#but yeah that last point made me think that like

[requiemforthepoets]

this is me trying 𖦹 OP81

PAIRINGS: oscar piastri x female!reader

SUMMARY: growing up, the only thing you know is that you need to be strong, provide, and take care of your sister. but being with oscar, it was different, he made you feel things—that it’s okay to not be fine, vulnerable, and to be taken care of.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: i have this fic finished the other day but i was debating on whether to post it or not, but here we are. it’s been a while too since i last wrote for oscar, and this is like a comfort (?) fic idk lol. also, can i just say that LANDO ON POLE FOR THE SG GP!!! 😭🧡 ok, i hope you guys will have fun reading this one. enjoy! :)

REMINDERS: this is purely fiction, the way how the character is portrayed in my story does not reflect the person that is portraying my character in real life. always separate fiction from reality, and do not repost or copy my work in any way.

WORD COUNT: 3.6k

WARNINGS: not proofread, typos, eldest daughter syndrome, no use of y/n, cursing, unnamed sister, named friend, and parents death

You were sitting in the living room, surrounded by case files and legal books, trying your best to prepare for the court trial that you’ll be doing soon, but your mind was elsewhere. You can't focus on the work that you’re working on in front of you, no matter how hard you try. Your phone buzzed, and you almost didn’t answer, thinking it’s just another work call, but when you saw Blaire, your friend’s name, flash on the screen you quickly picked up, expecting a casual chat.

“Hey, Blaire, how are you?” You greeted her, trying to mask your exhaustion.

Her voice on the other end was hesitant, not the usual warm tone that you’re used to. “Hey…I really hate to bring this up, but I was wondering when you would be able to repay the five thousand dollars?”

Your stomach dropped. “Repay?” You repeated, utterly confused. “What do you mean five thousand dollars?”

The conversation between you and Blaire unraveled quickly. She explained how she had lent the money to your sister out of need, thinking it was for you or with your approval. Rage bubbled in your chest, your pulse quickened, at this point all you can see is red. You thanked her hastily, barely able to end the call before fury overtook you. Without thinking, you dialed your sister’s number, the beeps echoing in your ear like a countdown to an explosion.

“Hello?” Her voice was casual, completely unaware of the storm coming her way.

“What the actual fuck did you do?!” You yelled, not caring if it was late at night. “You borrowed five fucking thousand dollars from Blaire without asking me!? How could you?!”

There was a pause, a brief moment where you could almost feel her shrug through the phone. “Oh my god, can you relax? It’s not like you can't afford it. It’s not that big of a deal, you can just easily pay for it with how big you’re making, it’s barely a scratch on your bank account!” You couldn’t believe what you were actually hearing.

“Not a big deal? Did you spend the money already? Do you have any fucking idea how humiliating it is for me that you did this without even consulting me? You think just because I make good money, I’ll fix every mess you create?” You were seething.

“Well, yeah,” she responded with a laugh, clearly not grasping the gravity of the situation. “You’re my older sister. Isn’t it your job to take care of me, right?”

Your grip on your phone tightened. “I’ve been taking care of you your whole life! I’m working myself to the bone just to make sure you have everything you need, sending you to that fancy school that you’ve always wanted so you can have a better future, and this is how you repay me? By lying and stealing?”

The silence on the other end of the line felt heavy, but your anger has not subsided. She mumbled something that sounded like a half assed apology, but it was already too late for that. You immediately hung up and slammed the phone down on the table, heart racing, pulse pounding in your ears. Anger still swirling inside you like a storm, the words of your sister still echoing in your mind. You can just easily pay for it with how big you’re making. Her carelessness, lack of respect—it hit harder than anything you had experienced before. It wasn’t about the money, you could handle the five thousand dollars easily, but the way she completely dismissed your hard work, as if it was nothing, as if your sacrifice and years of struggle meant nothing—that was what burned deep. It hurts like fucking hell.

You sat down there on the couch, trying to calm yourself down, tears started to prick at the corners of your eyes, but you blinked them back. You didn’t cry. You cannot cry. You have always been strong your whole life—the provider, carer, and protector. That’s who you were. No one had ever taken care of you, not since your parents passed away when you were fifteen and your sister is only ten. It has always been you, alone, against the world, and now, it felt like even your sister was against you.

You didn’t hear Oscar enter the living room until his voice, soft but firm, broke through the silence. “Hey, I heard you from our room. Are you okay?”

You swallowed hard, your body automatically stiffening instinctively and continued browsing through your documents like nothing happened.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry,” you lied, though the quiver in your voice betrayed you.

Oscar walked over and sat down beside you on the couch, his hand gently resting on your shoulder. “You don’t always have to be fine,” he said quietly. “Tell me, what happened?”

You exhaled sharply, your hands trembling as you ran them through your hair. “It’s my sister,” you muttered, trying to keep your voice steady. “She borrowed money from Blaire. Five thousand dollars. Without even telling me. Now, she’s acting like it’s my job to fix it.”

“Five thousand? That’s a lot.” Oscar frowned, his brows knitting in concern.

“I know,” you said, “she doesn’t even care. She just assumes I’ll take care of it, like I always do every time she gets into stupid situations. She thinks just because I earn good money, I’m supposed to fix everything.” Your voice cracked, and before you could stop it, the tears you had been holding back for so long finally broke free. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this, Oscar. I’m always the one fixing things, I’m always the one who has to be strong.”

Oscar didn’t say anything for a moment, he just stared at you, his eyes filled with understanding. Then, without a word, he pulled you into his arms. You tensed at first, still not used to being vulnerable, but Oscar’s embrace was warm, grounding. Slowly, your body relaxed into his, and the weight of the world seemed to lift just a little as you rested your head against his chest.

“It’s not fair,” you whispered to him. “I’ve always had to be the strong one. I’m tired, Oscar. I’m so fucking tired. I don’t know how much more I can take.”

His hand gently stroked your back, his voice soft and reassuring. “I know. It’s okay to be tired. You don’t have to be strong all the time. Not with me.”

You pulled back slightly to look at him, your eyes searching his face, “I just don’t know how to let anyone help me,” you admitted, voice barely audible. “I’ve been doing this for so long, I don’t know how to not be the one in control.”

“I get that. But you don’t have to do it all alone anymore. I’m here. Let me be strong for you, too.” Oscar smiled gently, brushing a tear from your cheek with his thumb.

For a moment, you didn’t know what to say. The idea of letting someone else carry even a fraction of the weight feels completely foreign to you. But as you looked at Oscar, his eyes full of sincerity, something inside you shifted. Maybe, it’s time you let it all fall down, you didn’t have to carry everything on your shoulders all the time.

“What am I supposed to do about her?” You asked, your voice small but steady now.

Oscar sighed softly, thinking for a moment. “You have all the right to be angry and upset. Your feelings are valid,” he said. “She needs to learn that actions have consequences. But at the same time, she’s your sister. She’s young, and sometimes young people tend to make mistakes. You’ve been doing everything for so long that she probably hasn’t learned how to take responsibility for herself yet.”

You nodded, wiping your eyes. “Yeah, maybe. But I can’t just let her think she can keep doing this.”

“No,” he agreed. “But you also don’t have to do this alone. We can figure it out together.”

You looked at him, really looked at him, and for the first time in a long time, you felt like you weren’t alone. Maybe you didn’t always have to be the strong one, the provider, the protector. With Oscar by your side, you could learn how to let someone else carry the weight with you.

“Thank you,” you whispered, leaning into him once more. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Oscar smiled, pressing a soft tender kiss to your forehead. “You’ll never have to find out, I’m not going anywhere, my love.”

The next morning, you stared at the screen of your laptop, fingers moving quickly over the keys as you finished drafting the contract. The legal jargon was familiar, comforting even, but the fact that you had to use it against your own sister left a bitter taste in your mouth. The contract was firm, direct, and laid out the consequences clearly: five thousand dollars, to be repaid in installments, with interest and penalties if the deadline is missed. You hated doing it—your heart never felt so heavy—but you knew it was necessary. You had been too lenient for far too long, if she didn’t learn this now, she might never understand the true value of money and the responsibility that came with it. It was time for her to learn the hard truths you had known your entire life.

Oscar was sitting across the table, sipping his coffee, watching you in silence. “You’ve finished it?” He asked gently. You had told him last night that you need to straighten everything out, and told him your plan, in which he quickly supported you.

You nodded, eyes scanning the contract one last time before saving it. “Yeah. She’s not going to like it, but this has to be done.” You sighed, “I’ve been too lenient, too forgiving. I can’t keep cleaning up after her messes.”

“You’re doing the right thing.” He said as he reached over, placing his hand over yours. “It’s tough, but you’re teaching her a lesson she won’t forget.”

“I hope so,” you sighed, glancing out the window, the weight of responsibility pressing down on you once more. “I’ve never been one to ask for anything back, but she needs to learn that she can’t just treat me like this. I want her to be successful, but she can’t rely on me forever.”

Later that day, you booked a flight for her to Monaco, and notified her about the flight schedule. She was studying in Switzerland, and it would be a four hour flight from Switzerland to Monaco. It was time to have this conversation face-to-face. You couldn’t keep allowing her to avoid responsibility just because you were miles apart. This is a conversation that is long overdue.

A couple of days later, she arrived at your and Oscar’s shared apartment. She seemed different—more subdued, perhaps. You could tell the weight of your anger still lingered in her mind. She greeted you cautiously, her eyes flickering to Oscar, who stood nearby, his presence calm but protective.

“Sit down,” you said, pointing to the couch.

She looked at you, clearly trying to gauge your mood, but she did as she was told. You sat across from her, with Oscar by your side, and the freshly printed contract lying on the table between you. The tension in the living room was thick.

“I had already settled your debt with Blaire,” you began, your voice calm but firm. “But this conversation is not just about the money. It’s about respect, about responsibility.”

“I said I was sorry.” She crossed her arms, trying to play it cool.

“Sorry doesn’t fix this,” you snapped, your patience was already running thin, barely hanging on by a thread. “I have been providing for you because I want nothing but the best for you. But what you did was careless, and you disrespected everything I’ve done for you. You didn’t even ask me before borrowing that money, and then you just blatantly assumed I would handle it. You do this every time to me, you always get me into awkward and humiliating situations.”

She bit her lip, her attitude wavering. “I know, but you make so much—”

“That’s not the point!” You cut her off, about to lose your cool but Oscar had managed to calm you down by softly caressing your back. “Yes, I make good amount of money, but that money just doesn’t magically appear. I have worked hard, harder than you can imagine, to get to where I am. Do you want to know what’s worse? What’s worse is that you’re not even thinking about how hard it is to earn that money, how I burn myself off everyday. So I’m making you earn it back.” You slid the contract towards her.

“What’s this?” She looked down at it, then back at you, looking all confused.

“It’s an agreement,” you said. “I’ve decided to give you the five thousand dollars. Consider what you bought from that money as a gift, because I know you’ve been doing well in school, and it’s been a while since I’ve given you anything. But this will never happen again. You owe me that money, and you're going to pay it back. Every cent of it, with interest.” Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to protest, but you cut her off before she could even speak.

“This is not negotiable. I’m still going to support you, I’m still going to pay for your tuition, but you need to learn how hard it is to earn this kind of money. You’re going to work for it, and I'll expect proof—payslips, records—everything. If you miss a payment, there will be penalties added, and if you refuse or try to make a fool out of me, I’m not afraid to take legal action.”

“You’d sue me? Your own sister?” She stared at you in disbelief.

“Yes, I would,” you said coldly. “I don’t want to, but you’ve left me with no choice. You are already eighteen and will turn nineteen in two months, you are already capable of knowing what’s right and wrong. You need to understand that I’m not going to bail you out every time you mess up, this is your responsibility now.”

For a long moment, she didn’t say anything. Her face was a mix of shock and anger, but you could tell the gravity of the situation was already starting to sink in.

“I’m not trying to be harsh,” you said softly, leaning forward. “But I’ve been in your shoes, and I know firsthand how hard life can be. I have shielded you from that, and maybe that was my mistake. But if you’re going to succeed in this world, you need to understand that nothing is free, nothing in life is free. Everything comes with a cost.”

Oscar then leaned forward, gently placing a hand on your shoulder. “Look, we’re not doing this to hurt you,” he added, tone gentle but firm. “But this is a wake-up call. You need to understand how your sister has worked so hard, and how important it is that you start contributing. No one’s saying you have to do it alone, but you have to start doing something.”

Your sister’s eyes shifted between the two of you, and for a moment, you saw a flicker of guilt in her expression. She glanced back down at the contract, and you handed her a pen.

“Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll do it. I’ll pay you back.” Her attitude and defiance slowly faded from her face.

“Good.” You nodded, “then sign it.”

She hesitated for only a moment before scribbling her signature across the bottom of the contract. You felt a strange mixture of relief and sadness, knowing you had to be this tough, but also hoping it would be the turning point she needed.

“You can stay with us while you’re in Monaco,” you told her, “but I expect you to find a job as soon as possible. If you fail to keep up with your end of the deal, there will be consequences. Understood?”

“Understood.” She nodded, though her expression was still a mix of resentment and defeat.

You exhaled, feeling a small sense of relief wash over you. This wasn’t easy, and you hated having to be this strict with her, but it had to be done. Oscar wrapped his arm around you, his touch grounding as soon as you watched your sister head towards the guest room.

“You did the right thing,” he said quietly.

“I hope so,” you whispered, leaning into him. “I just want her to grow up.”

“Don’t worry, she will.” Oscar assured you, pressing a soft kiss to the side of your head. “With you as her sister, she doesn’t have much of a choice,”

Later that evening, the apartment finally fell quiet, dinner was definitely awkward and quiet, but with your sister already tucked away in the guest room, the weight of everything you had said and done began to settle in. You were sitting at the edge of the bed, heart heavy and mind replaying what had happened earlier over and over. The way your sister had looked at you—hurt and angry—it cut deeper that you were willing to admit.

You had always been strong, but this strength had come with a cost. Now, sitting in the stillness of the night, the reality of your actions hit you like a tidal wave. It wasn’t just the contract or the money, it was the fear—the fear that in trying to teach her a lesson, you might have pushed her too far. That in being the disciplinarian, you had damaged something that might never fully recover or heal.

Oscar entered the room quietly, sensing the shift in your mood. He sat beside you, his presence had always been comforting, but it wasn’t enough to stop the flood of emotions you had been holding back.

“Was I too harsh, Osc?” You whispered, voice barely audible.

He frowned slightly, tilting his head to look at you. “No, you weren’t. She needed to hear all of it.”

“I know,” you replied, voice trembling. “But what if I lose her because of this? What if she hates me for it?”

You felt your tears welling up again, but this time you couldn’t stop them anymore. They spilled down your cheeks, unchecked, as you finally let go of the tension and frustration you had been carrying.

“I’m not being harsh to punish her, I just want her to understand how hard life is, how much I’ve sacrificed. But what if all she sees is me being cruel?”

Oscar pulled you close, wrapping his arms around you as you broke down. You rested your head on his chest, sobs coming in waves, guilt and fear crashing over you. You had always been strong for so long—too long—and now, it felt like everything was unraveling.

“She’s my baby sister,” you choked out between sobs. “I don’t want to lose her. But I don’t know what else to do. I don’t want her to think I’m just some heartless person who only cares about money.”

Oscad held you tighter, his voice calm and steady as he spoke. “She won’t hate you. Not forever. She’s upset now, sure. But she’s young, and right now, she probably doesn’t understand why you’re doing this. But she will, trust me. One day, she’ll look back at it and realize that you did this because you love her.”

You shook your head, your chest tightening with the weight of your emotions. “I feel like I’m always the one who has to be the bad guy. I never get to be the one who’s just there for her, to support her without judgment.”

Oscar stroked your hair gently, his voice soothing. “You’ve done more for her than anyone else ever could. You’ve given her everything. You’re not the bad guy, you’re her protector, even when it means being tough on her. Yeah, maybe this will cause a rift for now, but it won’t last. She’ll come around, she’ll see that you’re doing this because you care.”

You pulled away slightly, wiping at your tear-streaked face. “What if she doesn’t?”

“She will,” Oscar said firmly. “But even if it takes time, you can’t keep beating yourself up for doing what’s right. You’re teaching her a lesson that no one else will. You’re giving her the tools to grow up, to be responsible. Sometimes, that means being tough. That’s tough love.”

You nodded, but the guilt still gnawed at you. “I just wish I didn’t have to be this person all the time. The one who fixes things, who keeps everyone in line.”

“I know. But you’re not doing this alone anymore, okay? I’m here. Whenever it feels like it’s too much, rest on me. You can always rest on me.”

You leaned into him again, his warmth easing the ache that you’re feeling inside of you. “I just hope she understands someday,” you whispered.

“She will,” Oscar said softly, kissing the top of your head. “And until then, you’ve done what you needed to do. You’ve set her on the right path, and that’s what matters.”

As the tears slowly subsided, you felt a flicker of hope, knowing that even though this was hard, it was necessary. Even if your sister doesn't see it now, you could only hope that one day, she would understand that everything you did was out of love.

The weight on your shoulders became a little lighter, knowing that Oscar was right. Even if it took time, even if there were still battles to fight, you knew you weren’t facing them alone anymore, and for the first time in what felt like forever, you allowed yourself to breathe. You had done what needed to be done. Now it was up to your sister to follow through.

[lovelookspretty]

lover of mine

drew starkey x actress!reader au

— in which drew and y/n, secretly exes, must fake date in order to keep the peace at a mutual friend’s wedding, but the forced proximity makes them question whether they ever truly moved on.

warnings: sexual themes !! but eek another cliffhanger i fear yall are gonna eat me alive

one | two | three | four | five | six | seven

authors note: i havent slept and its 8am because ive been writing this for U GUYS 😞 let me know if u would like to be part of the tag list tho thru replies, anons, or dms !! notifications are always on <3

drew jolts awake, his heart racing from whatever dream he’s already forgotten. he blinks against the early light streaming through the curtains, his eyes squinting as he scans the room. instinctively, his hand reaches for your side of the bed, but it’s empty.

“y/n?” he murmurs, sitting up and rubbing his eyes with the palm of his hand. his brain tries to catch up to his surroundings, still sluggish from sleep.

just as he’s about to throw the covers off and go looking for you, the door creaks open. there you are, balancing a tray in your hands with a small but proud grin on your face. his lips curl into an instant smile at the sight of you, and it’s relief that washes over him.

“good morning,” you draw out playfully, your voice teasing as you approach the bed. drew watches, amusement in his eyes.

“what’s all this?” he asks, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes but already intrigued by the spread.

you gesture to the tray proudly, listing off the items you’ve prepared. “made us both some eggs, bacon, toast . . . oh, and fresh fruit,” you say, pointing at the colorful array of berries on the side. “figured i’d bring it to you since you were still sleeping.”

he chuckles, sitting up properly and glancing over at the tray with a grin. “so did the others get the same royal treatment?” he jokes, looking up at you with raised eyebrows.

“obviously.” you nod, a smile tugging at your lips. “the girls and i were up early making breakfast for everyone. the guys are already up and eating, but i thought I’d bring yours here. you know, special delivery.”

he shakes his head, still smiling as he takes it all in. “so, breakfast in bed? don’t mind if i do.”

“shut up,” you say as you crawl onto the bed carefully, setting the tray between you both.

as you settle beside him, drew is already popping a blueberry into his mouth. he chews thoughtfully, an amused look crossing his face. “you know,” he says, pausing to finish his bite before continuing, “you never did stuff like this when we were together.”

you glance at him, casual as ever. “we were always too busy,” you reply nonchalantly, reaching for a piece of bacon. “i don’t think we ever really had time to eat breakfast together in the mornings, or whatever.”

it’s such an offhanded comment, one you barely think twice about, but drew does. his fork hovers mid-air as your words sink in. he realizes how right you are—there was always something else, always a rush to be somewhere or do something. sure, you spent time together, but not like this. not with simple, meaningful moments that could’ve mattered.

his thoughts flicker back to the night before, to the messages he saw on his phone. that nagging feeling from last night returns, tugging at him. he quickly glances over to the nightstand, his head whipping around so fast that it draws your attention immediately.

you laugh, startled by his sudden movement. “dude, are you alright?” there’s amusement in your voice, but you look at him with mild concern.

he blinks, pulling himself together, and his heart beats a little faster. “yeah, yeah, i’m fine,” he replies quickly, trying to shake off the tension that suddenly crept in. he flashes a quick smile, picking up his fork again and taking another bite. “just thought i, like . . . misplaced my phone or something.”

you raise a brow at him but let it slide, not thinking much of it as you continue eating.

drew takes a bite of the eggs, and his eyes flutter shut as he lets out an involuntary moan. his hand flies to his mouth, covering it as he starts to laugh, almost embarrassed by how dramatic his reaction is. “oh my god . . .” he mumbles, shaking his head like he can’t believe it.

you look over at him, confused but amused by his reaction. “what?” you ask, smiling, not quite getting what’s so funny.

he finishes chewing, still grinning, and gestures at the eggs with his fork. “these. i know it has to be you who made the eggs.”

you raise an eyebrow, genuinely puzzled. “what do you mean?”

“there’s just something about the way you make them,” he explains, his voice sincere. “i don’t know what it is, but it’s like i could pick your eggs out of a million different versions. they’re always so . . . perfect. they melt in my mouth every time.”

you laugh, slightly bashful but clearly appreciating the compliment. “whatever,” you say, though you’re smiling. “they’re just eggs.”

he shakes his head, still smiling back at you. “no you’ve got, like, the magic touch or something.”

curious now, you take a bite of your own eggs, chewing thoughtfully before pausing. you look over at him, nodding slowly in agreement.“you’re right. these are good.”

drew laughs at your half-joking realization, and you can’t help but join in. the moment feels light and easy, like a glimpse of what things used to be, even if it’s just for a second. “told you,” he teases, leaning into you as he takes another bite.

you grin, leaning back into him. “okay, fine, maybe i do have a magic touch.”

the laughter fades, leaving a comfortable silence as you take another bite of your breakfast. it’s easy, almost natural, how quickly you fall into this rhythm—like no time has passed. drew shifts beside you, the subtle change in his posture drawing your attention.

he clears his throat, looking over at you. “thanks . . . by the way,” he says, and you look at him as he gestures to the food. “for breakfast. this is really nice.”

you give him a small smile, nudging him playfully with your shoulder. “just don’t get too used to it.”

you’re laughing and singing songs with the girls as you make your way down to the beach. you’re only really carrying your towel with you as you skip down to an open spot. libby’s protecting her large floppy hat as she runs there with you, shouting that you all should make camp here.

you look behind you and wait for the others. you spot drew immediately as he carries the bluetooth speaker in one hand but on his opposite shoulder is the large tote bag you gave him earlier. he posed for you when you said he looked like a mother.

“hurry, hurry, hurry!” you say, mainly to drew, because he has the groups shared essentials. “i can literally feel my skin aging the longer you guys take.”

roman trudges through the sand, clearly not enjoying the trek, even though it’s better than if they didn’t stay at a beach house like they are now. “you know, if you’re so concerned about your skin aging, maybe you should’ve thought about that before today,” he says, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

gia grimaces at how stupid he is. “or maybe you should’ve thought about showering before leaving the house, babe,” she says, then continues walking over until she reaches you and libby.

roman stops in his tracks, feigning offense. “i’m literally holding your second bag to the beach. like who even does that?” he gestures dramatically to the extra tote slung over his shoulder.

theo comes up from behind and pats his shoulder to say that it’s okay as he passes by, so roman mumbles something under his breath as he continues.

eventually, you’re stripping down to your bikini as you watch the waves. you unbutton your shorts and pull them down, shimmying out of them before tossing them onto your towel that’s already been laid out.

you pull your hair away from your face as you look toward the group. “is anyone going in the water?” you ask them, but there’s several no’s and not yet’s that make you frown.

“i’ll go in later maybe,” theo volunteers for you. “i just came down here to bring the chairs and set my towel down but i still need to cook the hotdogs in the backyard.” he’s pointing behind him, and you groan.

“so boring,” you mumble as theo nudges oscar before they start heading back to the house to begin making late lunch already.

“y/n?” gia says as she plans on handing you the sunscreen next. she and roman have already had a turn as they share their towel together. roman looks as grumpy as ever as he rubs the sunscreen into his skin while gia sits pretty and tries to keep her hair out of her face.

you drop to your knees on your towel and shuffle forward to reach for the bottle that gia hands you, and you plant your butt back down on your towel.

drew finishes setting up the speaker for leila to play her music, and he glances over just in time to see you about to apply sunscreen. he hesitates for a moment, then clears his throat, “you want some help?”

you look up, a bit surprised but also amused. “are you volunteering?”

“maybe,” he replies, “just thought i’d help out.”

you bite your lip, considering it. “okay, but just my back, please.” you’ve already squeezed some sunscreen into your hand so you decide to spread it on your legs while he gets to work on your torso.

he steps onto your towel and crouches down behind you. as his hands glide over your skin, you can’t help but sigh in relief. “you’re kinda really good at this. i feel like i’m at a spa.”

drew grins, glancing at you. “guess i’ve picked up a few tricks over the years.”

there’s a moment of playful silence as you finish your legs, and he begins massaging the sunscreen into your shoulders. you tilt your head back a little, relishing in the feeling.

it almost feels nice to recognize the familiar hands across your skin. he’s dipping down toward your chest as he settles down to get closer, reaching around you. you make it easier by leaning back against his chest while watching his hands, making sure he’s not doing anything he shouldn’t be.

but it’s like you’re in a daze as you witness the way he rubs it into your chest, around your bikini top, and down to your waist. he knows your body well enough to know that he’ll cause goosebumps immediately, and he does.

a part of you feels guilty, like it’s almost wrong—but it is all for the plan, right? you make up the excuse for yourself as drew’s hands move back up, edging the bottom of your breasts as your breath hitches. you hear his breathing by your ear as you watch him be so careful, so cautious with where he touches you.

but before it goes any further, he pulls away, and honestly, you think it's a smart choice. you swallow down whatever you just felt as you pull yourself together, and you glance behind you as he gets up. “thanks, star,” you murmur, and you hear a faint ‘uh-huh’ as he sits back to do his own.

you make sure he’s rubbed everything in briefly before turning back to see what he’s doing. he’s already spreading sunscreen onto his arms when he catches your eye, and there’s a smile when he understands the situation.

he nods to the bottle that’s just laying on the towel, and you know what this means. that it’s alright if you want to help him too.

you take the bottle into your own hands and squeeze some out onto your palm, then crawl behind him to sit down. you work on his back for a while, and you can’t help but admire him while he can’t see you.

you notice everything. the way his back muscles flex, how he flinches the moment your hands touch him, but also the way he relaxes into your touch the second after.

he’s waiting patiently for you, and you hear him chuckle a bit after you finish, so you crawl on all fours to sit down in front of him. you give him a look, asking if he’s already done it yet, but he shakes his head.

you smile to yourself as more sunscreen lands in your palm, and you massage it into his shoulders first. he sits up straight for you as you slowly make your way down.

you can’t tell if he’s flexing his abs as a joke but you look up at him and make eye contact, just inches away, and you smile at each other. he’s stupid but it still amuses you regardless.

he leans back and holds himself up by his palms, looking up to the sun. his eyes are clamped shut as he scrunches his nose briefly.

you move your hands lower until you reach his v-line, a little underneath the hem of his shorts. you shouldn’t be going there but you do anyway. he tenses immediately when you start and you know what you’re doing—you can’t help it—but you pull away and spread the remaining sunscreen on his face to make sure he’s fully covered. you feel like a mother when you do, but ignore it.

“i appreciate it, thank you,” he says to you, and you close the sunscreen bottle and toss it back over to one of the open chairs in case anyone else needs it.

with that, you get up, looking toward the water as you adjust your bottoms. you look back at drew, “come on.”

“what?” he says out of habit, before realizing what you’re talking about. “no.”

“come on,” you say again as you walk to him and grab his arms, then his wrists, to pull him onto his feet. you know he’s willing because you’re even able to move him.

you let go of his wrists as you make your way over to the water. “let’s go! just for a bit! you can just dip your feet in.”

drew doesn’t say anything but him rolling his eyes tells you everything. he’s so sassy, but it makes you grin as you hold your hand our for him to take. he’s slow as he walks over, pretending to not want to, and you groan.

“okay then go sit back down if you don’t want t—”

you’re terrified when he starts charging at you, and you scream as you run to the water as if it’ll help you. he runs in there with you, but you’re constantly looking back and going deeper in when you see he’s still determined to catch you.

he’s pretending to be some monster as he fake growls, though it’s just his face with no round, while clawing at the water as he tries to make his way over to you.

the small waves hit your torso and your hair as it splashes up your body. it’s colder than you thought it would be, and your mouth gapes open in shock.

drew ends up catching up to you and he scoops you up with ease since you’re in the water, and you wrap your arms around his neck as he carries you further into the ocean by your bum.

you look toward the group and see what everyone’s doing in just a brief moment—theo and oscar still gone, you see roman even heading back to the house to help probably, gia’s tanning while laying on her towel, then leila and libby are talking while on the beach chairs right beside her.

drew stops walking when you reach a good spot that won’t kill you in a wave. hopefully. but he doesn’t set you down. the water already reaches high on his torso, so he assumes it’s best not to put you down and risk an incoming wave.

you hold on tight as you look out to the horizon, and you pull away to look at him. there’s an instant smile that forms when you’re face-to-face.

“the water feels nice,” you say awkwardly. the ocean is cold against your back but any body part that touches drew’s body is warm. he’s warm. “i’m really glad you came.”

drew cocks his head to the side as he squints his eyes, “i’m pretty sure i had to. leila wanted to go to the beach today so uh . . .”

“no you fucking—” he’s laughing and you have to wait until he’s done. “you know i meant on this trip,” you tell him.

“i’m glad you came too,” drew says, and you pull him closer again, burying yourself between your arm and the side of his head, and you close your eyes as the waves push you back and forth.

hours pass, unexpectedly. you didn’t initially plan on staying there for so long—none of you do, but time just flies. you’ve eaten the hotdogs provided by the boys, which you heard some got burnt thanks to theo.

you played volleyball a bit after, boys vs girls. you wanted to sit out but leila convinced you to stay.

“don’t be such a baby, roman!” you remember gia yelling to her boyfriend from across the net, and then he was hit with the volleyball again.

now it’s nightfall. you’ve all packed up and returned to the house simultaneously to take showers. some stay to talk or build really sad sand castles out of cups from the house while others occup the showers.

“why don’t you and theo just shower together?” you remember libby asking leila as you and her laid on the chairs together while libby was on the floor with said sand castle.

leila grimaces. “washing sand out of his ass is not romantic whether you’re about to be married or not.”

now you’re all clean, dressed in your pajamas with your freshly wet hair as you sit on the floor with leila. drew is already taking his turn in the shower while you discuss the little scrapbook leila brought on the trip.

she said that she bought everything literally on day one, and she hasn’t gotten around to filling it out yet because she doesn’t know how to. she grabbed you to help and you went to your room to see what she had.

there’s different stickers, paint, flowers, glitter, possibly the entire arts and crafts store all over the floor as you two plan even the first page. she had absolutely no idea what she was doing—you’re certain that she went to the store that day and just started grabbing whatever she thought was cute, but you don’t blame her.

“i just want to show this to our kids or something when they’re our age,” leila says as she rearranges the photograph of her and theo when they first started dating, and she frowns at the memory.

“are you thinking about kids?” you ask her as you glue on a piece of paper in the corner of the page that leila insisted was aesthetic.

leila shrugs, “i mean, you know how it is. eventually, just not now. i don’t think theo and i are ready for that.”

“waking up to crying in the middle of the night,” you let her picture it herself as you scrunch your nose up, “when you already haven’t been able to sleep for days.”

“that’s the only part i’m not excited about,” leila tells you, and she pauses as she thinks about it. “besides the vomiting, the screaming, the pooping, so really i—”

“—should not have a child anytime soon,” you cut her off, and she chuckles, nudging you with her shoulder as she plays around with some of the stickers.

leila sighs after a bit and she looks around, but it’s difficult to see right away when all the stuff is on the floor. “what time is it? i feel like it’s getting late, or it’s ice cream sundae time.”

“probably the second one,” you mumble as you look around for your phone. you don’t know where it is but it clearly isn’t there. it must be in one of the tote bags downstairs, but that’s too far away. “hold on.”

you get up and carefully step over the mess you’ve created—though leila’s already collecting everything to call it a night—and approach your side of the bed. your phone isn’t there still and there’s no clock in this particular room.

you take a peek over at drew’s side of the bed. his phone is laid face down on his nightstand, almost about to fall off. you sigh as you grab it and plan on putting it safely on the nightstand after you check the time really quickly.

“it’s just 10,” you tell her.

she nods as she stuffs her bag with more supplies, muttering under her breath, “definitely sundae time.”

you’re about to put his phone down when a notification comes in. he has a million already pending but you don’t even plan on looking at them until this one comes in just now.

‘ are you seriously with her? ’

you furrow your eyebrows as you check the name.

mila?

is this his girl best friend or something?

another notification comes in right after that that you can’t ignore.

‘ i’m going to sleep. just text me tomorrow. ’

‘ please. ’

‘ i miss you. xo ’

the words blur together for a second, but the meaning behind them hits you all at once. he’s been talking to someone else this whole time, since before the plan was even made probably. you feel a twist in your stomach, but you try to steady yourself, taking a slow breath.

you weren’t expecting this, but it’s not like he owes you anything. you knew things had changed between you two, but seeing these messages—it hurts more than you thought it would.

you’ve been getting closer, laughing together, and just being there in the ocean in his embrace . . . and the whole time, someone else has been on the other side of his phone, waiting for him.

if you had known, if drew had told you he was still talking to someone, you never would’ve agreed to this plan.

you feel uncomfortable, a little betrayed, but not heartbroken. it’s not that deep—not yet. but it’s enough to make you feel like you’ve stepped into something you weren’t prepared for.

“you wanna make the sundae with me?” leila’s voice barely rips you from your thoughts as she gathers her things in her bag and stands up, waiting on you.

“what? no, i’m fine,” you tell her. “i’m probably gonna head to bed soon? i don’t know, i’m tired but i’ll let you know. i’ll probably join you, knowing me.”

she smiles at you but leaves it at that, and leaves the room, leaves your thoughts to grow bigger and louder now that you’re alone.

you don’t check any more of his messages, respecting enough of his privacy not to dig. the weight of those few words heavy in the air as you switch his phone off and set it back down on the nightstand.

i miss you. xo

you shake your head, trying to push the thoughts away. this was supposed to be for your friends, just a harmless plan to avoid awkward questions. that’s all. but now, you’re starting to wonder if there’s more going on here than you realized.

this wasn’t part of the plan.

@rubixgsworld @itgirlbrina @thepopcultureaddict @samsmelodrama @kissfinalgirl @itsamegazaddysworld @willowpains @toterry @wearemadeofstardust0 @maybankslover @itneverendshere @httpsdrewstarkey @ilyrafe @cl4uus @sunny1616 @pillowprincess4him @yootvi

[dear-ao3]

the 2024 formula 1 silly season and drama master post, part 2 (part 1 here)

Hello and welcome to ah fucking fuck auto caps fuck fuck fuck how do i turn off auto caps AHA there we go okay. take 2

hello and welcome to the great and very insane formula 1 2024 season drama post, part 2. if you are new here or are just looking for part one (which contains the previous 16 (?) races, the off season, pre season testing and everything else, that can be found HERE. (a word to the wise: open it in a browser, not the app, and preferably on a computer to avoid crashing. its fucking long). 

what the hell is formula 1? car go fast. fastest cars in the world zoom around tracks at top speeds of over 300kph, piloted by the top 20 drivers in the world. it might not sound dramatic, but oh man. you will Not be disappointed. this post focuses on the drama, the insanity, the sheer what the hell how is this a serious sport. no legitimately. we've just about seen it all this year. grindr, dogs, watersports, ice cream brands, its all here.

the point of this post? to educate, to catalog the insane drama, and to just have a good time. people like to gatekeep this sport, there is also a lot happening. i try to make it easy to understand. again, probably best to start at the beginning of the post because it does a pretty good job of explaining things, which i began way back in january, and can be found HERE (again, shes long, be careful)

and, as usual, if you do not want to see this post EVER AGAIN, block the tag #saph explains silly season 2024

and a second caution, i assume this post will be getting long as well. including this one we have minimum 9 updates left!

anyway, those of you who have been following along the whole time, welcome back! i know we got a little delayed. and i know we’re on a new post, so lets just briefly take a second for me to explain what the fuck happened. first i had an anatomy test, second i work 2 jobs with fuck ass hours, third tumblr decided to stop letting me look at any of my drafts, fourth tumblr support ghosted me about the drafts issue and the post was half saving half not so i just decided fuck it, were going with post 2, electric boogaloo, and fifth, i decided to start typing this instead in a google docs so. many changes. if you're new here i am usually more on top of this.

but here we are. were back on street circuits. we’re in baku, azerbaijan, for the start of the last third of the season. 8 races remain, world championship titles are still within grasp of multiple people. the drama is dramaing. and today is september 22, 2024 and lets fucking go. 

first and foremost, on account of the fact that this post is late (again, see above), were going to have to do a bit of a speed run. if you're new here, i promise that this is not representative of my normal dedication to the update post. and for those asking, yeah, ill probably compile it somewhere better than a tumblr post after its all said and done, but we don't have time for that now. 

what we do have time for is the Off Week (and like some of the media stuff). and it was filled with silliness: 

george russell decided to wear what can only be described as slightly ugly yellow short shorts with his taylor swift shirt that he got at the eras tour. this was baffling for several reasons, the main reason being that i don't think the internet knew that he was capable of wearing a graphic t shirt

fernando alonso got his aston martin valkyrie finally. in case you are unfamiliar, a valkyrie i think is the worlds fastest street legal car. he posted tweets about this that made it seem like he wanted to fuck the car. hilariously, the car broke down an hour later.

we also had the very thrilling conclusion to grill the grid. oscar won and he somehow managed to look more pleased about his grill the grid win than his first race victory. 

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nico rosberg went to the green awards and he wore a fantastically insane teal blue suit. yes i know hes not a current driver. but you all like hearing about him so ask and you shall receive. unfornunately i cant find a picture of it though

and also not a current driver is mick schumacher, but my roommate asked me to include that he was seen on his girlfriends instagram being bad at golf. like. exceptionally bad at golf. like he hit a tree 20 feet in front of him.

also playing golf was lando norris. except he managed to look like try bolton from high school musical 2.

he also talked about the world driver championship with his friend max fewtrell while they were playing golf. unfortunately i lost this link in the sea of technical difficulties, but the gist of it was that he was saying that there is still hope for him to beat max in the championship (hes about 60 points behind right now). lando doesnt usually talk about the championship because he doesnt want news outlets to paint him as “desperate” so this was interesting

charles leclerc had an insane off week. first he rear ended someone in monaco. then he spoke at a yacht conference. he was not scheduled to speak at said yacht conference, he was there doing something else and they were like hey you're cool people know you, heres a microphone. he alsp ended up on a weather channel while promoting a karting event he was doing for the jules bianchi foundation (his god father, the one who died during the f1 race in japan 2014). he also changed his instagram pop and re centered it because some random tiktoker told him it matched his aesthetic better.

oscar piastri posted a photo of himself sitting in the cockpit of a plane and then promptly deleted it. because he posted it on 9/11. for anyone who doesnt know what that is, that was when some terrorists hijacked commercial planes and few them into the world trade centers in nyc and the pentagon in washington dc

max verstappen also posted a plane pic with himself and lando norris, but he did not delete it.

we also had the return of daniel ricciardo’s jpg instagram account, which is kinda like a finsta for photos that hes taken. i think lando started this a few years ago. 

heading into the race week we certainly got a weird ass batch of pr. including but not limited to:

lewis hamilton was back on top and slaying in the fit game. as was yuki. 

lewis hamilton also exposed george russell as listening to katy perry pre race. katy perry and taylor swift (this was after he claimed that he liked listening to old school rap music.) though, lewis then started singing wrecking ball???? confusing vibes all around

george was not off the hook yet tho because some intern definitely make him say skidibidi toilet or whatever the thing is idk, i might be gen z but im not insufferable, okay? actually george in baku was just all kinds of unhinged

george and alex also got up to something, what it is no one knows but it is clearly something

max pulled up to the paddock de aged about 10 years. picture one is of him in baku in 2015 (i believe he was 17) and picture 2 is this year. no i am not kidding. 

and franco walked into the paddock telling everyone about argentinian mate (which is a drink, not a friend)

and max shoved a microphone out of the way so everyone could gossip

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then of course, we had some slightly more relevant drama

haas announced that ollie would be replacing kevin at baku. in case you forgot, kevin magnussen received a total of 12 penalty points over the season so far, which means he gets one race ban. how did he get the points? well he was mostly wreaking havoc on everyone else so that his teammate, nico hulkenberg, could drag his car into the points. lets all remember the time in saudi arabia where he managed to get 20 seconds of penalties by basically driving like a mad man just to make sure that nico could keep his position after he pit stopped. anyway, nico was kind of pissed about the race ban situation and said “maybe the guidelines for F1 penalties need to be reviewed as the stewards ‘want to get involved’ no matter the contact.”

in any case though, k mags was out. and ollie was in. we’ve seen ollie before. notably he subbed in for carlos sainz at the saudi arabia gp when carlos had appendicitis. he managed to get points as well. since then, he has been announced as a haas driver for 2025 and is now subbing in for k mags (haas, later in the week called him a super sub. clearly no gen z person read that over.) he can do this because ferrari has a haas engine so they share reserve drivers.

adrian newey finally got employed. i know! i can hardly believe it either! but he did! and youll never guess where! 

ferrari? no that would be too obvious. 

mercedes? nah

williams? no too much of a shit show

aston martin? ding ding ding! just the right amount of shit show! 

that is right. newey is going to aston for 2025. 

apparently he was offered a “good package” according to himself, which i assume means pay and also the fact that lawrence stroll made him a shareholder? stakeholder? whatever its called. in the team itself. basically he has a lot of power. 

he said that he always wanted to work with fernando and lewis. and he couldn't do both. and aston had a better package than ferrari. 

fernando looked positively evil during all the announcement pictures. and called the team "definitely the team of the future" and for those of you who don't know, fernando is positively evil. hes just been stuck in a shit box and we havent seen very much of him, but man does he know how to evilly slut it up. so that will be fun to see.

by contrast, people said that lance was not excited enough. and well. lance 1. has resting bitch face and 2. never really looks excited about anything. also he lives in a world where take your child to work day somehow became his job. (his dad owns the team).

lewis hamilton was asked what he thought about adrian not going to ferrari, and here's what he had to say:

"i feel like, while I have mentioned before that it would be an honor to work with adrian, i have been privileged to work with two championship winning teams that didnt have adrian."

mclaren announced pato o ward would do FP1 in mexico. who is pato o ward? hes one of mclaren’s indycar drivers and one of the f1 reserve drivers. he is incredibly charming and definitely runs his own social media as seen here:

mclaren Also claim they figured out who their number 2 driver is and they claim its oscar. i say they claim because the statements were a lot more complex than that. essentially, according to andrea stella, the priority is to the team first, then lando and then oscar. so they didn't outright say that oscar is the number 2 driver and i am willing to bet real money that this is because mr mark webber, oscars manager, has something in oscars contract that prevents him from being a number 2 driver. this is of course because mark webber was one of the most infamous number 2 drivers in f1 history to none other than menace war criminal sebastian vettel, who in their time as teammates, managed to win 4 back to back world champions. or, top to bottom if you're mrs darbus from high school musical. 

lando was asked about this and he said that yes, the team does support him. though he would not expect oscar to give up a win for him and that it is more complex behind the scenes. i suppose we will see if there are any papaya rules coming out this weekend….

and oscar said "i think the main point is its not purely just going to be me pulling over for lando every single race, because thats how none of us, including lando, wont want to go racing, if we feel that someone has done a much better job on a weekend, whichever way it is, we want that person to be rewarded."

max verstappen commented on the mclaren situation as well. which was funny mostly because red bull has one of the most defined number 1 and number 2 drivers of any team. he said "you look at it form oscar's perspective, he is closer to lando than lando to me. they have to deal with that."

and allow me to put on a tin foil hat as we are about to talk about the future of the red bull seat. because all i have to offer here is a baseball hat and a red bull can. 

a long time ago we talked about the red bull cans. the ones that red bull makes to promote f1. at the end of last season red bull put max and checo on the red bull can. this season at the start it was just max on the red bull can. well. now checo has reappeared on the cans too. and i will tell you what i think this means. it means that checo is not getting swapped this season, which was a possibility for awhile. 

but! there is more! 

daniel ricciardo made an instagram post this week. and it was very interesting. but most interestingly he was wearing a red bull hat.

which he does occasionally, no big deal really. he did race for the for several years, he technically does currently. BUT then he showed up TO THE PADDOCK wearing the red bull hat.

which is Big Interesting. usually you show up in a statement outfit or wearing the team kit. and daniel is not a red bull racing driver. he is a visa cashapp racing bulls driver. they might be owned by red bull but they are Not the same team. so why the red bull hat. in the paddock. well, the rumor is that hes taking checos seat for 2025. and the rumor is that this will be announced before mexico. so checo can have a proper send off. 

and with that. the baku lore. 

theres a lot that has happened at baku. as i said its a street circuit. and i think its the fastest street circuit. but over the years theres been some notable events. 

such as the great kimi raikkonen radio for gloves and steering wheel:

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they gave mini kimi this week gloves and steering wheel in honor of that

the max and daniel crash in 2018 when they were running p1 and p2 respectfully

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and of course. how could we forget. charles’s infamous “i am stupid” radio.

speaking of charles, he crashed again in fp1. not quite in the same spot, but nearly. he took a picture with the marshalls. 

then in fp2 he rage quit, basically saying that the car sucks. 

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but he was back and better than ever in practice three because he managed to top the time charts. welcome back fuck ass ferrari.

some other teams definitely experienced the lows but not really the highs of baku during practice. like lance stroll who came on the radio to say “this is not a car” (good thing they have adrian newey now, right? 

franco colapinto also cut his ear before practice on the neck strengthener stretcher thing that they all use and the team wanted to give him stitches but he was like no no no i need to be in the car in about 5 minutes im not doing that. so he jammed on his helmet and jumped in the car. he also crashed and when he went to the medical center he took off his helmet and there was blood everywhere and they were like no no no you cannot race! and he was like no! this is not from the crash! and then explained it and they let him do qualifying. 

also im pretty sure? ollie bearman crashed? in practice? but frankly i don't have time to google it so whos to say. 

but alas. qualifying. 

i know i know this is kind of a shitty update. i promise ill go all out in singapore. i PROMISE. 

so as i said. its a street circuit. high speed. 90 degree corners. and also windy as hell. we also had the dynamic duo of karun and harry in the commentary box. 

max led the first practice, george led the second and i think charles led the third. or some order like that. 

slipstream here is almost essential (slipstream: going behind another car to reduce the wind drag so you can go faster) 

charles has the last three pole positions (first in qualifying) here in baku, but he has never won. by comparison, red bull have never had pole here but they have won. 

and franco has never been to baku before. 

i think that's all the exposition that we need here. 

q1 started with max complaining about his car. “the car is jumping around like crazy on the rear axle” he said. despite this he was sitting in p3. 

the mid field battle though….the mid field battle was heating the hell up. mostly because none other than franco colapinto, who if you will remember, has never been to baku before, had split the two ferraris. he was in third for the moment, .109 seconds behind carlos sainz and .159 seconds ahead of charles leclerc. we still had a lot of qualifying left to go, so this was probably not going to stay, but it was still insane. he was pushing insanely hard, nearly kissing the walls. clearly he had learned from his crash in practice. 

the two mclarens waited until the very end of q1 to do their final flying push lap, and oscar made it through, but tragedy struck for lando. 

lando was in the middle of his last flying lap, time was ticking down, and there was a Very Brief yellow flag on the track. now, according to rules, you cannot complete your flying lap if there is a yellow flag. so lando pitted and was stuck down in 17th and out of qualifying. this would be the first time that he was out in q1 since vegas last year (which if i remember correctly was also not his fault) 

now though, of course nothing is ever that cut and dry. people thought that there had been a mis showing of a flag. yellow flag means that a car is stopped on track, white flag means that a car is going slowly on the track. and people thought that there had been a yellow flag shown when it was actually supposed to be a white flag (if there had been a white flag then lando would have been able to keep doing his flying lap) lando himself said that he had no idea what people were talking about because there is a light on the steering wheel that lights up when flags are called and he had a big yellow light. so it was clearly a yellow flag. 

if you're concerned about lando being able to pull it out of the bag, id like to point you in the direction of the mexican gp last year where lando qualified 17th and finished 5th. on a track that was hard to overtake on. he can be absolutely insane when he wants to be. worry not gentle reader. 

in any case. also out in q1 was daniel ricciardo, valtteri bottas, zhou guanyu and esteban ocon.

and notably, williams, who was on fucking fire this weekend as we already saw, finished q1 with alex albon in second (ahead of oscar) and franco colapinto in 8th. pierre gasly had somehow managed to also get into 4th. and nico hulkenberg was in 7th with ollie bearman in 13th. i told you the mid field battle was heating the hell up. 

q2. everyone zoomed straight out of the gate. they didn't want to get lando norris’d. but, speaking of that, if lando managed to get no points in the race and charles managed to win, charles would overtake lando in the drivers championship. mark webber himself told this to charles, who was absolutely baffled. 

in any case, charles was kinda suffering right now and that was because he was not getting slipstream from carlos to make his lap faster. meanwhile, carlos seemed to be actively trying to give charles the slipstream because he came on radio to say “he keeps missing the tow” 

and amazingly, franco colapinto was 4 tenths AHEAD of alex albon. alex albon who had not been unqualified by his teammate once since the start of 2023. ex red bull driver alex albon. that alex albon. 

max topped the times in q2, followed immediately by charles. insanely, fernando alonso managed to drag the aston martin to fifth. and franco was right behind him in 6th. by comparison alex albon was in 10th. 

and from q2 we lost ollie bearman, yuki tsunoda (who has never qualified lower than 8th in baku), pierre gasly, nico hulkenberg and lance stroll. so yes, ollie bearman managed to outqualify nico hulkenberg. this is ollies second ever f1 race. 

steaming on forward to q3. 

we had, for review, in q3 the following: 

both ferraris, both red bulls, both mercedes, both WILLIAMS (has not happened since vegas 2023), plus fernando alonso and oscar piastri. 

right out the gate it was wild. 

“red bull! theyve re found their mojo! or have they!” karun said. red bull were in 5th and 6th and not entirely sucking for the moment. 

everyone did one flyer and then came out at the end for a second flyer. 

here were the standings: 

charles, carlos, oscar, george, checo, max, lewis, alex, franco, fernando

and everyone was making it to the line and all was going smooth until-

wait a second what is that

could it be! alex albon! with the air box fan still on his car! surely not!!!

oh but it was! and harry and karun were like oh wow so unfortunate for williams tisk tisk

meanwhile ted jumped on the radio to Loudly announce to everyone that this was insane and if i have time here i will put the rant he ranted cause it was Fantastic.

and what do you know i have time

so we had 3 minutes left qualifying and everyone was pulling out of the pits for their last flyer when oscar hopped on the radio to say

"the williams still has the air box fan in"

"oh what an error! disaster for williams!" karun and harry said. they speculated if the marshalls could get it or if the session needed to be red flagged. but alex threw the fan off the car.

and then they asked "ted have you ever seen that before?" and ted did not hold back:

"ITS A MASSIVE YELLOW FAN HOW COULD YOU MISS IT???!!! HOW COULD THE MECHANICS MISS IT???? I CANT BELIVE THEY WOULD MAKE SUCH A MISTAKE DOWN AT WILLIAMS! SUCH AN EXPERIENCED BUNCH OF GUYS AND GIRLS! WHAT IS GOING ON AT WILLIAMS OPERATIONALLY? HOW COULD YOU SEND A CAR OUT LIKE THAT?"

alex, obviously, got fined for an unsafe release 5k euros. he also had to throw the fan off to the side and got slightly covered in dry ice. he did not get to the a second flying lap. 

franco did tho!

and here were out qualifying results: 

p1: charles p2: oscar p3: carlos p4: checo p5: george p6: max p7: lewis p8: fernando p9: franco p10: alex  p11: ollie p12: yuki p13: pierre p14: nico p15: lance p16: daniel  p17: lando p18: valtteri p19: zhou p20: esteban 

oh ho ho but we werent done yet. because pierre gasly got disqualified from qualifying. for failing fuel flow regulations. and lewis was going to have to start from the pit lane for changing his power unit. 

everyone, and by everyone i mean oscar max and checo, pretty much said that charles was going to get pole no matter what, they knew this coming in and the best they were trying for was second

onto the race. 

notably, this is considered a checo track. this was one of the three races that max did not win last year. because checo won it. its a track that he does well on, evidenced by the fact that he qualified above max in qualifying. so people were expecting big things from him.

and so, we head into lap 1.

charles managed to hang onto the lead. checo passed carlos straight out of the gate for third and max managed to pass george to take fifth. lando had managed to get ahead of nico and up into 13th. notably, franco held onto 8th and ollie was able to hold onto tenth. 

someone who was not doing well was lance stroll, who came on the radio saying that he had a puncture. this was from contact with yuki. lance had to pit for fresh tires and was pretty immediately thrown to the back of the grid. 

by lap 2 lando had managed to get past daniel and was in 12th, he was trying to get past yuki next, which he managed by lap 3. yuki also lost a  spot to nico. 

also slaying in the mclaren was oscar, who took fastest lap. then charles took fastest lap.

and lewis hamilton, who had started from the pit lane, was up to 16th. already. somehow. though he was displeased with the tires, sayig that “this tire is pretty bad” over the radio. 

yuki meanwhile was clearly having a problem because he had started going very very slowly. thought the pit wall said that he had no problems. this would later turn out to be false but we will indulge them for the time being. 

franco was STILL ahead of alex albon on lap 6. STILL. 

lando on lap 8 managed to push his way into points positions, overtaking ollie bearman for 10th. though this was where things were about to slow down for him because in front of him were alex, franco and fernando, who were all very close together and would be hard to get past. 

george was back in bad luck hell as a plastic bag entered his airbox. will he ever catch a break. 

on lap 11 nico hulkenberg finally caught up with ollie bearman and passed him for 11th. 

and max’s car was not working. to potentially no one’s surprise. “i have zero bite in the car” he said. and this was probably true because checo was a whole 6.5 seconds ahead of him. insane gap. 

several pit stops later that i will not detail out because we simply do not have the time, alex albon ended up in 4th and lando ended up in fifth. and oscar was about to get undercut by checo. 

“mojo seems to be back for checo perez” harry said, correctly. 

mojo was back for him indeed. and now he was right behind lando. 

and if you will recall, according to mclaren themselves, priority at mclaren is the team first, then oscar, then lando. but oscar was ahead of lando. so what did mclaren do? 

they asked lando do hold up perez, but not compromise his own race. 

remever a long time ago when i said mclaren wouldn't have any internal drama this season? man how i was wrong.

lando managed to hold up perez for around a lap or two before he got past. this was crucial because this was during when oscar was in the pits. 

thanks to lando and the power of the papaya rules teamwork, oscar ended up coming out in 4th, only .706s ahead of checo. 

mclaren are working together everyone! mclaren are working together!

meanwhile, turns out that yuki did indeed have problems because he retired on lap 17 with a hole in his sidepod from the contact with lance on lap 1. this was now two races in a row where he had had to retire for reasons out of his control. 

several more people pitted. and eventually charles was back out in front, oscar was in p2. until he wasn't. no, he didn't dnf. he overtook charles! he was in p1! he popped out of nowhere! nowhere being 2 car lengths back and just flooring it to spring around charles like a little silly slinky! karun called it a “good, fair and robust defense,” which sounds like its descibing notes in wine. but this was not wine. this was the baku gp. and we were only half done. 

ollie bearman was defending against lewis hamilton, holding on tightly to 14th place. 

charles was still behind oscar and he could not get past, despite the fact that he was still very much in spitting distance. “they are pushing like crazy or they have more grip than us” he said. 

carlos got past both lando and alex albon and was up into 4th

this brought max up behind lando. max was on 11 lap old tires and lando was on 24 lap old tires. but lando still defended like hell and managed to hold onto sixth. max was 0.632 seconds behind lando on lap 25 when he said that “my brakes are not working.” this was hardly a surprise. max has hated the car since china.

also experiencing technical difficulties was sir lewis hamilton. he was stuck down in 14th and was first told to do “everything you can do to get the surface temp down” of the tires. he said “im trying” then several laps later on lap 29 he came on the radio to say “are you seeing how i have to drive this thing?” “yes,” bono, his engineer said. “quite effective though.” 

max was still half a second behind lando. mclaren faked a pit stop call over the radio to get max to pit. he did not. 

but, george russell did manage to pass him. which was “not good for max’s world champion aspirations.”

this was also when ted very bafflingly said that “if i had a sofa in the pit lane i would be jumping up and down on it” im not sure what that was in response to. 

meanwhile, ollie was still holding off sir lewis hamilton. and charles was trying to get oscar to pit again by lying over the radio. it was not working. 

lando did a pit stop finally and came out a whole 15 second behind max. he was hoping to catch max by the end of the race. but it might be tight. lets go last lap lando. 

“lando, imagine andrea on your shoulder saying ‘zero wheel spin’ in every exit,” lando’s race engineer said. if you're confused, everyone else was too. 

10 laps to go and here were the order of affairs:

oscar

+.449s charles +1.865s checo +2.989s carlos +16.530s george  +1.909s max +11.535s lando +9.715s fernando +2.589s alex +2.451s nico +4.667s franco +1.590s lewis +1.261s ollie +1.791s pierre +9.205s daniel +23.919s esteban  +.789s lance +3.862s valtteri +3.631s guanyu 

lando was determined. he took fastest lap on lap 43 and was 8.8s behind max

at this point, the leaders were starting to lap the cars in the back. “the back markers are starting to come up,” checo’s engineer said to him. “its going to get messy.”

“hold onto your hats and if you don't have one go get one and hold onto it” harry said. harry would turn out to be correct. 

we had the top 3 all running very close to eachother, that was oscar, charles and checo and “welcome to the party carlos sainz!” who was now 1.2 seconds behind checo in the four way battle for the lead.

definitely not leading was lance stroll, who retired on lap 47 with a brake problem. 

oscar managed to pull ahead of charles by 1.5 seconds, finally knocking him out of DRS range. so now it was a three way battle for second. and charles had “no rear tires. no rear tires at all.” 

and, just like i said he would, lando managed to pass max on lap 49. he was closing the gap slowly in the championship. 

“verstappen’s day goes from bad to worse,” harry said. because lando still had fastest lap, so he would score 3 more points than max. which is important if lando wants to beat max in the championship (though i think hes still like 60 points behind)

meanwhile! franco managed to pass nico hulkenberg for 10th! he was in the points!!!! at his second race!!! 

but this was short lived because there was a crash! a big smackeroo! between carlos and checo!! checo was mad, carlos didn't know what happened. 

what happened was that carlos was trying to pass checo but checo did not move over. it was deemed an equal fault accident. both of them were utterly confused at what happened and apparently spent 20 minutes in the medical center being utterly lost and aparently saying that sometimes this sport sucks. and! contrary to what several people said! checo did not bang on carlos’s helmet after the crash. 

the crash actually caused chef's dad to have a heart attack. he is stable now.

and well. this clip of george from the post qualifying interviews definitely didnt age well:

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but! since we were a matter of a few laps from the end, this meant that the rest of the race was finished under a virtual safety car. 

which meant 

OSCAR PIASTRI WINS THE AZERBAIJAN GP

and george inherited p3! 

and on his own merit too! no safety cars, no team orders, no weird shit! 

“yes!” he whispered over the radio. 

he almost fell getting out of the car, then gave us all the “one moment” hand gesture before properly celebrating. 

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he also got driver of the day! 

(this was marginally better than george russell, who said over the radio “i cant get any rubber (to pick up on his tires) all im getting is leaves”)

gunther steiner also hosted the post race interviews. which was interesting. 

george said that the most difficult part of the race was “driving full gas into a wall of carbon fiber on the penultimate lap…the vsc should have come out sooner” 

charles bashed ferrari because they didn't do any high fuel runs in practice. 

oscar was entirely pleased. “i managed to overtake and hold onto it for the next 35 laps..one of the better races of my career.” and honestly, oscar winning a race straight after mclaren basically announcing that he was their number 2 driver is nothing short of hilarious.

and! mclaren was now leading the constructors championship by 20 points! for the first time in ten years!!!!

the top three had a moment outside of the car that was filled with baffled: 

and oscar's engineer tom got to stand on the podium with him. he usually takes a selfie with oscar after each race he podiums at, but he was too excited to so george took this picture for them

(george also aparently demomished oscar in a game of uno on the plane, immediately humbling him)

george also shielded himself from the champagne on the podium

the cooldown room reacted to the crash in a very straight forward manner:

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and very quickly cause its midnight and the singapore gp starts in 8 hours, the post race, speed ran: 

-mark webber told off laura winter for thinking that oscar didn't have good tire management

-alex albon was “super happy, that's a lot of points for us” (williams finished in 7th and 8th). he cut his own interview short when ollie bearman arrived, saying “I can go, im happy to go” and then waving comically. 

-williams was so pleased with this result they blasted everyone with champagne. and they overtook alpine in the constructors championship! this was also their best race finish all season

-(and a quick note, if youre going to really blame logan for being that shit of a driver here, please remember that the car he was driving was several rounds of upgrades behind alex's pretty much the entire time he was driving it)

-ollie became the first driver to ever score points in his first two races for two different constructors because the double dnf pushed him up to 10th place. he said that there was not much difference between the haas and the ferrari, the ferrari was just red

-franco continued to charm everyone and flirt with the reporters. 

-they interviewed george and lewis and the camera had to be adjusted for george's height. it was comical and resulted in my favorite edit so far of the season (sound on)

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-lando looked pleased and happy for once. he said about holding off checo that “i didn't hold him up i just had to cool my tires a little.” he was delighted to be leading the constructors for the first time in ten years and he defended alex albon saying “i struggled to get past alex for a while, which is common, alex doesnt make mistakes.” he also ratted on max for going to fast during the VSC and said “i didn't complain, facts were stated.” and to sum it all up he said that “im executing things well, i’m very quick…i’m not going to be the happiest guy, but i am never the happiest guy….car is performing well everywhere…some red cars behind us seem to be our biggest competitors right now” 

-by comparison george insulted all of pirelli. the tire people. “pretty infuriating that it (the pace) changes this so much….its black magic, people who make the tires don't understand the tires…..for 20 laps we had a car not worthy of points and for 20 laps we had a car fighting for victory and the only difference is the tires.” 

-lewis was notably upset after the race and walked through the paddock with his helmet on, not wanting to talk to anyone. but he did talk to franco and ollie and congratulate them on a job well done defending against him and racing against him. franco even fangirled over this on his instagram. 

-charles was clearly upset with ferrari. he was so upset he posted a thirst trap.

-and oscar. oscar was very happy this afternoon. and his mom was there! she doesnt usually come cause it scares her, but nicole was there today! 

-mclaren celebrated with a hell of a lot of champagne. both oscar’s wina and lando’s insane recovery, and the fact that they were leading the championship. red bull have been dethroned, at least for now. 

-there was so much champagne that lando took off his socks to spray it. all seems well at mclaren. 

-at least one thing is for sure, oscar had a better time here this weekend than last year when he got food poisoning and only ate four pieces of toast

and with that. we head into singapore. quite literally as it is starting in a few hours. again, i apologixe about this post. its a little sad, but the next one will be better. pinkly promise. 

see you all soon!!!

[yazthebookish]

Maybe I'll spoil you guys and talk about Gwynriel and ACOTAR5 and anything related to it overall. I recently finished my HOFAS reread and have some fresh thoughts. I'll let my thoughts guide me and some of these points I've already addressed in my insta stories yesterday. I just rather share a lengthy post here since I'll only tag under #gwynriel.

I often see arguments about how Gwyn and Azriel can't move the plot forward because the series is centered on the Archeron sisters.

First, that's not true because Sarah is following what she called "a traditional romance route". She's following the same patterns of Nalini Singh, Kresley Cole, and Lisa Kleypas where they publish multiple books in the same series following different couples.

This is fitting for a series like ACOTAR because it's romance-centered. And Sarah have already said that each couple is getting one book and there will likely be more books beyond ACOTAR6.

Saying that doesn't dismiss the importance of the sisters to the story, Feyre already has a trilogy centered on her. The spin-off just follows different characters including the sisters.

I won't try hard to convince people on this because I've already posted almost everything Sarah said about the spin-off series and what's it's about. So if the next book is not centered on an Archeron sister, that's for Sarah to bamboozle the fandom with.

One thing that stuck out to me is when I compared the ending of ACOSF with the scene of Bryce giving Nesta Gwydion and seeming like she left Nesta with a new quest.

First, this is what the text says, and this is Chapter 80, the very last chapter in ACOSF:

Succeeding in the Blood Rite didn't mean the training stopped. No, after she and her friends told Cassian and Azriel most of the details of their ordeal, the two commanders had compiled a long list of mistakes that the three of them had made that needed to be corrected, and the others wanted to learn from them, too. So they would keep training, until they were all well and truly Valkyries. Gwyn, despite the Rite, had returned to living in the library.

1. The Valkyries are not yet a unit.

2. SJM only and specifically highlighted that Gwyn, despite the Rite, returned to living in the library. It was like "hey, remember all the talk Gwyn did about wanting to leave the library after two years? Yeah that's on hold a bit but keep that in mind". She didnt even add Emerie or the other priestesses to that sentence.

With Nesta being left with Gwydion to find out why the 8-pointed star was tattooed on her, I don't think the next book will start with "hey Elain take this sword and deal with it". Who are Nesta's main companions now? Gwyn and Emerie.

I'll be back to the Valkyries but let's just talk about Azriel for a bit.

It is so painfully obvious to me that Azriel is being handed the Illyrian plot on a golden platter. How big or small of a plot it is depends on SJM, but it's important based on the fact that she fleshed out the Illyrian's origins and tied them to the crossover AND making Truth-teller the knife of Enalius.

That is a big deal for an Illyrian like Azriel.

And I quote my friend Lacie on this, it is very poetic for Azriel to be the owner of the knife that originally belonged to the person who freed his own people from the Daglan's clutches, perhaps because he saw his people are more than just slaves to the Daglan—how powerful would it be for Azriel, who loathes his own people, to parallel Enalius.

And for years some people were against Azriel dealing with this plot because he shouldn't make peace with his "abusers", its true his own family and some Illyrians failed him but he is condemning an entire population. Good people like Emerie and Balthazar. Even Rhys's mother, who had valid reasons to hate her people especially as a female, still made sure to make Rhysand connect with his Illyrian heritage and he even goes on to say that his mother didn't forget what they did to her but still loved her people.

If both Cassian and Rhysand (and by extension the author) continue to flag Azriel's hatred of the Illyrians as an issue—then it is a damn big issue for it to be addressed repeatedly.

Okay so to address my final point about Gwyn and Azriel and how they can move the plot forward.

Now I didn't detail out much about what the next book will deal with because that's another post (and I already have a post on that).

All of our theories and predictions are based on information that is available to us. Saying Azriel and Gwyn cannot move the plot forward does not make any sense because the central plot is tied to multiple characters, Archeron or not.

If SJM wants to make a character move the next book's plot forward, she can do it because she's in control of the story. She's in control of the narrative. She's in control of the characters.

The characters are puppets and this is an unfinished story. If some characters would add more value and make for a more interesting story before the others, she can decide on that. If she wants to make Eris the protagonist of the next book, she can easily do that whether the fandom wants it or not.

Let me give you an example of minor characters that pushed the plot forward and became main characters: Yrene Towers and the Hind. These kind of arguments could've been used for them in HOEAB or HOSAB and Pre-TOD. Before HOSAB/HOFAS and TOD, could we have predicted that they would have played a crucial role before those books? Not likely because they had minimal appearances and were not part of the main cast. This is what I'm talking about.

You can't know how a character will contribute to a story until you see how it all unfolds. We can make guesses on the information we have which is why I believe three characters are likely to join the main cast: Gwyn, Emerie, and Eris.

Why is it so easy to accept that Emerie might be sharing a book with an original character like Mor but it's hard to comprehend the fact that Gwyn could also share a book with Azriel? Because Emerie showed up in ACOFAS? To me that's not really a strong argument based on Sarah's writing and what we have in the books, she doesn't really pick based on who showed up the earliest. Here's a good example: Hypaxia, who showed up earlier, didn't even get her own chapters but the Hind did.

And there's one argument I recall about how I need to rely on Nesta to have a plot focused on Gwyn or the Valkyries in the next book. Nesta's arc is clearly not over based on HOFAS, but does that mean she's getting a POV? Not necessarily. I don't think she is. Gwyn is the perfect candidate for us to see what's going on with Nesta post-HOFAS and how they all deal with the Valkyries and whatever Sarah will set up with them.

There is this whole Valkyrie/Illyrian conflict that could be triggered as a result of the Blood Rite, with Ramiel definitely being an important location to explore in the next book, we also have the Pegasi and the Prison and the implications of the crossover. It makes sense to have an Illyrian and a Valkyrie POV to deal with some plots in the next book.

"Gwyn contributes to nothing" we can't know until the book is out. How sure are we that maybe SJM won't connect her to the crossover by making her mysterious father a Worldwalker? Or Prince of Hel? Or an Asteri? Maybe I'm right maybe I'm wrong.

"But Koschei! And the Human Queens!" Koschei will always be a background player pulling on the strings until the final book as it's obvious he is the big bad in the series, unless someone even worse is revealed. But no one is dismissing Koschei or the Human Queens messing around.

Literally what's the point of the story or the fun elements of surprises or plot twists if you need Sarah to list down everything that the next books will deal with. That's not how a story develops to me. I don't need to know everything in advance to just know how it will go. That's like knowing spoilers early on and checking off with each book what happened and what didn't happen. I feel like it's close to how a lot of readers were disappointed with not having enough ACOTAR in HOFAS, because Sarah implied half of the book would be set in Prythian. So by the time the book came out and it wasn't that, people were vocal about it.

In my opinion, SJM set a good foundation for Gwyn's arc to build up on in ACOSF and her arc is not over. We won't get mentions of her still carrying the guilt of her sister's death or not leaving the library after she said she's sick of being there for two years without us seeing resolution for that. She wouldn't be in Azriel's bonus chapter if she is not involved with him.

To conclude, my reread still affirms to me that the next book with an Azriel/Gwyn book. Azriel is clearly being set in the forefront.

[dduane]

Hello! I am the oldest sibling and let me tell you, I think it’s a raw deal. Bringing this back to YW, it made me wonder what happened to the oldest Rodriquez sibling, Helena? Is she just out there doing her thing and avoiding her family? (I remember she disliked wizardry) TY!

PS Carmela has to be the most middle child ever. ❤️

Well, at the end of A Wizard of Mars, where she last appeared personally in the narrative, Helena has decided that Kit is actually a mutant... and apparently has less trouble approving of what's been going on with him when considering him from that angle. (Though he tries to disabuse her of this idea, has no luck, and gives up in exasperation.)

The Errantry Concordance tells us (at least, in its most recent entry on Helena) that as of AWOM Helena was in her first/freshman year at Amherst; and the revised timeline of the New Millennium Editions pins that statement down to June of 2010. The next Helena-pertinent prose item would be the novella How Lovely Are Thy Branches, which is time-fixed "between early November and late December of 2010"; and all we hear of her there is conversation implying that she's still in college. Where, I assume, we can expect her to remain until 2013, unless for some reason Helena goes post-grad.

In any case, as of spring 2011 (when GWP takes place), there's no mention of Helena in the narrative at all; so we can guess that nothing even marginally interesting (from our viewpoint characters' POV) has been going on with her. With the notable exception of Owl Be Home For Christmas, which takes place in 2020—and where there's also no mention of Helena—that's as far as (Earth-based) series canon so far takes us.

So let's assume that no news is good news, and see if that assessment holds up as the series continues. :) ...Meanwhile, I strongly suspect that Carmela will have been tightly controlling her own contacts with Helena to make sure her sister has no reason to suspect that two members of the family have now gone rogue.

And yeah, I think Carmela is about as Middle Child-ish as anyone would reasonably want to get. Gotta be a tough row to hoe. So maybe it's no surprise that becoming a (vaguely-)illicit cocoa runner seems like a positive outcome while she finds out more of what her own road will look like. :) In any case, she does get a mention in OBHFC, where Kit mentions (with an air of great resignation) that apparently Carmela's somewhere offplanet "'getting one of her cargo ships' engines refitted.'" So plainly, for her at least, at that point everything's business as usual...

HTH!

[dianawinchester03]

Season 2, Episode 17 - Heart

Series Masterlist

Authors Note: Since this is a sad episode, I made some memes to lighten the mood <3

And I know, it’s been a while since my last update. I apologize and I truly hope you guys aren’t mad at me. I’ve been a little demotivated if I’m being honest (which is why I wrote my short story of Dean Smith) so I took a little break, read some books and other wonderful authors short stories and now I’m back! So I hope everyone enjoys🥰

____________________________________________

Third Person POV

San Francisco, California

“Here he is detectives” The coroner said to Sam and Y/N as she pulled the mutilated body out from the body drawer. Bite marks, scratches and claw marks coated his pale corpse. “That’s a pretty nasty bite” Sam commented in a low tone as he and y/n scanned the body. “Mm-hmm” The coroner hummed. “You know what bit him?” Y/N asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I haven’t quite determined that just yet” The coroner shrugged. Y/N scoffed, flashing the woman a coy smile, “Come on, doc. Off the record” She said in a persuasive tone. The female coroner blushed lightly, “Okay, way, wayy off record” She hesitated. “Sure, hun” Y/N said gently, smiling slyly at the woman. She took a deep breath before saying, “If i didn’t know better, I’d say the guy was attacked by a wolf”

Sam and Y/N shared a look at this, “But, unless I know that the zoo is missing one of their lobos. I’m going with a pitbull. I like my job” She flashed a wink at Y/N as she said this, a small smirk played on the hunters lips. “Yeah, we hear you” Sam chuckled, “One more thing, this guy. Was his heart missing?” Sam asked, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

The coroner raised her brows at Sam, “Yeah, how did you know that? I haven’t even finished my report” The coroner said in suspicion. “Lucky guess” Y/N assured her.

____________________________________________

“This lawyer guy’s the first heart-free corpse in town?” Dean asked as he and Y/N sat at the dining room table in her safe house, cleaning their guns. “First man” Y/N told him. “Over the past year several women have gone missing” Sam chimed in, pushing himself up from the couch to head over to the fridge, taking out a beer.

“Their bodies all washed up in the bay, too deteriorated to draw firm conclusions” He added as he walked over to the dining room table, snatching a chair before turning it around and straddling it. “But no hearts?” Dean asked, an excited look on his face. “No hearts?” Y/N shook her head as she wiped the gun and Sam popped open his beer.

“They were all hookers working at Hunter’s Point. Now cops are trying to keep things under wraps because they think that they’re looking for a serial killer” Y/N explained as she kicked her feet up on the table after resting down the last gun. “And the lunar cycle?” Dean queried. “Mmhmm” Sam hummed as he sipped his beer.

“Yeah, month after month, all the murders happened in the week leading up to the full moon” He confirmed. “Which is this week, right?” Dean questioned, “Hence the lawyer” Y/N shrugged, picking up her own beer which was residing on the table, sipping it. “Awesome” Dean grinned, snatching Y/N’s feet from the table before settling it on his lap.

Sam and Y/N shared a look due to his tone while Y/N tried to ignore the racing of her heart when Dean snatched her feet from the table. “Charming, could you be a bigger geek about this?” She scoffed as he reached into his duffel bag on the table to retrieve a case of silver bullets, “I’m sorry, princess. But what about a human by day, a fucking animal killing machine by moonlight don’t you understand?” Dean all but giggled as he opened the case.

“We haven’t seen one since we were kids” Dean muttered, the excitement clear in his tone. Sam and Y/N were both amused by this, “Okay, sparky, and you know what? After we kill it, we can go to Disneyland” Sam sassed, leaning just elbows on the back of the chair, speaking to Dean as if he were a child. Y/N snorted in amusement at this, almost coughing up some of her beer.

Dean rolled his eyes but ignored them, “You know what the best part about it is? We already know how to bring these suckers down” He smirked, holding up a silver bullet between his index finger and thumb. “One of these bad boys right to the heart” Sam and Y/N shook their heads at him as Y/N’s eyes traced his face.

When she realized she was staring a bit too hard, she cleared her throat and quickly looked away. “So, what’s our next move?” She asked, taking her feet down from Dean’s lap, “Talk to the girl who found the body” Sam answered, finishing his beer.

____________________________________________

The trio made their way to Madison’s apartment in hopes of getting answers to their case. “I don’t understand, i already gave my statement” Madison said, a bit of annoyance in her tone. “Right, yeah, well. We just need to verify a few things” Sam responded as they all entered her living room to see an unfamiliar man lounging on her couch.

“This is my neighbor, Glenn. Glenn, this is detective—” Madison introduced them, forgetting their names. “Landis.” Dean introduced himself using his alias. “Dante and Daniel” He added, patting Sam’s shoulder and then the small of Y/N’s back. She recoiled from the touch a little, clearing her throat. “Well, I guess I’ll leave you to it” Glenn said awkwardly, clearing his throat.

“Okay, thanks for the casserole” Madison said gratefully as Glenn made his way past her. “Mhm” Glenn blushed as he made his way to the door. “Oh, how thoughtful” Dean muttered, “Just call if you need anything” Glenn said to Madison with a small smile before leaving. “He’s sweet. He came over to check on me” Madison said to the trio with a smile.

“Have- have a seat” She offered them to take a seat at her dining room table. Y/N bit her lip slightly as she eyed the very attractive woman up and down, her eyes flickering over to Dean as she settled in a chair next to him. She noticed he was doing the same, inwardly rolling her eyes. “You must be pretty shaken up,” Sam said apologetically as he sat across from Madison.

“You were Nate Mulligan’s assistant, right?” He added, “For two years, yeah” Madison nodded, taking a deep breath. “So you knew all about him” Dean asked with a sly smirk, his eyes tracing Madison’s figure. Y/N noticed this, clenching her jaw as she unconsciously dug her nails into her thighs. “I probably knew about him more than he did,” Madison chuckled.

“Nate was— He was nice..” Madison trailed off, Y/N took note of this. “But?” She raised a brow as she questioned. “Nothing really, I…” Madison sighed, “He had a few scotches and started hitting on anyone in a five mile radius. You know the type” Madison flashed a small smile. Y/N’s eyes flickered over to Dean who had that charming panty dropping smile he always sported as Madison spoke.

“Oh trust me hun, I do” Y/N chuckled, shooting Dean a quick subtle glare before turning back to Madison. Dean’s brows furrowed at this as Sam held back a snicker of amusement, “Did uh…did he have any enemies?” Dean asked, “What do you mean? It sure looked like an animal attack” Madison asked confused.

“Oh, no. Yeah, we’re just covering all the bases. Anyone that might’ve had a beef with him? Former client, an ex?” Y/N chimed in, Sam noticed a look on Madison’s face. “What?” Sam asked, tilting his head. “Well, this is embarrassing but my ex-boyfriend, Kurt,” Madison said, rolling her eyes at the thought of him. “Kurt have a last name?” Dean asked.

“Mueller. After we broke up, he went kind of nuts. He’s….well, he’s kind of been stalking me” Madison’s gaze dropped to her hands, Y/N gave her a look of sympathy at this along with Sam. “He got it in his head that something was going on between Nate and I. He showed up at my office” She explained, “What happened?” Y/N asked. “Kurt got into it with Nate. Threw a punch before security grabbed him. I was lucky to keep my job”

“When was the last time you saw Kurt?” Dean asked. “A few nights ago. Actually, the night Nate died. We were all grabbing drinks at this bar and Kurt showed up” Madison explained, “And?” Y/N pried. “Nothing. Ky was like…like he was watching me. Then he was gone. To tell you the truth…he scares me” Madison responded in a low tone, her voice filled with sorrow and fear.

Y/N’s heart panged for the girl, a frown making it’s face to her face and the three hunters shared a look. “I’m sorry you’re going through this Madison, it must be so hard for you” Y/N spoke gently, reaching a hand over the table to rub Madison’s hands gently. “Thank you” Madison thanked the pair. Y/N flashed her a quick smile before withdrawing her hands, placing it in her lap.

-

“So, what do you guys think?” Dean asked as they all walked toward the Impala. “Stalker scumbag ex boyfriend. He hated the boss. And he was there that night” Sam agreed with the theory. “You think he’s our dog-faced boy?” Y/N asked. “Well, it’s a theory,” Sam shrugged as they approached the Impala. “We’ve had worse. I say we pay Kurt a visit” Dean suggested, opening the back door for Y/N before opening his.

Her heart leapt, as per usual, at the gesture as she settled into her seat. Shutting the door inwards simultaneously with the boys. “Lead the way, charming” Y/N prompted, with that, Dean peeled out of the sidewalk. Heading towards Kurt’s apartment complex, thanks to the address given to them by Madison.

____________________________________________

After picking the lock to Kurt's door, the trio made their way into the apartment. Immediately getting to work, Sam began going through his bookcase while Y/N took up opening the drawer and Dean, obviously, rummaging through the kitchen. “Anything?” Y/N asked, closing a drawer after finding nothing.

“Ahh, nothing but leftovers and a six pack” Dean responded, shutting the fridge. “Check the freezer” Sam suggested. “Maybe there’s some human hearts behind the Häagen-Dazs or something” He muttered, earning a snort of amusement from Y/N.

A squeaking in the distance caught their ear, drawing their attention to the veranda. Y/N paced over to it instantly, pulling the curtain aside before pushing the sliding glass door aside. The wind of the cold night hit her cheeks. She scanned her surroundings before leaning over the edge.

Her eyes widening when she notices claw marks going down the side of the building. “Fellas, come here” Y/N called out to the boys. “What?” Sam asked as he and his brother both entered the balcony. “Check it out” She stated, pointing to the claw marks. The Winchesters leaned over simultaneously besides Y/N, all three sharing a knowing look.

-

They were now back inside of Kurt’s apartment, rifling through papers when a gunshot in the distance raised all alarms in their heads. Instantly bolting into action, all running out on their toes out of the building and towards the gunshot.

Rushing into the alley, the trio scanned the area before following the sound of rushed footsteps. “This way!” Sam exclaimed in a hushed tone, the other two trailing behind him as he ran down the alley.

They made it behind the building, in an alleyway, near a dumpster to see the mauled body of a cop. His organs hanging out and his heart, most likely, missing. Y/N reupholstered her gun, along with the boys.

“Oh my god” She breathed out in a whisper, shining her flashlight down on the cop’s mutilated form. “Damn, this ain’t good. Poor bastard.” Dean muttered, placing an arm against the brick wall as he lowered his head momentarily in what seemed to be a form of respect to the fallen cop.

Y/N did the same, placing a hand against her mouth. “I’ll call 911.” Sam swallowed harshly as he fished his phone out of his pocket, scanning his surroundings. “I’d say Kurt’s looking more and more like our Cujo” Dean quipped, crouching down besides Y/N. “Guys, if he’s out here. We better check on Madison.” Sam suggested.

____________________________________________

Sam was now knocking on Madison’s door, when suddenly the door across the hall opened up, revealing Glenn. “What’s going on?” He asked curiously. Y/N raised a brow at the nosey man, “Police business, Glenn” Dean stated in a gruff tone. Madison’s door then opened.

“What is it?” Madison asked, pulling a robe over her shoulders. Y/N took a deep breath, her eyes flickering over to Glenn, who was still standing by his door. “Well, maybe we should talk privately,” She suggested.

-

“Has Kurt been here?” Y/N asked Madison as she poured her a cup of coffee, “Not exactly” Madison responded, moving over to pour Sam and Dean some coffee. “What exactly does ‘not exactly’ mean?” Dean chuckled. “Well, he was outside last night. Just…looking. Just looking at me” Madison sighed. This raised their concerns, “Has he done something?” Madison asked, confused.

“We’re not really sure” Sam sighed, “It’s probably nothing. But, we just don’t wanna take any chances ” Dean chimed in, a bit too eagerly. Y/N turned her attention to Dean with a raised brow as she sipped the coffee. “Infact, one of us should probably stay here with you, just in case he stops by” Dean suggested, earning an eye roll from Y/N and Sam.

There it is.

“Where does he work?” Sam asked, “He owns a body shop,” Madison told them. “You mind grabbing that address for us, hun?” Y/N smiled coyly at Madison, “Thanks” Sam muttered as Madison nodded and left the room. Dean and Y/N’s eyes trailed Madison as Sam looked between the two. “Alright, go you two. I’ll stay” Y/N suggested.

“Forget that. You guys go after the creepy ex. I’m gonna hang here with the hot chick” Dean protested in a skittish tone. Y/N gritted her teeth at him while Sam bit back a laugh, “Dude, why do you always get to hang out with the girls?!” She exclaimed while keeping her voice at bay.

“Because I’m older” Dean quipped cheekily, raising his mug to his lips. Y/N’s left eye twitched while Sam scoffed, leaning against the counter, watching the scene unfold as he sipped his own coffee. “No, fuck that. We settle this the old fashion way” She protested, placing her mug down besides Sam, raising up her right fist.

“Rock, paper, scissors?” Dean smiled cheekily, setting down his own mug. “I hate you” Y/N muttered, glaring at him, causing him to chuckle before he extended his right fist. Y/N shot Sam a quick look, causing him to shrug his shoulders before turning back to Dean.

They banged their fists against their palms three times, both with their game faces on. Y/N hit rock as Dean hit scissors. Dean scoffed as Sam chuckled, “Dean, always with the scissors” Sam muttered into his mug as Y/N smirked victoriously, patting Dean’s shoulders. “Shut up. Shut up. Two out of three” Dean protested.

Y/N rolled her eyes again, retracting her hands from his shoulders, sighing before extending her fist again. They banged their fists against their hands three times again. Resulting in the same as before, Dean grunted as Y/N smashed her fist against his two fingers. “God!” He growled.

Y/N smirked coyly, raising her chin as she looked Dean in the eye, holding his angry gaze intensely. That is, until a cough was heard from behind Dean. Turning their attention to Sam, who now had his fist up, to go against Y/N. “You have a girlfriend!” Y/N shot at him, glaring at the younger Winchester.

“Jo’s not my girlfriend.” Sam retorted. “Yet” Dean coughed. Sam shot him a nasty sideeye at this, “I’m not even interested in Madison like that.” Sam scoffed. “She doesn’t need someone to try to put her to bed, she needs someone to protect her.” He further defended before gesturing between Dean and Y/N.

“And you two bozos only think with your parts in your pants. Now, game” Sam raised his fist again, tilting his head with his defensive statement, challenging Y/N. Rolling her eyes, Y/N accepted Sam’s challenge, extending her fist out towards him while Dean took a step back, sipping his coffee as he watched with a glint of enjoyment, silently praying she lost.

The pair of best friends banged their fists against their palms three times simultaneously. They both revealed their chosen items. Resulting in rock for Y/N and the scissors for Sam. “Fuck!” Y/N groaned. Sam chuckled out in amusement with a fist pump. Dean’s smirk grew wider as he glanced between Sam and Y/N.

She clenched her jaw with frustration, glaring fiercely at Sam. “Come on, y/n/n. It’s not the end of the world.” Sam teased, causing her to roll her eyes and give him the middle finger. “Best two out of three” She grumbled, putting up her fist again, Dean rolled his eyes but stayed silent.

“Bring it on,” Sam grinned. They banged their fists against their palms three times before they both revealed their chosen items. Rock for Sam and paper for Y/N. “Ha!” Sam barked, punching the air triumphantly as Y/N cursed under her breath again.

“I hate you both” Y/N mumbled before taking a gulp of her coffee, placing the mug back down on the counter. “I know” The brothers both said in sync, resulting in Y/N flipping them both off before snatching Dean by his hand, dragging him towards the exit. “Bundle up out there!” Sam mocked them as Y/N pulled open the door, his hand still wrapped around Dean’s wrist.

He mouthed a quick, ‘Thank you’ to his little brother, receiving a firm thumbs up and tight lipped smile in return.

Once they were outside, Y/N slipped her hand from Dean’s wrist, she tried not to show her disappointment. Instead, opting to glare at the floor as they left the building and approached the Impala. “Keys” She put her hand out, gesturing for him to give him the keys to Baby.

Dean rolled his eyes dramatically but without protesting, he pulled them out of his jacket pocket and placed them in the palm of her hand. It felt like his fingers lingered a little too long against her skin but she said nothing of it. They both climbed into the Impala, she started the engine with a hum.

As she revved it, Dean leaned his head against the window. His eyes roaming over Y/N and she put the Impala in drive, a sight he never saw often, but oddly enough, he loved seeing her behind his wheel. Y/N took in the sounds and the smell of the Impala. Something which always calmed her mind, it was almost like therapy. Mainly because it smelt like Dean, then pulled out of the parking spot.

-

It was now the next morning, a very tired Sam sat at Madison’s dining room table. Gently slapping his face to keep himself awake as Madison approached behind him, sifting through letters from her mail slot.

Sam’s eyes glanced up at her as Madison turned to him. Their eyes connecting, Sam quickly cleared his throat and gave the pretty girl a tight timid smile. “Um, do you wanna sit on the couch?” She asked, “No. nono. I’m okay” Sam assured her. “It's more comfortable,” She suggested.

“Aw, I’m fine” He chuckled, waving it off. Madison flashed Sam a coy smile, nodding before heading over to her laundry room.

A few moments after, Madison emerged with a basket of her undergarments pressed to her hip. She then made her way over to the dining room table, emptying out dozens of her panties right in front of Sam before picking up a very lacy sexy one, folding it directly in his eyesight.

Sam cleared his throat, averting his gaze away from the blue lacy panties and instead, his gaze dropped onto his hands, his mind wandering back to Jo. “You know what? I think I will sit on the couch” He cleared his throat awkwardly, scuffling away from the table before moving away to the couch.

He sat down with his hands clasped in front of him as Madison bit back a smile. The ringing of his phone snapped him out of his thoughts. Silently thanking god for getting him out of the awkward situation. Sam quickly took his phone out of his pocket, clicking the answer button before pressing it to his ear.

“Let me guess, you’re sitting on her couch like a stiff, your mind stuck on Jo because you’re in an apartment with a pretty girl and you can’t do jackshit about it” Y/N’s amused voice chimed through the phone.

“Shut up” Sam muttered in response with a faint eye roll. He was a little embarrassed due to the fact that Y/N’s words were entirely accurate. “Did you find Kurt?” He asked, changing the subject.

Dean and Y/N were walking out of the body shop, the phone on speaker as Y/N held it. Dean chimed in, “He hasn’t been at work all week. But because we’re good and I mean really, really good. We got a like on where he might be” Cockiness dripping from his tone as they made their way to the Impala.

Dean opened the driver’s side door for Y/N so she could settle in before making his way to the passenger side, climbing in beside her. She handed the phone to Dean, who was shutting his own door as she started the ignition, “What’s she wearing?” Dean quipped to Sam with an amused smile.

His words earned him an annoyed, “Bye Dean” From his brother along with a thump to the head by Y/N. Dean cackled as the line went dead, gripping his head where she smacked him. “You're such an ass sometimes” Y/N muttered to Dean who snickered in response, as she pulled out of the lot.

"Yeah, well you're just jealous that you don't have my charm" Dean grinned at her. "Your charm only works on girls. Mine works on both" Y/N shot back, a small smirk played on her lips as Dean rolled his eyes, "Whatever" He muttered but she noticed his lip twitch slightly in amusement.

-

Back in Madison’s apartment, Sam was still on the couch. A bit more relaxed, he tensed up slightly when Madison plopped on the couch next to him. Picking up the TV remote from the coffee table in front of them to turn on the set. He sighed deeply, an amused smile crossing his face when the 70’s soap opera, All My Children started playing.

Sam bit back a snort, clearing his throat when Madison’s eyes snapped over to him. “I heard that” Madison quipped, “What? Saw what?” Sam played dumb, biting back his smile. “Okay, this is the deal. My house, my TV.” She shot back with a friendly smile as Sam allowed himself to laugh.

He then glanced at Madison to see a small smile on her face, “I never get to watch my show. So suck it up.” She said firmly. Sam bit his tongue, "Fine. Your house, your TV. I get it. Okay” Sam muttered, trying to contain his small smile. The two sat in comfortable silence as they watched the scene play out on the screen.

-

A couple hours have passed and the few episodes they watched have come to an end. Sam stared dumbfounded at the TV, seemingly having been engrossed in the show. “Wait, so Kendall married Ethan’s father just to get back at him?!” He gasped theratically. Madison nodded, giggling at the expression on his face.

“Yep. And now she’s set to inherit all the casinos that were supposed to go to Ethan.” She explained, “What a bitch” Sam scoffed, shaking his head. When he realized how engrossed he was in the show, he cleared his throat again as Madison shot him a knowing look. The two burst out laughing, “Admit it, you’re hooked!” She cackled, smacking his arm lightly.

“No, no, no. I wouldn’t say I’m hooked” Sam quickly protested but his words died in his throat, erupting in laughter again. “Can I ask you a question? It’s- its- a little personal?” Sam asked timidly, turning to her, “You’ve seen my entire underwear collection. Go ahead” She responded a bit smugly.

“Okay, uh-” Sam began. "Well, you’re… You’re clearly smart. I mean, your house is full of great books, you know? And, you’re independent.." He said, “Uh-huh” Madison hummed. “No offense. But what were you doing with Kurt?” He asked curiously. His tone was gentle, not at all harsh or confrontational.

Madison’s brow furrowed at this, thinking for a bit. "I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like he introduced himself like: ‘Hi, I’m possessive and controlling, and I like to punch people. Wanna be my girlfriend?’ " Madison mused, the two chuckling. “Yeah, well, I guess we all make mistakes” Sam sighed, “Yeah, well mine’s wanted by the police” Madison snorted as Sam shook his head.

“You wanna know why I stayed with him? Really?” Sam gestured for her to continue, Madison took a breath before propping her elbow on the back of the couch. “I was too insecure to leave,” She said honestly. “I find that hard to believe, I mean, you don’t really seem like the type” Sam stated honestly.

“Yeah, well. Some stuff happened. My life changed. I changed for the better, I think” She sighed, the smile still on her face, “What happened?” Sam asked concerned. “Well, for one thing, I got mugged” She shrugged, still smiling. “And that’s supposed to be a good thing?” Sam snorted, shaking his head. “I know, it sounds strange. And don’t get me wrong, it rattled me” She chuckled, leaning closer to him.

Sam gulped, pulling back a little as she spoke. “Then it hit me: I could keep feeling sorry for myself, or I could take control of my life. And I chose the latter” She stated, Sam nodded, looking at the woman with admiration. “First thing I did was tell Kurt that he had to go,” She added. “Smart move” Sam smiled.

“Apparently. Everything else just opened, blossomed. It’s all been wonderful, really.” Madison responded as Sam shook his head with a small smile. “What? Doesn’t everyone else think that being a victim of random violence is the best thing that ever happened to them?” Madison joked, earning a chuckle from Sam.

“Yeah, not so much” He snorted. “You’re…unusual” He choked, internally facepalming himself at his choice in words. Madison tilted her head, amused. “Unusual like…unusual?” She joked, making a ‘coo-coo’ sign at her head. “No, no, no. Nonono” Sam chuckled. “Unusual, like….impressive” He complimented. “You think so?” Madison blushed as Sam nodded.

"Okay, I have a question for you," Madison piped up. "Uh huh." Sam smiled, "How come someone like you is still single? I mean… It’s insane” Madison confessed to him. "I, um… I’m not really- I think- uh...." Sam said, ducking his head down and rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, his mind wandering back to Jo.

"Oh, I get it” Madison grinned, “There’s someone else, huh? Come on, who is she?” She pried, teasingly nudging him. Sam bit his lip, raising his head to meet her gaze, “Uh, She’s…well, she’s special” He confessed fondly. "Aw, that’s so cute!" She teased, nudging him again.

Sam rolled his eyes but smiled at her, "She’s badass. Total badass. She could kick my ass if she wanted to. And she’s pretty smart too" He said fondly. Madison noticed the look on his face, "Ooh, so, does this badass lady have a name?" She joked. "Well…she- her name's Jo" Sam confessed, smiling to himself.

“Well, before we get into that. Accept my deepest apologies for tossing my panties out in front of you. I assumed you were single” Madison apologized, pressing one of her palms to her chest. "Hey, no biggie. I've seen- well, weirder" He chuckled, "Plus, Dean or Y/N probably would have liked that" Sam teased, earning a snort from Madison.

Madison nodded before she continued, "So, you and Jo are…?" She trailed off, "Complicated. But it’s alright. We’re getting there” Sam shrugged, smiling at the thought of Jo. "Complicated, how?” Madison asked with a small frown. "Well, we uh…" Sam rubbed the back of his neck, looking off to the side.

He couldn’t believe he was talking about this with someone else. He talked to Y/N about Jo, only to receive a tap along with, ‘Man up and ask Jo to be your girlfriend already.’ Meanwhile, Dean told him to ‘Lay another kiss on her and take her to nookietown.’

"It’s all good, you can tell me” Madison smiled, Sam let out a breath he held before giving her a small smile of his own. "Well, it’s just…we haven’t really said anything to each other about our feelings yet” He confessed to Madison, his smile growing wider.

“We talk a lot and uh, well. When we first met, she caught my eye but my brother was flirting with her. So I kinda let it die…and then, something bad happened and I felt like I was gonna lose my mind when I couldn’t find her. Then we had a falling out- family stuff.” He vaguely explained the events of Holmes capturing Jo to Ellen telling her about the hunt that went sideways with their dads.

“Then we made up, became friends, grew closer over the time and uh…we kissed recently” His cheeks flared at the thought. "You kissed her?" Madison repeated with a surprised brow raised. “Well, uh- she more kissed me,” Sam confessed, running a hand through his hair.

“Not that I didn’t want it!” He quickly stated, “I did. Obviously. But I don’t know if she’s gonna want something serious…you know? I tried relationships in the past and they…well…I end up losing the people I love” He sighed, an aching pain grew heavy in his chest.

"I’m so sorry, Sam” Madison frowned, offering Sam a small sympathetic smile, which he appreciated, “And, well. You don’t have to listen to me, but I think you should shoot your shot. Man up and ask her to be your girlfriend” Madison encouraged Sam with a wide smile, trying to lighten the mood. Sam burst out into laughter at this, “You sound like my sister” He snorted, shaking his head.

“My brother, and I quote, told me to ‘lay another kiss on her and take her to nookietown’ or whatever the fuck that means” Sam scoffed, quoting Dean’s words. "Well, looks like I have their support then” Madison joked with a smirk. As Sam calmed his laughter, a faint smile played on his lips, she was right.

Maybe he should man up and ask her. He felt more confident with her words of assurance, and honestly glad that he was able to discuss it with somebody else other than Dean and Y/N.

"You know? You’re actually really easy to open up to" Sam said suddenly with wide eyes, surprised by his own ease, "Sorry, that came out wrong" He apologized quickly. Madison laughed lightly, shaking her head, “No, it’s okay. It was a sweet thought” Madison stated honestly.

They smiled at each other for a moment, a comfortable silence filled the air between them. Their eyes drifted to the TV to watch a commercial before the ringing of his phone snapped them out of their own thoughts. “One second” He muttered to Madison, putting up a finger politely before pressing the phone to his ear. “Hey,” Sam answered.

“We found him” Sam heard Y/N’s voice echo in the phone along with rock music in the background. The Hunter was currently in a strip club leaning against a stage as a stripper danced around a pole. A coy smile played on her face as she watched with amazement, lust and respect at the way the woman worked her body around the pile.

“Good, don’t take your eyes off him." Sam instructed as Y/N’s eyes flickered over to Kurt, who was at another end of the stage, sipping a beer. "Oh, yeah. My eyes are glued” Y/N remarked, holding up a $10 bill for the stripper. “Look, Sammy, I- uh- I gotta go” She cleared her throat as the stripper took the bill from her hand.

“I don’t wanna miss anything” She said smugly as before hanging up the phone. Dean exited the bathroom in the club, zipping up his pants as his eyes flickered over to Y/N, who was still pressed up against the stage. Ogling the nearly naked stripper.

"Goddamn it, Y/N" Dean muttered, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. He felt a familiar flare in his chest, wiping off his wet hands on his jeans before striding over to her. "What are you doing? Come on, focus” Dean huffed, snapping his fingers in front of her face before dragging Y/N away from the stage.

She grunted in protest as Dean pulled her along to the bar, a small smirk playing on his lips. “We’re supposed to be watching Kurt, not Cinnamon,” Dean scoffed, ordering two beers. “You’re kidding me, right?” Y/N snorted, “You? Dean Winchester, are in a strip club and you’re not looking at a stripper?” She laughed, shaking her head.

"I’m not an animal, Y/N" Dean scoffed, raising his brow as the beers arrived in front of them. Y/N rolled her eyes, "You just asked Sam a couple hours ago, and I quote, ‘What’s she wearing?’ about Madison” Y/N deadpanned, her eyes diverting back to Kurt, who was still sitting near the stage as she picked up her beer, settling on one of the bar stools.

"Okay, you got me" He raised his hands in defeat, a small chuckle escaped his lips. He took a large gulp of his beer, his tongue tracing his bottom lip to catch the few droplets that dribbled out the corner of his mouth. It didn’t go unnoticed by Y/N, who bit her lip at the sight, glancing back over at Kurt with narrowed eyes.

"So, what’s the plan here? Or are we just gonna tail him all night?” Y/N asked him, her finger tracing over the rim of her beer bottle. Dean raised a brow, his eyes following the movement of her finger before he shifted in his seat, clearing his throat and tearing his eyes away from her hand.

"Yep" Dean stated, raising his beer up to his lips again. He stole a quick peek at Y/N, who was glancing back over at the stage once again. Her eyes wandering over the stage and all of the working strippers, her legs subconsciously tightening from all of the erotic images.

He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t thinking the same, having to tear his eyes away from the strippers himself. "Y/N" Dean called out to her in an exasperated huff, snapping her out of her thoughts. "What?" She asked curiously after downing a gulp of beer. "Stop drooling over the strippers" He pointed a finger at her accusingly.

"I wasn’t drooling over anyone, asshat. I was observing the talent and the way they work their body around the pole” She explained casually as he bit back a snort. "Sure, sure you weren’t nutcase" He muttered, sipping his beer as he shook his head at her response. “Honestly, I think strippers are badass” She stated, leaning back on the bar.

"How so?" He asked curiously, his brow raised in interest. Y/N smirked at this, biting the inside of her cheek, "Well, I’m glad you asked" She cleared her throat, shifting around on the bar stool, leaning against the bar.

“They’re strong, obviously. I mean, it takes a helluva lot of strength for us to do pull ups. Imagine doing that all night on a pole. And the creeps, they’ve gotta defend themselves from handsy assholes who think just because they have an erotic job, they can touch them if they wanna. Plus, they’re making their own dough. I respect it” Y/N explained with a shrug.

Dean thought for a few moments as he let her words sink in, "Yeah, you’re right" He stated honestly, nodding approvingly. "Plus, they can dance. I couldn’t dance even if someone held a gun to my face" He pointed out, earning a snort from Y/N. “Yeah, I know” She laughed, nudging him playfully.

"Oh, so you’re saying you could do it?" Dean chuckled, raising his brow as a smirk grew on his lips. “Ah, yeah” She scoffed as if it was obvious. "Come on, no way you can dance" He chuckled, a challenging look in his eyes, “I can!” She defended. "Prove it" He gestured to the dance floor.

Y/N bit her lip, holding his gaze for a moment before she finally pulled away with a soft snort as she finished off the rest of her beer. "Fine" She sighed, taking the chance to show him that she can in fact dance. So she snatched Dean by his arm, his eyes widening in surprise when she pulled him onto the dancefloor.

Dean allowed her to drag him along, laughing as Y/N turned around to smirk at him. She began swaying her hips to the music, her eyes closed as she got into a groove. ‘Shakin’ Hands’ by Nickelback filled the club's walls.

Dean was amused, to say the least, he laughed heartily while his eyes followed the swaying of her hips. She was, in fact, a great dancer. It was really surprising.

‘She ain’t no Cinderella when she’s getting undressed.’

‘Cause she rocks it like the naughty wicked witch of the west’

"Show me what you got Winchester!" She yelled above the music, glancing over her shoulder with a smirk before spinning around to face him. Without a word, she placed her hands on his shoulders, guiding his hands to her hips. He let her guide his hands, gently gripping her sides as the both rocked back and forth together.

From time to time, their eyes would glance back over to Kurt, making sure he was still in place but at this moment, it was hard for them to focus on the task. Though, being the trained hunters they are, they multitasked pretty well.

They didn’t realize how long they were dancing, they were too caught up with each other to care. All that mattered was the feel of her body pressed against his, the way he held onto her hips as if his life depended on it. Their bodies swayed together, seemingly moving like the waves of the ocean.

They leaned into each other’s touch, their nose’s grazing against one another’s every so often.

She bit her lip, hesitating for a moment as her eyes flickered down to his lips. His lips were oh-so-close. His pupils darted between her lips and her eyes, "You sure know how to dance, princess" Dean said in a low tone as his hands traveled along her lower back. Y/N’s breath hitched with a shiver.

The feeling of his calloused hands sent goosebumps along her skin, she felt a familiar ache begin to form in between her legs. Her eyes traveled down to his plump lips and back up to his eyes. "You’re not so bad yourself, charming" She whispered to him, her hands traveling up his hard chest slowly.

They were so close to one another, all they would need to do is lean in and their lips would be pressed together. Dean could feel her soft breaths against his skin, her intoxicating scent of her coconut shampoo and the tobacco from her last cigarette half an hour ago was filling his nostrils.

Y/N felt his eyes wander down to her lips, the thought of his lips against her made her stomach flutter in anticipation. This made her mind wander back to her dream from weeks ago of Dean’s lips roaming her body. A pleasant and familiar warmth spreading through her southern region.

Dean’s grip on her hips tightened somewhat, causing her to let out a barely audible gasp. Y/N allowed her hand to travel up the nape of his nape, threading the hair at the back of his head between her fingers. Dean reveled in her touch, holding back a moan from the way her hand ran along his neck, his heart was pounding out of his chest at Y/N’s sudden move and burst in confidence.

Dean Winchester was sporting a rock hard erection that was straining against the confines of his jeans, luckily, Y/N pulled away before she could feel it press against her because at the corner of her eye, she saw Kurt getting up from near the stage, paying his bill and making his way to the exit.

Dean didn’t seem to notice, being too drawn on tracing her features with his eyes but when he noticed she looked away, he followed the direction her gaze was directed in.

"He’s leaving!" Y/N exclaimed, when it registered in her head, breaking away from him. At that moment, Dean cleared his throat, "Oh, yeah. Right” He said out of breath, blinking away the fog of lust as Y/N took off after Kurt. He quickly reached into his pants to adjust himself before he followed behind her and they rushed outside of the club after their suspect, the cool night air hitting their face.

____________________________________________

They eventually caught up to Kurt and ended up trailing him back to his apartment. Waiting for the moon to fully set in and for him to wolf out. They were both currently leaned up against a dumpster in the alleyway where they found the dead cop yesterday with a direct view of his veranda.

“Jesus Christ, how long does this take?” Y/N mumbled frustrated while loading up their guns with a round each of silver bullets. A cigarette tucked between her lips. Dean had binoculars up to his eyes, keeping his sights on Kurt’s balcony at the far end of the alleyway.

"Patience, sweetheart" Dean reminded her, his voice rough due to them being up all night after not getting much sleep in days. And both very sexually frustrated…for obvious reasons. He could hear her mumble under her breath a smart remark in response.

He ignored it and carried on. “He must have been too tired from turning last night" He theorized, checking his watch with a scoff, "It’s been over an hour already" His brow twitched, watching Y/N take a puff of her cigarette. He’d been keeping his eyes on her the entire night.

His mind kept reliving the moment they were dancing together, the way she was so close to him made him shiver. His thoughts were interrupted by Y/N lighting another cigarette and cursing to herself. The pent up sexual frustration along with her impatience was riding on every part of her body.

“Goddamn it, I don’t know about you but this is seriously pissing me off” Y/N complained, crossing her arms over her chest with a huff. She bit her lip, her mind keeping going back to the heated moment they shared. Her legs were still throbbing, her core still aching, she felt like she was about to combust, and being so close to him the whole night didn’t help her condition at all.

His eyes flickered back up to her eyes and then down to the stick tucked between her fingers. She turned her attention to Dean, noticing his gaze was trapped on the stick wedged between her fingers.

“Want a taste?" She offered playfully, holding her half lit cigarette out for Dean's taking. Without a word, he leaned his head down slightly, capturing the tip of the bud between his lips.

She watched in amusement when he immediately leaned down, taking a slow drag from the tip that was still wedged between her fingers. His lip left a feathering touch on her fingers. He made quite the effort to prolong the contact, which Y/N was enjoying way too much.

When he pulled back, he blew the smoke out of his nose and a satisfied hum of tobacco filled his lungs. "Thanks” He murmured gruffly, a smug look on his face. Y/N nodded in return, taking another drag herself, trying to ignore heat rushing between her legs.

A loud crash of glass shattered from somewhere above their heads caught their attention, their eyes snapped to see the curtains fall. "What the fuck" Dean muttered, in surprise. "About damn time" Y/N stated as she handed Dean his gun. They both placed their safety off. Their eyes connected, both giving each other a firm nod in agreement.

They rushed into the building and quickly made their way up the stairs before finally reaching the third floor. Their breathing was a little heavier than before and their hands were gripping on their guns like their lives depended on it. Dean tried opening the door but it was locked, he went to raise his foot to kick it inwards but Y/N beat him to the punch.

Raising her hand towards the door, her eyes flashed over white as the tips of her fingers turned aqua blue, once again. The door flew off its hinges, a loud crash erupted in the silence of the hallway. Dean’s eyes flickered between her and the door that was now in pieces, “Show off” He muttered, earning an eye roll from Y/N.

Their steps were light and swift as they quietly walked inside of the apartment, aiming their guns around the room. The windows were now busted open, the curtains billowing around them from the wind. They heard nothing, nothing but their own breathing but that was until they heard the soft growl of an animal.

Their heads snapped towards the sound coming from the left side of the apartment. They stormed into the master bedroom to see a slender familiar figure hovering over Kurt’s corpse, clawing away into his chest cavity at his heart. Their eyes were wide in shock as the creature turned to face them in a snap, eyes wild and blue. Madison snarled at them, attacking Y/N before she could react.

She harshly pushed Y/N into Dean, disarming them both of their guns. The two hunters went flying back into the wall with the powerful superhuman strength Madison displayed. Dean’s head hit the concrete wall, knocking him unconscious immediately.

So Madison turned her attention to a dazzled Y/N, attempting to claw at her but the hunter reacted quickly. Sending a wave of power from hand at Madison, who went flying back just a few feet. Y/N held her head, her vision blurred from the knock she received to her head, trying to scramble for her gun but Madison was quick to the punch, kicking the gun away before Y/N could reach it.

She straddled Y/N again, she reached out, trying to summon the gun to her hands but she was too weak to muster up the power. So she reacted in the only way she could, stabbing Madison in her forearm with her silver butterfly knife that was luckily lodged into her jacket pocket.

Madison let out a bloodcurdling scream, clawing at the wound before backhanding Y/N, knocking her unconscious before narrowly escaping through the broken balcony glass door.

____________________________________________

Dean woke just as the sun was rising with a dull thud through his skull, an uncomfortable groan escaping his lips as he sat up. A small bruise was already beginning to form on the back of his head from the knock into the wall. He sat up slowly with a hiss, his vision blurry and black dots danced across his vision.

Pushing the dizziness from his head with a heavy grunt, his eyes immediately searched the room for Y/N, who was still unconscious, sprawled out on the floor with blood dripping down her nose. His heart dropped in his chest as he scrambled over to her.

"Y/N! Y/N! Come on, princess, wake up! I need you to wake up!" He lightly shook her shoulders, checking every inch of her to see if she had any other injuries.

Y/N stirred softly, whimpering a little but began to wake. Her eyelids fluttered a few times before being shot open, her eyes wide. She quickly sat up, groaning a little as she felt a rush of pain to her head.

"Thank god" Dean breathed a sigh of relief, pulling her in for a hug as he buried his face into the crook in her neck. Y/N took a moment before fully coming to her senses, registering where she was. She hugged him back weakly, “What the fuck?” She groaned.

Dean pulled away, cupping her face in his hands as his eyes wandered over her, inspecting her further. Using his thumb to wipe away some of the blood from her nose, “We need to call, Sam,” Dean said urgently, remembering his brother was ‘protecting’ a freaking werewolf.

He took his phone out, hurriedly dialing in Sam's number, pressing the phone to his ear as he waited for an answer. “God that chick was strong” Y/N groaned, as Dean wrapped his arm around her waist and helped her to her feet with one hand, his phone pressed to his ear with the other. "Yeah, I'll say" He muttered, "She hit like fucking a tank" Y/N commented with a shaky breath.

But Sam hadn't answered yet, "Come on, Sammy" Dean muttered to himself impatiently. "Guys, you okay?" Sam finally answered the phone. Dean quickly put it on speaker, pressing his head to Y/N’s forehead, which was hot to the touch. She swayed a bit on her feet, still groggy. "Yeah, now that we’re conscious.” Dean groaned. “The werewolf knocked us out. Sam, it’s Madison" Dean explained.

“What?” Sam gasped, rushing over to Madison’s room. “Yeah, awesome fucking job at keeping an eye on her” Dean quipped sarcastically, as Y/N groaned again from the striking pain in her head. Sam pushed in the door to see Madison asleep in her bed. “Dean, Y/N. I’ve been here the whole time. She’s in bed, asleep” Sam told them. “Well, she wasn’t a few hours ago.” Y/N snapped.

“Check her right arm below her elbow. I nicked her with my silver butterfly knife” Y/N instructed him. With that Sam hung up, turning back to Madison who was now stirring awake. “Morning” Madison greeted Sam with a yawn, his eyes flickered down to her right arm to see a gash exactly where Y/N said it would be.

Madison gasped when she realized she was naked, “Um, where are my pajamas?” She asked Sam, who’s eyes darkened, bile rising in his throat. He immediately made his way over to her front door. “Sam? What’s going on?” Madison called out to him, using the blanket to cover her body. “Where are you going?!” She called out as Sam locked her door from the inside.

“I’m not going anywhere. And neither are you” Sam narrowed his eyes at her, as fear crossed her features.

-

Madison was now dressed and Sam had his own gun with silver bullets in his hand, his arms crossed as he glared at Madison. Leaning on the dining room table while she sat tied to one of her chairs, “You're psychotic” Madison sobbed, “The whole ‘I’m a cop’ trio. God, I am so stupid!” Madison scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Well I guess neither of us are who we said we were, huh?” Sam sassed.

“Sam, you’re sick, okay? You’re imagining things. Monsters don’t exist, not really” Madison sobbed, she seemed sincere but Sam refused to buy it. “You know what? Save the act” Sam cut her off with a stern tone as he paced across the room. “It’s not an act! I am not a werewolf. There is no such thing!” Madison sobbed as she defended herself.

“They’re not real! You know they’re not real!” Sam’s head snapped towards her as he strided back over, lowering himself to point at her wound below her elbow with his gun. “No?! Then where did that come from?!” He shouted in her face. She turned to him with a tear filled face. “I don’t know, Sam! God, you need help. Please, don’t do something that you’re gonna regret” Madison pleaded.

Sam's eyes darkened as he stared down at the wound, anger flaring up in the pit of his stomach. This girl was either in full denial or she truly did not know what she was. But Sam couldn’t think about that. For now, she was a threat that needed to be contained one way or another.

The woman seemed sincere in her words, hesitation crossing his face. “I’m not what you think I am. I’m not” Her voice broke as a knocking at the door caught Sam’s attention. He broke his gaze away from her, padding over to the door. He pulled it open to reveal Dean and Y/N, they both nodded at Sam as they entered.

“How you doing? My head feels great, thanks” Dean quipped sarcastically as Y/N glared at Madison, who was shaking in her confines of being tied to the chair. “We gotta talk” Sam whispered to them, gesturing for them to follow them into the kitchen. They nodded in unison before following behind him.

“She says she has no idea what I’m talking about,” Sam told them. Y/N scoffed, rolling her eyes. “She’s lying” Y/N stated the obvious. “Or maybe she doesn’t know she’s changing. Maybe when the creature takes over, she blacks out” Sam suggested. “Like a really hot Incredible Hulk?” Dean commented.

“Come on, dude. She ganked her boss and her ex-boyfriend. That doesn’t sound rash and unconscious” Dean further stated. “Yeah, but what if it was, guys?” Sam defended. “I mean, what if some animal part of her brain saw both those guys as threats. Hell, the cop too” He further protested. “What are you? The dog whisperer now?” Y/N sassed.

Sam rolled his eyes at this, “Look, man. I just-” Sam began pacing the kitchen. “I don’t know, there was something in her eyes” He tried to explain but Dean and Y/N looked at him as if he were crazy. “Yeah, she’s killing people!” Dean shot back. “But if she has no control over it!”

“Exactly, she can’t control it! Look even if she’s telling the truth, it’s not gonna change anything” Y/N cut Sam off, her cold tone sending a shock down Sam’s spine. She was usually so kind and compassionate but it was a whole different side to her when monsters were involved.

“I’m not putting a bullet through some girl's chest who has no idea what’s happening!” Sam defended again, trying to keep their voices at bay. “Sam, she’s a monster and you’re feeling sorry for her?!” Dean argued. “Maybe I understand her” Sam retorted, this made Dean's face drop and Y/N’s heart pound.

“Look. There might be another way we can get the job done without having to waste her” Sam suggested before moving to the counter where John’s journal was sitting. Dean and Y/N shared a knowing look at Sam’s statement before turning to him.

“Are you thinking what we think you’re thinking?” Y/N said. “Dad’s theory: Lycanthropy might have a cure if you kill the werewolf who bit you, severing the bloodline” Sam read from the journal, “Might have a cure. Meaning, who the hell knows?” Dean retorted. “It’s worth a shot!” Sam defended.

“We don’t even know where to start looking! Alright? I mean the puppy that bit her could be anyone, anywhere. It could’ve been years ago” Y/N exclaimed as Dean nodded along in agreement. Sam went silent for a few seconds before something clicked in his head. “No, I don’t think so” He muttered, placing the book back down before opening the door that led to Madison’s living room.

“Madison. When were you mugged?” He asked the girl gently, kneeling beside her. Madison glared at Sam through tear filled eyes, not uttering a word. “Please, it's important, alright? Just answer the question” Sam pleaded as Dean and Y/N shot daggers at Madison with their stares. “About a month ago” Madison hesitated to answer.

“Did you see the guy?” Sam asked. “No. Grabbed me from behind” Madison shook her head, y/n realized where Sam was going with the questions. “Did he bite you?” She asked, Madison tilted her head in confusion at the female hunter. “How did you know that?” Her brows furrowed, Y/N’s eyes widened, darting over to the boys.

“Where?” Sam asked urgently. “O-on the back of my neck” Madison stuttered, Sam nodded before holding up his gun and placing it on the dining room table beside him. He got up and walked around Madison’s chair to pull back her hair, revealing the healed over bite wound. “Well, that’s just a love bite. Believe me, that could’ve been a lot worse” Dean commented.

Y/N shot a glare at Dean’s comment, he sheepishly shrugged back. "Where were you at the time?” Y/N asked. “Walking home from a friend’s loft,” Madison answered. “Let me guess: Not too far from Hunter’s Point?” Sam further questioned. Madison nodded at this, still shocked at how they knew.

-

Sam shut the door that led to Madison’s kitchen, “Same place where those other murders happened. I’m telling you guys, it’s a werewolf’s hunting grounds” Sam insisted, turning to Dean and Y/N. “Maybe, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be out tonight” Dean stated. “It’s the right time in the lunar cycle” Y/N stated, Dean shot her a glare.

“You’re not buying into this crap, are you?” Dean scoffed, making her put her hands up in defense. “I’m not! I’m just stating” Y/N defended. “Look, I know it’s a long shot.” Sam sighed. “Okay, but you’re forgetting something. Maddy’s probably gonna turn soon, alright? We can't just let her take off to an all-you-can-eat buffet” Dean stated. “I’ll stay with her,” Sam shrugged.

“And if she busts loose?” Y/N asked, Sam hesitated for a second, tearing his gaze away from her. “Sam” Dean groaned. “I’ll do it,” Sam mumbled. Dean and Y/N shared a knowing look at this, Sam clearly bonded with Madison so they didn’t trust that he would actually put her down if he had to. “Sam” Y/N narrowed her eyes at him.

“I’ll shoot her, alright?” Sam’s gaze met hers, the hesitancy clear in his eyes. “But, guys. I need you two to go out there. At least, go look for the thing” Sam pleaded, Y/N sighed as Dean rolled his eyes. “Guys, please. We can save this girl.” Sam begged, Y/N’s eyes softened at his tone, understanding where he was coming from.

Knowing that if it were Sam or Jo in this situation, hell, even Dean, she’d do what she can to save her friends. “Fine” Y/N nodded, “What?!” Dean huffed. Y/N placed a hand on his chest, cutting him off. “We’re going, Dean” Y/N stated firmly, making Dean shut up immediately.

Sam’s eyes filled with relief as Y/N spoke, “Good,” Sam nodded. Y/N turned to Sam, “Promise us that you won’t be a dumbass” She stated as a matter of fact. Sam nodded, “I’ll shoot her if I have to” Sam’s voice softened at his words. "Promise" Y/N demanded firmly, Sam exhaled and nodded.

“I promise” He said sincerely, “Good” Y/N stated before making her way towards the door with Dean in tow. Y/N turned back and looked at Sam once more, giving him a small smile before following Dean out the door.

Once they got in the Impala, Dean sat down behind the wheel as Y/N sat down in the passenger seat. She buckled herself in before Dean peeled out of the parking lot.

“I can’t believe you’re on board with this,” Dean grumbled, Y/N rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, shut up” She shot back, leaning her head on the window of the car. “You’re crazy for going along with this” Dean protested, Y/N shifted herself to face him.

“I get it, okay? If it were you in that chair, I’d do everything I could to save your ass” She shot back defiantly. Dean’s eyes widened for a brief moment before he quickly hid his surprise. He was taken aback by Y/N’s statement, but quickly regained his composure.

“You would?” He asked, “Duh, dumbass” Y/N rolled her eyes once again at his question. The car fell into a brief silence as Y/N turned back to look out her window once more. However, she wasn’t able to keep it silent for long. “And what’d you do if the roles were switched, huh?” She asked, her voice softer than before.

Dean tensed at her question. He knew exactly what Y/N was asking, and he also knew that he would do the same without hesitation. But he was too stubborn to admit it aloud. "Come on, just answer the question" Y/N’s tone was still soft, as she kept her gaze out the window.

After a few moments of silence, the only sound being the rumble of the car's engine, he finally spoke up. "You know the answer already," He mumbled, his voice low but firm. Y/N’s heart skipped a beat at his response, the words bringing a small grin to her face.

Despite his best efforts, he couldn't bring himself to lie. "Just wanted to make sure" She teased, causing him to give her a half-hearted glare. The silence that followed was much more comfortable than before, as both Dean and Y/N were lost in their own thoughts.

The only noise that could be heard was the hum of the Impala's engine. Y/N continued to stare out the window, lost in her own thoughts, as Dean kept his focus on the dark road ahead.

____________________________________________

Hunter’s Point

It was later that night, Dean and Y/N were surveilling Hunter’s Point. Parked near a bar where they assumed the werewolves hung out. The place was a shithole, it was an old dive bar that probably hadn't been renovated in years.

There were a couple of sketchy-looking dudes hanging out outside, and the neon sign flickered menacingly above the entrance. They had a clear view of it from their location, and they were keeping a close eye on the crowd that entered and left the establishment.

They were getting bored, now playing rock paper scissors while waiting for anyone who even looked remotely suspicious to exit the bar. “You’re cheating” Dean protested as Y/N won for the third time. “I’m not cheating, you just suck” She retorted, sticking out her tongue at him.

“I’m just too good” Y/N joked, Dean rolled his eyes at her taunt. "Yeah, yeah, you’re a real winner” He grumbled as he watched the door of the bar, Y/N let out a soft chuckle at his annoyance. A young attractive woman came walking out of the bar, dressed in a furry white coat, a glittery hand bag in her clutches.

Dean and Y/N both sat up straight as they noticed the girl. "Hey, check out the hottie" Dean nudged Y/N. “Focus, dumbass” Y/N rolled her eyes, scoffing at his hypocrisy for reprimanding her at the strip club and now he’s ogling a random chick. What caught their eye, however, was a familiar man exiting right behind the woman. Seemingly trailing her movement.

“Is that-” Y/N gasped. “Glen” Dean clenched his jaw, Madison’s neighbor Glen was coincidentally hanging out at Hunter’s Point. Only meaning one thing, the bastard was the werewolf that ‘mugged’ her. They observed as Glenn casually walked a few feet behind the hooker while keeping his eyes on her.

They shared a look before abruptly exiting the Impala. Wielding their guns as Glen followed the hooker into an alleyway. They heard an animalistic snarl coupled with the woman’s screams of terror. The duo rushed to follow the sound, sprinting down the dark alley.

The sounds of a struggle echoed loudly through the narrow space, only illuminated by a faint neon sign from the main street. They stumbled upon Glen attacking the terrified woman. “Hey!!” Y/N bellowed, both their guns raised at the werewolf. His eyes widened with fear, bearing his teeth at them as they emptied their clips with silver bullets in his chest.

The werewolf’s body jolted violently as the bullets pierced his chest. He let out a piercing cry, stumbling towards the wall before collapsing to the ground. He twitched as the silver poisoning seeped through his veins, still somewhat alive and coughing up blood.

The hooker he was previously attacking gasped with terror before pushing herself up to her feet. Her eyes wide at Dean and Y/N before making a break for it, running away screaming frantically. “Hey, don’t mention it!” Dean shouted sarcastically.

Dean and Y/N stood over Glen, who was coughing and spluttering blood. His fangs were still out as he spluttered, it retracted as they crouched beside him. “What happened?” Glen gasped, “Where am I?” He groaned painfully, Y/N raised her brows at this.

Jesus, it seemed like the poor dude didn’t even know he was a werewolf himself. “Ugh, Help- Help me.” Glen pleaded, coughing as the silver poisoning took effect on his body. “Oh god, oh my god” Glen sobbed. Y/N’s heart pained in her chest at the man’s suffering.

“Alright, easy, Glen. Just take it easy” Dean said calmly, but soon after Glen’s pulse weakened completely. Slumping dead on the ground as Dean and Y/N shared a pained look.

The alleyway fell into a eerie silence as the finality of the moment set in. Dean and Y/N both took a moment to collect themselves before Dean moved to stand up. He let out a weary sigh, running his fingers through his hair in frustration.

Y/N exhaled deeply at the sight of the dead man. "That poor guy. He didn't even know" She spoke quietly. "I know," Dean replied, running a hand through his hair. They both stood there in an anguished silence, feeling the weight of the situation weigh down on them. The gravity of the situation was heavy, they knew this part of the job all too well.

____________________________________________

The next morning, assuming everything was over. Sam was slumped in the backseat of the Impala while Dean was in the driver's side and Y/N sat shotgun, still parked in front of Madison’s apartment complex. Still staking out her place, just in case she turned again.

“It was sorta sad, actually. Glen had no clue what was going on” Dean stated, his head resting against the back of the seat as he and Y/N explained to Sam. Y/N took a drag from her cigarette before handing it to Dean, “Hey, why do you think he turned Madison, instead of just killing her in the first place?” She asked. Sam shrugged as Y/N passed the cigarette to Dean.

“I don’t know. I mean, he kind of seemed to have a thing for her” Sam answered, “Maybe his primal instinct did too” Y/N commented as Dean took a drag of the cigarette. “Maybe he was looking for a little hot breeding action” Dean added, this made Y/N scrunch her face up in disgust. “God dude, could you be more gross?” She groaned.

Dean chuckled at her reaction, “Hey, it’s a legitimate possibility” He stated as he passed the cigarette back to her. Y/N rolled her eyes at his comment, “You’re a pig” She retorted, making Sam snort with amusement from the backseat. “Yeah, something like that,” Sam sighed, his tone solemn. "What's up with you?" Dean asked, noticing Sam's sudden shift in mood.

Sam let out a soft sigh before answering, "Nothin' just thinking" He replied, his tone quiet. "Is it about Madison?" Y/N inquired, shifting in her seat to look at Sam who nodded, "Yeah" He admitted. “I thought you didn’t like her like that?” Dean raised his brow at his little brother as Y/N tilted her head.

"I don’t, not like that” Sam protested, “It’s just, I don’t know, we bonded a little, you know?” Sam sighed, he seemed genuinely remorseful that it turned out like that. Y/N’s facial features softened at Sam’s tone, she couldn’t help but sympathize with him.

"Hey, it’s not your fault man” Dean stated, trying to reassure his younger brother. However, Sam wasn’t having it as he let out another weary sigh, “Guys, she thought I was a stark raving lunatic” He retorted with a bitter edge to his tone, Y/N chewed the inside of her cheek at this.

A knock at the window on the passenger side startled them, their heads snapped to see Madison. “You know for a stakeout, your car’s a bit conspicuous” Madison commented as Y/N rolled the window down. “What are you still doing here?” She asked. “Honestly? Uh…we’re pretty sure you’re not gonna turn tonight..but we gotta be 100 percent” Dean responded.

“So, you know, we’re lurking” Y/N added with a small chuckle as Sam remained silent. He cleared his throat, before leaning forward. “Look, I know this sounds crazy—” He began. “Sure does.” Madison deadpanned before sighing, Sam’s gaze dropped to his hands. “Well, if we’re gonna wait it out. We might as well do it together” She sighed.

"What?" Dean blurted out. His tone was full of genuine surprise. He wasn’t expecting that response from her at all. Neither was Y/N, she was also surprised at the fact that Madison had agreed to hang out with them, as it was just the night before she was terrified of them.

-

They were now walking back into Madison’s apartment. “You were telling the truth, weren't you? About everything” Madison began as she locked the door behind them. “What you did, it was to help me” She frowned as they all shared nervous looks. “Yeah” Sam’s voice cracked. “I did all those horrible things…when I turned” Tears welled up in her eyes.

Sam offered her a sympathetic look but her heart pained for her, “You didn’t know” He said softly. Y/N and Dean listened intently, watching the exchange between Madison and Sam with pensive looks. Y/N particularly empathized with her, as she could see how much the events were clearly weighing down on her conscience, it was painful to witness.

“So, when will we know for sure? Moonrise?” Madison asked, clearing her throat. “No, I don’t think so. You turned in the middle of the night last night. I think we gotta hang in until sunup” Sam told her. “Well, it looks like we got ourselves a few hours to kill,” Dean chimed in. “Poker, anyone?” Y/N suggested, trying to lighten the mood.

"What, and lose all my money? Fat chance" Dean responded with mild amusement, but he still seemed like he was deep in thought. Y/N chuckled at his reluctance but Madison looked confused, "Poker?" She questioned. "You know, cards?" Y/N explained as she grabbed a deck of cards from her bag. Madison just looked at them blankly before sighing.

“Yeah, I know what poker is," She grumbled. "But aren't you afraid I'm gonna go all 'The Wolfman' on you guys?" She questioned. "Nah, we got it covered," Dean reassured her, holding up a gun with silver bullets. Y/N smacked Dean harshly on his arm at this.

"What? I was just being honest" He shrugged at Y/N’s hit, rubbing his arm as a pout formed on his face. "Could’ve been a little less honest" She chastised him, rolling her eyes at Dean’s lack of tact. Meanwhile, Sam glared at his brother.

-

It was nearing midnight and the night had passed rather peacefully. The four of them sat in the small living room, playing Poker on the floor. Y/N and Sam were competing against Dean and Madison, it was currently Y/N’s turn to deal the cards.

"So far, I’m winning" Dean smirked as he looked down at his cards, he had two pairs at the moment. "Yeah, yeah whatever" Y/N chuckled, rolling her eyes at his boastful statement. She leaned over to glance at Sam’s cards with a sly grin, trying to get a glimpse of his hand. However, he playfully smacked her head away.

"No peeking" Sam said with a grin, but Y/N didn’t relent as she continued to try and peek at his cards. Dean and Madison watched the two with amusement, chuckling as Y/N continued her attempts to cheat, much to Sam’s annoyance.

Despite the dreadful situation, the four found a way to make fun of it. Patiently waiting to see if Madison would turn, the tension in the room was still daft.

As Y/N continued to pester Sam with her attempts to cheat, Dean turned his attention to Madison, looking at her with a mix of wariness and sympathy. Despite the laughter and playful banter, the underlying tension was still palpable, as they all waited for the sun to rise.

"Just give it up, you're not gonna see my cards" Sam said with an amused chuckle, pushing Y/N's head away for the hundredth time. "That's the point" She protested, sticking out her lower lip in a playful pout as she finally relented in her attempts to peek at his cards.

“I think, I’m gonna go to bed” Madison said suddenly, stifling a yawn. The three of them glanced up as Madison rose to her feet, a yawn escaping her lips. "You sure?" Dean inquired, a tinge of worry in his voice. After all, it was still hours away from sunrise.

Madison nodded, “Yeah, I’ll get you guys some pillows and blankets” She assured them. "Thanks" Y/N chimed in as Madison disappeared into the bedroom. There was a tense silence that followed and the mood in the room turned serious once more.

"You really think she’s gonna make it through the night?" Sam asked, his gaze fixed on the ground in front of him. He seemed lost in his own thoughts, deep in contemplation. Dean leaned back against the couch, a tired sigh escaping him. "I sure as hell hope so" He replied, the weight of the situation evident in his weary voice.

"We have to hope so" Y/N stated firmly, there was a hint of desperation in her tone, as if she was trying to convince herself just as much as the others. Despite their best attempts to stay stoic, fear and vulnerability were creeping within them.

-

It was now around 2 am, the apartment was completely silent and dark, the only sound being the soft and steady inhale and exhale of breathing. Dean and Y/N slept soundly on the floor, wrapped in the blanket Madison had provided. Sam, on the other hand, had tossed and turned for the past couple of hours, unable to sleep properly.

Dean and Y/N were asleep on the floor in the living room, huddled together under the shared blanket. As usual, Dean was in a sprawled out position, his arms and legs were all over the place. However, Y/N was snuggled up right next to him, her head resting on his chest with her arm around his abdomen, using him as a makeshift pillow.

They looked completely at ease, their faces softened by sleep and the comforting presence of each other. Even in his sleep, Dean unconsciously held onto Y/N, bringing her closer to him, as if she was his personal teddy bear. Her head was nestled into the curve of his chest, their bodies flush against each other as their chests rose and fell in a smooth rhythm.

Despite the uncomfortable floor, the two of them looked completely comfortable, content in each other's warm embrace.

As Sam turned for what felt like the millionth time, trying to get comfortable enough to fall asleep, his eyes landed on the two forms that were snuggled up together on the floor. A soft smile appeared on his face at the sight of them. Dean and Y/N looked peaceful, soothed by each other's presence and a part of him envied them for it.

A loud crashing from Madison’s room caused Sam to shoot up from his position on the couch. The noise came from Madison's room and Sam's heart started racing as he quickly got to his feet, alert and ready for anything.

Y/N and Dean were startled awake by the sudden noise, they immediately sat up groggily, blinking the sleep from their eyes as their brains tried to catch up with what was happening.

"Fuck" Y/N groaned low whisper, holding her head, her heart pounding in fear. Dean was up on his feet instantly, his hand already reaching for the gun nearby while Sam quickly made his way towards Madison's room.

Madison was at her window, snarling at Sam. Sam rushed into the room, his eyes widened in shock and horror. There, standing at the window was Madison, but she was different. She had turned.

Her body was trembling, her face twisted with pain and fear, letting out a low, guttural snarl as she clawed at the window. He quickly rushed over to grab her as Dean and Y/N stormed the room with their guns before Madison had already jumped out of the window and escaped.

"No! No, no, no!" Dean shouted as he and Y/N stood near the window, but it was too late. Madison had already jumped out of the window, disappearing into the night before any of them could do anything.

Sam slumped down on the floor, his face a mix of horror and guilt.

-

The sun was now rising, Dean went to search for Madison while Y/N consoled a terrified Sam, still at her apartment. “I called Bobby. He doesn’t know anything. Except he knew severing the bloodline wouldn’t work. Everyone says it’s impossible to reverse” Y/N explained.

Sam sat silently, his mind racing with guilt and fear. Y/N's words only added to his growing despair, as he realized the gravity of the situation even more. It seemed hopeless.

“What the hell does it matter, Y/N. We gotta find some way to help her. Some legend we missed” Sam insisted. Y/N sighed and bit her lip, her expression conflicted. They were both desperate, searching for any possible way to help Madison. But they had exhausted all their options. "If there was, don’t you think someone we know would’ve known it" Y/N pressed.

Sam ran his hands over his face, a sigh of frustration escaping him. He knew she was right, yet he couldn't accept it, that there was nothing they could do to help Madison. "But there has to be," He countered back weakly. “We have to look harder until we find something!” Sam further defended.

“Sammy, I don’t think we got a choice here anymore” Y/N said gently, giving Sam a knowing look about what they have to do. Sam looked up at her, his eyes pleading for any other solution. But deep down, Sam knew what she was silently suggesting. He let out a shaky breath, his heart feeling like it was being crushed.

"What?" He scoffed angrily, pushing himself up from his chair. “I hate to say it, she’s a sweet girl, but part of her is-” Sam cut her off. “Evil?” He finished her sentence, getting up to face her. “Yeah!” Y/N shouted. “Part monster, whatever you want to call it” Y/N retorted, meeting Sam's angry glare head-on, as she too was growing agitated.

Sam's expression was a mix of anger and desperation as he stared at her. “Yeah, that’s what they say about me and you, y/n/n. About us!” Sam shouted back. Y/N felt a pang in her chest at his words, it hit her hard, but she didn’t back down. She clenched her jaw, refusing to give in. “Those people are wrong about us!” She snapped back.

“You and I know damn well that’s bullshit. And I’m not buying it for one second!” Sam retorted. "Then what do you want me to say, Sam?” Y/N fired back, her temper flaring at his stubbornness. “So me, you won’t kill. But Madison, you’re just gonna blow away?” Sam scoffed, placing his hands on his hips as he stood his ground.

Y/N felt a pang of guilt at his words but she steeled herself, her features hardening as she met his gaze, not backing down. "It’s not the same thing, and you know it" She said through gritted teeth.

The shrill sound of Sam's cell phone rang out, the sudden interruption causing a break in the heated argument. Sam quickly fished the device out of his pocket to answer it. "Yeah?" He answered, his tone still edged with anger as he brought the phone to his ear.

Y/N watched him, her breathing still ragged from the argument but she listened intently. “Sam?” Madison’s croaky voice came through the phone. Sam froze in shock as he heard Madison's voice. “Madison!? Where are you?” He practically yelled, hope and panic filling his voice. “I don’t- I don’t- I don’t know what I am” Madison sobbed.

The raw anguish in her voice broke Sam’s heart. He gripped the phone tighter, desperate to comfort her. “Just calm down, we’re gonna help. Just, stay where you are. Do you see any street signs?” He tried to reassure her, but his own voice was shaking.

“Um- yeah, yeah. Middle point” Madison answered, looking around as Y/N fished out her own phone to call Dean. Sam gave Y/N a firm nod as he took out a pen from his pocket and wrote down the name on his hand. “Alright, alright. Hold on, Maddy. We’re coming to get you. Just stay where you are”

Y/N quickly dialed Dean's number and held the phone to her ear. Her heart was racing as she waited for him to pick up. Meanwhile, Sam continued to talk to Madison, who was still sobbing on the other end of the line. He desperately tried to soothe her, even though he wasn’t sure if they could actually help her.

After a few tense seconds, Dean finally picked up the phone. "Yeah?" He answered gruffly. "We found her" Y/N nearly shouted into the phone, her heart racing. "Where is she?" Dean asked urgently. “Middlepoint, some street” She replied urgently, her voice shaking just a bit. “It’s not far from Y/N’s safehouse,” Sam added, having overheard the conversation.

"I'll be right there," Dean said before hanging up. Y/N put her phone back into her pocket, her heart pounding in anticipation. Sam was still on the phone with Madison, who was beginning to sound more hysteric. He desperately tried to keep her calm, telling her they were coming.

-

Dean found Madison and brought her back to her apartment. They were all in her dining room, Dean’s gun with the silver bullets was placed in front of a very disheveled Madison. The atmosphere in the room was heavy with dread. All of them were watching Madison with a mix of sympathy and fear.

Dean leaned forward, trying to meet her gaze but she was too distraught to look at anyone. “I don’t remember anything,” Madison sobbed. “I probably killed someone last night” Her words hung in the air, a chilling reminder of the danger she posed to herself and others.

The silence in the room echoed with the weight of her words. Sam and Y/N tried to hide their unease, but it was clear that they were all grappling with the gravity of the situation. “Didn’t I?” Madison croaked. Sam couldn’t bear to look at her, “There’s no way to know yet” Y/N said quietly.

“Is there something else we can try? To make it go away?” Madison asked hopefully. “We’ll find something. I mean, there’s gotta be some answer, somewhere” Sam insisted. “That’s not entirely true” Dean chimed in, Madison’s head snapped over to Dean.

“Madison, you deserve to know.” Dean sighed. “We’ve scoured every source. There’s just no cure, hun” Y/N stated, her tone solemn. “Are…are they right?” Madison asked Sam. Sam nodded, his expression filled with sadness. “Yeah” He said, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I mean, we could lock you up at night, but…you’d bust out and some night, you will. Someone else dies” Dean explained softly as Madison’s eyes filled with tears again. The room was filled with a tense silence as they all looked at Madison, whose shoulders sagged in defeat. It was a heartbreaking moment, the reality of her fate sinking in.

She knew there was no magic cure, that she was destined to hurt people as long as she lived. “I’m sorry, I am” Y/N added, shaking her head as she clutched her locket. “So, I guess that’s all there is to it, then” Madison sniffled, a single tear dropping from her eye. “Stop it. Don’t talk like that” Sam interrupted, insisting on finding a way to cure her.

“Sam, I don’t wanna hurt anyone else. I don’t wanna hurt you” Madison sobbed before taking up the gun from the table. Walking over to Sam, “Put that down” Sam shook his head as she placed the gun in his hand. “I can’t do it myself. I need you to help me” Madison pleaded, pressing the gun to her chest as Sam’s finger hovered over the trigger.

The room was a tableau of despair. Y/N's heart ached for Sam as she saw the torment in his face. Dean stood silently by, his hands clenched into fists, watching the scene unfold like a car accident that you can't tear your eyes from.

“Madison..no” Sam breathed out, the anguish clear in his voice. “Sam…I’m a monster,” Madison stated. “You don’t have to be. We can find a way, alright? I can, I’m gonna save you”

Dean, who usually kept a stoic facade, was fighting back tears. The despair was so thick in the air it was almost palpable. Sam was pleading in desperation to save her, but he was struggling to grasp the harsh truth.

“You tried. I know you tried. This is all there is left” Madison’s voice broke. “Help me, Sam. As my friend, help me” She begged. “I want you to do it. I want it to be you”

“I can't,” Sam snapped, shaking his head. “I don’t wanna die, I don’t” Madison chuckled dryly, taking a deep breath. “But I can’t live like this. This is the only way you can save me….please” She begged again. “I’m asking you to save me, Sam” Madison offered him a tearful smile.

Sam shook his head weakly as Y/N got up from her chair and stepped closer to them, prying the gun away from Madison’s hand. She gave Sam a sad look and Madison a small nod, “Go wait in the room, sweetie” She said to the woman gently.

Madison left the dining room, but as she did, you could hear her soft sobs. Y/N turned to Sam, the pain in his eyes cutting straight through her heart. He looked defeated, like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“Sammy, I’m sorry” Dean cut in, the emotion clear in his voice. “No, you’re right. She’s right” Sam croaked, allowing the tears to fall freely from his eyes. “We tried everything,” Sam said, his voice filled with sadness and resignation. “We really did,” Y/N added gently. “Sammy, I got this one. I’ll do it” She assured him.

“She asked me to.” Sam shook his head, “You don’t have to” Dean assured him. Sam swallowed hard and took a deep breath, "Yes, I do” Sam's voice was hoarse from holding back tears. He then put his hand out for y/n to give him the gun. “Please”

Y/N sighed, and handed Sam the gun. “Just wait here” He croaked as he took it from her and then got up from his chair, heading towards the room where Madison was waiting. Dean and Y/N exchanged a weary, heavy look.

Sam turned to Dean and Y/N with a tear filled face before pushing himself to enter the room. As Sam shut the door behind him, they could faintly hear the murmur of voices coming from inside the room. It was difficult to make out the words, but their voices were gentle and filled with sadness.

Seeing his brother so pained broke him inside out. Y/N was not taking it lightly either, holding back her own tears along with Dean as they waited for the gunshot to ring out. Dean wrapped his arms around Y/N, pulling her in close as a sense of helplessness washed over him. The finality of the situation was unbearable, and he found comfort in holding onto her.

They waited in excruciating silence. After what felt like hours, they heard the sound of the gunshot. Dean and Y/N flinched, the female hunter buried her face into Dean's chest. Tears streamed down her face and she held onto him tighter, seeking comfort.

The sound of the shot rang in their ears like a death knell. For people who use guns as often as they did, it was a sound that would haunt them for a long time to come. Dean's grip involuntarily tightened around Y/N as she buried her face in his chest, seeking solace in him. He swallowed hard, his own eyes stinging with tears.

He allowed them to flow freely as he clutched his love against him, stroking her hair, not only to comfort her but also himself. It was a devastating moment, one that weighed heavily on their hearts.

____________________________________________

Author’s Note: Yeah, so-😭💔 I’m so not crying *sobs into pillow* I LOVE YOU MADISON, YOU DESERVED BETTER😭😭😭

Other than that, I hope everyone enjoyed this episode, it was a sad one and I did my best to write around it because I’m a Sam and Jo stan lol.

No hate to Madison, I actually loved her and she slayed her one episode of screentime.

Lmk what you loved and what you hated. Also, that cigarette scene🫠🫠🫠

Thank you for reading!

Taglist: @hjgdhghoe @rach5ive @tiggytaylor @star-yawnznn @quarterhorse19

@deangirl96 @bitchykittenconnoisseur @globetrotter28 @hobby27 @mrsjjkwinchester

@juwu-theliciosa @magiccliopleurodon @nesnejwritings @karrah89 @whattheduckisupkyle

@iloveyou2mia @thelittlelightinthedarkness @lmhf1 @littletomboy2 @zigzoggy

@hey-its-zoe

Xoxo

[yeonbinwyd]

a place to sit

pairing: subfem!reader x softdom! Beomgyu

synopsis: you’re looking for a new place to live and your brothers friend had a spare room at his place. he’s always had a crush on you but now he gets to live with you. What more can he dream of?

genre (w/tags): smut, (minors dni), kinky sex, body exploration, masturbation, protected sex, explicit language

Word count: 1354

“Thanks again for letting her stay” your brother thanks Beomgyu as helps you with the last of your boxes.

“No problem bro. I got you.” He dabs up your brother with a back pat. You’re already inside unpacking your things. You were thankful you had a place to stay for the upcoming semester but it had to be with him? The two of you barely get along. Beomgyu always has a witty comment or two. Maybe even a joke here and there. It drove you nuts so for him to let you stay with him was a bit of a shocker. Honestly who are you to turn down free housing?

Beomgyu walks up to your door, leaning against the frame. He crosses his arm and shakes his head.

“It looks like you’re stuck with me” he chuckles.

“Not a chance. I’ll find another spot soon it’s just temporary” you bite back. He purses his lips.

“You really think you’ll find a place? The semester starts in a week.” He rubs in. You stay silent. “That’s what I thought.” He chimes as he steps closer to you, looking down at you while shaking his head with a smirk. You instinctively shove him forwards. He keeps his snicking smile, while leaving your room. Whoa he looked really good looking at you like that. You couldn’t help but feel a little bit attracted to him Beomgyu was a cute guy and he knew that. The last thing you needed was to let him know you thought so too.

After you finish unpacking, you change into something more comfortable, and head into the kitchen. He was in the living room, just playing his game. You join him, taking a seat. He glances at you with the corner of his eye. Beomgyu was a bit distracted by what you were wearing. It was just a short pj set. Your legs exposed to the point where you could see your panties. Your shirt was a bit seen thru too, with your nipples poking through. He swallows hard and turns his attention to his game. Suddenly he smells the candle you lit. It fills the room evoking a pleasant feeling throughout his body. It automatically makes him think of you. How sweet you must taste. He can feel himself getting hard at the thought of getting a glimpse of your cunt. He tried one last time to divert his attention to his game but he sees movement. Beomgyu looks over to see you applying a moisturizing lip mask, making your lips soft and kissable. He’s at his limit. He stands up quickly to avoid you seeing anything, then dashes out of sight. You shrug and turn off his game.

“This might be more difficult than I thought.”

Beomgyu takes a glance down at his pants to see a raging hard on. He made a promise to your brother to look out for you but he’s as much trouble as the guys that go after you.

“Maybe I can rub one out really fast” he thinks to himself. He shuts his door and without thinking starts to jerk off his hard on. He squeezes around the tip nice and snug. Beomgyu lets out a low groan in satisfaction. He rapidly jerks himself off to the thought of you. Just being able to touch you, hearing you beg for more, he was going insane. He came quickly and quietly as he heard your footsteps coming closer.

“Hey you ok?” you ask outside the door. He had been gone for a minute, so your curiosity got the best of you. You heard everything on the other side of the door. He may have tried to be quiet but it didn’t work with those thin walls.

“Yeah I’m fine.” He manages to reply. Beomgyu gets himself together then opens the door to find you standing behind it. The two of you lock eyes, Beomgyu swallows hard again.

“You know if you were into me, you should have just said so” you tell him with great pride as you turn from him. Hearing that he sighs in relief then gives you a hug from behind.

“You can’t tell your brother” he warns.

“What if I want you too?” You confess. He furrows his brow in confusion at first then he looks at you with the same smirk as before.

“You wore this on purpose?” Beomgyu calmly asks. You shrug your shoulders neither agreeing or disagreeing. He doesn’t waste any time and attacks your neck. Still behind you, he cups your chest, fondling your nipples. You gasped, caught off guard by his sudden movements. You get adjusted at the glorious feeling and rest your hand on the back of his neck to give him more access. He accepts, placing kisses down your neck to your breasts cupping them in the process. Now in front, he travels down even further to take a peek at what he’s been dreaming of.

“Can you do me a favor? He asks. You nod in agreement. “Can you sit on my face?” He asked with confidence. He wants to see you in full view without any breaks. You agree and without wasting any more time, he pulls you to his bed. Beomgyu lies down flat, waiting for you to take a seat. You pull off what you were wearing, then position yourself over his face. You gently lower yourself but he locks his arms around your thighs, forcing you to come down aggressively. He immediately moans inside you, giving you vibrations throughout your body. His tongue starts by making circles around your clit. His grip was strong, so strong there wasn’t much space to break free. You already feel the build up. As he keeps going, his tongue now is darting inside your pussy while cupping your ass checks. Beomgyu is licking up and down your walls while burying his face in you. He’s drunk off of you and can’t get enough. He lifts you up for a moment for air and he gets back in there. You spot a condom on his side table and reach for it. Beomgyu catches on and helps you lean to over the grab it, still holding on you tight. You grab it, tearing it open. You can see he’s fully erect and ready for the plunge. You help him with his sweats, releasing him and position the condom on his member. He growls at just your slight touch and starts to feel the condom in place. Beomgyu lets you go and helps you move forward to go on top. This time you were in control, you slide down slowly, taking him in. He covers his mouth as an unbearable whine was released from his lips. He had finally felt all of you. It was better than he had imagined. You thrusted forward and back for him, making him see stars. He was overwhelmed but the pleasure he was feeling was phenomenal. Beomgyu got it together, wanting to make you feel good too, he pulled you back to rest on him and began stroking up. You started to whine in his ear. It was giving his power. He speed started to pick up.

“Please Beomgyu” you begged. Hearing you cry his name like his dreams made him want to finish right there. He pulls out and helps you forward so he can fuck you from behind. He grabs a fist full of hair while reentering. Your back arches. At this point, you both don’t care at the amount of noise you were making. The sounds of sex filled the room and you both loved it.

“Say my name again baby” he demands.

“Beomgyu fuck me please” you manage to obey.

“Oh god I’m so close.” He moans.

“Me too Don’t stop” you demand in return. The slaps pick up, deeper and deeper. He pulls your hair back, forcing you to sit up. You both finishing. Beomgyu lets you go while pulling out. You grip your neck, shocked at how wild he was.

“I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?” He asked concerns

“No I loved it.”

[forest-hashira]

Naked in Osaka

hi friends! this is my submission for @pixelcafe-network's "challenge friday" that they do every other week! the prompt this week was a random song selected by shuffle, and my assigned song was "Naked In Manhattan" by Chappell Roan, and after a bit of debate (& some help from friends), i decided to go with shoko for this fic. it's a quick thing, but it was fun! i hope to write more for female characters in the future, and this was a good jumping off point 💜

read on ao3 | wc: ~2.6k | cw: gender neutral reader (no pronouns used, but implied fem reader based on song lyrics), alcohol consumption, making out, implied smut at the end (kinda?), implied first sapphic experience (thus the pride divider), shoko calls reader "cute", minor background stsg

“Please leave your message after the tone.” Beep.

“Hey Sho, I know you just landed, and I know you're probably busy, but I would love to see you, so call me when you can.” 

You sighed softly to yourself as you ended the call, tucking your cellphone into your pocket. It wasn’t exactly a surprise that you’d gotten Shoko’s voicemail – she’d been out of the country on a trip and had only just gotten back – but it was still a bit of a disappointment. You hadn’t been able to see her much since you’d graduated from Jujutsu High together, since you’d moved to Osaka just a few weeks later. She was good about returning your calls and texts, so you tried not to think about it too much.

Despite how infrequently you got to see your friend in person, she never really left your thoughts. In fact, you probably thought about her more than was normal. The two of you had been pretty close in school, spending a lot of your time together, especially when Gojo and Geto were off on missions or otherwise wrapped up in each other. You’d been friends with the boys too, of course, but your one on one time with Shoko was where you formed all your best memories of your school years. Around third year was when you realized your fondness for the other girl may have been more than just platonic, but you never allowed yourself to dwell on it or bring it up to Shoko, telling yourself it was no different than the way the boys felt or acted around each other, so there couldn’t be anything weird about it.

Then again, the boys had gone on to start dating after graduation, and last you’d heard they’d gotten engaged, so… Maybe it was worth revisiting those feelings again.

The sound of your phone ringing pulled you out of your thoughts, and when you saw Shoko’s contact picture – a slightly blurry selfie she’d sent you nearly a year ago while she was out getting drinks with her friends in Tokyo, her cheeks a little flushed and a soft smile tugging at her lips – on the screen, you felt your cheeks begin to burn, as if you’d been caught doing something you shouldn’t.

“Hey.”

“What are you doing tonight?” Shoko asked, and you couldn’t help but smile. Your conversations with her never really seemed to stop or start; instead, it was more like you’d been having one long conversation with her from the day you’d met.

“Nothing,” you told her, idly beginning to pace your room. “What’s up?”

“Figured I’d come see you if you were free. That okay?”

You bit your lip for a moment, suddenly feeling very flustered. “I-I, uh… Yeah! Yeah, that’s fine. That sounds great, actually.” It was obvious even to you that you were stumbling over your words, and you cringed slightly at how weird you sounded.

Shoko only chuckled quietly at you. “Careful,” she teased, “if you act too excited you might give me a bigger head than Gojo.”

That made you laugh. “As if that could ever happen.”

“You’re right,” she agreed, her words airy with laughter. “Does that udon place down the street from you still do carryout?”

“Yeah, as far as I know.”

“Cool. I’ll cover dinner if you’ll cover drinks.”

“Wine or sake?”

“Surprise me.”

She hung up without saying goodbye, though that wasn’t unusual. You glanced at the time, and though you knew you had a few hours before she’d be there even if she’d already been on the train when she called you, you already felt like you were running out of time for all the things you needed to do before she arrived. 

After a few moments of internal scrambling, you figured out a rough order of operations: popping into the liquor store to grab Shoko’s favorite wine, then a mad dash to make your apartment presentable, then finally a shower before she arrived. The trip to the store didn’t take very long, and you tucked the two bottles of wine you’d grabbed into your freezer to chill while you cleaned and got ready. 

Thankfully, your apartment wasn’t as much of a mess as you’d convinced yourself it was, so cleaning it didn’t take long at all, and you were able to hop in the shower within an hour of getting off the phone. The last thing you wanted was to smell when you saw your friend for the first time in over a year, and you knew you were sweating from nerves. It was ridiculous to be nervous about seeing her, you knew that, but this time felt different, somehow. Maybe it was because you’d been wondering earlier that day if you really did have feelings for Shoko.

Whatever the reason was, you were desperate not to smell like nervous sweats.

After thoroughly scrubbing yourself with your best-smelling body wash, you hurried to your bedroom to get dressed. Overwhelmed with options, you threw on some underwear and paced your room, feeling like a nervous teenager.

It’s just Shoko, you reminded yourself, sitting down on your rug. She’s not gonna care what you’re wearing as long as you’re wearing something. A soft groan escaped you then, and you flopped onto your back and covered your face with your hands.

Your pity party came to an abrupt end when your phone chimed. Pushing yourself up just enough to grab it from your bed, you saw a text from Shoko, letting you know her train was about to arrive, and that she’d be at your apartment in half an hour at most. 

The message made your heart flip in your chest. How long have I been laying here? How long was I in the shower?? Instead of letting her in on your internal panic, you shot back a simple “see you soon!” text, then leapt up from the floor, scrambling to find clothes that were comfortable but also somewhat presentable. Eventually you settled on a pair of pajama shorts and a loose t-shirt, then stepped into the bathroom to make sure your hair wasn’t a complete disaster.

You’d only just finished putting your hair out of your face in a way you were satisfied with when you heard a knock at the door. Heart skipping a beat again, you took a deep breath to steady yourself, then hurried to answer the door.

Shoko stood there with a small smile on her face, an overnight bag slung over her shoulder and the takeout in her other hand. “Long time no see,” she greeted, stepping inside as you moved aside. “Is it cool if I go change real quick?” She set the takeout on your table as she spoke, then turned to you and arched a brow slightly.

“Yeah, of course. I’ll get the drinks out and everything while you do that.”

Her smile widened the tiniest bit. “Perfect.”

She made her way to your bathroom with her overnight bag, and as she shut the door, you pulled a bottle of wine from the freezer and two glasses from the cabinet. They weren’t fancy, and they didn’t match, but you told yourself it was better than drinking out of plastic cups.

Once the glasses were out, you opened the bottle, pouring a fair amount into each of the glasses, though one had a bit more; Shoko’s tolerance had always been a bit higher than yours, so you were sure she would want to drink more than you did to make sure you had the same buzz. 

You had just started pulling the takeout from the bag when Shoko came back from getting changed, and your heart fluttered a bit when you saw her. She wore a tank top with a big picture of Gudetama in the middle and a pair of yellow shorts to match. It reminded you of the pajama sets Gojo had gotten everyone when you were in high school – Cinnamoroll for himself, Kuromi for Geto, Badtz-Maru for Shoko, and Keroppi for you – though you knew it wasn’t the same set from back then, since she wore a different character now. 

“You’re staring,” Shoko teased, bumping you lightly with her hip once she was standing beside you. “Do I really look that hot in my pajamas?”

Though her words left you feeling more than a little flustered, you just scoffed at her and rolled your eyes. “They remind me of the ones Gojo got us when we were in school, that’s all.” 

“He got me these ones, too,” she said with a small chuckle. “They were for my birthday last year.”

“Why’d he pick a different character than the one he picked when we were in school?”

“He said the penguin reminds him too much of Megumi now,” she said with a shrug, and you both laughed. You could see the resemblance too, though; both had the spiky black hair and the deadpan expression, and imagining Gojo telling the boy that nearly made you die laughing all over again, but you kept it to yourself for the moment.

Just as comfortable in your home as she was in her own, Shoko opened a few of your kitchen drawers, grabbing soup spoons and chopsticks for the both of you. “We should watch a movie while we eat.”

“What do you want to watch?” you asked curiously, carrying the takeout to your living room and setting it on your coffee table.

“What was that American movie we watched all the time in school?” she asked, following after you with the utensils and wine. “It was about those high school girls who wore pink.”

“Mean Girls?”

“Yeah, Mean Girls!” she grinned, setting everything down before sitting on the floor, gesturing for you to join her. “God, I don’t know how we never got sick of that movie.”

“Because Regina George was hot,” you replied without thinking about it.

The words drew a laugh from her, and she bumped you with her shoulder. “Glad I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

A small, relieved chuckle left you at her teasing words. “I’m sure we could stream it somewhere if you wanna watch it again.”

“Please, I could use a good throwback.” She took a long sip from her glass, then opened the lid on her bowl of udon.

With a nod, you grabbed the remote for your TV, sipping from your own glass as you flipped through various streaming services looking for the movie. Eventually you found it, not even caring that you had to pay to watch it; it was worth it to have a night in with your friend, especially when you knew it would make her laugh and smile more.

Once the movie had started, you finally got into your own food. You smiled when you saw that Shoko had gotten your order perfect without even asking. She’d memorized it in school, but it made butterflies flutter in your stomach a bit to know that she’d never forgotten it, even after so much time apart.

For the most part it was quiet as you watched the movie, only the soft sounds of occasional slurping and the faint clinging noise of glass on glass when Shoko topped up your wine glasses. Every once in a while, one of you would make a small comment or joke, or you’d quote the lines along with the movie before bursting out laughing. It felt like being back in school, huddled in one of your dorm beds, sharing drinks from a flask shoko had managed to sneak on campus.

At some point, you set your glass down after finishing the contents. It had been your second glass – or maybe your second? Shoko had topped you up enough times that it was hard to be sure – and was enough to have everything feeling a little fuzzy around the edges. Leaning back against your couch, you turned your head towards the other woman, smiling to yourself as you watched her, rather than the movie.

She’s so pretty… even prettier than when we were in school. When did she get so pretty?

“I’ve always been this pretty.”

Shoko’s words startled you a bit, and though it took your brain a moment to catch up, you realized she was responding to your thoughts. Only… you must have said all of them out loud, rather than just in your head. The realization had your face burning with embarrassment. “Oh my god, Sho, I—”

“It’s okay,” she assured you with a smile. She settled into the same position as you, turning to face you a bit. “‘M glad you think I’m pretty. Always thought you were cute, too.”

The whole world came to a screeching halt around you. “…You did?”

“Yeah,” she said easily, brushing her hair out of her eyes. Her words weren’t slurred, but you could see that her movements were loosened a bit from the wine. “Thought you knew that.”

“No, I… How would I have known? You never said anything.”

“I saw the way you looked at me. Thought you’d only look at me like that if you knew.”

You blinked, confused, and more than a little worried. “…How did I look at you?”

Her expression softened at that. “The same way I caught Gojo staring at Geto when Geto wasn’t looking, before they got together.”

The words sent a mixture of shame and hope swirling around your tipsy mind, and before you could really contemplate your next move, you heard yourself asking, “Can I kiss you?”

Shoko’s cheeks flushed a bit, and she nodded, shifting closer and wrapping her arm around your waist. Your eyes widened as she came into your space, and when you felt her breath on your lips, your own finally started cooperating with you again.

“I’ve never kissed a girl before.”

“I’ll teach you,” was Shoko’s only response before she kissed you. She was surprisingly warm, and it only took a second for your eyes to slip shut and for you to melt into her, returning her kiss eagerly. As she kissed you, everything else in the world faded away, the only sensation you were aware of was the feeling of her lips on yours.

It didn’t take long for her to press in closer, tilting her head a bit to deepen the kiss. Stumbling and a bit inexperienced, you did your best to move with her. She held you closer with the arm around your waist, her free hand coming up to cup your cheek, guiding your movements the tiniest bit. Time slowed and stretched out, the moment between you endless in the best possible way. You weren’t entirely sure when her tongue came into the mix, but next thing you knew you were parting your lips to let her in. 

A small sound escaped you as she deepened the kiss further, turning slightly to press you both into the couch a bit more. Still struggling to keep up because of the alcohol in your bloodstream, the movement threw you off a bit. Reluctantly, you pulled away for a moment, needing desperately to catch your breath. 

Shoko smiled down at you as you panted, faces only inches apart. “How was that for your first kiss with a girl?”

“I really wanna kiss you again.”

She laughed softly. “Is kissing all you wanna do tonight?” She arched a brow curiously, her thumb tracing your bottom lip lightly. 

“I don’t know how to do anything else,” you breathed, “but I'd love to learn.”

“Looks like I've got some teaching to do, then. Lesson one: kissing with tongue.” She leaned in again, capturing your lips in another passionate kiss. You were more than willing to let her take the lead, though; there was no one else you’d rather have teach you everything, anyways.

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[maxlarens]

all the daniel stuff has really put a damper on my weekend and it seems like VCARB don’t even know and even if they don’t drop him it’s s horrible and cruel.

i had a pit in my stomach earlier cause i was so stressed about it i had to stop going on social media :/

he’s been doing a good job! vcarb just don’t know what they’re doing

i’ll be so sad if true cause daniel is the reason i got into f1 in the first place and last time there was a chance he was back but idk if it can happen again

(sorry for ranting in your inbox i just saw you posted about it and i’ve been so stressed lol)

no ur absolutely fine, im more than happy to discuss this kind of stuff! i may start making more posts about drivers and f1 politics and things tbh.

but yeah anyway. anyone’s personal feelings about daniel and his performance and whether or not he deserves his seat etc etc aside, it’s just appalling how redbull are handling this. they have clearly not made a concrete decision yet (ie: pen to paper. i think people know), but have been stringing daniel along on the hope that he may not get replaced. i just think its disgusting with how truly terrible vcarb has been re: his tyre strategy. this race was a mess? i don’t understand why they would pit him first like that so early on. it makes genuinely no sense to me. and it puts him in this awful position wheres he’s got to fight through the midfield every time he races.

i don’t get it. and i think its absurd to judge him off his race position when they shaft him every time.

and just yeah. throwing him to media wolves when he has been fucking loyal to redbull. sure he left. but they treat him like dirt under their shoe. for what reason??? especially when he came back on the hope of getting into the redbull seat. and fine if thats not an option okay. why has he seemed to think that he’s been safe and/or had hope up until the end of this race? where literally everyone is acting like its foregone conclusion that he’s gone and he has to grapple with that in front of everyone. without support from vcarb or rb.

i can see vcarb not knowing. i think max knows. i think h*rner knows. why doesn’t daniel know? why wasn’t he given an appropriate send off?? why haven’t they announced the swap with a race or two to go so he can be prepared for it, have people celebrate his career.

i love logan. but that sudden swap makes sense to me. he was causing damages that a team like williams can’t absorb. daniel is not crashing. i understand its the pressure of the wdc. but to me it looks like the reason daniel is not getting into points is because vcarb screw up his tyre strategy. perez is costing them money, perez is costing them points. i don’t think theres a big conspiracy to keep him in his seat, but i AM confused as to why daniel is unfairly bearing the brunt of that? thats what it feels like to me.

i will be very interested to see what they announce/how they announce it for daniel. and i will also be interested to see how they handle liam and his tyre strategy if thats what happens. because yeah whats the value in this swap is what it comes down to imo.

overall these mid season swaps are not a pattern that i particularly enjoy seeing. its not out of character for redbull of course, but it just reeks of disrespect for their drivers. especially someone like daniel who loves that team, clearly deeply loves driving and has been in the sport for a significant amount of time. a mid season swap is not unacceptable to me, but the lack of care in handling it is.

[ladykailitha]

Of Butterflies and Backstrokes Part 5

Hey guys!! Things are finally starting to move in this story, I'm not sure how much longer we have, but I just started Eddie's training, so whooo!!

In this we have Eddie being dumb, fixing it, and then apologizing properly! He can be taught!

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

~

Robin smacked the back of Steve’s head as she walked past. “No staring. It’s creepy!”

Steve ducked his head and blushed. He had been caught staring so many times today that, yeah, it was starting to be a little creepy now. But in all fairness, Eddie was staring right back. A thought that sent Steve spiraling. But like in a ‘oh shit, that’s hot!’ way.

Which he really, really needed to tamp down on, because yes, the guy was eighteen, but like barely.

“You should just go talk to him,” Robin encouraged gently. Because for all her teasing, she knew how important it was for Steve to talk to him about his swimming.

Steve nodded. He had time until his next class. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. He walked up to Eddie and flashed him his patented Harrington smile.

“Hey, you’re Eddie, right?” he said warmly. “Robin tells me you like to swim on Saturdays, yeah?”

Eddie blinked at him for a moment. “Um, hi. Yup! That’s me. My mom used to call me her little fish.”

Steve grinned. He liked that. He wished his mom had taken that kind of interest in his swimming. “I saw you swimming when I was helping Joyce set up for the party last weekend and you were really good! Did you compete in high school?”

“Nah,” Eddie said with a shrug. “I wanted to, but I couldn’t get someone to take me that early in the morning so I stopped. Competed in middle school, though. I was decent enough, I guess.”

Steve was shocked. To have to stop just when you hit your stride must have been quite the blow.

“That fucking sucks, man,” Steve said with a grimace. He scratched his cheek thoughtfully. “You ever think about competing on the national level? Because I really think you could.”

Eddie rolled his eyes with a scoff. “Yeah, right. I couldn’t afford the coach let alone all the traveling I’d have to do to make it to meets. I’m going to have to pass on that one.”

“There’s actually a program here for people who can’t afford it,” Steve hedged. “Robin used it when we both first started out.” He was fighting back the urge to start biting his nails.

Eddie’s eyes narrowed and Steve gulped. “Is that so?” He nodded. “Well ain’t that nice. Still not interested.”

Steve wished the floor would swallow him or that pool would suddenly flood or that he’d get a brain aneurysm and die, right there on the spot. He pursed his lips together and nodded with his whole upper body. He turned on his heel and walked away.

When he was about to the other side of the pool, Eddie called out, “Who would even want to coach me?”

Steve turned around with a grin. “I would.” Then he spun on his toes and walked out of the pool area to the cool fresh air of the hallway.

~

Once Steve was out of the pool area and into the hall, he had a full on panic attack. He sank to the floor and held his head in his hands. Why the fuck did he offer to coach Eddie? He didn’t know Eddie, he was afraid of deep water, and he hadn’t even talked to Joyce yet.

It was a real mess now, but the words just forced themselves from him and now he wants to gobble them back up. Well maybe they’ll just avoid each other from now on. They had done a pretty good job up to this point, they could just continue as normal and forget all about how Steve made a fool of his himself.

Then slowly he began to come out of his panic attack to the sounds of soft words and the gentle rubbing of his wrists with their thumbs. His breathing evened, his heart rate dropped, and his eyes fluttered open.

The eyes looking back at him were warm chocolate brown and deeply concerned. The angel in front of him said something but Steve couldn’t hear. Then all at once all the sounds came rushing back into the hall. And suddenly there were more people in the hall with him than he thought. In addition to Eddie who was the one holding his hands, Robin and Joyce were there too.

“I think he’s coming around,” Joyce said gently as Steve’s eyes focused on her. “Hey, there, Steve. Are you okay now?”

Steve gulped, nodding. He was feeling better. In fact he didn’t have a pounding headache like he usually had after an episode. “My head doesn’t hurt.” He looked over at Robin in confusion. “Why doesn’t it hurt?”

“Uh...” Eddie said hesitantly. “I might have something to do with that. I used some calming techniques my friend’s dad showed me.”

Steve turned to him, mouth open in awe. “Oh. Thank you.” He didn’t know what to do with that because technically it was his conversation with Eddie which caused the panic attack in the first place. But maybe that’s why Eddie helped, because he knew he’d caused it. That was a nice thought, Steve supposed.

Eddie smiled and stood back up. “I have to get back to work. You take care of yourself, okay Stevie?”

Steve nodded and Eddie slapped his hands on his knees, standing up. He muttered goodbye to the two women and then wandered off.

As Robin helped him to his feet, she said dryly, “I take it the conversation didn’t go well.”

He barked out a laugh causing Joyce to look back and forth between them in confusion. So Steve put her out of her misery. “I was telling him that he was good enough of a swimmer to compete, but I think he thought I was mocking him or something, because he kinda blew me off.”

He rubbed his temples for a moment before adding. “I even offered to coach him.”

Joyce blinked at him for a moment. “You offered what now?”

When he looked up both Robin and Joyce were looking at him with large, wide eyes and slack jaws. “Yeah, that’s kinda what started the panic attack if I’m honest. I know I am like the worst person for the job with all my...” he waved his hand helplessly. Then he snapped his fingers. “Issues. Anyway. It was nice of him to help me out after all that.”

“Dingus...” Robin said with a heavy sigh. “What were you going to do if he accepted?”

Steve grimaced and ducked his head. “Have you help me?” He looked up at her through his eyelashes and batted them, pouting.

Robin pushed his shoulder. “Disgusting!” Then she gave him a huge hug and kiss on the cheek. “Of course I’d help you.”

“I think it would be perfect,” Joyce blurted out. They both turned and looked at her. “This place could use the publicity if I’m honest. There are other pools in Indy that have been bringing in the bigger names. So if Eddie accepts and starts training under five time gold medal champion Steve Harrington...”

“Then this place could start bringing in the big names again,” Robin said. “Not to say that Steve isn’t a big name of his own,” she added when Steve’s face twisted into something like offense.

Steve shook his head. “Which isn’t going to happen because he said no.”

Joyce and Robin sighed. There was that. But they knew they shouldn’t go trying to pressure Eddie into it. Plus, despite how good he was there was no telling he’d be on par or better than his younger peers.

Steve and Robin left Joyce standing there, pondering her dilemma.

~

Eddie chewed on the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. He was grateful that the technique worked, but he was pretty sure that he had caused the attack in the first place. Which was... not good. He could have handled the offer to have him trained to compete a little better. Steve was paying him a compliment and he threw it back in his face as charity. He didn’t need charity not from no one.

There was no two ways about it. He was going to have to apologize. Which was never his strong suit. But he’d do it. He just wasn’t going to take Steve up on his offer. He would see about staying on here as paid help because then he could still have access to his beloved pool.

It took him a couple of days but finally their schedules matched up and Eddie was on his break and Steve had time between classes again.

“Um, hey,” he said timidly, sauntering up to Steve. “I just wanted to apologize for being a bitch on Monday. I was rude and that wasn’t fair.”

A slow smile spread out over Steve’s face. “Thanks. I did just spring it on you without an preamble, so...”

Eddie laughed. “Yeah, there was that. But it still was mean and I should have been nicer.”

“Well, you made up for it by helping me with the panic attack afterwards,” Steve said. “I’d say that makes us even.”

“A panic attack I’m pretty sure I caused.”

Steve winced, confirming the worst of Eddie’s suspicion on that one. Steve rubbed his chin thoughtful. “I’ll tell you what, if you teach Robin and Joyce that technique you used to pull me out of my panic attack, then we’ll be even.”

Eddie smiled that sweet closed mouth smile that melted Steve’s insides when he saw it. “Sure thing I can do that. On Saturday before the crew swim. I’ll teach them both.”

Steve’s shoulders relaxed. That was going to be so useful, having multiple people know how to get him out of an attack would make it easier for him to go out in public. Something that was very limited after the incident in Beijing.

“That’ll be great, thanks.”

“You should come too,” Eddie suggested. “I know you don’t like being in the pool, but you could come hang out and have a little fun for a change.”

Steve gasped dramatically. “What do you mean? Isn’t teaching beginning classes meant to be fun?”

Eddie’s eyes went wide. It took him two seconds long than it should have to realize that Steve was joking him. He pushed Steve’s shoulder playfully.

“At least with us,” he teased, “we won’t try and drown you, deliberately or otherwise.”

Steve tilted his head to side and looked at him in confusion. Where the urge to bite those cheeks came from, Eddie will deny knowing until his last breath. “I saw that snotty teenaged little shit try to pull you into the pool. That’s fucked up at hell.”

Steve’s smile was blinding. “Fair enough. I like getting to sleep in on Saturdays, but we’ll see.”

Eddie grinned back. “I never used to get up this early for school. But ya know, keeping out of jail is pretty inspiring.”

“I could see that, yeah,” Steve agreed. “It was the one downside being on the swim team in high school.”

“You went to a regular high school?” Eddie asked tilting his head. “I would have thought after getting fifth in your first Olympics you would have gone to a special school for kids that are huge in sports or whatever?”

Steve blinked at him for a moment. “Do they have schools like that?”

“They do for like actors and shit,” Eddie said with a shrug. “So I assumed they would have something similar for the jocks.”

Steve laughed. “Yeah, no. That would have been preferable.” He shook his head. “But no, it’s much more cut throat that than that. Pretty much, schools try and poach students from other schools to make the best sports teams.”

Eddie’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait, really?”

“Yep!” Steve said beaming at him. He looked up at the clock on the wall. “Look, my next class is about to start. So I really should get going. Especially with Joyce’s son in the class, I don’t want to be late.”

“Why is he starting so late?” Eddie asked. “I would have thought with Joyce being in charge of the rec center and his older brother literally being a trainer too, he would have been in the tots class.”

Steve nodded. “She didn’t get the manager position until five years ago and Will was afraid of the water by then. So they just waited until he was ready.”

“So he’s ready now?” Eddie asked curiously.

“Mhmm,” Steve hummed. “All his friends are going to be in the class with him, so he ready to hop in the pool with them.”

Eddie smiled. “That’s cute.”

That surprised a huff of laughter out him. “Sure is. But don’t tell him that. He’s at the age where cute is akin to baby and well...”

“He’s too old for that?” Eddie finished.

“Yeah.”

“I feel that,” Eddie agreed. “Have fun in your class, and remember you can always make it look like an accident.”

Steve laughed out right at that and waved goodbye. Eddie watched him go feeling better about the whole panic attack thing. Now all he had to do was make sure it never happened again. Or at least not by his own big fucking mouth.

~

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[thebirdsareafterme]

People need to be so fucking for real right now. Please think critically about the whole situation and use your brain for once. Why would VCARB replace Daniel before the season ends with Liam? What value would Liam bring to the team that Daniel cannot? If it’s points, then let’s look at the facts. Daniel has finished ahead of Yuki at the last 4 races. His race pace and tire management is consistently equal to or better than Yuki. With only 6 races left on the calendar, would it make sense to replace him if there’s no large disparity in performance? It would be understandable if Yuki had been beating Daniel at every race and qualifying, but that is not the case. There is no guarantee that Liam would perform better in that car, and VCARB would be taking a big risk in public image by doing a driver swap so late in the season.

Furthermore, COTA would certainly not be the place to do it. Can one of you Liam glazers tell me who his personal sponsors are? No? Well, a team that has Visa (a US based company) as a title sponsors would certainly not oust their driver who has Visa a personal sponsor right before one of the most marketable races of the year, and if they do, it would cost them a lot of money.

The idiots who are saying premature and unnecessary goodbyes to Daniel, even after all the people who are primary sources have confirmed that he will finish the season have spoken, are just asking for attention or are genuinely lacking media comprehension. Please stop posting nonsense when the decision has clearly not been made yet. Do you really think that a single qualifying position in Singapore will determine the outcome of the team’s decision? Obviously there are greater influences at play that the teams need to consider when making a switch during a season. If you think it’s as simple as looking at race results and qualifying results, then you are wrong on so many levels. Yes, performance is key in the sport, but so is money, sponsorships, marketing, publicity, developmental feedback and so much more. Nothing’s been confirmed yet, so stop acting like it has been. Yeah, keep listening to the pundits and commentators who are literally paid to stir shit up, instead of the people who run the teams and have the power to make those decisions. You look real stupid right now.

[bicheetopuff]

You ever think about what was going through izuku's head whenever he saw katsuki warming upto the other students in 1-A (particularly Kirishima), respecting their abilities, and accepting them as friends (before his own relationship with katsuki started to develop)

I know obviously he would have been happy that katsuki is making true friends, but a part of him must have felt so insecure about himself and wondered why katsuki didn't want to accept him.

I also feel like the moment during the final exams when katsuki said he'd rather lose than work with deku must have hurt izuku atleast a little because he saw katsuki working with others during the cavalry battle or during the usj incident. He even acknowledges that kirishima has become katsuki's friend.

I’m sure he’s glad that Katsuki is making friends, but at the same time I think a part of him is kind of feeling left out about it, considering how he doesn’t acknowledge it until it’s absolutely dire while still making it clear that he noticed. I feel like it could a similar case as Ochako’s, feeling silently jealous and hating the feeling because he wants to be happy for him. I feel like that’s somewhat confirmed by this interview that he did in 2019 when Heroes Rising was about to come out.

(This translation is different than the one I linked, but are essentially saying the same thing)

And considering the way he was drawn in the panel where he made this choice, I’d say yeah, he definitely feels some sort of insecurity.

He takes both Katsuki and Uraraka’s words as “he doesn’t want to be rescued by *me* specifically” which is sad because I feel like it’s clear that that isn’t what Katsuki intended when he said what he said. Like, yes he probably wouldn’t have liked to have been Izuku to reach out to him again, but I doubt he’d let his petty grudge let him stay in All Mights way in a situation like that. I think he wanted him to not follow him because Deku was already in a fucked up state and would’ve been made a liability fairly quickly, especially considering how Deku had already been targeted by the league of villains specifically before this. Katsuki is brash, but he’s not dumb.

In the case of their final exam, I actually don’t think Izuku was hurt because Katsuki would rather work with other people, I think he was more hurt that Katsuki was willing to lose at all, under any circumstance, because that’s just not the Katsuki he knows.

(Some of these panels are edited together, so if they don’t feel like they’re in order, that’s why)

Deku has always had this unfaltering faith in Katsuki. Faith that ran so deep, that Katsuki saying something otherwise, legitimately pissed him off enough to punch him in the face and lecture him. He doesn’t want to hear it because he doesn’t want to believe it. It has nothing to do with how Katsuki feels about him but more how Katsuki maintains his own values, so that he can continue to look up to him without regret. You know why?

All Might is the worlds Symbol of Peace, but…

Katsuki is Izuku’s Symbol of Victory.

And I think Katsuki started to treat his urge to win differently, especially after his and Izuku’s final exam. It seemed like he was more willing to act like Izuku when he needed to, just like Izuku acted like him when he knew it’d benefit him. Willing to work as a team with people and sacrifice himself a little more. Because he literally can’t let Izuku one up him in anything. Hence why he died for no other reason than to prove a point. That he’s willing to do anything to win even if that means breaking himself.

(There’s like three panels I want to put here but I can’t cuz I’m running out of space and want to keep space for the last point I wanna make.

Basically, just reread the end of DvK2, Class A v Class b joint training arc, and the PLW arc. If you care that much lmao.)

It almost seemed like that even though he wanted to keep winning to Deku, he didn’t really want Deku to lose him at the same time. Which is why we never saw them fight again. Neither of them wanted to win or lose, which was why their training was always basically just Deku letting Katsuki get the best of him, because let’s be real… Izuku could’ve beaten Katsuki physically, easily. But he can’t stand seeing Katsuki lose, so he never let him. And I’m pretty sure Katsuki was aware of that, considering how his internal monologue in the PLW arc was saying.

Anyways…

Katsuki has to win, but also, Deku can’t lose. That’s basically the conclusion they came to terms with silently.

Literally the definition of “Person A fell first, but Person B fell harder,” but y’know… they’re just being silly. What they want for themselves are contradictory from what they want for each other, and it makes it so that they simultaneously want both of them to be the best version of themselves.

It also kind of mind fucks you when you think about how Katsuki strived to be the hero that Deku already saw him as, while Deku did the same thing, but both were kind of in the opposite direction/a direction neither of them really wanted the other to take… Katsuki believed that Deku’s urge to save was his biggest strength while simultaneously being the reason for his lack in success because he stopped taking himself into account if it meant saving someone, which is true, while Deku believed Katsuki’s biggest strength was his urge to win while also simultaneously believing that it was the reason for Katsuki’s downfall in some cases because it inflated his ego too much and he’d be willing to do anything to win just to protect that ego… which is also true… ugh they hurt my brain

This post ended up being a lot longer than I intended, oops

[redditreceipts]

hey! I saw ur post asking about peaking stories. im not sure, but im guessing peaking means when you realised the whole trans thing was bs? if so then i have a story for that !!

so i used to be a huuuuuge trans supporter, at one point thought i may be a trans man (though i thankfully didn’t come out or change name or do any sort of transition).

then i started to realise the flaws in the logic and distanced myself from the whole thing. but i decided that i would take the approach of “if it’s just people being themselves and it doesn’t affect me, i should be fine with it.”

then one day a man on public transport cyber flashed me and my friends by airdropping penis pictures to us. i knew who it was because there was only one guy on the carriage actually on his phone. he was holding two separate iphones (suspicious as hell) and looking around all sneaky. I can’t fully explain it, but if you were there you’d just KNOW it was him. so i took a picture of him. I decided to report this incident and send in the picture of the guy, hoping something would get done.

when i was spoken to on the phone by the transport people, the staff member basically gaslit me into not putting the report through, told me there was nothing they could do, made me feel like i was overreacting. literally quote he asked “do you feel like a victim?”. sadly i was too young and shy to call him out. i was far too polite about the whole thing.

Anyway, in this interaction he referred to the man doing the airdropping as “he or she”. I remember thinking ‘she???? SHE????’ and i realised that in this world of self identity, there’s nothing to say that he couldn’t have identified as a woman. And I thought to myself, in that scenario, am I meant to think of that as a female-on-female sex crime? would that be how it’s counted in crime statistics? and suddenly everything came crashing down for me. like, wow, trans ideology actually does affect me and isn’t just about self expression and people being themselves. it has serious ramifications on people’s, specifically women’s, lives.

So yeah, that’s when i ‘peaked’ if im using that word correctly lol

yes, you are using that word correctly and WHAT THE FUCK?!?! Why are people like this??? (I mean we know why men are like this, but the staff members???)

I mean I'm glad that you're here now, and I also hope that this experience didn't have any lasting impacts on you because wtf

[catboygirljoker]

Free Pass Ask to talk about In Depth Luxu Analysis in case of no one sending in the right question to go off with

ok! here's my ~1600 word post about That One Scene At The End Of Dark Road. grins smilingly.

You know the one. Right after we see Baldr easily kill most of the cast of the game, right after a boss fight against him, right after we witness firsthand how powerful he is, we see a flashback of him confronting Bragi with the intention of killing him. And Bragi just...casually flicks his keyblade out of his hand. Bragi fully knows what Baldr's actual deal is, knows that Baldr has killed people, and is completely unthreatened by him. For good reason, it would seem!

So, Luxu's a badass, obviously. He made the big villain of the game into a jobber. And I think that's certainly one of the purposes of the scene. Luxu is about to be one of the primary antagonists of the franchise, and this sets him up to be very powerful!

...But I don't think it's the purpose of the scene. That is, I don't think that's the entire story. Because there are a couple questions left by this scene.

What happens at the end, there, when Baldr runs up to him and attacks him? And why doesn't Bragi reappear until long after Baldr is already dead?

I think we can piece together at least part of an answer.

In the earlier montage where Baldr says he killed everyone, we see a brief scene of Baldr slamming Bragi down onto an island in the Underworld. I assumed that this was a visual representation of Baldr lying and claiming he had killed Bragi when he didn't. But Bragi is the only character in this montage who we don't see die on screen. I believe we're meant to understand that this scene actually happened, and that this is what immediately follows the Luxu reveal cutscene.

Which seems contradictory with Bragi being such a badass, right? Was Bragi disarming Baldr a fluke? The thing is, when Baldr attacks Bragi at the end of the cutscene, Bragi is completely off guard and unprepared for the attack. We already know that Luxu can misjudge people/situations, to his own downfall.

Consider in Dream Drop when he seems to fully believe Sora will join the Real Organization XIII, or Days when he's unthreatened by Xion right up until she knocks him out and leaves, or Re:Mind when he finds out Luxord decided not to simply obey orders without question this time. So him being defeated by Baldr doesn't necessarily mean Luxu is weak if Bragi was defeated due to hubris.

(As a side note—I do think that this would be part of the reason the cutscene cuts off when it does. Luxu still needs to be a threatening villain in the upcoming games, so the audience has to have a strong impression of how threatening he is. We get the full cutscene of Luxu being cool and powerful, and only little glimpses of the fate he meets directly afterwards.)

I think what happened is Bragi sauntered off all cocky and smug, not believing Baldr would attack him. Then Baldr attacked him, and Bragi, realizing what a threat Baldr actually was, pulled a trick we've already seen Luxu pull before. (Seemingly so well that Hades himself is fooled.)

Baldr believed he killed Bragi and saw no reason to be like, "yeah, and also Bragi said some weird mysterious stuff I didn't understand, but the point is that he's dead, too."

Now for the question of why Bragi didn't reappear until long after everybody else was dead. If he's such a badass, surely he could have helped stop Baldr and saved lives. Why didn't he?

From here, I can really only speculate. In my view, there are a few options:

Luxu didn't care about his classmates and left them to die as soon as he realized what a threat Baldr was.

This is...possible, but not very interesting to me. It's the option that results in the least emotional complexity. I think it's most interesting to read Bragi in Dark Road as the second-to-last step on Luxu's downward spiral, rather than just another point on a straight line—that his personality as we see him in the current-day games is informed by the trauma of him losing all of his friends to an opponent he could have stopped but didn't.

Also, maybe this isn't very convincing as evidence, but in his appearance in the graveyard, Bragi's attitude isn't smug or mischievous, it's somber, possibly remorseful. If we were meant to understand that he didn't care about his dead classmates, we'd get, like, a smug grin or something.

So the other options assume that he did care about his classmates:

Luxu sincerely cared about his classmates, and wanted to help them, but was injured so badly in his fight with Baldr that he was physically unable to come to their rescue.

Like I said, I think this is more probable and more compelling than if he didn't care at all. And there's potential tragedy in him trying his best and still failing, or having the best intentions and being unable to follow through on them, for sure. However, in general, I'm more interested in characters failing because of the mistakes they make and the flaws they have, rather than failing due to chance or unavoidable circumstance.

Also...we already know Luxu is the kind of person to stand by and allow terrible things to happen without doing anything to stop it. We know he has been specifically instructed to do so. I think it's more interesting and more consistent with his character if he could have saved his classmates and stopped Baldr, but didn't.

This last option, then, is my favorite, and in my own writing would be the interpretation I go with:

Luxu sincerely cared about his classmates and had the power and strength to protect them from Baldr but, through his own decisions or inaction, still let them die.

Luxu's classmates were all children or barely adults, younger than him by perhaps centuries. But he hung out with them. Actively participated in conversation with them, asked them questions, joked around with them. He seemed to like them. They were his friends. And he let them die.

There's variety in the potential specifics. Maybe Bragi fled and hid until everything was over just to save himself. Maybe he grit his teeth and made the conscious decision to do so; maybe he was motivated by pure animal fear for his life. In either case, he still had a role to carry out, after all. A role that, as I mentioned, has already required him to stand by and allow people to die. If he could swallow the keyblade war, he could swallow the events of Dark Road.

Maybe he believed he had an excuse to run away. In his confrontation with Baldr, Bragi says Xehanort is onto Baldr, and seems to believe Xehanort would be able to stop him. This is before Baldr attacks and seemingly defeats Bragi, but maybe even after that, Bragi still really believed in Xehanort, and believed he could let Xehanort do the rest—misjudging Xehanort's ability to stop Baldr before any more death could occur.

If you wanna get really angsty with it, maybe Bragi did try to save his friends. Maybe he rushed to the scene of Baldr's next murder and saw children with keyblades fighting for their lives, heard the clash of metal on metal, and was suddenly immobilized by the voice of his Master telling him to watch. And by the time he was able to overcome this trauma response, it was already too late.

Whatever the specifics would be of why he left his friends to die, I'm aware that this is the option that casts him in the worst light. If he didn't help them because he didn't care about them, then he's just a coldhearted villain and we can't expect much better from him. If he cared about his classmates and tried his best to help them but failed, then he's a sweet goodboy and uncomplicatedly sympathetic. If he, for any reason, decided not to try to save his friends from a powerful entity that has killed and will kill again, then he's pathetic, morally repugnant, a weakling or a fool or a coward or a combination of the three.

But I like when characters are flawed and stories are messy! I like that, even before you get to the events of Dark Road, Luxu is a messy, complicated, but still sympathetic character! Many of my other favorite Kingdom Hearts characters are messy and complicated in ways that I feel get frustratingly flattened by the fandom. I'm Team Messy and Complicated forever. I hope the games keep making Luxu even worse and more sympathetic and more tragic.

anyway thats my post i hope you liked it haha whee! i once again had to keep deleting detours and tangents about like. redemption arc flags, riku/terra/luxu parallels, luxu/MoM and luxu/xehanort parallels. but the were just that, tangents, and quite a lot of them were more headcanony/watsonian/speculative than i usually like to go with my Analysis. in any case thankyou for coming with me on this journey

[risingsoleil]

The teenager drabble of the AU collection is one of my favorites. Could you let us know how was it when Lin finally agreed to be Tenzin's girlfriend? I'm in serious need of some fluff here

Hi anon~ sorry for taking so long to answer. It took me a while to figure out what might have happened when Tenzin asked Lin out.

Nothing went according to his plan.

A sudden storm swept across the city, ruining Tenzin's picnic date for Lin. He thought he was about to have a heart attack asking if she wanted to go out to dinner instead. By some miracle, she agreed. Maybe she said yes because he asked over the phone and she had no idea he was sweating bullets.

As soon as they hung up, Tenzin practically screamed into his pillow with joy. Aang knocked and opened the door. "Are you okay?"

Tenzin coughed and gave a thumbs up. "Yes, I'm okay."

Aang gave him a look, a smile growing at the flushed pink on his son's face. "Is it something related to a girl?"

"No, Dad. Just...it's nothing."

"O-okay," Aang replied sing-songy, closing the door. "I hope you have a betrothal necklace ready for Lin."

"DAD!!" He doesn't wallow in the embarrassment for too long. Peering out the window, the rains are insistent and neverending. If he's going to go on a date, he better get everything in order.

He manages to get a dinner reservation at a casual restaurant. He's been there before with Lin and his siblings last year, and they all enjoyed it.

He knows that the flower shops should still be open, if he hurries. One bouquet of panda-lillies, and yellow roses. Lin loves yellow roses because they remind her of sunshine and spring.

Well, as it turns out, most of the flower shops closed because some of the streets are flooding with a feet of water. Tenzin visits every single one, hoping and praying for one to have at least a few panda-lillies and yellow roses. None of them do. They were all sold out or packed away due to the sudden storm.

Biting his lip, Tenzin points at all the pink and red roses, carnations, and orchids.

"I'll take them all."

If he can't get Lin panda lillies or yellow roses, he'll buy her half a flower shop.

But he doesn't think how he'll protect the flowers on his way to pick up Lin. The rain doesn't show any signs of stopping, but fortunately, Oogi is with him on this stressful journey.

No matter how much he airbends, Tenzin keeps getting soaked and drenched by the downpour. He bends off the water one last time as he stands in front of the Beifong residence. Tenzin tries to create an air bubble to keep the flowers as dry as possible.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The door opens and Tenzin's heart melts and tumbles with joy.

Lin is dressed in a soft pink cheongsam, with the subtle tint of blush on her cheeks and a rosy lipstick. Her hair is curled much neater, and there's a pearl hairpin in her hair.

'I should have made the betrothal necklace already.'

"You look...wow," he whispers, eyes locked on her outfit.

Lin shifts and avoids his eyes, trying not to smile too hard. "Thanks..." She studies him and his usual robes. "You look dry."

"Huh?" He peers down at himself. "Oh, yeah. It's raining. A lot. Super hard."

"Yeah."

Tenzin feels his palms getting sweaty. "Uh, if you don't want to go out tonight, it's ok because of the--"

"No, I want to go out tonight," Lin insists. "I got all dolled up anyway. I don't want to waste it."

All Tenzin can do is nod, and he extends out his arms. "Um, this is also for you."

Lin catches the overly large bouquets of flowers. "Oh, thanks. They're really nice."

"I, um," he rubs the back of his neck, hoping he doesn't sound like an idiot, "I couldn't find any yellow roses or panda lillies, so...I just bought everything this old man had."

Lin takes in every detail of the flowers, a smile growing on her face. "I still love it. Thanks for getting these, Tenz."

"Of course," he says tenderly, feeling his own happiness peeking through. "Uh, do you want to leave the flowers here so that they don't get ruined in the rain?"

"Sure."

Maybe things are looking up for them, despite the storm.

They have Oogi to help them get across the city. Tenzin has an umbrella for Lin.

It breaks mid-flight and Lin starts to get wet. Tenzin makes sure Oogi is steady before hopping in the back and trying to dry off Lin.

"I'm sorry! I thought this umbrella would be okay--"

"Just dry me off when we get to the restaurant," Lin orders, pressing her palm at her forehead to keep her makeup intact. "I'll just keep getting soaked."

Tenzin bites his lip. "We're almost there, I promise."

Dinner should be okay. They're only a few minutes away.

They've made it and Tenzin draws out as much water as he can. But Lin is instantly touching her hair. It's frizzed a bit from the neat curls that he saw 20 mins earlier. Lin pats it down and tries to curl it with her own fingers to tame it.

When the young teens look at the door, they see the sign:

"CLOSED. Diner was flooded. We will reopen in two days. We apologize for the inconvenience."

Grey eyes read the words.

Left to right.

Left to right again.

Lin shrugs. "Well, we can--"

"Are you fucking kidding me?! First the weather, then the flowers, now this?! What the hell, universe?!"

"Don't worry about it, Tenz. We can probably grab some street food around the corner."

Tenzin groaned and he buried his face into his hands, rubbing. "I don't want you to have street food! I want you to have a nice dinner or a picnic on the top of the park hill."

"We can do that another day then."

"No. Ughhh!" he storms up at the door, glaring at the sign. "I wanted to ask you to be my girlfriend on the perfect date, with the perfect flowers, and perfect food. But now it's ruined!"

Suddenly, he's spun around and hands grip his robes, yanking him down. Warm and soft lips collide against his and it takes Tenzin a few moments to realize that Lin Beifong is kissing him. Lin exhales slowly, her breath sweeping across his cheeks and rustling his eyelashes. She pulls away and Tenzin feels like he drank an entire barrel of cactus juice.

Her body is only inches away from his, and he wants so desperately for that gap to diminish.

"You..you're...my girlfriend."

Lin smirks and Tenzin notices how her lipstick has smeared slightly, just outside the natural outline of her lips. And he wants to smear it more, until it disappears completely on his own.

"Am I?"

"Huh?" He tilts his head. "Wait, did I ask you?"

Lin shrugs.

"Do you want to be my girlfriend?"

Her arms wrap around his neck and Lin stands on her tiptoes, pressing her lips against his again.

"Does that answer your--"

The last thing Lin expects is for Tenzin to pick her up and run into the rain. Her legs wrap around his waist as the rain descends upon them, and Tenzin creates an air funnel, blasting them into the air.

"Lin Beifong is my girlfriend!" Tenzin exclaims to the heavens, and Lin tightens her hold on him as the earth beckons to her feet again. The rain pelts harder onto them as if heaven gives its blessing to them.

"Tenzin!" Lin yelps, the fabric of their clothes clinging to their skin.

The airbender promptly and safely lowers them both to safety. As soon as Lin's feet are planted on the earth, Tenzin cups both sides of her face and pulls her for a kiss.

He pulls away, grinning. "I promise to be a good husband."

Lin laughs and gives him a look. She pokes his forehead. "You keep skipping steps, Airhead."

"I can't think straight."

"Obviously. Your head is in the clouds."

His hands wrap around her waist, pulling her closer to him. "Then bring me back to earth," he murmurs, gazing into her eyes.

For the next ten minutes, the earthbender and airbender seal their relationship beneath the storm. Sudden bursts of energy command their bodies to run through the streets, dancing and spinning under the rain. Part of Lin's makeup runs a little, but Tenzin doesn't care.

Lin Beifong is his girlfriend.

And Lin was right. They do find an alley of street food vendors open, with plastic covers to protect their customers from the brunt of the storm.

Lin eats a chicken skewer and Tenzin has a veggie skewer.

Tenzin reaches over to hold Lin's hand under the table.

[luckydicekirby]

would love any director's commentary you may have on The Only True Thing if slightly older fics are on the table here bc lowkey it changed my brain chemistry forever. I read it on a whim like four years ago at 1 in the morning and ever since then I've been hooked on making all my fav pairings miserable for no reason. this sounds like sarcasm but I'm being completely sincere the schadenfreude is exquisite

okay first of all I’m SO glad to hear this because making your favs miserable is I think one of the most rewarding activities on this earth so I’m really glad I could help share that joy. thanks also to sylvain for just making it so easy. anyway, here’s some assorted thoughts, hopefully some of which are edifying!

(the only true thing for reference for anyone playing along at home.)

this fic affectionately named the darkling au due to this tweet which I feel like I should put in a hall of fame someday. anyway this entire thread showcases the origin of this fic which was me catie and lily bullying each other on twitter about sylvix, a pastime left behind in 2019 which i really miss.

the thing that really first made me Crazy Cuckoo about sylvain is his B support with Byleth--I'm obsessed with that moment where he very coldly threatens to kill you and then laughs it off, and that was pretty much the jumping off point for Sylvain's characterization in this au--what if he was like that all the time? answer: it would be bad, but also pretty sexy!

One thing I miss about writing for fe3h is the hero’s relics were sooo nice as like. shortcut symbolism. the lance of ruin comes preloaded for you! It’s familial cycles of violence! Easy! and there's a mechanic for it breaking ALSO preloaded into the game mechanics! I wrote like three versions of the ending and the lance getting busted moved around a bit--it originally happened a little earlier.

For a while when I was still femblempilled I was idly thinking about two sequels to this—a sylvain pov sequel about the war, which would have been fun but also Yikes, and then epistolary dorothea/ingrid ideological divorce fic. sorry to dorothea and ingrid who really get the short end of the stick in this universe.

oh there's a playlist. I can’t claim to have put a ton of thought into it it’s just all my fav bad ya boyfriend songs <3 actually dead girl walking reprise is like. yeah that's the fic.

ANYWAY. I feel like a lot of my commentary on this has been washed away by the sea (the passage of time) so a few extras. I apparently wrote like 400 words of sylvain POV of the training yard scene also? Last edited September 26th 2019, here you go:

Felix has always been smaller him, ever since they were kids. Still is these days, to Sylvain’s delight. He wondered about it plenty, these past two years--maybe Felix had a growth spurt. Maybe he caught up to Dimitri. Maybe Sylvain would meet him at the monastery and they’d see eye to eye. Of course they don’t. Felix is a head shorter than him, and he’ll never see things the way Sylvain does. Still. Sylvain thought about it. He’s had a lot of time to think about Felix since the last time he saw him, since Felix ran away. Still a crybaby at heart, no matter how sure he was he’d grown out of it. Not much has changed, Sylvain figures. Felix might have everyone else fooled with that delightfully sharp-edged exterior of his--a pretty decent feint, Sylvian should know--but Felix can’t hide from him. Sylvain sees him down to the bone. The two of them are a matched set: liars at heart.  Like right now. Felix is trying so hard not to cry, his back to the wall of the training yard, his grip tight around the wood of his training sword like he’s actually going to use it. Sylvain hopes he will. He hasn’t gotten to see Felix fight yet, really fight. He bets he’s gotten better. He bets he’s elegant and controlled—maybe less so with Sylvain, and wouldn’t that be nice? That’s how it goes sometimes, when Sylvain dreams about their last day together. Felix’s sword at his throat, biting and cold, ending all this before it began. It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. Sylvain wouldn’t have had to spend such an awfully long time missing him.  He bets Felix could make him hurt. Nothing seems to do that anymore, except for thoughts of Felix, the ones he can never stop worrying at like a bruise.  Sylvain doesn’t want much these days, and maybe that’s why it’s so hard: he wants Felix in a way that aches, delirious and unstoppable. It doesn’t matter so much how. Felix is welcome to cut him open or kiss him quiet or anything in between. As long as he never stops looking at Sylvain like he is now, hateful and just on the edge of tears, so clearly focused on nothing else. As long as Sylvain can have that, the rest doesn’t matter.  That’s love, Sylvain figures; the cheerful facade he gives the girls is nothing. He forgets about a new one every week. But Felix? He’ll be dead someday, and Felix will still have a grip on his heart, as tight as he’s holding his sword and just as dangerous.

and what exists of the sylvain POV sequel I never wrote:

Felix looks like shit. Of course he’s also beautiful. He’s radiant, for all that his hair’s a mess and his face is drawn and he’s got the kind of dark circles that only come from weeks and weeks of exhaustion. He’s Felix, right? He can’t be anything else. “You look like shit,” Sylvain tells him, because honesty is what Felix thinks he wants from him. He hasn’t seen Felix in six moons, but that probably hasn’t changed. “What are you doing here?” Felix asks. His horse stamps her feet and shakes her head, moving uneasily under him. Felix has never been a good rider. It’s clear he doesn’t appreciate his mare, and she doesn’t appreciate him. Sylvain wonders how long Felix has been making his way across Faerghus like this. He wonders if he stole the horse. It’s awful not to know. “Looking for you,” Sylvain says. “They say you’re searching for the king.” Felix never could stop himself from chasing ghosts. Sylvain hates that about him. It’s just as unfair as everything else: it’s the only reason Sylvain is still here, after all.  “I am. And you should be defending Gautier territory.” “Got a message from your father,” Sylvain lies. He slides off his horse, patting her flank. Felix, clumsily, does the same. “He wants you to come home.” That part’s probably true.  Felix scoffs. “My old man can send all the messages he wants. I’m going to find the boar.” He means it. Sylvain can see that he means it, in the flinty look in his eyes, the fold of his arms, the jut of his chin as he looks up at Sylvain. It’s the saddest thing Sylvain’s ever seen, and he’s seen a lot of shit. “Felix,” he says. He reaches out. He can never help it, not when Felix is like this, not when he believes. Felix doesn’t flinch from Sylvain’s hand on his cheek anymore. “Sweetheart. You know he’s dead.” “Don’t call me that,” Felix says. But when he swings himself back in the saddle and Sylvain does the same, he doesn’t tell Sylvain not to follow. That’s more than good enough.