#this is so my mum would be so sad if i followed through | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

asahicore · 9 months

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bad news first - sjy (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact pairing. jake x fem!reader synopsis. From the moment you'd met at eight to the day he moved to South Korea at fourteen, you and Jake were inseparable. But after years of being apart, you've come to terms with the fact that at twenty, you and Jake just aren't what you used to be. That is until you get a text from him, and all of a sudden, he's back by your side, doing his year abroad at the university you study at, and all your feelings for him float back up to the surface. genre. college au, childhood friends to ???? to lovers, painful mutual pining, one bed trope..... a sprinkle of angst (my hand slipped) but mostly fluff i promise and smut (mdni!!!), also i made sunghoon really weird in this and idkw, this is set in scotland.. edinburgh uni rep!! word count. 23k author's note. everybody say happy belated birthday to @zreamy.. happy belated birthday zo!!! being 22 years and 6 days old is cooler than just 22 years old anyway.. hope you like it bestie... if you dont... well theres a building on campus thats 17 stories high sooo.. enjoy! i hope everyone else enjoys too, since this is a bday fic for zo she couldnt beta read so i had to raw dog this so if its terrible.. not my fault! lmk what u think!! i also made a playlist for this, do listen along!!

“Alright kids, good news or bad news first?”

You looked at your teacher, then at the boy next to you, then back at your teacher. “Bad news first,” you said in unison.

You were only eight, but you were both wise enough to know that hearing good news second would assuage the blow of whatever these bad news were. Miss Dawson sighed as she crouched in front of you. “The bad news is your bus driver is on strike and won’t be coming. The good news is that your parents have been informed and are coming to pick you up soon.”

Following her instructions, you headed to the gymnasium and sat there silently among the other kids. Not many kids in your class rode the bus home, and the ones who did seemed to have drivers not on strike, so it was just the two of you. You were used to that, though - over January and February, you had made a sort of silent pact to stand and wait for the bus together. You sometimes shared snacks, but you never spoke. For some reason, you felt at ease with this boy, even though you didn’t know much about him. You had heard he had moved to Brisbane just at the start of this year, all the way from South Korea. You were pretty sure his name was Jake.

You handed him one of your Twix bars. Then he spoke. “I thought a strike was when you did really well in bowling.”

“Same,” you replied, mouth full of chocolate and caramel. “I’m not sure why that would keep the bus driver from picking us up.”

Jake looked at you with wide eyes, distress clear in them. “Do you think he went bowling instead of picking us up?”

This made you frown. “That’d be really rude.”

“It would. I always make sure to go bowling on the weekends, ‘cause if I missed school that’d be rude to Miss Dawson.”

You nodded your head in fervent agreement. “For sure.”

That weekend, his mum called your mum to ask if you wanted to go to the bowling alley with them. From then on, for the next six years, you were stuck together by glue.

Twelve years later, Jake’s name appearing on your phone screen has become such a rare sight, you don’t believe it right away. It takes you a few seconds of intense squinting at the letters to actually realise your eyes aren’t deceiving you.

jake.sim15 hey y/n!! you go to edinburgh uni right?

You type and delete three different responses before settling for a simple yeah, I am! what’s up?, hoping you sounded nonchalant even though you very much felt chalant. You thought that whatever you sent wouldn’t be as weird as taking forever to answer such a straightforward question.

As you wait for Jake’s reply, you scroll through your previous shared messages, noting with sadness that for three years in a row, the only instances you’d texted were to wish each other a happy birthday or when he reacted with a fire emoji to Stories of your dog, Milo. Before that, your last conversation was to congratulate each other about getting into your top choice universities and to discuss plans for your respective futures.

Futures that used to include each other, you think. His reply appears at the bottom of your screen before melancholy can fill your heart.

jake.sim15 i applied to go there for my year abroad next year annnnd i got in !! heh

You shoot up straight from your seat on the lounge chaise you’d been sunbathing on, a loud “Oh my God!” involuntarily escaping your mouth.

“What? What happened? Is everything okay?” Chaewon asks frantically, rushing over to your side. “Oh,” she says when she sees your phone. “It’s a text… from a boy?”

This makes Yunjin, previously unbothered by your panic, rise from her seat and take off her sunglasses. “A boy? Show me,” she demands, snatching your phone from your hands before you can protest. Upon seeing the texts on your screen, she lets out a loud gasp. “It’s not just any boy! It’s the one and only Jake Sim himself.”

“Give that back!” you plead, hand reaching for your phone, but Yunjin is already walking away.

“And he’s coming to Edi this September, apparently. He says he’s sorry for not saying anything earlier, but he was waiting for an answer up until now.” She scoffs. “Leave it to our uni to tell someone they’re in less than two months before term starts. Oh, you’re the first person he’s told, Y/N! After his parents. How cute,” she coos, protesting when you snatch your phone back from her. “Hey! I was reading that.”

“Those are my texts, Yunjin. I’m the one who’s meant to read them.”

She shrugs. “You would’ve told us anyway.”

“What are you going to reply?” Chaewon asks. With the both of them hovering over your shoulders and watching as you type a response, a sort of stage fright comes over you, making you send what might be the most unoriginal reply known to man.

“Awesome? Seriously, Y/N?” Yunjin reads, disproportionately disgusted with you.

“That’s a lot of exclamation marks. It almost makes it look like you don’t mean it,” Chaewon says.

“I do mean it!”

“Well, he seems to like it. A smiling-with-teeth emoji is a good sign, right?” she asks in an attempt to make you feel better.

“He has automatic caps off. That man is run-through,” Yunjin says, shaking her head as she walks back to her sunbed.

“You were excited about him texting me just a second ago,” you reproach.

“Yeah, before I found out he was a whore.”

“Yunjin, you know we don't slut-shame here!” Chaewon exclaims. Before Yunjin can say anything even worse in response, your phone starts ringing, and Jake’s name appears on your screen. “He’s calling you?” Chaewon gasps, making Yunjin sit up with a start for the second time in less than five minutes.

“This man is insane,” she remarks with all the seriousness in the world.

You run away from your friends, finding refuge in the outside kitchen area out of earshot. They don’t need to hear your conversation with Jake. You love them, but they can be weirdly unsupportive in moments like these.

“Hey, Jake,” you greet, hoping he doesn’t notice the breathlessness in your voice. It was because you had just ran, of course - you didn’t want him to think you were so nervous about talking to him after such a long time, you could barely breathe. Because you weren’t. At all.

“Hey, Y/N!” he replies, and the excitement in his voice makes your heart melt. “I hope it’s not weird that I called, I just thought it’d be nicer than texting, is that okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, it’s nice to hear your voice,” you say before you can really think about it, and cringe at your own words. Years without talking and the world’s worst line is the first thing you say to Jake. Thankfully, before you start excruciating yourself, a chuckle pours out of Jake’s throat and blesses your ears.

“It’s nice to hear your voice, too. What are you up to?”

“Oh, I’m on vacation with my friends. One of them has a rich aunt who owns a villa in southern Italy, so we’re just chilling by the pool right now.”

“You always wanted to go to Italy! That sounds so nice,” he says. Your breath catches gently in your throat - he remembers, you note.

“Yeah, it really is. What about you, how are you spending the summer?”

Jake tells you about the local bookstore owned by a grandpa that’s always had a soft spot for him and that gave him a part-time job for the summer. “I’m trying to save up as much money as I can before I leave. If I treat you to a meal, will you show me around the city?” he asks, and you can hear the grin in his voice. It makes you realise how much you’ve actually missed him.

“You don’t need to treat me to a meal, I’ll show you around anyway.”

Still, he insists, and you find yourself giving in quickly - because it’s Jake or because free food is on the table, you’re not sure. Probably both.

You and Jake get to talking, but fitting years and years of catching up into one conversation is an impossible task, and before you know it, when you check your phone, you’ve been talking for over an hour. Yunjin is angrily waving at you, pointing at her stomach to indicate hunger like a caveman who’s just learned how to communicate. You apologise to Jake, telling him you have to go, and plan to meet during fresher’s week before you hang up.

A few hours later, you get a text from him saying it was nice talking to you and jokingly asking whether Yunjin was satisfied with lunch. It’s innocuous, but it opens a gate for more texting, which leads to long, rambling voice messages, which leads to late-night phone calls that remind you of when you were fifteen and still kept in touch. When August fades into September, you feel like you’ve got your best friend back.

You remember why you were so in love with him at fourteen.

You see Jake before he sees you.

Among the throngs of people, you manage to spot the dark, messy flop of hair on his head weighed down by a nice pair of wireless headphones. After a thirteen-hour flight from Seoul, a four-hour layover in Frankfurt and a final, two-hour flight to Edinburgh, he looks rightfully exhausted, using what looks like the last of his energy to spot the exit and the airport bus stop. Even wearing a simple denim jacket, white tee and grey sweatpants, he’s so gorgeous you forget what you came here for, until he almost walks right past you without seeing you. You put yourself in his path and hold your hand-written banner up, making yourself as obvious as you can as you call out his name.

When he sees you, he stops dead in his tracks for a second, someone almost running into him before he remembers the crowd behind him. His tired features break out into a bright smile that has your heartbeat speeding up so much, you think it might run out of your chest.

He had told you not to come, that it would be late for you and he didn’t want to bother you, but you had managed to get the information of his arrival before he forbade you from picking him up so you did it anyway, wanting to surprise him. After years of being apart, rather than waiting another day, you wanted to see him as soon as possible.

Jake briskly makes his way to you, dropping his bags next to him on the floor as he engulfs you in a hug, warm and tight as if he’s trying to make up for all those years. You hug him back as if someone would appear out of thin air and take him away from you again.

“This was the longest day of my life, I’m so happy to see you,” he says when he pulls away, and you’re so happy you can’t even say anything back, resorting to giggling and lightly swatting non-existent dust off of his shoulders.

As you wait for the bus, he tells you about every trivial thing that happened to him on his trip, from how expensive a sandwich is at the airport to the German kid sitting in front of him that kept turning around to stare at him on his second flight.

“How did you know he was German?” you ask, amused.

Jake pauses. “Just vibes.”

Conversation on the bus is slightly disjointed as you jump from topic to topic with random pauses here and there before one of you finds something to talk about - but it’s okay, you hadn’t expected for the two of you to be as easy as before. It’s more awe at seeing each other after such a long time than awkwardness. Even though you’d caught up over summer, there was a world of difference between speaking on the phone and actually sitting next to him. You notice things like the shine of his hair, the creases that form on the sides of his lips when he smiles, or, unfortunately for you, the veins that run along his forearms and hands - things you hadn’t noticed previously thanks to the sometimes questionable quality of the front camera of his phone. Once in a while, your thigh brushes against his, and it reminds you that he’s really here. Even that he’s real, at all.

In a tragic turn of events, Jake lives in the student accommodation you used to live in in first year, and coming back to it two years later is slightly traumatising. His three-person flat is in a different building as your old one, and you marvel at how it somehow still smells the same - like dusty, decade-old carpeting and the permanent stench of students’ dubitable cooking. He’s the first one to move in, which makes the place slightly eerie, but it means that you’re not bothering anyone by unpacking Jake’s stuff and cooking Shin Ramyun the previous tenants had left behind at 11pm.

Your late dinner was meant for you to take a small break, watch a couple episodes of Friends which Jake had been shocked to learn you’d never watched, and you had been shocked to learn he was a die-hard fan of (since one year ago), then get back to unpacking. But the ramen sends an already exhausted Jake into a food coma so intense, he falls asleep on your shoulder five minutes into the second episode.

You let him sleep as long as he needs, turning the volume down on his laptop and stifling your chuckles as much as you can. You feel like a cat has fallen asleep in your lap - you are now obliged by law to stay still until Jake wakes up. It’s not until an hour later that Jake’s uncomfortable sleeping position forces him awake, lifting his head off of your shoulder with a grunt. He looks around himself, at his room that’s not quite familiar to him yet, then at you, eyes still scrunched with sleepiness as a grin blooms onto his lips.

“Sorry,” clearing his throat of its grogginess. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost one a.m,” you reply, and his eyes go wide.

“You should’ve woken me up! Does your shoulder hurt?” he asks, much more alarmed than he should be, and it makes you laugh.

“It’s all good. But now that you’re awake, I should probably head home.”

“I’ll get you an Uber,” he says, already pulling out his phone.

“It’s fine, Jake, my place is a ten-minute walk from here. I live just up the road.”

Jake’s fingers on his phone pause as he looks up at you. “Then I’ll walk you home.” He lifts a finger in warning when he sees you start to protest. “And don’t fight me on this. You did so much today, it’s the least I can do.”

As much as you love the idea of spending more time with Jake, even if it’s just ten minutes, you still don’t want to bother him when you know how tired he is. “It’s really safe around here. I can just text you when I’m home, if you’re worried about me getting kidnapped or something,” you say, taking his jacket from his hands and placing it back on his desk chair.

He grabs it back, putting it on before you can take it from him again, and rummages through one of his suitcases for a black, woolly scarf. Neither of you speaks as he wraps it tight around your neck, even though the early September weather isn’t cold enough to warrant it. His hands stop briefly on the scarf and a small smile spreads on his lips. You hope he doesn’t hear your sharp intake of breath when your eyes meet. “It’s not about that,” he says simply, voice low and unlike you’ve ever heard it before. You don’t think his voice had quite finished cracking when he’d moved away back then.

Suddenly, he steps away, grabs his keys, and heads for the door. “Let’s go!” he says, voice back to its usual cheery tone. You don’t find it in you to question him, so you just follow him out, welcoming the night breeze that cools down your burning cheeks with open arms.

The walk to your place is mostly done in comfortable silence, but it still goes by too quickly for your liking. You keep your hands in your pockets to prevent yourself from doing something stupid, like reaching out for Jake’s hand that swishes back-and-forth as he walks. Instead, you bury your nose in his scarf and relish in the unfamiliar but comforting smell that his cologne has left behind on the fabric. You hug goodbye when you reach your flat, and you have to remind yourself to let go. He insists on you keeping the scarf. “My mum packed me, like, three, so you can have that one.”

“Your mum still pack your things for you, does she?” you ask, tone playful.

“No-” he says, voice slightly whiny, before he realises you’re just teasing him. “Whatever,” he chuckles, ruffling your hair. You hope the streetlights aren’t bright enough for him to notice the flustered look on your face. The both of you stand there awkwardly for a second, before he lets out another chuckle. “Right. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” you beam.

“Okay,” he says, but still doesn’t make a move to leave. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll be off then.” He gives you one last smile then turns around, burying his hands in his pockets, and you watch as he walks away.

“Get home safe,” you call out after a few seconds.

He pivots on his heels, and, with a wave of his hand, says, “I will! Go inside.”

“Good night!”

“Night, Y/N!”

When you walk into your living room, Yunjin is sitting on the couch, arms crossed over her chest, gaze trained on the wall opposite her, one lamp lighting the otherwise completely dark room. She looks like a detective in one of those bad cop shows.

“Gosh, what’s all this for?”

“You’re back awfully late,” she says, neither looking at you nor answering your question.

“Yeah, I was with Jake,” you shrug, heading into the kitchen for a glass of water. She abruptly gets up from her seat, following you into the other room and staying close behind you.

“And?” she demands, mouth way too close to your ear and making you start.

“And what?” you ask.

“What do you mean and what?!” she says, clearly agitated. “I want to know everything!”

“There’s nothing to say, really. He seemed happy I picked him up from the airport, then I helped him unpack. He lives in Riego, by the way.”

“Ew.”

“I know, it was awful going back there.”

The two of you stare at each other as you drink your water. “Well?” she asks.

“What?”

“Is that it?”

You fill your glass again to take it into your bedroom. “I don’t know, we just ate and watched Friends.”

“You hate shows with laughing tracks,” she states like it’s an accusation.

“It wasn’t actually that bad,” you reply, shrugging.

She tuts. “Love will do ugly, ugly things to a person.”

“You’ve been in a loving relationship for the past two years.”

“This isn’t about me. Can we talk about how you’re still in love with the same loser from when you were ten?”

“I was fourteen, and don’t call Jake a loser when you haven’t even met him.” You ignore the roll of her eyes. “And I’m not. Not anymore. I’m just happy to have my friend back.” Yunjin gives you a look. “Okay, maybe I’m still a little bit in love with him. But it’s so little, it’s barely there.” Her expression is unchangingly unimpressed and you can’t help but throw in the towel. “Alright, fine. I still love him, what about it?”

“You’re pathetic.”

“I know that, no need to remind me.”

“Are you gonna do something about it?”

“My patheticness? I’ve tried, didn’t really work.”

“No, idiot, about Jake. You should go and get him! It’d be so sexy if you got together as 20-somethings after knowing each other since you were babies.”

“We were eight when we met. And I don’t know if sexy is the word I’d use here.”

“Anything is sexy if you try hard enough,” she says, and you have to laugh. “Anyways, you should confess your undying love and tell him you’ve felt that way since you met.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Guys might not show it, but they probably get all hot for stuff like that. Boosts their ego and shit.”

“Yunjin, I just got my friend back, I’m not gonna risk it. Plus, who knows, I might not actually be in love with him. It might just be my emotions acting up, like, seeing someone I used to like after a while. We’ve both changed so much, once I get to know him more now, I might not even feel the way I used to.”

“Notice how you’ve used the word might twice in ten seconds? You’re just trying to find excuses.”

You groan. “This is why I hate English Lit people.”

“You do English Lit.”

“I know, and I’m the only nice person that does it.” In your head, you add and Jake, but saying it out loud would only make this conversation worse for you.

“What’s that scarf, by the way? Did he give you that?”

You look down at the scarf like it’s a piece of incriminating evidence. “Can you stop grilling me, please? It’s late.”

“You’re not answering my question.”

You sighed deeply. “Fine. Yes, he gave me-”

“It’s not even that cold outside!” she exclaimed in an outrage. “Don’t tell me he also walked you home?”

You pause. “He did.”

She gasped. “He walked you home because he’s in love with you.”

“He walked me home because he’s a good friend that looks after me.”

“He walked you home because he realised how hot you’ve gotten and he wants some of that.”

All you can do is sigh. “Whatever. I’m going to bed.”

“If you weren’t such a coward, you wouldn’t be going to bed alone.”

“Whatever!” you say, shutting the door behind you, shaking that preposterous conversation out of your head. When you get into bed, it takes you at least half-an-hour before you can settle down, but you know your constant tossing and turning isn’t due to your inability to find a comfortable enough position to sleep in. Between your evening with Jake and Yunjin’s pestering, thoughts run wild and incoherent through your head.

You want to tell her every little thing that happened with Jake tonight, but you’re afraid it might do you more harm than good. She is most definitely the type of friend who will take the smallest action a guy did for you or the most meaningless thing he might have said and turn it into a sign that he has the hots for you, which usually does wonders for your confidence, but right now, you don’t need that kind of delusion. Did seeing your childhood best friend you used to secretly harbour feelings for make you feel some type of way? Of course, but that doesn’t mean you still love him after all this time, after six years of being apart, the majority of those years spent with no contact. It wasn’t like you parted ways with resentment, or anything of that sort, far from it; rather, you drifted apart naturally, as two teenagers with over 7000 kilometres between them would. At first, you’d call frequently and even write each other letters - but as you became more preoccupied with school, friends, and extracurriculars, your phones gradually rang less and your mailboxes became gradually emptier. You don’t even remember who sent the last, unanswered letter.

Tonight isn’t the first time you replay the moment Jake announced that he would go away, but it’s the first time it’s a bittersweet memory. It used to only be bitter - but now that you’ve reconnected, you can look back at it with fondness, wishing you could tell fourteen-year-old you the hurt would only last so long.

It hadn’t started unusually.

“So, bad news first, right?”

In your six years of friendship with Jake, this had been the first time you’d really been wary of what he would say next. The look on his face told you that this bad news wouldn’t be as easy to shake off as usual. Your definition of bad news was things like I got grounded so I can’t hang out, I forgot we had a test tomorrow so I can’t hang out, my allergies are acting up again so I can’t hang out.

“I’m moving to Korea next month.”

I’m on another continent, so I can’t hang out.

You remember the words not quite making sense at the time. “Oh? How long are you staying there?” you said, taking a bite of your strawberry ice cream which Jake had insisted on paying for, even though you knew he didn’t get much allowance.

“Forever.”

You stopped chewing, and the ice cream melted uncomfortably in your mouth. You don’t know how long you stayed there, frozen as you stared at your best friend in disbelief. It wasn’t until he lightly shoved your shoulder, only meeting your eyes for a split second, that you remembered to swallow and to say something.

“Forever as in… You won’t live here anymore? At all?”

Jake shook his head. He kept his eyes trained on the vanilla-chocolate ice cream sandwich he’d left in its wrapper. In the blazing hot Brisbane summer, it had probably fully melted two minutes ago. “At all.”

“Oh,” was all you found yourself able to say. For some reason, you hoped that continuing to eat your ice cream would stop you from crying, but to no avail. Hot, salty tears quickly started raining down your cheeks, mixing with the sweetness of your ice cream when they reached your lips.

“It’s my dad’s work. Same reason why I moved here when we were kids in the first place. They wanted him here then, they want him back there now. We just have to follow,” Jake explained, sounding just as upset as you felt.

“Right.”

“Are you mad at me?” Jake asked, worry clear in his voice, and finally turned to face you. At the sight of you crying, he let out a small oh, tears of his own pooling in his eyes.

You frowned. “Of course not. I’m never mad at you, you know that. I just… You’re my best friend, Jakey. It’s gonna be so lame around here without you.”

“It’ll be lame there without you, too.”

You attempted a smile. “Well, of course. But at least you’ll get to make new friends, see new places. You’ll be in a whole other country, I’m sure you’ll have fun there. I’m gonna be stuck in boring old Brisbane for the foreseeable future.”

“Do you know how offended our friends would be if they heard you speaking right now?” he asked, nudging your shoulder with his.

You sniffled and let out a chuckle. “They’re all great, but… I don’t like them nearly as much as I like you,” you said, staring down at your hands, hoping he wouldn’t realise exactly what you meant by that statement.

A weight was lifted off of your shoulders when Jake answered. “I like you the most too, Y/N.” You tried not to think too much about whether he’d meant it platonically or romantically - none of that mattered anymore. All that mattered was the feeling of his arms around you, his warmth enveloping your whole body, his familiar scent that you already missed.

You felt him take a deep breath against you before he pulled away. He sniffled and did his best to put on a smile. “Right, enough of that. I’m not leaving until next month, so don’t think you’re rid of me just yet,” he joked, and it helped alleviate the weight on your heart, even if just a little. “You said you had something to tell me? Good news after bad news, and all that.”

“Oh. Right. I forgot about that.”

You thought for a second. Today was the day you had planned to confess your feelings to Jake - you’d only told him you had good news to share. But what was the point now that he was leaving? If he felt the same way, it would only make his departure that much harder, and if he didn’t, it would ruin your last moments together. It just wasn’t worth it.

Jake tilted his head, waiting for you to speak. In a split second, you made yourself forget your disappointment over having built the courage to tell him how you felt only for it all to fall through, and resolved to make the most of Jake’s last month here. You wiped your tears and mirrored his small smile as best you could. “Um, it wasn’t anything much. My mum made those cowboy cookies you like.”

Jake’s head fell back as he groaned in anticipation. “If she wasn’t happily married with three kids, I’d marry your mum. Let’s go right now.”

You laughed. “There’d be a bit of an age gap there.”

“We’d make it work,” Jake joked, throwing his arm around your shoulders as you walked towards your house. He beamed down at you, his bright, boyish smile that you loved to bits, and you beamed up at him as you grabbed the hand that hung off your shoulder in your own.

You walked as happily as you could. “Do you even speak Korean?” you suddenly asked.

Jake halted abruptly in his steps, a gravely offended look on his face. When you looked back at him in confusion, he rolled his eyes and started walking again, pulling you with him. “It’s literally my mother tongue, Y/N. I speak it every day at home.”

“Oh, right.”

At the time, you thought nothing could come between you and Jake. Not anyone, not anything, neither distance nor time. But they did. A week after he’d left, a boy from your class you’d talked to maybe once or twice asked you out on a date. You weren’t sure why, but you said yes. Then you said yes to being his girlfriend, even though you didn’t like him all that much, and you even said yes to reducing your texting with Jake because it made him jealous. When you’d broken up with him and wanted to catch up with Jake and apologise for your absence, you’d found that his new school in Seoul was a lot more demanding than yours in Brisbane, and he had to spend most of his evenings in academies if he wanted to get into a nice university. It’s when you learned that he’d be staying in South Korea for college that you decided to leave Australia too. Brisbane was a lot less fun without him there - why bother staying? You couldn’t go to him because of the language barrier and the cost of university there. If you were to essentially uproot your life, might as well go somewhere you could get a scholarship and understand the people around you.

It seemed insane that someone you had thought would be by your side for the rest of your life, someone that was part of your most cherished memories, had been reduced to someone you casually texted once in a while. It seems even more insane that now that you’re finally done essentially grieving your friendship with Jake, he stands in front of you again, six inches taller but still donning those puppy-like eyes and smile of his.

For your sake, you just hoped you wouldn’t be as in love with him at twenty as you were at fourteen.

The next day, you show Jake around campus, which wouldn’t normally take more than ten minutes, but takes double that time because of the sheer amount of people there. Between the Societies Fair taking up most of the square, the tour guides leading freshers, walking slowly and taking in their new campus, and the pizza and drinks stands, freshers’ week always turns campus into what feels like the busiest place on Earth. You try not to let it hit a nerve for Jake’s sake, who’s clearly ecstatic at all the activity, but you like this place a lot more when it’s quieter. You walk through the Fair, laughing as Jake marvels at all the different clubs and societies at the Uni.

“Gardening Society? Dungeons & Dragons Society? Wine society?” he exclaims, astonishment growing with every passing stand.

“And this is only the first day. They also have a Taylor Swift Society.” He grabs a flyer from about every society, even though you know he’ll join between two to zero of them.

When you walk out, there’s a girl handing out samples of shampoo and conditioner, and you let her give you one, more out of politeness than anything.

“These are so useless,” you start, and Jake chuckles, unaware of the incoming rant. “I had that job of distributing them last year, and we would get a tip if we gave them all out. So naturally I put a bunch in my bag, but then I had to use them for like two weeks.” You sigh. “First of all, my hair did not like it. And second, the ratio is so off. There’s way more conditioner than shampoo when it should be the other way around, so you have to condition your hair even though it’s not properly clean. So stupid.”

“Sounds terrible,” Jake says, laughing. “Is that why you’re not doing it this year?”

“Oh… Not really. I dated the guy that takes care of this promo stuff, so it would’ve been kinda awkward…” you trail, immediately wishing you could backtrack on conversation. Talking about your ex with Jake wasn’t on your to-do list for today. Or ever.

“You dated your boss?”

“The manager, yeah, I guess. He was only 24, though, don’t worry.”

“I’m more worried about the power imbalance than the age gap there.”

You shrug, looking down at your shoes. “It’s not like he was that high up.”

“So, what happened? Why did you break up?”

“Well, he acted like our four-year age difference meant he could treat me like a little kid. It was nice being taken care of at first but then I realised how condescending he was and dumped him.”

“How long were you together?”

You pause. “Two weeks,” you admit abashedly, making Jake chuckle. “At least he didn’t waste my time and showed his red flags early on.”

“Any boyfriends since?” he asks, and you wonder whether you’re making up the unsure tone of his voice. As if he’s curious, but doesn’t want to show it too much. You hope you’re not making it up.

“A few, but they never last very long with me,” you say, a meek smile on your lips. “Furthest I got was three months.”

“And why didn’t it work out with three-months-guy?”

“He started comparing me to his mum a bit too often.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, I ran out of there without looking back.”

“Well, it’s nice to see you’ve got high standards. I would hate to see you date just any loser.”

You want to say, High standards or issues?, but you don’t want to make it weird, so you play it cool instead. “I would never. I have a mental checklist with everything a guy needs to have for me to date him.”

“A checklist? I have to hear about this.”

You sigh, debating whether you should tell him about it. Would he notice it’s based on him? Would he notice the only person that could tick practically every box was none other than him? Jake gently elbows your side, goading you on. When you look at him, he’s got a shit-eating grin playing on his lips, and you give in. You look off into the distance as you start listing your requirements. “Well, there’s all your basics like funny, taller than me but not too much, ‘cause I don’t want neck cramps, smart, takes uni seriously, has plans for his future, easy to talk to, not emotionally stunted and can actually have a vulnerable conversation. It’s also a bonus if he has a nice face.”

“How much of a bonus?”

You think for a second. “It’s more a dealbreaker than a bonus, actually. Nice smile is a must, definitely.”

“Okay. Got any more specifics?”

“I do have some particular ones. It’s nice if he’s a reader, but it’s terrible if it makes him think he’s better than everyone or if he tries to sound smarter than me. I like it if he has experience, I don’t want to have to teach him everything. But obviously I don’t want him to still be in love with his ex. Guys and their first loves, I swear… I also don’t really like picky eaters.” You look over at Jake and take a double-take. He’s typing away on his phone, but because of his privacy screen protector, you can’t see anything. You huff. “I also don’t like it if he has those protective screens on his phone. What’s on there that’s so important that I can’t take a peek? What are you even doing?”

The sweet sound of Jake’s giggles erases any trace of annoyance that you felt seconds ago. He turns his screen towards you, showing the list of mostly ticked boxes that he’s written up. “See? I check most of these,” he says with a proud smile. “Guess your standards aren’t that high.” You don’t tell him that your standards are high, he’s just that amazing.

You do your best to look only amused at this even though inside, you’re all but freaking out. “Which are you missing?”

“Well, I clearly own a privacy screen. And I don’t have much experience. Not nearly as much as you, by the sounds of it,” he admits, somewhat sheepish. “But other than that, I’m practically the perfect man for you.” He looks down at you with a smile so bright, it makes you wish you had brought sunglasses. It takes everything in you not to scream right then and there. Yes, Jake, you are the perfect man for me, but I wish you wouldn’t say it like it was a joke.

You let out a stiff chuckle, and, rather than saying something stupid and possibly damaging, shift the conversation to him. “What do you mean by not much experience? Have you not dated anyone?”

Jake sighs. “Nope, not anyone. I went on a few dates, you know, went through a few talking stages and all that, but it never went much further. There was always something…” He glances at you then. “Missing.”

“I know that feeling,” you say with a chuckle, and he laughs too, a breathy sound.

“I don’t have a checklist to pinpoint what it is, though.”

You smile. “You should try, it might help.”

“I just… I guess I’m like you in that I also have high standards. But it made me not even want to give anyone a chance, especially since I knew it wouldn’t end up anywhere.”

“Don’t tell me no one has ever managed to reach the great Jake Sim’s standards?” you ask, trying to keep your tone light.

Jake smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Of course someone has. She’s the whole reason I have standards in the first place. It’s not my standards I compare people to, it’s her.”

Jealousy has never made you feel as sad as it is right now. “And… it didn’t work out between you?”

Jake looks at you, eyes searching for something in yours but seemingly not finding it, and so he turns his gaze away. You don’t know why you feel so disappointed. “Nope,” he says, popping the ‘p’. “She didn’t feel the same way.”

Whoever this girl is, you can’t believe how stupid she is for passing up the opportunity to have Jake Sim. “That’s… It sucks, I’m sorry,” you say. You don’t think spitting on this girl would make him feel any better, so you keep those thoughts to yourself.

“It’s okay,” he says with a small smile. “It was a while ago already.”

“Doesn’t sound like you’re quite over it, though,” you say, and you’re surprised but glad to see his smile widen.

“That’s true.” His eyes meet yours again. “I don’t think I’ll be over her anytime soon, either.” You have to look away to shield the pain that flashes through your eyes from him.

Pretending you don’t have feelings for your best friend and that you’re okay with him being in love with someone else is like riding a bike: even after years of not doing it, it only takes a few minutes for you to be able to do it perfectly again. Muscle memory, if you will. So you sigh dramatically and throw your arm around Jake’s shoulder, slightly pulling him down to your level. “Don’t worry. We’re going to have so much fun this year, you’ll completely forget about her. Promise. She doesn’t know what she’s missing. Yeah?”

He smiles down at you. You want nothing more but that glint of melancholy in his eyes to be gone. “Yeah.”

Jake is only half-glad to see you haven’t changed much from your childhood and early teenage years. You’re still just as pretty, just as warm; it’s still as comfortable to be around you. You’re also still as dense.

Then and now, he did everything he could to make his feelings for you very, very obvious. Either you’re completely oblivious, or the idea of dating him is so horrifying to you, you understand but pretend you don’t. He really hopes it’s the former.

He arrived in Edinburgh just a bit over a week ago, and you’ve seen each other almost every day. Out of those times, there isn’t a single one where he hasn’t tried to send something your way - something that says, hey, what if we stopped being friends and dated instead? Wouldn’t that be cool? Can’t you see how desperately I love you?, but you never latch on. The ball’s in your court, and he wants you to throw it back, but it’s been feeling more like a boomerang that always hits him right in the face when it circles back than a game of catch.

But he’s reminding himself not to be too greedy. Even if it’s just as friends, at least he has you back, so he’s satisfied with that. For now.

His first class of the year is on the following Tuesday morning, a ninety-minute seminar specifically made for exchange students called Discover Scotland. (He has Mondays free, resulting in a three-day weekend, which you and your 9am Monday tutorial are very envious of.) As interesting as the English Lit courses he’s taking seem, it’s this one he’s most looking forward to - except for the one class he shares with you, of course. Not even because of the seminars themselves, which will be about all sorts of topics on Scottish culture and history, but because of the coursework, as crazy as that sounds. It consists of a singular project, not due until the very last day of the semester, in which he has to travel to at least three different places in the country, research its background and provide a detailed account of his experience there. It can take any form: a written report, an in-class presentation, a podcast, anything. He could even film a TikTok if he wanted. Jake knew that being part of the Arts & Crafts club for two years in a row back in Seoul wasn’t for nothing - his scrapbooking skills would finally have their time to shine.

That afternoon, he practically snatches you as you come out of your lecture, giving you little time to say bye to your friends, and makes you take him to the biggest stationary store you know in the city. If he wants to ace this project, he will need supplies. Many, many supplies. And it’s more fun shopping if you’re with him. You seem happy following him around the store, and when he asks you if you want to come on his trips with him, he can pretend it’s because you seem so excited about his project and not because he had thought of you accompanying him as soon as he heard about it.

As you stand in line at the till, you tell him that if he wants to start his project now, you could go to the beach together. You raise your eyebrows at him when he snaps your head towards you. “There’s a beach here?!”

“Did you not look at a map before coming here?” you ask, amused.

“I guess I didn’t…” he says, distraught at the new information. It only lasts a second, though. “Okay, let’s go now.”

“Now?” you echo, and he nods. “But-” you start, but are interrupted by your thoughts. “I guess there’s no reason not to. The weather’s nice and it’s not like I have any uni work yet. Let’s go,” you agree, looking up at him with a smile. You’re so pretty he almost forgets to look away, until the employee calls Next in a bored drawl.

An hour later, you’re at the beach, barefoot on the sand and ice cream in hand. Strawberry for you and vanilla for him, he notes with a smile. Really not much has changed, he thinks. From the sand, to the water, to the promenade along the beach, Portobello is worlds away from the beaches back home in Australia, or those of Jeju Island. But it’s still nice, and because you’re with him, it’s even better. You’ve been walking around for an hour, splashing each other with water and mercilessly ruining sandcastles left behind before he realises you technically came here for his project. He writes down things he doesn’t want to forget on his phone and snaps a few pictures, sneaking a few of you when you’re not looking. He wants to tell you how beautiful you are with your hair blowing in the wind and the way the chill bites at your cheeks, but he keeps it a secret between him and his Notes app.

Even though he lives two stops further down, he gets off from the bus with you, containing his excitement as best he can when you invite him up for a cup of tea. “Depends. What tea do you have?” he asks, trying and failing to play it cool. He’s just grateful he doesn’t have to come up with an excuse to spend more time with you.

You roll your eyes playfully as you unlock the front door to your building. “I can make you hot chocolate, Mister Tea-Is-For-Old-People.”

He chuckles. “Actually, I’ll have you know I started drinking tea at uni.” When you turn around to look at him, a surprised look on your face, he nods proudly. “Mh-hm. I got addicted to caffeine very quickly into first year so I started drinking black tea for the sake of my heart,” he explains.

“God,” you say breathily, sounding mildly horrified. “A caffeine addiction sounds intense.”

“It was, yeah,” he says, laughing as he follows you into your flat.

Yunjin and Chaewon are sitting at the living room table, watching an episode of what he thinks is Gossip Girl, and they greet him as normally as these two can, but he wonders what the knowing look they exchange is all about. He’d met them the previous weekend when you had all gone for drinks together, along with Jay, Yunjin’s boyfriend, and they had all but grilled him on his relationship with you. He hadn’t thought much of it, chalking it up to your friends feeling protective of you, and truthfully, he was just happy to get to talk about you. But now, he was wondering if you had told them anything about him that made them so curious about him. If you did, he hoped it was something positive.

He stands awkwardly in the kitchen, chatting with you as you boil the water and get cups out, but he can feel their gazes burning the back of his head. Clearly, whatever conversation he’s having with you, he’s also having it with them. “How do you take your tea?” you ask.

“Um, three sugars and lots of milk, please,” he says, smiling innocently when you slowly turn to look at him, a mix of disapproval, disgust, and offence on your face.

You sigh deeply. “I mean, I’ll do it, but I’m not sure that’s even tea anymore.”

“You’re one to talk, Miss Caramel Frappuccino,” he says, recycling your bad joke from earlier.

“At least I don’t claim to be drinking coffee when I order a frap,” you argue. “And this is how you battled your coffee addiction? You’ll be getting another kind of heart problem, Jakey.” He doesn’t know if you even notice your use of his old nickname - the first time you’ve used it since he’s been here - but you don’t make a big deal of it, so he doesn’t either. Not outwardly, at least. Mentally, he’s running laps around your small kitchen.

Jake laughs it off. “I thought I came here for tea, not a health check-up,” he says, smile growing wider at the sight of yours.

“Right, sorry,” you say, giggling. “I’ll make your tea just how you like it,” you add in a sweet voice. Jake knows you’re just doing it as a joke, but it still manages to make butterflies erupt in his stomach.

His tea tastes even sweeter that day.

A few days after your impromptu trip to the beach, you’re waiting for Jake outside of his class. He heard of this donut shop he “absolutely needs to visit” and is dragging you along with him - well, “dragging” is a big word considering you’d follow him anywhere. You got here a few minutes early, not needing much of a reason to leave the library, so you scroll through your feed until Jake calls out your name. You’re only mildly surprised to see Jay leaving the classroom behind him.

“Y/N! Can you believe that Jay and I are in the same class?” he says excitedly as the two boys walk toward you. You feel like a dog owner being greeted by their over-enthusiastic dog after a long day (about three hours) of being apart.

“I can believe it, actually. You two do the same degree.”

You exchange quick greetings with Jay before the three of you start heading out. As you walk, Jake throws his arm around your shoulders so casually, it almost throws you off balance. Physical contact always came easy to him, but there’s something about him doing it next to someone else that catches you off guard. It reminds you of walking somewhere with Jay and Yunjin as they discretely held hands. It makes you feel like it’s not the three of you, but Jay with the two of you. Like you and Jake come as a pair rather than as two individuals.

All of that from a simple arm around your shoulders.

Jake asking you in a very unsubtle whisper whether Jay can come with brings you out of your head and back into the conversation. “Yeah, of course,” you say, smiling. It’s not a bad idea to have Jay along: hanging out with someone else might snap you out of your delusion.

Most of the walk to the shop is done in laughter as Jake and Jay realise how much random stuff they have in common, from their peanut allergies to the embarrassing Harry Potter phase they had as fifteen-year-olds. Grassmarket is really busy on Friday afternoons, and there’s a bit of a queue of other donut-enjoyers in front of the boutique, but you don’t mind. The sun is shining down gently on the square and it gives you time to choose your donut out of the ten or so flavours available. In the end, you go for white chocolate and raspberry, while Jake chooses Biscoff and Jay, tiramisu.

“My friend Sunghoon would love this,” he says after taking a hearty bite. “He goes crazy over tiramisu. Like a cat with catnip.”

Jake chuckles, mouth full of Biscoff. “That’s funny, I also have a friend named Sunghoon who loves tiramisu back in Seoul.”

Jay punches Jake’s shoulder, eyes wide in amusement and shock. “Bro, that’s crazy. You have to be lying at this point,” he says, but Jake shakes his head fervently.

“I promise I’m not. I’ve even saved his number with the tiramisu emoji.”

“There’s a tiramisu emoji?” Jay asks, already over questioning the existence of Jake’s Sunghoon.

The conversation circles back to the courses you’re all taking this semester, and Jake tells Jay about Discover Scotland and the trips he’s planned so far. “Well, if you really want to discover Scotland as a student, you need to go on a night out in Glasgow,” Jay says. Going by the look on Jake’s face, Jay’s idea seems to have struck a chord in him.

“Y/N?”

You nod, finishing your mouthful of donut before speaking. “Yeah, Glasgow’s really fun. We should go,” you say, laughing when the two boys high-five in victory. Between the train, the drinks and the club entry, going out isn’t a cheap ordeal, and getting to and fro also takes a while - even so, the smile on Jake’s face makes it worth it.

He wipes some raspberry jam from the corner of your mouth, shooting you a wink, and you want to disintegrate right then and there, become one with the bench you’re sitting on and never have to face him again. The conversation resumes as Jay tells Jake about all the best places to go out in Glasgow, but you don’t hear a word - the feeling of Jake’s thumb so close to your lips takes away your ability for coherent thought.

“It’s decided, then. We’re going out tomorrow night,” Jay loudly announces. “Let me gather the troops.”

That’s how you find yourself in line for the club the next day, already tipsy from pre-drinking on the train and at the pub. It’s still warm enough for you and the girls to wear as little clothing as you want, but Jake insisted on giving you his flannel jacket anyway. If not for the warmth it brings, you’re glad to have his scent enveloping you.

The five of you work exceptionally well together. You, Chaewon and Yunjin have been a given since you met in first year, and Jay and Yunjin went so well together that he was but a natural addition to your little group. Jake’s only been here for over a week, but it’s like he’s always been around, and you couldn’t be happier about it. Him and Jay hit it off immediately, and although the girls needed some time to warm up to him (it’s not everyday that you meet your friend’s ex-best-friend she’s practically always been in love with; you understand why they might’ve been wary at first), they now tease him just as relentlessly as they do Jay. He takes it like a champ.

For a little while, you watch your friends speaking over each other, bickering over nothing, a smile on your face. Two pints of cider and some of Jay’s fancy vodka have made you more grateful than ever for them - if you drink too much in the club, you’ll be hugging them and crying about how much you love them. You’re not sure what that might look like around Jake, so you decide to keep yourself in check for the night.

It takes about thirty minutes before you manage to get into the club. It’s not coat check season yet, so you head straight to the bar. “Sunghoon said he’d meet us here,” Jay says, lifting his head to spot his friend in the sea of drunk students. “Oh yeah, there he is! Hoon, hey!”

You hear a loud “Jongseong!” being shouted from somewhere in the crowd, but you’re not sure who Jay is waving at until a boy whose face is mostly eyebrows is standing - well, standing as best as he can, with the copious amount of alcohol he’s obviously already consumed - in front of you. He gives Jay a hug and the three of you a nod of his head, a lopsided smile on his face. When he turns to Jake, his eyebrows lift first, then his face breaks into a wide grin.

“Jake, my man!” he shouts, taking a stunned Jake’s hand and bringing him into a hug.

“Sunghoon? What the hell are you doing here?” he asks, chuckling and frowning in confusion.

“I’m just partying, man! Same as you!”

“No, I mean here in Scotland, you dumbass!”

“You two know each other?” Jay asks, looking back and forth between his two friends.

“Jake’s my man!” Sunghoon exclaims, unhelpful and stumbling as he throws an arm around his man’s shoulders. Jake shoots you a distressed look but you just laugh at him.

“This is Tiramisu Sunghoon I told you about,” Jake says, helping Sunghoon stand up straight.

“God, what I would do for a tiramisu right now,” Sunghoon says, looking at Yunjin like she might relate. She chuckles awkwardly.

“I have no idea what he’s doing in Scotland, though. Hoon, I thought you were going to NYU for your exchange?”

Sunghoon pauses to think for a second, looking like he’s never heard of NYU in his life. “Oh, that! Yeah, I did an online orientation thing and… it did not go well. Let’s just say there’s someone in New York City who wants me dead,” he says conspiratorially. You all stare at him but he gives no further explanation. On your right, you hear Yunjin whisper what the fuck under her breath. “So I transferred here instead!”

“I didn’t know you were an exchange student,” Jay says, still looking just as confused.

“Yeah, man! But anyways, let’s not talk about uni right now. I’m on a bender, day three, baby! Do not talk to me tomorrow,” he says, chuckling until the smile suddenly drops from his face. “I mean that.” You look around yourself, glad to find everyone is just as baffled as you. “Let’s party!” Sunghoon cheers, intoxicated grin back on his lips. Jake and Jay follow, but you and the girls stay back for a second, taking in everything that has just happened.

“That. Is the most beautiful man I have ever seen,” Chaewon blurts, staring blankly at the spot Sunghoon stood in a second ago.

“Yeah, he also seems to be a raging alcoholic. And he’s what, twenty-one?” Yunjin says, a scowl on her face.

“I could fix him.”

“Okay, let’s go,” you say, grabbing your friends by their wrists before either of them can say something worse.

Feeling generous, Sunghoon buys shots for all six of you, and you quickly down them before heading to the dancefloor. On your way there, a group of sober-looking girls hand Chaewon a giant, still almost full jug of red liquid, something that costs at least twelve pounds here. They say they’re leaving and don’t need it anymore, smiling as you profusely and astonishedly thank them. You look at your friends, mentally weighing the risk and drugging possibility this might present, but shrug and pass the jug around after taking hearty sips anyway. It tastes so much like fizzy cherries that you wonder if it even contains any alcohol, but sure enough, twenty minutes later, the three of you are spinning around on the dancefloor, screaming the lyrics to your favourite pop songs at the top of your lungs. Jake at a club is a completely foreign sight to you, and you can’t stop laughing at all the silly moves he pulls.

You’re shaking your whole body to a Nicki song from the early 2010s when you suddenly feel a hand on your hip. Before you can turn around and slap whoever this random man is that thinks he can touch you, a familiar voice whispers it’s just me in your ear, and you simultaneously relax and tense up knowing that Jake is standing right behind you. “There’s a creep staring at you,” he explains, lips and breath gently tickling your ear as he speaks. You look around the room and quickly notice a man standing in a corner, drink in one hand and the other in his pocket, unmoving as he eyes you with a smirk so slimy it makes your stomach turn. To avoid his gaze, you turn around, but you’re not sure the sight you’re met with is much better for you.

Jake peers down at you, eyes slightly glossed over and cheeks flushed from the alcohol, jaw locked in annoyance. He glances at the guy in the corner, who you assume is still staring when you feel Jake’s hands brush along your sides until they reach your waist. His gaze returns to your face as he brings you a step closer to him. Reflexively, you wrap your arms around his neck.

“Is this okay?” he mouths. All you can do is meekly nod. You watch as his eyes deliberately scan your face, going down and down. Time stills when they reach your lips and stay there. It’s like someone has put the booming music of the club on mute, and the only thing you can hear is your heart loudly beating in your ears. You suddenly feel very sober.

You swear Jake’s face is slowly inching its way towards yours when you’re abruptly taken away. Yunjin has grabbed you by the forearm, leading you and Chaewon to the bathroom as she chants “Bathroom break! Bathroom break!”, clearly unaware of the moment she’s just interrupted.

Because of the queue for the girls’ bathroom and Chaewon’s decision to console this random girl who was in the middle of a breakdown, it’s not until half-an-hour later that you emerge back into the crowd. You spot the boys at a table, two empty shots each in front of them and all three with a beer in hand. They will not be happy checking their bank accounts tomorrow morning.

“Y/N! You’re back!” Jake calls out happily when he spots you, and you can tell right away that he’s much drunker than when you left him. His whole face is flush, his eyes don’t open quite all the way, and a lopsided smile won’t leave his lips - even like this, he’s so pretty that you want to grab his hand and take him somewhere it’s just the two of you.

Chaewon gets drinks for the three of you and then you’re dancing again. It’s already one am at this point, and the remaining two hours until the club closes, fueled with alcohol and good music, go by in a flash. Before you know it, the DJ is playing All of Me by John Legend and the lights have been turned on, clear signs that you’re overstaying your welcome. The few people that have made it to closing time stumble out of the club and into the street, heading for either the nearest subway stop or the next party of the night. Since there are no trains at this time, your group walks to the close-by bus station, listening to Jake and Sunghoon grumble about how the clubs in Seoul don’t close until at least five or six and how trains run all night there.

The bus is already at the station when you get there, and the driver doesn’t seem too pleased about having six mildly drunk kids get on his bus, but he’s probably used to questionable people taking public transport at this time of the day anyway. Physically, Sunghoon is sitting across from you, but mentally, he’s off somewhere far, far from this bus. With his head against the window and mouth wide open, saliva pooling at the corner of his lips, he looks like he’s any second away from obnoxiously snoring. Jay and Yunjin are sitting somewhere you can’t see them, probably eating each other’s faces; she once told you they had their “most mind-blowing sex” when both a little drunk, and much to your dismay, you haven’t been able to get that piece of information out of your head since. Chaewon is on the phone to her long-distance bestie Sakura, for whom it’s a nice eleven in the morning right now.

This means that you and Jake are left alone, both of you still tipsy and not tired enough to fall asleep. You drop your head on Jake’s shoulder, and not only does he let you, he also takes your hand in his, interlacing your fingers and placing them atop his thigh. Clumsily, because he now has to use his left hand, Jake slips his phone out of his back pocket and shows you the photos he took all evening. As the night progresses, they get blurrier and blurrier, so much so that towards the end, you can’t tell what he was even trying to capture, and you laugh at how inappropriate some of these would be to submit in a university project.

When he softly says your name, you don’t raise your head, simply humming to let him know you’re listening. You close your eyes, cherishing the way your name sounds on his lips. It’s his tone, tentative and vulnerable as he tells you there’s something he’s been wanting to ask you, that makes you look up at him. He, however, won’t meet your eyes, and settles his gaze on the window, even though it’s so dark outside you can’t make out a thing.

“How come you never replied to my letter? I know it’s been ages, but… I still find myself wondering about it.” The question is softly asked and you know he by no means wants to hurt you, but it still feels like a punch to the throat. You hadn’t remembered who it was that had sent the last letter, while he’d been wondering all these years why his words had been left unanswered.

He seems set on not looking at you, so you rest your head back on his shoulder. Your hand is still in his. “I’m not sure, Jakey. I’m sorry,” you say, aware it’s not a satisfying answer. You’ve thought about why you and Jake had stopped talking for hours on end; you’ve discussed it with your friends and your mum, looked at it from all sorts of angles, tried to come up with real reasons other than time pulling you apart. But now that Jake himself is asking you about it, the words don’t come easy. You’ve theorised that you were afraid putting effort into sustaining your friendship would only hurt you in the end, because it was just that - a friendship. You could fool yourself into thinking you were okay only being friends with him when he was with you, that putting your feelings aside was worth it since you could at least spend time with him. But now that he was away, you didn’t have that anymore - it just hurt. So what was the point? And how could you phrase all this without betraying your feelings for him?

“Our letters were so sparse anyway back then, even our texts and calls were getting less and less frequent… And whenever I had a new boyfriend, I’d get into the same argument about being too close to you over and over again, even though you were literally on another continent.”

“You know, I always felt sorry about that.”

“About what?”

“Those boyfriends of yours. I felt like you waited for me to leave before you started dating-”

“It wasn’t like that!” you exclaim, lifting your head again. Finally, he meets your eyes, gaze softening upon seeing your affronted expression. “It wasn’t like that,” you repeat, relaxing your tone. “If anything, they were the ones that waited for you to be gone. I'm sorry I let their jealousy get to me.”

Jake smiles, the tenderness in his gaze making your whole body turn to jelly. He squeezes your hands. “It’s okay. I just… I felt like I was always in the way of your relationships, even after I left.”

“You don’t have to feel sorry about that. They should’ve had more trust in me.”

He pauses, gaze dropping down to your intertwined hands. “I would’ve been jealous.” When his eyes find yours again, there’s something in them that you quite can’t place. It creates a ball of nerves that pull at your stomach. “If I were dating you, and you had a guy friend you were as close with as we were back then, I’d be jealous. You know, I’d assume he had feelings for you. And that you might have feelings for him, too.”

Because I did, you think. I did, and I still do. You try to communicate that thought to Jake, but telepathy works especially bad when one has as much alcohol coursing through their veins as you do right now. So instead, you say the opposite of what you’re thinking, turning away from Jake to avoid his gaze. You watch the dribble of saliva trickle from Sunghoon’s lips. “That’s not a great view of male-female friendship.”

Jake’s retort comes immediately. “But we were different, right?”

His words echo through your head until they make even less sense than they did initially. Different from what? From who? You’re not sure - but you like the idea of you and Jake being different, special. You especially like the idea of Jake thinking so. So you look at him and smile. “Right.”

Slowly, his grin fades and turns into a worried expression. “Y/N?”

“Mm?”

“We’re still different now, aren’t we?”

You want to wrap him in your arms so tightly neither of you can breathe. You settle for running a hand through his hair and pinching his cheek. “Course we are.” Your whole being relaxes when his face breaks into a smile again.

The next morning, you wake up to Yunjin plopping down on your bed unceremoniously, shaking you awake, and asking you if you want anything from Snax Café. On one hand, you’re grateful that she thought of you and that in thirty minutes’ time, you’ll have the greasiest sausage wrap and hash browns known to man in your hand; on the other, you’d like to think that she knows you well enough to know to order your regular from there without asking. But that’s probably the hangover talking.

You stumble out of bed, thanking last night’s you for having remembered to take headache medicine before crashing. Even if your stomach is very upset with the copious amount of alcohol it needs to rid your body of, and your throat is begging for water, at least your head doesn’t feel like it’s been split into two. As Yunjin barges into Chaewon’s room just as she had done yours, you head for the kitchen to get yourself a tall glass of revitalising tap water. You’re only mildly surprised to find Sunghoon passed out on your living room couch - it takes you a few seconds to remember that the three of you took pity on him when you learned he lived over an hour’s walk from the station, so you let him spend the night on your uncomfortable, cold leather sofa. While you down your glass in three gulps, you hear Yunjin shaking Sunghoon awake and asking him loudly if he wanted something from Snax.

“Fuck, I’d kill for a Snax right now,” he groggily says before he’s even opened his eyes. When he does, they dart around the room until they land on Yunjin, who's crouching in front of him. He looks like he thought her question was asked in a dream and not in real life. He also looks like he's not quite sure where he is, or who Yunjin is. It isn’t until Jay comes wobbling out of Yunjin’s bed to the couch opposite Sunghoon that the memories seem to piece back together in his head. The three of you watch him like he’s an unstable mental patient and you’re his doctors.

“No need for that, I’m ordering it on Deliveroo.” He nods his head and goes back to sleep for the time being.

Just as you’re about to text Jake, your phone rings with a call from him. His raspy morning voice as he asks you whether you slept well makes you want to put your head in an oven heated at 200 degrees Celsius. However, you resist the urge, and answer him with a smile, then ask him the same question.

“I slept pretty well too. I’d have slept in longer but one of my flatmates decided to have a Sunday fucking brunch and his friends are so loud. Can I come over?”

You’re very aware of the other people in the room, especially of Chaewon who has just walked in and is eyeing you suspiciously as if to say, Why are you smiling so hard at ten in the morning? You know the girls would jump at any opportunity to tease you about Jake, and with the added presence of Sunghoon in the room, you can’t have that. So you stifle the giggles bubbling in your throat and answer as nonchalantly as you can. It also gives you the chance to reflect on why Jake Sim asking you whether he can come over makes you want to giggle like a giddy schoolgirl so much.

(Maybe it’s because when it comes to him, you’re still the giddy schoolgirl you used to be.)

“Yeah, of course. I was going to ask you if you wanted anything from Snax, actually.”

“Snax? What’s that?”

“Oh my God, Jake, am I about to introduce you to Snax right now?”

Twenty minutes later, the six of you are sitting around your small living room table, all varying amounts of tired, dehydrated and famished as you dig into your breakfast. Given your current levels of energy, it’s fairly quiet; plus, the food hits such a spot that it’s hard to talk and eat at the same time. Jake eats like he’s never had a breakfast wrap and hash brown in his life. It’s an endearing sight if you’ve ever seen one.

You spend the afternoon together, watching movies curled up in your bed, and you try desperately not to think about the implications of that - except that’s hard to do when Jake is right next to you, legs and arms ever-so-slightly brushing against yours, his warmth so close yet so out of reach. You purposefully let him pick movies you’ve already seen so that you don’t have to focus on anything but your own thoughts and the faint but dizzying scent of his body wash. The both of you had an innumerable amount of sleepovers as kids, so this shouldn’t feel weird, but it decidedly does, probably because you’re much more aware of him now in a way you weren’t before.

As hard as you try to figure out what exactly he meant by “different,” you draw a blank. The only way you’ll understand is if you ask him, and you’re far too scared to do that. You don’t want to seem so hung upon a singular word he used when he was tipsy. It might be slightly dramatic, but you felt like some sort of balance had been restored since Jake was back in your life - the problem was it made you scared to do anything that might threaten this newfound equilibrium. It at least seems like different means a good thing to him, and that’s enough for you.

You look over to him when the second movie comes to an end. He’s sleeping peacefully, lashes caressing the skin under his eyes and cheeks looking rounder than usual. It’d be so easy to reach a finger out and trace the line descending from the top of his forehead to his chin, gliding along the bump of his nose and feeling the plumpness of his rosy lips, but you settle for drawing that line with your eyes instead.

You don’t think you’ll be able to fall asleep with him next to you and your heart beating so loudly in your ears, but you find yourself waking up a few hours later, the sun already starting to set. Jake is already awake, scrolling on his phone, one arm casually behind his head as if being in your bed is as comfortable to him as being in his own. When he sees you’ve woken up, his honey-coated smile washes warmly over you, and he makes a joke about how he keeps on falling asleep when he’s with you. “I feel that at ease, I guess,” he says, and you hope you’re not making up the small blush that spreads over his cheeks.

Semesters are always a short and intense affair, but this one passes by even quicker with Jake by your side. Before you know it, it’s midterms already, and you and Jake have travelled enough for him to complete his project and make another one just for the hell of it. He had scoured the internet for the cheapest train tickets and most noteworthy sites, planning trips that lasted anywhere between three hours and a day for the two of you. All you needed to do was follow and trust him, which was the easiest thing anyone could’ve asked of you.

You’ve gone back to Glasgow, during the day, this time, as well as St. Andrews and Aberdeen. You’ve practically visited every loch and castle in a one-hour train ride radius of Edinburgh, and Jake has more lined up for the second part of the semester. He’s even said that your trips should continue being a thing next term, and you couldn’t have agreed faster. With every new destination, every train ride spent looking out a window or laughing about everything and anything, any odd Scottish food you try for the first time, you somehow fall for him a bit deeper. You didn’t know your love for him could bloom any more than it already had - but Jake is the gift that keeps on giving, and, unwillingly or not, he always finds new ways to make your heart speed that much faster.

Attentionate, affectionate, sweet Jake who always makes sure you’re comfortable wherever you go, always gives you his jacket or tucks your hair behind your ear to prevent it from falling in your face. Who, as time passed, grew more touchy, would hold your hand, ruffle your hair, pinch your cheek, which was simultaneously devastating and elating. Who, you could tell, started to linger more, both in his touch and in his gaze. Questions of does he love me back or am I seeing what I want to see? nearly drove you mad.

“I feel like at this point the only way she’ll understand that I like her is if I kill myself and write in my suicide note that it’s her fault for not loving me back.”

Jake has been pacing back and forth in Jay’s living room for approximately twenty minutes, with no end in sight. At least he’ll have gotten most of his ten thousand steps of the day in.

Jay sighs heavily. “Okay, I really don’t think you need to go that far.”

“Sounds romantic to me,” Sunghoon says, mouth full of salted caramel popcorn.

“I hope you never get a girlfriend,” Jay retorts, looking at his deranged friend with a scowl. He turns back to his (slightly more) normal friend and gives him a sympathetic smile.

“I mean, I told her we were different. Different. That we weren’t like regular friends. I tell her she’s pretty every chance I get. I give her my jacket all the time, even though this country is fucking cold. I’ve even given her a t-shirt of mine, sprayed with my perfume and everything. And don’t get me wrong, I do it ‘cause I love doing that for her-”

“Simp,” Sunghoon snickers.

“But what the hell else can I do? Like, she has to be ignoring it on purpose at this point.”

“You could always, you know… tell her?”

Jake scoffs, fixing his friend with a derisive look. “Wow. What a great idea, Jay, I never thought of that one before!”

A popcorn lands right on Jay’s cheek. “You’re so clueless, man,” Sunghoon says, a shit-eating smirk on his lips. As if he knows any better.

Jay looks back-and-forth between his friends, an expression on his face like he’s been disparaged. “Sorry, I didn’t know being straightforward and honest was such a bad thing. It would just make things a lot clearer for the both of you.”

“But… I’m scared,” Jake says.

“Man up!” Sunghoon suddenly yells, punching the sofa next to him, making his friends jump. “How can she ever figure it out if you don’t tell her?”

“You were on my side just a second ago, man, what are you doing?” Jake asks, confusion written all over his face. Sunghoon’s eyes dart back and forth between the two boys, retreating into silence as he stuffs his mouth with another handful of popcorn.

“Just ignore him,” Jay says. “But for once, he did say something that makes a modicum of sense. You think you’re being really obvious, but you might not actually be. Which could be a good sign, you know. I heard girls were super aware of a guy liking them if they weren’t into him, but being totally oblivious if they did like him.”

“Where did you hear that?” Jake asks, an eyebrow raised in suspicion.

“...Instagram Reels,” Jay reluctantly admits, frowning at Sunghoon who bursts into laughter.

Jake holds the bridge of his nose between two fingers like his head aches. “You’re both so useless, I’m never coming to you with my problems ever again.”

“I’ll pretend I’m not offended by that.”

“I’d rather you didn’t, anyway,” Sunghoon says. He’s smiling but Jake genuinely can’t tell if he’s joking or not.

“But seriously, if you think you’ve done everything, then just do one last thing that’s so obvious she can’t misinterpret it,” Jay says.

“Like what?”

“Like kissing her, or some-”

“Kissing her?!” Jake echoes.

“That’s wild, man,” Sunghoon uselessly butts in.

“It’s just an example, calm yourselves,” Jay says. “Or, again, just straight up tell her how you feel. It’s what I did with Yunjin, and it worked.”

“You and Yunjin are dating?” Sunghoon asks, bewildered.

Jay shakes his head at him. “Where the hell have you been, bro? We were literally cuddling on the couch the other day.”

“I just thought you were really good friends, or something.”

Jake groans, holding his head in his hands. Sunghoon was of no help whatsoever, and Jay was so on point that it annoyed him. Confessing was the only solution - but Jake was so afraid of being rejected and losing your friendship that he had barely entertained the thought. But he had found the courage to do it once, and even though his planned confession had fallen through back then, he could get himself together and do it again.

It was the day he had told you he was moving to Korea, which he himself had learned that morning. Originally, he’d texted you because he had news to share - good news. Or at least, he hoped they were good. He hoped the soft, lingering looks you gave him weren’t a figment of his imagination but rather the confirmation he needed that you liked him back. He hoped that like him, you cared too much about your friendship to make the first move into something else; that by confessing first, you’d be relieved of that responsibility; that his wish to hold your hand and kiss your forehead wasn’t one-sided.

He decided not to prepare anything - just a couple sentences that he’d rehearsed over and over in his head. Declarations of love, bouquets of flowers, chocolate and couple keychains, all that could wait until after you’d said yes to being his girlfriend. He didn’t want to win you over just once, he wanted to show you every day how much he loved you. Fourteen-year-old Jake was absolutely head over heels for you; so imagine his disappointment when, as he was getting ready to meet with you, his parents called him downstairs, a tone to their voice Jake wasn’t familiar with, but that couldn’t mean anything good.

“Your dad’s job is sending us back to Seoul next month,” his mom announced, not beating around the bush. He felt everything quite literally crumbling down around him. His friends in Brisbane, his school, his hobbies, but above all, you. He’d lose it all. And what was the point now in telling you how he felt? If you felt the same way, it would only make his departure that much harder, and if you didn’t, it would ruin your last moments together. It just wasn’t worth it.

What he had planned to be good news turned into the most awful ones. The thought of it happening all over again makes twenty-year-old Jake shudder. But he wouldn’t let himself be trapped by time again - sure, in seven months, the academic year would be over, and he would go back to Korea. But that didn’t mean that those seven months should be spent in agony, or the following ones either, for that matter. You would make it work. What was long-distance to someone who loved someone else as much as Jake loved you?

But he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself. He has to start by really resolving to do this, and in the off-chance that it actually goes in his favour, he’d start worrying about long distance then.

First, he has a trip to plan.

You should’ve known that a trip to the Scottish Highlands in the middle of November was a risky choice in terms of weather. The day started off nicely enough - no sign of rain when you woke up or as you watched the sunrise through the train window. Clouds turned the sky a bright white at first, then increasingly greyer and greyer. You feel the first drops of rain after lunch as you walk around a small village. By four pm, it’s pitch black and storming like you’ve rarely seen before. You head into a pub to grab a drink as you wait for the rain to subside, but subside it does not. You end up ordering fish and chips, one each, although one serving is enough to feed three. Even after taking your time eating, the bad weather does not let up. The last train, which is meant to be at eight pm, has been cancelled. Luckily, there’s an inn right across the road from the pub; you have no choice but to spend the night.

The inn receptionist is sitting so low on her chair, you can barely see her over the desk until you’re standing right over it. Her face is hidden by a book and it’s only when you say hiya that she seems to realise you’re there. You had never heard of the book or of its author, but you recognized the cover design as that of those romance novels with repetitive plots and weirdly misogynistic love interests your mum and every other middle-aged woman was obsessed with.

Her smile widens as she looks between you and Jake. “Hi there. One room for the lovely couple?”

“Oh, we’re not-”

“Yes, please,” Jake interrupts, smiling down at her, then at you. “It’ll be cheaper if we share a room.”

“Our only room with two single beds is already taken, I’m afraid. One double bed okay for you two?”

You feel like you’re about to faint, so you’re glad Jake is there to answer. “Yeah, of course.” How the idea of sharing one bed with you is so okay to him, you’re not sure - granted, you’ve done it before, but this feels different. For all intents and purposes, this is a hotel room you’re staying in. And you’re staying in it with Jake.

You try to calm your breathing as the receptionist guides you to your room, chatting casually with Jake on the way there. As she unlocks the door for you, she informs you that check-out must be done before eleven in the morning tomorrow, then bids you good night and leaves you to it, still wearing that smile you swear has mischievousness to it. The door clicks shut behind you, and it’s just Jake and you again, together in this small room until tomorrow morning. Your chances of survival are very, very low.

Your room is a humble one, consisting of a desk, a cupboard, two armchairs, a small, separate bathroom and the infamous bed. Every surface seems to be covered with wood, from the ceiling, to the walls, to the old-fashioned furniture. Only the floor is a soft, beige carpet. Especially with the darkness outside, it makes for a gloomy room until you turn on the lamp by the entrance; it casts a warm, golden light in the room, one that would make you feel at ease if it wasn’t for Jake’s presence next to you. The implications of being essentially trapped in a barely-lit room with him are heavy on your mind, especially when he looks this gorgeous with his hair still damp from the rain and the soft lights playing on his face.

His voice brings you out of your thoughts. “Right. Do you, um, do you wanna shower first?” he asks, setting his bag on one of the armchairs.

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” There has never been such an awkward tension between the two of you, but you know you’re not doing anything to ease it. You hope a shower will help you get out of your head and make you relax.

You feel the tension leave your muscles under the hot water, but your stomach is still in knots. You’ve never been this nervous around Jake before; back when you were fourteen and again in these past few months, you’d gotten so used to dealing with your unspoken feelings for him that you could almost forget about them when you were with him. They’d come back to you when you were alone and dwelling on the moments you’d spent together, on his words and actions you desperately tried not to read too much into but always ended up doing anyway. But right now, they’ve floated to the surface, becoming as obvious to you as a stain on your skin you can’t rub away. You’re scared Jake will notice it, and, in the worst case scenario you often thought about, would run away and never speak to you again.

At least the raging storm outside would make that a bit harder.

When you step out of the shower, you curse yourself for not having worn more comfortable clothes on this trip. You definitely can’t wear these jeans and button-up sweater to lounge around. Thankfully, the inn provides two long bathrobes that you could wear over underwear and your tank top, but you wonder where on the scale of inappropriate this would be to wear with Jake in the room. He’s seen you in short pyjama shorts before, but this, like everything else that would usually be normal between the two of you, feels weird today.

You wrap the bathrobe around yourself, tying it in place around your waist, and decide that it’d only be weird if you made it weird. And if Jake found the sight of your bare legs weird, then he was the weird one.

The scene you’re met with as you walk into the room makes you want to retreat into the bathroom immediately. Jake is lying on the bed with his upper half against the headboard, one leg extended and the other one bent, resting his head against one palm, using his free hand to scroll through his phone. His t-shirt has ridden up slightly, putting the waistband of his Calvin Kleins into view. Worst of all, when he sees you, his face breaks into a grin.

Your stomach twists when he gives you a once-over, letting his gaze linger on your legs. “Did you bring a bathrobe with you or was it included?” he asks with an annoyingly handsome smirk.

You roll your eyes. “Yes, I bring a bathrobe with me wherever I go,” you say sarcastically. “Now shut up and go shower, you stink.” Reverting to insults is always the solution when you’re internally freaking out.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He takes so long in the shower that by the time he comes out, you’ve dozed off in bed. As if you were a child, he wakes you up with a boop to the nose, crouching next to the bed and smiling at you. His wet hair falls on his head like that of a movie star in a shower scene, which you find extremely unfair, and his cheeks are red from the warmth of the water.

“It’s still early. Do you wanna go grab another drink?”

“In our bathrobes?” you say, laughing. “Nah, I don’t really feel like drinking anyway.” Read: I’m not sure what I’ll do with alcohol in me.

“Okay, no worries. Um, I think I saw they had board games in the lobby?”

Your ears perk up at this. “Ooh, what kind of board games?”

Putting jeans on underneath his bathrobe, Jake slips away for a minute and comes back with Monopoly, Uno, and a deck of cards. “They didn’t have much for two players,” he says, dumping everything on the bed.

You already knew that anything would become fun if you did it with Jake, but you definitely didn’t expect to spend almost five hours just playing Monopoly and card games with him. Neither of you stays put for very long, always switching from sitting criss-cross to laying on your stomach, making fun of the other’s bathrobe even though you’re wearing the exact same thing. You make each other laugh as you make up your own nonsense rules and disregard the laws of your games, attacking the other ruthlessly for a couple extra points or coins. Jake even makes you go get snacks from a corner store that’s miraculously still open because you lose the first round of Uno.

After some time, Jake lets out a loud yawn, which in turn makes you yawn too. He checks his phone to find that it’s close to midnight already. “Time for bed?” he asks, and your nervousness that had finally dissipated as you played came rushing back.

You nod. “Yeah, sounds good.”

The two of you clean up before brushing your teeth. Even that, with Jake by your side, becomes a silly affair as he pulls faces in the mirror and nudges your hip with his. You stay behind to use the toilet, and when you come back out, Jake’s already in bed, bathrobe tossed on one of the armchairs. This means that Jake is just casually in a t-shirt and boxers, waiting for you to join him in bed. Luckily, his back is turned to you, so you quickly take off your own bathrobe and slide under the sheets, careful to keep your distance from him. The sheets are cold underneath you, and you know it’ll take a while before your body heat warms them up - although you feel very hot and bothered because of the man lying next to you.

“Gosh, I’m really sleepy all of a sudden,” he says, words distorted by a yawn. You only hum in response, and he reaches for the lamp to turn it off. Just like that, you’re in complete darkness, and Jake’s body is mere inches from your own.

It’s eerily quiet for a while, and when you’ve managed to slow your heartbeat and regularise your breathing, you start trying to fall asleep. You toss and turn, unable to find a comfortable position until Jake’s low, sleepy voice breaks the silence. “Can’t sleep?” he asks, and you freeze.

You sigh. “No. I’m sorry for keeping you up,” you say guiltily.

“It’s okay. I can’t really sleep either. It’s a bit cold in here.”

You pause. “Right. Yeah, it is,” you say, even though you feel like you’re sweating buckets.

The room plunges into silence again, long enough for you to think Jake has fallen asleep. You feel something cold against your foot, only realising as it slides up your calf that it’s his foot. “Jake!” you whisper-yell, withdrawing your leg as he bursts into giggles that warm your heart. “Your feet are so cold,” you say in-between chuckles.

“I’m cold all over,” he whines. “Have they not turned the heating on yet? It’s already mid-November.”

“People are used to the cold here.”

“Well I’m not. Can we cuddle?” he suddenly asks, and he must somehow feel the way you freeze in place because he stammers out a justification straight away. “For, I mean, just for warmth, you know. I don’t think I’ll sleep otherwise.”

His foot finds yours again and you can’t help but laugh. “Sure, fine,” you say with a sigh as if you were doing only half-heartedly for his sake. As if this was some big sacrifice you were making, and not something you’d daydreamed about one too many times before.

Your heart is beating a thousand miles a second when you scooch closer to Jake, his hands finding your waist as easily as if they’d been there a hundred times before. He pulls you in much closer than you had expected, holding you tightly against his chest, one arm for you to use as a pillow and one hand resting on your lower back. You try to calm your respiration so that he can’t hear how short of breath you are, but based on his own breathing, he seems to be out in five minutes. It takes you longer to fall asleep, every shift of his body sending shivers down your spine, but you manage to relax after some time, letting his warmth envelop you as you drift off to sleep.

The feeling of waking up with you in his arms is so unreal, Jake thinks he might still be dreaming.

He looks down at your peaceful sleeping face and can’t stop the smile that spreads on his lips. Jake always thinks you’re pretty, but this is a sight he particularly wants to commit to memory. He watches fondly as the bright sun rays of the early morning hit your face, making you scrunch your eyebrows and bury your face deeper against him. You grunt softly, and when he feels you shifting and stretching your legs, he pretends to fall asleep so you don’t catch him staring. It seems like you’ve raised your head, chin tilted towards him - if he’s lucky, you’re watching him “sleep” just like he did seconds ago.

He contains a smile at the joke that forms itself in his brain before shooting his eyes open, catching you off guard during what you thought was a private, secret moment.

“Shit!” you yelp, practically jumping off of him and rolling onto the other side of the bed. He bursts into laughter, proud that his little prank was effective. Before you can scold him, he makes his way to you, wrapping an arm around your waist and bringing your back against his chest. He thinks he feels your body tense; but then you bring your hand over his, swiping your thumb back and forth against his skin, and you relax in his hold. “You’re so annoying,” you complain, but your voice is tender, almost weak.

He buries his face in your hair, trying not to be too loud when he inhales there. “Sorry,” he says, the smile evident in his voice. “The opportunity was right there. Caught you staring, huh?”

“You’re such an idiot.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” It’s quiet for a few minutes, and Jake is more than happy to enjoy this moment in silence, but there’s something burning the tip of his tongue. It’s been there for a while now, but he thinks he’s finally found the right moment. “Y/N?”

“Mm?”

“There’s something I couldn’t tell you last night, but I feel oddly okay saying it right now. Are you listening?”

“I am, yeah,” you say gently, voice so soft it caresses his skin and draws goosebumps from it.

His chest expands and falls with a deep, shaky breath. With your back right against it, he’s scared you’ll hear that his heart is beating faster than it should. “Bad news first?” he says with a nervous chuckle.

“Uh-oh.”

“There’s no roundabout way to say this, so here goes, I guess.” He takes another breath. “I’m in love with you, Y/N.” You tense in his embrace, and he waits for you to say something, anything before he continues.

“Oh,” is all you say. He hopes it’s a good oh - even if it isn’t, he doesn’t let it deter him.

“Yeah. I really debated telling you this… I know you might not feel the same way. But I also know that if I don’t say anything and make the same mistake twice, I’ll beat myself up over it for the rest of my life.”

“The same mistake?” you ask, looking at him over your shoulder.

He gazes down at you tenderly, pushing hair away from your face with a gentle hand. “I already felt that way back when we lived in Australia. I was about to tell you but when I learned that I was moving, I didn’t wanna risk ruining the little time we had left together.”

The look on your face both breaks his heart and patches it up again. “Jakey…” you say, voice just a whisper. You turn around to face him and bury your face in the crook of his neck. The fact that you’re not saying much is making his stomach twist in agonising stress, but he takes it as a good sign that you’re still holding him tight and not running away.

“I think I’d be the luckiest guy on Earth if you felt the same way,” he says, hopefulness clear in his voice.

And then he finally hears the words he’s been dying to hear all these years. “Of course, I feel the same way, Jake,” you say, eyes meeting his. “This isn’t bad news at all, it’s like, the best possible news ever.”

It takes him a few seconds, but when your words sink in, a bright smile graces his features. He feels tears coming up - tears of relief that you feel the same way, of sadness that it took the both of you so long to get here, of happiness that something new might start - he’s not sure. Perhaps everything at once.

“Of course?” he echoes, smiling wildly. “It wasn’t obvious to me.”

“Oh, gosh,” you murmur, burying yourself into him once more. “I can’t believe this is actually happening.”

He tightened his hold around you, bringing you to him as close as physically possible. “Me neither.”

The feeling of you tangling your bare legs with his and bunching up the fabric of his t-shirt in your fist awakens something in him - he had been in his head, thanking the heavens that you loved him back, reeling from his belated confession, but he was now very aware of his body. And of yours. He was reminded of Jay telling him to kiss you - although he hadn’t needed to go there to reveal his feelings to you, it was still a possibility. It was even more so now that he knew you felt the same way.

He tries to be subtle as he brushes a hand up your back to the nape of your neck, gently grazing his fingernails against the skin there. He has to suppress a self-satisfied smirk when he feels you squirm under his touch, lifting your head to fix him with a scolding look. Your stern expression fades as soon as his eyes fall on your lips, however, and you quickly mirror his gaze. His lips part, and he feels his whole body shake as he takes a deep breath in. Who knew that you’d share your first kiss on a random Sunday morning in the fuckass middle of nowhere in Scotland?

Maybe you take pity on him, or you recognise the effort put into being the one to make the first move, or, as he’d like to think, you just really want to kiss him - either way, you’re the one who closes the gap and presses your lips to his.

Your lips. So soft, so delicate against his, absolutely perfect. It’s a simple, tentative touch, but he’s craved it for so long that it makes his head spin. He frowns, despite himself instantly needing more than this feather-like feeling of your lips brushing against each other. His mind tells him to calm down and take it slow, but his body takes over, urging him to grab the nape of your neck a little harder, to hold you a little closer to him, to kiss you a little stronger. Thankfully, you let him do all of this and more, hands finding purchase in his hair and returning his intensity tenfold.

He doesn’t know what’s better - the fact that you’re kissing him or the kiss itself. The way your lips move against his is intoxicating; it wraps itself around its mind and leaves no room for thoughts that aren’t of you. You seem to want him as desperately as he wants you, to have waited for him as long as he did for you, and this is what drives him crazy. You press your body against his and he sees stars; you let out a moan against his lips and he kisses you deeper, ready to do anything to hear that melody again.

Unfortunately, the only melody he gets to hear is that of his phone alarm, informing you that it’s quarter to eleven and that you have fifteen minutes to leave. Check-out at eleven am had sounded nice yesterday; now, he would stay in this dingy inn his whole life if it meant he got to keep kissing you.

The both of you reluctantly break apart, bursting into giddy laughter when your eyes meet. As said before, Jake always thinks you’re pretty, but with your pupils blown and your lips plump from kissing, this might just be the prettiest he’s ever seen you.

“You know, I like you a lot, but I’d like you even more if you could stop time,” you say.

He looks down at you with a smile, pushing away the strands of hair that had fallen on your face. “Sure, I’ll learn how to control time for you.”

“Thanks, Jakey.” You peck his lips, lingering, and he closes his eyes to savour your sweetness.

“Anything for you, baby.” His eyes widen at the nickname slip, but you erupt into giggles.

“Baby?”

“Would you look at the time, we really got to go,” he says, detangling his limbs from yours. He pauses for a second. “Baby,” he repeats, pressing a quick kiss to your forehead before bouncing from the bed.

You get ready together, and the mundane tasks of stripping sheets from a bed and packing bags become the funnest things he’s ever done. You’re all over each other, attacking the other with kisses and hugs; Jake doesn’t think he’s ever felt quite this happy.

And this is only the beginning.

There’s a glint in the receptionist’s eyes when you check out of your room, as if she knew something you and Jake had been oblivious to all along. It’s the only one in town, so you go back to the little pub for a full breakfast with eggs, hash browns, haggis, and sausages. You get coffee so strong you think you might not sleep for the next four days, while Jake drinks tea that is equal parts sugar, milk, and actual tea.

From the moment you leave the pub to the moment you arrive at your doorstep, Jake’s hands barely leave yours. When they have to, like when you’re searching for the perfect seat on the train or when the controller checks your tickets, they’re back together within a minute, like two magnets that can’t stay apart for too long. The rain has long subsided, leaving place to a bright blue sky and wet blades of grass that shine in the sun.

Now that your mutual feelings don’t need to be kept secret, you tell each other about everything you had to go through, like you pretending your good news was your mum having baked the cookies Jake liked and him seeing your new boyfriends every two months on your close friends story. He tells you about all the hints he’s dropped, causing you to facepalm over and over again. It feels like two friends catching each other to speed on all the latest gossip, except the topic of that gossip is you.

The juxtaposition of your familiarity with Jake with the novelty of behaving like a couple, of not having to hold back with your touches or gazes or words, is nothing if not jarring. But you have a feeling you’ll get used to it in no time.

As you unlock the front door to your building, you don’t ask him if he’s coming up - to you, it’s a given that you’ll be spending the rest of today and every day after that together. So when he doesn’t follow you, staying still on the threshold, you turn around with a questioning look on your face.

“There’s something I need to do this afternoon,” he says, taking both of your hands in his.

“Can’t I come with?” you say. Jake wavers for a second, but sadly, he stays firm in his decision.

“Sorry, baby, it’s a surprise. I’ll be back at seven with takeout?”

You can’t possibly be mad at him when he calls you baby and offers food in the same breath. “Only if you bring takeout.”

“You only love me because I feed you, don’t you?” he asks, a smile on his face.

“Yup,” you reply. You’re standing on a step, so you bend down to kiss him - you intend for it to be a peck, but when your lips touch, you’re unable to pull away. You let yourself get lost in the feeling of his lips on yours, in the warmth that takes over your body and makes your brain all fuzzy.

A loud, affronted gasp from behind you makes you jump from Jake, and when you turn around, Chaewon and Yunjin are standing in the stairwell, staring at you with wide eyes and gaping mouths.

“So this was a sexcapade?” is, much to your horror, the first thing Yunjin says.

Thanks to Chaewon, neither you nor Jake have the time to dwell on this sentence as she comes running down the stairs and pounces on you. You don’t know how a woman so small can have such force, but her hug is so tight you can barely breathe, let alone hug her back properly. “I knew you could do it!” she exclaims. When she pulls away, she seems so moved, it looks like she’s about to cry. “You finally popped your Jake cherry,” she whispers, but it’s loud enough for Jake to hear. A bark of laughter escapes his throat.

“Okay, thanks, guys,” you say, escaping this awkward situation and going up the stairs. “I’ll see you later, Jake!” you yell over your shoulder. The girls seem to be on their way out, and you’re more than happy leaving him to deal with them on his own. God knows you’ll get the worst of it when they come back.

As soon as you get to your flat, you make a beeline for your bedroom, plopping on the bed. You’re the same person, and this is the same room. But something within you feels entirely different, like a scar that you had been carrying around had, without you even noticing, healed so well you could barely see it anymore. You lifted your hands in the air, looked at the back of them, then at your palms. They were the same old hands that had been with you your whole life, and you were almost shocked that there wasn’t something utterly different about them after having held Jake’s hand for so long. Just to be sure, you sniffed your right hand, but it didn’t smell any different, either. But you still felt Jake’s hand on yours, like headphones you’d been wearing for hours and still felt on your ears after taking them off.

Yunjin and Chaewon are back from their shopping half-an-hour later; they got you a chocolate fudge cake from Tesco to congratulate you. “You guys are acting like this is my birthday…” you say, eyeing the cake greedily as Chaewon cuts it into three equal parts (even though it says serves eight on the packaging).

“This is more important than your birthday, Y/N,” Yunjin states as she pours oat milk into three cups of Earl Grey tea. “This is, like, the moment of a lifetime.”

“Are you saying a girl’s importance depends on her having a boyfriend?”

“Yes, Y/N, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Especially when said boyfriend is the guy she’s been pining after for all of her teenage and adult life.”

You sigh. “Well, he hasn’t exactly popped the boyfriend and girlfriend question yet.” They both turn to look at you, an annoyed look on their faces. You stand up straight, uncomfortable under their gazes. “What?”

“Usually, I’m all for clarity on this issue,” Chaewon starts. “But isn’t it pretty obvious here?”

“You’re still gonna have to tell us everything in minute detail, but Jake’s already told us what happened. He had no qualms referring to you as his girlfriend, so I really don’t think this is something you need to worry about. What you should worry about is when and where you’re going to hop on that dick.”

Chaewon bursts into laughter, and you can’t help but follow suit. “Gosh, Yunjin, you really do have a way with words.”

“I know. This is what having a Jane Austen hyperfixation at fifteen will do to you.”

Following Yunjin’s orders, you tell them about the events of the previous day and this morning over tea and cake. They ooh and ah and gasp in all the right places, ask you very specific questions and even make you draw a picture of the room you stayed in. You’ve talked to them about Jake so many times that there’s only so much to say now - but still, you talk for hours on end, deviating off-topic so often you end up talking about something else entirely.

You’re in bed reading for your Middle English Literature class when the doorbell rings. It’s seven on the dot, so it can be no one else other than Jake. It’s been mere hours, but you’ve missed him enough to last you for weeks.

He brought takeaway from the Indian place you’d raved about a hundred times but hadn’t brought him to yet. Somehow, your heart grows even fonder as you watch his reaction to the food, the raise of his eyebrows, the widening of his eyes, the excited shimmy of his shoulders. When you ask him about his afternoon, a wide smile breaks out onto his face, like a lightbulb illuminating a room. Without a word, he scurries to your room, bringing back some sort of book with him. He hands it to you with a shy smile and curious eyes, eagerly anticipating your reaction. The cover reads Y/N and Jake in his clumsy but endearing handwriting, with the date of his arrival in Edinburgh and an em-dash scribbled underneath. “I haven’t booked my flight home yet, so I’ll add the second date later,” he explains.

When you flick through it, you’re met with photographs of you and Jake on all of the trips you’ve done so far, as well as the various adventures you got up to in the city. There’s even one of you sleeping in the library at two am during midterms when you had forgotten about one of your essays, due at midday. Jake had come with coffee and words of encouragement, and now he could brag that the high mark you got was thanks to him. It’s not only photos - it’s also ticket stubs, receipts, stickers, and even a dried flower you had found pretty on your trip to St. Andrews. He’s also written quite a lot, from diary-like entries about what you got up to that day or songs that reminded him of you.

“You misspelt right here,” you say, pointing to a sentence that reads This is the café write next to the hotel where the last Harry Potter book is said to have been written!!! under a photo of you drinking a massive cup of hot chocolate. The more you look at the typo, the more it makes you laugh, until you have tears brimming in your eyes.

Thanks to Yunjin’s messiness, pens and pencils are strewn over your coffee table. Jake, flushed red in embarrassment at the small mistake, snatches a pencil and aggressively erases write, spelling it correctly the second time around. “This is the level of today’s English Lit undergrads,” he murmurs under his breath. His frown disappears when he looks at you and he laughs along.

You continue looking through the album until you land on a page titled Why I love Y/N. From top to bottom, left to right, it’s filled with Jake’s tiny handwriting. You can tell he put effort into making it neat. There’s a singular photograph of you, one that dates from the first days after Jake’s arrival when you were walking around in the Meadows, the park right next to campus. The sun shone down on you and you smiled brightly at Jake behind the camera.

You’re not a quarter through reading when tears swell in your eyes, rendering your vision blurry. You wipe them away before they can fall and stain the page. Jake has detailed every last thing he loves about you. It can hardly get cornier than this, but the fact that he wrote this about you makes your heart so full, you’re afraid it might explode in your chest. It ranges from basic things like the way she makes me laugh or her pretty face when she falls asleep in the train (or anywhere, for that matter) to more you-specific things like the strict pastel colour-coding she uses for her notes and her perseverance when eating spicy food even though she can’t take it. He mentions things about you that you didn’t even know, and that feeling of being known in-and-out, of being really seen by someone else only brings more tears to your eyes. Your favourite line comes at the end - the way she makes any place feel like home. A proper sob pushes past your lips at this, and Jake, who had been watching you with an anxious smile, rests a palm on your knee and inches closer to you.

“Why are you crying, is- Did I write something bad?”

You shake your head fervently. “No, no, Jakey, this is… It’s perfect. I’m just…” you trail, letting out a half-sob, half-chuckle. You look at him with a smile before pulling him into a tight hug. “I love it so much. I love you so much.”

You can feel Jake relax against you. “I love you too, baby. I’m glad you like it.”

You pull away after a small while, and turn the next page over. It’s a picture of you over breakfast this morning, with words WE’RE DATING!!!! written underneath it, and those simple words make you so happy, your cheeks ache from smiling. But every page after that is empty. Jake scratches the back of his neck. “I, um, I thought we could fill the rest out together. I debated just doing it myself and giving it to you at the end of the year, but I thought it’d be more fun doing it together.”

“It would. This is such an amazing idea,” you say, flicking back through the pages.

“I thought of it because of that project I had. When I started working on it, all the photos I wanted to include were of you, but I wasn’t sure how much my professor would appreciate that… So I decided to make one more personal. One for us,” he says shyly, shrugging like it’s no big deal.

“Thank you so much, Jakey.”

He smiles. “It’s no worries.”

“Did you do it all this afternoon?”

“I had started it before, but I added it most of today, yeah. Which, by the way, awful timing. I wanted nothing more than to spend today with you.”

Your heart leaps. You’re not sure you’ll ever get used to hearing such words from Jake’s mouth.

Sometime later, you’re laying in bed with Jake between your legs, watching the most recent animated Spiderman movie. With the tips of your fingers, you draw random patterns on his forearm, and if it wasn’t for his occasional chuckles, you’d think he had fallen asleep. You chat for a bit after the movie, but you find that after such an emotionally-packed day, you’re ready to call it a night fairly early. But when the lights are off and it’s just you lying against Jake’s chest, his fingernails grazing your scalp and his familiar, comforting scent clouding your judgement, all thoughts of an early night are thrown out of the window.

You shouldn’t feel so nervous - you had fallen asleep in his arms last night, and it had gone well. Really well.

“This is different from yesterday, isn’t it?” Jake suddenly says, breaking the heavy silence with a low voice. It’s like he read your mind.

“Yeah,” you whisper against his skin.

No other words are needed. You brush the tip of your nose along his neck until you reach his jawline, pressing soft kisses there and delighting in the increasing shakiness of his breath. The feeling of your lips meeting is so intense, so all-encompassing, that you don’t know if you’ll be able to handle anything more.

This is still new territory, but you’re both so eager to discover it that it makes for a messy kiss, lips moving against each other ravenously, tongues beckoning moans from the other. It’s a kiss that somehow leaves you breathless and breathes oxygen back into your lungs at once.

In a matter of seconds, Jake has flipped you on your back and is hovering over you, one hand holding him up and one hand free to roam your body. He slips it underneath your t-shirt, brushes it along the side of your waist, his touch leaving behind a trail of fire blazing on your skin. It’s so distracting, you can’t even kiss him back properly anymore. Jake doesn’t seem to mind. At first, when he starts pressing hot kisses to your jawline and your neck, you think he’s giving you a respite - but when he gently sinks his teeth into the skin there, leaving marks that will later remind you tonight wasn’t a dream, chuckling as you squirm and whine under him, you understand that this is anything but a respite.

You curse your earlier decision of not wearing a bra, because it gives you no preparation whatsoever to the sensation of Jake brushing his thumb against one of your nipples. With a loud gasp, your back arches off of the bed, which only aids Jake in raising your t-shirt up over your breasts.

He takes a minute to admire the sight of you panting and half-naked underneath him. It makes you feel shy, and you want to do something so that he stops looking and starts doing, but his gaze holds you in place. His pupils are blown with lust, eyes raking over your body and taking everything in. You have a hard time wrapping your head around the fact that it’s you he’s looking at with those eyes.

His soft lips attach themselves to your nipple while his fingers continue their work on the other one. You’ve never felt this sensitive, never felt this on edge, like you might fall apart at any second even with so little simulation. Your core throbs, impatiently waiting to be tended to, but you’re already trembling so hard from Jake’s attention to your breasts that you don’t know what will happen to you once he actually touches you down there.

“You doing okay, baby?” he asks, the rasp in his voice making you want him impossibly more. You grip his hair and he looks up at you, a tender smile on his lips. You nod your head yes and he laughs. “Yeah? You want more?” You pause at his question. You do want more, but is it worth your sanity?

It takes you a second to decide that it’s worth that and more. You nod again.

Jake seems to have sensed your hesitation. He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I am. It’s just a lot.”

His expression of worry softens into a smile. “I’ll take it slow for you, love. It’s a lot for me, too.” He leans in to press soft kisses to your cheek, and some of the tension in your body diffuses. Whatever happens, Jake will be there to take care of you. “But it feels good, right?” he asks, lips moving against your ear, sending shivers down your spine.

“So good, Jakey,” you reply shakily.

“Good.”

You can tell that Jake really does want to take it slow - his movements are more deliberate, gentler. But eagerness, both yours and his, soon takes over, and a minute later, he’s trailing kisses down your body until he reaches your lower stomach. Your breath quickens as he hooks fingers underneath your leggings and underwear, sliding both garments down your legs and leaving you bare to him. You think the feeling of his lips on the fleshy parts of your inner thighs is what might actually do you in, make you lose your sense of reality forever - but then his tongue darts out against your clit, a barely-there touch, and your whole body flatlines.

Your reaction eggs Jake on, who, more confident now, takes the sensitive bud in his lips and alternates between sucking and licking motions. A knot ties itself embarrassingly quickly in your stomach, a knot that tightens and tightens as Jake flattens his tongue against you, licking up your juices from your entrance to your clit; a knot that threatens to come loose when he slides a long finger inside of you. You can’t take more than thirty seconds of this.

“Jakey,” you say, voice practically a moan. Your brain is fuzzy and it takes a distressing amount of time to form a simple sentence. “Can you come here?”

“Is something wrong, baby?” he asks breathily, sliding his finger out of you and coming back up so that his face is right above yours.

“No, just… I want you.”

Any trace of worry on Jake’s features dissipates as he cocks an eyebrow, one corner of his lips tugging up into a smirk. “Is that so?”

This kind of boldness would usually have you rolling your eyes, but here, it only makes your core throb more violently. It’s almost humiliating how much you want this man. It’s definitely humiliating, how easy it is to swallow your pride and play into his game. “Yes, please,” you say, eyes pleading with him.

He smiles almost giddily before burying his face against the side of yours. “My baby’s so polite,” he says, pressing a kiss to your cheek. “I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“Take this off, then,” you say, grabbing the bottom hem of his t-shirt.

“So she says please and gives orders,” he jokes, quickly obliging anyway.

Not once in your time apart had Jake posted any sort of beach trip or pool photos, so this was the first time you saw his bare chest. God, was it one for the history books. You trace the defined lines of his muscles with a finger and wonder how he had managed to get even more perfect. He lets you marvel at him for it, clearly proud that you’re gawking so shamelessly, but your mind drifts back to more urgent matters when he presses himself into you, his clothed cock, hard and hot, brushing against your folds. “Fuck,” you sigh, bucking your hips into his to feel him over and over again.

It’s so much, but it’s not enough; Jake instantly gets your message when you hook your fingers under the waistband of his boxers, pulling him to you and kissing him feverishly. Your lips don’t part as he slides his boxers off, and you drink up the nectar that are his moans as you take him in your hand, pumping him a few times.

“Condom?” he asks, but you shake your head.

“I’m on the pill. And even so… I usually always use a condom, but I don’t want to now. Not with you.”

Jake closes his eyes as he takes a deep, stabilising breath. “I feel totally normal about that. Not crazy at all.”

You giggle, and he opens his eyes, a wide smile gracing his lips before he bends down to kiss you. “You ready for the night of your life?” he asks against your lips. “It’s gonna last five minutes, tops,” he says, making you laugh again. “I’m sorry, baby, I can’t do anything about it. I think I could’ve cum just from eating you out.”

“That would’ve been hot.”

“Really? We’ll make it a challenge for next time, then.”

When Jake plunges into you, it’s unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. He fills you up, slow inch by slow inch, until he’s buried to the hilt inside you. You both need some time getting used to the feeling - Jake drops his head in the crook of your neck and lets out a sound between a grunt and a moan, something you’ve never heard from him before. You grab onto his shoulders, fingernails digging into his skin as you try to tether yourself to him. You hold him so tight that he has no choice but to let his body rest on top of yours, his arms coming to circle your waist and bring you even closer.

His movements start out halting, the pleasure so overwhelming that it makes it hard for him to move steadily. In time, he falls into a torturously slow rhythm, but it’s the perfect kind of torture, the kind that has tears brimming in your eyes. It’s so hard to take, and yet you want more. You’re brought closer to the edge with every thrust of his dick into you, especially as he picks up the pace and lifts your hips to meet his. The new angle has his tip brushing against that spot deep inside you that makes it hard to breathe.

You can tell he’s just as close as you when he loses that steady rhythm he had found, his motions growing more desperate, harsher, quicker. Conscious of your roommates, you slap a hand over your mouth to muffle your moans as your orgasm washes over you, your whole body on fire, so sensitive that the few more seconds Jake needs to come undone himself drive both your body and your mind into overstimulation. Even the feeling of him pulling out, drops of hot liquid dripping out of your entrance, is too much and makes you let out a small, tired whine.

Jake peppers your face with kisses as he holds your waist tightly, brushing his thumb back-and-forth on your warm skin, sticky with sweat. “You did so well, baby. So good for me.” You think you might be ready for a second round if he keeps talking to you like that. “I love you so much.”

You sigh deeply, as if you were just told disconcerting news. “Okay.”

“Okay?!” he echoes, looking up at you with an outraged expression on his face.

“I’m sorry, I love you too, I just- I’m not used to this yet! You can’t just tell me you love and expect me to be normal. You have to warn me first.”

“Can I just warn you now that I’m going to tell you I love you every time I get the chance?”

You sigh. “I guess.”

“Can I tell you now?” he asks, and you hum. “I love you.”

“I love you more.”

Jake tuts. “I highly doubt it, but whatever makes you happy.”

You hold Jake close to you, one arm around his shoulders and the other hand playing with his hair as you come down from your high. You think he might’ve fallen asleep, and you’re close to drifting off yourself when he speaks. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this. Not just the sex, although that has been on my mind for a while now,” he says, making you laugh, “but all of this. Being together, getting to be in your arms like this, kissing you whenever I want. Calling you my girlfriend.”

“Me too, Jakey. I waited so long I didn’t think it would ever happen.”

Jake chuckles. “How stupid were we not to have noticed we felt the same way?”

“Very stupid. I think we felt so sorry for ourselves that we were stuck in one-sided love, that we didn’t even realise the other was going through the exact same thing. But at least we’re now.”

“At least we’re here now.” You and Jake yawn at the exact same time, making you burst into giggles, giddy with sleep and love.

“Let’s sleep, baby,” you say.

Jake hums, burying himself deeper against your body. “Sleep well, my love. I’ll be here.”

After years of pining after each other, you and Jake find it a bit hard to keep your relationship to yourselves, or your hands off of each other.

At the beginning, all of your friends had been happy for you, but that quickly went away when your and Jake’s honeymoon phase never died down and the PDA just kept on going. If the glue you were stuck with previously was metaphorical, this one was pretty close to being real. Superglue kept you together, your moments together rarely spent without some sort of physical touch. Yunjin fake-gagged so often, you were afraid she might actually vomit one of these days. It took Sunghoon two weeks longer than everyone else to clock you and Jake had started dating.

This meant that in private, there was truly no holding back. Jake back-hugged you any chance he got, to the point you started to think he was more koala than human - although that’d imply he saw you as a tree. Make-out sessions were a particular favourite of yours - how could they not be when your boyfriend’s lips seemed to have been carved by God himself, soft and plump to the heavens, like they were made to be kissed. Really, you were just honouring God’s will when you kissed Jake.

The goodbye that comes at the end of the year is not an easy one, and the month spent at home before you fly to Korea seems to never end. But you get there eventually, and as nice as it is to catch up with Jake’s parents after so long, you feign sleepiness after lunch as an excuse to get some time alone with your boyfriend. Ironically, this “time alone” is spent so intensely that you do end up falling asleep afterwards.

You have to admit, you really did a number on your boyfriend this time - what can a girl do when she missed her boyfriend this much? Jake is still passed out when you wake up from your nap, so you slip out as discreetly as you can from his embrace and get out of bed. You head for the closet first and swipe the comfiest looking sweater of his that you find there so you can stay warm as you look around his room. A pang of melancholia hits your chest - most of the pictures and objects on his walls and shelves are parts of his life you weren’t around to witness. Friends you don’t recognize, places you’ve never heard of, phases you’d never known he’d gone through. But then you see the frame on his desk, a faded photo of the two of you at ten years of age, eating ice cream on the bench outside of your house. Milo is sitting at your feet. Jake’s family hadn’t adopted Layla yet. You realise that even if there’s whole parts of your life you didn’t get to share with each other, nothing could touch your memories, or your future.

You want to go back in time and tell fourteen-year-old you that no matter how painful it might seem at the moment, it will all be worth it for the sight of Jake Sim slowly drifting into wakefulness, patting the bed next to him, and noticing you’re missing with furrowed eyebrows. When he opens his eyes and they settle on you, a sleepy smile will grace his dazzling features, and he’ll say, “Come back to bed.”

You’ll be even more in love at twenty than at fourteen.

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekhyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger @amorbonbon @fluerz (ask to be removed/added!)

#enhypen smut #jake smut #enhypen x reader #jake sim x reader #sim jaeyun smut #sim jaeyun x reader #enhypen oneshots #jake sim oneshots #enhypen imagines #jake sim imagines #enhypen fluff #jake fluff

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cheriladycl01 · 8 months

Text

When at work - Lando Norris x UniStudent! Reader

Plot: Lando has known you since you were born, literally childhood friends. You went to every karting weekend with him until he started to travel more. As childhood lovers who have been dating for 8 years what happens when the general public find out about you?

You'd known Lando since you were born just two years after him, and so until Year 4 when you excelled in your academics you were a school year behind him, you were moved up a year to his year. You followed him to the karting tracks when you were little being his biggest supporter and if you go back and look at interviews you'll always be spotted talking animatedly to his family about the race.

You had very strict parents about schooling and they wouldn't let you miss any days off, you could go to karting with Lando, after school or on the weekends but you couldn't take days off school for his races.

"Mum please! I want to go support him!" you cried when she told you that you couldn't have the day off to go watch Lando kart in one of his first proper championship races.

"No Y/N, Lando has found something he is good at... you are a smart girl and school is where you should be!" you mum had refused, smiling at you sadly.

"Dad?" you cried looking over at your dad, who would normally say yes to any request you had, especially if it involved Lando and his dad Adam, as they were friends.

"Sweetheart, I'm sorry but I'll have to agree with your mum on this one" he sighs pulling you into a hug. Those days at school that Lando wasn't there were lonely to say the least, Lando's friends wouldn't hang out with you if it was only you and you didn't have any of friends.

Eventually Lando quit school when he got to British Formula three, there he made lots of new friends including Max, who he introduced to you. You would miss Lando in school, and tried to branch out to make new friends but nothing felt as close as the bond you shared with Lando.

"Y/N, this is my friend Max I met him in karting" he smiles pulling you closer to Max.

"Erm, hi" you had smiled shyly at Max, who smiled back at you. With Max it felt like he was genuinely interested in getting to know you unlike Lando's school friends who just sort of acknowledged your existence because of Lando.

You and Max of course made fast friends after this.

This was 2015, and he asked you there and then to be his girlfriend. At first you laughed and said no, because you thought he was joking and one of the boys from karting had dared him as a cruel joke. But after lots of groveling on his behalf you said yes.

In 2016, you managed to exceed in your GCSE'S getting 6 A* to B grades. Lando had come just to celebrate with you. The next year you did the last of your GCSE's getting 7 more A* - B grades making you come out with 13 GCSE's in total. Lando had come to celebrate with you, while you had gone to celebrate with him that he had won the Formula 3 championship.

He of course, was promoted to Formula 2 for the 2018 season and became a test and reserve driver for Mclaren, which made you so proud because this was his way of being able to get into Formula One. You went on to do your Alevel-s, which were Maths, Physics, Design and Technology and Law. You were now just turned 17 and looking at universities you could go to, and looking at what degree you wanted to go into.

He came second in Formula 2, just behind the other British Racing Driver George Russell. And was promoted to F1 for the 2019 Season and would be in his rookie season.

Halfway through his first season which had gone pretty well with only 2 DNF's and him coming 6th highest, you'd finished your exams and had got offers back from all 5 universities you'd applied to. It was sad really, you'd applied to the University of Surry and University of Royal Holloway just to be near the Mclaren Technology Centre so you could be closer to Lando in the off season.

You'd ended up choosing Cambridge University in the end and spend the rest of your summer until the end of September travelling to races with Lando, you went with his Dad, having his other spare pass. You saw him in Monaco, Canada, France, Austria, Silverstone, Germany and Hungry before you spent the summer break in Greece together along with Max. Then you came with him to Belgium, Italy and Singapore before you had to go home to move into student accommodation.

As a rookie there wasn't too much focus on Lando, but when a girl was spotted with him in the paddock for 10 races, people had questions. After they did some digging they worked out that you were childhood friends with Lando and you were in his older and definitely cringier Instagram pictures, and they checked his tagged photos which led them to your account that he was following.

Luckily it was private but you were shocked at the influx of follow requests.

Rumors spread and people deducted that you must be his girlfriend. It made you nervous but Lando promised to go at your pace.

Your first year of university was cut short, everything went into lockdown, and you were alone in your little dorm room with 5 other housemates. It was a month until you finished all your exams online, and made the decision to travel to Lando's to live with him.

You ended up staying with him for the whole lockdown, and then travelling around with him for the whole of the 2020 season. You managed to do this while studying as your campus was shut for the whole of 2020 and most of 2021. You had an amazing second year grade passing with a 92 overall school having a 1st in your second year. So when 2021 came around you'd applied for Formula One internships so you could keep travelling around with Lando and almost all of them as they already knew you accepted you, you had a difficult time deciding who to go with.

Eventually you went with Red Bull, of course Lando had made jokes about how betrayed he felt, but was happy for you being in a top constructor. You joined them for the 2021 Azerbaijan GP, on the 6th of June you were there for 17 races in 2021 and learnt so much from the team.

You spent until September 2022 with them having major input on the build of the 2022 Red Bull to the point Christian Horner ask for you to be shown on the Instagram. 14 races you spend with them and it was a wild ride before you had to go back to University for your final year.

At this point you and Lando had been together for 7 years strong now. People worked out how long you'd been together a while ago and it had really shocked them. They expected you to be engaged and ... well they weren't far off.

He proposed to you in the winter break of 2022 on a ski holiday he'd taken you on. All of your's and his family were there too see and it was beyond magical. You were going into the 2023 season with a Fiancé and your soulmate.

You let your Instagram go public during this time, the fans had been asking for more content from you. You appeared on streams, and Lando always posted you on his accounts. Now it was time for them to go and stalk you account, instantly people went back through your photos finding old pictures from when you and Lando were younger and then the more recent pictures that everyone thought were cute.

Now Lando had gone back to racing and you were starting revision for exams that would happen in May.

However, you didn't tell Lando, that money was getting a bit tight. You'd always been funny when it came to how much Lando earned and how he always insisted that you lived rent free with him and to not worry about it. So at the start of 2023, towards the end of your degree you got a little side job as a barista in an independent coffee shop.

Lando of course being busy now that it was the start of the 2023 season and he had a new rookie team mate to meet, he was none the wiser.

It was just a typical day at the coffee shop when you were with your colleague, making yourself a drink when a girl and her friend came in.

"Oh my gosh, your Y/N!" a voice says making you look up, you smile happily not thinking much off it because you were wearing a name badge so you assumed she got it from there.

"Yes, hello how can I help you today!" you ask politely stopping making your drink and walking over to the till.

"You're Y/N Lando Norris Fiancé right?" she asks and your mouth drops open in shock. You had been noticed around the paddock, of course you had... but this was the first time someone had come to you in public.

"Ah yes I am!" you smile shyly. The interaction was relatively normal, you served them their drinks and made conversation with them before having to go back and serve more customers.

You didn't notice them take pictures and videos of you interacting and serving customers, which of course made their way onto social media. Suddenly and influx of customers came, which was strange for a Tuesday afternoon.

As well as the influx of customers you had people come in with cameras, starting to take pictures.

"Y/N what is happening all of these people are asking for you" Rhianne your co-worker asks and that's when the blender turns off and you can hear people calling your name.

They were fans of F1.

"Hey Y/N Lando deserves better than you"

"Y/N why are you working minimum wage when you have a boyfriend with a net worth of over 10 mil"

"Y/N break up with Lando"

"Oh my god, how did they all know this is where I work" you say asking your colleague not sure what to even do.

"Okay, let's get you out the back. Call the police and I'll try keep up with orders" She says pushing you towards the exit, the staff room was on the other side of the shop so you were going to have to tackle your way through the mound of people.

Eventually after people shoving phones in your face and grabbing at your wrist. You manage to get into the staff area and lock the door. You were crying as you called the police, who said they'd send bodies to you immediately.

After you hung up, your phone started to ring and Lando's face popped up.

"Hi baby" you say trying to sound like your not crying. Your camera was facing up so he couldn't see you.

"Y/N show me where you are right now. I swear to god, if what I'm seeing on twitter is true" he huffs out making you pan down the camera to show the back room you were in. He was in Australia right now and had heard from Oscar that you were trending on twitter and looked scared.

"Are you safe?" he asks worried, making you burst into tears. You could suddenly feel everyone's hands back on you and your breathing goes shallow.

"Mmm, I had to call the police there was so many people" you cry, wiping your tears.

"Baby, I'm so sorry. Look after Australia, I'm coming to you okay! Why the fuck didn't you ask me if you needed money" he asks looking at you with that disappointed look you hated.

"Lando, you know how i feel about that" you say.

"Baby, your still in Uni. You shouldn't have to work. Do you parents know?" he asks, and you shake you head.

"Hey Y/N! How are you?" Oscar asks coming into view of the camera.

"I'm okay Oscar, I cant wait to meet you next week!" You smile at him, blinking away the tears that were still trying to come out.

"Oh, I think the police are here, but I'll call you when I'm home!" you say hearing a knock at the door.

"Ask them to take you home. You shouldn't walk round the streets alone! I love you darling" Lando sighs.

"I love you too Lando, thank you!"

A/N: I feel like this isn't very good, I'm sorry this feels like its so info dumpy and not much fluff!!

Taglist:

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greenorangevioletgrass · 11 months

Text

give me a minute (2/2) | chef luca

pairing: chef luca x ex-wife!reader word count: 6.6k warnings: established former relationship, discussions of separation and divorce, discussions of moving on, luca and reader has a son, brief mention of blood and minor injury, smut 18+ (fingering, oral (f receiving), unprotected sex, size kink? idk luca's big, dirty talk, creampie) notes: it's finally here! thank you everyone for your patience, i am a slow writer by nature and life gets in the way, but i finally got around to finish it! happy reading, and do comment, reblog, and send me asks to tell me what you think <;3 ✨follow @ficsbygreenorangevioletgrass and turn on the notifications to get alerted for my latest fics ✨

<<< read part 1 here >>>

06.13 PM

Your apartment has never felt so claustrophobic after that little moment you shared with Luca. You try to stay busy in the next hour —tidying up Alfie’s room even after he made it up, checking your email four times, even doing the laundry, for fuck’s sake— as Luca keeps to himself in the kitchen area. Whether Alfie is obliviously enjoying his screen time or purposely ignoring the weird tension between his parents, you’re not entirely sure. Right now, you’re just grateful that he’s not saying anything at the moment.

The boy simply creeps up to the kitchen counter with a shy eagerness about him. “How long ‘til dinner, Dad?”

“3 more minutes, Chef,” Luca answers, focused on the task at hand, so poker-faced that it makes his son giggle.

“I’m not a chef, you’re a chef!”

“Well, where I work, we call everyone in the kitchen ‘chef.’ Out of respect.”

Alfie climbs onto the dining bench in interest, peering up to watch his father set the dish on the plates meticulously. Luca doesn’t miss how the boy deeply inhales the delicious smell in the air.

“Smells yummy.”

“Thank you,” Luca replies, his excitement seems muted although his heart is soaring. He looks up to find Alfie staring at the plate, chin propped up on his little fist. You’ve always said that he looks just like his dad, but in that moment, Luca only sees you. Alfie has the way your mouth tugs ever so slightly into a smile, the way your eyes shine in childlike wonder. In quiet thoughtfulness.

No Michelin star, earned or retained, would ever amount to this.

“Can you go get your mum and tell her dinner’s ready, please?” He softly asks Alfie, as if not wanting to disrupt this peaceful silence. “Thank you, Chef.”

“Yes, chef.” The six-year-old salutes him and pads over to your home office, which doubles as the guest bedroom. The door is open, and he sees you reorganizing the linen closet with your back to him. He hugs you from behind, startling you.

“Oh!” You put your hand on his head, stroking him lightly. “Hey, bub.”

“Daddy told me to come get you and say dinner’s ready.”

“Gotcha. Thank you.” You half-expect him to run off like he usually does, but he lingers, his arms still wrapped around you. “What’s up, bubbie?”

“Nothing.” He buries his face against your side. “Love you, Mommy.”

“I love you too, bubbie.” This makes you smile, pleasantly surprised at this seemingly random admission.

“Love Daddy too, but don’t tell him that,” he whispers as he looks up at you, putting his forefinger in front of his mouth.

“Why not?”

“Sometimes he gets sad when I say that,” he murmurs. “He doesn’t tell me, but I know it.”

Oh. His playful exterior sometimes makes you forget just how emotionally sensitive he is. And it breaks your heart that he can see through the complicated adult emotions with his childlike eyes.

“Alfie…” you level with him and pull him closer, “Your dad loves you very very much, and I’m sure he’d be happy to hear you say that. He’s just sad because… he’s been away, and he misses you a lot.”

“He should come home, then.”

It’s so simple, the way Alfie puts it. His Dad comes home and reunites with him and you, and his puzzle would piece together perfectly again. And you all live happily ever after. The end.

The truth, of course, is not so simple. But maybe, just for tonight… Maybe you and Luca can sacrifice a few of your own puzzle pieces. For your baby boy.

So you get back on your feet and guide your son out of the room. “Come on, bub. Let’s see what Daddy cooked for us, hm?”

When you and Alfie turn the corner into the kitchen-living area, Luca is wiping the side of the plate neatly. He smiles at you somewhat nervously, like he’s not sure what to do with himself, so you throw him the figurative olive branch.

“Smells amazing,” you compliment him as you and Alfie take your seats. “What are we having, Chef?”

Luca’s eyes light up and your heart stops. You stopped calling him ‘Chef’ long ago, when the moniker became synonymous with workaholism and neglect. But there’s no venom in the way you say it tonight. Call him sentimental, but it reminds him of the early summer days in the tiny apartment you first shared in Chicago.

Of blueberry pies and barely there bumps.

He has to remind himself that this whole ‘happy family’ shtick is just a charade now, it’s all for Alfie, it doesn’t mean anything for the two of us, but he can’t help but miss this.

And little does he know, so do you.

“Well, buckle up, you guys, because we are having…” He carries the plates over and serves it to you and Alfie with a flourish, “Baked sweet potato wedges with Mediterranean dip, and our pièce-de-résistance… Alfie’s Nuggies.”

It looks nothing short of beautiful, with the wedges fanned out like autumn leaves underneath a colorful burst of cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, and feta cheese. The chicken nuggets are rich golden brown against the brilliant white plate. The splatters of sauce (is that Tahini?) is a hint of thoughtful chaos on the dish.

Your six-year-old let out a little noise of awe and amazement next to you, but no sound escapes you—not for the longest time.

“This is…” you look up at Luca as if he would have the word you’re looking for.

But his blue eyes just look a lot like I love you.

“Thank you,” you ultimately say, with absolutely no pretense whatsoever.

And if he does hear an ‘I love you’ hidden somewhere in there… he hopes he’s not imagining things.

***

08:37 PM

If you could travel just a few hours back in time and tell yourself that you would spend the whole day stuck at home in a nasty storm with your son and his father that you’re divorcing—and that you’d be okay with it, you would’ve probably scheduled yourself an MRI scan because clearly something is wrong.

But the night is winding down. Luca is tucking Alfie into bed for the first time in months. You are washing dishes in the quiet accompaniment of steady rain and running water, and everything feels just right.

“He’s out like a light,” Luca informs you quietly as he reemerges from Alfie’s bedroom and stops right by the kitchen counter. “Need a hand?”

“Nah, I’m just about done,” you casually wave him off. “You want anything to drink?”

“Uh… what do you got?”

“Scotch, gin…” you pause, not wanting him to get the wrong idea. The sink tap squeaks a little as you shut it off. “...wine.”

His heart skips. Don’t overthink it, he reminds himself. “Red or white?”

“Take your pick,” you shrug nonchalantly.

Luca reaches up to see the bottles of wine you have in store, and you try not to pay too much attention as his shirt rides up around the waist—or the sleeve, showing off the remnants of Alfie’s crayon work over his inks… you’re just two co-parents hanging out. It’s normal, right?

“What about the Malbec?” he eventually chooses, taking out the bottle.

He’s always loved Malbec—this particular brand of Malbec you brought him when he first invited you for dinner on your third date.

Don’t overthink it, you remind yourself. “Yeah, sure.”

You pick up two wine glasses and set them down on the dining table, shuffling into the corner bench. Luca settles into the other bench, directly against the kitchen counter, pouring the wine onto both glasses.

“How many bedtime stories did Alfie manage to get out of you?” you pipe up, swirling the purplish liquid around.

“Just one…” he sips on his wine thoughtfully. “Although he made me read it three times.”

You smile, bemused. “Which one was it?”

“‘The Bear Who Did.’”

“Ah, yeah. He’s been into that one lately,” you muse. “But… for what it’s worth, I’m glad he asked you to tuck him in tonight.”

The two of you exchange a soft look. A ceasefire. A truce, at least when it comes to your son. Because you really do want Luca to have a good relationship with Alfie.

“Me too.”

“And I’m sorry you had to… make do with spending the day with Alfie here.”

He shakes his head softly. “Nah, don’t be. I had a good time. It’s nice to just hang out… at home.”

At home, the words echo in your head.

With you, they echo in his, loud and unsaid.

“So, uh… how have you been?”

“Ah, you know how it is. Work is kicking my ass—my current client’s only two blocks away, but the house is a total fixer-upper, and Alfie’s… Alfie.” You don’t want to backtalk your own son, although you both know how trying he can be sometimes. “But it’s all good. My mom helps out with Alfie, and Jess insists that I go out and live a little every now and again.”

“And do you? Live a little?”

“I mean, within reason. I can’t go clubbing ‘til 4am anymore. I think I’m getting old…” you stretch your arms, feeling that soreness just from your daily activities.

Luca grins, raising his glass. “I hear you. I don’t even really go out anymore.”

“Seriously?”

“Mm-hm.”

You make an incredulous face. It would make sense for you not to go out much, with Alfie and everything. But he was alone, abroad… “Why, though?”

He just shrugs lightly. “I’m working. Whenever I’m off, I mostly just… eat or sleep.”

“I somehow find that hard to believe.” You take a dubious sip. You both know how much Luca enjoys grabbing a cheeky pint. He’s British; it’s in his blood, goddammit.

“Oh come on…”

“You don’t even go out drinking or whatever? Meet people?”

His gaze flashes towards you almost playfully. “Do you?”

Your face falls, not expecting to be caught so off-guard with such an innocent question. And upon seeing that, his face falls. Shit. And with that, the air between you shifts so dramatically.

Stupidly, you still try to save the conversation. “Of course my friends and I go out—”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” His voice darkens, his blue eyes piercing through you.

This conversation is a long time coming. It’s a natural progression of your relationship—or the lack thereof. You separate, you get divorced, and eventually you move on. Two years is a more than acceptable time to start dating again. And still, you phrase out your next words very carefully.

“I’ve been on dates here and there…”

Luca sucks in a slow, calculated breath. “Does Alfie know?”

You shake your head. “It’s nothing serious so far.”

He’s not sure what’s worse, the fact that it’s nothing serious, or that you’re holding out for something serious in the future.

“Look, we both know this is happening sooner or later…”

“I know,” he quickly recovers—or as much as he can recover. He just stares down the stem of his glass. “It just… It’s a lot to take in, that’s all.”

“I understand.” The wine feels like gravel down your throat, and the words coming out of your mouth feel like throwing up a boulder.

“Because I do miss you.”

Your eyes immediately dart over to his, as if you’re not sure you heard it right. “Luca…”

“I miss you everyday. I miss us. I miss everything we used to have.”

Your heart catches—no, stops altogether at his admission. “Luca, we can’t do this anymo—”

He swallows thickly, his jaw setting as he braces himself. “I’ve been thinking about it everyday—the whole time I’m away, and frankly, I’m kicking myself over not telling you this sooner.”

“That’s probably just the homesickness talking.” You turn away. This can’t be possible. This can’t be happening. What the fuck?! “It got you reminiscing about the good old days. Give it time, you’ll come around.” You try to maintain a neutral, distant, cold approach to this, although the crack in your voice betrays you.

“No. That’s not it.”

“Then what the fuck is it?”

Your words cut through the quiet apartment like a flash bang. Luca stops dead in his tracks in his shock, and honestly, so do you. Awful silence hushes over the room, and both of you are almost too afraid to break it. Neither of you even dare to move.

After what seems like forever, Luca moves first. A tear escapes his eye, and he wipes it away with his knuckle hurriedly. “Noma should’ve been a dream. And it is, in a way. I guess.” He stares blankly ahead, his life in Copenhagen replaying in his head like it’s on fast-forward, and the playback seems to just highlight how lonely he is there. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m utterly miserable there. I get up and go to work and I just feel empty. Because what’s the point? You and Alfie are way over here, being a family while I’m… doing what?” He wants to tear his hair out, because this is everything he’s dreamed of, and yet he is living the stuff of nightmares. “It makes no fucking sense.”

It makes even less sense to you. You can’t even begin to process this tangled mess in your head. “Luca… we are almost officially divorced. You’re telling me this now? When everything is—”

“I thought I was doing what was best for you. I thought I should just… let you cut your losses and—”

“The best for me? How the fuck did you think giving up was the best way forward for me?” The thought of it burns your eyes with angry tears. They melt, and you don’t do a thing to stop it from running down your face. “You didn’t think to fight for us while you still could?”

Luca’s heart aches to see that. He is dying to reach out and wipe them away, but he can’t. His voice is quiet and small and almost childlike. “I tried. You were just so… sure about the divorce. You had it all figured out. And I… I thought you had no room for me anymore.”

“I had to keep it together. I had to figure it out—for Alfie’s sake. For mine.” You stare at your little potted sunflower on the windowsill. “I don’t see the point in being vulnerable with you anymore when you’re already set on leaving.”

The words have run out. The whirlwind of emotions has passed. What he feels and what he wants is now very clear.

“I shouldn’t have left.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have.” You wished he didn’t. Everyday for the last two years. And everyday you set yourself up for disappointment because, the truth of the matter is, he did leave. So you stop wishing. “Because I don’t know how to come back from this. I really don’t.”

Nothing that comes out of your mouth is unexpected. But it doesn’t hurt any less to hear it from the horse’s mouth. “It’s just… seeing you guys today… We were a family again. And I would do anything for us to be a family again. Please.”

You sigh heavily. “What else is there to do, Luca…?”

“We can, I don’t know, figure something out, go to couples counseling—”

You groan in frustration, Jesus Christ not this again, wanting to tear your hair out when— CRASH! You accidentally knock over your wine glass and it shatters as it hits the floor. “Shit…”

“Mommy?” Alfie calls you from inside his room, sleepy but alert.

The two of you freeze just before you can move out of your seat. Afraid the slightest of noises would rattle your son.

“Yes, bubbie?” you try to sound bright and normal. Maybe if you can convince him that everything’s fine, he won’t come running in panic.

“What was that?”

“I just knocked over a glass, kiddo, everything’s okay. Go back to sleep.”

You and Luca wait a few seconds with bated breath. One, two, three… ten seconds go by, and there’s no movement in the bedroom.

The coast is clear.

You scramble down to pick up the shards of glass. The spilled wine looks like blood in the dim light of the room. It’s a painful reminder of the broken pieces of your former life, the casualties. He quickly follows suit, as if struggling to put it all back together. The irony is not lost on either of you, you’re sure of that.

“It’s fine, Luca. I got it, I—” a sharp piece of glass accidentally cuts your palm as you pick it up in hurry. “Fuck!”

“You okay?” He takes your hand as quick as lightning, wanting to inspect the wound, but you snatch it away.

“I’m fine.” You get up on your feet, teetering over to the sink, away from the crime scene, careful not to step on any piece of glass.

Yet he still follows you, walking over to where you’re standing now. “Come on. Let me just take a look.” He reaches out to your wrist, running little circles with his thumb to ease your grasp.

“It’s not a big deal…” you let him look anyway, you figure it’s easier to just let him do his thing than to argue your way out of it.

His calluses are brittle against your palm, but he handles you with the gentlest touch. The wound is not too big or too deep, but the sight of blood marring your palm makes his heart drop. There’s no visible piece stuck to it, that’s a good sign, he thinks. He rips off some paper towel and wets it on the sink, and softly dab at the gash, cleaning the wound and wiping the blood off.

You grit your teeth, not wanting to show any sign of pain although it stings. “It’s just a little cut…” your tone bears less and less conviction, as if you have no energy left to argue with him on such a small matter.

There’s a very particular way his eyebrows arch when he’s deep in thought. The left one always sits slightly higher than the right. Blue eyes fixed on the object of his focus. A minute gesture behind the chaos in his head. “You need a Band-Aid,” he points out.

“It’s in the—”

Luca is already opening the drawer next to the stove, taking out a packet of a Star Wars-themed Band-Aid. He still remembers where everything is, and you can’t tell whether the ache in your chest is a good or bad thing.

He puts the Band-Aid on your cut, then takes your hand close to kiss it better, like he used to do.

“Um.” You freeze in your tracks, taken aback. And it seems he’s just as equally as taken aback by his own action. He is flushed with embarrassment, and you feel your face growing hot as well.

He’s the first to break the awkward silence, quiet and tentative. “I’ll clean up the mess. You just hang tight.”

It seems so mundane, sweeping broken glass and cleaning the floor. His body registers it as a simple muscle memory—he must’ve cleaned up messes on this very spot a million times. But his heart is heavy with the burden of your history, and all the pain that comes with your separation. He might not be able to put the pieces back together, but maybe he can clean up the mess and make it nice again for you.

And all the while, you’re stuck to the kitchen counter, watching him so effortlessly reacquainted with his former home. It’s as if he never left. For a confusing moment, it feels like home again. How did you manage without this view, this presence for so long?

Luca puts away the debris in the trash, hidden away in another kitchen drawer next to you, and hovers in front of you, as if wanting to reach out and touch you… but too afraid you’ll push him away.

“Does it still hurt?”

You can’t tear your eyes off of his. The little cut on your hand is but a dull ache now, but the insides of your chest feels like it’s been mangled beyond repair. You burst into tears, sobs ripping through the seams.

His arms wrap around you, keeping your tattered pieces together. Your face is buried in his chest, surrounded by soft cotton and earthy perfume, and your first thought is you can’t remember the last time you were in his arms like this. You rake your mind through all the memories, all the times you hugged each other hello and goodbye and all the times in between, and you can’t remember the last time you stopped, why would you stop—

“My love…” Luca’s voice soothes you, so quietly murmured against your forehead with a soft kiss, yet rings so clear in your ears. He cups your face with both hands, wiping the tears away with his thumbs. “It’s okay... I got you.”

The palm of his hand grazes your lips, and you kiss it the way he kisses your Band-Aid earlier. You have no energy left to fight whatever is going on inside you. You don’t understand the nagging urge to be away from him, when being close to him feels this good. You miss his touch and his voice and his face, and you’re so overwhelmed with longing that you close the distance between your lips and his.

Luca gasps when you kiss him—and it feels like the first breath he’s drawn in two years. Your lips are just as he remembers, just as warm and inviting and familiar, and he relishes coming home to them tonight. He didn’t think he would be so lucky ever again, but now you’re here, kissing life back into him again.

Against your better judgment, you stumble into the bedroom, careful to make as little sound as possible as you tread down the hallway. Still tangled in each other. Refusing to let go even for a second. His five o’clock shadow scratches your skin, following the trail of his lips down your neck.

You push him into bed and climb on top of him without a single thought. You need him close, closer than the past two years, closer than now, and your clothes feel like they’re in the way. Of his hands, of his mouth, of his warmth…

You tear your dress off and throw it away, and he stops in his tracks. He has every part of you memorized, every curve and every ridge, every notch of your stretch marks, every inch of your C-section scar from Alfie’s birth… and yet he’s looking at you for the first time all over again.

“Beautiful…” it escapes his mouth just like that, and you kiss him senseless in return. You worry that if you stop, the moment will pass and this whole thing turns out to be just an illusion.

Or worse, a mistake.

You tug his t-shirt over his head, trying not to linger on his broad chest too long. He gets the idea—he is dying to say something, but doesn’t—and just unclasps your bra in response. He keeps his mouth busy by kissing and licking and sucking your newly exposed breasts.

It’s not that you haven’t been touched like this in a while; it’s just that you haven’t been touched by him like this for so long.. “Luca…”

He never thought he’d hear that again. His name in a wanton sigh, uttered by the lost love of his life. He’s not one to waste his chance. “It’s okay. I got you, my love. I got you.”

Because for the first time in a long time, it’s true. He’s got you. He’s got your body underneath him, your nipple in his mouth, your sweet sex in his hand.

God.

You’re so soft, so warm, so wet against his fingers. The little stuttered moan you let out sounds absolutely heavenly. He remembers exactly the last time he was here.

Christmas Eve, two years ago.

Things had been tense long before that, but Luca was home and able to spend some time with his wife and kid at last. You didn’t seem all that chuffed having him around—whether he was here or not brought out that “neutral look of displeasure” from you these days— but at least you didn’t pull away when he rested his head on your shoulder as the three of you watched Jurassic Park (Alfie’s all-time favorite). Didn’t roll your eyes and turn away when he kissed you and wished you happy Christmas before bed.

And he wanted so desperately for you to openly want him again.

So he tentatively deepened the kiss and reiterated his love for you in every inch of your body that he could get his hands on. Trying to convince you that he was still here. Trying to convince himself that with every orgasm he pried out of you, that you still wanted him there.

But you just… laid there and watched. Hands locked in on the sheets, not even touching him. Motionless as he went through the motions of his thrusts. Numb as he touched and kissed and fucked you the way you used to like. He was fighting a losing battle. He might as well have been making love to a ghost.

“Luca…” Your breathless voice snaps him out of his own intrusive thoughts, more clear and alive and real than any memory of you posing no desire for him.

“I— yeah, sorry. I just…” he shakes off his own thoughts.

“Hurry up, come on…” you needily thrust yourself into his hand.

“You sure?”

No, and neither does he. But at this point, you’re much too stubborn about your decision in the divorce and much too prideful to admit that you want him back and maybe just a tad too eager to make a mistake with him.

So you nod your head yes, and with a searing kiss, he fingerfucks you the way you needed him to.

“Oh, God… fuck…” you sigh under the undoing of his fingers. It’s like he never forgot how to work your body. His fingers play a pattern on your clit that makes you sing. And when one slides into you, crooking and curling against your silky heat…

“Luca, I— now.”

He unlatches his mouth from your nipple almost begrudgingly, as if too sweet to part with you. “Not yet, baby. We can’t…”

“What, why?”

“Because…” he nips at the smooth flesh of your chest thoughtfully. How can he explain it to you in a way that makes sense? “I want…” to take as much time with you as possible, he adds another finger inside you deliciously slow. “I need…” to feel you in every way first, he chants in his head as he kisses you through your orgasm.

Your resolve is slipping, but the craving is as ravenous as ever. You try to squirm in protest anyway. “But…”

“Please.” His lips press against your forehead, eyes squeezed shut. “I got you, okay?”

His blue eyes meet yours, as familiar as the sky you’ve walked under your whole life. As sure as day. And before you realize it, you find yourself nodding along.

Watching him slither further down your body. Mouth paving the way between the valleys of your breasts, up the diamond-hard tops of your nipples.

Down your torso.

Between your nether lips.

You don’t remember the last time you did this either. Memories of attempts to rekindle the romance flash before your eyes. The nights that he climbed into bed late at night after work, still smelling like chocolate or mint or whatever ingredient he was working with that day. Waking you up with the parting of your legs and hushed kisses saying, “Missed you so much, baby…”

“Right there. Yes…” you pant as he laps you up where you’re dripping, catching every drop and coaxing more at the same time.

His eyes close, and he swallows back a needy groan. “Come for me, baby.”

The words shoot right into your core, and you’re suddenly overcome with the waves of pleasure running through you, grinding your hips into his mouth shamelessly. Has he always been so greedy in the way he ate you out?

Your head is spinning with need and you hope the broken words you string up are comprehensible enough for him. “Luca, come on, I can’t—”

“No, please—” he seems to understand just fine, but still he shakes his head and buries his face deeper into you.

“Luca…”

“Wait, just let me—”

So insistent. So stubborn. So… needy. You grasp a fistful of hair on the back of his head. Both heaving, you breathe out,

“Please.”

The word stops him in his tracks. But it’s not so much the word as it is the gravity that comes with it. Whatever the two of you are doing, whatever you’re feeling is beyond words at this point.

It’s just you and him and this need.

And as much as he wants—needs— to satisfy his hunger, there’s just no way of stopping you anymore. Truth be told, he’s not even sure why he’s been stalling you in the first place. Not when you’re so eager to tug his clothes off and touch him absolutely everywhere. To stroke him, and taste him…

“No, baby.” He stops you just before you slither down his body, settling you back on the bed and caging you underneath him.

You throw him a look, indignant. If he’s gonna hold it off some more, you swear to God—

“No, I…” he kisses you hard, hoping you’ll get that he wants you too. More than anything. And that he’ll give you what you want. Hell, he would give you anything if he could come back to this again for the rest of his life. “Just trust me, okay?”

You marvel at the sight before you. So tall and broad and sturdy. With dark blond locks tousled in passion and eyes lidded from lust and longing, and it makes your heart stop because… there it is.

Love.

As much as you shut it out and as much as you avoid it, love is permanently etched to his actions. Tattooed onto the smallest of things. In the way he kisses your temple softly, and the way he caresses your skin as he aligns himself against you, and the way he holds you as he pushes in…

“Luca…” you gasp sharply.

He stops halfway into you, his eyes searching your face with compassion. “You okay?”

You’re aching and craving the stretch of him all at once, but you wouldn’t have it any other way, so you ultimately nod your head. I’m okay.

And he knows that deep down. He feels the same. Soothed and tormented by your very presence, although he can’t help but ask, “Do you want me to stop?” Please don’t ask me to stop…

You shake your head quickly. Neither of you would ever dream of it. You would take everything—the weight and the sting of it all— and he would leave everything behind just to have this again.

Your hips colliding again in a frenzy of a rhythm you haven’t played in so long—still remembering every beat like it’s your own pulse. Your walls gripping him like you wouldn’t let him go.

He shudders a little. “I’m gonna come if you keep doing that…”

“I don’t care,” you murmur into his neck with a kiss, “Come.”

“What…?” He can’t have heard that right… right?

“I want you to.”

“Jesus…” he breathes out. “I wanna make this last, baby—”

You shake your head again and wrap your legs around him almost demandingly. “I want you to come inside me and fill me the fuck up… want you dripping down my legs… please…”

“Fuck!” The images flash before his eyes faster than he can stop his hands from grabbing you by the hips, slamming himself into you.

Nor can he stop himself from coming deep inside you.

There’s no way to describe the way he feels at that moment. The way tension peaks and snaps into release. How it brings you into your climax as well. Your lips must be swollen from the assault of your own teeth as you hold back the filthy noises coming out of you. You don’t mind the building ache in your thigh muscles, because as soon as that warmth fills you up, your body is overcome by waves of bliss.

“Fuck…” he flops back onto his side of the bed—the right side—and quickly gathers you in his chest. It’s an effortless little maneuver, making sense at last as you lay half on top of him.

Your hand finds his—more puzzle pieces coming together as he fills the spaces between your fingers. You bring it to your lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. Surprised to find the gold wedding band still adorning his ring finger.

***

9:56 PM

“Was that really your first time since we… you know?” Your murmured question rings loud in the absence of the rain. The storm has finally passed, but neither of you move—neither even dare to bring it up— afraid to ruin the moment.

“It was.”

“Not even in a casual, ‘no strings attached’ kind of situation?”

“No.” He looks almost embarrassed to admit it, but there is no hesitation in his answer.

“Wow…” your heart sinks. Is it possible to feel good and bad at the same time?

Luca pauses for a moment. You can see the conflict brewing in his head. “Did you?”

You don’t have to answer. The sheer silence you take is an answer enough.

The confirmation feels like shit, but he tries to stay neutral. His thumb stills on the back of your hand. “Can I ask how many?”

“Gosh, does that even matter?” You sigh. There’s another argument coming—you can feel it.

“No, I just… I wanna know.”

“You don’t really wanna know.”

“Is it a lot?”

“I mean…”

“How many?”

You take in a sharp breath. There’s no way out of this now. If the truth is what he wants, then the truth is what he shall get. “Twelve.”

He tenses up next to you. The whole world stops, and you can’t help but think, it’s over. There is no way this marriage is salvageable now. “What…?”

“I know that it’s a big number, and I know you might be upset—”

“That is a big number.” He doesn’t say anything about the latter part of her sentence, but it’s obvious that he’s upset, too. “I just… why?”

“I was trying to get over you.” It’s a pathetic answer, but that’s all it is to it. “I couldn’t sleep in this bed for months. I just couldn’t. Slept on the guest bed instead,” you motion at the next room, “and then one day, I couldn’t take it anymore. It’s like a switch flipped inside my brain, and I needed to—”

“What?”

“I needed to… overwrite the memories of you,” you admit feebly. “On this bed. On my body.”

Knife, meet heart. He’s not sure what answer he was expecting, but whatever it was, this hurts so much more. “And did it work?”

“Up to a point…” you pause, a sad smile in realization. “It’s funny. I keep getting bits and pieces of you somehow.”

“What do you mean?”

You close your eyes, your memories flashing, reminding you that every single time reminds you of Luca one way or another. “It’s… somebody’s perfume, or the timbre of their voice, or the way they hold my hand…”

“And you see me in them?”

“Every single one.”

“Jesus…” Luca finds himself relieved and choked up at the same time. He doesn’t want you to ever get rid of your memories of him, but at the same time, it’s painful to hear that you tried anyway.

And you tried very hard.

“I’m sorry.”

He hums, and you realize… he hasn’t let go of your hand. Not once. Not even after your little confession. It makes the argument easier, knowing he’s there. It’ll be easier to part with him again after tonight, you hope, knowing you both did your best to understand. Why you needed to be apart. Why you did the things you did.

The armor has been shed, and the two of you are now naked, in every sense of the word.

Luca turns to look at you, studying your profile. He remembers the last time he was here.

He had just told you about Denmark. Stupid of him to feel excited, to tell you he’d just been offered his dream job, to ask you and Alfie to move someplace new with him, because it turned into a fight.

Worse than a fight; it was a death sentence.

You turned away and stared at the ceiling, and told him you couldn’t do this anymore.

And in some fucked up way, Luca feels as if he’d been brought back in time, and this is his one chance to make it right. So he asks you,

“Do you still love me?”

You breathe out, heart clenching because in spite of yourself, “I do.”

“Do you want us to try again?”

“Luca…” you sigh heavily, “How would that even work? Alfie and I are here, and you have Noma–”

“No more Noma. I’m giving that up.” The answer is straightforward, and he surprises himself over how easily it rolls off of his tongue. How right.

“What? You wouldn’t…” Your face falls as you turn to him.

“I would. And I am,” he says firmly. “Look, I’ve thought about this for months now. I can’t do Noma anymore, I need to be home.” His gaze softens, and you feel the pattern running on the back of your hand again.

Slow and steady and certain.

The tear rolls off the corner of your eye and onto the pillow with the tiniest drop. “I wanted you to come home…”

“Then let me come home. Please?”

“I want to. I just…” you reach out and cup his face tentatively. “I just want to make sure that we’re not doing anything rash.”

His eyes light up. The only thing that matters is that you want him home, too. It takes him everything to let his logical part of the brain take control. “How about this, then?” Luca pauses thoughtfully. “We’ll take a minute. For me to sort out everything at Noma, find a replacement… and for us to figure out if this is really what we wanna do.

“If it starts to feel like a bad idea, maybe we should rethink it. But if it feels good… maybe we can give it another shot.

“And in the meantime, we’ll talk. We’ll FaceTime and… figure out what the hell to say to our lawyers.”

That makes you grimace. You were supposed to have another meeting with your divorce lawyers. Tomorrow is going to be awkward. But awkward beats saying goodbye to the man you’ve always loved, right? It’s a small price to pay.

“What do you say, baby?” He looks at you with all the hope that he has. “Just give me a minute to get everything sorted and then I’ll come home.”

You smile tearfully. “A minute is not enough… how about a month, hm?”

“Yeah, that makes more sense, actually.” He chuckles sheepishly. “A month. I can do that.”

“Good.” You sidle up to him and kiss him where his heart is. You’re willing to settle for having him just for the night, but you can’t wait until he comes home to you for good.

You hope he will.

#will poulter #chef luca #luca the bear #the bear fx #chef luca x reader #luca x reader #chef luca x ex-wife!reader #chef luca fic #chef luca smut #will poulter fic #will poulter smut #ava writes

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myboipotterimagines · 11 months

Text

Golden Pt. 2 - Weasley Twins x Reader

Thank you for all the love on part one. I genuinely love this AU and hope you all do too. <3

Other Parts: Part One

Your eyes flickered between the two Weasley boys, refusing to accept that you could have two soulmates - even though they were looking you straight in the face. "This is a joke, right?" you finally ask. "I don't think anyone could pull off a joke like this," Fred spoke, gently placing his palm back to the matching spot on your cheekbone. "Even us," George laughed. "And why would we? No one dreams of half a soulmate." You don't know why, but your heart aches at his words. "I didn't dream of having you as my soulmate, either," you retort, pulling away from both Weasleys. "Is that so, sweetheart?" He takes a step closer, smirking. "Because the rouge of your cheeks says otherwise."

"Back off her, George," Fred commands, pulling the two of you apart. "We have to get out of here now or Umbridge will kill us. Like actually kill us." "Alright, soulmate. You coming with us or not?" George asks. "Like she's going to go anywhere with us now, George," Fred scoffs. "You're a total-" "I'm in," you say, cutting him off.

Fred pulled you out of the broom closet before you could change your mind. He held onto your hand as the three of you ran through the halls, avoiding the blasts of light above you. Suddenly, curses mixed into the light of the fireworks. You risked a quick look back and saw Umbridge and the rest of her cult following you. "Shit!" you yelled, ducking from a bright red ray of light.

"Accio!" both twins yelled, and after a moment a broom hit each of their hands. They mounted the brooms, Fred pulling you right behind him. You clutch him closely while shooting a string of spells behind you at Umbridge. With a final toss of fireworks, you're gone - Hogwarts far behind.

It was no time before you landed down in Diagon Alley. "What are we doing here?" you ask. The town was a graveyard - each shop having been closed for what seemed to be months.

"Alohamora," George whispered, cracking open a door to a building near the end of the lot. "You are looking at the start of our joke shop - name still pending." "And our home for the next month. If we told our mum we were leaving Hogwarts she would drag us straight back. So we have to wait her out here," Fred adds.

After spelling on the lights, George leads you in. The place was nowhere near finished, but you could see the bones of the operation. Half-finished products were strewn over the ground, haphazard notes that only they could read near each one. "This is really cool," you smile.

"I would advise you not to touch anything. There's a method to our madness and I really don't want you to accidentally blow yourself up," George says. You nod. "No touching. Got it." "Come on, bedroom's this way," Fred leads. You wish you could stop the heat from rising to your face, but George sees it immediately, smirking to himself. You ignore him, following Fred closely up the stairs.

"We didn't really prepare for guests," he admits, rubbing the nape of his neck. You enter the bedroom to find two beds on either side of the wall, an simple dresser by each one. And that was it. Not even a couch. The room was just sad. You laughed, "I can tell. If you can spare a pillow I'll sleep in the corner. It'll be cozy." "You are not sleeping on the floor," both twins immediately protested. "No way we're letting any guest sleep on the ground, let alone our soulmate," George scoffs.

"You'll have my bed tonight. We'll figure something else out by tomorrow," Fred adds.

You protested, of course, but the two fought back harder. You finally just gave in, heading towards the bed. You finally take off your cloak, aching to get out of your whole uniform, but knowing you would have to wait until tomorrow to get anything remotely comfortable to wear.

Fred immediately picks up on your discomfort. "You can wear these tonight," he says, pulling a sweater out of his dresser, then a pair of joggers. You retreat to the bathroom to pull on the clothes, and as you do you notice the golden F stitched into the sweater. You smile as the rub the end of the sleeve between your fingers.

The twins had changed out of their robes by the time you returned. George had already gone to bed, and Fred was waiting for you on his. You sat down beside him, finally taking a moment to rest after the insanity of the day. "Thank you for this," you said, nodding down to your sweater. "And for bringing me with you, and letting me sleep on your bed, and for not meeting me in the way I always feared you would."

Fred brings his hand to your face, holding you from your jaw to your ear, just as he had when you fell. "I don't think my hands could ever hurt you." He spoke the words quietly, but they filled your entire head. When you looked at him, you felt dizzy. It was all too much - his kindness, his brother's apprehension, the fact that they were both your soulmates. Was that even possible? In all your years you'd never heard of a person having two soulmates, let alone at the same time. But there they were. There he was, staring down at you with the kindest eyes you'd ever seen on a man.

"Can I kiss you?" Fred asked. His cheeks rouged as he asked, and yours followed. You couldn't speak, so you just nodded. And then the hand that had settled onto your skin, like it belonged there, pulled you into him. His lips were soft against yours, moving as slowly as a person possibly could. Still, his touch was electric and the shockwaves surged through you.

Your heart lurched in it's chest when he pulled away from you. "Goodnight," he smiled, pushing himself off of his bed. You quickly grabbed his hand, halting him. "Stay." Fortunately, he didn't require much convincing. He let you become comfortable before sliding into bed behind you, wrapping one hand around your waist.

"Merlin," George huffed, causing both of you to jump. "The two of you cannot fit comfortably on that bed. With a quick flick of his hand, his bed pushed against his brothers, the sheets melding together. You yelped as strong hands pulled you up from the outside of the bed and plopped you back down right in the middle. "I will not be cuddled by Fred in my sleep again. I trust you to keep your distance."

"With all due respect, Georgie. You are the last person I would want to cuddle in this room," Fred shot back, wrapping a protective arm around you. "I would sure hope so," he rolled his eyes, finally lowering himself into bed beside you. He didn't bother to face the other direction, instead studying your face. Against your will, you blushed once more - which only caused him to smirk. "Sweet dreams, princess," he teased.

"Sweet dreams, Georgie," you smiled back, finally causing his cheeks to burn.

***

Author's Note: I'm thinking about making this a series. Let me know what you all think. And if I do make it a series - would y'all want smut or no?

Next in the series: Part Three, Part Four, Part Five

#fred weasley x reader #george weasley x reader #weasley twins x reader #fred weasley x reader x george weasley #why choose #soulmates au #harrypotter imagine #george weasley imagine #harry potter imagine #fred weasley imagine

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crypticminx · 9 months

Note

Hi! I loved ur telling Felix if pregnant fic so could we get a p2? Maby e Felix helping reader a morning sickness. Just fluffy ❤❤

Hi my angel!!! here you go! Xoxo

Pregnancy with Felix ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡

AN: part two to my headcanons, very fluffy xoxo

- Felix would grow to be exceedingly close and overbearing of you at all times–all within good reason, of course. You felt incredibly tired? No problem, his usual disorganized bed would be neatly prepped and cozy for you with a cup of tea waiting on his night side table. Morning sickness? He was behind you as you would throw up all of your unpleasant remains from the previous night, holding back your silky hair while he gently circled his palm along your sore arched back in soothing motions

- Felix would favor sleeping in with you even if that foolishly resulted in the ignorant academic missing his first morning class, but you were immensely important to him in comparison to his repetitive lectures. He’d wrap you deeply into his chest, entangling both of your legs and arms to construct some sort of warmth from each of your bare bodies. When you’d finally close your eyes to try and regain your interrupted rest, Felix would slide his hand down to just below your ribs and on your abdomen. Though you were barely showing, he could already feel some sort of connection to what was inside of you and it made him feel affectionately sympathetic. Most of all, it made him cherish you even more and from that moment onward, he was destined to continue to treat you in a way that differentiated him from any other sort of love you had ever received.

- It would be too soon for the two of you to move into Saltburn, a manageable idea Felix came up with on a whim upon the two of you trying to discuss the reality of your soon to be future that included a baby. Felix, who terribly wished he could stay with you to attend to your doting needs at every passing hour of each day, still had his classes to attend. You would carefully decide not to continue any further studies, withdrawing yourself from all your classes. Much to your angry parents dismay as they harshly yelled at you once the whole truth unraveled from your apologetic mouth through the lines of a telephone in an empty hallway. They were far away, convenient enough for you, but hearing their harsh tones of pure disappointment made you mentally feel like you had been hit by a bus; paralyzed with sadness among all your other unwanted hormones. Felix, seeing you shamefully walk back into his room was to the rescue as he tried his best to reassure you. There was nothing more he despised than seeing your pretty little eyes swell with tears that were caused from people who should've been supporting you.

- “Y/n, darling, look at me” he would softly cup your flushed, tear-stained cheeks, “I could pay for your education whenever you'd want me to, y’know?” You only nodded at him, sniffling as you felt yourself trying to keep it together. “In fact,” his dark eyes scanned the room before their full attention was back on you, “what do you say we go get a place together, yeah?”

- Felix was soon to follow in sharing the news with his parents and judging by the huge grin he sported on his gorgeous face after hanging up on the telephone, you knew that their reaction was eons away in contrast to how your folks retaliated. And with everything finally being put into motion, a flat just on the outskirts of where campus was located was hastily granted and approved to you and Felix. “Mum was practically screaming with joy,” Felix admitted as he ran his fingers through his hair, shaking his head in the process while his mind painted the image of his mother beaming with delight at the thought of a Catton grandchild.

- You imagined your flat to be cute, cozy and fitting, but this was Felix Catton we were talking about. Opening the doors after receiving the keys to your shared place, you were stunned at how breathtakingly modern and posh the interior was. A large living room accompanied with what seemed to be an extraordinarily comfortable sofa, marble stained countertops in a kitchen that was larger than your previous dorm room all topped together with 4 exquisite bedrooms. It was a strange feeling, not unsettling, but very downright gracious as you could see everything playing out as if it were a movie. Candles would be lit on the dining table, the mouth watering smell of dinner you just prepared would be flowing in the air, and there would be an eager infant placed on your hip waiting to be fed. As you’re about to feed your young, Felix would walk in, looking exhausted from a tiresome day, but happy to see the two most important people in his life.

- “So?” he would interrupt your thoughts as he could see you relishing the moment. “I love it,” you would breathlessly vow before Felix could only respond by lifting you off of your feet and cautiously twirling you around the hardwood floors of your flat.

- As the months would slowly start to progress and evolve into life with Felix, you felt at ease for once and being able to have time granted to you allowed you to focus on yourself and your pregnancy, making everything less complicated. You could take any given moment to rest and let your body prepare itself for your child. Felix would do everything in his strong willed nature to find the best doctors for you, being in attendance for every appointment with you, and always kept himself in line for having access to all of your desires.

- Changes–lots and lots of changes. Watching your stomach slowly swell outwards was fascinating and you had accompanied a new profound sense of gratefulness for yourself. Most of the girls your age would probably die if they had to say goodbye to their wardrobe of short skirts and tube tops, but that didn't matter to you anymore, what did was your baby. Felix, on the other hand, was constantly in a state of awe whenever he was around you. His protective hands were always placed on your bump, caressing it with the utmost care possible, all while extensively praising you. “So so beautiful seeing you like this, my darling,” he'd gently whisper in your ear as you laid on top of his lean body, enjoying the spell he'd put you under that was his touch. “Carrying my baby,” he hushed, kissing the top of your head, his fingers unable to stop themselves from stroking one of your sensitive breasts. “You're only going to get more beautiful.”

- With all the happiness, there were also many challenges that you faced. Feeling extremely emotional more days than others, it was mainly the rare moments that Felix wasn't home or around to embrace you with his devoted presence that made you feel like you were missing out on a chunk of events that you should've been at. Felix rushing in after a late lecture that took more of his daunting time than it should have, he swung by you, only giving you a quick pat of a kiss on your forehead, before he rummaged his tote bag of schoolwork away on an empty counter. “You're in a rush,” you observed as he changed his button down into something that seemed far more relaxed and calm. “Uh yeah,” he hurriedly spat, focussing more on fixing himself up, “Oliver and I were gonna head to the pub with a few of the guys, celebratory post midterm drinks and all that.'' Oh, you tried your hardest not to sound letdown by the fact that you would probably spend the majority of the night alone on the sofa continuing to read a catalog you had zero interest in. Felix wanted to hurdle himself to the front door, but feeling tension in the air that was so strong he could cut it with a knife, he paused and glanced at your face that was slowly becoming struck with sorrow. In response, he slowly padded his feet towards you. “What's wrong?” His tone was relaxed and not full of distraction. You sighed, feeling guilty for stopping him in his tracks, “I just feel like I've been missing out on everything,” you found your mind speaking out loud, too late in stopping yourself from speaking the truth. “I miss going out with you, being carefree and reckless,” you pouted, feeling like a fussy child. “Oh, sweetheart,” he took a seat beside you, “I can assure you’re not missing anything, in fact, I'd rather be with you all the time.” it was true, Felix didn't care for his past ways, he was more occupied in his life with you and he'd never trade that for any sleazy party. He rested a loving hand on your stomach, “this is far more important to me.”

- Felix’s favorite pastime hobby with you would be picking out names for your little one. Dressed in nothing but cozy knee high socks and an oversized T-shirt, courtesy of Felix, you would lay a journal just above your bump as your attentive ears would listen to all the ideas sprouting from Felix, smiling as his quick mind came up with more suggestions. “Genevieve for a girl?” he gave you a weary smile, not feeling too confident. “It's beautiful, but too posh and old, no? He chuckled, “mum would have a field day with that one,” he exaggerated his expression, raising his pierced eyebrow before rolling his smitten eyes. “So that's a no, I presume,” you giggled as you crossed it out with your pen.

- Your shared moments that were filled with ambience of love were your favorite times. Soaking every ounce of alone time you could get with Felix because before you knew it, the simple times would turn into long sleepless nights—and not the ones you favored the most with him. Felix would run a bath filled with relaxing salts for you to lay in as he would wash your locks and all parts of your body for you, letting his hands do the work as your head would tilt back in ease, letting all your soreness peacefully exit. The moments spent in bed mainly included Felix resting his head on your bump, freely talking to your child as his voice carried you to sleep. “I love you and your mum so much,” he kissed your bare skin with his soft lips, hoping not to stir you out of sleep, “daddy cannot wait to meet you.”

#felix catton #felix catton x reader #felix catton x y/n #felix catton x you #jacob elordi #saltburn #saltburn 2023 #oliver quick #jacob elordi x reader #dad! felix catton #Felix Catton x pregnant reader

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hedgehog-moss · 1 year

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The Great Jungle Fence of ‘23

A majority of you poll-voters expressed the opinion that my fence would stop Pampe for 4 to 7 days and I am very touched by this popular endorsement of my fence-building skills, because her first escape happened after roughly 4 hours.

^ Pampe connoisseurs will know that her preferred way of defeating fences is by karate-chopping them with her neck, but I thought she could only do that if the fence was low enough for her to put some strength in the chop. The jungle fence was at least as tall as Pampe in the place where I found it all droopy-sad after she escaped, so I guess Pampe added a new jump-chop combo attack to her character sheet. I imagine it went something like this:

That’s okay! All new information about Pampe is carefully filed and will contribute to the creation of the Ultimate Fence. I decided to simply make this portion of the fence unneckchoppable by braiding branches from nearby trees into the fence like they did in Indonesia with that living bridge made by knitting the roots of two banyan trees. I ended up using five or six branches so it’d be solid enough, but here’s a pic of the beginning of the process:

The braided-branch part of the fence still stands undefeated, after 20 days. Pampe ate all the leaves but couldn’t get rid of the branches and had to concede this battleground.

I then found her staring pensively (worryingly) at another potential weak point of the fence: the gate. I used a standard wood pallet at first, tied to trees, but it wasn’t very high. I couldn’t add another pallet on top of it because that would make it inoperable as a door, so I went to explore the barn, which like all barns is full of dusty treasures. What object do I own that’s like a pallet, but much taller?

A slatted bed base. Once tied to a tree it swings open easily, but it was an awful chore to carry it all the way across the pasture, I had to wait for a weekend when my mum was going to visit me. That conversation went like:

Me: Do you remember that old bed in the barn? Can you help me carry it (well part of it) across the pasture? Mum: Why on earth Me: Pampe. Fence. Mum: That’s a good reason

I was very proud of my new, impassable gate, but Pampe was weirdly nowhere to be seen as I was setting it up. Usually she’s here carefully observing over my shoulder when I add a new element to a fence, so that was alarming.

In a flash of insight I realised I had been tricked; she’d never had any intention of jumping over the pallet gate. Too easy, too predictable. She’d only examined the gate to scare me into trying to solve this non-problem and force me to use my only trump card (I don’t have several old beds in the barn), and meanwhile she’d gone and jumped over a different pallet in a different part of the fence.

That other pallet had a sheep netting stretched above it, so that a) I thought it was unjump-able, b) Pampe thought it was a more amusing challenge. Poor Baby Poldine was a bit distraught; she clearly didn’t dare to jump to follow her mum but she didn’t want to be left behind once again, so she tried to slip through the net, but that didn’t work either.

Poldine made a baa noise like a traumatised baby goat and Pampe grudgingly turned back to go bump noses with her through the fence, it was a cute mother-daughter moment.

I added a new length of wire mesh (see pink arrow in the below pic) above the pallet to discourage further jumping, and my mum went “So you can remove the sheep netting and use it elsewhere” and I was like, what, no! Do you think they remove parts of the fence every time a Jurassic Park dinosaur escapes? That makes no sense. I’m only going to add more elements to this fence. Forever and ever or until it works.

Pirlouit, a law-abiding animal with very modest fence needs, was starting to look a bit overwhelmed.

Also—for once, Pampe didn’t look annoyed about being escorted back where I wanted her to be, she was kind of bouncy and looked immensely entertained by all this.

I’ll spare you the details but she escaped again, this time by lifting the bottom of the fence in a place where it was weighed down with a crossbar, which she broke in two with the power of her neck. That was easy to fix; instead of a wooden crossbar I weighed down the base of the fence with massive rocks. Go ahead and neck chop those, Pampe. But this time around it had taken me forever to find the spot where she escaped, so I decided to make things easier for myself in the future—I cordoned off the area just outside the fence with police tape between trees, along the whole length of it. This way I’ll see easily where she escaped—the tape is very flimsy and I crisscrossed it in places, so she shouldn’t be able to get past it without breaking it.

... So I suppose I’ll have to start the next post with “You’ll never guess what I caught Pampe doing last night” and a photo of her like

Anyway, Pampe looked unamused this time.

Well, that’s all. For now. Pampérigouste is back in the lawful enclosure with her family and we are waiting for her next move. Here’s a photo of her alone in the unallowed half of her pasture the other evening, contemplating her freedom

#crawling along #llama drama

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spicyyy-muffin · 2 years

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Confessions

Mentions of punching, missiles, misogyny

Genre: Fluff

Simon Riley x Reader

Negotiating as a woman was the most frustrating, teeth pulling part of my job.

Men didn‘t take me seriously. Especially when I was trying to get information out of them.

“I’m gonna ask you one more time, who told you American missiles would be transported at that time, and at that location?”

He spat blood out on the floor smirking back up to me, “What will u give me if I tell you sweetheart?”

My fist flew across his cheek again. I couldn’t say anything back because that would just add fuel to his fire and I refused to give him that satisfaction. But his words are cold stones, sinking my stomach further into the ground.

It was just Ghost and I in the room alone with him.

“Tell me sergeant, do they take turns on you? Who leaves you the sorest-”

It was Ghost’s fist flying this time.

“It’s lieutenant. Watch your mouth or I’ll sew it shut.”

“Ohhh full of threats, I bet you're the one that gets the most fucks in.”

Ghost’s fist swung a couple more times before Price pulled the metal door aside and walked in.

“Enough, back to base, both of you.”

Ghost swiftly turned his head walking out without another word.

Turning around to follow him, Price gripped my wrist.

“The facade is fading lieutenant. You better tell him to rein it in before Shepard finds out and you're on a one way ticket back to the states without a brooding boyfriend.”

His mustached face grinned staring down at me.

“He’s not my boyfriend sir.”

“Do you copy lieutenant?”

“Copy.”

I walked out following the hot path behind Ghost.

His long legs moved swiftly in front of me making it hard to catch up.

“Ghost.”

He ignored me.

“Ghost!”

He kept walking.

“Goddammit-”

He turned around, I bumped into his chest and my cheeks were being held in the palms of his hands.

“Why do you do this to me?” His eyes gleamed into mine expecting a response.

I’m not sure what I expected him to say but it wasn’t that.

Was he even blinking?

“What?”

“Do you know?”

“Know what?”

He shut his eyes in imitation pain.

“How much you mean to me, do you know or not Lieutenant?”

His hands shook.

“Yeah, yeah Ghost I know, what’s wrong with you?”

“You. You are my problem.”

He took his hand off my cheek, pulling the bottom of his mask up and bringing his lips down to mine before I could rebuttal.

We stayed there for what I wished was forever but only a short amount of time before he pulled away.

“I wanna take you away. Show you where I grew up, my favorite pubs, the shitty flat my mum raised me n my brothers in.” He shook his head in disapproval.

“What’s wrong with wanting me to see that baby?”

“No you don’t get it. I could care less if I ever saw Soap or Price again-”

“That’s not true.”

“Y/n please.” His voice was vulnerable and shut me up quicker than a hot iron.

“Be with me.”

“I’m right here Ghost.”

He pulled me closer into him.

“No baby.” He smiled softly. “Just be with me. Be mine.”

I smiled back, stepping on my toes to press my lips against his.

“You're funny if you think I’d be with anyone else.”

“Why cus I’ll cut their lips off?”

I laughed against his mouth.

–

Walking through the cafeteria I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“So you n Ghost aye?”

I smiled while putting some meatloaf on my plate.

“Don’t know whatchu mean.”

Soap laughed, “Full of shit, the both of you’s.” His eyes crinkled gleaming across the room to Ghost nonetheless.

“Have you seen his face yet?”

I paused, turning around, “Why? Sad you're not gonna be the one to sit on it anymore Mctavish?” I bit into my apple, smirking at him while walking away.

Walking up close to my hunched over man staring directly into Alejandro.

“Dunno ‘bout that one mate.”

I set my tray down as he looked up at me.

“Ello love.”

His arm slithered around my waist pushing me flush to his side.

“Missed yeh.” He mumbled into my ear, pressing his face momentarily into my neck.

It wasn't a large act of PDA, but noticeably enough among our peers.

“Christ, is this what it’s gonna be like from now on?” Soap muttered sitting across from us.

“Why are’you jealous Mctavish?”

Soap stared incredulously at the two of us as Ghost’s hand slipped to my inner thigh.

“For fuck’s sake, you two are made for eachother.”

Lmk what you think!

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katiemccabeswife · 9 months

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Awesome Parenting

Sam Kerr x Mum!Reader x Daughter || Sam's loss has a bigger impact on your daughter than Sam.

You were too focused on watching your girlfriend drop her head in disappointment to see the tears build in your daughter's eyes. The London derby was always a good game to watch and being present only amplified the tension you could feel through a screen. The derby had even higher stakes as Arsenal was following closely behind Chelsea in second place and while losing might not make them drop down on the ladder, it was an important game to win.

Sam never likes to lose, no one does really, she's even said herself she hates losing more than she likes winning, so to lose such a game to Chelsea's biggest rivals, you knew she would take it to heart.

It seems that your daughter has picked up on the trait.

Your eyes dart to the floor where your daughter now resides with tears rolling down her face. You crouch down and pull her into a sitting position with a concerned look on your face, "What's up hun? Are you hurt?" You ask confused as to why she had dropped to the floor.

Her hands went to her face as she was wiping her tears and simultaneously hiccuping, "Mama lose," A fresh wave of tears poured over the 2-year-old which, whilst you hated seeing your baby girl cry, brought you relief that she wasn't hurt.

You cooed as you picked her up and rested her on your hip, "Hey, it's ok. I know it can be really upsetting when things don't go our way and I know that we all wanted Mama to win, but it's ok. It happens sometimes and Mama will get them back next time, ok?" You bounced slightly while rubbing her back, trying to prevent a full-blown tantrum in the middle of a very busy stadium.

"But why!?" Your daughter screeched.

"Hey, hey, none of that, please. I understand your upset but we don't yell at Mummy, ok?" When you felt her nod into the crook of your neck you kissed her temple, "Sometimes the other team plays really well, and sometimes our team doesn't play as well as they can and as we know, mistakes happen. There are lots of things that could have happened but that's ok. We can't win all the time, even though we really want to."

"But Mama be sad." Adelia whimpered.

You pouted to yourself at how sweet your kid was, "Well, I know whenever I'm sad, you cheer me up so how about we go see Mama and see if you can cheer her up, yeah?" Adelia perked up at the idea and quickly wiped her tears.

You walked down to the barrier and got Sam's attention who then began to make her way over, "Hey, munchkin," She said as she reached the two of you, "Hey, y/n/n," She greeted you with a quick kiss and pulled Adelia over the barrier.

Adelia took Sam's face between her chubby little hands and gave Sam a kiss on the nose, "Mama, ok?" Sam nudged her nose into Adelia's cheek which brought out a giggle.

"I will be, thank you chicken." You smiled at your girls.

That night after you and Sam had put Adelia to sleep you were cuddling on the couch, "A was really upset when the whistle rang today, think you've rubbed off on her." You looked up at Sam with a little smirk.

"She is her Mama's girl, isn't she?" Sam smirked back.

You groaned into her chest, "It's not a good thing, Sammy," You giggled.

"Well, she seemed pretty happy when she saw me?" Sam accused defensively.

"Yeah, because of my awesome parenting skills," You countered.

Sam kissed the top of your head and sighed, "You are pretty awesome,"

You sighed contently with her, "I know,"

"Oi, cheeky," She laughed and you distracted her by planting a kiss onto her lips, smiling into the kiss.

#woso x reader #auswnt x reader #woso imagine #woso community #sam kerr imagine #sam kerr x reader #woso fanfics #woso blurbs #sam kerr #woso

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holllandtrash · 1 year

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6 to 1 | lando norris (part 11)

pairing: lando norris x leclerc!reader part 11 in the 6 to 1 series (read part 1 here)

dinner with charles and the rest of your family comes with high expectations and heavy disappointments. one thing's for certain, lando's not going anywhere and neither are you

word count: 7.2k tags/warnings: implied smut, literally the worst translated french ever if someone wants to fix it by all means pls help me out, some sad tugs on the heart strings, i think thats it, also poorly edited

There were two sides to Lando Norris.

You already knew of the sweet and considerate side. The one that opened car doors for you, that took care of you even though you never asked to be cared for. This was the side of Lando that you fell hard for because he was all heart and cheeky grins and stupid eye rolls that had you blushing.

And then there was the side that you didn’t even know existed until you woke up to him leaving a trail of kisses down your body before slowly spreading your legs apart. The side that had you seeing stars and screaming his name before you could even register being awake.

Lando was insatiable, to put it simply.

And you weren’t complaining.

How could you complain when he joined you in the shower and pressed his lips to your neck as he pinned you against the porcelain wall. Your cheek against the cold tile, the stream of hot water coming down from above, his cock so deep inside you that you relied on him to keep you upright.

Yeah, you couldn’t complain.

Lando seemed to be on a mission to make you cum more times in twelve hours than you had in the last two years. He got so much pleasure from bringing you to the edge and watching as you spilled over.

You made sure to return the favour. Not even waiting until you were out of the bathroom before dropping down to your knees. Lando has one hand on the edge of the sink, the other hand tangled through your hair. Strings of expletives meshed so well with his encouraging words, telling you how fucking pretty you looked choking on his cock.

And honestly, that first shower was a write-off. You eventually needed to push Lando out of the bathroom to give you the chance to actually get ready for the day.

It was hard for the two of you to keep your hands off each other and to be fair, you didn’t really try. Sure, you put on a show, but ten minutes in and you were by far more entertaining than whatever rom-com you had chosen.

The day got away from you, to say the least.

It wasn’t until Lando asked you what you wanted for dinner did you suddenly bolt upright on the couch, reaching for your phone to check the time.

Lando, who had his hand on the handle of the fridge, slowly backed away from it as he tried to gauge what was going through your head, “Okay, or we could order something?”

“No, no, I’m sorry,” you stood up as you rushed to answer Arthurs text. He was already at your maman’s place and you couldn’t multitask to save your life so you didn’t even try to explain yourself to Lando until you sent Pascale a text saying that you had accidentally fallen asleep and are headed there now. It was a lie, but it was better than the alternative which would undoubtedly give her a heart attack.

“What’s up?” Lando asked, heading back towards you, eyeing your phone.

You dragged your fingers through your hair, “I forgot I promised to go to my maman’s house for dinner.” You turned and headed down the hall, “I need to change..can you- I don’t have any clothes here do I?”

Lando followed you, picking up the mini skirt you abandoned last night and the top that could have quite literally doubled as a bra. All day you had been lounging around in Lando’s clothes, having completely forgotten about your dinner plans.

“Just you and your mum?” Lando asked, he stepped into his closet but there was no way he had anything that was appropriate for dinner.

“Um, and Arthur and Enzo,” you added quietly, finding a brush on top of his dresser and running it through your hair. You kept Charles’ name out of your mouth, not feeling up to bringing him into the conversation.

Lando stepped back into his room, eyebrows raised at your frantic actions, “Did you want me to drive you? We can stop at your place on the way so you can change.”

You didn’t just want him to drive you, you wanted him to join you. But to throw this on him so last second wasn’t fair.

You accepted the ride to dinner, but you kept the invite to yourself.

Lando waited in the car as you ran in and changed, making yourself more presentable. It took under five minutes to put something appropriate on and get rid of any signs that you and Lando had been nothing but tangled limbs and heated kisses and desperate moans for the last 12 hours.

You were thankful that Lando was careful. Any marks that bruised your skin overnight weren’t visible to anyone other than you two. Some were darker than others, but you didn’t let yourself think of Lando’s lips exploring every inch of you, not while he was currently idling outside and waiting for your return.

When you slid back into the passenger seat, Lando waited before putting the car into drive. He nodded his head towards the phone that rested on the dash, your phone, that you had left while you ran inside.

Not only that, but you left it unlocked.

You had nothing to hide, but that wasn’t the issue. The issue was Arthur had texted you twice since you stepped out of the car.

Charles is here btw, seems to be in a fine mood Are you bringing Lando?

When you looked up at Lando, he just had a smug little smile on his face. He wasn’t mad that you hadn’t invited him to dinner, nor was he upset that Charles was there after you purposely avoided saying his name.

“You told your brother about me?” Lando asked, finding the whole thing endearing. It was one thing if the drivers knew you were together, telling your family was entirely different.

“To an extent,” you shrugged, not wanting to make a big deal out of it. “He knows we’ve been hanging out. I think a lot of people do.”

“Hanging out,” Lando repeated, mocking the naive term.

“Well maybe if you asked me out I could tell him you’re my boyfriend.”

“Well maybe if you weren’t so picky about me planning a grand gesture,” Lando flipped the sarcasm on you and you playfully pressed your hand to his cheek, pushing his face away from yours.

“I deserve a grand gesture,” you told him.

Lando nodded in agreement, “But nothing embarrassing?”

“Nothing embarrassing.”

“Anything for the Littlest Leclerc.”

You positioned yourself on the seat so your upper half was practically leaning over the centre console. Lando’s smile had yet to vanish as his gaze darted to every inch of your face, landing on your lips before he glanced up to meet your eyes.

Out of nowhere, you felt giddy. You felt the excitement of butterflies in your stomach. You looked at Lando and suddenly you wanted him to come to dinner. You wanted your mother to see him as someone other than a driver. You wanted him to get to know your other brothers. You wanted to introduce him to the part of your life that no one had ever seen before.

“Come with me,” your quiet request echoed through the car. “To dinner.”

Lando’s eyebrows raised in response. He wasn’t against the idea, but he wasn’t tripping over his words to agree either.

“Are you sure?” He asked. “You don’t think it’s too soon to meet your family?”

“Well you’ve already met my mother,” you pointed out, thinking of the few times they had interacted during race weekends.

Lando rolled his eyes, “You know what I mean.”

You leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to his lips before smiling. Your nose nudged against his and again, those butterflies returned.

“I want you there,” you said.

“Then I want to be there.”

Two sides to Lando.

And this was the side you were falling incredibly hard for. The side that made you want to show him off to everyone you knew. The side that made you forget why you were nervous to see Charles in the first place.

Lando kissed you once more before he pulled his eyes to the road. You sat back in your seat and your hand stayed connected with his for the remainder of the drive.

——————

You opened the door to your maman’s place, reaching for Lando’s hand as you stepped inside. There was no one in the general area, but you could hear voices flooding in through the balcony. With it being such a beautiful day, you shouldn’t have been surprised to see that everyone was already outside.

Lando was looking around, undoubtedly feeling very out of his element as he stood in the childhood home of another driver. His eyes landed on some old photos and his usual bubbly personality was replaced with solemn and an expression so tense that it had you feeling uneasy in your mother’s own home.

“Hey,” you whispered, squeezing his hand as you stepped closer to him and the wall that held a variety of memories in frames. Lando nodded, acknowledging that he heard you, but his eyes were locked on a specific photo.

It was Charles in a kart, probably about ten years old at the time. Next to him knelt Jules, the biggest smile on his face.

Lando pointed at the young girl balancing on Jules’ knee, a bright red toy car between her fingers. His gaze then turned to you, eyebrows raised.

“I was about five years old, I think,” you said, trying to think back to when exactly that picture was taken. You leaned your head against Lando’s arm as images of your childhood rushed back to you. Some were pure memories that belonged to, others were flashes of stories you had heard that your mind had tricked you into thinking you remembered.

But this day, you remembered.

“I wanted to race too,” a breath of laughter followed that admittance. “Or at least I thought I did. Jules would have never actually let me drive that thing, I was too young, but he put me in and I remember getting so scared. I kept thinking it would start and just take off and it was instant tears for me.”

Lando nudged your side, “Your dreams of being a driver were short lived.”

“Very much so,” you laughed. You tapped your finger against the mini you behind the glass. “Jules gave me a toy Ferrari to keep me distracted and it worked for the most part. But when Charles got in the kart I got scared for him. Jules had to hold me the entire time he was going around the track, assuring me that Charles was safe, that he-”

Lando noticed the way your voice caught in your throat. He slipped his hand out of yours to drape his arm around your shoulders instead, pulling you into his side so he could kiss your forehead.

You told yourself you were fine. You were fine, this was a happy memory, it was a good day. It was just one you hadn’t thought about in a while.

Lando didn’t want you to sit in your thoughts. He propped his finger under your chin, tilting your face up, “Do you think a toy Ferrari would still work to distract you?”

The corner of your lips curled upwards and you rolled your eyes at his attempt at bringing some humour into this conversation.

“No, but maybe a real Ferrari would.”

“Yeah I’m not buying you a Ferrari,” Lando scoffed, turning you both around and away from the photo wall. You glanced at it over your shoulder once more, but when the sliding door to the balcony opened, the pictures were yet again just a memory.

You stepped out of Lando’s embrace when Pascale looked up and saw you. A grin spread across her cheeks and she was quick to put down the bottle of wine in her hands. You practically hopped across the kitchen floor to give her a hug, rocking side to side in her tight embrace.

“Bonjour, maman,” you sighed happily. It had been a few weeks since you had actually spent time with her. When you pulled back she started asking you about the wedding you attended, about London, about what you’ve been up to, but of course she was speaking in French. Lando, who stood quietly behind you, had absolutely no idea what was being said.

“Attends, maman,” Wait mom. You said, cutting her off before this conversation could go further. You glanced at Lando and ushered him over with just a head nod. “C’est Lando.” This is Lando.

Pascale looked at you like you were missing a few brain cells and honestly, you sort of felt like you were. Obviously she knew who Lando was. The question was what was he doing in her home.

“Chérie, je sais qui c'est.” Sweetheart, I know who he is.

Your maman knew Lando as a driver. Someone from a rival team, someone that Charles competed against. She probably didn’t think much of it that he was there, it wasn’t uncommon for Charles to invite another driver or two to a get-together.

But when you reached for Lando’s hand and pulled him closer to you, Pascale’s eyes lit up. There was a faint gasp of surprise, but it was her heartwarming smile of approval that lifted the weight off your shoulders.

You had never brought someone home before, someone that you wanted to introduce to your family. And even though Lando didn’t need any introduction, it was clear that he wasn’t just a driver. Your fingers intertwined with his and your cheeks turned a light shade of pink when Pascale pointed between the two of you.

As your mother, she wanted nothing but happiness for you. She didn’t care that Lando was a Formula 1 driver, all she saw was you clinging to a guy, something that she’s never seen before. There was an obvious connection, one that you hadn’t let yourself have before and Pascale could see that.

“I hope it’s okay that I invited him,” your voice was timid as you glanced towards the patio doors. All of your brothers were out there, none of them had noticed you yet.

“Of course!” she cheered, reaching forward to squeeze Lando’s arm lovingly. “Vous ne parlez pas le Français?”

“No,” you answered for him, feeling Lando tense up beside you as he tried to figure out what he was just asked. “No, he doesn’t speak French.”

“Oh that is not a problem,” Pascale brushed the language aside. She wanted to make Lando feel comfortable in her home, which was just another breath of fresh air for you. At least your maman was supportive, she would be inclusive towards Lando tonight.

Your brothers were another story.

The patio door slid open again and this time it was Enzo and Arthur who walked in. They greeted you from across the room, both in French, but their ‘bonjours’ and ‘ca va’s’ were cut off when they recognised Lando.

“C'est nouveau,” This is new. Enzo teased, his finger darting back and forth between you and Lando as he poured himself a glass of wine.

Arthur glanced out to the patio where Charles remained, “Tu ne lui a pas dit a propos de Lando, pas vrai?” You didn’t tell him about Lando, did you?

Poor Lando, just staring at you waiting for a translation or for you to answer on his behalf. He genuinely couldn’t tell what your brothers were saying, but he hoped it wasn’t anything negative.

“English, boys,” Pascale clapped her hands together as she moved to stand between Arthur and Enzo. She wrapped her arms around both of them, squeezing gently as she smiled back at you and Lando. Both sons had quite a few inches on her but they let her pull them into her sides without any sort of fight. “Lando does not speak French. We will be good hosts, yes?”

“C’est lui qui vit à Monaco,” He’s the one who lives in Monaco. Enzo snorted, earning a smack upside the head from your maman. He held his hand up in defence, palm facing Lando, “Sorry, mate.”

“All good,” Lando chuckled, shaking his head. He didn’t want to put anyone out of place, but Pascale was notorious for making sure her guests were comfortable and respected. If that meant she had to learn another language, she probably would without question.

“Lando, wine?” She offered, grabbing an empty glass from the cupboard.

“Oh he’s not a wine drinker and-” you spoke up, inhaling a sharp breath through your teeth. You glanced up at Lando, “-and I don’t know why I’m speaking for you. You have a voice.”

Lando gave your hand a squeeze, but he didn’t seem offended that you answered on his behalf. If anything, he was a little surprised that you remembered that little detail about him.

“Help yourself to anything in the fridge,” Pascale told him, still pouring a glass for you knowing that you sure as hell wouldn’t turn down wine. She had just stepped around the kitchen island to hand it to you when the patio door opened for the third time.

Charles didn’t even look at you. His eyes immediately went to Lando.

Lando waved awkwardly, “Hey, Charles.”

Completely disregarding him, he turned to Pascale, “Ce devait être un dîner de famille." It was supposed to be a family dinner.

Lando leaned towards you and whispered, “What did he say?”

You shook your head, he didn’t need to know that Charles was already choosing to let this evening turn sour. “Tu peux être poli au moins.” You can at least be polite. You told Charles, only to be met with an eye roll in response.

“So the eye rolls run in the family?” Lando asked.

“Can you just-” you turned to him suddenly, but stopped yourself from being unintentionally rude. Lando was just trying to make a joke, that’s what he did in any given situation. It wasn’t his fault that Charles’ bad attitude was now affecting how you were acting. You placed your hand on his chest, playing with the string of his jumper, “Let’s go outside, yeah?”

Charles turned around as well but Pascale was quick to jab her finger against her son's chest before he could go anywhere, “Behave, Charles.”

It was a warning that held very little merit. Charles would mutter something under his breath in French about how Lando wasn’t actually invited as the group of you all made your way outside. Pascale stayed inside to finish up dinner and you offered to help but one look from her and you both knew you’d be needed outside with the men boys.

The patio was large. The outdoor couch shaped like an ‘L’ was spacious enough to fit all five of you comfortably. But Charles still opted for one of the chairs, resting his leg over the other as he leaned back and watched as Lando made himself comfortable on the patio furniture, or at least tried to.

The second that Lando put his hand on your thigh, Charles’ eyebrows twitched and Lando retracted his hand, leaving it in his own lap.

This was awkward for everyone.

Well, maybe not so much Arthur and Enzo whose heads were moving back and forth between you like they were watching a tennis match, just waiting to see what sort of moves any of you would make.

You hadn't spoken to Charles since you left Silverstone. You weren’t there for him when he DNF’d near the end of the race. You weren’t there to tell him that he still had plenty of chances left this season to do work his way up the standings.

Now was as good a time as any to bring it up, clear the air.

“I’m sorry about your retirement last weekend,” you said, feeling unusually timid. Charles wasn’t someone who you often felt small around. You looked up to him, sure, but you never felt the need to be careful around him, until now.

Charles sighed loudly, “Is this you taking responsibility for it?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Hmm,” Charles scratched the stubble that grew along his jaw. “You don’t think everything you told me minutes before I had to get in the car affected my race at all?”

Nevermind, you weren’t shy to speak what was on your mind. You were annoyed.

“You don’t think leaving your personal life outside the track is something you should probably do?” You retorted, with even more sarcasm than his tone carried. “I mean, you’ve done it before. Weren’t you the one who broke up with Cha literally days before a race weekend and still went on to get a podium?”

“That was different.”

“You’re right,” you scoffed, leaning back against the cushions as you crossed your arms over your chest. “You brought my life onto the track with you in Silverstone. I never asked you to do that.”

To your right, Arthur nudged your side, “Take it easy, Y/N.”

Charles moved on from the topic of the race as his glare narrowed in on Lando. “Vous êtes ensemble, c'est ça?” So, you two are dating?

Lando looked at you, hoping you would, again, either translate or answer for him.

“You know he doesn’t speak French.”

“Toute la famille parle Français,” This whole family speaks french. Charles leaned forward, “You’re just going to show up at my mother’s house and demand everyone speak English for your convenience?”

Lando rapidly shook his head, “That didn’t-”

You promptly cut him off, “Don’t be an ass for the sake of just being an ass, Charles.”

“Mate I don’t want to cause any trouble,” Lando chimed in. His hand went to your leg again and even when Charles eyed the point of contact with disapproval, Lando didn’t move it. “I just like hanging out with your sister. And for some reason she likes hanging out with me too.”

There was that term again. Hanging out. But this time when he said it, you knew Lando was only trying to downplay everything for Charles’ sake. Charles didn’t need to know any of the details of your relationship, he just needed to get it through his head that you were together.

The patio door opened and Pascale came out, holding the glass of wine you had forgotten to grab. You thanked her kindly and without exchanging a word, the mother-daughter bond you shared spoke volumes when you sent a glance across the patio towards Charles.

Pascale tsk’d, shaking her head at the Formula 1 driver, “I said behave, Charles.”

“I didn’t do anything!” Charles retorted. “He’s the one that shows up invited.”

“I invited him,” you snapped.

Enzo leaned forward, directing his attention to Lando to try and steer this conversation elsewhere. He started asking the Brit about his family and Arthur gave you an encouraging nod. Maybe tonight just started off wrong, it had potential to get better.

But of course those were high expectations.

Dinner was horrible.

The glares sent across the table towards you and Lando were impossible to ignore. Charles purposely spoke French and even though Pascale reminded him four times that Lando didn’t understand, Charles only responded that it wasn't his problem.

He was being uncharacteristically rude, and Charles’ reputation was that he was one of the nicest drivers on the grid. That was a reputation you agreed with, up until now.

He was trying to make Lando uncomfortable, trying to find any reason to exclude him, ensuring that Lando knew he didn’t approve of your relationship.

You tried to ignore it, really. You were there to talk to your maman, to catch up with Enzo, to introduce Lando to everyone else in the family.

But eventually you just grew tired of biting your tongue for the sake of keeping the peace.

“You’re insufferable, do you realise that?” You finally blurted out. Arthur and Enzo stifled their laughter and next to you, Lando dropped his hand to your leg. He had been respectful all dinner, keeping his hands on the table where everyone could see, but he knew that you needed the support in the form of a comforting squeeze.

“Big words for the person who pays for all of your trips. There's nothing insufferable about the private jets from Monaco to Spain to London, are there?" Charles barely looked up from his food, shoving his fork into his mouth and letting his words sink in.

“Oh you’ve been waiting to use that line haven’t you?”

Charles ignored you, glancing towards Lando, “You’ve got her trips covered now, yeah?”

“Charles,” Pascale warned. She had stayed quiet for the most part, not wanting to get involved, trying to believe that it was just siblings being siblings.

But it was so much more than that.

“I don’t know why you think I’m so reliant on you, but I can assure you, I’m not,” you shot back, not giving Lando a chance to share his two cents. “But if I was really struggling, there’s about six other drivers on the grid I can call up to help me out. We all know they love my presence in the paddock more than yours.”

Again, Charles chose to ignore you. His stare remained on Lando, “You’re really going to let her talk about the other drivers right in front of you?”

You slammed your hand on the table, demanding that he give you his attention for once. Charles didn’t flinch, but everyone else did. Charles just leaned back in his chair, arrogance painted his face.

“Pourquoi ça te dérange tant que je sois avec lui?” Why do you care so much that I’m with him?

“Pourquoi tu es avec lui? C'est ça la question.” Why are you with him? That’s the question.

You and Charles continued to raise your voices at each other across the table in French, saying anything and everything that came to mind, anything and everything that could hurt the other. Your brothers understood everything, your mother was waiting to see if she needed to intervene, and Lando had absolutely no idea what was happening, he didn’t speak French.

But he understood some phrases.

“Va te faire enculer!” You practically screamed. Go fuck yourself.

Lando was taken aback and he turned to you with wide eyes. You would have loved to excuse yourself from the table at this point, to take Lando and go back to his place, but your mother wasn’t about to let either of you get away with the bullshit that’s been happening all night.

Pascale snapped her fingers, calling for the attention of everyone in the room, but her gaze darted back and forth between you and Charles only. She pointed at you and then at him and then at the kitchen, “Dinner’s over. Both of you, you’re on clean up.”

It wasn’t uncommon in your youth for Pascale to split the household chores between the kids. She had four of them and like any typical mother, she taught her kids the importance of cleaning and pitching in around the house.

But you didn’t even live there anymore.

You would have volunteered to help regardless, but the fact that she was assigning you and Charles to dish duty now that you had finished eating was a telling sign that the two of you needed to work your shit out.

Pascale pushed her chair away from the table and nodded towards the living room as her glare directed at her kids shifted to a warm gaze at Lando, “Come on, Lando, I’ve always wanted to show off baby pictures of Y/N. It’s a right of passage as her mother.”

“Maman, don’t, please,” you pleaded, but it was too late. Lando had practically jumped out of the chair and followed Pascale to the couch.

Arthur and Enzo stood up as well, they didn’t have any interest in reliving your childhood through the photo albums, but they also didn’t want to hang out in the kitchen and be uninvited witnesses to whatever you and Charles were undoubtedly going to argue about.

You stood up from your chair, collecting a few dishes from the table, “I wash, you dry.”

“You always wash.”

“Because everytime you wash you end up breaking plates in the sink and then it becomes a bigger mess for everyone.”

Charles had no comeback for that, he really couldn’t argue with facts. So reluctantly, he found himself standing elbow to elbow with you as you handed him the clean plates for him to dry and put away.

Neither of you said a word.

Which was not Pascale’s intention.

Hearing laughter behind you, you both glanced over your shoulders, catching each other's eyes momentarily before you stepped away from the sink to clear off some more dishes from the table.

Your back was towards Charles when you looked up and saw Lando making his way towards you, a small wallet sized insert photo of you between his thumb and forefinger. You were maybe seven years old there, missing one of your front teeth just in time for picture day at school.

“This is adorable,” Lando told you, “Your mum said I can keep it.”

“You absolutely will not,” you rolled your eyes, stacking the glasses on top of each other.

“You were such a cute kid,” Lando cooed, looking at the picture again. You already knew the question that was going to follow when he turned back towards you, “What happened?”

“Ha ha,” you mocked, flipping your middle finger up at him.

Behind you, Charles cleared his throat. You turned and saw him standing with his back leaning against the counter, arms crossed over his chest with the empty drying rack behind him.

“We can go after I finish cleaning,” you told Lando, sounding apologetic on behalf of how Charles had been treating him all night.

Lando felt bad. He didn’t want you to rush out of there because Charles was making this uncomfortable for everyone. He liked getting to know Pascale and your brothers a bit better. Enzo and Arthur didn’t have a problem with Lando’s presence.

It was just Charles.

“Why?” Lando asked, raising his voice slightly even though this was supposed to be more of a private conversation. He wanted Charles to hear. “I’ve got no plans tonight. We can stay as long as you want. Unless-” Lando looked over your shoulder towards Charles. “Do you want us to leave?”

“I want you to leave,” Charles mumbled and you all but slammed the glasses back on the dining room table as you turned around to face your asshole of a brother.

“Okay, you know what?” you inhaled a heavy breath, hands clamming up in seconds as you suddenly felt very confined within the kitchen. “I have been nothing but supportive of you for your entire career. Is it possible, that for once, to just take a step back and be supportive of me?”

“Supportive of what?” Charles scoffed, gesturing towards Lando. “That you’re dating him? That’s not something I need to be supportive of. It’s not an achievement or a career, Y/N, you haven’t done anything! You slept with a driver, congratulations! Should I call up Pierre and Carlos and invite them over as well? Make it a whole affair?”

You weren’t sure when Lando stepped around the table to stand at your side but you’re thankful he did. He was there to put a loving hand on your arm, rubbing his thumb over your skin as Charles’ words hit you hard. It felt like someone was pressing all of their weight against your chest and you struggled to find your words as much as you fought to take a breath.

You could have screamed at him. You wanted to.

Your brother couldn’t separate you, his sister, from you, his biggest fan. To him, those two things were supposed to coincide.

And for so long, they did.

But that wasn’t the case anymore.

“Okay,” you finally breathed out, voice trembling along with your hands. You were going to pretend like Charles’ words didn’t hurt you and you were going to remove yourself from this conversation before it could take any more difficult turns, before this got uglier. You looked up at Lando, “We’re leaving.”

This was when Pascale interjected again. She stood up from the couch, the painful look of disappointment plastered all over her features.

“Charles Marc Hervé Perceval, apologise to your sister.”

“All the middle names,” Arthur whispered, but unfortunately for him the room was deafeningly silent and everyone heard his little comment. He cowered back into the couch, hoping that if he just stared at Charles long enough, the attention would go back to him.

And it did. Charles shook his head, “I’m not apologising for anything.”

Charles was a lost cause. It was a battle you didn’t have the energy to fight any more tonight.

You reached for your maman, squeezing her hand before going in for a hug. She apologised, of course she did. The last thing she wanted was to see her kids fight.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?” You told her and she nodded before moving in to give Lando a hug as well. She told him he was always welcome there when Lando thanked her for the dinner and for showing him the photo albums.

Lando said goodbye to Arthur and Enzo and then reached for your hand, tugging you into his side as you walked out of the house. You waved at Pascale as you made your way towards the car and you could see her expression shift into a glare as she turned around to give Charles a stern talking to before the door fully shut.

Like usual, Lando reached for the passenger door to open it for you, but he stopped you before you could get in by pulling you into his chest.

“Hey,” he whispered, his other hand finding your cheek to tilt your face up to meet his. “I’m sorry about tonight.”

A deep exhale passed through your lips, “You are the last person who should be apologising.”

“Yeah, well, the person who should be apologising isn’t going to,” Lando scoffed. “But you still deserve to hear it.”

Lando kissed your forehead, and then the tip of your nose and when you tilted your chin up just a little more, he pressed a final kiss to your lips before stepping back to let you get into the car.

He slid into the drivers side and had just started to reach for his seatbelt before he let it retract above his shoulder.

“I left my wallet inside, I’ll be right back,” Leando leaned over to give you a kiss on the cheek, opening up the car door again.

“I can go in and get it,” you offered, not wanting to have to subject Lando to Charles again.

“I’ll be two seconds, it’s fine.” He assured you, not leaving any room for discussion. He made his way up the walkway and you watched from the confinement of his car as he rapped his knuckles against the door.

It was Pascale who answered, obviously. She didn’t seem surprised to see Lando, moreso thankful if anything.

“Lando, I’m so sorry,” Pascale said to him again, reaching for his arm to give it a squeeze. Pascale was a very touchy person, Lando came to realise, and you were cautious when it came to physical attention. Lando wondered where your closed off tendencies came from. He also wondered when that shift came between you two when you started to lean into his touches and being the one to reach for his hand first.

“You really have nothing to apologise for,” Lando said, his typical grin making another reappearance. He wasn’t going to let Pascale take responsibility for her son’s actions. He also wasn’t going to let it get to him the way Charles intended.

She invited him inside, asking if he left anything and he told you that he did. But once inside, Charles shook his head and glanced around, “I actually just wanted to get a few more words with Charles quickly.”

Pascale nodded knowingly and pointed towards the balcony. Arthur sent him a smile that could have either read good luck or be careful, but Lando didn’t let himself think too much of it as he crossed the floor and slid the patio door open.

Charles glanced up from his phone and rolled his eyes when he saw who had joined him.

Lando much preferred your eye rolls. They were usually playful and teasing. You were never actually annoyed with him. He didn’t see your eye rolls and think of all of the exit routes like he was doing now as he stepped outside.

Choosing to sit in the chair as opposed to joining Charles on the couch, Lando leaned forward and clasped his hands together atop of knees.

This was strange for both of them.

Lando and Charles were friends. They got along well most of the time. They respected each other as people, as drivers. It wasn’t until Lando became more involved with you did Charles start to see the British driver in a different light.

“You know I would never hurt her, right?” Lando started off by getting right to the point. The line that was drawn between them was you and Lando needed them both to be on the same side of this line, not vying for what they thought was best in their own opinions.

“She’s not thinking about the consequences, Lando,” Charles took him by surprise, not coming back with attitude or with a bitter rebuttal, but with a voice of reason. “She’s happy, sure, but have either of you thought about the media presence in the paddock? What people might say? How might this affect your performance and mine? Formula 1 is hard enough as it is, mate. Racing aside, there are so many external factors that neither of you are considering.”

Lando nodded, piecing together what Charles was getting at, but he wasn’t someone who was easily persuaded. It took Lando weeks to work his way into your life, he wasn’t about to throw any of it away because Charles was sending him an intimidating glare.

“Charles, she’s spent her whole life considering those things,” Lando spoke calmly.

You made it clear you didn’t want a fight and he had your back, not wanting to start an argument either.

“Her own life takes a backseat to support you, to be your biggest fan. She, for the most part, has stayed out of trouble, stayed out of the spotlight so you could shine, so there would be no tarnishing of the Leclerc name. She’s been there for you during the best and the worst of times. All she’s ever wanted was to see you succeed.” Lando shook his head, as he recalled one of your first conversations. “When I took her out in Montreal, she was the one that told me she doesn’t date drivers. That wasn’t a rule you had set for her, that was something she decided for herself. Her fears controlled her, she didn’t want to have to worry about you and someone else during a race-”

“What, so now she’s just going to worry about you?” Charles cut him off and Lando could sense that he was growing more agitated with each passing second.

“No, you idiot,” Lando had to tell himself to keep a straight face. “She’s not letting her fears control her anymore. She’s choosing to believe that what happens in the real world doesn’t affect what happens on the track. She doesn’t want to worry about either of us. She wants to cheer both of us on, and you’re selfishly putting her in a position where she has to choose.”

Lando pressed his palms against his legs and stood up from the chair, essentially ending the conversation there before Charles could think of something else to add, another reason as to why they shouldn’t date that would inevitably go in one ear and out the other.

When Lando reached for the handle of the patio door, he paused before sliding it open, “I’m not trying to take her from you, or from her family. I just want her to be happy and you should want that for her too."

“I do,” Charles agreed, but his words didn’t match the tone, like he was fighting with himself.

Lando wasn’t going to offer any suggestions as to how Charles could stop getting in the way. It wasn’t up to Lando to remind Charles what his place was in your life, that was for him to figure out on his own. Lando simply nodded at the Monegasque driver and walked back inside.

Pascale walked him to the front door, apologising one last time for her son's words and actions throughout the night, but Lando assured her that he still had a great time. She invited him back, telling Lando that she was happy to see her daughter look so at peace for once.

All while Lando was inside your mother’s home, you sat in his car, adjusting the air conditioning and the angle of the seat. You flipped the radio on, but at this time of night there were only remixes and horrible cookie-cutter pop songs that you just couldn’t stand.

You just wanted to distract yourself because Lando was taking a while. He said two seconds but you watched the digital clock on the screen slowly change and it had been at least two minutes since he shut the front door behind him.

You turned the radio off and opened up the glove box, hoping for an instruction manual on how to connect your phone to the bluetooth, but there was nothing in there. So you flipped open the middle compartment next.

There was no manual, but there was a wallet.

Of course you picked it up to confirm it was in fact Lando’s, but then that just left you with the question, why did he go back inside the house?

The light from the front foyer caught your eye and you glanced up to see your mother giving Lando a hug. Apparently he had made quite the impression on her tonight.

You dropped the wallet back inside the compartment and closed it right before Lando reached the car. He slid into the driver's seat and looked at you with his usual cheeky smile, the one that gave him those faint lines around his lips and caused his eyes to squint.

“Find it?” You asked.

Lando hesitated before nodding, “Yeah, was stuck in the couch cushions. Must have fallen out of my pocket.”

And you knew he was lying, but you didn’t question any further. Lando reached across the console to connect his hand with yours as he started to take off in the direction of his flat, jumping into a conversation about your baby photos and how sweet Pascale was, choosing to purposely disregard Charles and his behaviour.

Whatever reason Lando had to go back inside, you didn’t care to ask about it.

You trusted Lando. You knew Lando was someone who would take care of you, even if you didn’t ask for it. His motives, his words, his stupid plan to move up your driver ranking, all of it was pure at heart with nothing but good intentions.

He just wanted to be with you and in return, he hoped you would want to be with him as well.

And against all odds, you were going to make this work.

masterlist here (side note - part 12 (the next chapter) will be the final part)

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