The hit comes from behind and to the side—a combination of defensive linemen collapsing the pocket. Joe goes down hard, his right hand hitting the turf first as he tries to brace his fall. The impact sends a shock wave up his arm, but it's not until he tries to push himself up that he feels it.

Sharp, electric pain shooting from his wrist straight up to his elbow.

Joe rolls over, sitting up on the field, and looks down at his right hand. It looks normal, but when he tries to flex his wrist, the pain is immediate and breathtaking. Not the dull ache of his shin, which has been manageable for weeks. This is different. This is wrong.

"You good, Joe?" Ja'Marr is standing over him, helmet off, concern written across his face.

Joe nods automatically, the way he always does, but when he tries to push himself to his feet using his right hand, the pain nearly makes him sick. He gets up using his left hand instead, cradling his right arm against his body.

The Ravens defense is celebrating—they got the sack, stopped the drive. The crowd at M&T Bank Stadium is deafening. Joe walks slowly toward the huddle, trying to shake off whatever's wrong with his wrist, but every step sends jarring pain up his arm.

"Let's go, offense!" he calls out, trying to sound normal, but his voice feels tight.

In the huddle, Joe holds the play sheet with his left hand. When he claps to break the huddle, he uses his left hand against his thigh instead of clapping normally. His teammates don't notice, but Joe notices everything. The way his right hand feels weak and unstable. The way gripping the football sends shooting pain through his wrist.

The next snap comes fast. Joe takes the ball, tries to set up for a quick slant to Tyler Boyd, but when he goes to release the ball, his wrist can't support the throwing motion. The ball wobbles out of his hand, falling incomplete five yards short of the target.

Joe stares down at his right hand, flexing his fingers. They move, but his wrist feels like it's full of broken glass.

"Joe!" Coach Taylor is calling for a timeout, jogging onto the field. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good," Joe says, but he's not good. He knows he's not good. He's played through pain before—the shin, countless bumps and bruises, the appendectomy his rookie year. This is different.

Dr. Sparks, the team physician, approaches with the medical staff. "What's going on?"

"Wrist," Joe says simply, holding up his right hand. "Landed on it weird."

Dr. Sparks takes Joe's hand, gently rotating the wrist. The pain is immediate and sharp enough that Joe has to bite back a curse.

"Can you grip?" Dr. Sparks asks, handing Joe a football.

Joe takes it with his right hand, tries to squeeze. His grip strength is maybe thirty percent of normal, and even that causes significant pain. When he tries to cock his arm back in a throwing motion, the pain is so intense his vision blurs for a second.

"I can't throw," Joe admits, the words feeling like giving up.

Coach Taylor's face falls. "Can you hand it off? Run some read-option?"

Joe tries to grip the ball again, tries to simulate a handoff motion. Even that simple movement sends pain shooting up his arm. "I don't think so."

The stadium noise fades into background static as Dr. Sparks examines Joe's wrist more thoroughly on the sideline. Teammates pat his shoulders as they pass, offering encouragement, but Joe barely hears them. All he can think about is the calendar in his head—nine games left in the season, playoffs within reach, everything they've worked for since August.

"We need to get this X-rayed," Dr. Sparks says quietly. "Tonight."

Joe looks out at the field, where Jake Browning is warming up, preparing to take over. The scoreboard shows 10-7 Ravens, second quarter, plenty of time to come back. Except Joe won't be the one leading the comeback.

"How bad?" Joe asks.

Dr. Sparks doesn't answer immediately, which tells Joe everything he needs to know.

As Joe walks toward the tunnel, his right arm held carefully against his body, he thinks about Riley. She's in New York doing press appearances, probably at some late night show, completely unaware that his season might have just ended on a routine play against a Baltimore pass rush that got home half a second too fast.

The crowd noise follows him into the tunnel—cheers for Baltimore, sympathy from the few Bengals fans who made the trip. Joe doesn't look back at the field. If this is as bad as it feels, he's already seen enough football for 2023.

In the locker room, alone except for medical staff, Joe sits on the training table and stares at his right hand. The hand that's supposed to hold footballs, sign autographs, win championships. The hand that's supposed to touch Riley's face when he tells her he loves her, whenever he finally works up the courage to say it.

Right now, it can barely hold a cup of water.

Dr. Sparks returns with preliminary results that confirm what Joe already knows: his season is over. The scapholunate ligament in his wrist is torn, requiring surgery and months of rehabilitation.

Joe nods when he hears the diagnosis, like he expected it. Because deep down, from the moment he hit the ground, he knew. You don't play quarterback in the NFL for five years without learning to distinguish between pain you can play through and pain that means something is fundamentally broken.

As the medical staff discusses surgery timelines and recovery protocols, Joe's phone buzzes with texts he can't respond to yet. Teammates, family, reporters. The outside world learning what happened.

But the person he most wants to talk to is in New York, probably charming some talk show host or doing interviews, completely unaware that everything just changed.

Joe closes his eyes and tries not to think about how long it's going to be before he can throw a football again. Tries not to think about Riley, and how she's going to drop everything to be here for him, just like she always does.

Tries not to think about how he doesn't deserve that kind of loyalty, but how desperately he needs it anyway.

* * *

Riley sits in the green room at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, watching Thursday Night Football on her phone while Stephen's monologue plays on the monitor overhead. Pete, Andy, and Daniel are sprawled across the couches around her—they're all appearing together tonight, doing "Daylight" as a full band performance.

"Twenty minutes until we're on," Andy says, tuning his guitar. "You nervous?"

"Nah, this is easy compared to tour prep," Riley replies, though she's actually looking forward to it. Playing with the guys always feels more natural than solo appearances.

Daniel's practicing paradiddles on his thighs while Pete scrolls through his phone. Riley keeps her phone tilted toward herself, watching the Ravens at Bengals game. Joe mentioned this game in his last text—division rival, important for playoff positioning.

She sees him drop back to pass, the pocket collapsing, bodies in purple jerseys converging.

Then she sees him go down.

At first, it looks like any other sack. Joe gets hit, stays down for a moment, then starts to get up. But something about the way he's moving catches Riley's attention. He's cradling his right arm against his body, his throwing hand held carefully away from his body.

"Oh no," Riley whispers, sitting up straighter.

"What?" Pete looks over at her.

Riley doesn't answer, too focused on her phone screen. The next play makes it obvious. Joe takes the snap, tries to throw, and the ball comes out weak and wobbly, falling short of the receiver. Even Riley, who knows nothing about football technique, can see that throw was wrong.

"Shit," she breathes, turning her phone so the guys can see. "Something's wrong with Joe."

All three of them crowd around her phone now, watching as Joe walks toward the sideline, medical staff surrounding him. The camera zooms in on his face, and even through his helmet, Riley can see the frustration and pain written there.

"That's not good," Daniel says quietly.

"That looks really bad," Andy adds.

Riley's phone starts buzzing with notifications, but she keeps watching. Joe's on the sideline now, clearly not going back in. Jake Browning is warming up on the field.

A production assistant appears in the doorway. "Five minutes to places, everyone."

Riley looks up, torn between professional obligation and personal crisis. "I need to—"

"You need to perform," Pete says gently. "You can't do anything right now anyway. Do the song, then figure out what's next."

Riley nods, knowing he's right but hating it. She puts her phone in her jacket pocket, but her hands are shaking slightly.

"Hey," Andy says, catching her arm. "He's going to be okay."

"You don't know that."

"No, but I know you. And I know you'll go crazy if you don't at least try to get through this performance first."

Riley takes a deep breath, trying to center herself. "If I get through this song and fly out tonight, can you guys handle the interview? And tomorrow's press?"

"Of course," Daniel says immediately.

"Whatever you need," Pete adds.

Riley nods, grateful for the millionth time that these three have her back no matter what.

"Alright, let's go play a song."

The performance is muscle memory. Riley's done "Daylight" hundreds of times now, and playing with Pete, Andy, and Daniel feels natural even when her mind is three hundred miles away in Baltimore. She smiles when she's supposed to, and to anyone watching, she probably looks like an artist having fun promoting her upcoming tour.

But the entire time, all she can think about is Joe walking off that field, holding his wrist like something inside it was broken.

The moment they finish the song and the cameras cut to commercial, Riley is already moving.

"That was great, guys," Stephen says, shaking hands with the band. "We'll do a quick interview segment when we come back."

"Actually," Pete jumps in smoothly, "Riley has to step out for a family emergency, but we'd love to chat with you about the tour."

Riley shoots him a grateful look as she heads toward the exit. Her phone is already in her hand, pulling up flight apps as she walks.

"Riley!" Andy calls after her. "Text us when you know something."

She nods without looking back, already focused on getting to Cincinnati as fast as possible.

In the hallway outside the studio, Riley calls Scout while simultaneously booking the next available flight.

"Riley? How was Colbert?"

"Joe's hurt. I need to get to Cincinnati tonight. Can you handle the Morning Show appearance tomorrow, the guys are gonna do it alone.  Can you make sure they are prepped?"

"Of course. How hurt?"

Riley pauses, watching the replay of Joe's injury that's now cycling on sports news. "Bad, I think. Really bad."

"Go. I'll handle everything here."

An hour later, Riley is in an Uber Black to JFK, still in her black leather jacket from the show. Her phone buzzes constantly with updates from ESPN, texts from friends who saw the news, missed calls from people wanting to know if she's okay.

But the only call that matters—from Joe himself—never comes.

Riley stares out the window at the New York City lights rushing past and tries not to think about what it means that he hasn't reached out. Tries not to think about how she's dropping everything, again, for someone who might not even want her there.

But she knows she doesn't really have a choice. When someone you love is hurt, you go. Even if the relationship is complicated, even if you've been fighting, even if you're not sure where you stand.

You go anyway.

* * *

Riley manages to get on the last flight to Cincinnati, a red-eye that doesn't leave until 11:47 PM. She sits in her window seat, finally allowing herself to process what just happened. Four hours ago she was getting ready to perform on national television. Now she's flying to Cincinnati because the man she loves got hurt and she couldn't stay away.

Once the plane reaches cruising altitude, Riley pulls out her phone and opens her text thread with Joe. Their last exchange was three days ago—him saying good luck with Colbert, her thanking him.

She starts typing.

I'm on a plane to Cincinnati. Landing at 3:20 AM. No use arguing about it, I'm already in the air. I'll call a car from the airport, don't worry about anything.

She hits send before she can second-guess herself.

The response comes faster than she expected.

Riley you didn't have to do that

I know. But I did.

I'm having someone pick you up. Don't argue.

Riley stares at his text, feeling something loosen in her chest. He's not telling her not to come. He's not angry that she dropped everything. He's making sure she gets to him safely.

Okay.

Thank you for coming.

Riley closes her eyes and leans back against the headrest. Outside the window, the lights of the East Coast pass by below. In a few hours, she'll be in Cincinnati, and whatever happens next, at least she'll be there.

Always, she types back. I'll always come.

* * *

Joe sits in the back of a team car leaving Baltimore, his right wrist wrapped and elevated against his chest. It's past midnight, and the highway stretches ahead—about six hours back to Cincinnati so he can see the team doctors first thing in the morning. His wrist throbs with every bump in the road despite the pain medication.

Riley's coming. She's on a plane right now, flying here because he got hurt, even though they've barely been talking and he's been a complete ass to her for weeks.

He calls his parents in Athens.

"Joey?" Robin Burrow answers on the second ring, her voice tight with worry. "We saw what happened. How bad is it?"

"Bad, Mom. Season-ending. I'm flying back to Cincinnati now to see the team doctors tomorrow."

"Oh, honey. We're so sorry."

"Listen, I need a favor, and it's kind of a big one."

"Anything."

Joe takes a breath. "Riley's flying in from New York. Her plane lands at 3:20 AM in Cincinnati, but I won't get home until around six or seven. Could you and Dad drive up and pick her up, then stay with her until I get there? I don't want her sitting alone in my house for hours."

There's a pause, and Joe can practically hear his mom's understanding smile through the phone.

"Of course we can do that. Your father's already getting his keys."

"Mom, I knows it's the middle of the night—"

"Joey, if that girl is dropping everything to come here for you, the least we can do is make sure she's taken care of until you get home."

Relief floods through him. "Thank you. Seriously."

"I'll find her," Robin says. "She'll probably look exhausted."

"Yeah, she just finished a TV show in New York and got on the first plane she could find."

"I'm finally going to meet her," Robin says, and Joe can hear the mixture of excitement and concern in her voice.

"Yeah. I just... I wish it was under better circumstances."

"Honey, she's coming because she loves you. The circumstances don't matter."

After they hang up, Joe texts Riley: My parents are driving up from Athens to pick you up. Robin and Jimmy Burrow, they'll be at baggage claim. They're going to stay with you at my house until I get home around 7 AM.

Riley's response comes quickly: Joe, it's 3 AM and you're asking your parents to drive two hours to pick me up? I can't let them do that.

Too late. Already asked. Dad's already in the car.

I'm going to feel terrible about this.

Don't. They want to meet you anyway. And I don't want you sitting alone in my house for hours.

This isn't exactly how I imagined meeting your parents.

Joe stares at that text for a long moment. He hadn't really thought about Riley meeting his family before, but now that it's happening, it feels right. Inevitable, maybe.

They're going to love you, he types back.

I hope so.

Promise. See you in Cincinnati.

* * *

X (Twitter)

@NFLNewsNow BREAKING: Bengals QB Joe Burrow suffers season-ending wrist injury during Thursday Night Football loss to Ravens. Surgery expected within days. #Bengals #NFL

@SportsCenter Joe Burrow's 2023 season is over. The Bengals QB suffered a scapholunate ligament tear in his right wrist during tonight's game in Baltimore. 📺: ESPN

@PopCultureDaily Riley Carter just performed on @colbertlateshow but apparently left before the interview portion? The band did the interview without her. Wonder what was so urgent 👀

@bengalsfan2012 Replying to @PopCultureDaily Wait wasn't this the night Joe got hurt? Timeline seems suspicious...

@musicnews247 UPDATE: Sources say Riley Carter had a "family emergency" and had to leave Colbert taping early. The Rambles covered for her during interview segment.

@rileystanaccount Something's not right. Riley NEVER misses interviews. She's been promoting this tour for months. What kind of family emergency happens at 11 PM on a Thursday?

@footballwife23 Did anyone else notice the timing? Joe gets hurt around 9:30 PM, Riley leaves Colbert around 11 PM. Just saying 👀👀

@bengalsbabes Replying to @footballwife23 I've been saying they're together for MONTHS. This basically confirms it

Instagram Stories & Posts

@entertainmenttonight 🚨 JUST IN: @rileycarter unexpectedly left tonight's @colbertlateshow taping due to "urgent family matter." The singer performed but skipped the interview portion. Swipe for more ➡️

@deuxmoi Submitted Anon: "Was at Colbert taping tonight. Riley Carter seemed fine during performance but left immediately after. Heard someone say she was getting calls during commercial break and looked really upset. Band members covered for her with Stephen."

@popsugar Riley Carter makes rare early exit from late night TV 👀 The "Daylight" singer left @colbertlateshow before her scheduled interview, citing family emergency. This comes just hours after Bengals QB Joe Burrow's season-ending injury... 🤔 #RileyCarter #JoeBurrow

Reddit

r/bengals

Title: Anyone else think Riley Carter is flying to Cincinnati right now? Posted 3 hours ago

The timing is too perfect. Joe gets hurt around 9:30, she leaves Colbert around 11. "Family emergency" my ass. She's definitely on a plane.

UPDATE: Just checked flight tracking apps. There was a red-eye from JFK to CVG that left at 11:47 PM. Landing at 3:20 AM. 👀

Top comment: No way they're actually together though right? Wouldn't we have seen them by now?

Reply: They've been SUPER private if they are. Remember all those rumors that started back in February? But nothing ever confirmed even after all these months.

Reply: If this is real, Joe's making a huge mistake. She's nothing but drama and bad headlines. Remember that bar fight with her ex? We don't need that circus around our franchise QB.

Reply to reply: EXACTLY. She's been linked to like 3 different guys this year. Party girl with substance abuse rumors. Joe needs to focus on football, not babysitting some rock star.

Reply: Called it months ago - she's a clout chaser. Probably saw Joe get hurt and smelled an opportunity for sympathy headlines.

Reply: If Joe's really dating her, his performance this season makes SO much sense now. Dude's been off his game.

r/rileycarter

Title: What "family emergency" happens at 11 PM on a Thursday??? Posted 2 hours ago

Riley has never, and I mean NEVER, bailed on a major interview. She's done shows while sick, she's done press with bronchitis, she showed up to that radio interview the day after her grandma's funeral.

This is about a boy. Specifically a quarterback boy. Calling it now.

Top comment: The math is mathing. Joe injury -> Riley panic -> immediate flight to Cincinnati.

Reply: But why would she do that if they're not serious? You don't drop everything for a casual thing.

Reply to reply: EXACTLY. This feels like real relationship territory.

TikTok

@nflteaa (457K followers) Video showing side-by-side timeline "POV: You're connecting the dots 👀"

Sound: "And all the pieces fall right into place"

Comments: "NO WAY this is a coincidence" "She really said family emergency and got on a plane to Cincinnati I can't 😭" "This is either the most romantic thing ever or I'm delusional" "Plot twist: they've been dating this whole time"

@popculture.detective (1.2M followers) Video compilation of clips

Comments: "The way she RAN to that airport"

"This is giving secret relationship energy" 

"Imagine dropping everything and flying across the country for someone 🥺" 

"OK but if this is real they're actually perfect together???"

@riley.carter.updates (89K followers) Screenshot of Colbert audience member's tweet "GUYS. I was at the taping. Riley did her performance but then just... left. Didn't do the interview. Band said 'family emergency' but she looked completely shaken. Security rushed her out during commercial break."

Text overlay: "Family emergency or boyfriend emergency? 👀"