#they are such a comfort to me

[kitamars]

hi did you miss them. I did

[nico-di-genova]

“I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.”

or

“You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you.”

(for lestappen please, you can choose whichever one you prefer (or both, I would not mind both)) have a great day <3

32. “I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.”

“You’re ignoring me,” Max states when he manages to get Charles alone for the first time in nearly a week. It is a feat accomplished only by knocking on his hotel room door until the Monegasque either grows tired of the noise or fearful of the attention it will bring. Charles Leclerc does not do anything he does not want to do, and it is clear at the moment he does not want to see Max. Even if he says otherwise.

“I am not.”

“Liar.”

“I am not lying.”

It’s clear he is, from the tension in his shoulders to the set of his jaw, to the way he keep glancing between Max’s feet, the door behind him, the blood red sleeve of a Ferrari hoodie that’s been thrown across his bed. Anywhere other than Max’s steel-eyed gaze and the hurt that must be obvious there.

Max knows how to read him, he’s had years of practice by now and the drive to study. Charles is far too expressive for his own good, his eyes betraying him when he does briefly glance at Max and there’s mirrored pain there. He looks away quickly, knows Max will see it, bites his bottom lip and curls tighter in on himself against the dresser he’s propped back on.

“Why are you avoiding me?” Max asks, calm, because he knows that raised voices accomplish nothing. His parents taught him that.

“I don’t know what I did wrong, Charles. You have to tell me, please, because I cannot read your mind.”

Not for lack of trying, not for lack of want. He’s spent countless nights studying Charles’ face in his sleep, the curve of his lips, the mole where his jaw meets his ear, another next to his nose, the way his eyelashes fan across his cheeks in a way that makes Max’s stomach do summersaults. He’s tried cataloging every expression Charles has ever given him simply for the pure organization of it. Like understanding Charles was a sport and he was going for the title, but it is the one game he cannot seem to win. The one where Charles always finds a way to throw him for a loop right as Max thinks he’s finally putting together the pieces.

Charles shifts against the dresser, uncomfortable under the pure weight of Max’s gaze. He swallows and Max watches as his adams apple bobs. A week ago he was pressing kisses there. A week ago Charles let him.

“Whatever I did, I’m sorry.”

Charles shakes his head, “You did not do anything.”

His voice is thick with tears, the way he gets after a particularly rough quali, or a DNF where he comes out with bruised ribs and fractured confidence. Max steps forward, the urge to comfort, soothe, fix overriding him, but forces himself to pause. His reaching hand drops back limply to his side, spasms with the memory of Charles’ shoulder beneath his palm.

Charles’ hands fist tighter around the fabric of his shirt, where he’s attempting to comfort himself.

“Then what is going on?”

“I-,” he shakes his head like he’s clearing away a memory, clenches his eyes closed until Max can see the tears beading at the corners, “I think I am in love with you.”

He opens his eyes and Max is confronted with the glassy shine of unshed tears.

“And I am terrified.”

If there was air in the room before it quickly evacuates, sucking Max’s ability to speak right out with it. He thinks of a week ago, the way the confession had fallen so easily from his lips while it looks like it is ripped from Charles now – carved  from his chest and placed before Max bloody and still beating with the truth of it.

He opens his mouth, he closes it.

Charles tries to wipe away the tears with the back of his shaking hand and it only spurs them into falling, trailing down his sunburned cheeks and dripping in splotches onto the fabric of his white shirt. Max watches them spread across the cotton.

“Charles.” He forces out around the lump in his throat, the only word he can manage because it is a name he would know even if all others left him. He speaks it like a prayer, like a promise, like there is nothing else.

Charles sobs, chokes, and then he’s stumbling forward as Max catches him with the ease of someone who would never let him fall.

‘This sport. It takes from you...It is like this.’ Charles had once whispered to him in the dim light of another hotel room in Japan. When Max had heard him muffling his sobs in the bathroom and knew not to press against a wound that was raw. He’d let him cry, let him pretend Max hadn’t heard, and held him that night until Charles fell asleep against him with his head tucked beneath Max’s chin.

When he woke the next morning, Charles was gone. They didn’t speak of it again.

“I’m here,” Max promises now, the same way he had whispered it into the dark of that hotel room, against the soft tufts of Charles' hair as he slept. “I’m right here.”

Max can feel Charles' fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt along his back, pressing deep enough he scratches along skin.

“I love you. And I’m right here.”

And he’s terrified too. Terrified of the way Charles makes him feel a way he’s never felt before. Max hates the feeling of unpredictability, hates that he’s come to frequently feel it with Charles. With racing, it is simple. He puts his helmet on, he drives, he takes corners that he’s practiced on the sim so many times that he can see them in his sleep. He knows how the car should feel beneath him, and he trusts his team to fix it when he tells them what is wrong. Charles is not a car. Charles cries easy, laughs easy, speaks easy, changes between moods with a frequency Max often cannot predict. He is the boy that would send Max into the barriers if pressed to, and the man who can dance along the track with him tire to tire until the end. He is perhaps the only person Max could know, truly know, down to the core of him, and the enigma who Max will never be able to solve.

He's fucking terrified of loving him. But he holds Charles anyway.

“You will leave,” Charles whispers against Max’s neck, muffled and so quiet Max knows Charles is hoping he does not hear.

Max hates to be told what he will do. He and Charles share the same stubborn drive to ignore whatever predestined path they were set on. Charles drives for Ferrari because he wants to. Max wins championships because he can. They aren’t doing it because the universe told them it was what they were meant to do, or because Max’s dad kept his hands taped to that steering wheel and pushed him into this. Charles could leave, he’s got a contract that is firmly under his own control, and Max could quit tomorrow simply because he got bored of it all. They could both fuck off to the middle of nowhere and sell ice cream from a hut simply because they had the money and means to do so. So maybe Max will leave, and maybe he won’t, and maybe he'll crash his car and maybe he’ll make it safely back to his and Charles’ bed. Who knows. He certainly doesn’t

“I might,” he says, in the same easy tone he tells GP that the car is handling like shit, feeling the way Charles freezes at the statement, “I might do a lot of things. But I will still love you in the end of it.”

He traces a finger along Charles' spine, from the notch in his neck to the dip of his back. Charles shudders, sniffles, buries himself closer to Max like he’s trying to mold them into one. He’s still crying, Max can feel the fresh tears warm against his carotid, spilling down to his collarbone and collecting at the hem of his shirt.

“Will you love me?” he asks, raw and honest, letting the ache of it fill his voice so Charles knows the truth of it, of him. Max does not ask for much, he’s learned to be content with what he has, but he’s asking now. Hoping in a way that is unfamiliar to him.

When Charles nods, it is like air returning to his lungs, like crossing the finish line and hearing GP’s voice tell him he’s won his third title. Victory, and euphoria, and the rush of adrenaline hitting him all in one fell swoop.

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. I love you,” Charles pulls away from him so he can meet Max’s gaze. His eyes are red-rimmed, bloodshot to shit, there’s snot beneath his nose. Max thinks he’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He lifts a hand to cup Charles’ cheek and the man leans into the touch, slots perfectly against his palm that splays along his jaw. He brushes a stray tear away with his thumb and Charles’ eyes flutter closed at the touch before blinking open to meet his once more - wide, and green, and so honest - so familiar.

Max leans forward to press their foreheads together, warm breath mingling between them.

“I am terrified, but I love you,” Charles whispers, “and I’m sorry for pushing you away. It hurts too much sometimes.”

“It hurts to not know what I did wrong,” Max counters, continuing to stroke his thumb along Charles’ cheekbone, to comfort the part of him that thought he might have been losing this.

“Sorry.”

“No- Charlie, no. Don’t be sorry, just- just trust me next time, okay? Or try. I’m not going anywhere right now. You have me.”

I’m yours, he wants to say, always yours. He thinks he maybe always has been, been chasing the boy with stubborn resilience and cutting resolve for his whole life. Instead he holds Charles until the tears stop falling and their breaths come easier and the world stops feeling like it’s falling out from beneath both of them.  

I love you, and it is fucking terrifying he thinks, but god is it worth it.

When Charles looks up at him, with the quirk of his lips, the tear tracks drying on his cheeks, and the vulnerability in his eyes Max knows he feels the same.

He’s been studying, after all.

[plumbadumba]

GO!

i missed drawing these two together so much!

The Door is created and owned by @radiopixelctive

[marokra]

screenshot edit dump (it’s all oc inserts)

[dirt-mccracken]

As much as I want to be a wholly joyous about the fact that Henry Kissinger is finally fucking dead, as he deserves... There's a lot of me that can't help being upset with. With the fact that he lived to 100 years old. He got better medical care, better housing, and a better, more stable life for those 100 years than billions on this planet ever going to see and he did it specifically through exploitation, state sanctioned murder, and lies. He lived to 100 years comfortably on a legacy of violence that rarely threatened his personal comfort. I want to be joyous that he's finally dead, because the world IS better with him dead, but the reality is he won a long time ago.

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[alatar-and-pallando]

So, my spouse has been exploring his gender lately; he also just built himself a new laptop. Today he told me that he in an attempt to process some genderfeels through metaphor, he made a post on a trans forum along the lines of: "I'm a lifelong Windows user and I think I'm pretty good at it. I want to find out what Linux has to offer but I'm afraid I wouldn't be any good at it. And how do you choose the right Linux distro, anyway? Do you have to try them all?"

The responses, he said, were a mix of useful advice about feeling out your gender and useful advice about choosing a Linux distro.

I love trans people so much

Edit 4/8, in case you don't see the reblogged additions -- my wife is now going by Eve!

[candaru]

no no. you don't get it. the reason I injure my blorbos until they can't walk is because that's the only way they'll ever let someone else carry them. the reason I curse them to be sick and feverish is so that they'll finally open up about their emotions while delirious. the reason I force them to overexert themselves to the point of exhaustion is so that when they pass out they can finally rest.

I'm doing this for their own good.

[catmask]

does anyone have like an anti aesthetic. like something you look at and can recognize as a complete fashion/interior design/artistic movement and understand it but it makes you shudder seeing it. i am not talking like “its morally bad” “its poorly structured” like just sheerly devoid of joy for you actually invites a repulse response.

[forestofsprites]

i think that sometimes the best thing that you can do is remind yourself that there are beaches. lakes, rivers, and ponds. there are forests. little woods and meadows. there are canyons. gullies and mountain cliffs. there are rainy days. dry spells and scorching blue skies. that the world turns. changes as much as it repeats. that feeling slow today won't stop tomorrow's high tide. won't make july's blackberries any less ripe

[stargirl230]

thanks for the light

I was just trying to figure out how procreate works but then the op brainworms got to me and 35 hours later here we are! can you tell I miss home-cooked meals :')

(no reposts; reblogs appreciated)

[tecochet]

mary jane's husband and his boyfriend

[melmov]

I cast: curse of the eldest (can’t ask for help)

[notbrucewayne48]

"aphobia doesn't exist"

bitch literally not that long ago an aroace youtuber animator was insulted by almost half of its community for being it

[bumbleboa]

thinking about them

[theorderofthetriad]