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reasoningdaily · 8 months

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At age 17, Donnell Drinks was one of many young men in Philadelphia who went to prison for life without parole. Today, the city has resentenced more of those prisoners than any other jurisdiction.

Published Aug. 15, 2023Updated Aug. 18, 2023

Donnell Drinks woke up one morning to banging on his door in the projects of North Philadelphia. It was the late 1980s, and Mr. Drinks, who was 15 and the oldest of three boys, had nodded off after taking his youngest brother to school. He should have been at school himself, but he had stopped going earlier that year. It wasn’t a truant officer at his door, though — no one had ever come knocking about that. Instead, sheriff’s deputies were waiting outside. They were there to evict his family.

The officers told him to get out, not bothering to ask if there was an adult around, which there wasn’t. Mr. Drinks’s dad had abandoned the family a decade earlier, and his mom was in the throes of crack cocaine addiction. For years, Mr. Drinks had been raising his younger brothers, and he had just become a father himself. He’d dropped out of school to support his family by selling drugs, a transition that felt so natural he hardly remembered how it happened.

Groggy and panicked, Mr. Drinks scanned the apartment for essentials, stuffed a shopping cart with clothes for his brothers and wheeled the cart up the road to his grandmother’s overcrowded rowhouse. The officers never asked where he was going.

“There was not one adult that said, Hold a minute. We need to call somebody,” Mr. Drinks said. “Not one adult said, That’s a child.”

At the time, Black teenage boys like Mr. Drinks were being treated less as children in need of help and more as if they were threats to society itself. Crime was rising nationwide, particularly in Philadelphia, where, in 1990, the city recorded 500 murders in a year for the first time. It was a terrifying period, especially for people living in poorer neighborhoods where the violence was worst. But the rhetoric, perpetuated by public officials and overheated headlines, suggested that a new morally depraved generation of teenagers — particularly Black teenagers — were to blame. This idea gave rise to the “superpredator” era and a raft of laws cracking down on juveniles that followed.

Mr. Drinks, now 50 years old, is a small man with a stocky frame and a warm, gaptoothed smile. He keeps his salt-and-pepper beard meticulously fluffed. An animated storyteller who is quick with a metaphor and a motivational quote, he becomes guarded when describing his upbringing — not just because it’s painful, but because he doesn’t want anyone to think he’s trying to justify what happened next. “This is context,” he said, “not excuses.”

In February 1991, when he was 17, Mr. Drinks and his 22-year-old girlfriend, who was a police officer, tried to rob a man named Darryl Huntley. They staked out Mr. Huntley’s house and forced him and his fiancée inside at gunpoint. That violent act led to others. Mr. Drinks stabbed Mr. Huntley, fatally, and was shot himself. Mr. Drinks was arrested while he was in the hospital recovering from his injuries.

By the time Mr. Drinks was brought to trial for Mr. Huntley’s murder, Philadelphia had a new district attorney: Lynne Abraham, a former judge who went on to hold the office for nearly two decades. Pennsylvania law already made life sentences mandatory for first- and second-degree murder convictions, but Ms. Abraham responded to the era’s surge in violent crime by aggressively pursuing the death penalty, an approach that once earned her the moniker the “deadliest D.A.”

She also called for tougher punishments for juveniles. In 1994, she pushed for legislative changes to give prosecutors more power to charge juveniles as adults. “You don’t get any bonus for being under a certain age,” she told The Philadelphia Inquirer at the time. The next year, the state passed a law that required prosecutors to treat children 15 and older as adults when they were charged with certain crimes.

Though Philadelphia had already sentenced many young people to life without parole, under Ms. Abraham’s watch — and with the city’s murder rate remaining high throughout the ‘90s — the number getting that sentence in Philadelphia rose quickly. For some, it may have been a deal worth taking to avoid the death penalty.

Mr. Drinks was tried as an adult and initially sentenced to death. In 1993, his sentence was reduced to life without parole. (His then-girlfriend, who received the same sentence, remains in prison.)

He most likely would have died in prison, but while Mr. Drinks was behind bars, a national effort began to rethink the culpability of young people in the eyes of the law. In the 2005 case Roper v. Simmons, the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty for minors, leaning heavily on new scientific research that showed — “as any parent knows,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote — that young people are not like adults. They are more impulsive, reckless and susceptible to persuasion.

The court did not question that minors should pay for committing heinous crimes, but in banning the most severe punishment, it affirmed the possibility “that a minor’s character deficiencies will be reformed.” Real change, Justice Kennedy suggested, was possible.

Mr. Drinks had been in prison for more than a decade when the Roper decision came out. Then one day, a Philadelphia lawyer named Bradley Bridge traveled to the upstate Pennsylvania prison where Mr. Drinks was locked up, and explained to him and the other men who had been given life sentences as boys what the ruling could mean for them.

Striking down the death penalty for minors was only the beginning, Mr. Bridge said. Soon, he predicted, the court would apply the same logic to outlaw mandatory life sentences for juveniles too, potentially giving Mr. Drinks and others serving such sentences a shot at freedom — and giving the city of Philadelphia a chance to rewrite its legacy.

A long list of friends

Mr. Bridge had been delivering his speech inside prisons throughout Pennsylvania for months before Mr. Drinks heard him speak. Mr. Bridge worked for the Defender Association of Philadelphia and had spent nearly three decades representing prisoners who were appealing their sentences. When the Roper ruling came down, he was involved in the case of a teenager facing a mandatory sentence of life without parole. He understood immediately the opportunity that the Supreme Court’s ruling presented not just for his client, but for scores of prisoners.

For Mr. Bridge, it meant pursuing a novel legal theory that might help dismantle what he viewed as a particularly unjust part of the justice system. “Children are children, and they make mistakes,” Mr. Bridge said. “But they grow and change.”

Mr. Bridge began the enormous undertaking of compiling a list of all the prisoners in Pennsylvania who were sentenced to life as minors. No one in the state had ever kept track of this group, who came to be called “juvenile lifers” in the courts and “child lifers” by some of the inmates themselves.

He expected the list to be long. He didn’t expect it to eventually include more than 500 names, nearly one-fifth of the more than 2,800 child lifers in the country. More than 300 of them had come through Philadelphia’s system, making a city with less than 1 percent of the country’s population responsible for more than 10 percent of all children sentenced to life in prison without parole in the United States. No other city compared. Even more glaring: More than 80 percent of Philadelphia’s child lifers were Black. Nationally, that figure was roughly 60 percent.

Racism “undoubtedly occurred in every phase of the criminal justice system,” Mr. Bridge said. “This created an opportunity to try to fix things that had been broken.”

After the Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty for minors, Bradley Bridge started encouraging inmates sentenced to life as children to prepare for the possibility that the court would eventually revisit the constitutionality of their sentences, too.

His partner in this work was Marsha Levick, who had co-founded the Juvenile Law Center in 1975 as an idealistic young graduate of Temple University’s law school and gone on to become one of the nation’s foremost experts on juvenile sentencing.

Mr. Bridge and Ms. Levick began traveling the state, arranging meetings with the people on Mr. Bridge’s list and adding names as they went. Mr. Bridge’s first stop was Graterford, a maximum-security facility outside of Philadelphia that, at the time, held more child lifers than any prison in the state. Dozens of men crowded into Graterford’s chapel to hear what Mr. Bridge had to say.

“People wanted to know what was coming down the pike,” remembered Kempis “Ghani” Songster, who was in the room that day. “Is this a ray of light flickering on?”

At age 15, Mr. Songster stabbed another teenager to death in a crack house. Both were runaways working for the same gang. He was given a life sentence for his crime, but it wasn’t until that meeting in 2006, nearly two decades after he went to prison as a scrawny kid who couldn’t grow a beard, that he realized how many other lifers at Graterford had also arrived as teenagers.

“It was like, Whoa, he’s been here since he was a kid, too?” Mr. Songster said. “A lot of us who were child lifers didn’t really know that we were in a distinct class.”

There had never been a reason to talk about age. The courts had treated them as adults, and if anything, being marked as a child in a violent adult prison would only have made them more vulnerable. Now, there was power in the identity.

The child lifers inside Graterford began organizing. They quickly formed a committee called Juvenile Lifers for Justice, which met weekly to discuss the evolving law and science around adolescent development. They drafted pamphlets, circulated newsletters to other prisons and their family members, and kept one another motivated around their common cause.

These conversations also started to change how some of the men thought about why they had committed such serious crimes.

Mr. Songster said he never felt “entitled” to be free. “I can’t wash the blood off my hands that’s on my hands,” he said. But the emerging research, which showed brains aren’t fully developed until people get into their 20s, gave him new understanding. “It made me curious about myself,” Mr. Songster said of the research. “I knew I was a good person, but I couldn’t reconcile the person that I became and I know I am with the person that committed that horrible act.”

The child lifers were also reaching out beyond the prison walls. They invited politicians to visit Graterford and partnered with nonprofit organizations to distribute supplies to local schools.

“We were always trying to break that wall down so people could see we’re humans,” said Don Jones, who was also sentenced as a minor and was the president of Graterford’s N.A.A.C.P. chapter during this period.

Mr. Bridge and Ms. Levick became frequent fixtures at the prison. At each of these visits, Ms. Levick was struck by how the men — imprisoned at such a young age and last in line for any prison edification programs because of their status as lifers — had mastered the nuances of the law and were orchestrating a statewide grass-roots movement from inside prison. “Their desire to come home was real,” Ms. Levick said. “It was palpable, and it made you want to do more.”

“We were always trying to break that wall down so people could see we’re humans,” said Don Jones, who was locked up at Graterford and has since been released.

Mr. Drinks had spent 10 years at Graterford, but after he was transferred upstate, newsletters coming out of Graterford and messages passed along from old friends became his lifeline. Without a lawyer of his own, he kept his case alive by adapting draft legal petitions circulated by Mr. Bridge. And he documented his accomplishments in prison — articles he’d written, certificates he’d earned, thank-you notes from the nonprofits he’d raised money for — until he had three manila envelopes’ worth of records illustrating all the ways he’d grown.

Still, he never quite let himself believe that Mr. Bridge’s prediction would pan out. He wanted to be prepared, but he was also prepared to be let down.

“It’s like throwing water out of a boat that’s sinking,” Mr. Drinks said. “You’ve got to do it anyway, because if you don’t, the water’s going to get you.”

Throughout this period, lawyers around the country, including Ms. Levick and Mr. Bridge, were bringing new cases, trying to apply the rationale in the Roper ruling to other kinds of sentences for juveniles. At the national level, a key leader in this work was Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit.

Mr. Stevenson saw a connection between the superpredator era and the overwhelming number of young Black boys who had been locked away for life.

“You had these criminologists going around saying that some children aren’t children. Some kids look like kids, but they’re really, quote, superpredators,” he said. “That narrative was so prevalent, so persuasive, that you see states all over the country lowering the minimum age for trying children as adults.”

In 2008, the Equal Justice Initiative found 73 children who had been given sentences of life without parole when they were 13 and 14 years old. And all of the people who received those sentences for crimes other than homicide were children of color.

“It just said something about the way in which race was a proxy for a presumption of dangerousness, this presumption of irredeemability,” Mr. Stevenson said.

Then came a series of breakthroughs. In 2010, the Supreme Court abolished sentences of life without parole for minors charged with crimes other than murder. Two years after that, Mr. Stevenson appeared before the court on behalf of two young men who were sentenced to life without parole when they were 14. In its decision in Miller v. Alabama, the Supreme Court struck down all mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles. Four years later, in a case called Montgomery v. Louisiana, for which Ms. Levick served as co-counsel, the court made that decision retroactive, fulfilling the prediction Mr. Bridge made in the Graterford chapel a decade before, and giving more than 2,800 child lifers across the country the right to have their sentences revisited.

Mr. Drinks remembers the first time he got a look at Mr. Bridge’s list. It was filled with the names of people he’d known for years, but had never known were child lifers. There was Abd’Allah Lateef, the soft-spoken guy he’d always admired at Graterford, even when he griped about Mr. Drinks’s loud music. There was Luis “Suave” Gonzalez, a big talker whom Mr. Drinks had encouraged to lead one of Graterford’s Latin American cultural exchange groups. And there was Don Jones, a friend so close, Mr. Drinks said, “my brothers call him brother.”

“That was my tear-shed moment,” Mr. Drinks said. “I knew I was on the list, but going down the list and seeing genuine friends?” Now, they might all have a shot at freedom — a shot, but not a guarantee.

A block in North Philadelphia. Donnell Drinks sold drugs in the area as a teenager and was convicted of homicide at age 17 in a robbery gone wrong.

‘The election changed everything’

The Supreme Court’s rulings in Millerand Montgomery marked an important rethinking of culpability when it comes to children who commit the most serious crimes. But the practical implications of the rulings were limited: the court hadn’t abolished all life without parole sentences for children — only ones where state laws made the sentences mandatory.And while child lifers now had a chance to make a case for their release, prosecutors could still seek new life sentences. In other states with high numbers of child lifers, including Michigan and Louisiana, as well as some parts of Pennsylvania, that’s just what they did.

In Philadelphia, however, all of the list-gathering and planning that had been taking place for more than a decade began to pay off. Most of the state’s child lifers had been prosecuted in the city, and it was up to its district attorney’s office and court system to move hundreds of people through the resentencing process. “Philadelphia was bad, and everybody recognized it was bad,” Mr. Bridge said.

Ms. Levick added, “In a way, the whole world was watching.”

Philadelphia soon began resentencing and releasing child lifers, starting with those who’d been in prison the longest. But while R. Seth Williams, Philadelphia’s district attorney, initially committed not to resentence anyone to life without parole, he stuck to strict new state sentencing guidelines, which meant that Mr. Drinks and others who had been swept up in the ’90s, would most likely spend many more years in prison.

Marsha Levick, an expert on juvenile sentencing, visited inmates. “Their desire to come home was real,” Ms. Levick said. “It was palpable, and it made you want to do more.”

Mr. Williams viewed this approach as the only way to honor the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Pennsylvania government’s consensus and the rights of the victims. “People often only look at the factors for the defendant. I understand. But they often forget there was a victim,” Mr. Williams said. “Someone was murdered. We just can’t just sweep that under the rug.”

Then came a twist that no one predicted. In March 2017, a little over a year after the Montgomery decision, Mr. Williams was indicted on charges including bribery and extortion and later sentenced to five years in prison. Almost as surprising was who was elected to be his successor: a sharp-elbowed former public defender and criminal defense attorney named Larry Krasner.

Whatever Ms. Abraham, the former district attorney, had been to the city in the 1990s, Mr. Krasner swore to be the opposite. (Ms. Abraham did not respond to requests for comment.) He had run against the death penalty and mass incarceration, and vowed to decriminalize marijuana and end cash bail. One of his first moves after taking office in January 2018 was to fire 31 prosecutors in a purge that became known as the Snow Day Massacre.

When it came to juvenile lifers, Mr. Krasner was more open than his predecessor to considering how people had changed in the decades since committing their crimes. Chesley Lightsey is a former assistant district attorney who worked on Mr. Drinks’s case and others under both administrations. “It took time for me to wrap my head around it: ‘Okay, now we can have much more of a conversation about this,’” she said about the change when Krasner was elected. “It was just a different perspective.”

Under Mr. Krasner, prosecutors paid special attention to reports drafted by mitigation specialists. Those specialists, who are essentially professional storytellers for defendants, interviewed juvenile lifers, their families and anyone else who could offer context. They asked questions about how the inmates had been raised, the trauma and pain that had influenced their actions, what they had done with their time in prison and what they planned to do upon release.

By the time Mr. Krasner took office in January 2018, Mr. Drinks had spent hours spilling his soul to a lawyer and mitigator named Rachel Miller. Over the course of countless calls and several in-person visits, Ms. Miller wove the story of Mr. Drinks’s life into a memo, complete with a two-inch stack of documents highlighting his accomplishments.

The memo covers the most painful moments of Mr. Drinks’s childhood: being abandoned by his father, his mother’s struggle with addiction, getting evicted. It describes how Mr. Drinks would skip school to collect the family’s food stamps before his mother could pawn them for drugs and how, when his mother turned violent, he would take the brunt of her beatings in an attempt to spare his brothers.

But the memo also tells the story of a grown man who spent his time behind bars trying to atone for the crime that put him there. Among the stack of documents is a community college transcript filled with A’s and B’s, an agenda for a workshop he organized with victims’ rights advocates and a photo of him beaming behind a giant check made out to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. Perhaps most meaningful to Mr. Drinks were the letters he received from other incarcerated men who were members of a youth group he founded attesting to all the ways the group, and Mr. Drinks, had saved them. “I did not know the child that committed the crime he is in here for,” read one of the letters, “but the man I do know is not that same person.”

Before Mr. Krasner’s election, Mr. Drinks was offered a deal of 35 years to life, which would have made him eligible for parole in 2026. Shortly after Mr. Krasner took over in 2018, Mr. Drinks got a new offer: time served.

“The election changed everything,” Mr. Drinks said, referring to Mr. Krasner’s victory.

“I’m always conscious of the emotion, the hurt, the disappointment, the disdain, all those negative emotions that my actions led to,” Mr. Drinks said of the murder he committed. “I’ve got to live the rest of my life counteracting that.”

Mr. Drinks’s case was not unique. Researchers at Montclair State University have found that, under Mr. Krasner, prosecutors began offering child lifers new sentences that were, on average, 11 years shorter than the ones offered to those same people under Mr. Williams. Crucially, the researchers found that child lifers’ release had a negligible effect on public safety. Seven years after they started coming home, the rearrest rate for Philadelphia’s child lifers hovers around 5 percent. That’s small compared with the national rate, where 40 percent of people with past murder convictions are rearrested within the first five years, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. As of early this year, only three of the city’s child lifers who were rearrested have been convicted (for marijuana possession, contempt and robbery in the third degree), according to the Montclair State researchers.

For Mr. Krasner, these numbers reveal as a lie the idea that some people are so incapable of change that they should never be offered a shot at it. “It was always wrong to believe that people are either saints or they’re sinners,” Mr. Krasner said.

At his resentencing hearing in April 2018, Mr. Drinks read aloud from a letter before a gallery filled with friends and family, as well as the loved ones of Mr. Huntley, his victim. He apologized to Mr. Huntley’s family and said he knew he had no right to ask anyone in the room for forgiveness, and so he didn’t. But he did promise to spend the rest of his life making amends.

Mr. Huntley’s family members also made statements to the court. In a handwritten letter, Mr. Huntley’s sister described her brother as a loving and giving person. She explained how his murder had crushed her family, derailed her own education and deprived her children of ever knowing their uncle. “My mother still is deeply hurt and our family find it difficult to celebrate Valentine’s Day,” she wrote, “because these horrible, horrible actions took place that evening leading into his death.” She told the court that she did not want to see Mr. Drinks released.

Mr. Huntley’s sister did not respond to an interview request, but Suzanne Estrella, who runs the Office of Victim Advocate in Pennsylvania, said that many victims’ families “flat-out just do not” agree with the resentencings. But she said there were also many families that understood and accepted them. “You have survivors who have lost loved ones and survivors who have loved ones who are incarcerated,” Ms. Estrella said. “So you see all those perspectives coming to the table at the same time.”

As painful as it was, Mr. Drinks said he appreciated Mr. Huntley’s family’s honesty. “I felt it, and I understood it,” he said. “I’m always conscious of the emotion, the hurt, the disappointment, the disdain, all those negative emotions that my actions led to. I’ve got to live the rest of my life counteracting that.”

Three months after the hearing, having won the approval of the parole board, Mr. Drinks met his brothers as he walked out of prison for the first time in nearly three decades. Mr. Drinks remembers his sense of disbelief and being a little carsick as they drove the four hours back to Philadelphia, where he would move in with his brother Damon. The whole way home, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was following close behind. “I didn’t want to look back,” he said, “so I kept looking ahead.”

Donnell Drinks married Shekia Drinks two years ago. But he hasn’t been able to get the approval needed to move out of his brother’s home and in with his wife.

A return to the 1990s?

Of the more than 300 child lifers who became eligible for resentencing in Philadelphia in 2016, all but about a dozen have been resentenced, and more than 220 have been released, the majority of them on lifetime parole. That’s nearly a quarter of the roughly 1,000 total child lifers who have been released across the country. These numbers make Philadelphia, once an outlier in imprisoning minors for life, now an outlier in letting them go. By 2020, the city had resentenced more child lifers than Michigan and Louisiana combined.

What set the city apart, said Mr. Stevenson, of the Equal Justice Initiative, was not just the buy-in from local officials and public defenders, but also the community of child lifers who became their own best argument for release.

“It was the way they organized, the way they cared for one another, the way they modeled a kind of readiness to contribute to society,” Mr. Stevenson said. “These young people had been told they were going to die in prison. Some of them just never accepted that.”

Since the Supreme Court decisions, more than half of all states have outlawed life without parole sentences for children altogether, reducing the number of child lifers left in the country to fewer than 600, according to the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, a national nonprofit. Mr. Stevenson’s organization is now working to raise the minimum age at which children can be tried as adults in 11 states, including Pennsylvania, where there is no age floor. Other states are considering abolishing mandatory life without parole sentences for people under 21.

While life without the possibility of parole sentences for juveniles are now rare, they are not unheard of. The now solidly conservative Supreme Court has issued a ruling that could lower the bar for judges to apply the sentence to children in states where it is still allowed. A prosecutor in Oakland County, Mich., is seeking life without parole for a mass shooter who was 15 when he killed four students at his high school in 2021. A judge will have to weigh the horror of his crime against the possibility that, over time, he could change.

The United States is still the only country in the world that gives courts the discretion to send children to prison without the chance of proving themselves later in life at a parole hearing. And the tough-on-crime rhetoric of the 1990s is making a comeback, thanks to a spike in violent crime that began at the outset of the pandemic. In Philadelphia alone, the murder rate has surpassed the record set in 1990 two years in a row, with young people emerging as both victims and perpetrators.

Mr. Drinks and Mr. Jones started an anti-violence group in Philadelphia and sometimes walk the streets handing out pamphlets.

Just as they did in prison, child lifers have come together to create a buffer against an outside world that often feels hostile and unwelcoming.

Though this uptick in crime is showing signs of decline, it has prompted a nationwide backlash against progressive prosecutors, including Mr. Krasner, whose comparatively lenient approach has become a lightning rod in local politics. Mr. Krasner was recently the subject of an impeachment effort by Pennsylvania Republicans, and even some Democrats raced to condemn his record during the city’s mayoral primary in May.

Those who were released have become some of the loudest voices for building upon the fragile gains they fought for while on the inside. Their fight now is about abolishing life without parole for everyone, getting young people out of adult prisons and addressing the underlying causes of the violence plaguing Philadelphia and other major cities.

“If you would have dealt with a lot of my issues,” Mr. Drinks said, “they probably would not have escalated to crime.”

It’s not that Mr. Drinks and his fellow activists believe juveniles convicted of murder should not be held accountable. “When we talk to legislators, we don’t say: Throw the doors open, and everybody’s coming home,” Mr. Drinks said. “Our conversation is always that everybody deserves an opportunity to show they’re worthy of coming home.”

Today, Mr. Drinks coordinates a network of former child lifers through the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth. In any given week, he might be found with two cellphones in hand, flying to Alabama to urge progressive prosecutors to stay the course, organizing retreats for formerly incarcerated men and women, or canvassing city streets through an anti-violence nonprofit he co-founded with Mr. Jones, his friend from Graterford.

Mr. Drinks and other child lifers know that they embody for the public what all the research said about a young person’s capacity for change, and they are keenly aware that their example could help secure other people’s freedom. But they are also wary of being used to suggest that the system works, or allowing it to conceal just how difficult their re-entry into the outside world has been.

While several of Philadelphia’s child lifers have gone on to become an Ivy League lecturer or nonprofit executive, many more are working minimum-wage jobs or are unable to find work. Some are in bad health. Four have died. Nearly all of them are on lifetime parole, with the possibility of being sent back to prison forever looming.

Mr. Drinks credits his brothers, Damon and Kareem, for making his homecoming easier. Throughout Mr. Drinks’s incarceration, the three brothers had remained as close as the prison system would allow, keeping up visits even when he was transferred far away. Often, Damon Drinks would bring along Mr. Drinks’s son, who was just 3 when his father was arrested, and is now a grown man with a family of his own. It is thanks to his brothers, Mr. Drinks says, that he was able to maintain a relationship with his son at all.

Mr. Drinks, in Fairmount Park, said his brothers visited him while he was in prison and have helped him readjust to life on the outside.

Damon and Kareem Drinks’s support continued once their big brother was released. They took him shopping, kept him housed and partnered with him to start a local printing company not far from the city courthouse. Mr. Drinks has not had to struggle to survive, but that doesn’t mean he has not struggled. Five years after he left prison, the terms of his parole still prohibit him from leaving the county of Philadelphia without permission. He got married two years ago, but he has yet to get the approval needed to move out of his brother’s home and in with his wife. And he lives with the constant fear that one act of violence by any of the state’s other child lifers could spell the end of his own tenuous freedom.

This fear is part of what keeps Mr. Drinks connected to the men who were once boys with him on the inside. Just as they did in prison, child lifers have come together to create a buffer against an outside world that often feels hostile and unwelcoming. These bonds are as much a product of their shared experiences as they are a defense against their shared vulnerabilities.

“We’re each other’s co-defendants,” Mr. Drinks said. “We see people want to stray, it’s like, No, come on. We’re going to get to this finish line together.”

Mr. Drinks hugs Michael “Smokey” Wilson, another former child lifer.

#How People Sentenced to Life in Prison Made Their Case for Release #prison #american injustice system.#penal injustice #sentencing disparities #adultification #Black Lives Matter

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olicitymckono · 10 months

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His Girl

I absolutely love Max but I'll always be a Charles girl.

Any errors are my own but I really hope you enjoy.

They were best friends, had been since they were 5 years old when they had first met at the karting track. Her father was an engineer for Ferrari and he had bought her to the track to watch her older brother Luke Sinclair as he raced around the track. Charles Leclerc was one of his competitors. For years she travelled along with her family to different races and she had struck up lifelong friendships with several young up and coming racers. Well actually they had become family, especially when at just 19 years old Luke had been involved in a boating accident with his friends. Losing her brother had been one of the hardest experiences of her life and had it not been for Charles and Pierre she might not have been able to go on. Luke was the one who pushed her to follow her dreams of becoming an engineer just like their dad and undoubtedly, he would be so proud of the fact that she had fulfilled her dream of working for Ferrari at F1 level. Things only got better when Charles officially signed his contract with the team. The two of them spend so much time together even spending family holidays together and when her parents separated a few years after Luke’s death, her dad moving to the other side of the world, Charles had become her constant. However, things started changing when his new girlfriend Charlotte came into the picture. He would make plans with Y/N only for them to change the moment Charlotte called. It had gotten worse because now instead of calling or texting Y/N to cancel or reschedule, he simply forgot to tell her. Just a few weeks ago he had told her to dress up as he was taking her to dinner to celebrate his latest success. She had been super excited and got all dressed up only to wait 2 hours for him not to pitch or even let her know he wasn’t coming. Then today when they had finished qualifying, he had pulled her aside and told to wait for him so they could leave together. After 20 minutes of waiting, she went in search of the Monegasque. Y/N checked his driver’s room but he wasn’t there or in the garage. “Hey Alessandro, have you seen Charles anywhere?” Her Italian colleague was busy checking something on Carlos’ car but looked up when she spoke.

“Hey Bella, sorry last I saw him he was headed to his room.”

“Thanks, maybe he’s in the paddock. I’ll see you later.”

“A piú tardi Y/N.” (See you later)

She walked outside towards the paddock, maybe he was talking to one of the other drivers. She spotted Max Verstappen and Daniel Riccardo and made her way over.

Daniel broke into a huge smile as she approached causing Max to look over at his friend. “Y/N, the most beautiful girl in the paddock.”

Shaking her head at the Australian, she chuckled. “You really need to stop flirting Danny, what would Heidi say?”

“Can I join?” he teased.

“Have any of you seen Charles?” she asked them.

Daniel shook his head no but Max answered, “He left about 15 mins ago.”

“He left?” had he really left her again?

Max noticed the look on her face and felt sorry for her. “Yep, him and Charlotte were headed somewhere.”

Y/N nodded her head trying to hide her emotions. He had done it again and she figured she should get used to it but it hurt. “Great.”

“Everything ok Schat?” Max asked putting a hand on her shoulder.

“He was my ride,” she replied.

“Well give me 5 minutes and I’ll give you a ride.” Max offered.

“It's ok. I'll call an Uber.”

“5 mins. No arguing.” Max had a feeling that there was something more to the story and Y/N was important to him. He told her to wait with Daniel while he went to speak to Christian really quick. She smiled in thanks.

Daniel wrapped an arm around her shoulders, “So about that Heidi comment......”

Driving back to the hotel, Max noticed how quiet she was as she stared out the window. “Schat?” he placed a light touch to her knee making her look at him. “What’s really going on?”

“I’m fine Max,” she smiled softly at the Dutchman.

“But...”

He really was a man you couldn’t hide things from. “Charles is acting different.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ever since he started dating Charlotte, he treats me different.”

“How so?”

She shrugged, “He always drops me as soon as she’s around. And I am fully aware that she is his girlfriend, she comes first. But then tell me. I get that plans change. I know he wants to spend time with her.”

“What happened today?”

“Pierre was going to give me a ride back to the hotel but Charles told me to wait, he wanted to grab lunch and talk about something to do with the car. I waited and he left.”

Max nodded in understanding. “He didn’t tell you.”

She shook her head. “Unfortunately, it's not the first time.

“How many times has he done this?” he asked.

“About 5.” Max whistled surprised. “This month.” She finished.

Max looked quickly over at her raising his eyebrows. “This month?” She nodded. “Seriously Y/N, how long has this been going on?”

She shrugged. “Since Charlotte showed up.” She ran a quick hand through her long ash blond hair before continuing, “At first he would at least send a message or call me to cancel but then he just stopped all together.” She looked over at her friend. “I sound like I’m jealous, don’t I?”

“Nope. You have every right to feel the way you do.” Max responded as they reached the hotel. “You deserve to be treated with respect and appreciation.”

She blushed slightly but smiled. “Thanks Max. For everything.”

He returned her smile. “Mijn plezier schat.” (My pleasure darling.)

Before climbing out the car she leaned over and kissed his cheek. No matter how the media portrayed him as a villain, she was lucky enough to know the real Max and he was amazing.

Several weeks had passed with not much going on. F1 was currently on a two-week break before heading to Italy for the next race and Y/N was enjoying some down time with her friends back home in Monaco while Charles was away with Charlotte somewhere. She had not brought up the conversation she’d had with Max. Speaking of Max, he had started to become a very important person in her life, taking up the role that used to belong to Charles. This had not gone unnoticed by the latter. As much as it annoyed him, Charles that Y/N was basically replacing him, he found himself in a position where he had no choice. Charlotte would constantly accuse him of having feelings for his best friend so in order to keep her happy, he had begun to spent less and less time with Y/N. However, after this break he had promised himself that he was going to make a better effort to spend time with her even if it pissed off his girlfriend. The idea of Y/N spending her time with Max or anyone else for that matter was not something he liked or wanted to see.

“So, Y/N, what are you and Charles getting up to on Friday?” Elena Roscon one of Y/N’s high school friends asked taking a sip of her Martini.

Friday was one day away and it also happened to be the day before her birthday. For as long as she had known him, Charles had always planned something the day before so that they could celebrate just the two of them.

“Not sure. He hasn't said anything to me. To be fair we haven’t spoken a hell of a lot lately.”

“How long are you going to punish him?”

“I'm not punishing him.” The brunette looked unconvinced at Y/N. “What? I’m not, I’m just tired of been unappreciated.”

“Y/N maybe it’s not him.”

Y/N scoffed, “So his girlfriend told him to ditch me all these times?”

Elena shrugged, “You never know.”

“Then he is whipped. Can we please talk about something else?”

“Sure, what’s going on with you and a certain Dutchman?”

Y/N chuckled, “Max and I are just friends.”

Elena hummed sarcastically, “I think maybe not.” Y/N simply rolled her eyes before Elena continued. “When do you leave for Imola?”

“Tomorrow. Gonna miss you though,”

“Don't worry I’ll make up for missing your birthday.”

“I know you will.” Y/N smiled.

The next day as soon as they had arrived in Italy, Y/N was called into a meeting. Charles was there and as usual he kept trying to make her laugh throughout. As soon as it was over, she was excited to spend some time with her best friend. Walking out the room she linked arms with him. He leaned over and kissed her head. “I missed you.”

“Me too,” she smiled.

“What you got planned tonight?” he asked.

“Not sure yet. How about you?” she replied hoping he would drop a hint as to what he had planned.

“Charlotte and Valentine are arriving in a few hours. We’re going to Ippocampus Ristorante for dinner. You should come with.”

“Oh,” she let go of his arm and walked a little ahead of him, her heart sinking. He frowned at the action but followed after her. “Thanks, but I really should actually call Pap Pap.”

“Is he okay?” Charles asked concerned for her grandfather. Pap Pap was extremely important not only to her but to himself as well.

“Just seems to be getting a weaker.” She wrapped her arms around her waist.

He quickly caught up to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Hey he’s tough.”

She nodded. “Thanks. I’ll see you later.”

“Wait, I thought we could hang out a bit. Charlotte is still going to be a while.”

She sighed softly putting a smile on her face, “Sure, what you wanna do?”

Two hours later Y/N found herself sitting in her hotel room. She had just finished up her Facetime with Pap Pap. He was doing okay but she had a sense that time was not on his side. Her time with Charles had been too short and along with her growing worry over her grandfather, Y/N felt sad. “I have to do something,” she told herself getting up. She walked to her suitcase and looked through it pulling out a little navy-blue dress she had pack. Biting her lip slightly, she decided she was going to go out. She headed to the bathroom and got dressed.

She found herself at a little bar and it wasn’t long before a group of guys approached her, offering to buy her a drink. She smiled softly and accepted. She wasn’t stupid and naïve so she made sure to keep an eye on her drink as she politely accepted their offer to join them. She wasn't going to lie and say that she didn’t enjoy the company or attention but it did feel different to how it felt spending time with her boys. Even though she worked for Ferrari everyone on the grid had become family and she spent a lot of her time with the guys and some of the wags as well. Isa Carlos’ girlfriend was definitely one of her closest friends but she wasn’t due to be in Italy till the middle of next week just before the actual practices began. But making new friends was actually pretty easy for her and the conversation flowed quite easily with the young men. They were some local college guys and they seemed like real gentlemen, making her feel comfortable. A few were actually surprised that she was an engineer but she held back that she worked for F1.

“Porca puttana.. È quello che penso che sia?" (Holy shit...is that who I think it is?) one of the guys, Antonio she believed asked staring at someone behind her.

She turned around and saw Max. She noticed he was by himself and had several girls around him. He looked around the place before his eyes landed on her and she saw a smile appear before he excused himself from the group of girls and made his way over to her. “Y/N!” he greeted her warmly as she stood up to hug him. He returned the hug squeezing her tightly. “What are you doing here?”

“Just needed a night out. You?” she returned the question.

“Same.”

“You know Max Verstappen?” one of her companions asked drawing their attention.

Max chuckled as she looked back at the Italians. “Yeah, I may have forgotten to mention I’m a Formula 1 engineer.” she said sheepishly.

“Wow.” several of them replied.

“Gentlemen, I hope you don’t mind if I steal Y/N away?” Y/N looked back at the Dutchman with surprised. He shrugged as he put a hand on her back. He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “I need some company.”

She nodded in understanding and excused herself from the group, thanking them for their hospitality.

“I thought you were only getting in next week?” she asked as they headed to the bar.

“Christian thought it would be a good idea to get a head start on things. He thinks Ferrari has a secret weapon.”

“Oh really?”

“Yep, care to confirm?” he smirked.

She shook her head and locked her lips.

He laughed. “What about you? What’s a beautiful girl like you doing here with a bunch of college boys?”

“Like I said, needed a night out. Usually, I would be doing something with Charles but he had other plans.” she reached for a chair.

“His loss. Come on.” he stopped her from sitting down and offered her his hand.

“What?”

“I’m taking you out for dinner.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know. I want to.”

She saw sincerity in his eyes and happily took his hand.

The night flew by and she was having a lot of fun spending time with him. He really was the sweetest guy off the track. After dinner they walked through some of the town while eating some Gelato, he offered her his jacket as he noticed she was getting cold. She felt goosebumps on her skin where his fingers had brushed against her but she wasn’t sure if it was because of the cold or something else. As they walked towards the hotel the conversation continued to flow.

“I had fun tonight, Y/N. Thank you for joining me.” he smiled as they reached her door.

“I did too. Thank you for inviting me.”

“Don't make plans for tomorrow night.”

“Why?”

“We’re celebrating.” He looked at his watch. “In fact,” he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “Happy Birthday Schat.”

She blushed before noticing that it was already the next day. “Thank you.”

“Good night or Good Morning. I’ll see you later.”

She watched him head back to the elevator and waved as the doors opened. He stopped to greet someone she couldn’t see before giving her wink just before climbing into the elevator. Just before the doors closed the other occupant poked their head out. Charles. He gave her a weird look before having to get back in. She shook her head before entering her room.

She had just settled into bed with some mindless show playing in the background when her phone buzzed on the bedside table.

“What were you doing with Max?” Charles.

She rolled her eyes before replying, “He invited me to dinner.”

Two seconds later her phone started ringing and Charles face pop up. She contemplated not answering but knew better. “Hi.”

“You went on a date with him?”

“Firstly, hello to you too.”

“Y/N,” he whined.

She sighed, “We bumped into each other and then went to dinner. Not like I was busy.”

“You could have come with me.”

She leaned back against the pillows. “Didn’t really feel like being a third wheel.”

“You’re never a third wheel. I always want you there.”

He didn’t get it and right now she didn’t want to enlighten him. She was too tired for that. “Where’s Charlotte?”

She heard him close a door with a binge before answering her, “She’s with Valentine. Has an early meeting.”

“Okay.”

“We’re going on a hike afterwards. Please will you come with?” he asked.

“I can’t. I’m meeting Alessandro. We need to go over a few things regarding the cars.”

“Oh,” he sounded sad. “Dinner then.”

She thought about what Max had said about not making plans and part of her wanted to see what he had up his sleeve. “I may have plans already but I’ll let you know later today.”

“Plans....with who?” he asked with a note of annoyance in his voice. She brushed it off as now was not the time to deal with him.

“A friend.”

“Come on. I know all your friends.”

“Maybe I made some new ones,” she snapped.

“Hey,” he said softly. “What’s wrong?”

She sighed pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just a little tired.”

He scoffed, “Well maybe next time end the date earlier.”

“Good night, Charles.” She didn’t wait for a response before ending the call. She would deal with him at a decent time. “Happy Birthday to me,” she mumbled as he hadn’t even done that.

Bright and early next day, entirely too early for her liking Y/N was awoken by what started out as a soft knock on her hotel door. She groaned and threw the covers over her head in the hopes that whoever was on the other side of the door would get the message and leave. However, she was out of luck as the knocking not only continued but seemed to get louder. Her phoned buzzed, “Abre la Puerta Cupcake.” (Open the door Cupcake.)

She squinted at the name. “Esperar.” (Wait.) She forced herself out of bed and opened the door when her eyes widened in surprise. Carlos Sainz was standing at the door with a bunch of roses in his hand, but it was the young woman standing next to him that surprised her. It was his girlfriend and Y/N’s favourite WAG. “Isa!”

“Surprise!” the young Spanish woman cried pulling her friend into a tight hug.

“What are you doing here?” Y/N cried wiping away a tear.

“We wanted to surprise you, Y/N.” Carlos replied.

She let go of Isa and leaned up to kiss him on the cheek.

“Happy Birthday!” he smiled.

“I love you guys,” Y/N smiled.

“We love you too, now let's get you dressed. We have a breakfast date.” Isa replied practically pushing her back into the room.

While Isa help Y/N gets ready, Carlos busied himself by putting the flowers into a glass of water. Y/N was like a little sister to him, so to be able to make her day by getting Isa on an earlier flight warmed his heart.

“Shit!” Y/N groaned as she picked up her phone.

“What?” he asked.

“I’m supposed to meet Alessandro this morning.”

Carlos shook his head. “Don't worry about it. I already spoke to him. Rescheduled too tomorrow.”

“You’re the best.” As they headed out, she checked her phone and found dozens of messages. Most of them were from the guys including Max, Checo and Lando and a few were from her family. She quickly replied to as much of them as she could. Nothing from Charles,

Y/N spent a wonderful morning with Carlos and Isa before she headed to the spa, a gift she had received earlier from Max. The massage was heavenly. He hadn't said anything about that night either then to tell her to be ready by 7pm and to dress up. Currently she was in her bathroom applying the final finishing touches. She was dressed in a knee length strapless black dress with matching heels. Looking at herself she could help letting her mind wander to her best friend. Usually, he would be sitting in the room awaiting on her so they could go to a small get together and normally he was the first person to wish her. Yet for some reason he had forgotten. Pascale had called her earlier making her promise to do lunch as soon as she got back to Monaco. Even Arthur and Lorenzo had sent her a message. As if by fate, she got a text from Charles. “Hey, you coming with us tonight?”

She sighed, maybe he had really forgotten. “I have plans. Just about to leave.”

“Fine!”

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

“Nothing. Have fun without me. Clearly that’s your new favourite thing. Or maybe you’re hanging out with your new friend Max!”

She rapidly blinked trying to keep herself from crying. “At least he remembered.

She shoved her phone into her bag and headed to the door as she heard a knock.

Standing at the door looking rather handsome in just a simple pair of jeans and a black button up shirt was Max. He smiled looking over her, “Wow! You look beautiful Schat.”

“Thanks,” she blushed. “You look good yourself.”

“Shall we?” he asked putting out his arm for her ever the gentleman.

Max had organised a surprise party for her with a bunch of their friends. Several of the drivers and their girlfriends had gotten in early to come and celebrate with her. The biggest surprise though was seeing Arthur and Lorenzo there as well. She loved spending time with her pseudo brothers particularly Lorenzo who had pretty much taken over the role when Luke died.

“You look beautiful Cherie” he placed a light kiss on her hand.

“Thank you, Enzo,”

“So, what did Charles have up his sleeve this year?” Y/N’s smile dropped at the mention of his younger brother, something that did not go unnoticed. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s not important.” Lorenzo raised a brow telling her he did not believe her. She sighed, “He forgot.”

“Forgot to do something?”

She shook her head, “My birthday. He hasn’t even wished me.”

“That doesn’t sound like Charles.”

“Well, he’s not here and he hasn’t said anything.

“Maybe he’s running late. You know he can be an idiot sometimes.” Lorenzo replied.

“Who’s an idiot?” Arthur asked as he approached with drinks for all of them.

“Charles.” Lorenzo muttered.

Arthur chuckled, “What he do now?”

“Forgot Y/N’S birthday.”

“No way.” he replied looking at Y/N hoping she would tell him Lorenzo was joking.

She shook her head sadly. Arthur reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “What are you doing?” Y/N asked.

“Calling him.”

She quickly pressed her hand against his to stop him. “Please don’t.”

“Y/N?”

“No Art, if he doesn’t call or show up then that’s on him. Besides I don’t really feel like having Charlotte around.”

“That explains it.” Arthur muttered in annoyance as Lorenzo rolled his eyes.

She looked between the brothers before asking, “Am I missing something?”

Lorenzo leaned in a little closer, “Charlotte is not exactly our favourite person.

“Why?”

“We have our reasons Y/N,” Arthur answered. “But Charles forgetting today?” he shook his head.

“Well, I want to have fun, dance with me?” she grabbed Arthur’s hand and dragged him to the dance floor leaving Lorenzo howling at the look of surprise on his brother’s face.

A few hours later on the other side of the small town, Charles and Charlotte had just finished up dinner and were currently in the taxi. Charlotte had noticed that Charles was not only distracted but annoyed for some reason. He had been quiet and when he had spoken it had been short and snappy. It pissed her off as he was supposed to be paying attention to her. He pulled out his phone and began to scroll through his social media leaving her to fume and stare out the window.

“Oh my God!”

She heard him gasp and quickly turned to look at her boyfriend with a frown. “What is it?”

“I forgot her birthday!”

“Who?”

“Y/N’s” He showed her some of his friends Instagram pictures of at the party.

“So? Seems to me like she is having fun.”

“I forgot.” He rapidly told the driver to head to Charlotte’s hotel.

“What’s going on?” she asked as she barely understood Italian.

“I'm taking you back to the hotel.”

“But we’re supposed to go watch the fireworks!”

“I have to go fix this.”

“Is she your girlfriend, or am I?” she snapped.

He turned to her with anger in his eyes. “Watch it, Charlotte. I’m not having this fight with you again. She is my friend.”

The rest of the drive was silent with a tense atmosphere. But Charles was not going to back down this time. Once they reached the hotel Charlotte got out and slammed the door shut. He didn’t even bother to get out.

“You having fun Schat?” Y/N was currently dancing with Max and couldn’t have asked for a better birthday, except for maybe her best friend being here but seeing as the night was almost over, she resounded herself to the fact that after 21 years of being friends he had actually forgotten.

“I am. I never thanked you for doing all this. Especially in such a little period of time. You really didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to. You’re my friend and you deserve to be celebrated.”

“I wish the fans could see this side of you instead of Mad Max.” she chuckled.

“Maybe I like been Mad Max?”

“You do play him well.” they both laughed as he pulled her closer.

Meanwhile Lorenzo was on the phone with Charles. His little brother had called him up demanding to know where they were so that he could try and make it up to her. After much back and forth with his older brother, Charles decided he would wait for her at her hotel room. Most of the people were leaving now anyway. Lorenzo just hoped his brother didn’t stuff it up more than he had. Nobody thought they noticed especially Y/N but they had. They had noticed the way Charles had been treating her ever since Charlotte came into their lives. It was just one of the reasons that neither of them like the girl. Y/N was important to them and truthfully both of them thought the two friends would be perfect for each other.

A few hours later Max walked her to her door. “Thank you for the best night ever.” She pulled him into a hug, which he swiftly returned.

“Good night Mooi meid.” He leant down and brushed his lips against hers causing her to shiver in delight. He looked at her with a cheeky grin causing her to blush a deep shade of red. (Good night beautiful girl.)

“Good night, Max.” she whispered. As soon as she got into her room she fell down on the bed with a huge smile on her face. She didn’t know why that simple kiss had made her feel giddy especially given the fact that she and Max had been friends for a few years. She had never thought of him that way but maybe there was something there. Over the years she had been too busy to really put time into relationships but she had had a boyfriend or too. They never lasted though and she never knew why.

A soft knock at the door pulled her out of her thoughts and she quickly jumped-up thinking Max may have forgotten something. When she opened the door though she found herself staring at a huge bunch of Orchids. Her favourite. Slowly the flowers moved and she saw Charles looking at her with a guilty look on his face. Her face fell slightly something that made his heart ache. She said nothing just simple walked back into the room leaving him to follow.

“Mon amour je suis tellement désolé d’avoir oublié” (My love I am so sorry I forgot.)

He sounded so sad but honestly Y/N felt he didn’t deserve to feel that. She was the one he had hurt. He put the flowers down on the coffee table as he followed her out onto the balcony. Standing next to her he reached out a placed his hand on hers, gulping as she pulled away. “Please let me make it up to you Mon Cherie?”

She finally turned to look at him. He loved her eyes, how they changed shades of green to reflect how she was feeling. And he could see how disappoint she was in him. “How could you forget?”

He stepped closer to her, “I have no excuses. I just need you to know how incredibly sorry I am. I know I hurt you and that was never my intention. I never wanna hurt you.” Thankfully when he touched her this time she didn’t pull away.

“I wanted you there tonight. But I didn’t want to have to tell you.”

“Mon amour, I wasn’t there tonight but I’m going to make it up to you, I promise. Please baby forgive me?”

She mentally brushed aside the fact that he called her baby as well as the feelings it brought up. “I'm not going to make this easy on you. I mean the flowers are a start,” she shrugged.

He smiled brightly before pulling her into his arms. Heart leaping at the fact that she had forgiven him.

Imola, Monaco and Barcelona had come and gone. Ferrari had put up a fight in the last few races which pleased Charles, it wasn’t the wins he had been hoping for but at this point in time he was just really in a good mood. Y/N and him were back to being best friends and things with the car was looking promising for the next race. One problem for Charles though was her growing friendship with Max. He noticed how the Dutchman would look at her and it made him feel jealous. She was his. Y/N on the other hand was enjoying hanging out with Max and they had been doing a lot of that since they had had a break back home in Monaco. She wasn’t quite sure what she was feeling for him but she knew that it was growing. Currently she found herself sitting on the deck of his boat just off the coast. He had invited her and a few friends to spend the day before they had to catch a plan to Canada He was drawn to the young woman and he’d be lying if he didn’t admit to having a bit of a crush on her growing up. Problem back then was Charles had always had her attention. He wasn’t much of a guy for a pissing competition even though the media would disagree and Charles was his friend, but Max couldn’t deny that the idea of stealing her away from the Monegasque thrilled him. He looked at her, watching how she interacted with friends. She had this way about her that just drew people to him. She noticed him looking at her and smiled at him. He might just be falling for her.

Several days later things took a devastating turn. She was having dinner with Isa and Carmen the night before Qualifying when she got a phone call that would change her life for ever.

“Hello?”

“Y/N Pap Pap is gone.” Her cousin Gabriel had been the one tasked with sharing the news.

Y/N felt her heart shatter. Her two friends noticed the change and instantly knew something was wrong. They waited as she rapidly spoke in French not been able to understand but Isa got up and moved closer to her friend, wrapping her arms around the girl. As soon as Y/N had put down the phone her whole body just sank against Isa.

Carmen reached out her hand and grabbed hers. “What happened?”

Y/N looked broken and said softly, “My grandfather just died.” Isa gasped and held her tighter as Carmen’s hand tightened. “I have to call Fred....I have to get back home.

“Y/N breathe. We’ll help figure it all out. Just breathe.” Carmen reminded her.

Isa and Carmen shared a look over their heartbroken friend. “I need to make a call. Look after her?” Isa asked Carmen who nodded. Quickly moving away from the table Isa called Carlos.

Just an hour later Y/N was on her way to the airport. Carlos had spoken with Fred who organised for the Ferrari jet to be ready to fly as soon as she got there. Carlos looked at his friend via the mirror and noticed how she just looked out the window. She hadn’t even cried, too numb. Y/N couldn’t believe he was gone. But she couldn’t breakdown...not now when her family needed her. She barely registered any of the conversation that was going on between her two friends but quickly gasped when she heard Charles’ name. “Shit, I have to call him.” She rapidly searched her bag pulling out her phone and quickly found his name. She took a deep breath as she waited for him to answer.

“Hello?” it was a woman’s voice.

“Charlotte?”

“Yes, what do you want?”

Y/N ignored the tone and question. “I have to talk to Charles. It’s an emergency.”

“Well, his busy.”

“Please, it’s important.” She begged.

Charlotte sighed. “He’s in the shower. I will ask him to call you back.”

Y/N simple responded, “Thank you.” She put her phone back into her bag and stared out the window.

“What did he say?” Carlos asked.

“He was in the shower. Charlotte will get him to call back.”

Sitting on the plane hours later on route to Monaco. She had yet to hear from him. Grabbing her phone, she quickly texted him, “Pap Pap is gone. I need you.”

After an 8-hour flight and another 2-hour drive, Y/N had finally made it home and was currently sitting in her childhood bedroom. Qualifying was long over and she had yet to hear anything from her friend. He had read her message but no response. She was pissed but knew that she needed to focus on her family especially her grandmother. Her phone buzzed and she quickly picked it up. “Hello?”

“Hey Schat.”

She smiled sadly hearing Max’s voice. “Hi.”

“I wanna ask if you’re okay but that would be a stupid question.”

She shook her head before realising he couldn’t see her. “It's not stupid. I don’t know how to answer that.”

“I wish I could be there with you,” he sighed.

“I would have loved that. How did Quali go?”

“I got pole and Charles and Checo 2nd and 3rd respectively. “

She sighed, “At least there’s that. But I’m proud of you.”

“Danke. You know I’m tempted to forfeit tomorrow.”

“Don’t you dare. You work hard.”

“I’m on the next flight back though. You shouldn’t have to deal with this on your own.”

“You’re amazing.”

“No, you are. Don’t forget it. Listen I have to go do some interviews but I wanted to check in on you.”

“Thank you. It means a lot.”

“I'll call you later Schat. If you need anything, call.”

“I will.”

Qualifying had been weird for Charles. Yes, he had made P2 but Y/N was not there. He had looked for her but no one seemed to know where she was. He hadn’t had a chance to speak to Carlos all through Quali as he had gotten to the track late, but he knew that Y/N had gone out the night before with Isa. Maybe she had had too much to drink but that wasn’t like her. He went in search of his team mate, finding him leaving his driver’s room. “Hey Carlos?” he jogged to catch up with the Spaniard but Carlos seemed a bit offish with him. “Wait up!”

Carlos eventually stopped and waited. “What do you want Charles?” he asked annoyed.

“Woah, what’s wrong with you?”

“Me?” Carlos snapped.

Charles gave him a questioning look. “Well, you’re the one biting my head off for no reason.”

Carlos pinched his nose in annoyance. “Long day. Look what do you need? I need to check in with Y/N.”

“Well, that’s what I wanted to ask. Have you seen her? I’ve been looking all over for her.”

Carlos looked at him confused. “You’re joking right?”

“Why would I be? Carlos what’s going on man?”

“No, no she called you.”

“Huh?”

Last night. On the way to the airport, she called you. Are you telling me you never called her back?”

“Carlos, I have no idea what you are talking about. She never called me. Just tell me what’s wrong?”

“Charlotte said you would call back. Her Grandfather died.”

The colour drained from his face and Carlos realised that his friend didn’t know. “Charlotte never told you.”

Carlos quickly reached for his friend as he sank against the wall. Charles shook his head. “Is she ok? No of course she isn’t. I have to call her.” He pulled his phone out his pocket and dialled her number. It rang several times before going to voicemail. He tried again, same outcome. Trying one more time his call was declined. “She isn’t answering.”

“Give her some time.”

“Fuck,” he hit the wall.

“Hey calm down.”

“How am I supposed to be calm Carlos. I should be there with her. But I’m here. And clearly, I’m the last to know.”

The two men turned as they heard a pair of heels against the hard floor and saw Charlotte smiling as she approached. Charles felt his blood start boiling. Carlos laid a hand on his shoulder. He understood that Charles was angry with her as was he but he also knew Charles couldn’t lose his temper, not now. “Charlotte, now is not a good time.”

“Why?” she frowned.

Charles started cursing her in French physically making her stop in her tracks.

“Charles!” she snapped back.

“I think you need to leave. Carlos told her as he stood between the two.

“What had gotten into him?”

“You know what you did. Right now, I’m inclined to let him have his say but because of the media I won’t. You screwed up Charlotte. Go before I call security.”

“I don’t...” she began. But the look that Charles threw her made her stop. With a sigh she turned and left.

“I need to go home.” Charles ran a hand threw his hair.

“No, what you need to do is get through the race tomorrow then go.”

“I can’t think about the race now.”

Carlos placed a hand on his shoulder. “You have to. She’s worked hard on these cars. She will want you to race.”

He slowly nodded his head. He just needed to talk to her.

No matter how many times he called or messaged her, she ignored it. She couldn’t nor did she want to deal with it. She had been busy helping her mom organise funeral arrangements. The older woman was not handling her father’s death too well and Y/N took it upon herself to do what needed to be done, no matter how much pain she was in. She had managed to arrange the chapel and the minister, scheduling the funeral for the upcoming Friday. And with just a few days to go she still had so much to do. The Leclerc’s had been a God sent through out. Pascale had been there with her through all the planning and knew that at some point Y/N was going to crack. She knew that the young woman needed support and the fact that Charles wasn’t here disappointed her tremendously. She knew that he was on his way but it didn’t make it any better. She had seen how Y/N had been his support after both Jules and his father had died. And Pascale knew that it would have meant the world to her if he had done the same. Of course she knew that Y/N would have forced him to race that Sunday but he could have reached out. Charles hadn’t told his mother what Charlotte had done. As Lorenzo drove Pascale and Y/N back to her mom’s house the older woman looked over at her, noticing just how tired she was. She was rubbing her head from the bridge of her nose. Pascale had seen that look and action before, after Luke had died and it worried her. She took her hand and smiled at Y/N when she looked up at her second mom. She weakly returned the smile before looking down at her lap taking a deep breath. “Its ok to let go Y/N. Its not going to fall apart if you do.”

“I know. I just can’t. I feel empty.”

“Cherie, that’s ok too.” Lorenzo said from the driver’s seat.

“Am I am awful person for just wanting this to be over?”

“Oh hunny,” Pascale reached over and pulled her into a hug. “No it doesn’t.”

She just nodded.

Pulling up into the driveway the black Pisa was hard to miss and Y/N felt her heart freeze. He really wasn’t who she wanted to see right now. “Lorenzo can you....” she started but he didn’t let her finish pointing out the two men sitting outside. Max and Carlos.

Max was the first to reach her when she got out the car. He pulled her tightly to his chest and kissed her head. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she smiled sadly. “How did the race go? I never got to watch.”

“Don’t worry about the race cariño.” Carlos said as she moved to hug him. “ How are you?”

“Been better.” She shrugged.

The two men greeted Pascale and Lorenzo before the former ushered them inside for tea. As she walked into her childhood home she spotted Charles standing at the kitchen table talking to her grandmother. He straightened up and approached her only for her to walk the other way towards her grandmother. She kissed her grandmere’s cheek and quickly told her what had been discussed with the minister. The older woman held her hand and squeezed. “You need to rest Petal.” Her childhood nickname.

“I will.” She replied.

“Y/N?” Charles asked. “Can we talk?”

“I’m gonna take a shower.” She directed towards her friends and family completely ignoring him. All he could do was watch her walk away.

The day of the funeral arrived and not a moment to soon. Everyone was worried about Y/N. She had yet to cry, scream or show any emotion at all. It was like she was a robot. At any minute she could lose it. Several of her friends were there along with Max and Carlos. The one person who wanted to be there holding her hand was seated behind her as she still refused to acknowledge him. He knew he had fucked up so many times but he had generally been blindsided by his girlfriend or former girlfriend should he say. He respected her so he didn’t his luck, just watching over her, ready to catch her when she fell. Problem was when that moment came it wasn’t him she reached for. It was Max.

Gabriel had just given his eulogy and the pianist began to play Pap Pap’s favourite song when it all hit. Max who was sitting next to her noticed her hands starting to shake and her breathing getting shorter. He looked at her face and saw her eyes watering. He leaned over grabbing her hand and whispered. “You want some air?” She nodded. He stood up and guided her outside, as soon as the air hit her face she broke. He grabbed her tight as the tears that had been built up began to fall. They were silent and plenty. Max rubbed her back as she cried. Spotting Charles making his way over Max said to her, “ Schat, I know you don’t want to but you need him.” She lifted her head and turned to see him watching them. She gulped before looking back at him. Her eyes gave him an answer and he motioned for Charles to come over. As he reached them he pulled his friend into his arms. He didn’t talk, just held her close as he too felt the tears fall. He had loved Pap Pap too.

Unfortunately for Charles after her moment of weakness, she was still hurt. Sitting on the balcony, the night air on her face, he approached her. “Hi,”

She looked up at him. “Hi.”

“Can I sit?”

She nodded.

“I’m sorry. Charlotte never told me.”

“Carlos told me.”

“I would have been here sooner.”

“I messaged you....from the plane.”

He shook his head, “I never got any message.”

She scoffed, “You left me on read.”

“Mon Cheri,” he made to take her hand but she stood up and walked to the wall and leaned over.

She heard him get up and come closer to her. “Baby, I swear, if I got your message I would have been on the next flight. Regardless of the damn race.”

She looked at him. The look on his face told her he wasn’t lying. But the problem was that it was not just this. Every time he has cancelled on her, forgotten her, it was becoming a pattern and she didn’t like it. “I believe you.”

“But we’re not okay are we?” he asked sadly.

She sighed. “I just need some time.”

“I understand. But I need you to know that I’m not going anywhere. I’ll always be here.”

She nodded with watery smile. “I’ll see you in Austria.”

Two days before free practice and although she was talking to him, their relationship wasn’t the same. She had forgiven him but she had had sometime to really think. She realised that she needed space from him. He had been a constant figure in her life for so long. And she realised that she was in love with him. It was why she had allowed things to go on for as long as it had. It was also why none of her relationships had lasted. As soon as Charles called or needed her, she had rushed to his side. He had consumed her life without her even realising it. “I’m going to leave at the end of the season.”

“What?” She was sitting across from Max who was surprised at her comment. The whole grid was currently enjoying a night out before the grand prix consumed them. She and Max were the only two at the table at the moment.

“I can’t be around him all the time. I don’t want it to be this way. But it hurts, knowing I don’t matter to him.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

She looked at him. “Actions prove louder them words.”

“He’s trying.”

��What about when he gets another girlfriend?”

“You love him?” Max asked.

She sighed, “I think I do.”

“But you don’t want to.”

“I don’t know.”

“Schat,” he took her hand. “I don’t know what to say. But you can’t leave this job. You love it and everyone loves you. You’re family.”

She shook her head, “I don’t know what else to do. Working for Ferrari means having to be near him. How can I figure myself out if he’s always there.”

“Give me a few days. Don’t make any decisions yet. Please?”

“Ok.”

On the day of qualifying Y/N was headed towards the Ferrari garage when she was approached by a none other then Christian Horner team principal of Redbull. “Y/N? Hi you got a second?”

“Um sure,” she replied.

He indicated for her to follow him which she did. “ So Max talked to me. You thinking of leaving Ferrari?”

Y/N was stunned to say the least. “I’ve been doing some thinking but haven’t decided what I want to do yet.”

“Well I’m going to be honest here. I want you on my team. You have done some incredible work with Ferrari. You’d make a great asset here.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Think about it. If you choose to leave Ferrari. There’s a spot for you with Redbull.” He patted her shoulder before heading back to work.

She stood there for a minute before Max came up to her. “You ok?”

“You spoke to Christian?”

He nodded. “Like I said, you’re family and we can’t lose you. Besides it would be cool working with you. We’d be unstoppable.”

“Cool you’re heels champion. I haven’t decided yet.”

The day of the race and the atmosphere was electric. P2 and P3 for her Ferrari boys and the car was doing amazing. She was alone in the garage as everyone was getting ready. She walked around each car touching the tyres for good luck, smoothing her hand over the front of it. Just before the race was due to start she walked up to Carlos and kissed each of his cheeks wishing him good luck as she always did. He smiled at her before heading to his room to get dressed. She saw Charles looking at her so she made her way over to him. “ She looks good and feels good. I believe you can do this today.”

“My good luck charm is here.” He winked at her.

“Good luck Charles.” She made to walk back to her station but he grabbed her hand. She looked back at him.

“Where’s my good luck kiss?” he asked.

She leaned up and kissed his left cheek and made to kiss his right when he moved slightly causing the corner of her lips to meet his. She stepped back and blushed slightly. He had this look on his face that she hadn’t seen before and it made her stomach flip. “Go...go get ready.”

“I sure am ready now .” he smiled.

The Ferrari garage erupted in cheers as Charles crossed the finish line in first followed closely by Max in P2 and Carlos in P3. The minute he spotted her in the group he ran up and hugged her. She chuckled before pushing him towards the rest of their team. But when she stood on the podium with her team he made sure to pull her close to him and away from Max. She felt his hand against her back and she knew she had to make a decision before her heart was broken for ever.

In the week of the next grand Prix Y/N asked Fred to talk and brought up the fact that she was considering leaving and about Christian’s offer. He was very understanding and asked her to think long and hard about her decision. He didn’t want to lose her. She had promised and they both agreed that nothing was to be said before she made her choice. However that didn’t not go as planned.

During the first free practice something went wrong and Charles ended up having to retire for the day as something in the car was just not working. To say he was pissed was an understatement. He managed to limp the car into the garage but once he got out the car he lost his temper and began cursing in French. Y/N quickly walked after him to try and reassure him that they would figure it out. But he turned and snapped at her saying something she would never forget. “I don’t know what you did to the car but fix it.”

“What I did?”

“You don’t fucking care about us. Everything was great till you decided to abandon us for Redbull! Can’t have us beating your boyfriend or new boss can you!”

Without a word, she slapped him so hard that the entire garage went deadly silent. “Fuck you!”

Working right through the night she was able to find the problem and they managed to fix the issue just in time for the next set of practices and qualifying. Neither of them said a word to each other. Charles bagged P2 and the belief was that he could win again. Shortly after qualifying Y/N and Alessandro were going over some final notes when Fred joined them. He noticed how her eyes were rapidly blinking and how she was constantly rubbing her head while moving her neck around and around. Honestly she didn’t look good. “Y/N, you need to go get some rest. You don’t look good.”

“Honestly I don’t feel so good,” she said rubbing her temple.

“Go. We can finish up here.”

“Thanks.” As soon as she got into the cab she leaned her head against the back rest. Truthfully she hadn’t been feeling well for a while but things had been so hectic that she had tried to push through it. It’s not something she hadn’t dealt with before.

“Hey,” Charles walked back into the garage and saw Alessandro packing up.

“Hey.”

“You seen Y/N?”

“Fred sent her to rest. She didn’t look so good.”

“What do you mean?” Charles asked concerned.

“She’s been rubbing her head and neck a lot. Heard her say something about a migraine.” He placed his bag over his shoulder. “You should get some rest too. You both have been a bit edgy.”

Charles nodded before saying goodbye. On his way to the car he pulled out his phone. “Hi Maman.”

She was laying on her bed rubbing her head, trying to get rid of the headache that had been bothering her since Pap pap’s death. For days she had been able to fight through the pain, but the last two days it had gotten worse and tonight she was not able to hide it. Hopefully she would feel better in the morning just in time for the race but somehow she doubted it. She closed her eyes, willing the pain to go away when she heard a knock on the hotel door. She groaned before slowly getting up.

“Hey Mon Cheri.” Charles held a large paper bag in one hand and two steaming cups of coffee in his other. “I brought supplies,” he said with a tiny smile. She stepped back and let him in, no energy to argue. He placed the bag and cups down before looking at her fully. “How long?”

She knew what he was talking about. “Since Pap Pap.”

“Mon Amour, why didn’t you say anything?” he knew how bad the migraines could get and it hurt that she hadn’t said anything, even though he knew it was his own fault.”

“I thought I could get there it.”

He nodded grabbing one of the cups on the table, giving it to her. “Its your favourite. Caramel, salted latte.”

“Thanks,” she smiled.

“Ok, sit down and drink your latte. I’m going to get it ready.”

“Get what ready?” she asked.

“Just trust me.”

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously but sat down none the less watching him take a few things out the bag before picking up the bag and heading towards the bedroom. She had just finished her latte when he beckoned her to come into the room. He led her to the en suite where she found he had drawn her a deep bubble bath. Lining the tub were dozens of candles and a few lite incense candles which smelt a lot like, “Lavender?” she asked.

“Yep. I remember once when you got sick, Mamam did this for you. I thought it might help again.”

She felt her heart leap. “ Thank you.”

“Always.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and quickly selected some soothing music. Setting the phone down on the sink before turning back to her. “Get in and relax. Forget everything. Don’t get out till I come call you.”

“Is that an order?” she joked.

He thought for just a second, “Consider it is.” He winked before leaving and closing the door behind him.

After a long time, she could feel how her muscle had started to relax and the pain subsiding just a little. The music that was playing was something she had never heard before but it was so beautiful and relaxing that she felt like she could stay here forever. A gentle knock sounded before the door opened just a jar. “Mon Cheri, you can get out now. Come join me in the kitchen.”

“Ok.”

After drying herself off, she wrapped herself in her gown before making her way through to the kitchen. As she entered the room she saw him standing at the counter tossing what look like a salad. He had laid two plates out with some wine in the middle. Looking up at her he quickly went to pull out a chair and indicated for her to sit. “I ordered some Italian. The salad is home made though.” He sheepishly remarked. He wasn’t the best cook around and the last thing he wanted was for them to get food poisoning. She sat down watching him as he took the seat opposite her. None of them addressed the elephant in the room but the company was pleasant and it almost felt like everything was back to normal. Except it wasn’t.

By the time they had finished dinner and cleared up, Y/N brought it up. They were currently sitting on her bed. He had put a movie on, The Mummy, her favourite and he was sitting behind her gently massaging her shoulders and temple. “Cha?”

“Yes, Mon Cheri?”

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“Because I care about you. And I’m sorry.”

She moved so that she was looking at him. He instantly missed the feel of her skin. “It seems like you’ve been saying that a lot lately.”

He nodded, “I know. I can’t justify everything that’s happened but I need you to know how sorry I am for everything. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I know.”

“Y/N,” he began but she stopped him.

“How could you think I would ever do anything to hurt you or Ferrari?”

Looking down in shame he responded. “I have never wanted to take something back as much as I wanted to do after I said that. I was angry and I took it out on you. You didn’t deserve that.”

“I’ve worked hard to get where I am.”

He grabbed her hand, “I know that better then anyone Mon Cheri. Like I said was angry at myself for not been focused. Because it was my fault. I could tell something wasn’t right with the car but I pushed it. I was too much in my head and not focused. Are you leaving?”

“I don’t know yet. Christian did make me an offer and I am thinking about it.”

“Why?”

“Why did he ask me or why am I thinking about it?”

“I know why he made an offer. You’re amazing and any team would be lucky to have you. Why are you considering? Ferrari has always been your dream.”

“Dreams change. Circumstances and....people change things, ideas.”

“It’s me isn’t it? You want to get away from me.” She didn’t answer him. “You hate me.”

“No!” she placed her hand on his cheek making him look at her. “Charles, no matter how hurt I am, I could never hate you. I love you.” The way she said that told Charles that she meant more than just a friend and it made him happy. Charlotte had been right, he was in love with his best friend. However her next words broke his heart. “And that’s the problem.”

“What?”

“Charles, I don’t mean to hurt you but you can be selfish.”

“Meaning?” he asked and she could hear the hurt in his voice.

“You consumed my life in every way. Every relationship I have had had ended because I have always put you first. Every success, ever failure I have been there supporting you. But have you ever stopped to think how I must be feeling? Those failures are mine too. I work day and night trying to make sure that we have a car that’s capable of challenging Redbull. When something doesn’t work, I feel like a failure. That I let the fans, the team, you down.”

“Y/N,” it was now his turn to place a hand on her cheek, looking at her deeply. “The fans love you. The team works together. You could never fail me.” He pulled her closer making her sit on his lap. “I know I’ve screwed up, but please don’t leave.”

She placed her head against his chest. “I don’t know if I can stay.”

“Your right, I am selfish and I’m going to be even more selfish now. Please don’t leave me. I need you, I’m in love with you and I can’t watch you be in that garage, be with him.”

She looked at him when he said he was in love with her. “What?”

“I was angry but also jealous.”

“Of Max?”

He nodded. “Seeing you with him, it drives me crazy. Just the thought of his hands touching you..... I hate it.”

“We just friends.”

“Really?” he asked.

She nodded. “I do care about him and for a while I did think I might be falling for him. But he’s not you. Besides I think he still loves Kelly.”

“Does he know?”

“Yep.”

He leaned his head against hers and she could feel one of his hands rubbing her bare thigh causing goosebumps. “What does this mean for us? I want there to be an us.” He refused to break eye contact and wouldn’t allow her too either. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

She just looked at his eyes feeling a tear break loose and run down her cheek. He quickly wiped it away and without a hesitation he leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers. She didn’t pull away but kissed him back. As the kiss intensified she felt his hand move further up her leg reaching the top of her thigh before he could go any further she stopped him and pulled away. “You have a race tomorrow.”

“Are you throwing me out?”

She shook her head. “No, but you should rest.” She climbed off his lap and headed to the bathroom to change. When she came out he was gone and she closed her eyes. The fresh tears were her own fault this time. Her phone buzzed. “I’m not letting you go without a fight.”

Charles Leclerc wins the British Grand Prix!!!!

There had just been so much going on that day that neither of them had a chance to talk to each other but that didn’t mean that they hadn’t stolen glances, catching each others eyes ever so often. Charles had been focused and determined to win and show Y/N just how much he appreciated the hard work she put it. He made it a point in his interviews to celebrate her too. And when he stood on the podium in first place he kept his eyes on her. He meant what he said, he was going to win her heart. Y/N had being doing a lot of thinking that night after he left. Her thoughts of leaving Ferrari had made her feel nostalgic and she had pulled out a photo album she always carried with her. Seeing her brother smiling back at her from the pages helped her make her decision. After the race and paddock celebration she had disappeared.

Back at the hotel Charles was getting ready for the after party trying to get hold of her but her phone was off. The joy he felt after the win started to diminish after she had disappeared. He hoped that he would at least see her tonight. He picked up his keys and phone and headed to the door. As he opened it he found her standing there hand raised as if she was about to knock. Her makeup was done and her hair flowed down in soft waves. She had on some heels and a black coat. “Hi,” she smiled.

“Hey.”

“Can I come in?”

“Of course,” he replied stepping aside.

“So I made a decision.” She replied rocking slightly back and forth nervously.

“And?” he asked stepping closer to her.

She took his hands and placed it on the belt of her coat. “Open it up.” He looked at her curiously. “The colour represents my choice of team.”

He looked down and began to slowly undo the belt. As the coat fell open and he saw red peaking through, she indicated for him carry on and take it off. He moved his hands up and he pushed the coat back till it fell off her shoulders. He felt a rush flow through his body from his head down to his toes. He gulped, feeling his jeans tighten in the crotch. She was standing on front of him in a red, silky pair of lingerie. “The outfit, it is for you and your alone. You don’t have to fight.”

He grabbed her and pulled her into a deep, longing kiss. His hands felt like fire against her skin. He broke the kiss only to trail his lips down her throat causing her to moan as he reached a certain spot. She moved closer to him feeling his cock against her stomach. “I need you to touch me,” she whispered.

He pulled back and looked into her eyes. “You sure?” he asked.

“I wore this for you to take off.” She said taking his hand and moving it down to her panties.

“God your wet.” He moved his hand across her covered pussy. “If I start I’m not going to stop till you scream my name baby.”

“Ok,” she smiled as she moved her other hand against his cock causing him to groan. He grabbed her making her wrap her legs around his waist and he carried her to the bedroom.

That night not only did he get the win but he got his girl, the girl who would become his wife and mother of his children. The girl he would spend the rest of his life with and both had never been happier.

#charles leclerc x reader #f1 x reader #max verstappen x reader

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erenfox · 6 months

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Y'all.

Episode 4.

It's the best piece of work Marvel has made after they made IW and Endgame.

spoiler alert 🚨

lemme start off with our favourite Miss Jolly Rancher Unhinged Clock and Victorian-Era HWR Fangirl. I KNEW Ravonna had somehow helped HWR in building the TVA, but him erasing her memories was straight up evil.

Then we come to the absolutely gruesome deaths of Dox and the others. HOLY SHIT MISS JOLLY RANCHER IS AWFUL like she was enjoying every second of Dox and her hunters literally getting crushed to their deaths. B-15 was traumatised, to say the least and you can see on Ravonna and Brad's faces a hint of disgust. But Miss Minutes grinning like that - outright disturbing.

I can't get over OB and Victor fanboying over each other's work - it was so funny yet wholesome.

Now let's talk about Loki and Sylvie. As a diehard Sylki stan you know I am, my fangirling heart was overjoyed seeing these two lovesick ducks working together willingly! I mean, yea, they did have that rather awkward talk in Pie Land (mind you that's it's official name henceforth) but after that they worked together as teammates! Now I must say, I completely agree with Sylvie on snapping on Mobius, because, well, yeah, the multiverse is a bigger priority than pie and I legit don't get why tf antis hate on Sylvie for doing so. Like you hated her for not giving a damn abt the TVA + the multiverse, but now when she stood up to do so y'all are hating on her again?? Like?? Make up ur mind, smh.

Anyways, back to Sylki. Sylvie got stuck in the elevator and the way she and Loki worriedly called out each other's names was so soft! And the "You ok?" trope CAME BACK OMG! THAT PHRASE IS LITERALLY THE BACKBONE OF SYLKI! When I tell you my fangirling heart screamed with joy omg-

The the whole paradox scene which brought Ep 1 back in a circle. I absolutely loved the way our Loki realised what he had to do and went real slow to prune his past self just so that Past Loki could get a glimpse of Sylvie; which would then lead him to be more determined than ever to go look for her. And I quite literally died on Sylvie being confused af as to wtf she just witnessed.

Then there's the telephone scene. OH MY GOD it was literally OB all this time when fans were out here speculating it was Kang or someone lmao. Both Loki and Sylvie yelling simultaneously to turn the security thing off gives out so much Couple Vibes, I absolutely loved it AAHHAHAH-

AND. THE. BRAD. SCENE. OOF.

our friendly neighbourhood lovesick ducks teaming up to enchant Brad was just too good. Loki in his hot, creepy voice luring Brad into a dark area while Sylvie very swiftly just straight up grabbing his face from the back - pure horror. Absolutely loved it, 10/10. Tho I must say, to do execute elaborate scheme, these two must have done some detailed planning (=more Sylki moments we were robbed off).

BUT THAT ENDING DUCKING MURDERED ME BROO OMG

Can we talk abt Victor's redemption? Man had been portrayed as evil since Quantumania, and has been manipulated by both Ravonna and Miss Jolly Rancher, but at the end of the day, he was a sweetheart. Man fanboys OB and basically became besties with him and Casey, worked together to create the solution to a mess he most certainly didn't want to be a part of, and then himself stepped up to fix the Loom once and for all to prove to everyone (and not let Sylvie's choice of sparing him go to waste) that tho he contained HWR's DNA, he wasn't HWR - he was a far better person HWR could have ever been. Seeing him getting spaghettified was tragically heart-wrenching, man deserved so much better :(

BUT HOLY SHIT DID THAT ONE HECK OF A GODDAMN CLIFFHANGER LEFT ME SPEECHLESS LIKE WTF WAS THAT?? U can't just kill off a character who had redeemed himself, and then make our main character and his homies watch literally EVERYTHING THEY WORKED SO HARD FOR GET ANNIHILATED TO THE GROUND-

But we know our God of Mischief isn't dead, and so are his homies eheheh.

However the looks on everyone's face was tragic. Loki knew all was lost and had tears in his eyes. Sylvie looked like she had accepted defeat and her death. Mobius and OB were in denial, refusing to believe that Victor was dead. Casey and B-15 looked horrified, as they realised what was to come now upon them.

Tldr, this episode was an ABSOLUTE BANGER. IM READY TO CLAIM IT SUPERIOR THAN ENDGAME, come and fight me. Its a top cinematic piece, and the suspense to Ep 5 is eating me up.

Ig i should go and study for the 4 tests this week before ep 5 ;-;

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megamindsupremacy · 1 year

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Reverse Robins AU: 38

Masterpost

After 11 years of being Jokerized, Duke’s (20) parents die. Instead of handling his grief like a normal, well-adjusted person, he cuts contact with everyone except Damian (21) and fucks off to Blüdhaven as Flamebird. Bruce has a MiniBreakdown because for the most part none of his kids have done this to him, disregarding the time Damian disappeared for two months, founded the Teen Titans, and then reappeared after flawlessly establishing the first kid superhero team at the age of fourteen. Duke isn’t like, angry at anyone in the Batfam, he just has a hardcore identity crisis that lasts from his parent’s death to their funeral and then dips the second the funeral is done to go to Blüdhaven.

A few months after Duke disappeared to the sister city, Tim (15) and Steph (16) are benched together in the Cave because they were unprepared and got cornered by Black Mask and his gang and got injured, Tim moreso than Steph due to his having less training than her. Although Bruce took her Spoiler outfit, Steph still has her og DIY Spoiler costume stashed at Tim’s house, along with their original communications equipment. Steph sneaks out to again confront Black Mask, this time on purpose, with the intention of taking revenge for hurting Tim so badly (he’s unable to leave the bed for fear of injuring himself irreparably) and to put him back in Blackgate. Tim stays in his cot to be the voice in Steph’s ear. This means he gets the dubious privilege of getting to hear as she gets overwhelmed and captured by Black Mask. Tim tries to get out of bed so he can reach the Batcomputer to contact the rest of the Bats, who are scattered throughout the city trying to wrangle the gang war that’s started to break out since the Spoilers stumbled in on Black Mask a few days prior. He doesn’t make it further than a step out of the cot before twisting his spine and falling unconscious on the floor. Alfred finds him there twenty minutes later, with Steph still screaming for help as she’s tortured in the comm in Tim’s ear. Alfred sends the Bats out looking for Steph and gets Tim back in the cot, and Tim comes back to consciousness in time to hear Steph die (woo!).

Over the next few days, Damian calls Duke back to Gotham (he had refused to return for months) and the Bats tear Gotham apart looking for Black Mask. Shadow and Batgirl (13) together are the first to track him down. Damian is fully about to kill him when Cass stops him. Cass makes Damian take Steph’s days-dead body away and deals with Black Mask herself. By the time Bruce and Duke arrive she’s incapacitated him and is only waiting for transportation to get him to Blackgate.

In the following weeks, Damian, Bruce, and Cass get into a huge argument about, again, the morality of targeted murder. Damian fucks off to Blüdhaven with Duke to become Nightwing and the pair cut all contact with the Bats. Tim paralyzed himself in his attempt to call for help and Bruce refuses to let him keep working with him in the Batcave, so Tim rebrands as Oracle and eventually joins Cassie Sandsmark’s Young Justice team as a remote member for any tech/detective support. He also provides the team with a home base in the form of Drake Manor whenever his parents are gone. Tim isn’t officially affiliated with Batman but, after a cooldown period from Bruce’s kicking him out, occasionally assists the Bats with cases. He also reaches out to Mia/Maps, who has been making a name for herself in the magic community. Mia has been mostly out of contact since she first disappeared six years ago, but is happy to reconnect with Damian and Duke via Tim (who has declared himself neutral in the conflict between the Gotham and Blüdhaven duos). Mia becomes Tim’s contact for any and all magic bullshit Young Justice deals with (Bruce is on his own in regards to Gotham magic bullshit). Cass changes her name to Black Bat and becomes Bruce’s only partner on the streets. Bruce starts getting more violent and patrols separately from Cass more often than not. Everyone blames themselves for Steph’s death, wahoo!

#mads posts #mads official reverse robins au #reverse robins #batfam #batman #bruce wayne #duke thomas #damian wayne #cassandra cain #stephanie brown #timothy drake #:)#long post so most of this is under the readmore

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tartlette1968 · 1 year

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It's 2023, and we're not post-covid, we're mid-covid,

Nearly 2 weeks ago my sister, in Perth, on her Facebook feed posted something to effect of...

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck faaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrkkk..."

So something was not right.

In actual fact something was very fucking wrong...

My Brother-in-law had covid. My fully vaxxed brother-in-law who is on immunosuppressants to control lupus, has a low functioning thyroid, and diabetes HAS FUCKING covid, from somewhere. He needed hospitalisation in very short time, because of small clots in his lungs, and was released, after being immediately prescribed anti-virals. Then back in hospital again, then released. He is now back in hospital, again, with pneumonia. Now, let me explain this slowly. Lupus is an auto-immune disease, and to control it, you have to suppress the immune system. What they have to do, now, to fight the pneumonia, is to lessen how much they suppress the immune system, which won't be fun for his lupus.

Meanwhile, Huntress and I contracted covid over here in Adelaide. Officially our positive RATs didn't come until Wednesday and Thursday. The RAT I did on Tuesday (when I felt completely shithouse) was negative. There I was sleeping more often than not, smelling literally every bloody smell there was, and finding those smells really awful, my head feeling like it would burst, and the RAT was negative. Huntress did a RAT Wednesday, and Thursday morning showed me the faintest of red lines that showed her to be covid positive. I did another RAT then, and as soon as the fluid from the test dropper hit the line, it turned bright red, for me, no waiting for 15 minutes. I was feeling about 50% better by then, save for my sense of smell being very dull; I still felt like crap, but I wasn't surprised. While I was obviously improving, after Tuesday, Huntress was slowly feeling worse.

But Thursday was the 26th of January, and a public holiday, so there was no calling her GP. We called Huntress' Doctor Friday, and they were eager and insistent on Huntress attending a Respiratory Clinic, to organise a script for the anti-viral meds very quickly. Then the nurse urged us to call the ambulance to monitor her SpO2. That was done, and they were here for hours, but the end result was a script filled for the anti-viral by 6 o'clock that day.

It is day 5 or 6 now, on our own covid journey, and Huntress is improving faster than we hoped after two days of the anti-viral course. I'm smelling things again, and sleeping without waking up coughing every 20 or 30 minutes. Huntress, so far, has managed to avoid an ear infection, and pneumonia, which would cause all sorts of problems, as she is seriously allergic to all antibiotics, save some that really aren't useful at all. She is sleeping, and only experiences the odd coughing fit.

But my Brother-in-law is in a life or death battle, now.

Look, our Government has been defending their slack approach to covid, by trying to reassure us that "Most people are vaccinated, now."

Huntress is vaccinated, with one booster, but the last dose she had, unfortunately, brought on anaphalaxis, which required a day in the ED, and adrenaline shot, and a worry, now. She can't risk another dose, at least not of an mRNA vaccine.

So it's this simple. I was walking around, with covid, breathing this stupid virus... into my mask, because this is exactly the reason why I wear a mask. I get runny noses after one sneeze, all the time. That was no different to what happened on Monday, when I already had covid. My throat feels a little scratchy regularly, and my nose gets blocked weekly, thanks to just stuff in the air. Even if it was just the flu, on Tuesday, I wasn't going anywhere, because I was sick, and I didn't want to infect someone.

People need to remember, we're super infectious before we are even feeling sick, and there are people walking among us who, while they are doing everything they can to prevent being infected, we need to meet them halfway. My sister caught covid a few months ago, and moved into their caravan to completely isolate herself, and keep my Brother-in-law safe. But we need to wear masks, keep washing our hands, get vaccinated, and avoid crowded events and places. Because for some people, even doing all they can do, it isn't enough, and they need us to be brave and step up to do our bit, too.

#covid #covid still kills people #covid is not over #the pandemic might be over but covid isn't done with us

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magus-of-the-color-pizza · 11 months

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Ravnica D&D Campaign: The 1st mission (Part 1 of 2)

Yessir, I am in fact not dead! Yours truly has, indeed, begun working. I am officially a laborer, contributing to society! Wonderful, wonderful.

Back to the important stuff: my playgroup has continued playing DnD! I haven't made a post on it for a while, but you can check out the sessions 0 recap here and also just search for "#ravnica campaign" in my posts, if tumblr is willing to cooperate they should come up!

Soooo since this was my absolute first time DMing and my players' first time playing in a group, I decided to use an adapted version of the Krenko's Way adventure presented in the GGR. The biggest adaptation was the fact that my players are handed down a task by Director Nassius, who is their superior, rather than being contacted mysteriously by Canon Nassius.

What follows is a heavily summarized recounting of the events. This mission spanned 3.5 sessions, so I will be doing some condensing of what happened, because I'd like to catch up to our current status (session 11) and I can't make too many posts like this and still hope to get there soon. So, without further ado... our very own Krenko's Way~

So... yes, I had the party officially meet in a tavern =p to be fair though, that was a designated meeting point and they all had their reasons for ending up there. I will remind you that they've all been assigned to a special team (1 of 10, this will eventually be relevant) to support the Guildpact's monitoring/assistance to other guilds. They are definitely a weird ensemble, though, and the differences emerge immediately.

Bingus, the artificer goblin and wannabe-izzet, climbs onto the table to better inspect Egyedül, the warforged, and some RP shenanigans ensue, including tossing a precious ring across the table and back. Honestly I just let them interact for a good 15 minutes here, they were having fun and I was glad that they were already exploring their characters! Anyways, they eventually retired for the night.

The next day, the team heads to the Chamber of the Guildpact to receive their first mission. Nassius wants to assign them to a routine patrol, but an emergency dispatch about Krenko's escape from capture causes a change of plans: the Party is to cooperate with the Azorius to locate Krenko and bring him to justice.

Unfortunately, the Azorius they need to coordinate with are lead by the same guy, hussar commander Migellic, that arrested Cornelius for making a fiery mess during one of his performances, so not off to a great start, but they do receive some instructions, some leads, and a magical signet they can activate to display the azorius symbol in the sky to call for help (which my players lovingly dubbed the Bat-signal).

The party decides to go down the Falish route, so they try to figure out where she lives in Tin Street and eventually find her home/lab (after scaring half to death a shattergang goblin that was following). Bingus cracks the lock on the door and bam! The whole party except Egyedül, who is immune, and Iris, who was standing guard in the alley, fall asleep.

Regrouping after the trap, they enter the lab and poke around a bit, basically nabbing anything noteworthy for themselves. They then discover the secret passage that leads to the sewers and manage to track Falish down, cutting through a few moldy zombies and lobbing several long-range attacks ar the fugitive to get to her. The party strikes a deal with Falish, basically ensuring nothing bad will happen to her if she just gives them intel on Krenko. After returning to the lab and giving back everything they'd stolen (some, meaning Bingus and Iris, more reluctantly than others), the party + Falish get ready for the next day, when the weapons dropoff is scheduled.

This was another chance for the party to interact a bit amongst themselves and also with a single NPC, Falish, so I let them take advantage of that and made a few notes on their approaches and interests. Iris actually left the lab to send her parenrs a letter telling them she wouldn't be back for the night, followed by Vomyr who wanted to make sure nothing dangerous happened. Cornelius did no such thing (keep this in mind for the next post).

Finally, the gang goes to sleep, and the following morning Egyedül, who doesn't need to sleep, informs them that there were some loud noises during the night. The party does a quick scout outside and finds out that the streets are teeming with boros and soldier patrols due to some shattergang explosive attacks during the night... which complicates things somewhat.

How did the party manage to un-fuck the situation? Stay tuned for the next post!

#dnd #mtg #ravnica campaign #session 1 #krenko

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kanazawa-division · 2 years

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“The dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a duty of the living to do so for them.”

Timeline

Age 0:

Is born to Naofumi Kurusu and Makenna Murray in Sydney, Australia.

Age 3:

Family moves to Tokyo, Japan

Age 5:

His younger sister, Shannon, is born. Making him an older brother.

Age 8:

Shannon is constantly in the hospital for being sicker than the average child, his mother takes him to visit her after school.

Age 12:

Meets Kaiji Sano and immediately becomes friends due to their shared love for anime and video games

Age 13:

Defends Kaiji from a group of boys who were bullying him

Age 15:

Shannon’s condition worsens, only treatment that can cure her is an expensive surgery.

His parents are stressed and get into arguments

Joey decides to take matters into his own hands and starts gambling.

Age 16:

Tells Kaiji about his plans to make money for his sister’s surgery and asks for his help.

Continues gambling, eventually gaining an addiction.

Age 17:

Is chased into a corner by some thugs who he kept beating while gambling, they beat him pretty badly.

Age 18:

Barely graduates high school, attends University to obtain his degree in criminal justice.

Age 19:

Finds out that Kaiji had been stealing from him and cuts ties with him, angrily stating that he never wants to see him again.

Later that night, Shannon is found dead with multiple stab wounds to the chest.

His father throws himself into his work, his mother grieves, and Joey locks himself in his room, reevaluating his life.

Moves to Kanazawa.

Age 20:

Decides to go to rehab to lose his gambling addiction.

Age 21:

Recovers from his gambling addiction and attends a video game convention

Meets Mamoru Hirano and after an embarrassing first meeting, offers him to take him on a date, Mamoru accepts.

His parents relationship takes a turn for the worse, the two of them not on speaking terms.

Age 22:

Graduates university with a degree in criminal justice,

Starts police training.

Him and Mamoru move in together.

His mother moves to Kanazawa in an apartment close to him.

Meets Wataru Sasaki and Kyler Aaron.

Age 23:

Present.

Plans on proposing to Mamoru but keeps hesitating at the last minute.

Becomes an official homicide detective for the Kanazawa Police Department and already has solved 3 gruesome, difficult cases.

Hears about Wataru’s plan to join the DRB and begs him to let him join his team when making the connection that his sister’s killer could be the one wreaking havoc on Japan, Wataru reluctantly agrees.

Participates in Division Rap Battles along with Wataru Sasaki and Kyler Aaron, becomes 3rd and final member of Kanazawa Division’s Justice Shield.

Schedule

12 a.m. - 6 a.m.: Asleep

6 a.m. - 7 a.m.: Freshens up

7 a.m. - 7:30 a.m.: Breakfast

7:30 a.m. - 8 a.m.: Arrives at work

8 a.m. - 3 p.m.: Evidence collection

3 p.m. - 4 p.m.: Late lunch + Calls Mamoru because he misses him

4 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.: Investigative work

7:30 p.m. - 9 p.m.: Filing and Paperwork + Bothering Wataru

9 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.: Returns home

9:30 p.m. - 10 p.m.: Eats dinner with Mamoru

10 p.m. - 10:30 p.m.: Freshens up

10:30 p.m. - 11:30 p.m.: Free time (Either gaming or spends it with Mamoru)

11:30 p.m. - 12 a.m.: Gets ready for bed.

Character Hashtags

Regular Hashtags

#Wonder in the macabre

#Why so serious?

#Fun loving detective

Trauma Hashtags

#Gambled my life away

#Sister’s death shattered the family

#I never want to see you again!

Other Info

Hobby: Playing video games

Weakness: Too carefree

Trauma: “My sister was the only thing keeping my family together, now she’s gone.”

Twitter: @Quicksilver1009

Drinks: Yes

Smokes: No

Special Skill: “No matter how hard they try, I can read people like an open book.”

Intro Quote: “Detective Kurusu is on the case!….Pfft.”

Trauma Quote: “S-shanny? I-I…You were fine just a day ago…Who did this….WHO THE FUCK DID THIS?!!”

#hypmic #hypmic oc #hypnosis mic #hypnosis mic oc #hypnosis microphone #justice shield #joey kurusu #trauma #twitter #get more info #paradox live

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dalekofchaos · 1 year

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Things I would change about the David Gordon Green Halloween Trilogy

I love the DGG trilogy, it’s my favorite timeline in the franchise. But since I did changes for the first 6 movies and the trilogy, here is what I’d change about just the DGG trilogy

Halloween 2018

It's called Halloween Returns

Danielle Harris returns to play Laurie's daughter Jamie

Since the Sherriff basically did nothing all trilogy, I'd just have Hawkins as the Sherriff

Dr Sartain isn't a twist villain, he's just the new Loomis and wants Michael to never see the light of day again, but has to deal with the same shit as Loomis did. He tries to kill him after Hawkins runs him over, but Michael sits up, kills him and stabs Hawkins

Laurie crashes the bus with the intention to kill Michael, but it goes horribly wrong

Laurie isn't related to Michael, but Michael's MO is stalking and killing babysitters, so keep that in.

Michael has a male babysitter at his mercy, but chooses not to kill him. All he does is look him in the eyes

Michael actively pursues Laurie when he sees her in Vicki's house. So after sitting up after killing Sartain and mortally wounding Hawkins. He drives the police car with Allyson in it and drives to Laurie's house, all the while the creepy foreboding feeling of Allyson's fate. -Michael uses Allyson as a hostage. He begins slicing her with a knife using her screams to either lure out Laurie or Jamie. But Laurie is the one who opens the door. Michael lets Allyson go and Michael and Laurie have the fight they do. It's a mix of the cut fight and the theatrical fight

Allyson, Laurie and Jamie work together to lure Michael into the trap and Michael burns as per canon

Halloween Kills

Michael is actually burned by the house fire. Burns around his hands, his face has third degree burns when Jamie unmasks him and the mask is charred on both sides.

Brian Andrews returns to play Tommy and Brent Le Page returns to play Lonnie

Brackett visits Laurie in the hospital and they bond over Annie and he wishes her well

Because Jamie isn't Karen, she tells Laurie that Michael survived.

Laurie and Hawkins both share their guilt over letting Michael out/letting Michael live.

To better show the mob mentality, instead of lynching an obese man who doesn't resemble Michael at all, they instead kill a kid in a Michael Myers mask and it still keeps the "he's turning us into monsters" message

Mob scene and mob killing remains the same, but Tommy lives.

Jamie goes out swinging and mortally wounds Michael by stabbing him in the jugular with a pair of scissors. JAMIE is the reason why Michael is so weak in Halloween Ends.

Halloween Ends

That babysitter Michael spared in Returns? YOU GUESSED IT! It's Corey Cunningham

The same opening as we got because holy shit

After Michael's brutal killings and the incident with Corey. Hawkins has officially banned Halloween in Haddonfield. It's essentially The Purge every October for the last 3 years. Because that’s one of the few good things in Curse Of Michael Myers and why does this affect Michael. Every time he kills, he transcends. So Hawkins got the idea that if we starve him of people to kill, he’ll be weak and he won’t come back

Because of his wound and the banning of Halloween, Michael has been starved and weakened and forced into the sewer

Laurie and Hawkins married, hence why Laurie has a new house

Tommy and Lindsey got married and have a baby called Lonnie

Corey and Allyson have their romance as we got, but better developed

After Corey helps Michael kill the creepy cop, Michael goes on a killing spree with Corey. Michael at least kills 15 people, while Corey kills 10.

Rather than just stealing Michael's mask. Corey makes his own Scarecrow costume. People around Haddonfield are saying they have a new boogeyman “the Haddonfield Scarecrow”

Michael goes after Corey, not because he took his mask, but because he needs the strength he gave him to kill Laurie

a 10 minute fight between Michael and Laurie

Michael's death remains the same cause it is glorious, oh and Laurie tosses the mask in the meat grinder. BUT we can visibly see Tommy and Lindsey in the death scene

#Halloween #Halloween Movies #Michael Myers #Laurie Strode #Jamie Lloyd #Allyson Nelson #Corey Cunningham #Tommy Doyle #Lindsey Wallace #My Changes

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purplepuddlenut · 1 year

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Army Veteran Went Into ‘Combat Mode’ to Disarm the Club Q Gunman

Richard M. Fierro, who served for 15 years in the military, was at the nightclub in Colorado Springs with his family when the gunman opened fire. “I just knew I had to take him down,” he said.

COLORADO SPRINGS — Richard M. Fierro was at a table in Club Q with his wife, daughter and friends on Saturday, watching a drag show, when the sudden flash of gunfire ripped across the nightclub and instincts forged during four combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan instantly kicked in. Fight back, he told himself, protect your people.

In an interview at his house on Monday, where his wife and daughter were still recovering from injuries, Mr. Fierro, 45, who spent 15 years as an Army officer and left as a major in 2013, according to military records, described charging through the chaos at the club, tackling the gunman and beating him bloody with the gunman’s own gun.

“I don’t know exactly what I did, I just went into combat mode,” Mr. Fierro said, shaking his head as he stood in his driveway, an American flag hanging limp in the freezing air. “I just know I have to kill this guy before he kills us.”

The authorities are holding Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, on charges of killing five people, and say that 18 more people were injured in a rampage at the club that lasted only a few minutes. The death toll could have been much higher, officials said on Sunday, if patrons of the bar had not stopped the gunman.

“He saved a lot of lives,” Mayor John Suthers said of Mr. Fierro. The mayor said he had spoken to Mr. Fierro and was struck by his humility. “I have never encountered a person who engaged in such heroic actions and was so humble about it.”

It was supposed to be a chill family night out — the combat veteran and his wife, Jess, joined their daughter, Kassandra, her longtime boyfriend Raymond Green Vance, and two family friends to watch one of his daughter’s friends perform a drag act.

It was Mr. Fierro’s first time at a drag show, and he was digging it. He had spent 15 years in the Army, and now relished his role as a civilian and a father, watching one of his daughter’s old high-school friends perform.

“These kids want to live that way, want to have a good time, have at it,” he said as he described the night. “I’m happy about it because that is what I fought for, so they can do whatever they hell they want.”

Mr. Fierro was trying to get better at going out. In Iraq and Afghanistan he’d been shot at, seen roadside bombs shred trucks in his platoon, and lost friends. He was twice awarded the Bronze Star.

The wars were both past and still present. There were things he would never forget. For a long time after coming home, crowds put him on edge. He couldn’t help to be vigilant. In restaurants he sat against the wall, facing the door. No matter how much he tried to relax, part of him was always ready for an attack, like an itch that could not be scratched.

He was too often distrustful, quick to anger. It had been hell on his wife and daughter. He was working on it. There was medication and sessions with a psychologist. He got rid of all the guns in the house. He grew his hair out long and grew a long, white goatee to distance himself from his days in uniform.

He and his wife ran a successful local brewery called Atrevida Beer Co. and he had a warm relationship with his daughter and her longtime boyfriend. But he also accepted that war would always be with him.

But that night at Club Q, he was not thinking of war at all. The women were dancing. He was joking with his friends. Then the shooting started.

It was a staccato of flashes by the front door, the familiar sound of small-arms fire. Mr. Fierro knew it too well. Without thinking, he hit the floor, pulling his friend down with him. Bullets sprayed across the bar, smashing bottles and glasses. People screamed. Mr. Fierro looked up and saw a figure as big as a bear, easily more than 300 pounds, wearing body armor and carrying a rifle a lot like the one he had carried in Iraq. The shooter was moving through the bar toward a door leading to a patio where dozens of people had fled.

The long-suppressed instincts of a platoon leader surged back to life. He raced across the room, grabbed the gunman by a handle on the back of his body armor, pulled him to the floor and jumped on top of him.

“Was he shooting at the time? Was he about to shoot? I don’t know,” Mr. Fierro said. “I just knew I had to take him down.

The two crashed to the floor. The gunman’s military-style rifle clattered just out of reach. Mr. Fierro started to go for it, but then saw the gunman come up with a pistol in his other hand.

“I grabbed the gun out of his hand and just started hitting him in the head, over and over,” Mr. Fierro said.

As he held the man down and slammed the pistol down on his skull, Mr. Fierro started barking orders. He yelled for another club patron, using a string of expletives, to grab the rifle then told the patron to start kicking the gunman in the face. A drag dancer was passing by, and Mr. Fierro said he ordered her to stomp the attacker with her high heels. The whole time, Mr. Fierro said, he kept pummeling the shooter with the pistol while screaming obscenities.

What allowed him to throw aside all fear and act? He said he has no idea. Probably those old instincts of war, that had burdened him for so long at home, suddenly had a place now that something like war had come to his hometown.

“In combat, most of the time nothing happens, but it’s that mad minute, that mad minute, and you are tested in that minute. It becomes habit,” he said. “I don’t know how I got the weapon away from that guy, no idea. I’m just a dude, I’m a fat old vet, but I knew I had to do something.”

When police arrived a few minutes later, the gunman was no longer struggling, Mr. Fierro said. Mr. Fierro said he feared that he had killed him.

Mr. Fierro was covered in blood. He got up and frantically lurched around in the dark, looking for his family. He spotted his friends on the floor. One had been shot several times in the chest and arm. Another had been shot in the leg.

As more police filed in, Mr. Fiero said he started yelling like he was back in combat. Casualties. Casualties. I need a medic here now. He yelled to the police that the scene was clear, the shooter was down, but people needed help. He said he took tourniquets from a young police officer and put them on his bleeding friends. He said he tried to speak calmly to them as he worked, telling them they would be OK.

He spied his wife and daughter on the edge of the room, and was about to go to them when he was tackled.

Officers rushing into the chaotic scene had spotted a blood-spattered man with a handgun, not knowing if he was a threat. They put him in handcuffs and locked him in the back of a police car for what seemed like more than an hour. He said he screamed and pleaded to be let go so that he could see his family.

Eventually, he was freed. He went to the hospital with his wife and daughter, who had only minor injuries. His friends were there, and are still there, in much more serious condition. They were all alive. But his daughter’s boyfriend was nowhere to be found. In the chaos they had lost him. They drove back to the club, searching for him, they circled familiar streets, hoping they would find him walking home. But there was nothing.

The family got a call late Sunday from his mother. He had died in the shooting.

When Mr. Fierro heard, he said, he held his daughter and cried.

In part he cried because he knew what lay ahead. The families of the dead, the people who were shot, had now been in war, like he had. They would struggle like he and so many of his combat buddies had. They would ache with misplaced vigilance, they would lash out in anger, never be able to scratch the itch of fear, be torn by the longing to forget and the urge to always remember.

“My little girl, she screamed and I was crying with her,” he said. “Driving home from the hospital I told them, ‘Look, I’ve gone through this before, and down range, when this happens, you just get out on the next patrol. You need to get it out of your mind.’ That is how you cured it. You cured it by doing more. Eventually you get home safe. But here I worry there is no next patrol. It is harder to cure. You are already home.”

#colorado #colorado nightclub shooting #lgbtq #combat veteran

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justmesitinginthecournerofmyroom · 5 months

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Rom/Com turned Murder Mystery

I'm watching this Korean show called "A Crash Course in Romance," and it is so ridiculous (this has spoilers if you care).

TW: Suicide and murder

All the adds/previews I saw for it on Netflix were these cute little scenes between Nam Haeng-Seon (Side dish restaurant owner) and Choi Chi Yeol ("star" teach of math at a private after school academy). From the outside it looked like just your average meet-cute/meet-ugly show, where they go from hating each other, to slowing getting to know more about each other, and then falling in love. The official description of the show is:

"A woman with a heart of gold navigates the cutthroat world of private education when her daughter tries to join a celebrity math instructor's class."

Like, that seems like a normal show, implying that the bigest problem is going to be snooty, rich parents who don't care about anyone else (and yes the show is full of this), but it also has the most insane and wild side plots.

Before the show even starts there was the death of Nam Haeng-Seon's mother.

Then the death of a past student of Choi Chi Yeol (by the way they set up her death to imply that he slept with his student, even though he didn't. It was iffy for a while if I'm to be honest). Her death spurs her mother to push her younger brother to do better before she kills herself. When the police arrive they arrest the brother because they though he pushed her, before he was acquitted by the supreme court.

Fast forward several years, we meet all the characters again. In the second episode we see a kid killed on screan, and they don't talk about it for the rest of the episode (I haven't finished the show yet). Like, exCUSE ME, but what about the CHILD?!

Then we learn learn that the killer is Lee Sun-Jae's (Nam Hae-yi's beast friend) brother. He just goes and kills people like nothing happens.

The we see him kill another person, on screen, with blood and everything. It's like, "Hello, what happened to my Rom/Com?!!?" The worst part is that the show continues on like a regular Rom/Com in between, and doesn't address any of the murders longer than ~15 minutes at a time.

After a few episodes, we have anther on screen killing. At this point I want a show about the investigation rather than the Rom/Com. I know they have scenes of the detective working the case, but still.

What I'm trying to say, is that you should watch this show because it's bat shit insane, but also not at all how it's advertised in anyway.

#Crash Course in Romance #kdrama #what the fuck #this is insane #not even all of the crazy #what even is this show #it's so good though #it's so funny #The plot is insane

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dreamingsushi · 1 year

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Dance of the Phœnix - Episode 21

An we have reached the final sprint about this series! 10 episodes left, can you believe it? I was about to start on another series, but at some point... I really should finish this one first. Even though the one I was contemplating is only eight 15 minutes-ish episodes. I really need to clear my on hold list of dramas. Because it’s awfully too long. Anyways, last time, we discovered, to no surprise, that the empress is trying to get rid of the emperor and now she’s sending her minions to investigate at the academy so she could frame someone. I would suggest Feng Wu because she’s the main lead, but maybe she’ll try to help her friend from the Dark court and take away Wu Youdao. For now, those two are the most sensible choice in my opinion, but we’ll see soon enough.

As everyone is gathering from the empress’s orders, Feng Wu is tired of waiting for Jun Linyuan so she decides to go to the library. She notices Wu Youdao is still there, so she decides to pay him a visit. However, when she comes in, he’s bleeding to death, it seems he was stabbed in the heart. Yu Mingye’s doing? Or someone else? As of now, there are no indication about the culprit. She calls for help and she’s taken away by Gao Wei (the empress’s favorite minion) and his men. I think he might be dead hmm. I mean, Wu Youdao. Oh wow. I made a mistake. That was mister Ning, not Wu Youdao. So that’s the one that was looking for clues on the poison tampering with the emperor’s health. It makes sense, he was going to look through some books to investigate. Haha, I am ashamed of not making the difference, but old men all look the same to me and I am very bad with faces. They use one of the Biluo disciples to frame Feng Wu. How boring.

So Qingluan went to the library and the director was already dead. The empress orders her to look after Jun Linyuan so he won’t do anything to destroy their plans. Jun Linyuan says it’s impossible that Feng Wu could be the culprit, because she’s nowhere near strong enough to fight against the director. But again, his hands are tied. To be honest, I think it sucks to be Jun Linyuan, because he appears all powerful, but there’s nothing he can do. Like, never. Plus the empress ordered that he can’t go out. Like I said, there’s no perks being in this guy’s shoes.

As soon as Yu Mingye hears about Feng Wu’s whereabouts, he goes to save her. However, Feng Wu doesn’t want to leave even though they can’t prove her innocence. She says that it wouldn’t be good for her and that it would even drag down together with her all the ones she cares about. So she gives her hair ribbons to Yu Mingye so he would find a solution together with Jun Linyuan since the two of them teaming up together is her only chance.

Yu Mingye gets caught trying to reach Jun Linyuan at the palace. Gao Wei tries to stop him, but Jun Linyuan says that he’s his friend. That face he made when he heard that was pretty priceless. I actually do hope that they really become friends, like a pacemaker friendship maybe. I mean if Yu Mingye wasn’t from the Dark Night Court, they probably would have been. There’s still the rivalry for Feng Wu’s heart, for sure, but still. I like the two of them as friends rather than as sworn enemies. Gao Wei still tries to interfere and drag Yu Mingye away, but the emperor just coincidentally and conveniently wakes up at that moment and he is actually rather pleased that his son made a new friend aside from Xuan Yi and Feng Xun, even though it’s from the Dark Night Court. He lets Jun Linyuan and Yu Mingye go, since he’s all good now, no need to worry. Gao Wei wants to oppose to that decision, but discretely, Zuo Qingluan shakes her head to tell him not to. They have a plan. I mean, our mal leads have a plan, but we have no details yet about it.

Ohhhh! So mister Ning is alright? It is announced to the officials that were all locked up in a room together. This news seems to anger one of the person inside, no idea who that could be as they only show a close shot of their fist squeezing in anger (combined with the marvelous sound of squeaking leather, very natural. In case your fist ever produces such a sound while tightening it, I suggest consulting with your doctor because that is anything bu normal). Seeing the size of that hand though, I would guess it is a man, women are portrayed with really tiny hands and delicate features in general. The physician says that mister Ning needs to rest for three days before he can wake up and get better. As soon as he’s left alone, a dark figure comes by. But when they stab the bed, they discover there are only pillows under the blankets. So... Is director Ning alright or not??????? It appears this was Jun Linyuan and Yu Mingye’s plan to catch the culprit. That person is extremely strong, too powerful an adversary for Jun Linyuan and Yu Mingye combined. They seem to know techniques of both the Biluo Palace and the Dark Night Court. They manage to discover who it is by pulling his hood, uncovering Wu Youdao. He asks to see Feng Wu and retreats to the library, taking Gao Wei as an hostage with him. Once Feng Wu is brought over, Wu Youdao accepts that Jun Linyuan accompanies her, but won’t allow Yu Mingye to come in. As they enter, they stumble upon Wu Youdao looking at a painting of a lady with white hair, who happened to be the only female master of the Junwu Academy and also Jun Linyuan’s previous teacher.

So, Wu Youdao really is the killer of Ning. The lady in the painting died at the Academy in a fire incident and they never found out her corpse. Wu Youdao was supposed to be nominated as principal of this school, but headmaster Ning took it away from him, arguing that only he could give the lady in the painting the position she deserves, since he has better birth qualifications. So Wu Youdao left the academy to travel and that’s how he got his hands on a scroll from Mu Jiuzhou. Jun Linyuan accuses him of poisoning the emperor to accomplish his revenge, but Feng Wu says it’s not him, he wouldn’t do something like that. Jun Linyuan tries to convince him to surrender, but he won’t. He tells Jun Lingyuan that Feng Wu is Mu Jiuzhou’s disciple. Since they are both disciples of peope he respects, Wu Youdao won’t hurt them. But as it is Yunniang’s (lady in the painting) death anniversary, he says it’s time for everything to be over. He throws them inside a pit with a spell preventing them from using their spiritual energy and so they stay in there until everything’s over. Hopefully, somebody will find them. He wants to destroy the academy. Epic battle between old Fang and Wu Youdao.

Funny how the secret room looks exactly the same as the one with the jade vase, but instead of precious artefacts, it’s filled with books and parchments. Jun Linyuan asks Feng Wu if she’s really Mu Jiuzhou’s disciple and if she’s trying to awaken him. He noticed that the world’s balance is getting troubled, like there’s some sort of barrier put on by him that seems to be cracking. He promises to help her in her task and doesn’t blame her for not saying anything previously about it. Feng Wu notices a painting of her master on the wall, which happens to be a door that opens in reaction to her ring.

And that’s it for today’s episode! The whole story about Wu Youdao seems very useless to me and quite unjustified. Shouldn’t we focus on the evil queen instead? Anyways... I don’t really fully understand why he wants revenge so much, I might have not understood that part of the backstory due to my laziness or my not as good as before Chinese skills. I feel we’re wasting for what’s important when there are only a few episodes left and I fear the ending might be rushed, as they are way too often in Chinese dramas...

#dance of the pheonix #qie ting feng ming #yang chaoyue #xu kai cheng #guo cheng #gao ji cai #estelle chen #jinna fu #c-drama #cdrama #chinese drama #xuanhuan #xuanhuan drama #costume drama #drama review #drama recap #drama reaction

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casasupernovas · 1 year

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Oh God my blog seems to be glitching, I can't access my messages, I can't see my last answers in my interaction with you, I can't comment and I can't send messages. Um, well I'll try what I can.

So: I'm writing a fic and there's a character who's a huge fan of doctor who in it. Except I am not hooked at all into that, so the research is gonna be complicated. Could you, if you want, provide info on:

- what Doctor Who is about

- the latest thing that either makes you excited or think a lot or even angry

- some favorite scene

- what would be something you wish to get as a goodie (something that'd make a fan scream in delight at Christmas)

- explain a bit more the scene with who I think is Van Gogh getting emotional in a museum, or the Doctor saying "I AM THE DOCTOR" in an epic way...

(I'll keep the Rasputin-dancing Doctor scene in mind, for this one I don't need a description)

Have a good day!

Oooh!!!!

So Doctor Who is a show that started in 1963 - 1989 and was officially revived from 2005 to the present.

The titular 'Doctor' is the main character, a pseudonym chosen as a 'promise to the universe' by them, a humanoid alien with two hearts and the ability to 'regenerate' aka come back to life in a new body upon death.

They mainly present as male and have had over a dozen faces. My personal favourite is the Tenth Doctor. They often always travel with a human companion, mostly female and mainly from a recent year as the companion acts as the audience's eyes, having various adventures and saving people. The most recognisable aspect of Doctor Who is the Doctor's blue box they stole from their home planet that they travel in time and space in. It's called the Tardis, standing for Time And Relative Dimension In Space (named by the Doctor's granddaughter Susan). It is supposed to blend into any area it finds itself in but since the show's first adventure has been stuck to look like a blue police public call box.

The show is a sci-fi centering around the titular Doctor character who's something called a 'Timelord' from the planet Gallifrey, a planet that has conquered Time and Space, and most discoveries and wonders of the universe. The Doctor themselves is a 'renegade' who ran away from the stuffy colonial planet but became the last of his kind after the Time War where he destroyed it to stop the war against his greatest enemy, a race of genetically engineered mutants in a metal casing called the Daleks.

The show has many horror elements, but is also very goofy due to having some batshit storylines and a low budget. The Doctor also has a sonic screwdriver that can do anything from open doors to give readings on unknown. Doesn't work on wood though apparently.

The thing that excites me about the show its lore. There really aren't any limits, and I like how the more questions are answered, the more questions arise. I honestly feel that you can get stories out of it forever. I also love how mysterious the Doctor is. We still do not know their real name. Or much about their life and family.

Something that makes me angry about the tv show is how it can handle black characters. The show was very white and had very dodgy depictions of POC before, and it took 40-something years to have a black female companion and almost 60 years to get black Doctors.

My favourite scene has to be from Series 3, 'The Sound of Drums when companion Martha Jones' life implodes right in front of her and gets turned upside down in a matter of minutes.

As a goodie...maybe a mini Tardis toy. If you're writing your character, they probably have a favourite Doctor, everyone has one or companion There are 15 actors who have played official Doctors. There are some others but they are the mains. There also loads of companions your character may love. So I'd choose one Doctor and maybe something to do with their costume because they're all individual. E.g:

The First Doctor's hat. 2nd's flute. 3rd's coat. 4th scarf. 5th celery stick. 6th funky blazer. 7th cane. 8th cravat. 9th doctor's leather jacker. 10th long brown coat. 11th bowtie. 12th's sonic sunglasses. 13's earring.

If you also choose a Doctor you could maybe reference a companion, and that might help you narrow it down.

Van Gogh getting emotional in 'Vincent and the Doctor' is him being taken to the future by the Eleventh Doctor and his companion Amy Pond. The art curator obviously not realising he's speaking in front of the real man says how wonderful and important he and his work is, so he's very moved by it because Vincent never thought his work would become so impactful. It's even more emotional at the end because companion Amy Pond believes Vincent hearing this may change the tragic end to his life but it doesn't. 💔

'I am the Doctor' almost always comes when someone questions their authority and it's always epic because one thing that is almost guaranteed is that the Doctor will, and can save the day! Also the guy dancing to Rasputin is the Master, not the Doctor. He's a rival Timelord and an arch-enemy type!

Thanks for your ask!!!!

#doctor who #asks #i love!

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the-iceni-bitch · 3 years

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All I Need

Pairing: Andy Barber x Fem!Reader

Words: 4512

Summary: Andy has been drowning his grief at your bar for weeks. You help him dry out after a particularly bad night.

Warnings: Major angst!, softish Andy Barber, slight AU (spoilers for Defending Jacob book), explicit language, explicit sexual content (fingering, unprotected vaginal intercourse), descriptions of excessive drinking by adult of appropriate age, SMUT, 18+ only!

A/N: I have officially jumped on the love train for everyone’s favorite floofy lawyer. The sad!boi activated my caretaker instincts so this is pretty soft compared to my normal fics, and extremely angsty. Plus the smut kind of got away from me, I actually had to stop myself from writing even more!

Checkout my masterlist and join my taglist if your inclined!

“Shit!! Jesse!” you screamed over your shoulder towards the kitchen, grabbing the bat from under the register as you jumped over the bar to break up the fight.

You swore under your breath as you moved toward the two men who were brawling. The smaller one seemed to have the upper hand, but it didn’t seem like the larger man was putting up much resistance. Maggie just stood there watching them with bambi eyes as you heard your giant cook rumble behind you, ripping off his apron to lend you a hand.

“What the fuck happened, Mags?” You hissed at your bartender, trying to haul the men apart with little success.

“Neal just came over and said he was sorry, and he just lost it.” The poor girl looked like she was on the verge of tears. Granted, she probably wasn’t expecting to have to deal with brawls in downtown Newton at a lawyer bar, but Neal sure seemed to invite violent reactions whenever he opened his stupid mouth.

You lost your patience and smashed an empty glass on the floor next to the two men, shocking them out of it. Neal rose to his feet with a look of fury on his face, but you kept your eyes on Andy Barber.

He’d spent pretty much every night this week since the funeral at your bar. His face was pallid and he had dark rings under his eyes. He was still wearing the same clothes from yesterday, and he smelled like stale bourbon. Now he was rolling around on the floor aimlessly like a slug.

“Get the fuck out of my bar, Neal.” You said exasperatedly, spying the mostly empty bottle of bourbon on Barber’s table.

“What, I didn’t do anything!” the giant whined at you.

“Really?! You couldn’t just leave the poor guy alone? Jesus Neal! I don’t wanna see you in here for a month.” You hooked your arms under Andy’s and dragged him to sit on the bench, his head lolling drunkenly on his neck as you tried to assess how far gone he was.

“Fuck you, bitch.” Neal spat at you as he turned on his heel and stormed out, slamming the front door behind him.

“Have a great night!” You called after him, sarcastically, flipping him off.

“You sure that’s a good idea, boss?” Jesse asked, his massive arms crossed over his chest as he shook his head at you.

“Who cares, I hate that smug asshole. Hey, Andy?” You snapped your fingers in front of his face and he slapped your hand away lazily, growling under his breath. “You sneak behind the bar again, man?”

“I swear, I didn’t sell him a bottle, Y/N.” Her chin was quivering as tears slowly leaked down her cheeks.

“I know Mags, he’s a sneaky bastard. Don’t worry, sweetie, you’re not in any trouble. Go to the bathroom and splash some water on your face.” You watched her scurry off to the bathroom and rubbed a hand over your face. “Fuck. I’m gonna call in Emma to give Maggie a hand. You ok locking up tonight Jess?”

“Sure, what’re you thinking?”

You just stared at Andy with overwhelming pity as he almost slid of the bench, forcing you to keep a steadying hand on his shoulder. “I’m gonna take him back to his hotel and help him dry out. Wouldn’t feel right just kicking him to the curb.”

“You’re too soft, Y/N.” Jess chortled at you.

“Yeah, maybe. Can you bring me an ice bucket?” You hooked his arm over your shoulder and hauled him to his feet so you could make your way out to your car.

Jess got your bucket from behind the bar as you hobbled outside. You managed to get your passenger door open and you slid Andy inside. His head rolled on his shoulders as you buckled him in before shoving the bucket into his lap.

“Andy, can you hear me? Don’t you fucking puke in my car!”

He grunted in acknowledgment and wrapped his arms around the bucket, curling himself over to hang his head above it.

“You sure you shouldn’t be taking him to a hospital, Y/N?”

“No… mmph… no fucking hospital!” Andy slurred at you as you slammed the door closed.

“I’m pretty sure he’d jump out of the car if he thought I was taking him to the hospital Jess.” You murmured as you circled to the driver’s side. “Thanks for closing, you’re the best!”

You watched him wave in your rearview as you drove off, making sure to keep one eye on Andy as he groaned over his bucket.

You reached his hotel in 15 minutes, grateful for the short drive as the man was looking greener by the second. You dug your hands in the pockets of his coat, searching for the keys to his room and you thankfully found them quickly. You were relieved to see he was on the first floor, as you didn’t trust your ability to safely get him up the stairs.

Getting Andy out of your car was a deal harder than getting him in, as he slipped further into his alcohol induced stupor. You almost dropped him when you wrenched him out of his seat, and you basically carried him to his room.

You somehow managed to get the door unlocked and drag him inside right when you heard his stomach roil. You cursed under your breath as you scrambled to get him to the bathroom, shoving his head in the toilet just in time as he emptied his gut.

“Shit, Andy.” You hissed, your hands on your knees as you tried your best to breathe deeply and get accustomed to the scent of his alcohol-soaked stomach contents. Once you were sure he was relatively stable, you moved to the kitchenette and filled a glass with tepid water before returning to find him leaned back against the wall. “Drink.” You ordered, kneeling beside him and bringing the glass up to his lips.

His eyes locked onto yours as he chugged the water down greedily. No sooner had he swallowed the glass’ contents than he was lunging forward to throw it back up. You tutted worriedly as you rubbed a hand over his back and used the other to start the shower.

“Why the fuck are you here, Y/N?” He grumbled miserably, not bothering to lift his head as you dragged his coat over his shoulders and threw out into the living area.

“I couldn’t have you killing yourself in my bar, Andy. Where’s your phone?” His stomach seemed to have calmed down, so you drew him to lean back against the wall and started to tug off his boots.

“S’in my back pocket.” He slurred at you. You rolled him over and drew the phone out of his jeans to set it on the counter. “You could’ve let me do it here.”

“Nah.” You said. “If you quit coming around, what excuse am I gonna have to kick Neal out?” You rolled up your sleeves and thrust your hand under the shower’s flow, checking the temperature. “Hey, don’t you dare pass out on me!” You slapped him in the face as he started to doze off and you worked on getting him undressed. “I’m fucking serious, Barber, you don’t get to drink yourself to death on my watch.” You finally got his shirt off and started to drag his jeans down his legs.

“But why?” His eyes were boring into you now, pleading for some kind of answer to what possible reason there was for him to stick around as they welled up with tears.

You chewed your lip as you thought about it.

Andy had been a fixture at your bar for years. Always coming by for a celebratory drink after a win, or when he was working late on a difficult case. Even during Jacob’s trial, he’d stopped by with Joanna a few times to hash out details of the case. No matter how much stress he was under, you were always able to make him smile, and he always left a very generous tip no matter who was serving him. Your bar had been one of the only places he’d always felt welcome, and you had no qualms about kicking out anyone who wanted to give him a hard time.

Then the crash happened. He lost Jacob first; he was DOA to the hospital. His visits to your bar were more somber then. You didn’t try to make him smile, you barely even talked to him. But you’d drink with him in silence when he was the last patron in the bar, sitting across from him in his booth as the rest of the staff shut things down, occasionally placing your hand over his and rubbing your thumb over his knuckles in a comforting gesture.

They had taken Laurie off life support 2 weeks ago, and after her funeral was when he really started to spiral. Rather than nursing his usual three drinks, he was downing whole bottles a night. You had to instruct your staff to cut him off after 6, or he would end up like he was tonight. This wasn’t the first time you had caught him with a stolen bottle.

You couldn’t say why you cared so much. You weren’t even sure you were really friends. But through everything that happened, you seemed to be the only constant, an anchor point for him as his world fell apart.

“I dunno Andy.” You murmured as you drew off his socks before rolling him into the tub with a lurch, making him gasp as the cold water hit his skin. “I guess I’d miss you.”

He glared at you as he shivered under the shower’s stream, huddled around himself in only his boxers.

“Do I need to wash you, or do you think you can handle that on your own?” You asked, handing him a washcloth and some soap.

“I can handle it.” He hissed, snatching them from your hands as he braced himself against the wall and drew himself slowly to his feet.

“Good.” You started gathering up his soiled clothes. “Make sure to wash the vomit out of your beard.”

He ripped the shower curtain closed and tossed his boxers over the rail at you, grumbling the whole time. You bagged up his dirty laundry and set some clean sweats on the counter in the bathroom before you set to work on cleaning the rest of the hotel room, doing your best not to gag at the week-old takeout containers.

Andy staggered out of the bathroom 30 minutes later, rubbing a towel through his hair as he wobbled on still drunk legs.

“How’s your stomach?” You asked, stretched out on the couch and sipping a glass of ginger ale.

“S’better.” He murmured, stumbling his way to the bed and collapsing on it with a groan.

“And your head?”

“Fuck you.” He murmured with his face buried in the pillows.

You grabbed the garbage can from the bathroom and set it next to the bed. “Make sure you sleep on your side or your stomach. I’ll be on the couch.” You turned to leave and he grabbed your wrist, pulling you back.

“No, stay with me.” He mumbled, peeking up at you through those stupid long eyelashes, his damp hair drooping over his forehead.

“You’re still drunk, Andy.” You scolded, snatching your wrist away from him. You couldn’t deny you’d thought about it before, but there was no way you were going to let him make a move on you after the night he had. “I’m just 20 feet away, here to make sure you don’t choke on your own vomit overnight.”

You turned back to find him passed out, a thin trail of drool leaking from the corner of his mouth. You rolled your eyes and turned off the lights before collapsing on the couch in a huff.

Andy woke up to the smell of sausage and eggs as you slammed the hotel room door, carrying some takeout from the greasy spoon down the road.

“Shit, I was hoping to sneak out before you were up.” You murmured as he rose up off the bed, his bedhead a sight to behold. “I got you breakfast.”

“What happened last night?” He groaned, his stomach churning as he inhaled the smell of the food you had brought in.

“Well, you stole a bottle of Woodford Reserve from my bar, drank more than half of it, then fought Neal.” You shoved a plate of food in front of him as he sat down at the island. “Then I brought you back here and held your hair while you puked your guts out.”

“Fuck.” He murmured, fighting the urge to gag as he eyed the plate in front of him. “How did I get in these sweats?”

“Don’t worry, I dumped you in the shower in your boxers, no looks at the goods. And even if I had, last night was decidedly unsexy.”

“Shit, I’m so sorry.” He murmured, burying his head in his hands.

“Mmhmm. Eat.” You ordered, making him groan. “Suck it up, Barber, you’ll feel better after a couple of bites.” You watched him shovel a bite in his mouth and chew dutifully, taking a deep breath as you steeled yourself for what you wanted to say. “Are you talking to anyone, Andy?”

“’M talking to you.” He said around his second mouthful off breakfast, starting to feel a bit better.

“I mean like a shrink.” You said, seriously.

“What the fuck is this?” He threw his fork down on his plate, pissed. This was none of your business.

“Andy, you’ve been drinking yourself stupid every night for the past 2 weeks. It’s not healthy, and I don’t want to be responsible for you ruining your life.”

He gave you a snort of derision and rolled his eyes as he stood up to walk away. “Fuck off.”

“Hey!” now you were angry. “I care about you asshole! You think I enjoyed last night? I’m sick of it!” You followed after him, grabbing his shoulder and turning him around sharply.

“It’s not your problem, Y/N.” He seethed at you, ripping your hand off his shoulder as he took a menacing step towards you.

“You made it my problem when you decided to use my bar as the stage for your descent to rock bottom, dick!” You were yelling now. “Y’know what, fuck this. Figure your shit out Barber. Until then, don’t step foot in my bar.” You stormed out, slamming the door behind you as you slipped your coat back over your shoulders.

“Fuck!!” Andy screamed before charging after you.

He managed to catch up to you as you were about to open your car door and he slammed it shut over your shoulder, pinning you against the driver’s side of your vehicle.

“I swear to god, Andy, I’ll mace you.” You hissed at him, turning as you dug your hand in your bag. He wrapped a massive hand around your wrist, stopping your turn halfway.

“I’m sorry.” He murmured, pressing his forward to yours as he leaned against you. “I need you.”

“Andy…” this was such a bad idea.

“Why’d you stay last night?” He muttered, bringing his hand down to cup your cheek. “You said you care about me.”

“I do care, Andy.” You sighed as he took another step into you, pressing his body against yours. “Fuck, what’re you doing?”

“Stay.” He whispered, dipping his face to catch your lips with his and sending every objection you had right out of your head.

You sighed against him as you wrapped your hands in his hair, rolling your body against his. He ran his tongue over your bottom lip before pressing it against yours, his hands moving down to your hips and drawing you into him. You let out a whine as you felt his growing erection grinding against you.

“Shit.” You hissed as you felt a rush of arousal soak your panties. “Andy, we need to go back to the room.”

“Right.” He muttered, deepening your kiss as you wrapped your arms around his neck and he lifted you off the ground as he drew you away from your car and started to head back towards the room, thankful he had left the door ajar.

You kicked the door closed as he carried you inside, giving a small huff when he sat down on the bed with you straddling his lap. You slipped your coat over your shoulders and tossed it aside as his mouth devoured yours, lips molding to each other as your tongues tangled.

Andy slipped his fingers under the hem of your tee and drew it over your head, throwing it on top of your jacket before unclasping the front of your lacy bra and nuzzling himself between your breasts. He rolled the two of you gently until he was on top of you.

You sighed as Andy moved his mouth over the slope of your breast to wrap his lips around one of your nipples, sucking softly as he moved one hand to dip beneath the waistline of your jeans. He groaned against your chest when he found you sopping wet for him.

“God, I need you, sweetheart.” He mumbled against your skin as he worked at unbuttoning your fly, dragging your jeans and panties down your legs and flinging them aside before bringing his hand back up to cup your heat. “Need to make you feel good. Lose myself in you for just a bit.” He moved his lips up to brush against your neck as he rubbed his fingers through your folds, spreading your slick over your mound and making you gasp, your fingers gripping his massive biceps tightly as he teased you.

“Andy, please.” You whined, canting your hips into his hand, your clit throbbing with need as the pads of his fingers brushed against it.

He brought his face up to yours as he plunged one thick finger into you, a smile teasing his lips as he watched your face screw up in bliss. He dipped his lips to meet yours as he added another finger, swallowing your small cry.

“You feel so good, beautiful. So warm and tight.” He scissored his fingers inside of you, drawing lewd squelches from your canal as your arousal soaked his hand. “Fuck me, you’re perfect.”

You scrabbled your hands over the broad muscles of his back as he curled his fingers inside you, massaging that soft, spongy muscle deep within your canal. He buried his face in your neck, murmuring soft praises as you came apart beneath him.

You mewled as he inserted a third finger, your cunt clenching around him as you thrust yourself onto his hand, fucking yourself on his digits.

“You close love?” He asked, his thumb brushing against your clit before he started massaging it gently. Pressing soft circles into your core as you writhed beneath him.

“Oh, fuck.” You muttered. “fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck……”

He felt you tense underneath him when he drove his thumb into your clit, hard. You choked on your tongue as every muscle in your body vibrated with pleasure, your release gushing over Andy’s hand and soaking him to the wrist. He felt your nails digging through his sweatshirt as you came.

He kept his fingers moving inside you as your rode out your orgasm, your body rolling in waves underneath him as your pleasure wracked you, leaving you breathless. Once you sagged back against the bed, he withdrew them, disconnecting from you reluctantly to remove his own clothes. Staring down at you, all he wanted was to press himself against every inch of you. Claim every slope and curve of your body for his own.

He gripped one ankle and brought it up to his mouth, skimming his lips over the jut of bone as his fingers skirted over your calf, pressing into the firm muscle there. His lips followed his fingers, searing your skin with each lingering kiss and brush of his tongue as he worked his way further up your leg. Your cunt clenched around nothing when he reached your thigh, his beard scratching at the soft skin between your legs as he marked you with lips and teeth. You tangled your fingers in the blankets and moaned when he bypassed your core, moving up the line of your hip as he claimed you.

Your breath was coming quicker as worked his way over your body. His lips swept against your abdomen now, his tongue dipping into your navel as he nuzzled over the midline of your torso. All you could focus on was the feel of his mouth on your skin, leaving a trail of electricity as marked you as his. He laved his tongue over first one nipple, then the other as you arched into him, pressing your thighs together as your pussy throbbed with need.

He moved to trace the curves of your shoulders, his breath hot against your skin as he kissed his way down first one arm, then the other. You were panting now, your thighs soaked as arousal seeped out of you. Andy traced his fingers over your torso, skimming over the slopes of your breasts as he moved to kiss the curve of your neck, sucking gently to draw light bruises as his hands moved lower, kneading into your hips. He drew your knees apart slowly, slotting himself between your thighs as he dragged his hard length through your folds, making you keen as he ground into you.

You were a mess, your breath coming in ragged gasps as his hips rocked against you. You were desperate for release, every inch of you tingling with need and when Andy’s cock brushed against your clit, you lost it. You threw your head back in ecstasy as your fingers scrabbled in the sheets, desperate to hold onto something to keep you anchored.

Andy just stared at you, one massive palm cupping your cheek as he watched you falling apart. He needed you so much, you were the only constant he had. The only person who didn’t make him feel like a charity case or a failure. He hated what he was becoming, what the secrets and the tragedy were turning him into, but he knew if you stayed with him, he could come back.

“Y/N,” He whispered as you relaxed and he stilled his hips, his thumb tracing your cheekbone as you slowly opened your eyes, gazing up at him through your lust blown pupils. “Promise you won’t leave me.”

“Andy,” a small voice in the back of your mind was trying to warn you, telling you not to commit to anything now while he was still drowning in his grief. But you were overwhelmed with the pleasurable assault he had subjected you to and when he pressed his lips to yours again, that little voice went away. “I promise.” You gasped when he released you.

He grinned at you as he lined himself up, resting his forehead against yours as he gazed into your eyes. You were so wet that he slid into you easily, bottoming out right away with a hiss.

“Fuck, honey.” He murmured against your lips as you whined, his hips setting a languorous pace as he pulled out halfway before thrusting back into you. “God, you’re so tight, you feel amazing.”

You couldn’t reply, you could already feel another orgasm building as you thrust your hips to meet his, mewling softly as the warm coil in your stomach tightened. You ran your fingers over his auburn beard before burying them in his hair, panting into his mouth as he brought you closer to the edge.

Andy brought one hand between the two of you and strummed his thumb against your clit, making you tighten your fists in his hair until it was painful.

“God, Andy, right there.” You sobbed, your cunt clamping around him as he moved to bury his face in your neck, nuzzling against the hollow behind your ear.

“Go ahead, beautiful.” He scraped his teeth over the edge of your jaw as he drove his thumb against you, and you screamed.

You fluttered around him as your body spasmed, multiple waves of pleasure rippling through you. Your knees gripping around his hips and squeezing as your torso rolled against his. You sank back against the bed with a sigh as your body relaxed, Andy still fucking into you and starting to pick up speed.

“I’m gonna move you, pretty girl.” He wrapped his arms around you and rolled until you were on top of him, pressing you against his chest as he kissed you deeply. “Wanna watch you ride me.”

You gave him a smile as you sat up, bracing your hands against his chest as you ground yourself against him. He was seated in you deeper than anyone had ever been, his cock dragging against that secret spot inside you with each drive of your hips, making you groan. He thrust up into you and groaned at the bounce of your tits while you let out a cry at his tip hitting your cervix.

Andy dug his fingers into your hips as he took over, pistoning up into with increasing speed as your cunt clamped around him. Your head rolled loosely on your shoulders as you let go, eyes fluttering as you felt another orgasm gathering.

You gripped his hips tightly with your thighs as it hit you like a truck, sobbing with pleasure while your muscles shivered over him. Andy sat up quick and caught you before you could collapse back on the bed, wrapping one hand around the back of your neck and catching you lips with his as his hips picked up even more speed.

“Shit.” He murmured against your lips. You felt his cock twitch inside you as his hips faltered in their rhythm. “Are you on the pill honey?”

You nodded vigorously, unable to speak as Andy’s violent thrusts had knocked all the breath out of your lungs and you were gasping.

“Good. Fuck.” He nipped at your lips before shoving his tongue down your throat.

You felt warmth spread through your abdomen as he shot his release into you, his thick spend coating the slick walls inside you and leaking out over your thighs as he fucked you through it. He slowed his thrusts as you felt him soften inside you, groaning into your mouth as he came down and collapsed back against the bed, holding you close to his chest.

His chest hair scratched against your cheek as he breathed deeply, trying to slow his heart rate back down and rubbing his fingers over your spine as you panted on top of him.

Neither of you spoke for a while, content to lie in the comfort of each other’s arms. You made Andy feel safe, and he made you feel needed, and that was all the two of required for now.

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