#so maybe he says arsene and I just can’t tell. but I can tell when he goes ‼️‼️‼️PERSONA‼️‼️‼️ | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

leclsrc · 9 months

Text

more than anyone ✴︎ cl16

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

word count: 13.7k

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

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

nsfw warnings under the cut!

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

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

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

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

“What’s going on?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So it’s a no.”

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Charles laughs dryly. “Who asked?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Charles.”

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

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

—

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

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

“Hmm?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah.”

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

A beat. “What?”

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

“Europe?” You shook your head. America.

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

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

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

“You’ll be fine.”

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

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

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

“Charles,” you sighed.

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

Just: “We’ll be okay.”

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I need to talk to you.”

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

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

“Why should I be charming with you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Say it.”

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How American.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

“Hi.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So you’re friends?”

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Who said that?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So what happened?”

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

Cut. Lovely. Just lovely.

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

—

“Okay. What else do you remember?”

“I… do you remember the recital song?”

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

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

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

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

“Do people ask?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What’s it mean?”

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

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

“I don’t underst—”

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

“I don’t—I do not ever remember say—”

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

Muffled by the bedspread: Charles’ place.

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

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

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

“Do you want gelato?” No, no.

“Love Island?” In a minute.

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

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

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

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

She doesn’t answer, because you already know.

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

Behind you: “Are you okay?”

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

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

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

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

You nod in response.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

From: Charles Perceval Leclerc <[email protected]>

Date: 14 October 2014

To: You

Subject: Urgent!

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

From: Charles Perceval Leclerc <[email protected]>

Date: 14 October 2014

To: You

Subject: Buttercup

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

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

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

charles

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Tremendous. Merci, Buttercup.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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randombush3 · 5 months

Text

audentes fortuna iuvat

alexia putellas x reader

part one, part two

words: 9541

summary: alexia and you as posh + becks III

content warnings: there’s some (a lot of) cheating + postpartum depression. it’s more frustrating than sad though x

notes: this covers 2019-22(ish). It was SUPPOSED to be the last part. It’s not anymore. I’m gonna do a fourth to deal w the mess I have created in a more self-indulgent amount of words than the 3k i had planned. That will probably have smut in it 😛

“Y/n left me.”

The limousine you are in is completely black, save for the white lines being measured out right next to you.

“What?” says Jenni.

“She left me,” Alexia says once more. The hotel room is a non-committal beige. They lie in the same bed, the older of the two welcoming her lost teammate wordlessly and without judgement. Tomorrow, they will return to Barcelona, losers yet another time. “She moved back to london. She took Nico.”

“She can’t just take Nico, can she?”

“Y/n, how’s Nico?” Your stomach turns, but whether that is provoked by the thought of the baby boy you left crying in your father’s arms or by the white powder outlining the rim of the woman’s nostrils, you don’t know.

Your son’s creasing eyes, red face, and grabbing hands appear in front of you. He screams as you walk away. He doesn’t understand why he has not smelt Alexia in weeks, and he misses the comfort of home.

Everyone waits for your answer. No one comments on the bags under your eyes. “He's fine,” you say with a smile. “He loves it here.”

“I think she is depressed,” Alexia tells Jenni, comforted by the arms wrapped around her waist, holding her close and tightly and reminding her that she is not as alone as you have made her feel. “She told me that she couldn’t be in Barcelona anymore, but she said that without giving me a chance to come with her. Her bags were packed before the conversation started — she might as well have called me from the plane.”

“Are you angry at her?”

“Yes.”

Alexia thinks about it.

“No.”

“No,” you say when they point at your very own line. The drug holds a place of both familiarity and hatred in your heart. The fine, white powder reminds you of greatness – of being the most successful girl group in the UK – but, also, of hospital visits. It’s not a past addiction, but it could have been. You light a cigarette instead, though it will make the vehicle reek. “I can't. I have a son.”

“You’re not a saint.” They boo. “You’re allowed to have fun. I saw you the other day, and you had no qualms with any drugs then.”

“No, I'm not a saint,” you reply. You regret that night — however little you remember. “But I am a mother.”

“Is it that thing? Postpartum?” Jenni asks. “The baby blues are really shitty, I've heard, but they’re not supposed to cripple you. Maybe the relationship has other issues.”

“I'm not angry at her, Jenni,” Alexia repeats. “I miss Nico. He looks like her. He has started to look a lot more like her now.”

“He would definitely suit those sparkly bralettes.” Jenni giggles at the thought.

With an understandable lack of good humour, Alexia ponders something more realistic. “He would suit a Barcelona kit.”

“He would be made for it. You are his mother.”

“I'm not angry at her,” Alexia says for the third time, just to make herself believe it. Just to carve those words into her bones and tell herself that it isn’t anger, what she’s feeling. “I don't want to be angry at her. I think I'm going to see if I can move to arsenal.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Well, I'm not angry at her.”

“Alexia.” Jenni cups her cheek tenderly. “Ale.” She knows she shouldn’t. She’s not angry at you, and so there is no punishment needed. Not that… Not that kissing Jenni would ever be utilised as a weapon to get back at you. Or that she’d actually kiss her.

“Daddy, I can't get him tonight. No, I don't want to stay over. Daddy, I…” You hate the baby. You hate yourself. You hate that Spain hasn’t done well, and that your fiancée is disappointed that nothing is how it was supposed to be. Alexia is probably lying awake in bed, missing her son, and missing you. You expect one of her teammates to call you soon, and tell her that she needs you. You’re her person. “I'm going to get some sleep and I'll pick him up tomorrow. Probably around lunchtime, okay?”

“Alexia, bésame.”

…

You had passively bought your house. It’s how property sale works when you’re a celebrity. People are always willing to do things for you if you know the price, and it never hurts to use your name to add a new flashy level to whatever stupid business they are running. It’s a mutual exploitation, to some extent.

Highgate is beautiful. The house is beautiful.

The reception room, with its high, decorated ceilings, is your favourite place to numbly take in the twisted jigsaw of your life when Nico has cried himself to sleep. The nursery is on the first floor. He is near enough for safety, but at a distance that allows you to regret all the mistakes you have made.

You watch him roll over onto his stomach, eyes trained on the baby monitor though your fingers graze the ivory keys of your new piano, attempting to compose something worthwhile. At this rate, your solo career is going to fail just like your relationship seems to be doing.

Yesterday, while Alexia seemingly disappeared from the face of the Earth, you came out. It was an off-hand comment during the Graham Norton Show. A quick ‘my fiancée named him. She’s from Barcelona’ was all it took. You hope Alexia, wherever she may be, has heard about it. Jenni would have told her. You trust Jenni to be somewhat on your side because she always has been.

The doorbell rings just as you sniffle, wiping away the tear that slips down your cheek. “Don’t be pathetic,” you mutter to yourself. “You didn’t pay five million pounds to sit here and cry. You chose to come back home.”

Being in England – colder, drearier, lonelier England – has made you realise that your decision was not the right one. Or maybe it was. It has proven that you are as terrible a mother as you convinced yourself you were back in Barcelona, and it has also shoved the cavity Alexia leaves in your life when you refuse her entry right down your throat in the form of a constant lump and a dull stabbing in your chest whenever you think about anything past whether Nico has had anything to eat. You can’t even feed him properly, despite it being supposedly in your nature. You buy formula from the nearest Waitrose.

The doorbell rings again.

The insistence is not uncommon seeing as you are, at the minute, the English press’s number one target. You open the CCTV app on your phone so that you can decide whether or not to ignore the potential stalker, and your heart rate spikes when you see the hooded figure standing on the porch. Back to the door, it is not possible to determine the threat. A well-buried maternal instinct kicks in for once, and you ensure that Nico is still peacefully out cold before getting up to answer the door with the poker from the Victorian fireplace firmly in your grip. Just in case.

You are a mother, in whatever capacity you have decided that role looks like, and so you undo the three latches on the door with brave, protective fingers. The baby monitor’s volume has increased, and the fuzz of white noise is audible if Nico were to make a sound. The vague repulsion at the idea of it all is only an aftertaste in your silent prayer for the hooded figure to not want to kill you. Some sick part of your brain imagines Nico dead, as well. It tortures you.

The poker in your other hand, for the most fleeting of moments, is almost plunged into your chest. The imaginary, self-inflicted wound makes you think of the blood and how the baby upstairs would wail until someone found him. The grimace of annoyance on your lips is nothing new, but you have no more time to torment yourself because the doorbell is pressed again, rather impatiently.

You open the door and the hooded figure is right in front of you. “He’s asleep,” you say, the Spanish foreign on your tongue.

Alexia shrugs, and her hood falls down, revealing the brunette tendrils that hang from her slowly sinking bun. “I came for you,” she replies, so earnestly that it is as if nothing ever happened: past pain forgotten and replaced by sprouting memories of soft kisses and mornings where leaving was too hard to do. Some of them, you think, are not real. They don’t seem to be. Your blank stare is unsettling. You almost don’t believe her. “Can we talk?” she tries, and you notice the team-issued duffle on the tiled floor she is standing on. Then, from the pocket of her hoodie, she extracts a pastry box. The plastic window is filled with circles of different colours, and she holds out the macaroons to you as if to bribe her way into a home in which she is unsure she belongs to.

Stepping aside, leaning the poker against the wall by the door, you scratch at the bare skin of your neck. Alexia, while sweeping an arm down to collect her bag, fixes her gaze onto the ring you are wearing, and the diamond glistens with hope that this can all be fixed. “Would you like to come inside?”

She swallows the whine of anguish that tears her heart open at the idea that this might never be her house to live in, too, and she follows you dutifully as you lead her through hallways far more luxurious than the flat in Barcelona could ever be. This is what you left her for – the person you are, no longer in worn clothing with messy hair, is quite the opposite of the woman with her back to her moments before she had to focus on football. The necklace draped on your sharpened collarbones is new, and she does not dare believe what she has been hearing is true. Yes, there are pictures, but she trusts you. She will always trust you.

“Have a seat,” you say, gesturing to the wooden dining table. It is clean enough for her to determine that it is unused. Alexia places the macaroons in front of her, and aches at how you sit at the opposite end.

“I…”

“I thought you were going to give me all the time that I needed.” It is a statement of distance, as if your location is not enough.

Alexia, eyes widening at how unwelcome she suddenly feels, needs only to remind herself of the impending date of the wedding. It is beginning to loom uncomfortably, with the excitement of getting married drained out like a low tide on a deserted beach. “We have two weeks. If it isn’t going to happen, then you should tell me now. We have to give everyone notice so that they can cancel their flights.” Your silence spurs her on. “You will need to contact the wedding planner, because you refused to let me have a hand in any of it so I don’t even have their number. I’m sorry that you won’t be able to wear your dress. Vivienne Westwood is a big thing for you, I know. I’m sorry that it’s inconvenient.”

“But Alexia,” you whisper, “I don’t not want to get married.”

Her eyebrows furrow, head tilted slightly to the left. “I know. That is why I am saying this.”

Your voice grows louder. “No, no. Sorry, that wasn’t the easiest thing to understand.” Across the dining table, your love that has faltered, that has hesitated and been reconsidered and been stamped down over the past month, extends towards her: its final destination, always and forever. Alexia feels it grab her by the throat, wrenching the words from her before she can even formulate a thought in response, and her body is so drawn to you, in such a powerful fashion, that she pushes her chair out from the table with a grating scrape and is stepping towards you with a finality that makes her wonder if she’ll ever leave your side.

As she approaches, the idea that she is here becomes a little too real. You have played with the fantasy of it, of course, but the tenderness in her usually fierce eyes does not match the anger you had expected, and, in the most feeble fashion, you have never felt more apologetic in your life.

“I’m so sorry,” you begin to say. Tears stream down your face with freed anguish, and the words are so simple yet they bear the weight of your entire soul. “I’m so sorry, darling. I made a mistake, and I have been met with the most crushing of realisations: I can’t do this without you, Alexia.” I still want to marry you, Alexia.

The room seems to close in on your despair, attempting to bottle it, almost, and keep you trapped underneath a haze of emotions you don’t quite know how to sort through. “I… I’m beginning to hate him.” The confession hangs heavy over Alexia’s bowed head as she stands frozen in place, stuck in her journey towards you but unable to arrive. “I’m acutely aware of how cruel it is,” you continue, this next admission being what agonises you the most. It floods the room with guilt, and your voice trembles with self-condemnation that reigns harsher than any other voice in your head.

“It’s ridiculous. I’m evil and I’m wrong, and I just feel like it is inherently in my nature to be like this, as though some fault has been built into me with warning signs we evidently ignored.” You struggle to breathe. “I wish I could take back the day we decided to have him,” you confess, your voice barely above a whisper, lips doused in tears, skin searing with shame when Alexia cups your cheek with a strong, calloused hand. “He should not have to be stuck with me as a mother.”

Your chest heaves, and you are finished. You have never verbalised it before now, and it is impossible to decide whether it has helped remove the lead lining of your heart where it has been bolstered against your will. Her other hand steadily rises to your face, but then, with only a second of hesitation, she is pulling you upwards and enveloping you in her embrace. You feel a little bit closer to her. “Mi amor,” Alexia murmurs, tone cracked with sorrow and regret. “Lo siento mucho. Desearía haber sabido, desearía haber estado allí para ti.”

Gently, she tilts your face upwards to meet her gaze. “You are not evil and no estás equivocada. Estoy aquí ahora, y no te dejaré enfrentar esto sola nunca más.” You collapse into her. “I’m here, cariño, and I am not going anywhere.”

The sentiment is wonderful, and Alexia makes good on her word.

When Nico begins to cry, the sound piercing through your choked sobs, Alexia realises she has missed all of her life with you. Being separated and being apart due to work, she now knows, are two excruciatingly different things. The whiny wails from upstairs visibly jar you, though you pull away from Alexia to attend to him. “I will do it,” she declares, though her firmness is not mean. “Sit down. Eat the macaroons – they’re… ‘to die for’?” You nod with instinctive encouragement. “Sí. They’re to die for. Try. Jenni says that the pink ones are the best.”

“Jenni picked them out?” you ask with a briefly regained humour, eyebrows raising. “Had to get your friend to choose your apology gift?” In truth, neither of you know what Alexia would be apologising for, but Nico’s crying grows more incessant and Alexia is climbing the carpeted staircase before the topic can be discussed.

Alexia reaches her son with tears brimming in her eyes. The failure of Spain at the World Cup is amplified by the idea that she has disappointed him, though he does not yet possess the tools to pledge his allegiance to her country. In fact, Nico has been sleeping in Manchester United attire (your father has been his primary carer of late, and he does not charge you money, so the price is obviously Alexia’s sanity). She is more than glad to smell his nappy, and delighted about the opportunity to change him into something less hideous.

“Mama loves you so much,” she tells him as she manoeuvres his chubby legs into a plain, inoffensive onesie. “I promise, petit. I am going to help her, okay? And we are going to get through this together.” Alexia forgets about the taste of Jenni’s lips and the heat between them. “Mama just doesn’t see the direction she is going in. It is like her eyes are covered, and she is telling herself that she is walking down the wrong path, but this is not true. You are the most special thing in the world to us. You are the sunrise, the sunset, and the hours of the day.”

She pauses to stand him up on his tiny feet, hands hoisted underneath his armpits. He is heavier than when she last held him, but she is stronger than before, too. Women’s football is growing, along with her muscles. Nico babbles out a vague reply, but Alexia hears what he is trying to say. “I agree. We’ll be alright.” And, with all her heart, it rings true.

…

The following day, she calls the doctor for you, script written out on a piece of paper in front of her, translated perfectly so that her concern does not waver the information she needs to tell the receptionist. The clinic is famous and discreet, and they are quick to prescribe you antidepressants before the week draws to a close. You won’t be able to drink at your wedding, and everyone might think you are pregnant again, but Alexia reassures you that it will be worth it.

Wrapped up in your own bubble, the three of you enjoy London in a way that isn’t possible in Barcelona.

Here, Alexia has no commitment to football. There are no training sessions she must rush off to, there are no teammates to pry, and no one else to interfere with your private little routine. You quite like it, and she does too. It is only temporary, before you fly out to Menorca and hand Nico off to Eli in order to enjoy your respective bachelorette parties and then, in exactly seven days, your wedding itself.

“You’re still smoking,” Alexia says disapprovingly, the sleep in her voice enough to make you feel a pang of guilt. It’s late at night when Nico has finally been soothed from his aching gums, and she has been able to climb back into bed expecting to find you asleep already. “Why are you awake?”

“I’m still smoking,” you tell her. She sighs at the way you parrot her words, but presses an affectionate kiss to the junction of your neck and shoulders despite the lingering smell of cigarettes. “If I can’t drink, I’m going to smoke. This is Hollywood.”

“This is Highgate.” Her accent curls around the name with something a little too foreign for her to ever consider this place home. “Why are you awake?” she repeats.

You look down at the open notebook in your lap, the pages either blank or full of crossed-out lyrics. “He was so loud, but I can’t seem to write anything either so, really, it has been quite redundant.”

“I had to get a glass full of ice and hold it to my fingers so that I could help him. I could have lost some very important assets, but it seemed to do the trick.” He’s teething. You’re telling yourself that the antidepressants are little pills of miracle, and have kicked in already. “Feel.” She presses two freezing fingers to your cheek, and you gasp, flinching away from her.

“There’s a teething ring downstairs, you know,” you tell her. She shrugs. Maybe it isn’t clean. “Don’t give yourself frostbite. I happen to quite like your fingers.”

Alexia’s smirk is beyond suggestive, and her lips hit your neck once more with an entirely different heat to them. “Yeah?” You push her head away. “I bet it would feel good. Nice and cold.”

“You’re delirious.”

She continues to kiss you. “I don’t know what that means,” she mumbles into your neck, until her lips reach your face and she is near climbing into your lap – notebook long pushed onto the floor. “Dímelo en español.”

“No lo sé.”

“Ah. Una palabra inteligente.”

“Claro.”

She laughs into the kiss she presses against your lips. She never has never felt like this with anyone else. Never this relaxed, or loved, or safe. “Me vas a matar con tu inteligencia y voy a sentirme estúpida para siempre.”

“I love you,” you state softly. “I love every part of you.” Alexia, in that moment, decides to never do what she did with Jenni again, and to never break your heart by informing you of her betrayal.

…

You’re married.

You’re married to Alexia, a woman who bears the beauty of a goddess and the strength and will of someone who could capture the sun and tame the fire that rages on its surface.

You admire her as she sleeps so peacefully beside you, tanned skin warmed by the sunlight streaming in through the large windows of the hotel room. Later, you will get on the ferry, go back to Barcelona, and then fly to Capri for three days alone before Alexia’s preseason starts. Aside from a few meetings with Dave, you theoretically aren’t swamped with anything. You’ll be joining her in her city with Nico with a bit more permanence than last time.

Alexia buries her face in the covers, crawling into your open arms the minute the sunlight rouses her. “Everything is sore,” she groans, her bare skin slightly sticking to yours, the sweat from last night not yet gone.

“What happened to ‘mi vida, one more time won’t hurt’?” you tease, impersonating her heavy accent over your English with enough drama to get her to elicit another grumble. This time, it’s something about being bullied. “Darling, we have to get up. We’re having breakfast with our parents, and apparently Nico has been upset that we got a night to ourselves.”

“Pobrecito,” she replies with a newfound level of English sarcasm. She spent the wedding reception avoiding the dance floor, engaged in a long conversation with your father. The topics spanned over most areas of life, and briefly touched upon how you are doing now. Alexia, with much pleasure, confirmed the improvement, however miniscule it has been. She is very proud of you, and he is too. “I only want one thing for breakfast.”

Her hands begin to roam, the band of her wedding ring hitting your pubic bone. “Mi vida, one more time won’t hurt,” she mocks you from before but in her sexier, Spanish husk, sucking at your collarbone, straddling your waist.

You replace your near moan with a thoughtful hum. “I really want pancakes. Do you think they’ll make me some?”

Downstairs, where it is brighter and impossible to conceal the hickeys on both of your necks, you greet your parents, brother, Anya, and Gio. Alexia’s mother, her sister, and Jenni are sitting at the table, too. Your baby is pretending he isn’t teething, and grinning like an angel.

“How’s married life?” Anya asks as you take a seat opposite her, Alexia to your right. The table has a gradient of bilingualism, but Gio discovered that she picks up Spanish quite easily considering she can already speak one romance language. “We’ve already found, like, four articles talking about it.”

“How?” you ask, but you are not offended.

Gio shrugs. “Drones, I guess. Nothing bad, though. Some speculation about the other bride – if the article does mention that. Most talk is on the dress.” It was a bloody good dress. “And I suspect that there’ll be a juicy little question about who was your Maid of Honour.”

“Don’t be salty,” you tell her. The MOH issue was sorted out years ago – perhaps 2015 – when you binged Friends together despite having watched it thousands of times before. Anya has been yours, Gio will be hers, and you will be Gio’s. And they say trios never work.

“I left Mia with her dad for this.”

“You shouldn’t have had a baby with a man-slag,” Anya says with a snort, enjoying her second mimosa and Gio’s grimace at the idea of her daughter having to put up with her father’s revolving door of one-night-stands. “You’re one to make terrible decisions. At least our girl over here’s married someone who looks at her like she’s hung the moon.”

Alexia turns to you with a smile, as if on cue, with Nico in her lap. You glance at his rounded cheeks and shining eyes, looking back up at your friends as though to check they are still there. Alexia leans forwards so that she can whisper in your ear. “Te amo. Nico, también. Mi familia es perfecta.”

…

Returning to Barcelona comes with one negotiated condition on your part. You buy a bigger apartment, where there is space for an office and extra bedrooms. Alexia says her teammates will be taking the piss out of her grand new place the minute she sees it, but she is more than content to contribute to the finances with her new-and-improved salary for this season. “It’s weird to think that I’m from Mollet,” murmurs Alexia, standing in the middle of the large lounge area, surrounded by boxes. Most are from your old flat, but a few have been flown in from London. Alexia wanted you to have your Grammy with you. “This place is so fancy.”

“It’s half of what the men’s team get,” you remind her, holding Nico with care as he gnaws away on a frozen carrot. His saliva drips onto you, but the antidepressants are working, and the therapy has been effective enough for you to start taking childcare in turns. (You had tried to previously, but Alexia wanted you to focus on yourself, knowing that things will change for all of you once the season started.) “Hey.” You place your hand on her shoulder. She tickles Nico’s chin. “We deserve this. You deserve this. Why don’t you host one of your team’s dinners? I’ll take Nico round to your mum’s – God knows she’d love to shove some food down my throat, too.”

She shakes her head, strands of brown unstraightened due to the stress of the move and falling out of her bun with a determination to defy her hair bobble. “They would kill me if I did it without you. They’re all far too grateful that you invited Taylor Swift to our wedding.”

“She’s a friend.” If you hadn’t been distracted by various other happenings that night, you’d have clocked that Alexia’s side of the guests were completely up to their ears in celebrities they’d never expected to meet. “Okay, so do you want me to stay here?”

“I always want you to stay here,” she answers.

“Not what I meant.”

“I won’t take it back.”

Nico babbles an incoherent yet cutely Spanish-y noise, though his words are getting closer to being said at the old age of eight months. Then, suddenly, something in him clicks. “Mama,” he squeals, his little fist scrunching up the fabric of your t-shirt. “Mamama.”

“Nicolau!” Alexia replies with just as much enthusiasm, cupping his cheeks. She kisses his nose, and then his forehead, and then his chubby knees and socked feet. “Nicolau, sí, la mama et té a las mans! Bon noi, el meu bon i intel·ligent noi.”

“Does that count?”

“Mama,” Nico repeats, tugging your earlobe. “Mama. Mama.” It is easy to forget about the (lessening) resentment you harbour when he speaks. Alexia gets him to say it as many times as she can before he goes back to his carrot, but, even then, the two of you stay in that spot, marvelling at your creation.

Slowly, she turns around in a circle, absorbing the plain walls and towers of boxes. “This is going to be good. Life is going to be good,” you declare with such a firmness that it has to be true. “Darling, let’s get to unpacking and then we can think about a date for this dinner party.”

“We are going to plan the party?” She raises her eyebrows at you. “Is this party going to start at five o’clock?”

“Not all of us shit yellow and red.” (In a national sense – you’d have haemorrhoids for United any day of the week.)

Alexia takes Nico off you, in a show of cultural dominance. You’re actually outnumbered, considering he isn’t a British Citizen, and though he shares no DNA with your wife, he has inherited the same ability to narrow his eyes just enough to serve absolute cunt whenever he so pleases. If you weren’t feeling so ganged up on, you’d be a little impressed. “Nico y yo vamos a hacer croquetas de jamón. Adiós.”

“Darling, the kitchen isn’t–” But you cut yourself off, deciding that she can discover that on her own, along with the criminally empty fridge. You don’t hide your smugness at all when she finds you in your almost-finished bedroom, wearing a look of utter disappointment and mumbling out a heartbroken request for a food delivery as soon as possible.

…

November marks three years of being together and, also, four weeks of having Alexia’s ‘DNA’ – a pomeranian called Nala, whose Instagram account is run by her favourite parent after you called it silly and told your wife you’d much rather attend to your own seventeen million followers.

Towards the end of the month, after a well-spent morning and then a family outing to Barcelona Zoo, Alexia meets Jenni Hermoso in a restaurant in what Jenni calls ‘your new rich-people neighbourhood’ in her text to Alexia.

Alexia, really and truly, is happy to have her best friend back in Barcelona. She missed her last year, when Jenni had returned to Atleti, and that separation maybe made what happened the night Spain was knocked out of the World Cup just that bit more understandable. “You’re a Culer, no matter how hard you try to fight it,” Alexia had said when she had climbed back into her own bed, not wanting to fall asleep in Jenni’s arms. “It was terrible to not have Y/n or you.”

You and Jenni: Alexia’s people.

“How’s your wife?” Jenni asks with a grin, two glasses of wine into a pleasant evening at an expensive restaurant. “You’ve left her with Nico, so something must be working.”

In truth, you have been determined to get better. There were articles released not long after the photos of your wedding were circulated, and those speculated a lot about how you are finding motherhood. The baby pictured, captured by long-range lenses and invasive drones, was the world’s first glimpse at what Nico Putellas L/n looks like, and reminded many of them that you had a child to care for when in London, yet were frequently spotted at nightclubs and parties. You rise to most challenges, however, and find it a lot easier to adapt to weekly therapy sessions and pills every morning when you have a wrongful image to disprove.

“It’s as if it never happened,” Alexia says, both with pride and surprise. “She now seeks to spend time with him. She takes him with her to the recording studio – the album’s coming along well.” It’s your first on your own. Nico plays with one mixing desk, while Dave (flown in from London with the promise that the Barcelona sun will do wonders for his wife’s misery) plays with another. “And… Jenni, we’ve been talking. The clinic that we used for Nico asked us if we wanted to reserve sperm when we first had him, and now they have called asking if now is a good time. I think… I think that she is really considering it. She told me yesterday that her therapist wants me to sit in on the next session, so we can go over how we can make this time different.”

Jenni frowns, which is not what the woman opposite her had expected at all. “Why are you two having more children? You’re only twenty-five, Ale. Isn’t this going to affect your career?”

“The men do it all the time.” She’s done a spot of research. They are younger than her when their girlfriends start getting pregnant, and they continue to play with the added admiration that they are fathers as well.

“Yes, but they have the benefit of getting paid millions. They don’t have to fight with their federation for pitches or pay, and they can focus on football without their career sparking controversy for even existing.”

“Then my children will grow up with a mother who fights for change.”

“Or they grow up with a pop star who only wants things she cannot have and a footballer who can’t spend any time with them because she is too busy speaking at various conventions so that the next league match isn’t cancelled.”

“Jenni, do you think your opinion would be different if Y/n was a man?”

This elicits laughter from the other woman, who rolls her eyes in a way that can only be described as condescending. “Alexia, you’re forgetting that I’m a lesbian too, which is a magnificent feat.” Jenni references the kiss they shared, and what happened after that. “But, no. I don’t. I want you to be the greatest footballer in the world, and you want that too. What are you going to do when Y/n tells you she wants to move back to England? Are you going to give up your future here for her?”

The waiter interrupts briefly, collecting their empty plates and carting them off with a mission to retrieve the bill after a sharply declined offer for the dessert menu. “You don’t even know if that will happen,” Alexia scoffs, though she is a little sad that her exciting news hasn’t been well-received. “I was going to say that I’d think about the name Jennifer if it ends up being a girl, but now I’m leaning more towards María…”

She is kicked under the table, and she has to hold in her cry of pain because this restaurant is one of your favourite places to eat. “Mapi cannot have this victory over me. She’d be insufferable. Ale, you simply aren’t allowed to do that.” There’s another kick, but it is more playful this time.

Alexia laughs, smiling and thankful that the tension has diffused. “I’m only joking. Y/n has a list scribbled in the back of her lyric book. She’ll probably be called Elena.” That is much more acceptable to Jenni’s ears, and she files that information away for next year, when she’ll tell Mapi that Alexia doesn’t like her name.

…

It works. Alexia and you are lucky. The doctor tells Alexia that, if she were a man, the two of you would have to be extremely careful. Your wife marvels at your ability to destroy your body and stay fertile, but she supposes that you are not the kind of woman to be a lesbian. Sometimes, she wakes up in a cold sweat, believing that you have changed your mind and left her.

The New Year is a fresh start. Alexia decides to fix the (not so) hidden cracks in your relationship. She confides in her newly-acquired therapist. She may have made a mistake once; the secret is sandwiched between her worries about your susceptibility to depression and how Nico is a decided food critic.

Though the therapist, a lovely bilingual woman named Sofía, raises her eyebrows, she does not pry. She slides a paper calling card over to Alexia. The paper squeaks along the coffee table between the two comfortable armchairs of the office. “I specialise in couples. Seeing as your wife is already a client of mine, I think you should consider a joint session.” Alexia is new to the idea of mental health. Before, she had been too focused on football to care about it. Even when her father died, any professional she spoke to was only hearing how her mind worked because she knew it was what was best for her performance. “And, Alexia.” She looks up at the therapist with a small, nervous smile. “Congratulations on the pregnancy. I am sure Nico will make a wonderful older brother.”

Morning sickness drags you out of your shared bed most days.

Alexia asks you about couples’ therapy when you have finished your dry-heaving one morning.

“I mean,” you begin before pausing, gulping down the sour taste in your mouth and hoping nothing else is trying to hit the toilet water until tomorrow. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise.” She is dressed in her training kit, but she slings her jumper over your shoulders as soon as you shiver. “Do you think it’s a good idea?”

“It would do no harm.” As long as Sofía does not bring up Alexia’s confession, your statement will ring true. “You book the appointment. It’ll be easier to work around your schedule that way.”

“When are you flying back to London?” Her question is not filled with hatred for the city, but with resignation to the fact that your job involves you being stretched between here and there.

“Not until next month. I thought that I could take Nico to an away game with my dad if I got a flight for Saturday. The rest of the week would be interviews and photoshoots.”

“How’s the album doing?”

So far, your songs are only written when Alexia has paid you enough attention to swirl your thoughts and blur your vision. It is in these moments that the lingering, sinking weight inside of you dissipates. “Dave remains hopeful. It won’t fail, but I need it to be better than what we currently have.”

Shamelessly, Alexia is aware of her effect on your songs. She smirks; “Alba has been begging to babysit, you know.” With no care for your current state, Alexia’s eyes rake up and down your body. You grow embarrassed by how you are slumped over the toilet, and how she is standing above you as though she runs your world. “You look beautiful, mi amor,” she murmurs as you bashfully duck your head between your bent arms.

“You’re a flirt.” It feels too late for her to still be in the flat. “And you’re going to miss training if you don’t get a move on. There are eggs in the fridge, and Nico definitely liked the omelette you made him a few days ago. He’ll be waking up soon.”

A small sigh escapes the midfielder’s lips, but the prospect of the things she loves most in the world appearing in her life consecutively is enough to convince her to pad her way out the bathroom, swanning into the corridor with a little grin on her face as she sings out ‘bon dia’ to an impressively multilingual toddler and heads into the kitchen with the domestic intention of getting breakfast started. She leaves an omelette out for you, which you attack shortly after Alexia and Nico disappear into their daily routine. She drops him off at preschool, and you pick him up a few hours later, taking him first for lunch with Alba, and then to the studio.

You come home to a showered Alexia who is memorising her most recent match. She lets Nico slide into her lap without hesitation, but she stays focused on the football even when he tugs on the strands of hair falling out of ponytail. You marvel at the idea of having enough room in your heart for so much love. You decide that you are not like Alexia, though it is not necessarily a terrible thing. A further observation from watching your wife settle her son with a calm, muttered Catalan telling-off, coaxing him into loving football as though he does not already, is that you are so very content with your life at the moment.

But 2020 kind of sucks.

For the entire world.

You’re cut off from your home in any other manner than a digital one, and being stuck in a luxurious penthouse in Barcelona isn’t the worst fate, but it really isn’t ideal.

Elena, however, has the benefit of coming into the world with ever (physically) present parents, who could recite the java script for Zoom given that they spend hours on therapy calls. Elena, bright and smiley and the picture of her mother, spends the first few months of her life in a happy, happy family, protected by an entire football team and a fierce older brother. (And a yappy Pomerianian called Nala.)

“Y/n doesn’t like the name María,” Jenni tells Mapi when Alexia sends the first picture of your new addition to the Barcelona group chat.

“The next baby is going to be a Jennifer,” Mapi says, to both the forward and the unimpressed midfielder walking a few paces in front of such a silly conversation. “For that, I can only feel sorry for her.”

…

The routine changes the following year.

It starts with an abrupt but expected conversation. One that Alexia has been dreading.

Your album – the first one that is just you – was released two months ago, and it has done too well. Selfishly, Alexia had hoped it would fail. You have enough money, and she is earning more and more each season. Success, unfortunately, means that this little life can no longer exist. Or can it?

“I have to do it,” you whisper to her, tears in your eyes though the smell of sex still lingers. The quietness of a child-free apartment allows for you to hear her gulp. “It’ll be different this time, darling, but I can’t be here anymore. I can’t fly out to London every few days. I can’t leave you with a five-month-old and a toddler when you are training every day and playing matches every weekend. It’s not fair on anyone.”

Alexia kisses your bare shoulder, hands slipping round your waist as she pulls your sweaty body into her. Her chest presses against your back, but she is only behind you in this bed. She does not agree with you. She does not support it. But, like she always does, she bites her tongue. “If that’s what you want,” she replies, and part of you dies with the thought that she does not really care. “I love you. I want what’s best for you. For us.” And she tells Jenni all about it when she goes to see her a week later – the flimsy excuse of meeting a childhood friend for dinner enough to wrap a cloth around your eyes and leave you at home with a screaming toddler and a baby whose only flaw is that she grows distraught the moment she is put down.

In the dimly lit living room, the tension hangs thick in the air. You lock eyes. “Why can't you just move with us? Everyone will want you, darling, and life would be easier,” you plead, a month down the line. The house in Highgate has been readied for your more permanent return.

Alexia takes a deep breath, her gaze unwavering. “Why can't you get it into your head that I'm not leaving Spain or Barcelona? This is my home.”

“What about the children? School? Life? My career? Does it mean nothing to you?”

Her eyes soften. Your heart breaks, and the piece of you that has already died somehow dies again. “I'm thinking of the children. All the time, I think of them. About the reputation of my name – their name. Putellas, the greatest in the world, or Putellas, the one with potential wasted at West Ham?”

“You're being selfish, Lex,” you snap. “This is an opportunity for all of us, not just me. Think about their future!”

“Their future is here, in the culture they know, the languages they speak. I won't strip them of their identity for the sake of a 'better' life. And my career? I've worked too hard to build what I have here. I won't throw it away.” I don’t want to throw it away. Underscored by Don’t leave me again.

The room echoes with the weight of her voice. “Their identity comes from both of us.” It’s too final for either of your liking. Elena begins to cry in her cot. “I want to try it. I want you to be open to trying it.”

She gestures to the suitcases by the door. “Trying it and doing it are two different things. You’re taking them from me!”

“You’re probably going to love life without them anyway!” you shout. You feel like the crying baby, except the tears rolling down your cheeks carry much more suffering than hers. “You’ll – what? You’ll go out with your friends, and you’ll be able to go to the gym whenever you want. No arguing, no crying, no toddler to entertain, no nappies to change. You never wanted children. I forced it upon you. I regret it, and I’m sorry. We’ll go.”

“Don’t go.”

I don’t want you to go.

“I have to.”

You turn your back to her as you fly through the corridor, prepared to console Elena in a taxi. Alexia slips her ring off her finger, and clutches it in her palm instead. Desperately, she searches for a solution. There is nothing within her reach, not even you.

…

She is an island amongst a sea of happy people. She is going to be the greatest footballer in the world. It kills her to realise that she can now focus on football.

Nico starts nursery, attending the same school you once did. He adjusts to life in London seamlessly, and Elena does not seem to care either way. He learns more English every day, and his other mother calls him nightly to read to him.

With childcare more than sorted, you are free to be interviewed, pictured, and invited to events. You rake in the publicity, especially after laying so slow over the course of the lockdown in Spain.

“Alexia.” Jenni’s hands knead her tight shoulders, partly teasing her. Alexia wears a frown, eyebrows knitting together with an emotion she’s not sure she can name. “Ale, it’s the same game as always. Nothing has changed.”

“I know,” she murmurs. “I don’t understand why I feel like this.” She has continued to speak to Sofía, though your joint sessions have now come to a halt while you spend your time doubling as a singer and model. The therapist, try as she might, cannot evaluate the situation effectively enough. Eli and Alba have both tried to help, hoping that weekly dinners and the constant reminder about the invention of aeroplanes would ease the turmoil of Alexia’s mind. It does not. “I am so alone, Jenni.”

Nala is too small to fill the emptiness of the flat. Screens don’t allow for her to kiss you, or play with Nico. She is scared she will miss Elena’s first words.

“You don’t have to be.”

It only takes a month for Alexia to break, and it sort of works.

In Jenni’s bed, it works. Hips keening, soft pants falling from her mouth.

Quiet moans that stay locked in Jenni’s apartment.

Each time Alexia leaves, though Jenni repeatedly requests that she stays, she walks out as half a woman. She blinks back her tears and she checks her phone. When she calls you – not a video call – you are never any the wiser to the scratches down her back.

Alexia remains an island, but the sand beaches are tainted with the arrival of someone else.

In this way, she is functional.

She can do sex. She can deal with borderline romance. She can fill the space that you are tearing open with every passing minute spent in that god-awful country you insist on calling home. She can fix it a little bit with Jenni.

She tells herself that it does not mean anything more than a bandage means to a wound. Who wears the bandage once the gash has healed?

Where does she put the used bandage?

Why is she focused on bandages?! She’s having an affair. It’s not an affair! (It is.) Alexia doesn’t… quite… wanttoadmititjustyet.

…

The buzz of your phone is the final push that gets you to conclude the current interview you are trapped in. Before checking what the notification is, you glance at the time. You have half an hour before you need to pick up Nico, and your parents said they would drop Elena home once they returned from London Zoo.

Alexia: Jenni has had a really good idea

It’s an intriguing text amongst the more practical ones that oil the mechanics of managing the distance. Tonight, Barcelona play their last match of the season. After this, she’ll be flying out to London. You have missed her. The last time you saw her in person was after Barcelona embarrassed Chelsea in Gothenburg. Elated and filled with pride, it was incredibly nice to have the biggest room in the hotel to yourselves. Her medal was almost as beautiful as her.

You: Go on…

Alexia: Just draw a heart on Nico’s hand from me porfa. You’ll see.

You slide into the driver’s seat of your newest self-indulgent car; a Porsche. Momentarily distracted by a camera flash, your turn onto the main road is a little risky, but you manage to make it to the school in time to collect your son.

“Was he good?” you ask his teacher as she hands you Nico’s book bag. You take in the sight of him: hair messy, school uniform stained though they require the little ones to wear aprons for most of the day. “It’s a little different here. I’m hoping that he’s enjoying himself.”

“Our new assistant is from Spain,” says the teacher with a small, tired smile, batting her long eyelashes at you. “We had to pry him off her.”

You let out a laugh. “He misses his mum.”

“He’s extremely intelligent. He knew to speak Spanish to her and English to us.” Though your grasp of Spanish is near-fluent after such reluctance from your wife to try English, you know that the two-year-old has a talent for juggling the three languages he is growing up around. You’re proud of him. “You shouldn’t worry about him. And, speaking of, we have a parents’ coffee morning just around the corner. It’s always great for the parents to get along – it helps the school feel even more like a family. Will it just be you attending?” Nico’s teacher is around your age, and you can smell her rose perfume that mingles with the soft hint of ready-mixed paint. She has deep, brown eyes, and she is definitely flirting with you.

“Next week, right? I’ll have to check with my wife.”

It’s then that a toddler-sized hand grips your fingers and tugs. “Mama, me voy,” he groans; something akin to Alexia’s impatience. It reminds you of when you used to go shopping and she’d herd you out with the threat of getting in the car and driving away. “Venga.”

“One sec, sweetheart.” There are countless ways in which you miss Alexia. “My wife and I would love to come.”

Her smile does not falter on her lips, but there is a greyish disappointment that dulls the warmth of her irises. You smile as you turn your back and lead Nico to the car. You are so excited for Alexia to complete the broken puzzle.

You melt when she kisses the heart drawn onto her hand when celebrating her goal. Nico copies her, lips pursing and sloppily mimicking the action on a similar heart. “For you, sweetheart,” you tell him as he settles back into your side, careful not to jostle Elena who has fallen asleep on your chest (the therapist did wonders for you).

“It was for you,” Jenni tells Alexia after the match. Her goal is now serving as the move Alexia feared she’d make. They have changed and been massaged and done the media the are required to do (women’s football is growing): they are free to roam Barcelona if they so wish.

Her flight is tomorrow evening – “I have a flight tomorrow evening.”

“Come over tonight.” It isn’t a question, yet it is not quite a command. Mapi passes the two of them, eyes narrowing at the way Jenni has wrapped her hand around Alexia’s wrist. The defender is aware that something is going on, though it breaks her heart to imagine Alexia ever doing that to you. Not knowing they are being watched, Alexia steps in; cups Jenni’s face, brushes her cheekbone with a stroke of her thumb Mapi knows is meant for her wife. Mapi’s stomach lurches. She feels sick.

“I need to…” It’s not a ‘no’. “Jenni.” She hates that it is not a ‘no’.

“Ale.” There’s a beat. Mapi blinks twice, shakes her head, and backs away. “I’ll miss you, you know?”

…

Jenni doesn’t seem to mind when, the next day, blurry pictures of you on a family outing make rounds through the tabloids she usually doesn’t read. The fact that, up until now, no one has known that your wife is Alexia Putellas has no effect on her. She was stupid for thinking the last six months meant something. Winning together, losing together. Sleeping together.

In this deal, Alexia has fucked over both women who love her. Except, you don’t know. She hasn’t told you, though Jenni had hoped for it secretly – hoped Alexia chose her – and it is obvious. Obvious to Jenni, who is well acquainted with the blonde hair in the wings of your concert at the O2. Obvious to Jenni, who refuses to think of herself as the other woman.

She consults Mapi.

Mapi, who she has come to shamefully realise already knows.

“I can’t believe the two of you.” The defender is clear in her distaste and disappointment and, honestly, her disgust. “But I am not going to be the one to break that poor girl’s heart.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

What is she asking? What does she want from this utterly useless conversation?

“Mapi.” Jenni closes her eyes, but she sees two faces instead of darkness. Nico. Elena. She’s Elena’s godmother. You decided that – convinced Alexia to choose her best friend over her younger sister, told your wife that there’d be another for Alba to corrupt. “Mapi, I love her. I don’t know what to do.”

“She loves her wife.” The next sentence proceeds to brutally remind Jenni who that isn’t. “Tell her you’re done. Find someone else. Anyone but her.”

That is Jenni’s resolve, because she knows that Mapi is right.

…

June, July, and August pass with bliss.

Everyone says that you are a beautiful couple with beautiful children. Alexia beams with pride as she flaunts her practised English, and gladly claims ownership of Nico when he wins a prize on speech day. Every child in Reception is awarded something but that doesn’t stop her from boasting.

She explores the country with the children while you shack up in the recording studio, and brings hugs and kisses (and Red Bull) every evening after dinner. The visits are what reminds you of the sun Alexia brings, especially as the warmth follows her from Barcelona and London is blessed with golden days. Dog days.

“This isn’t permanent.” Alexia looks up from her phone, comfortable in your bed. The house in Highgate has flecks of Spain woven into the decor now, and you like it that way.

You climb into the bed beside her, and her arm lifts so that you can snuggle into her chiselled stomach (wow, she has been working hard this season). “What’s Jenni saying?” you ask, following your statement and hoping you’ll get her attention. She presses her phone screen into the duvet before you can translate the message – it is too long of a paragraph for you to handle. “Anyway, I wanted to tell you that this isn’t permanent.”

Alexia, over the past few months, has been the most affectionate, loving, amazing person with the same smile and giggle you married. You thought she had disappeared and was replaced with stern, career-focused Alexia Putellas, jugadora del fútbol. You were wrong.

“I’m thinking January is when we’ll come back. Nico’s English will survive.” Your parents are going travelling. They’ve never been on the Orient Express before. “I want to be with you.”

It is a good thing Jenni has just broken up with her.

“I love you,” you continue. “So much.”

Alexia hums. Her heart breaks, and she does not know for whom. “¿En serio?” She is happy, she thinks. Certainly, she is glad that the four of you will be reunited.

You are.

January 2022 ruins things for Jenni Hermoso. She calls Pachuca back.

#barca femeni #woso fanfics #woso x reader #woso #fc barcelona #woso imagines #mapi leon #jenni hermoso #alexia putellas x reader #alexia putellas

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the-poets-might-disagree · 1 month

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how Denis Villeneuve built Paul and Chani's love story in Dune Part Two – from beginning to end

In their first romantic scene together Chani goes after Paul into the desert because she knows he won’t last on his own. By this point in time she already starts to fear for him- she knows he is brave and a good fighter, but she also knows it’s not enough. „You sandwalk like a drunk lizard!” We see her teaching him the sandwalk. This is when their melody is first played in the movie, this time it's quiet yet, merely an introduction. He is proud enough to say he knows how to sandwalk, but wise enough to admit he has a lot to learn from her. So he listens.

And listens and listens, earning her trust little by little. „You know I’m the only one who believes you’re gonna make it ’till the summer”. There is a scene here when you can’t even hear what she is saying. Instead it’s their melody playing still, while we see Paul’s (all smitten) face watching her, just explaining things to him.

Second important scene is when during the first fight, Chani’s life is in danger, and Paul jumps on her without a doubt in a split second, to protect her life with his own. They share a quick meaningful look before they get up from the ground. There are no questions left in her after this.

Third. In the tent after he was named Usul and Muad’Dib. Paul speaks chakobsa, with a proud look written on his face, and there are many people present, but it's all for her. He wants to be one of her people so badly, he does everything he can. And it's working, Chani is watching him speak as if he invented it. When Stilgar invites Paul to join him, he looks at her. Chani is nodding and so he gets up. It’s always her approval he is looking for. Everyone is hugging Paul and it’s Chani’s turn. We see their faces slowly touching, her lingering there for a moment.

The fourth one is when she gives in. We see them sitting together, watching the sunset. Her telling him about her name in the prophecy. „Your blood comes from dukes and great houses. We are not like that. Here, we are equal.” „I’d very much like to be equal to you.” She is smiling back at him „Maybe I’ll show you the way.”. Their first kiss- the melody returns for the second time. A little later she is shown leaning on him, literally. He has earned not only her trust, but her love, too.

This is when his nightmares start to kick in. He knows he can’t go south. At this point she starts to wear blue, which in the fremen culture (in the books) means a woman is pregnant – was changed in the movie to be the symbol of being in love or being taken.

We see their only love making scene. They are just laying there on each other, but she cannot turn her thoughts off. „There will be trouble.” „What are you talking about?” „The way they are looking at you. They worship you now.” She fears what is to come for him, but he reassures her. „I’m no messiah”. She then warms him about the stories his mother is spreading. During this scene their melody returns for the third time, programming our ears and brains to connect it to their intimacy and bond.

When Gurney appears, Chani thinks he is not to be trusted. Paul says "he is family" and as soon as he does she gets up to help him. It's the small things that tell you at this point that she will do anything for him, as long as it is the right thing to do.

Paul telling her about the Atreides atomic arsenal in the tent. How it could change everything. This is when we first see him being slightly intrigued by power. "You promised me you didn't want power". Paul switching it back on her with "no matter what I do, you still don't trust me". He is offended and tells her that he is fighting for her people, no matter what.

When they visit the arsenal you can see how scared she is. Paul is confused, but proud of his legacy- even if it is one that is big enough to destroy their planet. Their differences keep growing. He keeps having nightmares about losing her.

The final conflict in him is people pressuring him to go south, but he says he cannot, because he is afraid of the fundamentalists. Chani is the moral compass still, and she emphasizes he is right to be afraid of them.

"The world has made choices for us." Sounds like the beginning of a goodbye. We watch their last intimate scene together before it all changes irreversibly. "If I go south, I might lose you." "You will never lose me, not as long as you stay who you are". Tears rolling down his face. He knows already how much he is about to give up. She has no idea. "I will do what must be done". We see their goodbye kiss.

He drinks the water of life. She is furious but she runs to his rescue. She refuses to do so, but compelled by the voice, she saves his life- as it was written in the prophecy. When he wakes up she makes sure first that he is feeling well, then she slaps him and leaves. He emerges with a facial expression that is pure evil. At this point we know he is innocent no more and has switched to his dark side, the one that gives into power.

"She'll come to understand. I've seen it." He is so sure he can do whatever, and he'll still have her by his side... But when he arrives to speak at the gathering, Chani is the only one who doesn't kneel in front of him. He is still her equal in her head.

"I'm pointing the way!" as he shouts we can also see a switch in her. He's losing her. She's not looking at him lovingly at all anymore as she realizes it's her worst fear becoming reality in front of her eyes, and he is not the person she fell in love with anymore. She's angry, she loses hope, she's disappointed. Is about to give up on him.

When they go into battle, she still wears the blue scarf, not on her head anymore but on her arm. Still there with her, but barely.

The final scene. Everyone's gathering. He orders Gourney to bring the prisoners and then stops for one last moment before it's all about to go down. He looks behind his back. Chani's standing there, keep looking at him while he is about to walk up to her. Her facial expressions are childlike, showing how devastated and afraid she is, but she says "this isn't over yet" as if she was still hanging onto something. "I want you to know..." he says but he is looking at the ground, afraid to look her in the eye "...I will love you as long as I breathe". They lock eyes. It's his final moment to confess his everlasting love for her. Pain is written in his eyes. He knows it is goodbye, but she still has no idea what's about to happen. She sighs and swallows, furrowing her brows. No answer.

The prisoners arrive. Chani lifts her head up, trying to collect herself and stand proud. When he tells the emperor he is about to take his daughter's hand in marriage, we see Chani's face immediately. Her jaw drops. When he says "we will rule together", she is literally breathless, her eyes darting. She bites her lip before she looks up in disbelief. Straightening her pose once again, wanting to maintain her dignity.

Before Paul and Feyd-Rautha start their fight, Paul sneaks one last look at her to gather his strength. The music stops. We can only hear the knives and breaths during the fight. When he's on the ground, he can't help himself and looks for her. "She's your pet?" asks Feyd-Rautha. Chani shakes her head, visibly disgusted. Feyd-Rautha starts walking towards her, so Paul gets up immediately. This is when he knows he is going to end this man. But he gets stabbed and looks for her with fear in his eyes. Chani holds her breath in disbelief and her eyes widen.

He can barely breathe anymore, but he wins the fight. Chani is relieved, and gasps for air herself. Paul turns back to her, before he talks to the emperor. Her face lights up, showing how special he makes her feel in this exact moment, but in a second, her gestures return to the childlike frown that shows how betrayed she feels. Paul demands the emperor to kiss his father's ring. He does, the music starts again and the whole room gets on their knees.

Princess Irulan, Paul and Chani are the only ones left standing in the room. We hear their melody return, and build into something that is a lot bigger than them, and it's meant to break our hearts with the bittersweet sound. It was all about them leading up to this moment, and now they are no more. Irulan takes a look at the two of them, and realizes it all. Chani is shattered. Paul is not facing the Princess, but watches Chani leave (this is the last scene she is wearing blue), refusing to be a fool like everyone else. He shuts his eyes. He's never been in this much pain before, but he cannot show it. With her, Paul's last pieces of humanity leave, too.

#ive come a long way since ive called their love bs #this post took me bawling my eyes out four different times at the movies at the final scene #dune #dune part two #chani x paul #paul x chani #denis villeneuve #paul atreides #chani kynes #mine

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devilfic · 1 year

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❝right place, right time❞

II. of niceties and awkward second meetings.

parts: previously / next plot: bruce makes an offer you actually can refuse... at first. pairing: battinson!bruce wayne x gn!reader. cw: surgeon!reader, secret identities, slow burn, bruce wayne is still a masochist, bruce wayne is ALSO reckless :). words: 3.5k. edited: 2/28/24.

After every surgery—good or not so good—when you’re rinsing off and getting patted on the back for a job well done, you elect to feel hope. And then you hurry to lock yourself in your office and try to catch your breath.

The weight of a life on your hands follows you from room to room, from work to bed, from daydreams to night terrors. Even when it’s good, it rarely ever feels good. Questions bloat your brain: what if there’s something you missed? What if, despite it all, it’s not enough? Is the blood on your hands, then? Is the life yours to save or the patient’s to endure?

There was no solid answer. All you could do was wait for full recovery and try not to let it consume you.

Maybe tonight was a night for Thai. Maybe you’d call up your old roommates and get together at your place. Maybe you could finally tell them about the night Batman broke into your house, and how you stitched up his bullet wound, and then fell asleep 20 feet away because you had to meet Bruce fucking Wayne the very next morning and God help you if you embarrassed your boss by being late. So far, the only person who’d heard about it was the old lady who lived in the apartment below you, and all she’d done is pray for you.

You’d assured her you were fine, but she’d insisted on anointing your doors and windows before you left for work. The “demon of Gotham” she’d called him, herald of vengeance. The fact that you’d saved his life meant that you’d be spared in the reckoning... or whatever little old ladies learned in Sunday school.

Whatever she believed, you had no reason to think you’d be struck by lightning twice. Batman would not be returning to your home any time soon.

The thought almost made you sad.

There was no reason for him to return. Batman probably had a team of doctors waiting to tend to him if his arsenal of weaponry was any indicator of wealth. He wasn’t just any ol’ run of the mill vigilante, that was for certain.

You were just a blip. A freak accident. A glitch in the matrix. The chance that you’d been in the right place at the right time when Batman needed you most was just that: chance. And you were no gambler, but you could bet on your license that that man would never darken your doorstep (or window sill) again.

Maybe you’d stop by the liquor store too on your way home.

You’re rounding the corner when you collide with your boss, frantic as usual.

“Oh! Finally, there you are,” he grips your upper arms like a vice, eyes frenzied as they look you over, “why do you look like that?”

You imagine he’s referencing the dew of sweat on your skin and your scrubs out of whack. “I finished an operation fifteen minutes ago.” You answer, unimpressed. “I was just heading back to my office.”

Your attempt to sidestep him—to free yourself of the shackles that were his hands—proves useless. He spins to keep you in his grip, “You can’t! Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“You have a visitor.”

You frown, “A patient? No one’s on my schedule.”

“I’d like you to make an exception for this one.” His voice drops to a whisper. He readjusts your shirt sleeves as if dressing you up, prettying you for the highest bidder, and that sets you on edge, “Just trust me.”

You almost (almost) flinch away when he pushes you to your office door—now, a looming boulder instead of a gateway to your safe haven. Before you can even ask just who is waiting for you on the other side, your boss is rushing off down the hallway to do God knows what.

As if disarming a bomb, you slowly open the door to peek inside.

It scares the both of you, clearly, if the wide-eyed look he gives you says anything.

It’s like it hasn’t been a week since you’d last seen him. Bruce Wayne is wearing what looks like the same suit he’d worn last time, tie and collar stiff, jacket open underneath his billowy coat. But he looks awkward standing in your modest little office. He looks like he’s not supposed to be here, or at least not without his right hand man and the fanfare to follow.

He keeps his hands in front of him to show you he means no harm, “Your boss said it was okay to wait here for you.”

You’re still bracing yourself against the door, trying to figure out what he could possibly be doing in your office, what he’d possibly be waiting around for you for.

You think about the last time you’d seen him, when you’d grabbed him out of nowhere and his companion (Alfred, was it?) looked like he would have no problem breaking your spine if you dared manhandle him again. Oh God, he wasn’t going to sue, was he?

You swallow, “Uh, right. Can I help you?”

Bruce straightens up. His hands fall to his sides. You search his face to predict his next move but you’re puzzled to find that he’s just as clueless as you.

You didn’t know much about Bruce Wayne, that much had been established. What little you did know was some amorphous figure of nobility, the “prince of Gotham” as the press dubbed him.

Yet, standing before you in your simple little office, Bruce Wayne feels less like nobility and more like a stranger in foreign land. He keeps his hands in front of him and you’re able to make out purple dusting his knuckles. Bruised. Not bloody. Not recently. This piques your interest.

“How long have you been a surgeon?” Is his first question.

You slink into the room and debate on shutting the door, deciding to leave it open a crack; whether it is so you can escape or for him to feel unwelcome, you’re not entirely sure. “Four years. Not including the 12 years of school and residency.”

Bruce perks up just a tad to your bewilderment. “Did you study here in Gotham?”

“I did. I considered Metropolis.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Cheaper tuition.”

“Do you like it here in Gotham?”

“I don’t mean to be rude, Mr. Wayne,” your voice comes out clipped—nervous—all the same, “I just got out of a surgery and I didn’t even know you’d be here so I haven’t got the faintest clue what you want-”

“I’m sorry.” Bruce apologizes, “I can come back another time.”

Come back? You assess his face once more, double checking for any sign of where this conversation is going, “Come back for what?”

For the first time since you entered the room, Bruce takes a step forward. A few, actually, ‘til he’s standing only a foot away and his whole deer-in-headlights deal is on full display. “A proposition.” Your head swims with big ideas. You’re thankful you’re still standing still. “I’d like to hire you.”

If Em could see you, she’d be laughing her head off at the look on your face. The emotions you're hit with are akin to blunt force trauma.

Bruce catches onto your distress and begins to explain, glancing away from your eyes to give you room to breathe, “Due to the nature of my job and the... events that transpired last November, I’m careful about my position in the public eye. I’ve decided to have a doctor on call, someone I can rely on in the event that something drastic happens again. It would be more menial work, but you would, of course, be greatly compensated: full benefits, triple your salary here. Nothing is out of the question.”

As the last word melts in the air, he finally locks eyes with you. Less deer-in-headlights now, more spotlight. More "I eagerly await your response".

You couldn’t even fathom the price point: triple your salary? You already made good money here, any more would be excessive. And then there’s the reality of the situation. You would be employed, solely, by Bruce Wayne. At his beck and call—perhaps moved into a nicer place within chauffeur distance of Wayne Tower—the support staff of the upper echelon.

Your mom wouldn’t bug you about moving out of Gotham ever again.

This all felt too good to be true. So good that your intuitive pendulum swung violently in warning. Bruce awaits your reply, wringing his hands before him and those glaring purple knuckles catch your attention again. How a CEO had managed those was a question you hesitated to entertain. Something else was going on here.

You knew Gotham was a corrupt city. It festered with crime in every aspect, that much the Riddler had made clear last Halloween. The late mayor, the DA, the police commissioner... and amongst his targets, Bruce Wayne had survived. Something else was definitely going on here.

“...I serve the public, Mr. Wayne. I reserve my skill for the citizens of Gotham without the... ability to seek better. I’m flattered you would consider me and I would be more than happy to point one of my talented colleagues your way in my stead. But I’m sorry, I can’t accept your offer.”

Bruce’s face falls for just a second. After all, if he were to wear his emotions on his face all the time, you doubted he’d be much of a successful businessman.

You’re thankful that he takes a step out of your personal space and doesn’t fuss, doesn’t try to shove a wad of cash at you, doesn’t throw more offers at you until you concede. “I appreciate your consideration, but that won’t be necessary. I should let you return to your work. Thank you for your time.”

You nod a little dumbly, the weight of what has just transpired starting to settle fully on you. Em would be far too angry at you to laugh, now.

With the grace of his pedigree, Bruce Wayne nods silently to you and leaves.

You notice once the muscles in your shoulders stop shaking that there’s something in your office that wasn’t there before. There, on the loveseat where Bruce Wayne had waited for you, was a business card.

You shakily approach the seat and collapse beside it, reaching out to read what adorns the back of the Wayne Enterprises logo.

Bruce Wayne CEO P: 212-XXX-XXXX

It takes the clatter of ceramic to pull you out of your reverie.

Beside you, Em hovers, “And here I thought you weren’t a fan.”

At the puzzled look you give her, Em jerks her head toward where your eyes had been focusing, mindlessly stirring in the events of the afternoon. At some point, the TV’s channel had changed from Days of our Lives to the Gotham News. They were running a story on a charity event downtown. Bruce Wayne was shaking hands on camera, the tagline “Bruce Wayne makes dazzling appearance alongside controversial mayor”. How fitting.

“‘m not,” you grumble, pushing your lunch around in yellowed Tupperware, “just thinking.”

“About?”

You glance at Em. Too little too late, your boss had clambered into your office shortly after Bruce left, pestering you about the conversation you’d had, disappointed when you’d told him you’d turned down the offer. “Imagine the press we’d get, one of our very own working for the CEO of Wayne Enterprises,” he’d argued, “you’ve got to reconsider.”

You hesitated to tell your tale again, fearful that you’d suffer the same reaction, but Em was not your boss. She would never let the topic rest. And it wasn’t like you signed an NDA, a truth that had only hit you hours after the fact, “I got a job offer today.”

Em’s eyebrows shoot up, “From West Mercy? Arkham?”

The very thought of working in Arkham Asylum had you abandoning your lunch altogether, “God, no. It was more like... on-demand. Concierge. A very rich patient wanted to hire me as their private doctor.”

“Wow... was it one of your patients?”

“No, I’ve never examined him in my life.”

“Him?” You recognized that tone of voice. A slew of questions were on the way if you didn’t elaborate fast enough.

Besides yourself and Em huddled in a corner, the break room was relatively empty. One of the ER nurses was napping, another engrossed in a game of Sudoku on their phone. You doubted they would hear even if you raised your voice above a whisper.

Quietly, because you clam up at the thought of saying his name out loud, you fish out his business card and slide it across the table to her.

It takes her but a moment to process. First a deep inhale, then her hand slaps the table (the Sudoku nurse glances up at you both and then changes his mind), then she’s gripping at your scrubs and shaking you violently in your chair, “Shut the front door! Please tell me you said yes!”

You frown, “No, I didn’t.”

“Why the hell not? I know you don’t keep up with the times in this city, but this guy is loaded!”

“I do keep up with the times. I just don’t give a rat’s ass about Bruce Wayne. A crime punishable by death, apparently.”

“But why in the world would you want to keep working here when you could be... having lunch on a terrace? Discussing lab results over Pinot Grigio? Jetting off to the Bahamas to check his vitals on vacation?”

You snort, “Exactly what I told him: I serve the public. I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Could always do both.”

You tried to imagine it, for Em’s sake. The terrace lunches, the Pinot Grigio. You imagined the nice apartment from before and the esteem that your boss was sure you could bring the hospital.

And you imagined Bruce Wayne, with a limp. With bruised knuckles. Always looking at you with those big eyes that somehow told you everything and nothing at the same time. Like an open book in a dead language. You thought about the night that Wayne Tower caught fire and the world that had been crumbling down in Gotham had started to feel truly broken. Politicians die all the time, but the uber rich? Even you had watched the sky in horror.

And now that same man had asked you—you, of all people—to be there in case there was a next time.

You thought about the Batman. Would you say yes if he asked you the exact same question?

You hadn’t considered both.

You’re unaware that Em is leaving until her chair scoots loudly across the laminate, “Think on it. Seriously. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime.” Her hand brushes your shoulder fleetingly. Then she’s leaving and you’re left to think again.

It was a bit ironic that his next visit took place as you were perusing apartment listings.

You hadn't seen him get inside your home the first time. He’d just been there, as if he’d always been there and you just never noticed. This time, he doesn’t have the urgency to break in. He waits at your window… staring in at you. No knocking. Not even a muffled “Can I come in?”

You don’t know how he expects anyone to invite him inside their home with those kinds of manners. You set your laptop aside and walk over to the curtains, his figure becoming clearer, more menacing as eyes silently follow you. By the time you reach the window, your heart is beating at an unhealthy pace. You had been able to get that adrenaline down before. How did you manage that again?

Batman waits patiently. Your hand presses to the glass, the warmth of it leaving behind a visible print as you push up on the glass, “Don’t tell me,” his head cocks to the side as you begin, “another bullet?”

If he is suffering from a wound like the last, he doesn’t look it. He’s crouched on your fire escape with his cape billowing behind him and the light of your apartment giving off just enough of an ominous glow.

After last time, you’d sneaked some extra supplies back to your place under the paranoia that something might happen again. And, let’s be honest, no one would raise a brow at having everything you need to clean a gunshot wound in this city. You couldn’t say it was entirely just for him, though.

The silence goes on uncomfortably long. You start to wonder if he even heard you, the way he stares you down, unmoving. He resembles a stray caught stealing from a trashcan, seconds from sprinting in the opposite direction to avoid being caught.

Eventually, your heartbeat spikes again. What had he told you last time? To run if someone tried to break in? Maybe he had wanted you to sprint the second you saw a human looming on your fire escape, regardless of their vague bat shape. Was he angry? He kind of always looked angry.

“Have you noticed anyone following you?” His question causes just the briefest alarm.

Living on the not-greatest side of Gotham, you had learned how to keep your head down but your eyes everywhere. If some mugger were looking to jump you as you got out of your car, you’d know. You shake your head, palms beginning to sweat.

Batman assesses you for a bit longer. You can’t tell if he’s reading you for a lie or if his instincts are just telling him otherwise, but eventually, he accepts your answer.

And begins to leave.

“Wait,” you stutter out against your better judgement, when he’s already stood to his full height, one boot positioned on the railing to propel himself below. He looks over his shoulder at you very slowly, “how’s your... side? Wound heal okay?

He looks down to where you’d stitched him, where his armor had been mended. “It’s better.”

You sigh, relieved. “You’ve gotten it looked at, then.”

“Someone looked at it.”

His wording gives you pause. “What about your stitches? Did you get them redone?” He hesitates. “You... did get them redone, right? Better. Preferably by someone who wasn’t worried about you dying on their living room floor.” Your skin prickles when you see his guilty look. “Batman, if you’ve been fighting crime every night for the past week with the same stitches I put in you days ago-”

“I’ve been through worse.”

“So you keep saying.” You really don’t mean to grit your teeth at him, practically stomping your foot because you’d, at the very least, expected him to be a bit smart about a bullet wound.

But, then again, you were talking to a man dressed as a bat.

You crawl out onto the fire escape, chilly and biting and unforgiving as the night may be, and watch Batman turn halfway toward you. You have to resist the urge to brush your hand against his side, an act far too intimate with Kevlar in the way. You look up at him, “Don’t suppose you’d let me take another look at it?”

The first time, sure, he let you because he was close to dying. With a motto of “I’ve been through worse” at his disposal, you doubted he would let you do it again unless the circumstances were dire.

Sure enough, he moves defensively away from you. You take heart in that it seems less like he distrusts you and more like he’s got a bravado issue. Not great, but better. Easier to fix.

You think of the medical supplies in your apartment and wonder if you’ve got what it takes to coax him inside. “I thought that you might not come again. Guy like you fighting crime every night must have people on hand for stuff like this, right? You’re not just any vigilante. Couldn’t be.” His unsettling glare makes the cold seep into you just a little bit more, “You don’t. Do you?”

He doesn’t answer you. His eyes shift from yours to the cityscape. Looking for a way out, maybe.

But if he wanted to leave, he would leave. Why would he hesitate?

“I just want to look. Make sure it’s not infected. No poking or prodding, I promise.”

“It’s not. I had someone look at it.”

“A doctor?”

“...No.”

“Someone who knows what they’re looking at, at least?”

He looks down at you. There’s something there that he’s keeping close to his chest, too much information for a stranger (even one who’s saved his life). You wait to see what his decision will be. “You work at Gotham General.” Batman states, matter-of-factly.

“...I know you were bleeding to death when I told you, but you’ve got to keep up in this city.” You see a hint of a smile on his mouth that is just as easily written off as a scowl. “What about it?”

Again, that look.

Just as you’re certain that you’re about to break through to something, a siren goes off in the distance. Sure enough, when the both of you look to the sky, his emblem is carved out in the clouds, beckoning him down to the streets once more. Your heart sinks. You were so close.

Batman waits a beat, positioning himself on the railing again. His eyes find yours over his shoulder, cape fluttering with the promise of taking flight, “They’re lucky to have you.”

He leaves. It feels even colder when he does.

taglist: @yikes-buddy @alexxavicry @moonlightreader649 @maryx0107 @vainillasmil157

#bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne scenarios #bruce wayne imagine #bruce wayne fic #bruce wayne #batman x reader #batman scenarios #batman imagine #batman fic #the batman #battinson x reader #battinson #dc #mjwrites

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novasintheroom · 18 days

Text

013. Recommendation (pt. 4/5)

♡ Pairing - Vash x Reader

♡ Word count - 1.1k

♡ Warnings - none

♡ Description - Vash finally caves and sees you again.

Part of the 150 Bullets drabble series on AO3.

Part 1 ---- Part 2 ---- Part 3 ---- Part 4 (you are here!) ---- Part 5

So it goes for the next nine years. Letters are constantly exchanged between you two. Trinkets and baubles pass between envelopes, too. Vash’s pockets fill with the papers you send, and he pulls them out on lonely nights to thumb over the ink and laugh at the bad jokes. Some letters fall apart from bullets he dodges, and he mourns their loss every time. It’s like losing you all over again. But, he reminds himself that he chose to leave, not you.

He wonders if you look older. If you’ve cut your hair. He still expects you to write one day, telling him you’ve found a partner, that you’ve started a relationship, that your partner doesn’t like that you’re constantly writing letters to another man and you’ll have to cut contact. He dreads those thoughts, those days. A secret part of him hopes it never comes to that, selfish as it is.

He tells himself he hopes you find happiness wherever you go.

Your latest letter is long, filled with anecdotes of your days and funny stories. Near the end, your letter takes a turn:

I’ve also heard about someone taking the Plants, too. Several towns have been wiped off the map recently. Do you know anything about that? It’s crazy, what some bandits will do to get money or power.

One of my towns was hit, actually. Henna. I rode to it one day and just found it in fresh ruins. Some of it was still smoldering with fire. Most of everyone had left by then, and those who hadn’t…I had to leave quickly and sent word for help to go to them. I couldn’t do anything, not without outside help. They tried to take my bird. I think they planned to eat her. Desperate people do desperate things.

Please be careful out here, birdie.

You end with a joke, as always, but Vash barely reads it. He looks up, around at the small camp he’s made for himself that night, the bottle of alcohol sitting by his hip. A sinking feeling settles in his chest. He’d heard about the Plant thefts, too. It was part of the reason he’d travelled to the southernmost part of the region. The other, well…he can’t admit it to himself, but he wants to be close by in case something goes wrong for you. Bandits, bullies, robbers – they just get more numerous the further from cities one gets. Not that he’d get there in time. He wouldn’t even know something happened to you until your letters just stop coming.

That thought settles something in him. He’s known, of course, that there’s no way to help you unless by chance. But maybe it’s the alcohol, or a fierce want to just see you again that finally, finally takes over. He pulls out his pen and paper and writes a simple letter he’ll send tomorrow:

______,

Do you want to meet at the town Gregarious for dinner sometime soon?

Vash

Of course you say yes.

Gregarious is a bigger town, up-and-coming on its milling and water production. They even added a third Plant to their arsenal recently. Everyone is in high spirits, and Vash receives friendly nods when he walks in.

The Mom and Pop’s is crowded for dinner. He’s happy, seeing so many people out and about. But there’s one person he’s looking for. His eyes scan the room in quick flits, jumping from one person to another. Have you dyed your hair? Cut it?

Someone taps him on the shoulder, and he turns, and his breath leaves him. It’s you. You, with your hair in a braid, the same color it’s always been. You look hesitant, even with recognition in your eyes. “Vash?” your quiet voice asks.

Without preamble, Vash opens his arms wide. Your face breaks into a grin, and you hug him just as tightly as he hugs you. He can smell the apple lotion on your skin, along with the dust of the day, the suns in your hair.

Dinner isn’t awkward like he feared it would be. Nine years of letters will do that, he supposes. You both chatter to each other about your day, how you got here, where you’re staying, how each of your goals are going. It’s nice. It’s so nice. Vash can’t keep a smile off his face the whole time. Your cheeks turn red with your own smiling.

“So what are your plans now?” He asks, taking a sip of beer.

You push your vegetables around on your plate for a moment. “Well, the library exchange program is pretty well set up. A lot of young people – especially girls – are reading and writing and going to college, or planning on it. HQ has been so impressed with my progress that they want me to move to Octovern and be on the board.” You push a carrot around on your plate. “I turned them down.”

Vash gawps and leans forward. “What? Why?”

You smile. “I like being out here. I like seeing people, strange as that is to say. I usually hate people.” You and he share a knowing laugh. “But I like seeing how I’m actually making a difference, and I don’t want to sit in a stuffy board room giving orders to other librarians, where to go, whatever. That’s just not the kind of work I like. Plus, I…was hoping to travel with you again.”

You look up to gauge his reaction. He tries to school a neutral face, but you see right through it. “It wouldn’t be forever! I’d still hand out books and set up routes, just in a more sporadic way. We have several librarians that do it that way, travel wherever they want and switch books out when they come through a town. It gives people something to look forward to when they see us.”

You were already using “us” again. Vash feels torn. On the one hand, you’re doing exactly what he left you to do. You aren’t as safe as he’d hoped, but it’s better than traveling with him. On the other…Sigh. On the other hand, he really, really misses you.

You’ve carried on, not noticing his thoughtful look. It almost feels like a job interview – as if he needed your recommendation that you were reliable. “I’ve gotten much better at defending myself with my knife! And I’m good at making getaways on foot and on tomas. And I know you miss my cooking, you’ve said it a thousand times in your letters – “

“One month,” he hears himself say. “One month, and we see how much you still miss traveling with me. Alright?”

Your chair screeches from the force you jump out of it, and you’re on him, squealing with excitement and shaking his shoulders. Vash laughs at your enthusiasm. He’s missed it. He’s missed you.

He just hopes it isn’t a mistake to invite you along again.

#i just want to finish this arc man #one more chapter and it'll be done #i swear it #trigun #vash the stampede #trigun stampede #tristamp #writing #vash x reader #vash the stampede x reader #reader insert #self insert #nova writes #trigun x reader #150 bullets

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gojoshooter · 1 year

Note

hey pretty, I was wondering how jjk characters would handle naughty kids?? tell me bout it!

wOAh that sounds interesting 🤔 here you go anon ♡

Dealing with the Brats: JJK men

Featuring : Yuji Itadori, Megumi Fushiguro, Gojo Satoru, Toji Fushiguro

A/N : at this point my curse technique gotta be writing fluff bahaha anyway enjoy! ^-^ i wrote this with love

WARNINGS : babies, crying

Itadori Yuji :

yuji doesn’t exactly love taking care of children but he volunteered babysitting neighbours’ kids for money

usually kids like him & not really bother until one of them turns out to be the spawn of satan

okay not that he gets his ass handed by them but he can’t bring himself to scold or even be stern??

he knows he has the advantage with all those muscles & speed but that’s the reason

if he sees a kid climbing a potentially dangerous place he would just gently peel them off each time lol

it doesn’t come as a surprise that Yuji is good at distracting the restless ones or the crybabies

he has mastered that art

him impersonating different pokémons with his whole body is the cutest shit, & kids love it so much

if a child annoys the fuck outta him he’ll prolly scramble around googling tips

him holding like three kids in one arm as he pays you for the icecream with his other because they can't be trusted unattended

maybe you developed a small crush after watching that adorable scene

Megumi Fushiguro :

you might have convinced him with a good repay cus he’s never doing that in his right mind

megumi’s not actually that bad with kids as much as he thinks & things go smoothly (until)

the kids ask him to take one of the divine dogs out for fun & he won’t budge

"what makes you think i’d do something like that" >:0

if the kid turns out to be brattier than he initially thought & is about to cry he’d panic maybe contemplate to run

but he would settle for calling Itadori & ask what to do because "he’s good at cooking, might be good at handling kids"

i think Yuji’d just come over with a silly cute trick to rescue like bringing the two little curses he used on Junpie siksijisfjlk

we know Megumi would lowkey love him for that

IMAGINE HIM MAKING FUNNY FACES TO STOP THE CRYING SNOTTY KID

he’s trying don’t laugh

he can definitely be a little ferm when they don’t listen

megumi wouldn’t say it but he prefers you besides him for a hand in handling them

Gojo Satoru :

good luck to the kids who volunteered to handle this brat

he annoyingly gets along with them too easily

i think he can handle the naughty dwarfs the best?? he has all the tools necessary in his arsenal

first of all he won’t use his abilities unless it’s a really naughty kid like a nasty kid, a menace

he would turn on his infinity so he can deal with them efficiently without the kid resisting him

hey hey in his defence—the naughtier the kid, the naughtier the method

he’s far better in indulging the children than any other care taker you hired, with his sweet but ferm tone that made kids putty in his watch

hide & seeks are fun and hell with him at the same time because kids don't know he can teleport....

"come on, who’s going to be my good little baby today?~ get in line for a kiss~"

has so much advantage with that height, kids know they can’t outsmart him and run around

if there’s this really really naughty one that snapped his last straw he’d just start intimidating them and it’d be the funniest shit

like tracks the kid with his big but slow steps staring down with crystal eyes borring into the little one as they try to run away pffftt

teen gojo was meaner by the way

"tsk... stop crying or i'm taking all the treats your mommy left, you nuisance"

turning on his infinity for the whole day in the name of babysitting

Toji Fushiguro :

ultimate Brat Tamer™

he doesn’t think he fits any job dealing with kids but anything for money i guess

toji has kids at home so atleast he knows to be as gentle as a feather

his first impression on kids always entertains him

like they’d see him walk in & he watches the kids go pleading their moms trying to convince they can be 'good boys' or 'good girls' without a babysitter

you know toji is bit of an evil man so he loves ordering the kids around

"kid, bring me a glass of water?" knowing full well that dwarf of a child can’t reach the counter but the poor kid toddles, staggering a little on short legs to the kitchen anyway

puts them on his stomach as he decides to turn on the tv, securing the sides with his big arms & that’s the way you handle a child thank you

has learnt a few magic tricks and a smile may sneak up on his scarred lips when the toddler gasps in aw

toji doesn’t hesitate to be stern (he has the dilf rights) so kids don’t risk to bother him in the first place

he doesn’t know why but they love his embrace??? some brat said it’s cus his boobs are comfy but that didn’t light any bulb in his noggin

sees the kid hide a handful of toffies behind them and he’s like "cut it out, kid. you don’ want your teeth all rotten, do ya? hand them like a man.." (💀💀💀)

A/N : a’ighttt wrapping it up! i hope you enjoyed this, until next time! —♡

Tags : @luckimoon @maybekoya @nanamikentoseyebags @already-rice @already-rice

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samdeancrimespree · 9 days

Text

it’s time to overanalyze the impala destruction scene <3 with actual screencaps this time. my analysis of the shot will be Above the screencap. hopefully that makes sense

so sam tries once again to talk to dean about dad. dean yells at him again for suddenly wanting to do what dad would’ve wanted and sam opens up to him about feeling guilty. then sam says he’s dealing with dads death, but dean isn’t. dean doesn’t say anything, just looks at him like This.

we don’t know yet, what john said to dean before he died. but it’s hanging over dean. i think sam’s reaction to dad’s death makes dean want to keep johns words a secret even more. if he tells sam that’s what dad wanted, sam might go along with it.

every time someone brings up john, dean hears his words again, and he feels even worse. he can’t deal with dads death because that means acknowledging what he said, and it’s just too much. he already lost dad, he can’t lose sam too.

sam says “i’ll leave you alone.” and walks away. we only hear a few steps, but that might just be for clarity. who knows. or he just. took a few steps then stopped.

either way, dean turns around and calmly picks up a crowbar. he smashes the window of a random car. takes a few breaths.

as he turns around, he looks up from the ground. looks at something in front of him. it seems for a second like he’s going to stop.

then he looks down at the impala. he glances back up, just for a second. right where sam was standing before. it looks like he’s making sure sam is watching him. you want me to deal with it? fine.

“next time someone asks me if i’m okay, i’m gonna start throwing punches.”

so he goes crazy on the impala. we all know that part.

he destroys the car right after he fixes it. specifically the trunk of the car, where they keep their hunting arsenal. maybe that was just the closest part, or maybe he’s had enough of his family dying because of hunting. he didn’t want to find the demon if it meant sam would die, but now sam might die anyway. no matter what he does, the car/his family will be destroyed. he can’t fix it, and it’s futile to even try. all his work, all the time and love he put into sam might have been worthless.

when he finally stops, he looks wrecked. this is the most emotion he’s allowed himself since dad died.

this is the last shot of the episode. him staring for a good 10 seconds, still on that same eyeline. he seems like he’s looking at something.

he lets himself look sad for a second, but he doesn’t turn away like he normally would. he wants sam to see. this was all for him. it’s like… there. i’m upset. was that enough? can you stop asking now?

then his expression hardens, shutting down and covering his emotions again. it’s like he’s warning sam. dean can’t be sad, only angry. only destructive. this time, it’s the car. next time, it might be sam. the two things he’s supposed to look after, both ruined. and dad isn’t here to fix it. dean has to figure it out on his own.

it looks like he’s asking sam to just leave it alone. don’t ask me about this. i can’t talk about it. and for now, sam believes it’s just about dad dying.

and then the episode ends. i genuinely cannot tell if im supposed to think sam is there or not. but like its the same eyeline!!! and the shot is pushed in and to the right!! sam could be standing in the same spot for all we know !! also what else would he be having a silent convo with in bobby’s junkyard? the dog? his own reflection? the only thing that makes sense to me is that sam is there. that he’s doing this For sam. maybe this is something everyone noticed but me until rn but. im going insane

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sminiac · 5 months

Note

I drank a tea way too late at night and now it's almost 7am with no sleep so pardon me if I'm totally incoherent but. I've been playing my death metal favourites all night and I can't stop thinking of like. Xikers with a super scary chains+spikes metalhead s/o... Who among them would be intimidated and submissive to them and who would rise up and give them a challenge, rough them up like the bed is a mosh pit... I have my own ideas already but I'm curious to what others would think

I like the way you think🤭

At times Minjae has some lip to him, so I feel like he’d enjoy the taunting aspect to it, like purposefully being excessively difficult with you, whiny refusals and muttering back complaints under his breath when you ask something of him, he’s continuous in doing it only loud enough for you to hear, but muttered so it isn’t distinct enough to properly make out. It’s really all a ploy to get you riled up, quietly admires you with darting eyes, your aesthetic an entirely new sight to him that’s done not in a disingenuous way, he can’t help but fawn over you, especially when you’re being mean, when you aren’t treating him like delicate glass. Being used yet simultaneously taken care of would definitely be a sort of coping mechanism for him, knows he’s in safe hands so he just completely lets go, he’s yours, utterly and completely.

Ex: He’d definitely have a thing for particularly sharp jewelry, or even nails, the pleasure you provide his cock with mitigating the burning sting of something sharp being dragged across his thighs/chest that’s not quite sharp enough to break skin, but it’s something about the red lines appearing in the aftermath that has him wanting more.

Junmin would honestly, in my opinion, be quite the wildcard, I feel like surface level most would assume that he’d submit with ease, but something about him is telling me that he wouldn’t. Well, most of the time. I’d say maybe 50/50, like sometimes he’s whimpering out pleas that you: “Be mean to me, want you to be mean.” And would secretly enjoy the way you handle him so firmly, holding him by the square of his jaw, forcing him to watch the way your hand glides up and down his cock, a few degrading words slipping while you’re riding him, acting out only so he can receive more, but he’d also like to see someone as intimidating as you brought down to a whimpering puddle beneath him, because of him.

Ex: maybe it’s just me though, but I think he’d be so taunting about it, loves to point out everything, making fun of you but promises to make you feel good, that he’ll make up for it. I think the juxtaposition of being perceived as more soft and sweet vs enjoying being the one in charge is something that would feed into this too. Also, having his arms and legs restrained would be something he’s into, depends on the day.

For Sumin… now I had to come back to do him last because if I thought about it for too long my heart would break through the interior of my chest. I’m gonna play into the mean!Sumin thing I brought up recently because the image I have of him in my head fits a little too perfectly, but he’d definitely be the most aggressive, by far. Because tell me he wouldn’t stick his fingers down your throat to shut you up while he’s got you backed up against a wall, fucking up into you, his pace brutal, unfaltering. He can be so sweet and praising but if you want the. he’s saying nothing to you other than utter filth.

Ex: let me stop right there, but his arms 😵‍💫 putting you in a headlock??? Nah okay, I’m done let me chill out. He’d have a thing for stretched ears (self indulgent?) thinks they’re so cool, especially the tapers lol.

I think there’s no way Jinsik would wanna put up a fight against you, the most he’d have in his arsenal is a few weak snaps that he’d quickly apologize for, taking his words back as he’s scrambling to keep you close to him, sweet thing, just wants to feel you, wants you all over him. The type to be so fascinated by your level of self expression, brags about it, countless compliments whispered to you in public when he’s feeling needy and just can’t wait until you’re back at the dorms. Thinks it’s sexy how you take on the dominant role, has a thing for egging you on, “You gonna use me? God- please do, ‘s all I want, however you want me I’m all yours, only yours.”

Ex: would have a thing for his hair being pulled, and not the dainty tugs at his scalp but forcefully moving his head by a simple fist full of his hair, wants to be messed with, wants to be marked up, in whatever way you possibly can. Also, having a thing for his cock being hit/slapped, tries so hard not to cum on the spot, but if your spitting on it after, stroking him gently to make up for your harshness in quiet then he can’t help it.

Hyunwoo… now listen, this may be crazy but I can see him holding you down, like face down ass up with one arm, the other cracking harsh, self indulgent slaps against you, likes seeing how red your ass gets, his jaw pulled tight when you’re garbling out jumbled cries that it: “Hurts, Woo it stings- more!” over the wet sound of your cunt repeatedly swallowing him in. Would also have a thing for teasing you to the brink of tears, feigning empathy with a dramatic bump to his lip as his hand smooths against the irritated skin. “Poor baby, but you’re doing so good f’me, taking my cock so well. Makes me wonder how people would react to seeing you so obedient, letting me fuck you like this.”

Ex: a favourite position would have to be the mating press, likes seeing you cry while he’s fucking into you at an incomprehensible pace, the tip of his cock bumping into a place that has your vision going fuzzy at the edges. Pride swells inside in his chest when he sees that your eye makeup is completely ruined, especially if you use a lot of eyeliner/dark eye shadow.

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twst-trash · 2 years

Text

part 1 - I was requested more adeuce, so I’m here to deliver!

Content: bratty!Ace, praise kink, double penetration.

Everyone is 18+ per my bio ; Afab!reader, smut.

“Do you think… they were coming on to us?”

It’s Deuce who brings it up to Ace first, in the middle of the night while their other roommates slept. Ace turns in his bed and pulls the covers up to his chin. His boner had just subsided, but hearing Deuce’s question resurfaced the memories he was trying so desperately to repress. He curses his virgin cock for being so sensitive and perking back up at the mere mention of you.

“I don’t know.” Ace grumbles back. He thinks he’s good at reading people- his brother taught him that magicians need to be; it was the most powerful tool in a magician’s arsenal- but you were an enigma to him. You guys were friends, right? So maybe Ace should feel good that you trusted him enough to walk around practically naked in front of them. Maybe it was a breach of your trust in them that he and Deuce were ogling you all night, with your hardened nipples and smackable ass and puffy pussy on display… Still, Ace couldn’t pull his eyes away. He couldn’t pretend like he didn’t imagine the way it felt to be balls deep inside of your cunt whenever you bent over in front of him.

Then there’s Deuce, who wouldn’t be able to tell if someone was hitting on him if they fell out of the sky like cauldron and put him in a coma. He’d have girls approach him in his delinquent days, the type of girls who found his motorcycle and mean streak charming, but their intentions were much easier to understand. Even then, his fellow gang members would need to pry his eyes open and point out when a girl was interested in him.

He saw it in you, that same coquettish desire, just a little bit. He saw it in the way your touches lingered, the way your eyelashes fluttered, the way your heartbeat raced as you cuddled them last night. He couldn’t be sure, though, and he didn’t want to lose your friendship all because he couldn’t keep his dirty mind at bay.

The next day at lunch is normal. You laugh with them, steal food off of Deuce’s plate, scold Grim for picking fights with Ace- it was almost as if your advances really were just in their heads.

So when you invite them over again that night, Ace and Deuce have no reason to say no.

♠️❤️♠️❤️♠️

Deuce stood, mouth agape. Ace sputtered and choked.

The two boys, rambunctious and rowdy as ever, were not expecting you to greet them as naked as the day you were born when they enthusiastically swung open the Ramshackle Dorm’s front door.

For a while it’s a staring match. Neither boy confident enough to make the first move, opting instead to stare slack-jawed at your boobs. You decide that you’ve finally had enough, moving their hands so that each boy cupped one of your breasts. You’re sure they can feel your erratic heartbeat, the one giveaway you couldn’t mask under your seductress facade, that exposed you to be just as nervous as them.

“Well,” you start, timidly biting your lip in a way that stirs something animalistic in the two boys. “Do you get it now?”

They do.

Before you’re even aware of what’s happening, Ace’s mouth is on yours, a tongue shyly working it’s way between your lips. Deuce opts for suckling on the junction of your neck and shoulder. The door is left open wide open, forgotten by the two boys who were now set on ravishing your body.

It isn’t long before their clothes are strewn onto the floor, belts and shoes and socks and underwear littered along the path from the doorway to your bedroom. Two sets of hands roam your body, inexperienced and definitely out of sync, but you can’t help but grow wet at your friends finally touching you in the way that you had fantasized about for months.

You get on your knees and marvel at the two cocks standing straight at attention for you. You take a second to admire their differences- Deuce’s was thicker and Ace’s was longer, a delightful tuft of dark blue hair along the former’s base and a clean shaven latter- before stroking one in each hand. Deuce’s breath comes out more like a stutter, one of his hands covering his mouth in surprise. Ace is more impatient, opting to buck his cock into your hand with a soft grumble.

“So,” you begin teasingly, “who caught on first?”

Ace flickers his eyes toward Deuce, but says nothing. You stare into his cyan eyes and let a small smile grace your lips.

“Good boy, Deuce.” You say, giving kissing the tip of his cock. Your tongue pokes out of your mouth to lick a stripe up the underside of his member while continuing to stroke Ace. “Aren’t you just a good, smart boy, hm?”

The praise goes straight to his cock, throbbing against your tongue. You giggle as Deuce nods, an intense blush spread across his face like a wildfire.

You feel something poke the other side of your face. You look up at Ace to see his unmistakable pout. A brat through and through.

“Stop complaining,” you say, rolling your eyes at the boy. Still, that doesn’t stop you from wrapping your lips around the head of his cock for just a moment, a preview of what was to come that made his knees buckle. “I have to reward Deuce first.”

You return your attention to Deuce and begin to take him into your mouth. Inch by inch, you bob your head slowly down his length until you’ve reached his base. Deuce tentatively reaches down to grasp your hair, shyly moving your mouth along his cock between shaky breaths.

“‘snot fair…” Ace mutters, practically fucking your fist. In protest, you release your grip around him and smile around Deuce’s cock when Ace lets out a small whine.

“You better start being good or maybe Deuce will be the only one inside me tonight.”

Deuce tauntingly chuckles towards Ace at the thought before quickly shutting up once you place your mouth back on his cock. You increase your speed and suck harder until you hear his breath hitch. He thrusts up into your mouth and cums hard, spilling his seed down your throat.

“I-I’m so, so sorry!” Deuce stutters, embarrassed but aroused when you swallow and lick your lips. “I should’ve warned you-“

“No need to be sorry, baby. You did so good.” You give him a chaste kiss as you rise from your spot on the ground. You move over to sit on your bed and spread your legs wide as an invitation.

Deuce’s cock is still soft after his orgasm, but growing harder again as he watches you move your fingers into your dripping pussy.

Ace uses this to his advantage and moves to line his cock up with your entrance, but you gently push him away with your foot. Your eyebrow raises, and you cock your head to one side.

“Wanna apologize for being a brat first?” You tease as Ace huffs indignantly.

“I’m sorry.” He says gruffly. He moves to enter you again, but you stop him.

You shake your head, closing your legs to both boys’ dismay. “Try again. Mean it.”

“Wait, shit-” Ace whines, his cock throbbing and aching for any relief it could get. “I-I’m sorry. Please let me fuck you, I need it so bad.”

Satisfied, you open your legs again and finally, finally Ace is able to plunge himself inside of you, gasping at how tight and wet and warm you felt inside.

You can’t help from moaning at how enthusiastically Ace thrusts into you, his hands gripping your thighs tightly as he fucks you hard. The sight of Ace fucking you out of your wits paired with the lewd sounds of your wet pussy around his cock have Deuce rock hard once again. You lock eyes with him and nod toward your bedside drawer.

Deuce’s blush might as well have been permanently tattooed onto his face by the time he opens the drawer and examines its contents. A vibrator, a bottle of lube, and a small tapered buttplug sit neatly at the bottom of it.

“S-stretch me out, Deuce?” You’re able to manage, Ace unrelenting in his thrusts. “Wanna feel you both in me-“

You adjust your position with Ace so that he’s on his back. You lay against him, chests flush against each other so that your ass is on display.

“Are you sure, _____?“

You nod your head affirmatively and feel his fingers experimentally prod your ass. The cold lube against your hole makes your body tense, but you force yourself to relax as you feel a finger enter inside.

Ace, in a shocking display of good sportsmanship, stills his hips as Deuce prepares you. Slick fingers work themselves in and out of your ass, stretching you out deliciously.

“T-that’s good Deuce,” you say once you’re ready. “I can’t wait any longer.”

Deuce sloppily applies the lube to his cock and slowly enters you. You can help the loud, drawn out moan that escapes your throat when he’s fully sheathed inside, the feeling of being so full overwhelming your senses.

The boys find a surprisingly harmonious rhythm, thrusting into you in tandem. You’ve never felt so full- the nights you’ve had with your buttplug and vibrator in each hole held no candle to Ace and Deuce thrusting into you, stretching you out, enjoying your body together.

You cum first- how could you not? Your walls convulsing around the two boys send them over the edge just after you- first Ace, then Deuce. You can feel their cum seep out of both your entrances as they pull out, rolling over onto your tiny mattress.

“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted that,” you admit softly, feeling each boy cling sweatily onto your body from either side. “Maybe next time the both of you can stop your bickering for a moment and touch each other, too?”

Ace blushes, feigning a disgusted look before burying his face into the side of your neck. Deuce is already peppering your collarbone and shoulders with kisses and small love bites, trying to ignore what you had said but unable to hide his own flushed face.

Well, the three of us will have a lot of time to figure it out, you think to yourself with a chuckle as the three of you drift to sleep in a mess of limbs and kisses.

♠️❤️♠️❤️♠️

Of course, after not arriving back to the dorm before curfew, Riddle has their heads. Collared and magicless, Ace and Deuce can at least both agree that it was worth it.

dividers by firefly-graphics

Idiots to lovers, all of them.

#adeuce x reader #deuce spade x reader smut #ace trappola x reader smut #twst smut #twisted wonderland smut

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eluvisen · 2 months

Text

Truce

Fandom: Baldur’s Gate 3

Characters: Karlach/Tav

Rating: T

Summary: It may or may not be a mistake falling in with these lunatics, but at least they look like fun. And one of them in particular looks like fun.

(Karlach’s first night in camp, as told by her.)

Notes: Written for Femslash February 2024. Prompt: once upon a time.

—

Wreathed in smoke and infernal fire, Karlach laughs as the tollhouse burns. Gouts of fire tower on all sides, devouring everything in their path and scorching her throat with every breath. But the inferno is fucking nothing compared to the hellfire inside her. The engine shudders behind her ribs, its vibrations ribboning down her torso and all the way through her guts, so hot and furious it feels like someone poured the magma from one of Avernus’s volcanoes directly into her chest.

With several swings of her axe and a swift kick, she bashes through the debris blocking the door. But past the shower of cinders and ash, the sky is blue. The sky is blue, and when she steps outside, the air is clean.

To her surprise, that gang of adventurers are waiting around. Away from the flames, mind, but waiting.

Karlach strides over, greataxe resting on her shoulder. The metal burns, but she burns hotter. “Hope you didn’t take much of a scorching in there. I had to let off some steam after facing those imp-fuckers.”

The engine thunders in her chest, feeling like a burr made of lava that she can’t cough out. Bloody thing isn’t cooling down. Seems it isn’t made to work outside Avernus, which means she needs to find an infernal mechanic. Fast.

The rogue smiles at her without showing his teeth. “Only mild burns and the immediate threat of immolation, darling.” There’s something about him that makes her want to keep him in sight at all times, and not just for the safety of her coin purse. He isn’t infernal, she can tell that much. Maybe it’s his hair putting her off. “I don’t suppose you’ll reimburse us for spilling their guts on your behalf?”

Karlach snorts. “You didn’t kill them for me, you killed them with me. And I’m afraid I left my soul coins in Avernus. Could give you a hug if you wanted, though.”

His smile twists into something darker. “What a pity. I hear soul coins are especially valuable currency, and this isn’t a charity.”

“Strange,” says the walking fringe. She stays at the edges like a regular cleric, but there’s something… tricky about her. Yeah, that’s the word. Tricky. “I thought we were a charity. Why else would you be here, Astarion?”

Rhodeia, meanwhile, wears the perfectly pleasant expression of someone who’s mentally screaming into the Abyss. Making firm eye contact with Karlach, she says, “Since we all need a cure for these mind flayer parasites, you’re welcome to come with us.”

The rest of the party look just as loony. The githyanki undoubtedly draws eyes, and it’s a tossup whether her bloody huge greatsword or her scowl is the scarier weapon in her arsenal. Then there’s good man Gale. If he couldn’t conjure such a wicked scorching ray, she’d assume he’s a lost librarian. Or maybe libraries are more interesting places than she thought. At least the Blade of Frontiers is pointing his namesake elsewhere, although he sure doesn’t look pleased by current events. She’ll have to keep an eye on him.

All in all? A group of miserable, argumentative misfits.

Gods, to be one of them.

Karlach opens her mouth. Hesitates. “There’s no contract, is there?”

“No,” Rhodeia answers, so perfectly startled that either she means it or she could give Flo a run for her coins.

“Then fuck yes I’m in.”

Rhodeia smiles, and her expression is brilliantly, unnervingly genuine-looking. She has to be a half-elf—she’s got the ears, but her features are just a little too blunt to be a timeless beauty. Not to say she isn’t a looker, with freckles dusting her light brown skin and plump lips. In the sunlight, Karlach notices for the first time that Rhodeia’s eyes are a dusty mauve, as pretty as cut gems—definitely inherited those from the elven parent—and matching the hair falling down her back in intricate braids. Pale tattooed vines frame her face and curl invitingly down her neck to the collar of her leathers, raising the question of just how far they go down, exactly.

But that is a question best left uncontemplated for now. Karlach hangs her greataxe on her back and sweeps an arm at the road before them. “Let’s move, eh? Time’s wasting.”

When the party sets off, Karlach falls in with them. Behind her, the tollhouse burns.

[Read on AO3]

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 fanfiction #bg3 fic #karlach #karlach cliffgate #bg3 karlach #karlach x tav #druid tav #rhodeia whitebloom #femslash february #femslashfeb2024 #writing

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randombush3 · 6 months

Note

YEAHHHH!!’

gladly x

---

“Y/n left me.”

The limousine you are in is completely black, save for the white lines being measured out right next to you.

“What?” says Jenni.

“She can’t just take Nico, can she?”

Everyone waits for your answer. No one comments on the bags under your eyes. “He's fine,” you say with a smile. “He loves it here.”

“Are you angry at her?”

“Yes.”

Alexia thinks about it.

“No.”

“You’re not a saint.” They boo. “You’re allowed to have fun. I saw you the other day, and you had no qualms with any drugs then.”

“No, I'm not a saint,” you reply. You regret that night — however little you remember. “But I am a mother.”

“Is it that thing? Postpartum?” Jenni asks. “The baby blues are really shitty, I've heard, but they’re not supposed to cripple you. Maybe the relationship has other issues.”

“I'm not angry at her, Jenni,” Alexia repeats. “I miss Nico. He looks like her. He has started to look a lot more like her now.”

“He would definitely suit those sparkly bralettes.” Jenni giggles at the thought.

With an understandable lack of good humour, Alexia ponders something more realistic. “He would suit a Barcelona kit.”

“He would be made for it. You are his mother.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Well, I'm not angry at her.”

“Alexia."

---

what do we think?

#woso x reader #woso #woso fanfics #barca femeni #fc barcelona #woso imagines #alexia putellas x reader #alexia putellas

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gh0stwritter23 · 9 months

Text

✑ This Is For Us x Negan x OC

warnings: threatening, swearing, mention of torture, Negan itself is already a warning, my bad English

Part 3

Rick appears and Negan sneaks out putting his arms around my shoulders.

– Rick while I was here with my darling Jessie, I wondered if we’re gonna find all the guns back there? Or if maybe you got a few just waitin’ for their moment…- Negan says teasingly

– They're all in there, as far as I know. —Rick responds in the repressive

— I'm counting on that Rick — the man replies smiling, and lets go of me going to the truck outside — I think this deal is going very well — he says taking one of the guns that Daryl carries — Let's see if you’ve been taking care of my guns — Negan says pointing the gun at Daryl, my body goes into a frenzy, I accepted the deal, he won't kill him, he can’t, but luckily Daryl goes straight back to the armory and Negan hits the window of the nearest house, breaking it and laughing heartily — Feels good! Sounds good! Oh, I do believe Lucille’s gettin’ a little jealous.

Right in time, the Californian-haired Arat brings Olivia roughly dragged by her arm and throws her in front of us. I secure her by the arm.

— Arat, we don't do that unless they do something to deserve it — Negan scolds

— Yeah, we went through the inventory… they’re short. — she says playing Olivia and takes the book with the historics and hands it to Negan — A Glock 9 and a 22 Bobcat

Me and Rick look at each other blankly and Negan looks at us

— Is that true? — he asks

— We had some people leave town — Rick says — Those guns probably went with them.

— So Olívia sucks at her job. Is that what are you saying?

— No. No, I’m not saying that…— Rick answer

— There should be a full accounting here, right? Top to bottom. Am i right?

— No — she replies nervously. — I mean, yes. The inventory is correct.

— Good. But not so good, too. You see, what’s in here… isn’t in there. — he points to the arsenal — you’re two handguns short. Do you know where they are?

— No. I… — she tries

— That's disappointing Rick, this shows that someone’s not on board, and I can't have that." — he looks at Olivia with pity — I don't enjoy killing women. - he says and my heart sinks, Olivia has nothing to do with this... - Men… I can waste them all the live long. But in the end of the day, Olivia, my dear, this was your responsibility.

— Look, we can work this out... —Rick says

— Oh, yes, we can. And I’m going to, right now. — he says and turns to Olivia, as she tries to control her tears. “This was your job, and you screwed up. Keeping track of guns? That shit… is life and death. Find it by sundown, or she dies — He speaks calmly looking suggestively at Rick as if offering advice, while I take Olivia by the shoulders and turn her away to Negan trying to help her calm down and ward off the tears. And then heading to Negan.

— Killing her won't make a difference. I try to tell Negan, — It's not going to bring the weapons back, or make them appear. She is innocent. Do you think someone can control everything that happens here? That you can go and kill our people and everyone will just accept?

— And who are you to say anything to him? — Arat gets involved

— Someone who didn't call you out in the conversation — I answer back and Arat points the gun at me, making me give a dry laugh — With a gun in my hand I would be pretty badass too.

— Hey Hey Hey, Arat, let's take it easy— Negan smiles — As much as I love a woman's fight, I don't want you to hurt this pretty face, she's mine— he replies and she puts the gun back, glaring at me one last time. — And one more thing, doll, a new rule. You don't challenge my Saviors okay? — he asks and I don't answer I just keep glaring at Arat and come back to myself when Negan grabs my face tightly turning it towards him and raises his eyebrows demanding the answer

— Okay — I reply grumpily to him.

— I like that way, obedient women. — he says — And relax, she's not going to die, it's just to encourage Rick to find my weapons, understand? Put someone's ass in the fire and watch them do all you want - says smiling and going to talk to another Savior. And I go back to Olivia.

— What did he mean by..

— Ignore it Olivia, everything will be fine, nothing will happen to you... I promise...

"If a guy tries to mess with you, it doesn't matter if he's Chuck Norris, I'll take him down." Merle once told me and the sudden thought made me laugh, I don't doubt Merle would have cross punches with Negan on the first move near me.

But Merle nor Daryl are here to defend me now, it's time to fend for myself

Not after a long time Rick finally showed up with the damn guns

— See Olivia, it's over, everything's fine... —I say comforting her while the Saviors put all the weapons in the truck and close the door, and then go to the gate and Rick asks to have a word with Michonne who was outside .

— Couple fights are so hard — Negan says by my side. “L— Tell me we won't have so many? Or that they will all end up in bed? — he asks me and I just roll my eyes as I see Michonne walking back with a dead deer on her shoulders.

Rick goes slowly to Negan and asks the same thing as me, Daryl, it wouldn't happen, but he surprised me by asking Daryl, who just flinched and looked down. Fear...ah brother, what have they been doing to you...

— Let's go — Negan said happily going to the trailer and stretching his hand to help me get into, I just looked at Alexandria, everyone looked at me without clue, and Rick didn't understand. Carl was looking at me with a mixture of confusion and hatred. — Jessie? — Negan says my name, getting my attention. In another truck where Daryl was waiting to get up, I saw him turn to me and shake his head nervously. “Don’t do that”

“Sorry,” I hissed at Daryl and took Negan's hand to walk in and sat down on one of the couches inside the trailer.

Sorry Daryl, this is for us

— Oh I forgot a little something — Negan says going to get Lucille with Rick — Didn't think I'd leave her with you, did you? —Rick doesn't respond and Negan walks back to the trailer sitting across from me and I just turn my attention to the window next to me.

This time there was no Daryl to save me or escape me through the window of the world so that nothing would harm me like he did when Dad came home drunk, I would have to deal with the villains alone now. My brother has protected and saved her so many times, now is the time for me to give back. And I had this in mind the whole time.

A movement in my legs woke me from my thoughts, and I realized where I was. Negan kept staring at me from across the table

- What are you doing? — I asked

— Trying to imagine what we'd discover without these trucker clothes — he says, smiling at me. — It's a shame Daryl isn't here to see it.

In a moment of confusion I just got up and only regained true consciousness when I had just turned my hand over his face. I withdrew my hand sticking it to my body scared, I didn't know what I had done, so I looked at Negan, he looked ecstatic, he just rubbed his face where I'd hit it, I tried to formulate any sentence, but nothing came out. He got up to my level and pulled me by the forearm until his face was right next to mine.

— He'll have time, you tortured him enough, don't you think? — I scold feeling his breath on my face.

Daryl won't be able to defend me from this one, I thought. When Negan raised his hand I already predicted the slap that was coming and I recoiled, closing my eyes and hiding my face. But the slap or pain never came, in fact he just raised his hand to hit it on the table and started laughing. He really is crazy. But he stops laughing when he looks at me, huddled in front of him, as if he hadn't noticed me before.

— I would never hurt a woman —he says, looking shocked by my reaction — not like that — I tried to speak, defend myself, but the momentary courage had already disappeared from the room and nothing could come out of my mouth — I understand, I killed your friends and I torture your brother, and now I try a heavy flirtation — he says something unbelievable — But actually I was joking when I mentioned that — he says — And besides, you point an arrow at me and now slaps me in the face.. .Don't think that next time you won't escape just because you have that pretty face. It will not happen again, right? — he asks and I just nod my head — you really don't have love for your life, and unfortunately you're just like your brother... you both need to put your fucking nose down — he says running his finger across my nose — and you need to learn when they are at disadvantage. And you're at a goddam huge disadvantage sweetie

#twd fanfiction #negan fanfiction #negan smith #twd negan #negan x oc #negan x you #the walking dead negan #negan #negan x reader #negan imagine #jeffrey dean morgan

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canirove · 2 years

Text

Red & Blue | Chapter 39

Author's note: This was supposed to be the last chapter, and that's why at the end it feels like everything is closed. But, there were a few things I still wanted to see happening to them, and my perfectionist ass couldn't let the story end without them, so you are getting 3 extra chapters 😁

Previous chapter | Next chapter

Masterlist

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━

“Mason, I have… What are you doing wearing one of Nora’s bibs?” I say when I walk into the kitchen.

“Saving my t-shirt from her” he says, pointing at our daughter. “It’s pasta day, and you know how that usually ends.”

“My favourite sweatshirt knows it well, yes.”

“What did you want to tell me?” he asks, sitting in front of Nora and trying to catch her attention.

“Oh, yes! I have very important news. The manager spoke with me today, and said that I will probably have my first minutes on the next game!”

“What? That’s amazing, gorgeous!” he says, looking away just a few seconds, but enough for Nora to hit the fork with her hand and make it fall.

“Nora…” Mason complains. “We are gonna need a dog to eat everything she throws to the floor.”

“Or a cat. She also is a cat lady like her mum, that’s two against one.”

“Meh meh meh” he says, making fun of me. “Anyway, how are you feeling about this? Nervous? Excited?”

“All of that. But also ready. You don’t know how much I’ve missed being on the pitch.”

“If I already miss it just by being out for a couple of games, I can only imagine how you feel. But what about you, Nora. Are you excited about mummy going back to the pitch and kicking some asses?” he says, trying to make her eat and failing, the fork ending on the floor. Again.

“I think she is excited” I say, trying not to laugh. “I’ll put my things away and come back to help you deal with this.”

“Thank you, love. I’ll get you one of the bibs, you’ll need it too.”

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━

“I had one of my dreams, you know?” Mason whispers. It is the morning of the game and we are still in bed, waiting for Nora to wake up.

“You did?”

“I did.”

“And? What happened on it?”

“It was about tonight’s game. Arsenal was already winning, and the moment you went out to do your warm up, the fans went absolutely crazy, all of them cheering for you. And when it was time for you to go in… Wow. I can’t wait to see it happening in real life.”

“Did I score?”

“You didn’t. But you played really well, and after the game everyone wanted to congratulate you. Even the girls from the other team.”

“That’s cute.”

“What happened after the game can’t be considered cute, tho” Mason says, putting an arm around me and pulling me closer to him.

“Did the dream turn into a nightmare?”

“Oh, no. Not all. It was a very pleasant dream. My parents offered to take Nora with them, and we had the whole house for ourselves.”

“And what did we do?” I ask with a mischievous smile.

“We practice how to give Nora a little brother or sister. And we did it in the kitchen, the living room, the stairs…”

“The stairs? Isn’t that uncomfortable?”

“Maybe for your back, yes. But there is nothing like trying” he says, his lips touching mine. Though before we can properly kiss me, Nora wakes up, crying.

“Looks like she did have a nightmare.”

“Urgh” Mason says, letting go of me and getting out of the bed.

“Are you going to pick her up?”

“I am. Today is your day, you need to rest and focus on that. I’ll take care of everything else.”

“Thank you, Mason. I love you” I say, trying not to get emotional.

“I love you too, gorgeous” he says with that smile I love so much.

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━

“Mummy!” Nora says when she sees me leaving the changing room, clumsily running towards me.

“Careful, little one” I say, bending down to pick her up.

“Can I also get a hug?” Mason asks.

“And a kiss.”

“Look at my ship being all cute and perfect!” Leah says behind us. “We should go out to the pitch and take some photos of the three of you. We need to remember this day.”

“That is a really good idea. But why isn’t she wearing the outfit I had picked?”

“I forgot” Mason shrugs. “And I couldn’t find anything red. Or her Arsenal shirt.”

“Of course you couldn’t… What about the hat?”

“It was cold. And she hadn’t worn that one yet.”

“Maybe because it isn’t her size?” I chuckle. “You look really good, tho.”

“Thank you” he says while smiling at me, the dimple on his left cheek showing. Just like happens with Nora when she smiles. Will I ever get tired of seeing them? I don’t think so. “But just so you know, I did manage to do something right.”

“You did?” I say, teasing him.

“My parents agreed to keep Nora tonight” he whispers to my ear. “Which means that we have the whole house for ourselves. The stairs included.”

“The st... You mean…” I mumble, feeling my cheeks getting very hot.

“I’m gonna make my dream come true” he says with a big grin.

“What dream?” Leah asks.

“Nothing, just Mason’s nonsense“ I quickly say.

“Nonsense that has made you blush. Your face is as red as a tomato” Leah says, trying to hide her smile. “Anyway, less talking about what you are going to do later, and more posing for photos. Give me the red and blue content I deserve.”

“You heard her” Mason says, kissing my cheek before he, Nora and I follow Leah onto the pitch.

Mason, Nora and I. My little family.

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━

#mason mount #mason mount fanfic #mason mount imagine #mason mount x reader #football fanfic #football imagine

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mandiffe · 1 year

Text

probably ted lasso spoilers

I went through the TL season 3 playlist so you don't have to and made some notes! (I considered this playlist done but we'll see how this goes) hope you enjoy!

The song Superstar is from the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. It’s sung by Judas’ spirit who had committed suicide earlier. I don’t want to put a parallel between Ted and Jesus and Nate and Judas but it kinda lies on the surface? And lines Every time I look at you I don't understand Why you let the things you did get so out of hand. You'd have managed better if you'd had it planned. Why'd you choose such a backward time in such a strange land? OH MY GOD

Three songs by Nigerian artists go in a row, so ep3 or 4 is probably about Sam and his restaurant or include this plotline in any way. Or we're getting another Nigerian player!

Everybody knows is an interesting choice because this song raises a lot of social and relationship problems. I think the most important is hypocrisy or, rather, knowing about issues and not doing anything to fix them, letting them be. Maybe it refers to everyone who is close to Ted and notices what’s happening with him but not paying proper attention.

Joker and The Thief is used in “The Hangover” which is referred in s2e11 when Beard calls Ted out for being too closed off.

I bet Fist Fight! is either about Jamie’s dad or Rupert being beaten up. Please.

Sinister Kid may be about Nate and him thinking that he was naturally-born evil and he can’t change it? But he’ll soon find out that it’s untrue. (And that's me, that's me The boy with the broken halo That's me, that's me The devil won't let me be)

Something tells me that Don’t think twice, it’s all right is about Tedbecca. Also second Bob Dylan song per season, first one plays when Ted cleans up his flat. So it’s also can be about Michelle. (I ain't saying you treated me unkind You could have done better, but I don't mind And you just sorta wasted my precious time But don't think twice it's all right) Upd: it occurred to me that it might be about Jamie or Keeley referring to each other.

Oh What A Performance! (I won an Oscar for playing a fool) and Quiet (Goodbye Don't cry You know why And it'll be just as quiet when I leave As it was when I first got here) give me an ache for some reason. Ep 6’s (apparently) gonna hurt.

But Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go straight after Nirvana’s song is suspicious. Hopefully it’s about Roykeeley who are back together.

CONGRATS GUYS HET WERD ZOMER, VENUS AND ZIJ GELOOFT IN MIJ ARE DUTCH SONGS AND IN THE PLAYLIST THEY’RE SOMEWHERE NEAR EP8 THEREFORE “WE’LL NEVER HAVE PARIS” IS MOST LIKELY THE NETHERLANDS EP!

Let’s talk about Boy by Book of Love!!! The song is said to be about woman who has feelings for a gay man. To me this song is also kind of trans-coded. AND Book of Love’s songwriter stated that this song “written about Boy Bar, which was a very exclusive gay club in the East Village.”. (I want to be where the boys are But I'm not allowed I wait outside of the boy's bar I wait for them to all come out)

I’m 99% sure that ep8 is THE episode.

It’s interesting that after Three Little Birds (Ajax anthem) comes The Angel (North London Forever) (song dedicated to Arsenal). Maybe we’ll see UEFA Champions League in some way or it’s just a coincidence and it’s just Richmond playing with Arsenal.

Dreams was used in the trailer of “Boys on The Side” where one of the main plotlines is unrequited love of a woman to a woman who has something with a man. But then both girls admit their love for each other (not necessarily romantic but still). Interesting, right? Might be another coincidence though.

Centerfield confuses me, song about baseball in a show about football? Is it irony or what.

Doomed speaks about the experience of aromantic people, the song is in the album “Aromanticism” and its writer explores corners of life without possibility of feeling romantic attraction. Are we getting an aromantic character??

Criminal feels like a Nate song, him feeling bad for mistakes and wanting to pay for his wrongdoings. (Heaven help me for the way I am Save me from these evil deeds before I get them done I know tomorrow brings the consequence at hand But I keep living this day like the next will never come)

And finally songs from “La Cage aux Folles”, a 1983 musical about gay couple, Georges, who’s an owner of a drag nightclub named “La Cage aux Folles”, and Albin, who’s a drag queen. Let’s add a little bit of a context. Georges and Albin’s son Jean-Michel is engaged to Anne whose parents are conservative and they don’t know yet that their daughter’s future-in-laws are a gay couple. Jean-Michel asks Georges to tell Albin to absent himself from his extravagant behavior and even invite Jean-Michel’s biological mother for a dinner instead of Albin so they can seem ‘normal’. Georges hadn’t had a chance to explain the situation to his spouse as Albin went performing to the club.

It’s the moment when La Cage aux Folles plays, the song describes the nightclub, its vulgarity and eccentricity, how it’s tolerant and welcoming to everyone (https://www.songlyrics.com/la-cage-aux-folles/la-cage-aux-folles-lyrics/ - here’s the lyrics if someone needs). I have no idea when this song might play in s3, especially when it comes to the end of it, honestly.

So, Georges and Jean-Michel started redecorating their house to make it look less gay without Albin knowing. Albin accidentally notices the two, Georges has to explain and Albin performs I Am What I Am practically letting them know that he’s proud of being himself and won’t change for anyone.

As someone had mentioned before this song basically became a “gay anthem” and was widely recorded. It’s the finale number of the first act as it apparently will be the last song of the third season. Considering all of the above I doubt that they chose both of these songs by accident and put them in an exact same order as they are in the musical. Something’s coming.

We know that we’re getting Ted at the airport as the last scene of the season. He might be waiting for his mother or Michelle with Henry to arrive (or leave) but either way he’s not going to change for them and they’ll have to accept him the way he is. And yes, I believe it’ll be a message about queerness. There are too much signs (and songs) pointing at that.

Perhaps when Jason said “Maybe by May 31, once all 12 episodes of the season [have been released], they’re like, ‘Man, you know what, we get it, we’re fine. We don’t need anymore, we got it.’” he addressed conservative fans of the show (they form a great percentage of the audience, don’t forget) who wouldn’t want more of TL since it became ‘woke’.

That’s it, let me know your thoughts :)

#thoughts?#and prayers #ted lasso #ted lasso season 3 #ted lasso s3 #ted lasso spoilers

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albatmobile · 1 year

Text

The Art of Rehabilitating Snowbirds Chapter 7

𓅪 After not hearing from Roy or Jason for five years, you suddenly find yourself taking in extra income as a babysitter for Roy and Jason's child.

𓅪 Rated: M | 7k includes: bumping into Tim, arsenal and red hood “save you” from a robbery, Lian heart to heart, opening up to Jayroy, Bed sharing what more can I say?

fem!Reader x Jason Todd x Roy Harper [masterlist]

Chapter Seven: There is a Light | ao3 - wattpad

Once Roy leaves, Lian begs you to cook. You end up deciding to make scones so she can also have them for tomorrow.

“Are you sleeping over again?” She asks cutely.

You chuckle, ruffling her hair a bit, “That was by accident, but no. You already have two dads; you don’t need me here too.”

“I only have one dad.”

There it is again.

“Why do you keep saying that when you have two?” You ask.

“Oh, you mean daddy?” She's looking at you like you're slow.

“Yes, dad, daddy, whatever! You have two dads, though, right?”

She gives you a tiny head tilt, “No, just one.” She startles you by holding up a singular finger directly in front of your face, “My dad.”

You push her finger away lightly with a snort, “Alright. One dad it is, then.”

You're definitely bringing this up to Roy and Jason later. You hope in bringing it up that they'll tell you why they’d contacted you in the first place if this isn’t even their kid. All things considered, Lian looks absolutely nothing like either of them.

“You keep promising me a real tea party.”

You know where this is going. Ever since you’d shown her videos of baristas making specialty tea drinks, she’s wanted to experience one for herself.

“What do you mean? We do have real tea parties,” You try to reason with her.

“That’s apple juice," She looks at you like you're dumb. "Maybe if I were three, I wouldn’t know the difference.”

You can’t help but guffaw, imagining a toddler Damian saying something similar.

“You want tea?” She bobs her little head up and down. “Alright, let’s go get tea.”

You’ll never say no to a quick caffeine boost, even if it is already practically dusk. That and you're still equipped in Roy’s highly questionable outfit.

You take her to the small coffee shop just down the street where you'd spent endless hours studying during your year at GSU, figuring it’d be good and cheap enough for the both of you. Lian’s content to skip beside you the entire way, humming some theme song adorably enough to bring a smile to your face. Inside there’s a young barista behind the counter who's taking an order for a dark-haired man. Over in the back corner booth sits a group of four older gentlemen who seem to be deep in conversation.

You let Lian order when it comes time, but not before you can ask if they offer decaf. The barista nods, showing you the selection of decaffeinated tea. Lian, on her tip-toes, picks which two she wants, considering she’s probably going to want to try yours too (aka end up drinking it all, too).

Before you can finish collecting your change, your cups are set down at the pick-up counter.

Considering all the barista has to do is pour hot water and add the tea pouch, your order comes out while the man in front of you in line is still waiting on his coffee. He silently steps back to let you grab your cups. When you turn around with your drinks, you nearly spill them all over a flustered Tim Drake.

You gasp at the sight of him. How many years has it been?

You notice with great amusement that Tim’s less focused on the fact that he almost had two cups of boiling hot tea spilled on him and is, instead, short-circuiting at the sight of your erect nipples through Roy’s provocative shirt.

You figured it would probably be best to leave the booty shorts at home after what happened during your last stroll in them. Instead, you elected to change into the oversized sweats Roy’d given you.

Watching Tim eye you up and down, greedily absorbing your form into his memory, you hear Stephanie’s words ringing true in your head. You wonder if maybe some of the other things they said were true then, too...

After a few seconds have passed and he’s done taking you in with dark cheeks, he looks down at your side. “Woah, guess I missed a lot these past few years.” He looks down at Lian with wide eyes, but Lian’s too busy running around to notice. He looks from Lian to you with a calculating gaze, “You guys look nothing alike.”

“That’s because I’m the babysitter,” You smirk at his concern. “This is Roy and Jason’s kid.”

“Jason has a kid?” Tim rubs at the nonexistent wrinkles on his forehead. “Guess I’ve been out of that loop for too long.”

You shrug, understanding that it’s just something that happens when you get older.

“Supposedly, but she keeps saying she just has one dad, so who really knows.” Lian scurries off at this point to get the biggest booth in the whole store for just the two of you, but it seems empty enough that it wouldn’t be an issue. After all, it's just you, Lian, Tim, the barista and the group of guys in the entire place. “Anyway, what’ve you been up to? Have you and Bernard moved in together yet?”

“Ah, yeah. That,” You tilt your head in confusion. “We broke up a little over a year ago.”

“I’m sorry.” You hadn’t meant to bring up anything uncomfortable.

“It’s not like Damian keeps tabs on me enough to let you know, so,” He trails off awkwardly.

You wince, feeling the everpresent wall still very much present between them. You think back on your past interactions with Bernard before shifting to how Stephanie's words from the restaurant ring true in this case too.

Bernard has always had an unhealthy dose of jealousy. Maybe Tim had finally had enough. Bernard's effects still obviously linger, though, with how difficult it is to catch up with each other like how you used to.

“Well, I could reach out to you…” Is it still considered awkward? “If that’s okay, that is,” You add quickly, not wanting to overstep.

You and Tim had been so close until Bernard came into the picture. Ever since his appearance, it'd been radio silence. Each time you tried to talk to Tim, Bernard was always somehow there, swooping in with an excuse for Tim to leave.

“For sure,” Tim gives you one of his signature sweet smiles, handing you his phone to put your number into. “We still haven’t gone on that photo shoot.” You're drawing a blank, unable to remember what he's talking about when it hits you- your old Red Robin fanblog.

“Oh, god. I totally forgot about those photos,” You shake your head in embarrassment, remembering how you'd shown Tim your ass-shot collection of Red Robin. “I haven’t really been out since then, to be honest.”

You’d mostly been preoccupied with graduating, getting a job and paying bills. You've been so concentrated on maintaining financial stability that everything else somehow finds its way to the back burner. Anything to avoid the burden your parents have placed upon you.

“Not a Red Robin fangirl anymore?” He looks at you doubtfully.

"Please," You snorted. “The more I’m coming into contact with these vigilantes, the less I'm enjoying the comics,” You confide.

“Ah,” He smiles lightly, causing his deep blue eyes to crinkle, "They say never meet your heroes, right?”

You laughed, “Seriously.”

“Hey!” Lian calls your name. You look over to see her waving at you, “Bring your dad over here.”

You and Tim burst out laughing and offer him a way out of it. “I think he’s got a paper to work on, Lian. Tim has to get going.” Tim's carrying his backpack and laptop with him- typical Tim Drake study gear. “You’re still at GSU?”

“Not all of us can be super-freaky hacker geniuses like you and skip out on three years of college,” He points to his Gotham State University course syllabus. “I’m graduating later this year, so I’ll get out somewhat early.”

“I don’t think I’ve heard that nickname yet," You giggle at his description of you. "I like it a lot.”

“Super-freaky hacker genius who’s also psychic because I do actually have a paper that’s due in,” He looks down at his silver Rolex and then back at you. “T-minus two hours? So, wish me luck!” He gives you a half hug with his computer secured in the other arm before going over and giving Lian a high-five. “See ya, cutie,” She gives him an adorable toothy grin that you can tell melts Tim’s heart. “One thing I know for sure is that nothing this sweet could’ve come from Jason.”

“Don’t I know it,” You concur.

After this, Tim leaves with a final wave. You let Lian sit to finish her tea before making to leave as well.

You make it to the threshold of the entrance when the doors burst open to reveal two unruly-looking men in long coats and hats walking in.

It definitely looks like trouble.

Your first thought is to just leave. You are at the entrance and everything. One thing stops you, though. A quick glance at the sidewalk outside shows a man in similar attire posted up right next to the entrance, essentially blocking it off.

You don’t hesitate to grab Lian’s hand and hightail it to the bathroom just as you see the two men unveil their semi-automatic rifles to the extremely frightened barista.

You feel guilt settle in the minute milliseconds between the rapid beats of your heart, shifting into autopilot with only one thought: keep Lian safe.

You click the bathroom door shut as quietly as you can and turn to her tearful eyes.

You put a finger over your mouth and ‘shh.' She repeats your action with a wobbly mouth. You give her a thumbs up and start to look around for anything you could possibly use to your advantage, just like the Waynes had taught you. You sigh, looking around, only finding paper towels, toilet paper rolls and a trashcan.

Trashcan!

You quietly remove the top of it and place Lian into it before pressing your ear against the bathroom door. Upon placing your ear on the wood, you startle backward, nearly tripping in the process as the thugs begin to fire off a couple of rounds. You pull yourself together, using the noise to cover up the sound of you placing the lid back over the trashcan and go to the sink to grab a stack of paper towels to dump on her head to conceal her further.

You duck quickly when a stray bullet comes barreling through the door. The bouncing bullet begins to ricoche until it hits the porcelain base of the toilet, shattering part of it upon contact while jostling the tank lid on top. This is definitely something you can use.

During the next round of bullets, you use as noise to cover up the removal of the hefty porcelain lid. In the meantime, you ready yourself to smack the shit out of anyone who dares to fuck with the door… Which ends up being way sooner than you expected.

Your heart sputters when the door handle begins to jiggle, then drops when whoever's out there begins to kick it in.

You count the seconds in between each kick and prepare to unlock the door in between them. You estimate an average of 3-4 seconds in between each and steel yourself when you unlock the lock and throw the door open. You back up just in time to miss the strong kick that's sent toward the now-opened door and smash the toilet tank lid right on top of the intruder’s familiar red helmet.

Red Hood.

By the time you realize it's him, it's too late. The lid is already shattering across his head, leaving him visibly dazed by your unexpected attack.

A man with a bionic arm complete with a crossbow frantically makes his way over to you. He briefly looks down at his partner before acknowledging you, “Anyone else in here?”

You squint at his panicked voice, wondering how he knew to ask, “Are you with the guys robbing the place?”

You’ve never seen his suit before.

“Does it look like it?” He gestures down to his obnoxious red suit, placing a gentle hand against your forehead. “You look a bit flushed. Maybe you should sit down.”

You feel your own forehead and notice that, yes, you are extremely warm. It probably has nothing to do with his ripped arm and crazy hot bionic one that leaves you captivated. Yeah, nothing…

You don’t mean to stare, but it’s truly an insane prosthetic.

“It looks like it could have a laser gun or something,” You bite your lip, nodding your head in its direction. He looks at you, then looks down at it like he’s making sure you’re talking about his arm. “You’re like Cyborg or, no, wait- Bucky Barnes,” You can’t help but sigh internally at the imagery of the Winter Solider.

Definitely, Bucky.

“Enough drooling, kid, you’re gonna make me blush. It's just Arsenal,” He rubs slightly self-consciously at the metallic forearm currently under your inspection as you take in his name. “Now, are there any others in here?”

You sigh. You don't necessarily consider Red Hood, who's currently pulling himself off the ground, a threat. This Arsenal dude, though you don't exactly know much about him, doesn't seem to be one either.

You hastily decide you can trust them as you hesitantly retreat back into the bathroom to pull Lian from the trash. Once she's out, you remove a stray paper towel from her hair, quickly checking her over for any injuries. To everyone's surprise, she reaches out toward the men in front of you like she's going to hug them.

Okay, no. Nope. They may not be threats, but they're also definitely not touching Lian. You quickly hug her to your side.

“Lian, stop. We don’t touch strange men,” She looks at you like you’re crazy and attempts to reach for Arsenal again. “Lian, stop!” You waste no time in picking her up to prevent her from trying it again. “I get you tea and this is how you repay me?” You boop her on the nose, causing her to laugh. “And you,” You point to Red Hood. “Are you stalking me?”

"Woah, there," He holds up his hands defensively. “Presumptuous of you to think I’d even remember you.”

"But you do," You challenge him with a gaze so strong that he has no choice but to give in to it. “How could you not?”

His partner audibly gulps, but Red Hood remains his ever-elusive self.

“Nice to see you in somewhat normal clothes, I guess.” You cover your nipples by adjusting Lian in front of your chest. “Your kid?” He motions to Lian, who giggles at his tiny wave to her.

“Daddy!” She says, leaving you to flush again.

“Seems like she’s more yours than mine. I’m so sorry, I don’t know why she’s acting like this.” You look down at her with a look that says, ‘please be normal,’ “Lian, what is going on with you today?” You tickle the tip of her nose until she retaliates with attempted bites, eventually coming a little too close to actually chomping down on your finger.

Red Hood saves the day again when he reaches over to let her bite at his gloved hand. “She’s cute,” Is all he says.

“Again, not mine, but thanks.” You look between the two vigilantes, then at the robbers who are tied up on the ground. “Alright, well, nice seeing you again, and, uh,” You casually step over piles of rubble and discarded goons as you make your way toward the entrance with Lian still in your arms, “Don’t follow me home. Awesome, ‘kay, bye!”

“Woah, wait there, missy,” The voice comes from the arrow dude whose name you’ve already forgotten. You’ll have to remind yourself to look up ‘bionic crossbow arrow vigilante’ later. “We can’t just let you walk off like that. There could still be trouble out there. At least save us the trouble of saving you later and let us walk you home.”

You feel like he's fucking with you, but you know nothing about him, so you aren’t exactly sure.

With Lian constantly reaching out for him, all you want to do is get away from these two, regardless of how they’d helped you.

“It’s daylight and it’s not happening. Take a hike.”

You sigh when you feel their bulky presence behind you as you set off in the opposite direction, hoping Red Hood won’t notice or remember, but, of course, he does.

“I think you’re supposed to be going in the opposite direction,” He leans in over the shoulder where Lian isn’t perched over. “Wouldn’t want to lead me on another goose chase, now would we, sweetheart?”

“Stop calling me that,” You cringe away from him and hold Lian closer to your chest.

The arrow dude, whose name still escapes you, pulls Red Hood back towards him with a commanding bionic grip. “Stop being a creep, dude,” You catch him lowering his voice to reprimand his partner for scaring you off.

You don’t want to admit to yourself how much the arm is doing it for you, but that was when you were trying to stay focused on keeping Lian and yourself safe. Now, though? Now you can't help but bite your lip at the thought of Roy’s own prosthetic arm.

Actually, now that you think about it, it seems to be the exact same color as Roy’s. You turn back with a squint to watch them bickering.

“Oh, that’s rich,” Comes Red Hood’s signature robotic tone.

You can hear them arguing now in hushed tones behind you as they try to agree on a new approach. This is how you reluctantly decide to let them trail behind you as you walk them back to Roy and Jason’s apartment. The exact same place Red Hood had attempted to drop you off after your run-in, for lack of better terms, in the alley.

When you arrive, you hope they’ll take the hint to fuck off, but they don’t. More and more, you're coming to realize these costumed-fucks are nothing like the comics modeled after them. No. Rather, they're insanely invasive.

“Thanks for the help and all, I guess,” They both look at you funny, well, you're only able to read arrow's face on account of being unable to see through Red Hood’s helmet. “Have a great day,” You give a tiny smile and quickly shuffle Lian toward the safety of the apartment building.

Yes, reading comic books and experiencing vigilantes in real life are seriously two different stories. After all, you can’t just tell someone’s motive by looking at them, so why should you put any more trust into them than necessary?

“Do you need any money?”

You startle from your thoughts instantly, “Excuse me?” You turn on your heel to glare at the offending vigilante.

It was the arrow dude who'd spoken.

The fuck do you look like? Charity? Besides, you had the whole thing under control… Mostly.

“I don’t know why I said that," He sputters out sheepishly, but it's too late. You're pissed. "I’m sorry,” He adds quietly.

You give them an incredulous glare, not bothering to respond as you slam the apartment building's door shut behind you. You check behind yourself once inside with a stern gaze to make sure neither are following you, but they remain exactly where they are. Whatever.

You can’t believe the audacity of these motherfuckers.

As soon as you get back to their unit, you call Roy to let him know what happened and to assure him that you’re both safe.

“That’s horrible. Who saved you?”

“Well, I mainly did,” You boast, leaving him to laugh easily. “But Red Hood and some arrow dude, too, that I don’t know.” You hear Jason cackling in the background and begin to chuckle a bit in confusion, “What?”

Jason’s voice cuts through, “Forget it, babe.”

You draw in a quick breath at Jason’s nickname, hoping your slip-up isn’t audible enough over the phone for him to be able to hear it.

“We’ll be back soon," He reassures you. "Just stay put.”

You nod in relief before realizing they can’t see you. “Sounds good,” You didn’t realize you’d begun to shake until you couldn’t steady your index finger enough to click ‘end.’

If you're feeling like this, how is Lian faring?

“How are you holding up? That was really scary today at our tea party.”

Lian nods. “It was too loud.” She gestures, covering her ears with her hands.

You rub gently at her tiny shoulder, “I’m really sorry. You can always talk about how you're feeling with me.” You sigh, not really knowing what else to say, “I want you to know that I will always protect you no matter what, just like today. We’re in this together."

"We are?" She asks.

You nod, "You helped me today too.”

God, you really don’t know how to do this comforting thing.

“I did?” Her eyes gleam back at yours.

You think back to how her presence alone forced you into your training mindset, allowing you to keep a cool head to attack the situation.

“You kept me calm and helped me think of a plan. Plus, you followed all of my instructions by keeping quiet, which is all I could’ve asked for from you.” You run your fingers through her short, inky hair, “You're as brave as Superboy.”

She beams at you, “You think?”

“For sure,” You ruffle her hair lightly with a smile. “Now, do you want to help me cook dinner before your dad comes home?” You’d given up on saying ‘dads’ because she'd only correct you that she only has one dad.

“And scones,” She nods, following you into the kitchen, where the two of you go through the motions of cooking enchiladas and chocolate chip scones. An odd combo for an odd day. You think about Jason and Roy and decide that it won’t be too much more trouble to make a few quiches as well.

God, you spoil them. Anything to get your mind off of...

You know that if you feel this stressed, she must be feeling it ten times over for being so much younger. After your conversation earlier, it's clear that she understands enough about what happened to be affected by the robbery and those feelings don't just go away after one talk.

As dinner nears completion, you're taking the scones and quiches out of the oven when Lian suddenly stops and looks at you.

“Do you think I can sit down?”

“Of course,” You place the tray of scones down on the stovetop to cool before taking the oven mitt off to guide her to the couch. “Are you feeling alright?”

“I feel tired,” She looks like she wants to say more and after some gentle coaxing, she does. “I feel scared and that makes me weak.”

Damn.

How old was she again?

“You’re probably feeling drained from the stressful moment we had today, but that’s totally normal.” You can’t deny the everpresent dull headache you'd acquired nor how sore your body feels after the extended release of adrenaline that now leaves you feeling empty. “And being scared does not make you weak. You’re one of the bravest people I know.”

“I think you’re brave,” She turns away from you shyly.

“Thank you.” You hear the timer buzz and you pat her shoulder, “I’m gonna go get you a plate, then we can do an early bedtime story, okay?” You yawn as you stretch and get up from the couch.

“Can you turn on Superboy?” That was her way of asking you to turn on Young Justice. You nod, grabbing the remote to turn it on. When the TV blinks to life, Speedy and Robin are on screen, followed by some girl in an odd mask with sais for weapons. “Those are my parents.” She points at the screen, causing you to laugh.

“You and me both, kid.”

Kids say the weirdest shit, though you can't deny that it helps bring your mood up a bit.

You get her a plate and sit down and watch the episode with her where she dozes off halfway through finishing. You discard your plates in the sink and shuffle her off to get ready for bed while you clean up.

You think she’s asleep when you get to her room and are partially hoping she is because you’re ready to drop any moment yourself, but she has a book already picked out for you. You let out a soft laugh when she sleepily forces the book into your hand. The one she picked out is a short book, it really is, but it’s so mind-numbingly repetitive that four pages in, you’re falling asleep alongside Lian.

You awaken with a snort to the sounds of pained grunting just in time for Roy and Jason to see you with drool dripping down your chin and the book page that's still stuck to your cheek. You all shoot each other questioning glances before painfully ripping the page from your skin. You yawn as you get up to place the book back on Lian’s bookcase, wiping at the remaining spit on your face.

You watch Roy limp around and shoot him a questioning glance that Jason answers as soon as you shut Lian’s door.

“It was a rough night.” Jason winks at you, smacking Roy on the ass, who, in turn, groans in pain.

Your mouth drops at the sight in front of you and you quickly shut it, hoping it was before either of them could notice. You all walk, well, Roy limps, into the kitchen, where they earnestly begin digging into the leftovers you'd made with fervor.

Staring across the kitchen island at them, you can see that they're both covered in impressions of something on their faces, with spatters of dirt and blood all over their clothes, but you don’t push. If they're allowing you to see this much into whatever this is, you can only take it to mean that it’s them trying to break down their walls a bit with you.

You refuse to jeopardize anything by overstepping.

“Us too,” You remind them gently.

The playful attitude is sucked from the air instantly. Jason’s fork stills, “How are you holding up?”

You shrug.

It seems like a new habit of yours to run into trouble like this, but it doesn't mean you're handling it any better than before. “I was really worried something was going to happen to her and that I'd have to tell you guys that I let you down…” You're allowing yourself to be completely vulnerable with them.

They both come to your side instantly, well, as instantly as Roy can with whatever's going on with his leg, to wrap you up into their arms. You immediately allow yourself to melt in their grasp.

“You could never let us down as long as you live.”

“You truly care about her and we can see that,” Roy says, rubbing gently at your back.

“Of course, I always want to do right by you and your family,” You lean your head on his shoulder, quickly realizing that it’s not metal. Hmm. You attempt to play it cool, but you must’ve had a moment of hesitation at the contact that Roy interprets as rejection and goes to pull away. You're having none of this, though and pull him back before continuing where you’d left off. “I told her that today too. I want to be able to protect her in any way I can.”

You really mean it after all they’d both done for you over the years. Even if they'd disappeared for so long, it doesn’t negate all the other times they and their families had been there for you when your own wasn’t.

Roy whispers your name, “You have no idea what it means to hear that from you.”

You blush at his sincerity, further weakening when you see Jason’s eyes soften when they meet your own. “You’re all my family,” You try to play it off, but you swallow back the tears that have wedged their ugly way into your throat. “No matter what, I’ll always be around.”

Even if you guys weren’t always around, goes unsaid.

You change the subject.

“I think the closest you guys came to losing your daughter today wasn’t the robbery. It was the vigilantes who came in at the end,” You joke. “She was seriously trying to pawn herself off to Red Hood and that arrow guy.”

Roy groans as Jason cackles loudly. “I think the other dude’s name is Speedy,” Jason barely winces at the punch Roy throws his way and, if anything, only serves to make him howl louder.

You think back to the Speedy that ran around Star City while you were living there and compared it to the dude that saved you today.

“Mmm, I don’t think so. I’ve seen Speedy and this looked nothing like him,” You short circuit, attempting to recall his bionic arm to compare to Roy’s, but it’s tilted in just a way that keeps his hand out of your line of vision. Weird. “He had a really sick arm, just like Roy’s hand,” You watch them but ultimately don't find anything suspicious about either of their reactions.

“That’s cool,” Jason says.

“Indeed, cool,” You respond, completing your old inside joke. He smiles lightly, seeming to pick up on it instantly.

“All this attention is making lil’ ol’ me blush,” Roy leans over and kisses Jason over you, unwittingly filling your head with thoughts of what may or may not have happened in the library all those years ago.

You still aren’t buying it.

You push at Roy’s stomach lightly, mindful of whatever injury he may have, to shift him off of you. “You can kiss and smack each other’s asses all you want, but your kid ratted you guys out.”

“How so?” Roy looks nervous at the same time Jason tenses.

You look between them awkwardly, not understanding why they've reacted in such a way unless they know that you're about to reveal some real shit.

“She says she only has one dad still,” You raise a confident brow, challenging them to prove you wrong this time. “And she keeps saying Red Arrow and the Cheshire lady from Young Justice are her parents,” You snort, expecting them to do the same. Instead, they elect to stare at you as if you've just uncovered some crazy secret, but that can't be it… Oh, shit. They're mad you let her watch something violent. Fuck. “What? I figured because it was on Cartoon Network it would be fine for her to watch…” You trail off uncertainly.

They both seem to breathe sighs of relief.

“Oh,” Roy says simply.

“Oh?” You squint at him.

“Yeah, ‘oh,’” Jason mocks before answering. “She calls me daddy.”

You choke at his casual use of a word that instantly gets you hot and bothered. So much so, that you don’t even care that he completely blew past your other piece of evidence.

Thinking back now, you remember all the times Lian had technically corrected you on dad and daddy.

You fucked up.

“Daddy?” You parrot dumbly.

“Yeah, just like that,” His deep voice reverberates lowly in the small space, which appears to be closing in with each word he forms.

You gulp, feeling a steady heat growing from your cheeks all the way down to the elastic band of Stephanie’s shorts.

“Alright, guess that solves it,” You play it off and tug self-consciously at Roy’s ‘World’s Sluttiest Dad’ t-shirt.

“Do you not want us to be together or something, princess?” Roy asks suddenly, throwing you off-guard.

You shake your head quickly to dispel any further awkwardness. He's completely misunderstood your angle.

“Did I say that?” You look at them incredulously, causing them to back up with hands held up in surrender instantly. “I’m just trying to make sense of the whole situation.”

And make sense of your unsaid past and, now apparent, present feelings for both of them.

They may have left you, but the feelings they cursed you with never did. You know one thing, you aren't going to be the first one to open up.

It's all in their hands, seeing as you're growing tired of all the mixed signals and the even greater fact that you're no homewrecker. You know deep down that your delusional self probably made this whole thing up from the start, anyway, but you still can’t find it within yourself to come face to face with this fact just yet.

It'll crush you.

You reckon that Roy's always been a flirt, so he obviously never meant anything and Jason... Well, Jason was probably just picking on you, like how he picked on Damian. He probably thinks of you as an annoying little sister. God, how you hoped your obvious crush on him would wane with the years, but it never did.

You don’t want to make an embarrassment of yourself by reading into something that's not even there.

“You seem a bit tense,” Roy tries.

“Do I, Roy?” The smile you give him is completely sarcastic. You sigh, slumping a bit. “It’s hard getting used to the hours you need me for. I keep falling asleep at the weirdest times in the weirdest positions.” You think back to the other night when you’d fallen asleep on one of their towels. Hell, even back to just a few minutes ago in Lian's room.

They look a bit guilty, realizing that they've been calling you over randomly to come babysit for an untold amount of hours a night and that it's probably not fair.

They’d also conveniently forgotten you're a young woman, you probably have other shit you want to do on a Saturday night (aka tonight). According to your usual weekend plans, you should be hanging out on Damian’s yacht... Not babysitting. No offense, Lian.

“We didn’t even think about that.” Roy looks at Jason with a look Jason seems to respond to, but you’re clueless as to what nonverbal conversation they’re holding.

“We’re sorry,” They both look at you earnestly and you start to feel bad for even bringing the complaint up.

You wave them off, seeing as it isn’t the main problem you're plighted by, but you can’t let them know that. “It’s good. I’m just stressed.”

It's been a long week, to say the least and today's been the cherry on top of it all.

They nod understandingly, “You've been attacked twice. I’m sure with your past, it must be difficult.”

Jason’s eyes hold your own. “We’re always here to, you know, talk and stuff if you want to.”

As hard as it is to comfort someone else, it's even harder to allow others to comfort you. You've been used to dealing with shit on your own ever since you can remember.

It seems like there's so much more he wants to say but can’t bring himself to.

You wonder if he's going to mention all the time they’d spent away, but you're only met with the usual dead end. If they're going to put up a wall, you'd be stupid not to put one up too. After all, you aren’t going to allow yourself to get hurt by them again. You'll make sure of it.

“What are you thinking about?” You look up guiltily at Roy, not realizing your thoughts have been so transparent.

“Just a lot happened today. I’m just tired.” Your stomach sinks at the memory of being held at gunpoint, then further when you realize you can't call your best friend to tell him about it. Damian still hadn't bothered to reach out to you since sending you a pic of what he was planning to wear on the yacht before you’d left.

It feels like a sucker punch knowing Damian really thinks those things about you and hates you enough to say them to your face. He’s been the person you’ve trusted and confided in for so long and now you're at a true loss of support.

You’d known he liked you at some point, but that still couldn’t be, right?

You bury your head in your palms with a loud sigh. “Oh my god, I’m so fucking stupid.” You still and look at Roy and Jason through the slits between your fingers and wince. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

“Care to share with the class?” Roy asks.

They put up a wall, you put up a wall.

It isn’t yours to share with them if they won’t share… well, anything with you.

“You have your stuff to hide, I have mine.”

Speaking of hiding, you check to see if Roy’s hand is visible enough to compare it to arrow's, but it’s still secured behind his back, obscuring it from sight. It's suspicious, especially when there’s still no answer for his limp or their constant, post-work disheveled appearances.

“It’s not like we’re trying to hide it from you,” Jason tries to reason with you, but you don’t seem to want to listen. “If we could tell you, we would in a heartbeat. Eventually, we will,” He hesitates, looking to Roy, who seems shocked that he’s even saying any of this.

You can’t tell if it's butterflies or an uneasy warning, but your stomach spurs into a flurry of flips. It's like you're finally having an actual conversation with them and they're somewhat opening up to you. Maybe you can do the same?

Should you, though?

Jason places a hand on the place where your thigh meets your skirt and rubs circles. You gasp at the unexpected contact, immediately shifting to Roy to assess his reaction to it. He pays it no mind, merely bringing his arm to rub up and down the expanse of your back.

“We’re all tired,” Roy says. As if on cue, you yawn loudly and sheepishly cover your mouth. “How would you like to sleep in an actual bed tonight?” You gawk.

This is dangerous, you realize- no, convince yourself. Really dangerous. Close quarters like this could get you in far deeper than you've ever imagined, but were you going to go through with it? Yes.

Fuck.

What exactly did they want from you?

Damian’s cruel words reverberate around in the back of your mind as you think through your answer. Either A. Go home to your sketch apartment and twin bed, or B. Sleep in a king-sized bed with two of the hottest guys you knew and potentially ruin whatever remained of your dismal friendship.

It's B. You're picking B, who are you kidding?

“As long as I can have a different sleep shirt,” You tug at the offending fabric with distaste.

“Bet you want Jason’s shirt,” Roy pouts at you, but there's a devilish glint blatantly hidden in the depths of his verdant eyes.

You blush, “Do not.” You quickly rephrase, “I do not care either way.”

“I’ll get you a shirt, babe, unless you want my boxers too.” He’s absolutely fucking with you and Roy’s just letting him. Even going so far as to join in.

Two, well, three can play this game.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” You shrug innocently. “I have been going commando since I got here. I wouldn’t want to get cooties on your sheets.”

Both of them sputter at your confession, but Roy recovers faster to howl with tears of laughter.

“Coochie cooties,” He says with visible tears in his eyes

You choke.

You expected the joke, but hearing him losing it bad enough that Jason’s deadpan face tells him that it’s not even funny, you can’t help but join in with mirthful tears stinging at the corners of your eyes.

“You guys are incorrigible,” Jason shakes his head at the pathetic sight in front of him. “When you’re done being slap-happy idiots, meet me in the bedroom.” You stop laughing immediately, noticing the way his eyes trace down the curves of your body ever so slightly. He sees you watching and watch as his Adam's apple bobs slightly before turning on his heel and muttering, “Fucking losers.”

“Well, you heard the man,” Roy smacks lightly at your hip.

You jump off the stool to follow after Jason hoping neither of them can see how badly you’re tensing up. It's way too intimate and you hate how you picture yourself waking up next to them and doing something in their bed other than just sleeping.

You feel wetness leaking onto your bare thighs and hope Roy would have the decency not to look at the decent-sized wet patch you’d left on his light gray sweats, but of course, he can’t let it go. “Did you piss yourself during the robbery, or are you just really happy to see us?”

You nearly dislocate your shoulders as you attempt to cover your crotch with both of your hands as red stains your bright cheeks. “I can’t even think of a response right now because I’m so disgusted,” You wrinkle your nose at him but eventually giggle a bit when he starts laughing.

“Change in here,” Jason says, handing you a thin white shirt.

The light fabric strangely reminds you of the one he'd given to you all those years ago when you'd been forced to help clean up after the party. You doubt he put that much thought into his PJ choice for you, though. You eye the cotton boxers he's included, which have a string tie for you to adjust so they’ll actually stay up around your waist.

Sick.

You quickly go to their bathroom and snoop around to see if either of them has a skincare routine.

Negative.

You need supplies here and stat.

How do men get away with not using moisturizer?

They do, however, have a spare toothbrush that you snag and use before hopping onto their quicksand-esque mattress. You sink into it to the point you have to crawl on your hands and knees up to the pillows where they're lying. “This bed is a fucking workout.” You're panting a bit when you finally make it in between their shirtless bodies. You take a moment to catch your breath, sitting back with your claves underneath you and resting your hands on your splayed-out thighs.

You short-circuit, suddenly second-guessing your decision to stay when you can clearly see the dangerous looks lit up in their eyes.

You're playing with fire. Do you really want to get burned?

Seeming to sense your hesitation, Jason rolls over toward the window and turns off the light, continuing to face away. You pout slightly, taking it as rejection even though he was the one to suggest this. Roy seems to pick up on your train of thought and draws you from it. He pats at the space between them with his non-prosthetic hand to beckon you closer while his other arm remains covered by the duvet and the darkness of the room.

You hesitate once more before waddling over on your knees to get underneath the covers.

“Oh, damn!” Roy instantly jumps away as your legs make contact with his hairy ones. “Why are your legs that cold?”

Jason snorts. You see the back of his silhouette shift up and down in tandem with the noise.

“Both of you are fucking lizards or something. Am I the only one at a normal 98.6? Fuck, man.” But, eventually, read: reluctantly, he lets you steal the warmth of his leg and you fall asleep to the combined sound of their breathing.

A/N: I wrote the toilet tank lid scene then watched IT and saw it in a scene w beverly and i was like o.o

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