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astronicht · 3 days

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fanfic writers directors cut: in the pines , not sure I'm doing this correctly lol 🫣 can you talk about what you envision to happen next? If I remember correctly, there was a large chapter you broke up. I love this fic so much and reread it ever so often. I'd love to hear all your brain worms about it !! ty for reading and enjoy your day off 🩵🤍

"there was a larger chapter you broke up" would you believe I forgot that this was true. Anyway, Pines is very special to me, and may never actually get its final chapter for slightly hilarious reasons. But hey, you reminded me that there was a spare 10k of Pines hanging around! So like, I read through it last night and I have done one (1) entire editing pass. But I figured, you know! Why not!

Anyway, here's the next chapter of Pines (anyone curious what I'm talking about can read the first two chapters on ao3). I hope it brings you joy <3 Thank you for loving this fic

(nsfw below cut)

The next evening, Jiang Yanli drops off Jin Zixuan, who is dressed in comfortable pink sweatpants and a button-down white shirt and looks a little dazed.

“Are you alright?” Lan Zhan asks, letting him into the house through the garage. Maybe they should just watch baseball.

“Yeah,” says Zixuan. “It is. Loud. Over there right now.”

Lan Zhan has met Jiang Yanli’s brother once; he did not seem especially loud. He did not realize until this week that Zixuan lives part time at Jiang Yanli’s, but it makes sense. He remembers the big house, Zixuan’s choice of a small guest room. “Hm,” he says, and gets Jin Zixuan a glass of water. “Drink that.”

Jin Zixuan sits at the little square two-person dining table in the family room — the cozy room open to the kitchen, with the sliding glass doors to the yard, the birds flitting by the fountain that will need to be scrubbed out this week — and drinks his water. A warm silence falls. Lan Zhan feels good, leaning over the railing that separates the kitchen from the step down to the family room, watching Zixuan with focus. Outside, someone is using their fucking leafblower again. It buzzes through the open windows.

Zixuan finishes his glass. Lan Zhan and Jin Zixuan look at each other across the parquet floor of Lan Zhan’s family room, Lan Zhan from a step up and arms crossed on the railing.

“Be gentle with me, bro,” Zixuan says, stretching his socked feet into the patch of sunlight coming in from the door.

“No,” Lan Zhan says.

Zixuan stares at him, wide-eyed — then laughs and gets on his knees in the sun.

They have both, Lan Zhan figures, had something of a very long week.

Wei Ying has a migraine on Thursday, he says. He wants to go straight home from work and sleep — he’s very sorry. Lan Zhan wonders, mouth tight— but then Wei Ying asks if maybe Lan Zhan is free on Fridays at the same time? He doesn’t want to assume, but Wei Ying has every other Friday off, and usually he’ll feel better by the next afternoon, and—

Lan Zhan has every day off. Lan Zhan is not working right now. Not this year.

He says he is free on Friday at three.

Wei Ying doesn’t know to come through the garage like Yanli knew to bring Zixuan. He rings the doorbell, the same way Lan Zhan’s piano students do, but when Lan Zhan opens the door it’s him, there in Lan Zhan’s shady front walk, taking a few polite — or shy — steps back from the door along the path that leads from the corner around the garage, through the rock garden and the knee-high [blue flowers] that have been there for decades, now past blooming and thick with seed pods.

“Hi!” Wei Ying says. Then he lurches to a stop, and starts forward again. Lan Zhan nearly lurches forward out of the doorway himself, trying to keep the momentum of the approach. “Oh shit, I didn’t bring anything,” Wei Ying says, suddenly freezing and staring at Lan Zhan as if Lan Zhan can fix this. It’s funny. It’s funny. Lan Zhan feels something like wanting to laugh in his chest, tight and warm and yellow. “I can double back and get coffee. Fruit. A tiny orchid. Popcorn chicken. Do you like popcorn chicken? There’s a place I walked past, next to the Kumon tutoring—”

“No, thank you,” says Lan Zhan, a shade too softly to be what he is supposed to be. Relief, unexpected and blooming in shaky waves in his chest, is briefly overwhelming him.

“Nothing?” Wei Ying asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet. They are near-strangers; Lan Zhan has never seen most of Wei Ying’s expressions. It seems like he wants to be pleasing. Wei Ying does not need to strive to be pleasing. It is not what anyone else would call pleasing, probably, but the attempt is already almost overwhelming. Lan Zhan wants to bundle him somewhere warm. Lan Zhan wants to pinch him, hard, till he can’t stand up straight. “There’s gotta be something, Lan Zhan, c’mon.”

Lan Zhan says, steadying himself on his own front door, “Oreos. Next time, you can bring me oreos.”

Wei Ying lights up a split second before he laughs. “Oreos?” he says.

“Oreos,” Lan Zhan agrees, embarrassed and trying not to show it. “I like them.” He hadn’t been thinking. He had not thought at all.

“A dom who gets compensated in oreos,” Wei Ying says, apparently to Lan Zhan’s maple tree, further in the rock garden, like it’s his partner in a comedy sketch.

Lan Zhan breathes through it: through liking oreos and liking sex and liking things so much when he likes them. Liking, still, the near-stranger talking to his maple tree.

“I will ask you if I want you to bring something. Maybe I will, next time. It is my job to take care of the rest. Does anyone know where you are?”

“Yeah,” says Wei Ying. “My sister. She, uh, knows about the whole scene, it’s cool. I sent her the address but not like, your full name, so.”

“You can text her my full name if you’d like,” Lan Zhan says, standing aside to let him in.

“Nah,” says Wei Ying. “Oh, this is big.”

He means the house, and in some ways it is. Comfortably if not exceptionally big for an American house, but real estate is so expensive here that it is more impressive. That, and the entry opens into the living room, with a two-storey ceiling and pristine white carpet, eminently United States 1980s chic. He wonders if Wei Ying will ask about the house.

Wei Ying just looks at him and laughs a little and says, “I’m feeling kind of — can we start right away, with what you suggested? In whatever order? Does that work for you?”

If it’s just nerves that will be fine. If it’s discomfort, starting too fast could actually overwhelm him. “Alright,” Lan Zhan says, and pads towards the formal dining room, which like the living room is rarely used. Wei Ying takes off his sneakers in the entryway, then trails him slowly, footsteps sinking into the soft cream carpet. It is a lot, to see him on Lan Zhan’s carpet. “We covered most of it over text, but can I confirm we’re on the same page, now that you’re here?”

“Yes,” says Wei Ying, glancing up at Lan Zhan’s chandelier — Lan Zhan’s mother’s old chandelier — which is mid-century modern-ish pieces of straight glass but throws rainbows across the two-story ceiling that slopes with the roof.

“Are you still interested in in-person sexual play?” Lan Zhan asks. There are two versions of what he could do, given Wei Ying’s parameters, both discussed and just now — “in whatever order” indeed. Wei Ying slowly looks down from the chandelier, down and at Lan Zhan, who is standing with his heart in his throat in the formal dining room. They are twenty feet apart.

Wei Ying stares at him. “Yes,” he says.

“We have privacy here,” Lan Zhan says, trying to steady himself. “Stand there, at the base of the stairs.” He’s always liked how the stairs come down in the middle of the formal rooms, an open admission that there are real rooms here, tucked away, where people have lived, live still. “Strip down to your underwear.”

“Ah, you’re actually making me take my clothes off this time, gege?” Wei Ying asks, going for his shirt — a loose button-down today, black again but printed with tiny red flowers. “I’m moving up in the world.”

What Lan Zhan wants is to kiss him. Lan Zhan wants to say, No, wait a bit, I am making dinner. Stay for dinner. I will feed you and then I will wreck you. Please.

He found Wei Ying again, easy as anything. He thought he would never see this person again. The story — that they found each other again after a first meeting — should wrap itself around them, should tether them. But it won’t; Lan Zhan has learned his lessons; Lan Zhan is about to be thirty-one.

Lan Zhan breathes. He can hear the dryer running in the laundry room. He steadies himself, and it’s easy because if he’s unsteady then he will have to stop and tap himself out. He says, “Wei Ying, you asked me to make you come again.”

Wei Ying shivers, full-body. “I don’t usually—” he says, then licks his lips. “What happened, um, what happened the last couple times doesn’t usually happen to me. I honestly don’t uh, I don’t get off easily, or all that often.”

Lan Zhan blinks. He had thought they’d covered this. Most of the scenarios he’d offered didn’t require orgasm, including the ones involving sex.

“That is not a problem,” Lan Zhan says, to make it very clear. “I want to see you. I want to see your soft cock.”

“Hggh,” Wei Ying breathes.

“Do you disagree?” asks Lan Zhan, leaning on the wall that divides the kitchen and the family room behind it from the rest of the house.

“Um. Might not be entirely soft, if that’s okay.”

“You cannot wait for me?” Lan Zhan asks, severe. Now that he has thought of seeing Wei Ying soft, maybe small, he wants it. He never saw anything at the party, just Wei Ying’s squirming hips. He has, he supposes, photographs.

“It’s just a little,” Wei Ying whines.

“I want to see you soft. Get on my dining table,” Lan Zhan says. “And take off your underwear.”

“O-okay,” Wei Ying says, padding across the carpet and then stopping to quickly take off his black briefs. He stops by the conversation pit, which largely stores a collection of paperback novels that belonged to Lan Zhan’s mother. “Hey, is that an orgy pit?”

“It is a conversation pit,” says Lan Zhan, who does not exactly mind speaking about his mother’s house during sex, but acknowledges that most people would prefer not to. “Get up and kneel on the table, and try to stay soft.”

Wei Ying sucks in a breath. His toes flex in Lan Zhan’s soft cream carpet. The sudden exposure, the nudity, the dining table, might actually shock him into staying soft. Or get him there; Lan Zhan will find out.

The dining table is an oval that seats eight people. It creaks a little, making Wei Ying flush as he climbs onto it, naked, his nipples tight and his dick and balls swinging between his legs. He is mostly soft, but Lan Zhan thinks he can detect something of a chub. It is medium sized but cute. Lan Zhan wants it, small and soft, in his mouth. Lan Zhan loves sucking cock.

Lan Zhan is kind of expecting Wei Ying to say something about the dining table, about the other-the-top exhibition of himself on it. Instead Wei Ying meets Lan Zhan’s eyes, licks his lips, and says, intimate as if they’re just murmuring together in Lan Zhan’s bed upstairs, “Do you think my cock looks small?” His eyes gleam. His face is solemn.

It is, honestly, average for a soft cock. It is curved prettily in the crease of Wei Ying’s bare thigh, because he is not kneeling properly. His ass is on Lan Zhan’s unused dining table. The tips of his hair look wet against his shirt, from the shower he would have taken before this. In the dry air here, he must have been in the shower very recently; fifteen minutes. Did he say he walked here?

Lan Zhan, fortunately, has always been able to concentrate with a cock in front of him.

Lan Zhan says, “Does it look small? Perhaps.” Wei Ying shudders.

Alright.

“Sit properly,” Lan Zhan says. “Kneel like I asked.”

“You can’t make me kneel on this,” Wei Ying says, shifting knee to knee, “there’s not even a tablecloth! Think of my knees, Lan Zhan!”

“I am thinking of your knees. Bruise them for me,” says Lan Zhan. Wei Ying barks out a breathless laugh and Lan Zhan almost smiles. The formal rooms feel less stiff. The blinds are closed, but behind them he can see the shifting light of the trees, his and his neighbor’s. They clack in the breeze.

Lan Zhan doesn’t smile, though. Instead he says, “Kneel properly and show me your soft cock.”

“Ah!” Wei Ying says, sitting back hard on his heels, posture for a moment reflexively perfect. Someone taught him to sit straight as a child, and adult Wei Ying has unlearned it. His hands fly up to cover his cock, which twitched hard. Lan Zhan stares at him, waiting. Wei Ying flushes, hands covering his crotch. “It’s a little bit hard now,” he whines to Lan Zhan. He slips into Mandarin for a moment, apparently just because the sajiao won’t be as effective in English. “Wouldn’t you rather see me hard for you, Zhan-zhan?”

“No,” Lan Zhan says. He was going to go for the toys right away, but he’s stopped halfway around the table, transfixed. “I want to see you soft. And small.”

Wei Ying whines and shoves his hands down harder on his hidden dick. Lan Zhan wonders wildly why he did not list CBT in his misc enjoyed kinks, even though what he’s doing now cannot hurt that much. There’s obviously— something, there.

“Are you trying?” Lan Zhan asks.

Wei Ying bites his lip. “Not--not all that much, haha.”

“Hm.”

“Don’t want your ego bruised when you realize how good I am at staying soft.”

Lan Zhan raises an eyebrow. “I hardly think my ego is responsible for your small cock.”

Wei Ying goes bright red. Lan Zhan is, briefly, able to breathe, and move. He takes advantage.

There is a cabinet to the far side of the dining table which is obviously supposed to be for wine. Lan Zhan has a set of wine glasses that hang from it, but no wine in it. He uses it to store the downstairs sex toys.

Lan Zhan pulls out three dildos that interest him in this moment. Then he closes the cabinet and plops the selection of dildos in their neat drawstring bags down on the end of the table closest to the living room. Two of the three are weighted with the motor of a vibe; dropping them makes a noise. Lan Zhan’s eyes narrow happily to see Wei Ying jump, just a tiny bit.

“If you can’t kneel, then lie back and spread your legs,” Lan Zhan tells Wei Ying, reaching up to slap him on the thigh — close to his cock but not actually on it. Wei Ying jumps, eyes wide. His cock twitches, too. It is so fucking gratifying to be able to see him this time, fuck. Lan Zhan wants to grind his teeth.

“Your cock is misbehaving,” Lan Zhan informs him. Wei Ying, finally, makes a little whimper like he did at the party, when Lan Zhan barely knew his name.

Greed thick in his mouth, Lan Zhan slaps Wei Ying’s cock.

Wei Ying rocks back, eyes wide, flushing bright patchy red on his face and his chest. He is paler than Lan Zhan; it shows up better on him. He sits back on his butt and spreads his legs like Lan Zhan wants. Behind him the sun is afternoon low and smoke-red through the blinds.

“Oh,” he says.

“You are not staying soft,” Lan Zhan says.

“No,” Wei Ying breathes.

“Then I will have to use you for something else.” Wei Ying nods jerkily, but he looks tense. Maybe too exposed, on the table. Maybe it is not quite right. Lan Zhan picks up a purple dildo, one of the ones with vibrating function. “Give me your hand.”

Wei Ying puts one hand out, his fingers shaking a little. Lan Zhan picks up a bottle of lube and squeezes a little onto Wei Ying’s fingers. Too much, lets it spill. Wei Ying shivers — there, a step in the right direction.

Lan Zhan goes to lean against the wall to the kitchen, arms crossed, watching. Twice Wei Ying has come with Lan Zhan at a distance. Lan Zhan wants — to make this hot for him. To make him feel good. To learn the rest of his rules and which of them he will ask to have broken.

“Fuck yourself,” Lan Zhan says. “Your fingers first, then with whatever I choose for you. I want to see what you can take.”

Wei Ying closes his eyes and arches his back and does it as Lan Zhan directs: one finger, two, stretch it for me, let me see, three. He’s quiet, though. His eyes stay shut. Like he’s reaching for something and can’t quite get it. When he starts on the dildo, his shoulders go tense.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says. “Wait a moment.”

Wei Ying does, holds still with his eyes shut and a dildo half into him.

Lan Zhan pushes off from the wall, circles around the table until he is behind Wei Ying, until he can place a hand between his shoulderblades and only relax when Wei Ying’s shoulders go down, and Wei Ying himself relaxes and leans into the touch. Lan Zhan moves a chair out of the way so he can stand right next to the table behind Wei Ying, so that his chest is against Wei Ying’s back.

“Wei Ying,” he says, softly because his mouth is right by Wei Ying’s ear. He puts his hungry hands on Wei Ying’s ribs, feels his quick breaths. Not too quick; he’s only uncomfortable, Lan Zhan thinks. Too exposed, or too untouched. Something. Everyone has their snags, everyone. Lan Zhan feels full of them, himself. Normally he would be hitting one right now, feeling upset to have not gotten it right the first time, but he’s distracted by Wei Ying’s warmth against his chest. He feels, strangely, like he can get things wrong here, without fucking up.

Lan Zhan makes a little enquiring noise, and is about to follow it up with Too much? but Wei Ying responds like he asked, anyway.

“Ah, I don’t get why this is hard,” says Wei Ying, laughing a little, shoulders tensing and relaxing again. He tugs the dildo back out without Lan Zhan having to tell him. Lan Zhan puts a hand almost over Wei Ying’s on the dildo and taps it in rhythm, like piano keys. Wei Ying huffs a little almost-laugh and tries to imitate him. He clearly does not play piano. “This is so — texting you was so self-indulgent, you know? I’m pretty sure indulgence is supposed to come easily.”

Lan Zhan pauses. “I think indulgence is very hard,” he says, too honest into Wei Ying’s soft hair.

“Nahhh, hell, that’s too serious an answer, gege,” says Wei Ying, wry smile back, over his shoulder and so close to Lan Zhan’s cheek that he could bite it. He is so naked. Lan Zhan could have unwrapped him slowly, but he rushed. He wanted to rush. “Lan Zhan,” he adds, licking his lips. It is the first time he has said Lan Zhan’s name aloud. He does it naked on Lan Zhan’s formal dining table, with his head resting back on Land Zhan’s shoulder and Lan Zhan’s dildo held loose in his hand, under Lan Zhan’s hand. “Lan Zhan, give me a more fun answer.”

“Alright,” says Lan Zhan. He hums and reaches down, slowly enough to know if Wei Ying will tense again, to play with the stretch of Wei Ying’s rim around the toy. “Indulgence will be extremely easy. I will make it so.” He adds, dry, “Miraculously.”

Wei Ying huffs a laugh but his hands spasm on his stomach. His dick twitches at the same time. But his fingers still dart around, searching.

Lan Zhan will not leave him searching. “I haven’t done right by you,” he murmurs into Wei Ying’s ear. Wei Ying squirms, in a good way this time. “I left you out in the dining room. You must be cold. Come entertain me while I— while I cook.”

“Yeah,” Wei Ying says, voice already softer, brighter. Oh, perhaps indulgence will be easy after all. Lan Zhan cups his chin and he looks even warmer. So happy at the idea, which is such a simple one.

Lan Zhan will fucking improvise for three hours if that’s what it takes to get this right.

They go together into the kitchen. The house is brighter here, smaller, the ceilings a normal height. Land Zhan idly closes the blinds while Wei Ying laughs and pretends to wave to the joggers on the footpath, who cannot see into the house easily. Probably.

Inside the kitchen door is a hook that holds a calendar and two aprons and a fly-swatter and what looks like a New Years decoration he never took down. He takes down both aprons. One goes over the counters, which will just have to be bleached again a little ahead of schedule.

“Bend over the counter,” Lan Zhan says. The apron is arranged so Wei Ying is not hitting his dick on the cupboards. He opens the fridge. Out of the corner of his eye, Wei Ying cups his dick warily. Even with the apron he’ll have to hold his hips a little away from the lip of the tile.

“Go,” Lan Zhan says, closing the fridge. “Are you hungry?”

Just regular hungry. Feeding kink wasn’t listed. Lan Zhan wonders if he can ask for that, and then remembers that that is not what this arrangement is about. He breathes.

Wei Ying is taking his time. Lan Zhan plants a hand along his spine and presses slowly but sternly down. Wei Ying yelps. He tucks his face to the side easily enough though. He nuzzles the cool tile of Lan Zhan’s counters.

His eyes crack open. “I still— something in me.”

Asking over text was probably easier. Lan Zhan remembers, feverish, how much he had wanted to be full.

Lan Zhan thinks first of a finger, or something. He thinks of Wei Ying losing steam on the dining table with the very reasonably sized purple dildo.

He thinks about how things that should be easy are so hard.

“A pear?” Lan Zhan says, mild, putting a little bowl of cut pear in front of Wei Ying. It was what was already in the fridge.

“Lan Zhan—”

Lan Zhan pinches his thigh, finally. Wei Ying gasps. Lan Zhan was going to let go but does not yet, waits. Wei Ying’s forehead comes to rest on the tile. His hips are shifting and he’s having to force himself not to grind into the hard cupboards behind the thin layer of apron.

“Eat one slice of pear.” Lan Zhan lets go of his thigh. Wei Ying gasps. Lan Zhan nudges the bowl a little closer to Wei Ying’s face and takes a few steps back out into the formal dining room. He ignores the dildos on the table and the little puddle of lube and goes into the wine cabinet.

Back in the kitchen, Wei Ying has one slice of pear gripped in his teeth. He has bitten it right out of the bowl. Lan Zhan leans around him and taps the end of the pear slice sticking out of Wei Ying’s mouth.

“In,” he says. Wei Ying looks up at him. Lan Zhan raises an eyebrow and pushes a little on the pear slice. Wei Ying sucks it in in one gulp. “Don’t choke,” Lan Zhan says, amused. Wei Ying chews noisily at him.

Lan Zhan waits till he’s swallowed before putting the new dildo on the counter next to the fruit bowl. In case he really does choke.

Wei Ying just stares, maybe hypnotized, at the largest, pinkest dildo Lan Zhan owns. It is swaying gently where Lan Zhan placed it upright, balanced on its gargantuan fake pink balls.

The thing about this ridiculous dildo is that it’s really too big and too flexible to be good for fucking, if you can get it in; it’s quite squishy, and Lan Zhan uses it sometimes for people who get off by letting him slap them in the face with it.

“You’ve had a snack. Before I start cooking I need two things: I want to watch you show me how bad you are at fucking yourself, and then I need to fetch something from the laundry room. Try to put this in yourself.” Whether or not he can get it in doesn’t matter. Lan Zhan just wants to see him try.

Lan Zhan lays the second apron on the floor, to catch lube drips. Wei Ying steps on it as Lan Zhan leans down and lifts each of his feet delicately to push the apron under him.

“How far— ah— how far is the laundry room?” Wei Ying asks. His dick is filling rapidly; Lan Zhan can see this clearly when he is crouched at Wei Ying’s feet. He shivers.

Lan Zhan stands up and picks up the bowl of pears in one hand and twists his other hand in Wei Ying’s hair, pulling it into a single twist that Lan Zhan can grip at the back of Wei Ying’s skull. He doesn’t pull very hard, just lets the pressure speak for him.

“I will show you,” Lan Zhan says drily. “Do you need help putting it in?”

“N-no,” Wei Ying says. He’s mouth-breathing.

“Do it with me right here, I want to see it. If you get it in, you can come with me to the laundry room.”

“Yeah,” Wei Ying breathes, even though the laundry room hardly sounds like a treat, and scoots his feet and the apron back on the linoleum so he can bend over further, just his hands braced on the counter. His hands scramble on the big pink dildo, and instead of putting it down to open and pour lube into his hand he holds it between his knees. Lan Zhan’s breath catches. He wants to— to bite him. Make him drop it. Make him pick it up, complaining.

The thing about things that are easy is that sometimes this makes them impossible. The thing about things that are impossible is that they are easier. Wei Ying did not like the shallow end of the pool.

Wei Ying pants and lubes the dildo and fingers himself a little. It’s already easier than anything on the dining table. The room smells like pears and silicon. The blinds clack.

Wei Ying leans down even further and twists his hips to open them up a bit. “Are you watching?” he breathes, and nudges the giant pink dildo against his hole, letting it skid away. Again, twice. “Don’t you want to make me do it right?”

“Do it right,” Lan Zhan says, from deep in his chest, not thinking. He’s begging; he’s ordering.

“There’s no way I can,” Wei Ying says. “You know I can’t.” His hands become clever again instead of clumsy. Lan Zhan’s brain has not restarted. He is just there, in his kitchen, watching Wei Ying work the tip into himself, sighing — no, breathing out to make himself relax further.

“Oh no,” Wei Ying pants. “It’s actually going in, Lan Zhan— you said I wouldn’t be able to get it in.” It is, it really is. The easy option was impossible; the giant pink face-slapping dildo is forcing his ass open, slow. Lan Zhan watches his ass stretch around its widest girth, then try to pinch closed on a smaller part of the toy, but it’s all thick shaft.

“You are going to walk with it in you to the laundry room with me,” Lan Zhan says, his teeth buzzing, his cock hard in his trousers. “You will want to push it further in,” he adds.

“Shit! Shit, nng,” Wei Ying says. “There’s so much of it, though. Even if it slips a little, I’ve got like five inches in me.”

Not a bad estimate. The thrust depth, minus the flared base with its big pink faux balls, is [eight] inches [check the specs on Outlaw]. “Yes,” Lan Zhan says. “And you will need more.”

Wei Ying twists his head to stare back at Lan Zhan as he pushes the dildo in, deeper. His legs shake once, hard, but he does not stop. His eyelashes flutter; he does not break eye contact with Lan Zhan for a long moment. Then he lets out a big shuddering sigh, his body surrendering to its new situation. His belly gets softer when he relaxes. They do not know each other well enough for Lan Zhan to palm it affectionately, but he likes it very much. Wei Ying says, on the end of his sigh,“Ahh, why do you even have something this big, gege? People buy this shit to--to leave out to impress their hookup or whatever, not to use.”

They’ve been speaking almost entirely English since Wei Ying arrived; to say this he has switched to Mandarin. Lan Zhan did not actually know the slang for hookup until just now. Last time — when they met, in the roses — it was playful, pressing. In retrospect it had not been a test Lan Zhan would have failed by speaking his father’s language badly, but just Wei Ying on the offensive, figuring a new puzzle out. This is not like that. He does not know what this is like. With his father and his uncle he spoke Mandarin at home; with his mother he spoke only English, even when she could not think of a word. She would make them up, sometimes. A whole secret language: words for microwave and for dish towel and for pasta strainers.

Lan Zhan wrenches himself out of the past. He loves to live in his mother’s house, but he does not want Wei Ying to ask why he went distant.

Also, the pink dildo is as close as silicon-balls-deep in Wei Ying now as it is ever reasonably going to get. Wei Ying pants and shifts around it, arching back. Lan Zhan steps close and says, “Good boy. Take my arm.”

One of Wei Ying’s hands paws gracelessly at Lan Zhan’s forearm. Lan Zhan catches his hand in his own, and helps him straighten up like he is a precious thing. Wei Ying groans and sways and doesn’t get entirely upright, the long heft of the dildo inside of him, its big pink balls brushing his thighs. He has to put a hand on it the first time but then he is able to keep it slipping out, lips pursed in concentration.

“Go on,” Lan Zhan whispers, mouth thick with longing. He lets Wei Ying keep his grip on Lan Zhan’s forearm, like a gentleman leading someone through a room, only Wei Ying is naked and starting to sweat and has Lan Zhan’s biggest squishy pink dildo up his ass. Wei Ying’s grip is light. Lan Zhan wonders if this will be too easy. Wei Ying takes a step and — ah, this will not be too easy. A stumble, and the noise he makes — Lan Zhan won’t find it easy, either.

Wei Ying manages two and a half stumbling steps before he is doubling over, gasping, and clinging on to Lan Zhan’s arm to stay upright. If Lan Zhan were not supporting him, perhaps he would have tried to go farther, perhaps he would have gotten through the doorway to the kitchen before he collapsed on the linoleum, unable to walk. Lan Zhan would like to work him up to that. Lan Zhan wants Wei Ying to be so overwhelmed that he falls to the floor and feels wanted and wanted and wanted all the way down, even with his face pressed to linoleum, even with his ass in the air, straining to take the dildo. He should still feel Lan Zhan’s desire pouring over him.

As it is, this is so good. Wei Ying is breathing fast, is looking daunted but not lost. He knows what he needs to do; he knows Lan Zhan will not ignore him.

“Oh,” Wei Ying gasps, “Fuck, this is impossible, Zhan’er.”

“You are only trying to walk to the laundry room, Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says. Wei Ying makes a little high noise and takes another shaky step.

“It’s so big,” Wei Ying gasps out. “Fuck, I can feel it. I can’t even walk right, gege, are you seeing — hnng — are you seeing this.”

“You have made it to the steps,” Lan Zhan says, dryly congratulatory.

“Fuck!” Wei Ying says, so high and sharp that Lan Zhan wonders if they have hit a tipping point, but no, Wei Ying takes another step. He is shaking. Lan Zhan is shaking too from how much he wants him, how much he likes this.

“God, you have to help me,” Wei Ying whines. Fuck, he’s getting so worked up from this. It’s like Lan Zhan finally found the right little angle and he’s opening up beautifully, so good Lan Zhan can’t even look directly at him all at once. Lan Zhan tries not to pant, too. He breathes through his nose. He looks over his shoulder at Wei Ying’s ass, where Wei Ying is still half bent-over as he tries to stumble forwards. The dildo has slipped out maybe a centimeter; it’s big fake balls are prodding Wei Ying’s thighs as he walks. Wei Ying’s other hand is slung around his lower belly as he shuffles his way across the kitchen, face flushed, his little brown nipples hard. He notices Lan Zhan looking and moans, loud.

“Fuck,” he says. “Fuck, fuck. I can feel it in me. It’s slipping just a little. Lan Zhan, help me get there.”

Lan Zhan goes to take his arm again. Wei Ying moans and must accidentally clench; the dildo slips out another centimeter. They are on the two steps down to the den. The laundry room is only six feet away, really. The washer and dryer are in the linen closet in the hall off the den.

“It is slipping,” says Lan Zhan. Wei Ying whines and clamps his hand harder around Lan Zhan’s forearm, leans more heavily. He’s stopped, eyeing the steps.

“Lan Zhan,” he pants, forehead against Lan Zhan’s bicep. “Can I please — can I push it back in?”

Lan Zhan thinks about it. If Wei Ying had asked Lan Zhan to push the dildo back in for him, Lan Zhan had been half-thinking that he would make Wei Ying do it to himself. But Wei Ying asked to do it himself; maybe a bargain to be able to get away with it.

“No,” says Lan Zhan. “I will do it.”

Wei Ying shivers, and — spreads his legs a little. As if to give Lan Zhan access.

Lan Zhan wants to grab the dildo by its ridiculous pink balls and shove it hard into Wei Ying, hard enough to make him stumble, hard enough that it would hurt, a little. And keep it there, grinding it in, until they hit a real tipping point. Maybe if Wei Ying were more carefully stretched.

Instead he says, “On your knees.” Wei Ying jolts, surprised. The dildo slips another centimeter, and now the weight of the flared base and the shorter length inside Wei Ying must make it tip up and press, hard, against Wei Ying. Maybe not his prostate exactly, too deep and too big, but good enough. He cries out and Lan Zhan has to press his shoulder down to keep him focused, to send him to the floor at Lan Zhan’s feet.

Wei Ying kneels, hands twitching like he wants to reach back. “On your forearms too,” says Lan Zhan. They are on the parquet floor, where Zixuan kneeled earlier this week. This is very different. Lan Zhan’s heartbeat is thudding in his jaw, his hands.

“Oh,” Wei Ying whispers, and then he’s done it: positioned himself on Lan Zhan’s clean wood floors on his forearms and knees, ass in the air with a big pink dildo waving ridiculously from it. Lan Zhan kneels down too, quickly, not giving Wei Ying a chance to feel anything but nicely crowded. He touches Wei Ying’s thigh first. Wei Ying whines and sways into it until Lan Zhan snaps, “Stay still,” and grabs his hip. He shivers and tries to move again. Lan Zhan takes hold of the end of the dildo, lube-sticky, with his other hand and presses it in a centimeter.

Wei Ying stops trying to move and starts trying to gasp. His face is turned towards Lan Zhan, his eyes dark and desperate and intent, the way Lan Zhan feels dark and desperate and intent. It was only a centimeter. He’s so desperate for it. Who has been fucking him so poorly that he is still so desperate for it?

“I’m putting it back in, now,” Lan Zhan says. The rest goes slowly, slowly. He presses it deep into Wei Ying, and this time gets to feel the press and give of Wei Ying’s body around it.

“Stand up,” he says, once he’s finished, trying not to look like he feels like he just had a religious experience. Wei Ying trembles and shakes his head. Lan Zhan blinks, hard, tries to clear his thoughts, unclench his jaw. Before he can do anything else, Wei Ying makes to stand. Lan Zhan helps him up, one arm hauling him to his feet, the other with two fingers on the dildo’s base. A little mercy, to keep it in tight and deep while Wei Ying straightens.

Wei Ying moans, slumps against Lan Zhan. But he’s the one who takes the first step forward. Lan Zhan does not want to make him lead. He takes two swift steps and pulls Wei Ying along in his wake, huddling naked and so hard against his side.

“Hurry,” Wei Ying whispers. “Hurry, I can’t keep it in.”

They’re crossing the corner of the den towards the hall to the downstairs bathroom. Lan Zhan, obligingly, hustles him faster. Wei Ying whines, shuffles across the sun-warm parquet flooring. The den faces full west, but Lan Zhan has closed the blinds on the sliding glass doors. Everything is dull warm with flashes of bright white sunlight sneaking through.

They make it into the laundry room hallway. Wei Ying is gasping. The dildo has stayed in, but Wei Ying’s own cock is swaying, now, jutting out hard and wet and lewd in front of him. With his free hand, Lan Zhan pulls open the closet doors that hide the laundry.

“Oh thank god,” Wei Ying whispers. “Will you fuck me with it for real, now? Don’t you want to? I’ll get on the floor again, Lan Zhan, I’ll—”

“Good job,” Lan Zhan says, shaky, against Wei Ying’s temple, because it bears saying. Wei Ying shuts up for a moment when he hears it. There is just fast breathing, a body moving against Lan Zhan’s. “Turn and put your hands on the wall.”

There is an obvious pause where Wei Ying decides to push. He says, “Don’t you wanna—” and Lan Zhan gratefully takes the opening to grab his wrists and push them against the wall. He lets himself squeeze, once. He lets himself make it hard, lets himself use the strength that lives in his fingers, in his hands. Wei Ying just cries out, cock jumping. The dildo slips but Lan Zhan lets Wei Ying go to catch it, and doesn’t hesitate to grind it back in. Wei Ying, hands braced high on the wall, says, “Ahh--ahh.”

Greed sits buzzing in Lan Zhan’s teeth.

Lan Zhan says, “I am going to take the dildo out, on the count of three.” Then he says, “One,” and fucks the dildo up into Wei Ying sharply. Wei Ying jumps, moans. “Two,” says Lan Zhan, doing it again. “Three,” and a final time, and Wei Ying’s knees shake. He eases the dildo all the way out this time, careful around Wei Ying’s fluttering rim.

“Good job,” he says again. “Good boy, good boy. Turn around.”

Wei Ying moans and does it, eyes glazed. Lan Zhan places the dildo, balanced neatly on its balls, on the closed lid of the washer. He purses his lips and — lifting people is about using your legs and otherwise not overthinking it — lifts Wei Ying with Lan Zhan’s arms around his upper thighs and deposits him on top of the rumbling dryer.

“Sit there,” he says. Wei Ying blinks at him, hands braced on the edge of the dryer.

“Um,” says Wei Ying. He coughs. Maybe his mouth is dry; they will get water. “I’m getting lube all over your dryer?”

“I want lube all over my dryer,” Lan Zhan tells him desperately. He has rarely meant a thing more.

Wei Ying looks at him, wide-eyed. “Spread your legs,” Lan Zhan tells him, only a little because he needs him to. He is greedy for it. Wei Ying shudders and does so, his cock bobbing, his balls softly trembling with the movement of the dryer. Lan Zhan bites his own lip savagely. He takes one of Wei Ying’s ankles and moves it further to the side. Then he crouches down and — as Wei Ying’s eyes flutter shut — pops open the dryer door.

“Hywah?” Wei Ying says. “You’re— you’re gonna do laundry while I’m here, um. Here spreading my legs for you?” His voice peters off weakly at the end of the sentence. His face is even more flushed.

“No,” Lan Zhan says, pulling his softest bathrobe out of the dryer, warm and soft. He closes the door again and the dryer rumbles back to life. “You are going to help me cook.” The bathrobe is white, fluffy, with something faux-fur-ish going on around the cuffs and collars. It came from some resort stay, somewhere, Lan Zhan does not remember. A family vacation.

Lan Zhan lifts him off the dryer and sets him down on his feet, wraps the dryer-hot robe tight around him, does up the belt. Lan Zhan puts a hand on his back and says, “Alright, now you will entertain me while I cook.”

Wei Ying shivers, but he is not cold, this time. They walk back to the kitchen, quickly this time. Lan Zhan could make Wei Ying crawl but he wants to crowd him, wants Wei Ying to feel crowded, manhandled. Wants to be the one to do it. The hand on Wei Ying’s waist goes to Wei Ying’s hair. It’s back in a ponytail, a tiny one. Cute, but Lan Zhan takes it down, lets it brush Wei Ying’s shoulders. Wei Ying makes a little noise, then pants when Lan Zhan makes a fist in Wei Ying’s hair, tugging him a long a little. He nearly trips on the step up to the kitchen. Lan Zhan grabs his arms, move them behind his back. Wei Ying tests his grip right away when Lan Zhan gets both wrists in one hand. Lan Zhan squeezes, hard.

There they are in the warm kitchen sunlight again. Lan Zhan says, “Kneel here,” and pulls Wei Ying down by the wrists even as Wei Ying goes. Wei Ying’s thighs are splayed wide where he kneels, his hard cock jutting up wet and obscene from the parting of the bathrobe. Wei Ying looks down at it, flushing.

“Needy,” Lan Zhan says, letting go of Wei Ying’s wrists and petting Wei Ying’s hair. He presses two fingers against Wei Ying’s lips. “Suck, needy boy.” Wei Ying moans and does it, his bare cock jerking. A bead of precome forms at the tip and slides down. Lan Zhan fucks his fingers in harder, harder. He can feel the wanting in his own throat. Wei Ying just moans more, takes it. He does not need softness here, just a certain kind of roughness, a certain kind. Lan Zhan puts his other hand in Wei Ying’s hair again, tugs, and says, “That’s enough. Wait here, I will be right back.”

Wei Ying nods, serene there on the floor, eyes glazed. Spit is on his chin.

“Hands behind you,” Lan Zhan tells him. Wei Ying does it, squirming.

Lan Zhan does try to be quick; it’s barely a few steps to the dining room to grab the first dildo Wei Ying had tried, the more normally sized purple one, not quite so phallic but armed with a very sturdy suction cup, and a pair of light leather cuffs from the wine cabinet.

He puts both in one of the discarded drawstring bags still on the dining table, and goes back into the kitchen.

Wei Ying is touching his dick, just rubbing the tip, thumbing the slit. Eyes open, looking at Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan raises an eyebrow and does not hurry, steps up to and then past Wei Ying to place the bag on the counter.

“Brat,” he says, and sinks a hand in Wei Ying’s hair, tugs him forwards so Wei Ying has to take his hand off his dick to catch himself to keep from faceplanting into the linoleum. Wei Ying nervous-laughs and moans on the same breath; both a noise of release. He’s on his hands and knees on Lan Zhan’s kitchen floor, in Lan Zhan’s warm bathrobe. Lan Zhan flips up the skirt of the bathrobe. Wei Ying’s ass is still smeared with lube, his hole still wet and a little looser. Nothing looks hurt; his asshole is flushed dark and Lan Zhan should check if he has any little tears. After

Wei Ying had said what we talked about and in whatever order. So Lan Zhan finally, finally smacks him — hard across the ass. His own cock throbs harder than his hand when he makes contact. Fuck, fuck, he likes this so much. He gives himself two more, gives Wei Ying two more. He flips the bathrobe back down as Wei Ying gasps and shakes.

“Oh god,” he’s whispering, high pitched. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, it stings.”

“It’s supposed to,” Lan Zhan breathes. His own hand stings, he knows it stings. He thinks of Wei Ying over the phone, tugging on his balls. “Kneel back down. Hands out in front of you.”

Wei Ying does it, squirming as his ass hits his heels. It was not much; it was only a sting. Watching him revel in it, squirm towards it and away from it, is so much though, so much. Lan Zhan takes his wrists and quickly straps on the cuffs. They are not his bulkiest pair; the bedroom is better set up for that, but he likes the leather, likes them well enough. He tightens them, closes the quick-release snaps. Instead of hooking the metal clasps onto the little o-ring, Lan Zhan uses the strap attachment, a tough cord also covered in leather. He clips it to each o-ring on each wrist. Wei Ying can hold his hands about six inches apart. Lan Zhan can grab the strap between, which he does. Twists it around his wrist and drags Wei Ying with him as he reaches for the drawstring bag again, for the next thing.

He pulls out the purple dildo and holds it to Wei Ying’s face, his lips. “Suck,” he says. Wei Ying scowls up at him and Lan Zhan does what he’s been asked to do, takes Wei Ying’s jaw and presses hard on the hinge of it till Wei Ying gasps and flinches and his mouth falls open. Lan Zhan fucks the dildo in and Wei Ying sucks it, greedy now that he’s had a chance to resist, greedy now that he’s been forced to do it. Saliva drips down his chin again. Lan Zhan pulls it out, swift. Wei Ying moans and chases the dildo and Lan Zhan smacks his cheek with it lightly, a warning. Wei Ying’s eyes flutter and he moans, swaying. Ah.

Lan Zhan lowers the strap of the cuffs and then lets go, lets Wei Ying get back on his knees and forearms.

Lan Zhan plants the suction cup of the purple dildo on the cabinet door. He said Wei Ying could entertain him while he cooks; it doesn’t have to be so literal but still, he likes the idea. He’s trying to think of something to do for dinner that does not involve chopping too many vegetables. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know. He likes the game but does not care about food just now.

Wei Ying is wrapped in the warm bathrobe, eyes hooded, mouth parted. Lan Zhan can see his tongue. Lan Zhan flips up the skirt of of the bathrobe again, palms Wei Ying’s ass. Wei Ying flinches away from it, flinches into it.

Lan Zhan kneels next him, tests the grip of the dildo. It holds nicely. He puts his hand in Wei Ying’s hair and tugs him backwards, makes him shuffle back on knees and his forearms, wrists still cuffed right where he can see them.

The dildo rubs up against Wei Ying’s ass, obscene. Wei Ying jolts. He probably guessed what Lan Zhan was doing behind him but he has not been able to see the dildo. He twists around to look now, wide-eyed, shock-mouthed. Lan Zhan dribbles more lube on Wei Ying’s hole but leaves the dildo wet with only Wei Ying’s spit.

“Aren’t you glad you drooled all over it?” Lan Zhan asks him.

Wei Ying’s head drops down between his shoulders and he shudders. Lan Zhan scoots his robe up a little bit more, so Lan Zhan can clearly see his dick. Hard, wet. Lube has dribbled down from his ass to drip along his balls. Soon it might drip down the shaft of his dick.

“Here you go,” Lan Zhan says, teasing the tip of the dildo against Wei Ying’s hole. “To keep you full while I cook, baby.”

Wei Ying shudders again, fists clenching. “Oh fuck,” he breathes, “Oh fuck, please, I need it.”

“Hm,” Lan Zhan says.

Lan Zhan makes him squirm for a minute, uses the flex of the dildo to brush it hard against Wei Ying’s hole but not let him take it inside. Wei Ying finally gasps and says, in a rush, “I need to be full, I gotta. Just keep me like this in your kitchen, please, please.”

Lan Zhan hums and holds the dildo steady. Wei Ying fucks himself back onto it so hard that he hits Lan Zhan’s fingers. Lan Zhan sits back, in front of Wei Ying. A hand in Wei Ying’s hair, Wei Ying’s glassy eyes meeting his. “Just keep it in you, baby,” Lan Zhan says softly. His hands cup Wei Ying’s face. “Stay still and keep it in you, good boy.”

Wei Ying moans and spreads his knees a little. He’s shaking, he’s sweating. Lan Zhan always hated sweating until he discovered sex, and now he loves it. “Fuck!” he says, loud in Lan Zhan’s big house, in Lan Zhan’s kitchen. “It hurts, it hurts.”

“Are you telling me to pause?” Lan Zhan asks.

“No,” Wei Ying whispers. He looks straight into Lan Zhan’s eyes. “I’m telling you it hurts.” Their gazes hold. Lan Zhan’s world swims. He grips his cock in his trousers for just a second, but Wei Ying sees. Wei Ying’s eyes roll back. He twitches like he wants to fuck onto the dildo, but he stays still. Lan Zhan is breathing open-mouthed too, now.

Lan Zhan’s brain unclouds for a brief, shining moment and he remembers that he is soaking shiitake mushrooms in the soup pan on his stove. They should be ready to take out and trim the stems. There; he’ll use kitchen scissors instead of the cleaver and it will be something approaching passably safe.

He gets up and takes the whole soup pot and places it in his sink, where Wei Ying is on his hands and knees. He reaches down and pets Wei Ying’s hair. Wei Ying chokes and tries to chase his hand, mouth open. He catches Lan Zhan’s thumb and sucks and Lan Zhan does make a sound, involuntary. His mouth is so soft. He is grinding a little back on the dildo. If he does too much he really will make it hurt too badly; the big dildo was more than enough.

“Stay still,” Lan Zhan says.

Lan Zhan takes the kitchen scissors out of the drying rack, and pulls out a shiitake, and snips the first mushroom stem. They pass a few quiet minutes that way, with Lan Zhan snipping stems and occasionally petting Wei Ying’s hair. The sun is lowering, golden. Less smoke in the air today.

Wei Ying moans and uses the slack in the strap between his wrist cuffs to struggle up from his forearms to brace himself on both hands — on Lan Zhan’s foot, ow — and bury his face in Lan Zhan’s thigh. His little hot mouth is sucking frantically at Lan Zhan’s trouser leg, fabric going damp. Lan Zhan is so turned on he is lightheaded. He puts the scissors down in self-defense. Maybe he can just tear off the last of the mushroom stems. Fuck, fuck.

“I can’t give you my fingers,” Lan Zhan tells him, stern. “I’m cooking. It would be unsanitary.”

He watches as Wei Ying tries to balance between the dildo in his ass, his bound hands braced and Lan Zhan’s foot, and his mouth on Lan Zhan’s trousers. The cabinet door creaks. Wei Ying strains upwards and puts his mouth over the crotch of Lan Zhan’s trousers.

Lan Zhan is not going to survive this.

“Do you—” Wei Ying whispers to Lan Zhan’s hard, hard cock. “Lan Zhan, would you…?”

There is a roaring in Lan Zhan’s ears.

Lan Zhan has condoms in his pocket with no actual intention to use them for this particular scene. He was going to use toys. He was going to fill Wei Ying a dozen little ways. He still will, he promises himself, he still will if Wei Ying wants to do something like this again, but not until —

“Be patient if you want it,” Lan Zhan says. Fuck, his voice is too low, too rough, too affected. Wei Ying just moans, noses at his thigh again, suckles at his dark wash jeans. “I can,” Wei Ying says, “I can, I can be patient, help me be patient Lan Zhan, I— I — I—!”

“Pull off the dildo, Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, because he cannot be this unbalanced and risk falling over with it still in him. The suction cup would probably just come off the cabinet, but it could bruise him.

We Ying moans but does it with surprisingly little complaint. Instead he focuses, apparently, on gripping Lan Zhan’s jeans between his teeth even as Lan Zhan unzips his fly, hasty, violent. Lan Zhan wonders if Wei Ying is coming unplanned by both of them but no, it doesn’t seem like it. He would be able to see, anyway. The come would splatter on his kitchen floor. Lan Zhan gasps as he pulls his cock out.

Wei Ying looks up at his cock. “Too big,” Wei Ying murmurs, “Too big, you’ll break me, hahhh, you’ll really—”

It’s ridiculous after the pink dildo situation. It doesn’t matter.

Lan Zhan rolls the condom over his cock, tightens his lips. He has learned to enjoy it, the feeling. It is one of the little rituals to sex, to putting his body in someone else’s. Now it is part of the anticipation. The little extra tightness of it at the base of his hard cock, the way it presses gently at the soft skin of his balls. Lan Zhan buys mostly anal condoms, plain and sturdy. Not perfect for blowjobs, but it will work.

“Open for me,” Lan Zhan whispers. His heart is beating so hard. And then he gently feeds Wei Ying his dick. They shake together, Lan Zhan hissing out a breath between his teeth. “Good,” he grinds out, “Yes, good boy.”

Wei Ying moans, and this time it is around Lan Zhan’s cock. Lan Zhan breathes deeply, focuses on Wei Ying. The dizziness fades. The kitchen settles back around him, existing, warm and familiar. Wei Ying is having a little trouble getting his mouth onto Lan Zhan’s cock and still grinding back on the dildo; Lan Zhan obligingly steps closer, lets him fill himself on Lan Zhan. He can drink and drink; Lan Zhan has oceans of this. Wei Ying moans. Lan Zhan thrusts forward, presses his cock in, presses Wei YIng back against the counters. Wei Ying’s cuffed hands scramble at the hem of Lan Zhan’s trousers. Lan Zhan eases them into something which can be kept up, a slower rhythm.

Still, Wei Ying is panting harshly through his nose. Lan Zhan carefully, carefully frees his hands and cuts a few more stems off mushrooms, very slowly, and watches. Grinds his cock into Wei Ying’s mouth; stops, pulls Wei Ying off to make him breathe gasping breaths and to tell him, “Good job.”

Wei Ying says, hoarse, “Is it good, Lan Zhan, does it feel good, do I feel good?”

“Yes,” Lan Zhan bites out, both hands framing Wei Ying’s face, pulling him back to Lan Zhan’s dick, “Yes, you feel good. You feel so good, Wei Ying.”

Wei Ying moans and slides off Lan Zhan’s dick with a little pop; Lan Zhan doesn’t immediately force him back, waits to see what he will do. He shuffles closer, stumbles trying to kneel up and brace himself against Lan Zhan’s legs, mouthing at Lan Zhan’s shaft. Lan Zhan grabs the cord between his wrist cuffs and pulls up, both surprising Wei Ying and keeping him upright.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whispers, “I--I—”

Lan Zhan guides his head back to Lan Zhan’s cock. Wei Ying whines and shuffles closer, closer, till he’s plastered up against Lan Zhan’s legs. There — his cock, which he’s rutting desperately against Lan Zhan’s leg. When Lan Zhan gasps and pulls Wei Ying off Lan Zhan’s cock he whispers, “Lan Zhan please, please, oh god. I won’t get in the way, you can keep cooking, I can just. Just.”

“You want to grind on my leg?” Lan Zhan says.

“I’m gonna,” Wei Ying pants, “Oh fuck, I can’t help it I’m gonna come like this on your kitchen floor, I’m gonna.”

“We didn’t plan on you coming,” Lan Zhan says. Wei Ying tips his head back, whines, humps Lan Zhan’s leg harder.

Lan Zhan holds his head back, pulls off the condom, and slaps Wei Ying’s cheek with his dick. Wei Ying’s eyes roll back; he moans and buries his face in Lan Zhan’s hip, probably right against the zipper of his undone jeans. He’s really going for it now, not trying to be subtle, not trying to be elegant. It is hard to be suave about humping a man’s calf. The bathrobe is untied now, in disarray, and Wei Ying is fucking up hard, faster, grinding his cock against the soft bathrobe and Lan Zhan’s jeans. It probably hurts. He probably likes it.

Fuck, Lan Zhan thinks savagely. Fuck.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, “Lan Zhan I can’t stop, I can’t stop, I— ahh, ahhh!” He breaks off and Lan Zhan thinks perhaps he will try to hold his breath again, but he cannot do that either, it seems. Lan Zhan, in some insane impulse, slips a knuckle of his finger into Wei Ying’s mouth, between his teeth. Wei Ying obligingly bites down on Lan Zhan’s knuckle and screams through a clenched jaw as he comes. It splatters over the bathrobe, the floor. Wei Ying shudders a few times then collapses against Lan Zhan.

He just breathes, hard, and clings. “Wha—” he mumbles. “The fuck.”

Lan Zhan kneels down and quickly unclips the cord between Wei Ying’s cuffs. Wei Ying pants for another moment then sways into Lan Zhan. It’s so different than before; they are touching again. The bathrobe is nearly off one shoulder. Lan Zhan reaches up to fix it, reflexively. Wei Ying puts both hands on Lan Zhan’s shoulders, cuff strap dangling from his right wrist. He is shaking, flushed, intent. He looks Lan Zhan in the eyes and says, more clearly than he has spoken in half an hour, urgent, “I know we didn’t plan for it for another couple sessions, but Lan Zhan, would you be able to fuck me?”

Something in Lan Zhan surges towards him. Lan Zhan looks down at Wei Ying’s teeth marks in his knuckle. Marks from toys or bodies were on Wei Ying’s good list. So was, in fairness, being fucked.

Lan Zhan, for a moment, cannot talk. He tries and he cannot. He holds up two fingers.

“Yeah,” Wei Ying breathes. “That works, Zhan’er. I can’t — I won’t be able to calm down till you’ve fucked me.” Lan Zhan thinks about Wei Ying alone on the dining table, untouched at the party, alone in his bed texting someone because he wanted so badly to be full.

Words are nearly back, but not quite yet. Lan Zhan hoists Wei Ying up again, onto the white tile, the neatly bleached grout. Wei Ying laughs, shaking from the orgasm he hadn’t really expected or been ready for. Something in Lan Zhan unknots. Wei Ying on the counter is not like Wei Ying on the dining table. Wei Ying is balanced between his sink and his keurig, spreading his legs. Lan Zhan ducks down and presses his face there, breathing between Wei Ying’s thighs. Drags his face up and down them as Wei Ying shakes, kisses his thighs, brushes with his fingers Wei Ying’s hole, his balls, his soft cock. Wei Ying pants, overstimulated. He wraps his legs around Lan Zhan’s shoulders, tugs almost shyly even with his head thrown back and his own semen all over his stomach and Lan Zhan’s bathrobe. Lan Zhan slicks up two fingers and touches where Wei Ying is ready for him. He wants to laugh; he has big hands but he absolutely started Wei Ying on something hilariously, monstrously bigger. He did not set himself up well for this at all. Yet when he thrusts two fingers in Wei Ying cries out, Wei Ying says, “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, finally. Take it, take what you need from me, please, ahh— please!”

And Lan Zhan rocks foreward, fucks Wei Ying on the kitchen counter. The mushrooms are still in the soup pot in the sink, right next to Wei Ying. The sunlight through the smoke is red gold and Wei Ying is bathed in it like he is standing under stained glass, or in a bright room done up in red silk. Lan Zhan’s fingers are in Wei Ying, not his cock, which is tucked messily back into his trousers. He shoves his other hand down them. He is supposed to be giving a piano lesson right now.

But Wei Ying is beginning to cry, and it looks different than a line of text from Wei Ying saying “I might cry”. Lots of people cry, but it hasn’t been like this. Wei Ying isn’t going to come again, but he wants the sex, he wants it. Lan Zhan tugs his own cock with his left hand, so turned on his ears are ringing and his face is numb. Wei Ying is begging for him to come as if it’s Lan Zhan’s dick that’s in him, tears on his cheeks, overwhelmed next to soaking mushrooms, next to the keurig. Lan Zhan thinks perhaps Wei Ying likes it, likes being worked into the fabric of Lan Zhan’s kitchen. There is the paper towel roll, there is the sink, there is Wei Ying getting reamed on two fingers, there is the keurig. Rice cooker, kettle, discarded condom on the floor.

It is something. It is a thought.

Lan Zhan bites his own lip hard as he comes, filled up with it. Wei Ying slams his head back, moaning and soft, and Lan Zhan barely manages to get his hand up in time but he does cup it between Wei Ying and the window, lets Wei Ying smash his head into Lan Zhan’s palm and grind Lan Zhan’s knuckles against the blinds, which may be broken now, Lan Zhan doesn’t know. He’s come and it’s peaking again, a phantom second arc of pleasure through him. Another spurt of come in his hand. He pants, raggedly, into the air above Wei Ying, which is the safest air in the kitchen to breathe.

Wei Ying is whispering, “Yeah, yes, yes,yes—yes,” and he is not going to come again, Lan Zhan does not think, but the crying is something like that. A release for Lan Zhan to work him through. Lan Zhan gently pulls his fingers out with a little goodbye wiggle that makes Wei Ying jump and then take his first good, deep breath. First, Lan Zhan leans over a few inches from Wei Ying and runs the sink. He washes both his hands. One is covered in his own come, the other was bare in Wei Ying’s asshole. He uses dish detergent. Wei Ying mumbles when a little spray catches him. Then, slowly, he takes Wei Ying’s shaking thighs from around his waist and sets them down on the counter, stroking each one. Wei Ying cannot even hold his legs up around Lan Zhan’s waist anymore. He strokes both thighs again, grateful, painfully grateful for all of Wei Ying. Strokes his shivering ribs and his bony, hairy ankles and wraps the bathrobe tighter around his chest. Then, thoughtfully, he tucks his little finger of the Wei-Ying’s-ass hand back into Wei Ying’s ass, just for a bit.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whispers into Lan Zhan’s shoulder after Lan Zhan presses his face there briefly to massage his neck with his clean hand. “Oh. Oh you like. Took good care of me.”

“Hmm,” Lan Zhan responds, acknowledging Wei Ying. He feels there is room for improvement. He feels good, though. Warm, tired. Ahead on tomorrow’s dinner prep, hilariously. His kitchen blinds are definitely broken. Wei Ying in his arms like this is distracting, Wei Ying around one finger, still. When Wei Ying shifts, Lan Zhan is the one who makes an involuntary noise. He felt Wei Ying tighten around his pinky.

“Ahh,” Wei Ying says. “Ah, you stayed in me, you even stayed in me?” He sniffles and Lan Zhan smiles at him a little, cannot quite help it. He crooks his finger hello. Wei Ying whimpers about it, big and performative.

“I am going to pull out now,” he warns, as if he’s balls-deep in Wei Ying. Wei Ying nods and sighs, pouting a little. Lan Zhan bites his lip and pulls his pinky out, regretfully. Wei Ying swings a leg a tiny bit, just enough to hit his heel against the cabinet.

“Stop hiding it. Wanna see how much you came,” he mumbles.

“Wei Ying made me come so much,” Lan Zhan says soothingly — honestly, too — as he buttons his jeans over the mess. His blouse has jizz on it, thank god. Wei Ying’s mess, on him. He opens the cabinet below Wei Ying and throws the blowjob condom away in the trashcan that lives below the sink.

“In the kitchen!” Wei Ying slurs above him. “You throw condoms away in your kitchen!”

“It is my house,” Lan Zhan says, straight-faced, heart pounding again just from looking at him. But it is less terrifying; he is floating on it. Wei Ying in his kitchen, well-fucked. Wei Ying just blinking at him, soft eyed and hazy.

It is something. It is.

***

In the back yard there are two deck chairs of dubious comfort, covered in scratchy outdoor cushions.

They are laying together in one, watching the dusk come into the garden under the pepper tree. Walkers go by on the bike path behind the house, mostly hidden from view behind the lemon tree and the hedges and the compost bins.

Lan Zhan is warm from a very, very fast shower, and in boxers and the second-best bathrobe. Wei Ying is in the good bathrobe, still warm from the dryer, somehow. He had not wanted to shower yet.

It seems like when Wei Ying is coming down, he talks. At first Lan Zhan thought (while getting talked at through the shower door) it meant he was resurfacing, but no, he’s still in headspace, just not the quiet kind. The gentle lap of words are good; they help Lan Zhan judge so easily where he is even as Lan Zhan bundles him up in one arm. They are spooning. Wei Ying had grabbed a blanket off the sofa in the den for them.

“Check it out Lan Zhan,” he slurs, twisting his head to look up at the sky between two Italian cypress pines which gently shade the lounge chairs. “It’s still light out but you can already see the moon. And right now Jupiter and Saturn are right next to each other somewhere to the--to the left. They’re really bright right now, have you seen them at night?”

“Maybe,” Lan Zhan says. It doesn’t seem like Wei Ying needs more of a response than that, but Lan Zhan finds himself offering, “There’s a bright star I see from my window when I go to bed, just above the hills.”

“When you go to— oh, no. Silly boy, that’s Mars. Mars rises a lot later.”

Lan Zhan smiles. “Now I know,” he says, solemn.

“If you could like, see Jupiter’s magnetic field….” Wei Ying says.

“Mn?” Lan Zhan prompts.

“Oh. If you could see it, Jupiter would be the size of a quarter in the sky.”

Lan Zhan nods. Wei Ying nods back, that bit of wisdom dispensed.

There is a pause. Above them is a dusty evening-blue sky that feels, somehow, higher than skies in the rest of the world. It just feels like that here, in this place. In the Bay, in this neighborhood, where the fire-wind whispers in the pines. Breeze in the trees, pepper tree and lemon and pine. The neighbors who fight all the time are trying to grow roses.

“Are you, um. Lan Zhan, are you hard?”

“Yes,” says Lan Zhan, carefully. “A little.”

“Can I um, feel it? If you’re comfortable with that? I just like — I feel better knowing that you’re — yeah.”

Lan Zhan nods slowly, his nose brushing Wei Ying’s hair. He relaxes his hips, which had tensed when Wei Ying asked, careful to keep his erection away from Wei Ying in case it felt like pressure, or did not help him ease back to the surface.

He doesn’t actually mean to take his cock fully out, just to adjust his boxers and press it against the backs of Wei Ying’s thighs, but he is hard — very hard, not just a little, his body is like this — and when he tugs at fabric his cockhead pops out of the fly of his boxer briefs. Wei Ying makes a happy little sound in his throat, even as Lan Zhan watches in dazed resignation as he pulls back the blanket to see that Wei Ying has rucked up the bathrobe and Lan Zhan’s cock is smearing precome on Wei Ying’s bare thighs.

Wei Ying smiles a little, face tucked against the scratchy cushions, and lifts his top leg under the blanket. Lan Zhan bites the inside of his mouth and breathes. He holds his cock and guides it between Wei Ying’s warm, barely sweaty thighs. Wei Ying relaxes and Lan Zhan allows himself a sharp little exhale, a ghost of a gasp.

He feels, unexpectedly, calmed by it. His cock held tightly between Wei Ying’s legs, safe and welcomed. Lan Zhan says, anyway, “You do not need to be making me hard in order to feel good.”

Wei Ying flaps a hand like — I know, I know.

“It’s nice,” Lan Zhan whispers, laying fully back down.

Wei Ying shifts around until he can squeeze Lan Zhan’s hand. Now the message is urgent instead of flippant, but the same: I know, I know.

***

That night, Lan Zhan cannot sleep.

The moon is full and Mars is so bright above it, overwhelming and obvious, red-tinted and unapologetic. Right where Wei Ying said it would be, right where it has been every night for weeks when Lan Zhan did not have a name for it. Moonlight cuts Lan Zhan’s bed in half at his calves; his feet are in a story, a dreamworld. Sleeping alone long enough makes him forget that he does sleep. There is no proof of it. There is no example of sleep’s existence next to him in bed. Dreams feel like no proof. He wants to see himself sleep. He wants to sleep next to someone who will watch him sleep, who might touch his hair where it sticks sweat damp to his face when he is halfway in between.

***

In an attempt to balance out his life a little, and because she is his friend, Lan Zhan tries something new and has Jiang Yanli over to smoke weed and watch baseball. It goes extremely well. Lan Zhan finally calms down, after the Friday with Wei Ying, who has of course texted, but it’s not— They sit in silence, getting high and making the occasional cutting remark about [baseball thing]. “Do you watch other sports?” Yanli asks.

Lan Zhan glances at her out of the corner of his eye, joint pressed between his lips. He got into smoking weed when he quit smoking cigarettes. People don’t believe that he used to go out to a lot of clubs (where he also smoked), but the wall of noise is a lot easier than the up and down meandering of a bar. A club is honest with you. Also, Lan Zhan liked to fuck, and his brothers friends were all Berkeley law students.

“Some,” Lan Zhan says, voice a little tight with smoke. “I don’t like soccer,” he adds preemptively.

“Hm,” says Yanli. “Hm, give me the remote. Do you know figure skating at all?”

“No,” says Lan Zhan.

“I am going to show you something,” says Yanli, doing violence to Lan Zhan’s smart TV remote. “This shit is wild.”

“Okay,” says Lan Zhan. He is pretty high. Potentially, he thinks ten minutes later, too high to be faced with Yuzuru Hanyu in all his glory, but there it goes.

They watch in silence as Yanli finds a full competition rerun on Youtube. Everything is in Russian, so Lan Zhan does not even have to listen to commentary. Ideal.

“This is good,” he tells Yanli very seriously after an hour. They have moved from men’s singles to ice dance, and Lan Zhan is learning exactly when to make a disparaging face at a badly turned out twizzle. “I like this sport.”

“Good,” Yanli says, taking a solemn drag on the joint as, on the screen, a new kind of combination lift occurs. “What else do you like? You didn’t say.”

Lan Zhan frowns. “Softball,” he says. “Alpine skiing.”

“Do you like… badminton?”

“No,” Lan Zhan says. “Why?”

“Oh, it’s just funny,” Yanli explains earnestly. “All the sports you like are completely the opposite of my little brother. He was on the varsity badminton team. He secretly still loves badminton.”

“Your brother is a business major. I am unemployed. We are not the same.”

“Oh, no, not A-Cheng, my other brother. My other one,” Yanli assured him, flapping a casual hand.

“Oh,” says Lan Zhan. “I apologize, I thought there was only one.”

“Nope,” says Yanli. “My two boys.”

She sounds loving, and tired.

“I will work hard at hating badminton,” he promises her solemnly. “I will keep it up my whole life.”

“Thank you, friend,” Yanli says, flinging a leg up on the sofa. “I am going to take a nap. Make the tv show us pairs skating. You’ll like— Sui and Han, Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

She falls asleep. Lan Zhan sits comfortably, legs spread, on his sofa. He watches pairs skating. He cries a little. When Yanli wakes up he says they should go for a walk to look at the bridges over the bay.

“You can see the bay from here?” asks Yanli. She is filling Lan Zhan’s uncle’s Oakland As mug with water, which she says she is bringing with her for the walk.

“Yes,” says Lan Zhan. “It’s better if we walk up the Peak, of course. But we can see them if we walk up and loop on the street above the bike path, up the hill.”

“That’s so funny,” says Yanli. “I live so close by and I never noticed!”

“It is only one place,” says Lan Zhan.

They find outdoor shoes and walk down Lan Zhan’s street, under the whispering pines. They walk up the street where kids like the drag race at night, before the coyotes come out. An old uncle comes past walking a very small dog that wants to sniff Lan Zhan. They walk up to the fancy little neighborhood above Lan Zhan’s fancy little neighborhood. The hills are golden behind them, perfectly golden, like a promise: you do, you really do live here, for better or for worse.

At the crest of a little neighborhood hill they stop on the sidewalk and look down. There it is, a tiny distant glimpse of the Bay, which looks flat and calm from a distance. The haze is settling. The sun has gone down already into the cold green Pacific, the ocean which has for so long held Lan Zhan’s life in it. You cannot see the ocean from here; you cannot see the North Bay or SF, or any famous skyline at all.

The bridges have blinking red lights on them, for planes Lan Zhan guesses, coming into Oakland or SFO.

“Which one is that?” Yanli asks, slurping her water. Her shoulders are relaxed, finally. Lan Zhan’s phone buzzes in his pocket, a sweet promise, but he does not take it out yet.

“I do not know,” says Lan Zhan. “Dumbarton? San Mateo?” He squints as if he will be able to figure it out by looking.

Yanli hums a few bars: Bridge Over Troubled Water. “Like a briiiidge called Saaan Mateo—” she mumble-sings into her mug of water, and laughs, and Lan Zhan dares to hum along for the first time in very many years, since the last time sang with his throat instead of piano wire, here in this place where he can escape nothing. He hums and she makes up the words, makes up the words, and he sings along, low for just a second: Like a bridge called San Mateo, I will lay me down. She breaks into laughter. Lan Zhan feels more solemn than that, but it seems like that is alright.

Lan Zhan takes out his phone, just for a moment before they walk down the hill into the lilac dusk, to take a picture to send.

#my fic #in the pines #ask replies #fic ask replies #anon ask replies #cryinngggg 13k tumblr post will u even work

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ink-e-fox · 6 months

Text

I'M-

OKay- so I finally get back into writing for Overwatch because I have had a few things in the works for like 3 years and haven't touched them since the beginning. So- I pick up "Deadlock Rebels" and decide to take some notes-- I'm not lazy when it comes to fic notes I even have MAPS. Bear with me.

SO the official Blizzard website has deadlock gorge in Arizona

Fantastic. Route 66, the scenery, makes a lot of sense. The book opens up, she's in Bellerae, Texas. Not a stretch, just gotta finish the book to see how they end up in Arizo-- They don't. The book has Deadlock Gorge in Texas.

I DO NOT BLAME LYNDSAY ELY AT ALL

It's Blizz's job to make sure the lore is like- straight. She was probably given a stack of facts and a general storyline and the book was good-- but c'mon Blizz, those two states don't exactly border each other. You can't tell me a group of tweens age 15-17 are casually crossing the entire state of New Mexico on hoverbikes on a semi-daily basis.... But then again, Hanzo and Genji are like 21 and 23 in the Kiriko introduction video according to them so.... if Blizzard doesn't want to treat their toys nicely, I will take them away.

#overwatch #deadlock rebels #overwatch lore #overwatch declassified #Please Blizzard #writers do so much better when they can talk to each other #Its called enrichment for their enclosure

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norrizzandpia · 6 months

Note

you’re my absolute favourite lando fanfic writer, i get so excited whenever you post. can you do some sort of fake dating x enemies to lovers with lando & some angst & grovelling please? i leave the rest up to you, i can’t wait to see what you come up with<3

THIS IS THE BEST MIX OF TROPES I HAVE EVER SEEN I LOVE YOU FOR THIS also thank you so much for saying I’m your fav lando writer I’m blushing ☺️

You Were Never What I Wanted, (LN4)

Summary: Lando and Y/n have never liked each other and it’s only the distaste the world has for them when McLaren forces them to “put on a show for the public”. At first, a few hand holds and light, quick kisses seem to be tolerable, yet feather light touches turn into longing stares and, suddenly, they’re falling in love. Although, hatred is a powerful emotion. Can love really trump it?

Warnings: language, sexual discussions, very mild smut, lando and yn yearning, yn calling lando a man whore not affectionately, talks of death, a crash, she’s long so grab popcorn, omfg this one hurts

Note: i love a good fake dating y’all don’t GET. IT. Also i added the reformed playboy trope to this to spice things up! It’s very mildly mentioned tho UPDATE: PART 2 POSTED!

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Lando screeches, body flying from his chair beside Y/n.

Charlotte smiles tightly at him, nodding slowly and putting her hands up, “Lando, yes. You know this is the only way to clean up the reputation you two have developed together.”

He groans, turning to pace the room when Zak interrupts, “Lando, be a fucking man and clean up the mess you’ve made.”

He turns quickly, eyes bulging as he yells, “It wasn’t fucking me! It was her!” He turns to look at Y/n, bewildered look in his eyes as he points furiously at her, “It was you! You got us into this mess! You clean it up!”

Y/n rolls her eyes at him and he almost loses his head, “You’re just as at fault, Lando. You’re the one that openly criticized my driving in a room full of reporters and cameras!”

“I was asked a fucking question, Y/n. It was my job to answer it honestly.” He shoots back.

She scoffs, “Are you fucking psychotic? Or just that fucking stupid? Our job is to lie to the press, that’s what it’s always been. Don’t fucking change it when it’s convenient for you.”

Lando’s hands claw at his eyes as they continue to bicker, “The only person who’s stupid here is you.”

“I was standing up for myself!”

“Oh, yeah?! Now, look where that’s gotten us! A fucking PR stunt!”

“Get over yourself, Lando! You’re just as at fault!”

“You’re so fucking annoying, Y/n! Can’t take any fucking accountabil-”

“Oh, please, you’re one to ta-”

“OKAY!” Charlotte claps her hands as she stops the two drivers. The image before her is one she never thought she’d see this season. Lando Norris, a McLaren driver and well known playboy, getting mad he had to kiss one of the most beautiful women to grace the sport of Formula 1, fellow driver on the grid, Y/n Y/l/n. She surely would’ve chuckled if Lando’s eyes weren’t alive with an angry fire she needed to diffuse immediately.

“You two need to just realize that whose fault this was doesn’t matter. What you need to focus on is pretending you’re in love, so the media stops breathing down McLaren’s and Red Bull’s necks. This is the only way we can make all this bad press go away.” She explains, hands moving rapidly in front of her as she tries to calm the two down.

Y/n, the more rational one, nods, accepting her fate with grace. Lando, on the other hand, stomps his foot on the ground and mutters a sentence of agreement before storming out of the room.

Y/n laughs, turning to Zak and Charlotte, the papaya employees looking as if five years had just been taken off their lives, “I don’t know how you put up with him. He’s so fucking childish.”

Charlotte, media trained, smiles, “He’s better when he isn’t angry.”

Zak, not media trained, nods, “Y/n, I’ve never agreed with you more.”

The man and woman share a look, a subtle scolding glint in Charlotte’s eye as she stares at Zak. He backs down, earning a giggle from Y/n as she begins to leave the room.

“You’ll send the NDAs and other contracts over to Red Bull, right? I’d like to get this started and over with as soon as possible.” Y/n smiles, a soft one that makes others feel warm inside.

Charlotte nods, “Of course. Consider it done.”

Y/n, keeping her smile and composure, withdraws from the room, the door closing with a loud click.

Zak and Charlotte are left to sink down into the chairs behind them. Slugging, Zak’s head lulls to her side, “This is either the best idea we’ve ever had or the worst one.”

She laughs, “They either fall in love or hate each other more.”

—

“Okay, so,” Charlotte smiles at Lando and Y/n from her side of the SUV, the two on either side of the car, sitting as far away from the other as possible, “This is going to be a short outing.”

“Thank God.” Lando mumbles under his breath, earning a scowl from the girl beside him.

Charlotte huffs, continuing, “Just a coffee run. You’ll go into the cafe, holding hands, maybe a kiss or two, get your drinks, and then leave. Very quick. However, I need you two to give it your all. This will be the first time the public sees you as something more than enemies. It needs to be convincing. Heart eyes and maybe, if you’re comfortable, roaming hands.”

Lando’s head turns in utter disgust, “If you fucking think I’m going to touch her ass or some shit, you’ve absolutely lost it.”

Y/n’s body whips around, whole torso facing him as she stares him down, “Oh, please, Lando, you get no fucking women. You haven’t touched anybody’s ass, let alone a girl’s, in fucking ages.”

“Oh, yeah? Then, explain the girl that woke up in my bed this morning!” He fires back, head tilting in a challenging way.

Y/n shoves her arms across her chest as she sits back and whispers, loud enough for him and Charlotte to hear, “Man whore.”

Charlotte’s eyebrows lift slightly, exhaling a breath, “Well! This should be fun!”

The car comes to a stop in an alleyway, hidden from prying eyes. Charlotte lets the silence pass between the two for a few moments before leaning over and opening Lando’s door, “Well, get on with it! Chop chop! Don’t have all the time in the world.”

Lando slides out of the car, shaking his head and grumbling incoherently. Y/n follows him, however, when she gets her legs hanging out the door, she is reminded of just how high the car is off the ground. She goes to turn her body around, opting to slide slowly out on her stomach in avoidance of an accident, but, before she can get positioned, Lando grabs her hips and lifts her from the car, down onto the ground.

There’s a moment where she’s so taken aback, surprised, by the movement, all she can do is grip onto his biceps and stare down at her feet, safely on the pavement. It’s only when Charlotte starts yelling, “Yes! Yes, Lando! Just like that! Look at her like that!” That she looks up. What she finds is deep green eyes completely dilated and lost in the sight of her. She reminds herself of the hatred this man has for her, brushing off the way his hands squeeze over the flesh of her hips desperately, and removes herself from his hold.

Immediately, he comes to, the snarl replacing whatever emotion had taken over his face before. She trails down the dirty, smelly passageway, hearing Lando’s feet patter behind her.

It’s as if she’s achingly aware of his presence when he reaches her, just before they turn onto the public street, and takes her hand in his. The way his cologne wraps around her body, suffocating her in the most addicting way, and the feeling of his fingers fitting perfectly in the divots of hers, soft against her skin, has Y/n reeling. She goes along with his movements, relying on him to guide her as she travels to a place where Lando’s just the man she used to think he was; insanely hot and incredibly charming.

He pulls her back, however, when he opens the door for her and quietly says her name when she doesn’t walk through.

“Y/n?” His hand tugs against hers, smiling softly at the way she stares off into space. Whether that smile is genuine, although, Y/n has no clue.

She shakes her head, murmuring a thank you to him as she scurries past the threshold. When they both enter, their presence is immediately clocked by the other customers waiting for their orders. That’s what Y/n tells herself when Lando comes up behind her, arms around her waist as he rests his head on the top of hers.

“What do you want, baby? I’m paying.” He says, low enough for it to come across as a whisper, but loud enough for the girl in front of them to turn her head slightly in curiosity.

He’s surprisingly good at this, falling into the role demanded of him in a way that has Y/n faltering. She was expecting a man who was so distant from her, the same as her past partners, she had to beg for his attention. Yet, here she was getting showered in affection by a man she was convinced didn’t have the capacity for it.

Her response is easy, covering for the feelings arising within a certain part of herself she can’t quite name, “Just a cappuccino. Thanks, Lan.”

His grin is sweet as he lays a kiss on her temple. His hands rub over her hips as he detaches himself from her body and moves in front of her, teasingly pushing her away from the register with a light laugh.

Lando spews off the order to the man behind the counter as Y/n moves to the other side of the establishment, residing where the orders are dropped off. It could’ve been strategic, it probably was she promises herself, but Lando yells across the store to her.

“Y/n! Love, do you want food? They have your favorite here,” He smiles at her, earning a few giggles from fawning girls in the corner, “Croissants!”

Did he know croissants are actually her favorite or was that just a lucky guess?

Y/n gives him an airy chuckle, head falling back slightly in a lovesick way as she shakes her head, “Nah, I’m okay. Just gives us another opportunity to come back here.”

He nods at her, shaking his head at the barista and handing him some cash.

He tips the change, a hefty amount seemingly as Y/n watches the worker hesitate and thank Lando profusely. Her heart warms, shining on the inside as he treats hardworking people, those who are usually treated horrifically, with the utmost respect.

These reactions she’s having toward him are confusing, a far off nagging in her brain that she might’ve always wished for this type of attention specifically from him.

Nevertheless, she forces her mind to end its overwhelming thoughts when he waltzes over and sidles up next to her. She’s determined to keep this transactional, however she can.

She can’t get feelings.

She won’t get feelings.

And that was that, she decided.

“Lando!” Another worker calls out, setting down two drinks on the counter in front of them. Y/n goes to pick them up, however Lando beats her, giving her a cheeky grin as he mumbles, “You’re my girlfriend, Y/n. You don’t get the drinks, I do. Don’t be barbaric.”

She stands staring at him, mouth agape at his comment as the girls sitting behind them, somehow closer now, gasp.

Y/n hits his arm, the liquid jostling in his grip, “We weren’t supposed to say anything yet!”

He shrugs in return as he pushes the door open with the side of his body, and waits for her to walk through, “I guess I just couldn’t wait, baby. Too in love.”

She shakes her head at him, taking the drink from his hand, their digits brushing against the other’s in an electrifying way, “Down the toilet goes the soft launch plan.”

As they turn the corner, the smile he had been adoring her with suddenly vanishes and the usual pain that fills his expression when he’s around her returns.

“I’m just trying to get this over with, Y/n. Waiting a whole fucking month to tell some fans we’re together is so fucking stupid and I’m not doing it.” He bites out, a hostility to him she had forgotten in the ten minutes he had just treated her like she was his everything.

She drops the coffee on the ground as they grow closer to the car, shock at his quick change in attitude forcing her body to go numb. Lando stops when she does, both of them staring down at the leaking, steaming drink.

He dryly laughs at her, “How fucking stupid! Can’t even hold her own drink! No wonder you’re a shit driver!”

He gets in the car, shutting the door harshly and leaving her to internalize his criticisms.

For some reason, after getting a glimpse at what being loved by him feels like, his words hurt more, mean more.

What a dangerous game.

—

Lando is a known party animal. He’s in love with the blinding lights, loud music, and alcohol flowing without a care in the world what hangover he’d be graced with in the morning. However, with her here, it proves to be a much more stressful experience.

She’s glued to his side, not particularly the clubbing type, and Lando feels his heart quicken when other men bend their backs to see her walk away. A month into the arrangement they structured and he’s consistently feeling as if he’s fighting off every man that floats their way.

He’s worried someone will try to take advantage of her; he’s worried someone will spike her drink; he’s worried someone will touch her weirdly; he’s worried someone will bother her.

He’s worried about her.

A thought so pressing he forces it out of his mind, away from the impending cloudiness that accompanies a topic so big; the way he feels toward her.

The way it was explained to him, by the joint teams of McLaren PR and Red Bull PR, was that, for the first few weeks, their relationship outings would consist of soft dates, quick times spent out together grabbing takeout or a few pictures here and there on both their social medias that addressed their relationship status. Once they got past that time period, they would begin to see the public more often as a union. Long dinners, a handful of charity functions, a gala, and nights out clubbing riddled his calendar now.

Something he wasn’t too opposed to he was coming to find out.

That was the phase they were entering now; the hard launch. After his stunt in the coffee shop those four weeks ago, the teams had to regroup. The girls who had been hanging around had heard his slight confession of love, plastering it on the internet for every person to see.

The consequence? Lando didn’t get to be seen with Y/n for a week as the PR teams waited for the attention around the news to subside.

He wouldn’t risk that now.

Not when he was beginning to get used to the way her hand held his bicep as his fingers tangled in her other hand below.

“Lan?” She yells in his ear, their footsteps just now reaching the VIP section as the bodyguard lets them through.

He looks down at her, their faces centimeters away, lips centimeters away, and Lando’s scared.

Scared of the things he wants to do as her plump, pink lips sit right below his.

“Yeah?” His eyes avert to Max, his best friend, the boy giving him a knowing glance as he sips on his glass.

“Get me a drink please? I would do it myself, but I don’t want to risk having to talk to a random guy and-” He interrupts her immediately when she mentions the possibility of someone else hitting on her.

“I got it.” He’s spinning around, fast walking toward the bar before she can tell him what she wants.

She turns around, wandering over to Max and plopping down beside him on the soft, black couch in the corner of the room.

Max shakes his head as he looks at her, chuckling softly before letting his head fall to his chest.

“What?” She asks, eyebrows raising at the boy she had grown close to over the time she’d spent with his friend.

“You two are so funny.” He continues giggling, his girlfriend smacking his arm with a cautious look.

Y/n’s eyebrows furrow, “What?”

“You guys say you hate each other, but then you look at each other like you can’t wait to rip the other’s clot-” He begins, but Pietra slaps her hand over his mouth.

“MAX FEWTRELL!” She screams over the music, “NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!”

Her scolding makes him cower into himself, a drunken look on his face as he searches for mercy from his girlfriend.

Y/n is about to press for more when Lando shoves her drink in front of her, holding it out for her until she cradles it in her own.

Looking down at it, her head tilts, “A vodka soda with two orange slices?”

Lando stares at her blankly, “Yeah, you’re favorite, right?”

She nods, “Yeah.”

They look at each other for a moment. Confusion on both their faces for two different reasons.

“Is that a problem?” He asks her, hand dangerously close to her thigh and heating the skin of her leg up with the need for him to splay his fingers across it.

She shakes her head slowly, “No, just- How did you know it was my favorite?”

Emotions flash through his eyes, too fast for Y/n to decipher them. He withdraws physically, cold returning to her leg when his hand retracts to his lap.

“Uh, you just told me a few times.” He stutters.

If she knew him better, she might say for certain he was nervous.

Not mentioning the fact she had never told him what her favorite alcoholic drink was, Y/n moves on. It’s not because she doesn’t want to find out how he knew what she liked or that she simply doesn’t care how he knows, it’s because a camera catches her peripheral eye. Her head discreetly moves to the side, analyzing the drunken girl who stumbles over to the railing and points her phone right at them.

Y/n falls into Lando’s side, his body laid against the back of the couch and making for a comfortable cushion. His arm automatically wraps around her shoulders as her hand plants itself on his upper thigh.

When her fingers brush teasingly close to his crotch, he looks down at her, astonished, “What are you doing?”

“Camera.” She says, his eyes looking up through his lashes before he sees what she had witnessed before.

He nods subtly, leaning down immediately to press his lips to hers shortly. It’s a kiss like the ones they’d had before, quick and dry, yet, this one, instead of pulling away right after, Lando lingers. His lips brush against hers in hesitation, as if he’s deciding whether or not he wants to lean back in for more. His eyes stare into hers, top lip hitting her bottom one as he dips his chin down. He’s close to taking what he wants, breath heavy against her face as he holds her to him. His hands eagerly claw at her dress, forcing her to stay where she is, where he wants her to be, close to him. Yet, he continues to hesitate.

Finally, for the first time, Y/n sees the emotion that hides behind the beautiful color of his eyes; confusion.

It’s only for a split second though. She sees it only for a millisecond as Lando feels the way she breaks down a wall he had built up long ago. When she realizes the war behind his head, he retreats.

His hands fall from her back and his head turns to the side, rejecting what he wanted to do. She watches him look for the girl that had been filming them, eyes roaming over the crowd before coming to the conclusion she was gone.

“No camera.” He says curtly, pushing her off him as he gets up from the couch and walks back to the bar.

She watches him order another drink, no doubt for himself.

Her eyes train on the drink that sits, sweating, on the table in front of them.

Lando’s drink that’s completely full.

🏎️

Liquid courage is a real thing. It’s what drives Lando to ask Y/n to join him on the dance floor. It’s what drives Y/n to pull him into her and sway her hips right against him. They’re on beat with the music, it thumping in their hearts as Lando grips her hips and forces her body closer to his. There’s a newfound sexual tension, rather than the usual tension that consisted of complicated feelings and lingering hurt over past insults. Her hands drape over his neck, head in his chest as he lays his against her shoulder, withholding groans when she circles her hips and accidentally caresses his dick.

His head’s somewhere else, terrifyingly so. He’s not fully thinking through his actions or the thoughts running through his head, the consequences they would have.

All he can think about is the feeling of Y/n’s boobs pressed up against his chest, her cleavage cum-worthy when he looks down and sees her potential spill-out.

The chorus of Love Tonight pumps through the speakers, communicating the feelings they’re too scared to say.

All I need is your love tonight.

The music spurs him on, almost nudging his head downwards to meet her in the same spot they had been in just a few hours before.

His lips hovering over hers with the same thoughts as before, Lando’s brain goes haywire. She’s panting against him, hips relentless as they continue to circle against him. He’s drowning in her, no escape from the hold she has on him.

Fuck it, he thinks.

He smashes his lips against hers, the first kiss they’ve had that truly puts into perspective how much they want each other. Teeth clashing, his tongue wandering the walls of her mouth, Lando and Y/n fail to come up with an excuse for their actions.

No cameras, no fans, no press.

Just the two of them, dancing and kissing with one singular goal.

All I need is your love tonight.

—

“Here’s your check! Thank you for joining us tonight!” The waiter smiles, setting down the black booklet as Lando quickly swipes it from the table.

Whining, Y/n waves her card around, “Lando, when are you going to let me pay? I don’t think I’ve paid a single time we’ve been together.”

He smiles at her mischievously, “Exactly.”

She rolls her eyes, “Lando,”

He eyes her as he scribbles onto the receipt, “Y/n,”

She scoffs, sitting back in her chair with a huff.

When he’s done, he gives her a sympathetic look before reaching across the table and grabbing her hand, “How about next time we get coffee you pay for your own?”

She looks away from him with a failing suppressive smile, “That’s like five dollars, Lan! You’ve probably spent thousands in the time we’ve been together.”

He shakes his head, “Doesn’t matter.”

Her face scrunches up, “Yes, it does!”

He’s about to rebuttal, but the screeching of people close to them takes their soft eyes off the other.

A mixed group of girls and boys stop at their table, smiling brightly at the two drivers. One of them stands in the middle, phone clutched to her chest as she asks, “Can we get a picture?”

Lando looks to Y/n, searching for approval, but she’s not looking at him. He watches her face light up, smiling big at the fans in front of them as she gets up from her chair.

“Yeah, of course!” She laughs, a sound so light and delicate, it makes Lando’s heart clench in his chest. He never saw the way she acted around fans, having been isolated from them in the times they were together. However, now, as he stays put in his chair and stares on, he adores the way she adores them.

His hands clasped in his lap, Lando sits motionlessly. He can’t take his eyes off the woman who is very clearly making this group’s year. They all stare at her as if she held the moon in their hands, a present from her to them. There’s a simple sparkle in their eyes as she takes pictures with each of them, a simple sparkle that tells him just how much these kids look up to her.

He’s enamored by her, just like they are. For different reasons, though.

“Lan, are you going to get up?” She giggles, hitting his arm and reminding him of the task at hand.

The group stares at him, not the same way they had stared at her notably. He can tell they value him, they’re excited by him, but they aren’t starstruck by him.

He can live with that, though. He gets what it’s like to become speechless over something so beautiful.

After a few more clicks of the camera, the supposed couple sits back down in their seats, but Y/n doesn’t let the fans leave yet. He watches as they brighten at her starting conversation with them.

He loves this. He loves he-

“I have to say, I was so surprised when I found out you two were together.” One of the girls in the group interrupts his questionable internal dialogue. He’s relieved, however. He can’t be thinking that way.

He can’t be feeling that way.

He isn’t.

Y/n tilts her head up at them, “Yeah?”

The group nods and one of the boys speaks up, “Yeah, you two, like, hated each other.”

Everyone laughs, Y/n sitting back in her chair as Lando watches her take the statement easily, “Well, we didn’t hate each other. We did love each other, just didn’t know how to deal with it.”

Her eyes meet his and, for a moment, Lando wonders if she truly means it or if she’s signaling for him to add on.

He goes with adding on, “Yeah, definitely. Who could hate her?”

You could, she thinks. You do, she thinks.

The words sink her heart to her stomach. A reality so crushing, she hates to entertain it. When this is all over, he’ll go back to hurting her with jabs that attack her self-confidence and she’ll be left to hang on to the man he had been when they were “together”.

She doesn’t want to go back to hating him, yet she’s scared she will. She doesn’t want to go back to knowing who he truly is at his core, yet she’s scared she will.

She doesn’t want to go back to knowing what he truly thinks of her, yet she’s scared she will.

By the time she returns to the conversation, the fans are simultaneously thanking them for their time and kindness. Leaving them alone, Lando stands from the table and checks the bill once more. Y/n grabs her bag, “Why’re you checking it again?”

He looks up at her as his pointer finger lingers on the paper, “Oh, just calculating what you’ll owe me when this is all said and done. You know, when we go back to hating each other’s guts.”

He says it jokingly, she can tell he’s teasing as he laughs it off, holding her hand gently as he leads her out of the restaurant. But, none of that stops the way she exhales a deep breath, a sigh that carries so much pain, she wonders where it came from.

Lando used to mean nothing to her, or so she thought.

Had he always meant everything?

—

Silverstone is supposed to be a fun race for Lando. It’s one of his favorites on the calendar. Although, that joy is rapidly tanking as he races quickly around the track, smoke emitting from behind him and filling the air, filling his helmet. He coughs harshly as he rushes into his radio, “Was that a crash?! Who is it?! Are they okay?! Is it on fire?! There’s smoke.”

There’s panic in his voice, knowing regardless of who it is, he’ll be worried.

Andrea’s silent on the other line, heightening Lando’s concerns.

“Andrea! What’s going on? Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you.” Andrea responds immediately.

Lando rounds a corner before he speaks back, confusions drenching his tone, “Okay, so who was that? Are they okay?”

Andrea is monotone, “I don’t know if they’re okay right now.”

Lando’s heart drops, “Oh, no, who was it? Was it one of the Williams? A Ferrari? Maybe a Haas?”

Again, Andrea doesn’t answer him and Lando is about to press him further when he reaches the crash site once more. Eyes trained on the color of the car, the words “Red Bull” hit him hard.

Andrea waits for the anxiety to kick in on the other line, fully prepared to talk him down as he watches for any updates on the crash.

“IT’S A FUCKING RED BULL! IS IT Y/N? ANDREA, IS IT Y/N?” He screams, voice shaking as he begins to slow down, cars passing him by and making him lose positions.

Andrea watches the decline of Lando’s car in the race standings, head falling as he realizes no information about Y/n will come quick enough to make him get back in the race.

Calmly, he responds, “I am not sure who it is yet.”

He hears Lando groan aggressively, “Bullshit! Is it her?!”

His yelling can be heard throughout the entire wall, everyone giving side glances to Andrea over the man who is currently screaming.

“Lando, I promise you, if I knew who it was, I would tell you.” Andrea gives, voice pleading.

It’s quiet for a moment, the only thing heard being the sounds of Lando’s heavy breathing. Solemnly, Andrea watches a camera zoom in past the smoke and center the number of the car in the frame.

Y/n’s car.

Clicking the button, Andrea speaks to Lando, “I can confirm it is Y/n’s car. No knowledge of if she’s gotten out of the car or not.”

Again, there’s silence before Lando’s hand smacks his steering wheel and he lets out a noise filled with anguish, “Please, tell me when you find out.”

Torturously, Lando passes by her car at every turn, watching only for a second as people work to try and get her out of the car.

Andrea watches in horror as a group of men lift her from the car, her body limp and unmoving as they run her to the safety car.

“She’s out of the car.” He murmurs to Lando, praying the boy won’t ask more questions.

He does, “Good! That’s good! By herself or did she need aid?”

The sound of Andrea’s heavy sigh kills Lando, “No, not by herself. She needed help.”

“How much help?”

Silence.

Lando yelps, “ANDREA! TELL ME WHAT’S GOING ON RIGHT FUCKING NOW! THIS IS MY FUCKING GIRLFRIEND! HOW MUCH FUCKING HELP?”

“She’s not moving.”

Lando doesn’t say anything, his mind racing as his eyes water.

Finally, he speaks, “I need to retire the car.”

Andrea and the rest of the pit wall turn to look at each other with outraged stares, “What? No, Lando. The car’s perfectly fine. The pace is great, no dam-”

Lando interrupts Andrea with a broken voice, “The car’s not the reason we need to retire the car. It’s the driver. It’s me.”

Everyone can hear it in the way his voice cracks, he’s crying, knowing he can’t see through it. It’s a danger, it truly is, and that forces Andrea and the team to comply with Lando’s demands.

When he parks in the garage, he clampers out. Shoving engineers, Andrea, his dad, Zak, and anyone else who gets in his way or tries to talk to him, Lando sprints over to the medical center. On his way, he loses his mind over the possibility that she might not be there, already at the hospital, or she will be there, but just her lifeless body.

He’s still drenched in sweat, the amount doubling from his running, when he gets there. Lando pushes past the people who stand at the front, not giving them time to tell him he can’t come in. He hears them call out in opposition, but he’s already in and he just doesn’t care.

There’s no time to address the feelings swirling in his stomach that feel ten times what he had felt for any of his past girlfriends. There’s no time to talk about the way he cries over the image of her burning car or her unconscious body being pulled from it. There’s no time to talk about the fact that, last year, he wouldn’t have acted this crazed over her accident. There’s no time to talk about the fact that, now, he’s fully prepared to brawl with anyone that dares to stand in his way of finding her.

There’s no time because he’s reaching her door and flinging it open. There are nurses beside her conscious figure, tending to the scratches and cuts she has from the car’s debris. Even with the bloodied bandages, Lando smiles at her smiling at him.

When she sees him, her arm reaches out for him without thinking. He takes long strides to get to her even in the small room and, when he does, he grabs her hand.

Kneeling down on the floor beside her, he squeezes her hand, “You okay?”

She nods, “Will be.”

“That’s good enough for me.” He whispers, nurses glancing at each other before exiting the room at the intimacy flowing between the two.

They really were selling this.

Suddenly, Y/n’s eyebrows knit together as her gaze lifts to the clock on the wall, “Wait, Lan, the race is still going. Did you crash?”

He shakes his head, eyes averting from hers, “No, I retired the car.”

Her other hand reaches to turn his gaze back to hers, holding his jaw softly as he smiles at her, “Why?” She whispers.

“Because I needed to make sure you were okay.”

The truth hangs in the air painfully.

They can’t speak of what that means or what that alludes to. They can’t speak of the way he clutches onto her hand as if she’ll go away. They can’t speak of the way he raced over here, throwing important people to the side in a state of pure panic. They can’t speak of the way they stare at each other, yearn for each other in a way that goes against every rule they agreed to when this started.

All they can do is kiss each other sweetly and lie.

Lie to themselves about what will happen after it’s over; lie to themselves about how much they truly care for each other; lie to the PR teams and tell them nothing is developing between them, that it’s safe to continue this.

And, most of all, later, when Zak asks Lando why he has lip gloss smudged against his mouth, they must lie.

—

“Can you zip me up?” Y/n turns around in the car, her back to Lando as her dress hangs open slightly at the top.

He nods, fingers delicate against her skin as he glides against it, trailing the cool metal up. His hands finish on her shoulders, slowly rubbing softly as she begins to lean against him.

“Lan, that feels good.” She mumbles, words slurred from the way his fingers work the knots under her skin.

Her body lies fully on him, his mouth by her ear as they wait to get to their destination. He continues to massage her, whispering random things in her ear about errands they need to run or complete tomorrow.

With her eyes closed and relaxed state, Lando admires how safe she feels around him. Five months ago, Y/n wouldn’t have dared to let him touch her in the way he was, in the way he had over the past two months, however things had changed. For better or for worse, Lando still wasn’t sure.

The driver in the front eyes them questionably, having witnessed the change in their dynamic over their months together.

With her body still limp against him, the car stops in front of the gala’s entrance. Photographers scream beyond the door and flashes of cameras blind them even as they sit behind the glass.

Looking at her and taking her hand in his, Lando whispers, “Ready?”

She nods, “Always.”

A man opens their door, the volume erupting as Lando steps out, his hand clutching Y/n’s as she follows suit. Immediately, they’re pulled into multiple pictures. Lando’s arm finds its home around her waist with Y/n’s hand resting on his chest, a couple so perfect for each other. Their endeavor had been so incredibly successful, both their teams’ PR divisions were pleasantly surprised. Lando looks on at her, a radiant smile gracing her face as she speaks to one of the reporters on the carpet, and hates the feeling of knowing how close the end is.

In just a few weeks, they’ll be sitting down to write a small paragraph, one that will be posted to their Instagram stories as it tries to sum up the romance they thought they had.

At night, he tries to think of words to describe the moments he’s had with her and, every time, he comes up empty.

Her laughing at the journalist’s joke makes him come to the conclusion there will never be a time where he can gather syllables to explain how undeniably perfect she is.

How he got to the place of being able to address how wonderful she was? Lando had an inkling it was because of the way she made his heart pound and hands sweat.

🏎️

Lando and Y/n easily make their rounds throughout the room, greeting sponsors and potential ones with their hands clasped together. It’s obvious how charming they are together, obvious when random strangers are flipping open their checkbooks at the sight of them. Lando knows it’s all her with her thoughtful sentences and engaging demeanor.

He’s a side piece and he’s okay with that, only okay with it when he’s her side piece.

They’re in the midst of sharing a new drink they decided to try, giggles shared between them as they pass the glass between each other. They had started doing this ages ago, when they first grew closer to one another. In order to make these events go by quicker, they started trying all the items on the alcoholic menu they had never heard before. Some of his favorite memories of her had taken place when she tried something she didn’t like and almost spit it out at him.

“I think this one’s good! What’s it called again? Something sexual, right?” She asks as he takes another swig.

Lando shakes his head, grin on his face as he lifts the drink up to their eye level, “I forgot, but it must be cum something. Sure does look like cum.”

Her mouth falls open and she screeches, “Lando!”

He falls over onto the table beside them, laughing, “What? You don’t swallow?”

She joins him in laughter, “You wish you knew.”

Of fucking course, he thinks.

“Lando?” A voice from his past calls from behind them.

Lando’s heart drops, turning around and seeing Luisinha.

“Hey, Lu!” She moves to hug him, squeezing him lightly before letting her eyes drift to the girl quietly standing with him.

“Hi, Y/n.” She speaks, smiling softly as she hugs her.

Luisinha giggles before looking between the two, “I assume I need to be reintroduced to you. Before, you were Y/n, driver for Red Bull. Now, you’re Y/n, Lando’s girlfriend.”

Y/n nods, a gesture that looks to come so easy to her, Lando wishes it was real.

They hug again, chuckling at the situation before Luisinha directs her attention back to her ex-boyfriend, “It’s nice to see you, Lan! All those nights spent on the phone just aren’t the same as seeing you in person.”

Y/n loses her breath over Lu’s words, gaze drifting immediately to Lando and watching as he nods along.

“Yeah! Seriously, talking to you over the phone isn’t enough.”

His response, easy and light, crushes her.

Y/n steps in closer, “Sorry, um, you two still talk?”

Luisinha looks to Lando, intrigue in her eyes as she searches him. Lando, the boy stuck between his past and present, realizes his mistake.

He shakes his hands, “No, I mean- Yes, but it’s not like that, Y/n.”

Luisinha stays silent as she watches Y/n try to keep her composure, “When was the last time you talked?”

Lando can’t bring himself to answer, so Lu does for him, feeling for the girl in between them, “Last night.”

He watches Y/n’s face slowly process the information. It’s as if reality comes crashing down on her, a harsh moment that reminds her of what they are to each other at the end of the day.

Y/n nods, smiling at the two before beginning to walk back, “I need a minute, sorry.”

Lu watches Lando long for her, momentarily wishing Y/n would just understand how much he feels for her, and Luisinha, finally, gets a wave of closure. She understands now why they broke up. When he ended it, Lando had told her he loved her more as a friend, something that broke her, yet, now, she understands why she had been so confused. Originally, she thought he did love her, he just been too afraid to tell her the real reason for their separation, but, as she stares at the pooling in his eyes, she sees a look she never got.

A look of intense love.

She nudges his arm, “Don’t let her get away.”

He nods at her, running off in the direction Y/n had left, eyes searching for her in the sea of people.

🏎️

Lando catches sight of her gorgeous y/h/c hair off in a small hallway of the hotel. He jogs over, her back to him, and lays a soft hand over her shoulder.

She stiffens, refusing to turn around and meet his eyes. However, his voice coaxes her, “Y/n, look at me.”

As much as she tries not to, she does and it breaks her further.

Her watery eyes and lost head tilt are a stab to Lando’s heart, her choked up voice speaking, “So, you were talking to her the entire time we were doing this?”

He’s at a loss, knowing that’s the perfect truth, yet knowing it isn’t fully, “Yes, but it doesn’t mean what you think it means.”

Her body jerks away from him and the anger he was usually greeted with returns, “Oh?! Then, what does it mean, Lando?! Because it looks like I meant fucking nothing to you! I know it isn’t in my head! I know what’s happened between us isn’t just some people getting over the hatred they had for each other! I thought you felt that way too!”

“I do!” He yells back, frustration at her obliviousness getting to him.

Tears leak down her face, “Then, why did you spend the entirety of this talking to your ex! Why’d you agree to this if you still love your ex?!”

Lando groans, “I don’t love my ex! I don’t love Lu! I love you!”

Her tears fall harder, “Do you? How could someone love another person they used to loathe?!”

Lando shakes his head, overwhelmed at what’s going on in his brain, “It just happened, Y/n! You think I thought this would happen?! No, I didn’t!”

Y/n resigns, quiet taking over other than their heavy breathing, “I don’t believe you.”

His annoyance takes over, “Well, then I don’t know what to tell you.”

I want you to tell me why you love me, she thinks. I want to know where your hate turned to love, she thinks.

Those things go unsaid.

Instead, she huffs, “I think this has gotten too out of hand. I think we need to end this arrangement early.”

She sees the unmistakable sadness etched into his face, “How early?”

“Like, tonight.” She whispers, protecting herself from the world of hurt that would be being loved by him. She isn’t Luisinha, she isn’t a model or breathtaking woman. She’s a girl who fell in love with a “boy’s” sport, a girl who has seen the flaws within herself and tried, desperately, to change them, rewrite them. She never does, although. She always comes out the same on the other side.

The truth catches up with her and images of the beautiful women Lando has had in his bed fill her mind. How does she know this isn’t some elaborate prank to get her vulnerable and then humiliate her out of the resentment he holds against her and the situation she got him in?

Lando musters up some sort of guard, distaste returning after its five month long hiatus, “Fine. I’ll let McLaren know. This works anyway. You served your purpose, got my reputation back to where it was before you came in and fucking destroyed it. You ruin everything, you know that, Y/n?”

She nods, cries intensifying at what she had been afraid of: his hatred for her returning after getting to know a side of him so tender.

“Got it, Lando.” She whispers, slinking past him and out of the building.

He watches her walk away, confused at how he had confessed his love for her and ended it by telling her she was destructive.

She isn’t. How could he say that?

How could he tell the one woman who had built him up that she had tore him down? How could he let frustrated anger replace the love he had for her?

How could he let her get away?

UPDATE: i posted part 2! Find it here.

A/N: TUMBLR GLITCHED OUT AND WAS CRACKING DOWN AT HOW LONG THIS WAS SO I WILL MAKE A PART TWO WITH A HAPPY ENDING I PROMISE

#mclaren #f1 x reader #f1 fanfic #f1 imagine #f1 fic #lando norris x reader #lando norris imagine #lando norris fanfic #lando norris fluff #lando norris imagines #mclaren formula 1 #lando norris fanfiction #lando norris fic #lando norris smut #lando x reader #lando imagine #lando norris #lando norris x you #lando norris edit

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2soulscollide · 1 year

Text

my favorite free tools for writers

hello, hello! hope you're doing well.

today i am bringing you another list with my top 3 favorite (free!) tools that I find helpful for each phase of writing a novel.

brainstorming phase

Fantasy Names Generator - not only for fantasy (you can also generate real names). this website is just... amazing! it helps you come up with names for characters, places and locations, descriptions, generate traits, outfits (yes, outfits!!), and probably something else you could ever think of.

The Story's Hack - this one is so cool! you can generate names for everything, create your own generator, and practice writing through writing exercises! plus, you can save your generated names to see later, and you earn coins for each idea generated (you can later buy themes - dark, snow, forest, etc)

RanGen - my last favorite generator on this list is RanGen! you can generate plots, appearances, archetypes, love interests, cities, worlds, items, and more.

developing the idea phase

Bryn Donovan - in this blog you can find master lists under the tag "master lists for writers". it is so helpful when you first start developing the characters and need to find the right words to describe them and to find some quirks and flaws!

Writers Write (350 character traits) - again, this is so helpful!

Story Planner - ah, the number of times I've talked about this website... please, PLEASE take a look at it, you won't regret it. this website has literally everything you need to fully develop your idea with outlines for you to fill in step by step.

writing phase

Colleen Houck (80+ barriers to love) - need more romace conflict? there you go!

Cheat Sheets for Writing Body Language - so, you know how your character's feeling, but don't know how he'd physically act? check out this list!

Describing Words - honestly, this is a lifesaver. don't you struggle to find the right word to describe something? well, with this website all you have to do is to type the object you're trying to describe and see which description fits better to you!

revising phase

Language Tool for Google Docs - i know we all have heard about google docs before, but the truth is, it's almost impossible to find free softwares to check grammar and spelling. so, google docs is useful, because it automatically revises it for us, and it's completely free. plus, you can add adds-on, such as "language tool".

Unfortunately, there's only one (free) tool that I actually enjoy for the revising phase. if you know some others, please let me know so that I can try them out and feature in this list.

exporting phase

Google Docs - i find google docs very easy to format and export to .epub, so i'd recommend using it as a free tool.

Reedsy - this is also a free tool available online. all you have to do is to write down each chapter (copy and paste) or import your word document. it will format the document to your liking and export it to pdf, epub and mobi.

that's everything for now! i hope this post was somehow helpful or inspiring!

if you want to see more master lists full of resources, check these:

WEBSITES FOR WRITERS {masterpost}

BEST accounts to follow as a writer

BEST SITES & SOFTWARES TO WRITE FICTION

DIALOGUE IDEAS TO GET RID OF THAT WRITING BLOCK (masterpost)

Useful Resources & Tips for Writers

also, if you are a notion lover just like me, check the free template I just released with everything you need to develop and write your novel!

thank you so much for reading! hope to see you around, and have a nice day <3

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lemonlover1110 · 3 months

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Hello! I hope you are doing well 😌 you are my fav writer and I just wanted to to throw out this crazy brainrot request to u bc I am SICK over it

So Florence nightingale syndrome right? Toji is like a professional boxer or whatever something athletic bc he's a fucking beast and he gets hurt, like his leg or something, and you become his at home occupational therapist. So you're like taking care of him and he's getting feelings for you while also being a stubborn ass bc u push him constantly so he can get better. and he's super hesitant to accept his feelings bc he's a Playboy of course.

I'm just picturing this one scene where you're helping him up and he's leaning on you and he says something like "are you sure you can handle me princess?" Idk I'm insane I'm sorry 😭😭😭😭

Pairing: boxer!Toji Fushiguro x f!caregiver!Reader

Warnings: Fluff, frustrated Toji, Florence nightingale syndrome, Toji has an injured leg and is a little bitch for a bit

*This was so fun to work on and now I'm having thinking a little too hard about boxer toji (I'm ovulating) sofjsof enjoy!

Discord 18+ - Twitter - Ko-Fi

Toji never really thought he’d be dependent on someone, yet now he can’t even take a shower standing up. After an unlucky boxing match, Toji ended up in a cast and crutches. That’s what he gets for not listening to his son who told him it was around time to retire.

“I’m not a fucking skeleton, I’m good in my field. I can do this for a couple more years.” How he wishes he could swallow his fucking words. He thought that after getting the cast off he’d go back to normal, and he’d have no issue with mobility. He shouldn’t have an issue moving his fucking leg again, he’s been moving it for more than thirty years, why should three months of not moving it change much?

Apparently he can’t do anything, which is why he has someone with him all day every day, helping him so he can get better. Toji’s main issue? He gets frustrated when someone tries to help him.

“Be careful, it’s hot.” You smile at him as you put his dinner in front of him. He has a scowl on his face as you set it down in front of him. He tried to help make dinner but he couldn’t stand for too long. He’s mad, but not at you. He could never be mad at you.

Toji wasn’t necessarily fond of you when you started working with him; he hates being dependent on someone else, and he knew that he would have to depend on you for pretty much everything. You try to help him though, and he should be more appreciative of you because of it, but in reality he feels like a fucking baby. He’s grown to like you though… A little too much for his liking.

You leave him to eat, going to wash the dishes since he can’t do the task yet. Perhaps his own bowl and spoon, but not everything that needs to be cleaned. You watch him from the counter, watching his refusal to pick up the spoon and eat the soup you made him. Earlier he was so prideful, telling you that he would help you every step of the way during dinner, and he couldn’t even finish one third of it. You were proud of him regardless.

“It’s really good, Toji! The potatoes you helped peel really added a touch to it.” You’ve gotten close enough to be on a first name basis. You see each other every day, you stay in the same house, of course you’re close enough to talk to each other so casually. It doesn’t mean you should though. You’ve always managed to keep a very professional relationship with patients, but there’s just something about him that makes it hard for you to be normal around him.

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a fucking kid.” He says, pushing the bowl of soup away. He’s not hungry anymore. Toji stands up, his hands holding on to the table to support himself before grabbing his crutches.

“Toji, if you’re not eating it, can you try to bring it over to me, please?” You ask. You know the soup has cooled down, if he spills it, he’ll be fine.

“If you want it, pick it up yourself.” Toji is clearly mad. You don’t take it to heart though, because you know it’s with himself and not you.

“How about we go to the park tomorrow? It’s supposed to be a nice day out.” You talk to Toji who tries to watch a documentary. He’s not all that interested in what he put on, caring more about what you have to say. He might not show it, and he tries to deny it, but he has the biggest soft spot for you. “We can also get some ice cream, if you’re in the mood!”

“Hey… I’m sorry about earlier. I was just—” It’s hard to get an apology out of him, but sometimes he knows he’s in the wrong and he feels the need to apologize. He doesn’t want you to be mad at him, even though you’re clearly not upset with him. You’re so understanding and patient with him, he feels like he doesn’t deserve that.

“You’re fine, Toji.” You reassure him with a smile, your hand going over his balled up fist. You feel your heart skip a beat as you touch him. You’ve crossed the line past a professional relationship, and you should set some boundaries within yourself– But his other hand goes on top of your own before he brings it up, softly kissing your knuckles. It’s hard to set boundaries when he feels the same way.

“I’m tired.” He tells you, and you stand up to help him get up. Toji usually denies your help, but this time, he has no problem accepting it. You just want the best for him, and there’s some things that he can’t do completely alone. He has to take baby steps. He’s using you for support, and he’s scared that he’s too heavy for you. He asks you, “Are you sure, princess? Can you handle me? I know I’m pretty big.”

“You’re fine. I can handle you.” You reassure him, and you begin to walk to his bedroom. His room was previously on the second floor, but ever since his injury, he’s moved his bedroom to the first floor. You get him to his bedroom, helping him on the bed. You smile at him before saying, “Let me grab your crutches. You left them in the living room, right?”

Before you can walk away, he grabs your sleeve. Toji’s slowly realizing that he can’t fight off the feelings that consume him when you help him, and he’s usually not a fan of them. Toji’s been tied down once before, he certainly doesn’t want that again. But with you, it’s different. He doesn’t mind the idea.

“Will you lay down with me?” He asks, and you suck in your bottom lip between your teeth. You shouldn’t. He caresses your cheek with the back of his hand before he prompts himself up to kiss the corner of your mouth.

“Toji, you know this isn’t something I can do.” You tell him as he looks lovingly into your eyes. “I’m here to help you get better.”

“You can help me get better by laying down next to me.” Toji responds. You grab the hand that so lovingly touches your cheek and kiss it, before bringing your lips down to meet his momentarily. He swears he hears fireworks when your lips meet, even after you pull away.

He’s most definitely in love with you.

“I’ll go get your crutches. Good night, Toji.”

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fuckyeahgoodomens · 3 months

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David Tennant at This Morning show with Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary talking about Good Omens Season 2, 11.07.2023 :) ❤

DO: And David joins us now. I mean, this looks like a great show.

David: Oh, yeah.

DO: So, I mean, It's pure Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, isn't it?

David: It is, yeah.

DO: The whole thing. So tell us, so if people haven't seen the first series and they want to go back, set the whole scene.

David: So I'm Hell's representative on Earth, Michael Sheen is Heaven's representative on Earth, put there to do the biding of our respective Head Offices. But we found out that if we became mates and sort of helped each other out, it kind of cut out the workload, cancelled each other out. So we're best mates. But in Series One we end up having to avert the apocalypse, which we managed to do, but as a result of that, we get cut off. So we're now living on Earth as independent individuals.

AH: So do you still need each other, then?

David: We still need each other. We've only got each other now because we don't have Heaven and Hell anymore.

DO: Because you both love earth so much, you both like.

David: Oh, we much prefer living on Earth because Heaven's a bit stuffy and Hell's awful.

DO: So you conspire to thwart the Armageddon. Exactly.

David: We thwart the Armageddon. That's fine. But Series Two begins when the angel Gabriel, Jon Hamm, who you just saw there, shows up at Aziraphale, Michael Sheen's bookshop, naked with no memory, holding a cardboard box. So suddenly we're locked into the politics of Heaven and Hell again. We don't know what's going on. We've got a mystery to solve. Why is the angel Gabriel here? The angel Gabriel tried to kill us both at the end of the last series, so we've got to...

DO: But now he's kind of got amnesia and...

David: Yes. So he becomes like our weird child, in this sort of weird sort of eternal marriage that Michael and I are locked in.

DO: So many shows now use a book as their base and then they do really well and you can see the company and the writers go, better come up some new ideas, I suppose. So the book's obviously Terry Pratchett and then Neil Gaiman, correct?

David: That's right. They wrote that together years and years and years ago. Much beloved. And that's what the first series was. But Neil and Terry had always talked about possibilities of this sequel that they never got around to making. Terry's no longer with us. But when the possibility came up, Neil thought, well, listen, I've got some ideas. Let's spin it forward. Let's see if we can tell the story we were always going to tell. So we get to come back.

AH: Should we have a little sneak look at the new series? Let's have a look. So good. Did you ever think it was going to be this successful? Did you even know that you were going to go into a second series

David: Oh, no, not at all. No. There was only one novel, so we just thought we were coming together to do that. And I didn't realise how beloved this book was. I first read a script. But it means a lot to a lot of people.

AH: And the look of you is so striking. Did you have any input into that? A bit, yeah, we sort of all found it together, myself and makeup and costume and Neil Gaiman, who ran the show. So, yeah, we kind of arrived... in the book he's a bit more - because obviously the book was sort of early ninetues, so he was a bit more sharp-suited and a bit more Wolf of Wall Street. So we've kind of had to find the kind of modern equivalent of that.

DO: Is he... obviously you're playing a demon. Has he got any humanity in him or is he purely self-centered?

David: Well, he's not a very good demon. He's good at sort of the snarl and the swagger and pretending that he's terribly cynical, but actually his problem is that he's a bit too... there’s a bit too much heart, really.

DO: He's alright

David: Yeah, yeah.

DO: Must be wonderful playing a baddie.

David: Oh, it's great fun, but he's not a baddie, is not really a baddie.

DO: Yeah, yeah.

David: And just like Aziraphale angel is not always as goody goody as he likes it, so they meet very beautifully in the middle.

DO: You and Michael Sheen. I mean, you've worked together a fair bit, don't you. I loved Staged. That was such fun.

David: Yeah!

AH: Have you ever not worked together?

David: Now we only work together.

AH: All the time.

David: Yeah. I mean, He's not sitting on this sofa, but he is backstage. We can't be apart.

DO: He's speaking in his ear right now.

David: Exactly, yeah.

AH: But you are... you have got a genuine friendship. You're growing old together gracefully.

David: We're growing old together?!

AH: You look good for it, I'm not going to lie. What's the secret, babe?

David: A lot of makeup. It's very thick.

AH: We've got to talk about the fact that you are returning to Doctor Who.

David: Ah, yes.

AH: I can't believe this. And can you tell us anything at all?

David: I mean, beyond that I'm doing it? I think...

AH: No.

David: Really. Because that's the fun of it, isn't it? Hopefully tt was a bit of a surprise when I showed up. When Jodie Whittaker regenerated into me.

AH: We were shocked.

David: It was a bit of a surprise, so we wanted to sort of keep some shocks, but Catherine Tate's back, so it's a bit like 15 years never happened, to be honest.

DO: Know about it for a while. Like... did Russell T get in touch and say...

David: Yeah, it sort of gradually kind of evolved as an idea and we thought maybe they'd let us do a one off for old time's sake. And then suddenly it became a bit more than that and we were back for a bit of a run.

AH: So how many episodes did you get to do?

David: We did three.

AH: Wow. That's incredible. What's it like to be back? Did he just slot straight back in?

David: I mean, sort of. It felt weirdly familiar. Yeah. And you think, 'Oh, will I still able to run as fast? Can I still kind of...?' But it was like we'd never been away. It was joyous. Yeah.

DO: And could we talk about your son? Because is your son in Good Omens with you?

David: Ty's in... has a part in Episode Two of Good Omens.

AH: Is he?

DO: And I loved him in House of the Dragon.

David: I know. He's very good. He's very good.

DO: What a relief.

David: There he is. I know, what a relief. Exactly. No, I mean...

AH: Imagine if he was bad.

David: Imagine if he was rubbish. How would we tell him? Sit down, listen...I know it's sort of the family business, but maybe joinery? So... no, he's really good. And he's annoyingly good looking. You know, he's just got it all. So it's lovely and great to get to work together. Brilliant.

#good omens #this morning #this morning 2023 #david tennant #interview #david interview #david about crowley #crowley #fun fact #crowley is a softie #videos #video interview #transcripts #ty tennant #david about ty #video transcripts #s2 interview

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nanowrimo · 10 months

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How to Use Meal Scenes to Develop Characters, Relationships, and Your World

Worldbuilding can sound complicated, but why not make it a little more simple by focusing on food? It may be the domestic touch you need! NaNo Participant Lacey Pfalz talks about using meal scenes to develop your world and your characters.

There’s one thing that remains a universal human truth: we love food! While our perspectives on food might differ, people all across the globe gather together during mealtimes — and thus, mealtimes are made memorable.

Meal scenes can also help your story in a few key ways, especially if it’s fantasy, science fiction or historical fiction.

Meal Scenes for Worldbuilding

If we’re using food for worldbuilding purposes, does that mean we can say we’re worldcooking?

Just kidding! Worldbuilding, especially in historical fiction, science fiction, and fantasy, is an integral part of what you must do as a writer (In truth, it’s also important for writers from other genres, but we’re specializing in these three today).

Meal scenes can be an important part of the worldbuilding process. Food is intrinsically tied to a culture or a country, or even a small region. That’s why it’s important, when building your own world, to take time to figure out the bare minimum of what your characters will be eating.

Let’s do an example. Your world is fantasy, your kingdom set beside a wide river. Perhaps your capital city, where much of the action is located, is surrounded by wetland.

If this is the case, what types of food would likely grow there? Seafood, fished from the large river, might be your characters’ staple proteins, while rice might grow better than another grain because of your kingdom’s wetlands. Fruit, perhaps even coconuts, might be the sweet stuff your main character loves to devour.

Remember that your world directly affects what types of food your characters will be having: is there coffee in space? What about in Byzantine Turkey or your new riverside kingdom?

Shannon Chakraborty does a phenomenal job with this in her fantasy series The Daevabad Trilogy, which is set in the eighteenth century across the Middle East. Her first book, The City of Brass, is especially good at showcasing the often-fragrant dishes of the various cultures across this region of the world (some copies of the book even have a short list of recipes from the book that foodies can try whipping up for themselves).

While her book is set within the fantastical world of the Djinn, her food is based upon recipes that have been preserved for centuries.

There’s one small reminder with all of this: it’s important not to get too caught up in describing each dish so much that you end up taking the focus away from the characters in a meal scene. Meal scenes can be breaks from fast action, but they should also continue the plot.

Meal Scenes for Developing Characters & Relationships

Character development can be hard, especially if you have a handful of characters that you love! But in order to make your readers love them too, you have to show them interacting with the world around them.

That guy we love to hate? Maybe he’s a loner who has grown up eating by himself. Having him forced to sit and eat with a group of people who have known each other for years might be an awkward moment for him, but it helps readers to learn more about his own worldview — and it might just help get him out of his shell, or at least off the love-to-hate list.

Besides helping you develop a single character, writing meal scenes with some of your characters can also help readers learn more about the relationship between your characters.

Let’s say you have your main character, MC. MC leans over and steals a French fry from her best friend. There’s no issue, right? That’s because they like each other, and the best friend has likely eaten with MC before, and knows she enjoys stealing food from other people’s plates.

But when MC tries it again, this time with the guy sitting next to her, he whacks her hand to stop her from stealing. This sparks an argument that seems, at least to everyone else watching it, pointless, but readers will know from the rest of the story that they’re the enemies-to-lovers trope. This argument is just one of many before they finally acknowledge their feelings towards one another.

See how that worked? A meal scene wasn’t useless; it pulled the story along by giving readers another taste of the enemies-to-lovers trope that so many enjoy reading.

If you need a more visible example of how this can play out, try watching a movie like Pride & Prejudice, (the book is amazing, but I’m suggesting the movie as a visual aid). The movie does a great job showcasing just how different the members of the Bennet family are individually, how they act around each other, and how they act around company.

There’s often little action in meal scenes, so they’re not meant to be overused. The plot should also still be there — take the cringey proposal scene between Mr. Collins and Elizabeth in Pride & Prejudice, for example, which follows directly after a meal when the rest of her family abandons her. In this case, the plot (and Mr. Collins’ advances) ruin her meal.

Perhaps your meal scene is the much-needed respite in between battling fierce aliens for planet Earth, or the first time your main character’s enemy-to-lover has entered her home. Either way, meal scenes are an important way to immerse your readers in what kind of world they’re imagining as well as showcasing how your characters act and — more importantly — how they act around each other.

Lacey Pfalz is a travel journalist by day, hopeful author by night. She belongs to the class of graduates she dubs the Class of COVID-19, having graduated with a double major in history and writing at Wisconsin Lutheran College in 2020. Her writing passions include fantasy, science fiction and historical fiction (with a little bit of romance, of course!). As someone with a physical disability, it’s her dream to write a fantasy series featuring a main character like her. Header Image by Jack Sparrow

#nanowrimo #writing #writing tips #worldbuilding #characters #character relationships #by nano guest #lacey pfalz

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lvlyghost · 4 months

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pairings: simon riley x f!reader

summary: reader suffers from a chronic illness and ghost finds out.

wc: 1.1k

tw: chronic pain, chronic illness, slight angst i think, comfort. not edited and not proofread. that's it.

a/n: sorry y'all i'm struggling a lot with writer's block lately so i'm writing these silly little things to help me out of it so don't mind me!

By the moment Ghost enters his shared office he's frowning so hard that he fears it might leave a permanent mark on his forehead. The first day wasn't unusual as it was normal for soldiers, technicians and federal agents to come and go. Gaz is humming under his breath and greets him with a slight nod when he spots him but he barely returns the gesture. His desk is full of reports waiting to be filled some labeled 'Urgent' in big red letters.

Sitting down he manages to get done the first stack of papers but his mind was lost elsewhere barely paying attention to the work he never had trouble getting done in no time. Part of him wonders if Kyle will tease him if he asked about her. But better asking him than Johnny. As he leans back in his chair, fidgeting with the pen in his hands. Gaz barely pays attention, too enraptured by whatever he's watching on his own computer.

"Where's the girl?"

The Sergeant startles at the sudden sound of his deep voice. Hard and demanding.

"Sir?" He half chuckles when brown eyes meet each other.

"Have you seen her? She's supposed to report back to me and she hasn't." It was only half a truth. She did have to report to him every progress made for future missions, give him the intel so he can report to the Captain. The thing was, there were no missions taking place soon. No black ops, nothing. But Kyle didn't know that.

Gaz lifts his brows, trying to figure out who his Lieutenant was talking about, until it hits him.

"Oh." He murmurs. "The tech girl, Lt?" He shrugs. "Haven't seen her in a few days, have you tried calling her or you know... going to the women's barracks?"

Ghost scoffs as if the mere idea was ridiculous.

"No. Guess she'll show up."

She has to.

Standing up he exits the office under Gaz's questioning look. The hallways feel endless the more he walks to the tech wing, he knows if he passes down that specific hallway he'd be able to see through the glass that serves as walls if she's there or not.

Much to his already building annoyance she's not there.

Rolling onto your back you squeeze your eyes shut once more. An unyielding pain throbbing in the back of your skull shoots yet another wave of nausea making you feel more miserable than ever.

It's been two days since the whole ordeal started. It began with a subtle pain that couldn't recognize the symptoms at first, merely blinking away the black dors that started to blurred your vision one afternoon when you were trying to fill the reports for Ghost, pages and pages of new intel recovered from long lost contacts online.

Saying it was hard to dig in all those dark places was an understatement. You had tried to push the symptoms of uneasiness to the back of your mind, typing and decoding algorithms for what could be days. Days without sleep or proper and much needed rest.

So, when the first wave hit you had ran to the bathroom, throwing up what little you had eaten that day. Oh how you hated it. Tears prickle in the corner of your eyes and the terror began, everything went down hill from there.

Shutting the computer off you gathered your belongings. The corridors were in complete silence, abandoned hours ago when everyone went to their dorms.

You remembered picking up some of your things from the women's barracks and retreating to your personal dorm where no one would bother you. As a member of the task force you had a place for you alone —just as the rest of the team— and you're grateful because the next days were a nightmare.

The curtains were tightly closed. Not the tiniest bit of light could pass even if the sun burned brighter. The earplugs helped but they didn't do much to alleviate the external noises. Fuck why were the soldiers so loud? You asked to yourself, jaw tight in an effort to soothe the pulsing on your forehead.

After laying in the same position for another hour you decide to get up, dragging your feet in an enormous attempt to get to the bathroom. With the lights turned off you undress as quickly as you can; standing on your feet is hard enough already but you wait nonetheless for the bath to fill with cool water.

With numb extremities you step in and lower yourself, it's almost soothing and calming the way the water swallows your body and then your head. Ever since these headaches —these migraines— started to interfere, you learned that cool water could help to ease the symptoms. Time passes by and when you emerge your teeth chatter, lips turned purple but it was worth it. God was it worth it.

You're exhausted, this has taken a toll on you. Fitting your pajamas feels like an impossible task. Your head throbs with the slightest of movement. And then the door opens just a tad, reveling the dark shadow of the man you'd recognize anywhere.

"Ghost," you murmur acknowledging his presence, half shocked half embarrassed that he's right here in your bedroom. Your bathroom.

"Why is everything dark?" His voice is too loud and it makes you flinch; he's quick to notice even in the sheer darkness. He notices the whimper in your voice when he speaks too loud. He notices the way your body sags, and when he takes a step close you lean on him. Forehead pressing down on his broad chest. "Hey." He calls you, voice lowering this time. "Let me take you to the bed."

And you almost want to say something it. Make a comment about it being inappropriate but you're too sick to even do it so you let him guide you. You let him lay you down and surprises you when he follows.

Bodies curling against the other. You rest your head on his shoulder, closing your eyes so hard until the pain soothes. "You never told me about it."

"Never had the chance. Thought you hated me, remember?"

Ghost sighs. He had never intended for you to feel like that around him, he just wasn't accustomed to having such a nice person around him. You were so different from everything he knew.

"Forgive me, love." He mutters. "They're gonna start asking questions."

"What do you mean?" You grab him by the shirt when a sudden wave of nausea hits you. He caresses your hair in a calming manner.

"I asked Garrick about you." Before you can fight it a smile spreads on your face.

"Johnny..." you snort, regretting it the moment the laugh rattles in your brain. The Scot is about to have a field day when he finds out. "Ow..."

"Will never hear the end of it." His thumb presses down on your temple massaging the spot. "Better?"

"Yeah." There's a moment of brief silence where all you can hear is the sound of feet outside your dorm. People carrying on with their lives. "Would you stay with me tonight Lt.?"

"Thought you'd never ask."

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keyotos · 1 year

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can i request any hsr characters sleepover hcs w/ gn reader?

nights like this

summary ⎯ sleepover hcs w/ the hsr men! you basically stay over.

includes ⎯ dan heng, gepard, blade, sampo, & jing yuan.

tana's words ⎯ yk i was never much of a sleepover kid as a kid; i missed my mother too much. this is kinda short. maybe bad bc i had writers block during this. anyway i hope u enjoy anon!!!

dan heng

⎯ terrible sleeper. sleep schedule is messed up. sometimes he goes to sleep at 12 (early), sometimes 6 am (late).

⎯ when you're with him, he sleeps a little better (sleeping at 2 instead of 6). your rhythmic breathing always manages to set him at ease, which causes him to relax and sleep better.

⎯ you guys like to read together before bed. he reads at a faster pace than you do, but that's okay bc he's always waiting for you to finish a page before he moves on. doesn't matter how long you take; he'll wait forever as long as it's you.

⎯ before y'all became official, you'd sneak into dan heng's room just to hang out. but that always ended up in you two sleeping on his floor mattress together. was it comfortable? no. was it enjoyable? yes. bc ur with dan heng.

⎯ he sleeps with his entire body literally draped over yours. you guys take the phrase, "tangled limbs," to the max. sometimes when you wake up, it's practically like a puzzle trying to get yourself out of his grip.

⎯ dan heng is always cold at night, so naturally he pulls you closer for warmth. only, he pulls you so close that it still isn't close enough.

⎯ he's not the deepest sleeper, but he sleeps pretty well (when he's not having nightmares). you are mostly a part of the reason why he is able to sleep better.

⎯ dan heng tries to sleep in your room as much as possible; mostly because your bed is usually more comfortable and because he wants to feel you in between his arms

⎯ likes to kiss you on your eyebrow before bed

⎯ you two ARE NOT getting out of bed until like noon. you guys would wake up early but you'd both just stay in bed foreverrrrr. dan heng loves being near you in general: dan heng wants you to stay in bed with him for life sometimes. and you're not arguing.

gepard

⎯ he is the man you'd have a night routine with. i'm talking like skincare routines, brushing teeth together, facemasks, watching the news before bed. you guys are like a little old couple.

⎯ when you'd do skincare with him, gepard would let you sit in between his legs on the counter. it's just hot.

⎯ swings an arm around you as you two brush your teeth. like his arm is around your shoulders and he is unknowingly pulling you deep into his chest. and he's just leaning on you. it's bc he's comfortable with you and he is secretly really touchy.

⎯ he has a relatively good sleep schedule. he's probably not getting the right amount of sleep due to his duties, but he gets more sleep than dan heng!

⎯ cuddles you when you two go to sleep. you guys would sleep face to face and he'd rest his head on top of yours while you guys are sleeping. he pulls you so close.

⎯ on nights he can't sleep, you two just lie awake and talk. talk about each other's days, pet peeves, future dreams: gepard finds solace with you no matter what. he's the type of person to have deep conversations about the future with because he has probably planned it out.

⎯ you two would be in bed and gepard would accidentally blurt out that he wants to marry you. and then he's a mess.

⎯ sleeps so peacefully. no nightmares no nothing. nothing disturbs his sleep (except for his alarm). he's just so peaceful and content just being in bed with you.

⎯ wants to stay in bed with you forever but he actually has to wake up super early. before he leaves, he always kisses your forehead and places a kiss to your knuckles. you're always asleep when it happens so it's just his secret routine.

⎯ he likes to admire you before he leaves. he wants to study every crevice on your face like you're a famous artwork in a museum. thinks about you for the entire day. then he gets home and all of his past problems have diminished.

blade

⎯ he's probably too busy plotting VENGEANCE to think about sleep.

⎯ im jp. he loves sleeping, especially if you're there next to him. he thinks being able to sleep with you is one of the best things that have been granted to him by the aeons.

⎯ you're just too adorable. you like to come up and wrap your arms around his torso, while he's sleeping on his back with an arm around your entire body. he wraps an arm around you to make sure you wouldn't fall off/he wants to keep you close to him. it's a reminder that you're here and you're so peaceful against him.

⎯ he sleeps so late. you would always fall asleep first. you always fall asleep on him so his arm is always numb. but blade doesn't mind, especially when it's you.

⎯ likes to be a fucking TEASE before bed. omg he's like a like roblox troll. his hands are usually cold, so he'd reach under your shirt and like put his hands around your ribcage. it surprises you and makes you jump up into him, which is why he does it.

⎯ blade does not move when he sleeps. he sleeps perfectly still. he isn't a deep sleeper, just a still sleeper. he's hypervigilant, but he manages to stay in the same spot throughout the entire night. that being said, the way his arm/shoulder/whatever body part you're sleeping on becomes numb in the morning...

⎯ blade may seem like a simple guy, but he is not. every time he pulls you closer, he intends to keep you with him for the rest of his life. he likes to bury his head in your hair to remind himself of you; he wants to remember the smell of your shampoo for ages.

⎯ when he wakes up and he sees that you've moved away from him, blade likes to pull you back in.

sampo

⎯ another horrible sleeper. it's bc of his "business hours" that he arrives home at terrible hours.

⎯ sneaks into bed with you... always wakes you up. you give him a oblictatory smack on the shoulder every time he does this, but to your (mock) dismay, he always pulls you on top of him.

⎯ sleeps and does not wake back up. you have to like violently shake him to even get him to stir out of sleep. he arrives home so late and, to make up for lost hours, he sleeps for so long.

⎯ grabs you and does not let you go. you're pressed against him and awake while bro is dead asleep. it's like a whole mission trying to get out of his grip.

⎯ he is so MOUTHY when he wakes up; somehow he regains all energy that he missed out on the previous night and wakes up all happy and clingy. tries to GO BACK TO SLEEP after he realizes the both of you are awake.

⎯ the type to be like, "five more minutes," mf you have slept for FIVE DAYS. he'll use every trick in the book too; he'll do the pout, puppy dog eyes, even going so far as to beg and plead on his knees in the bed.

⎯ and of course, you stay in for five more minutes. i lied, you guys stay in for more than five minutes. you agreed because of his incessant pestering, but also bc you love him i guess.

⎯ he gets home really late and you barely get to see him at night, so for now, you suppose you'll settle for late mornings with sampo.

jing yuan

⎯ GREAT SLEEPER. PERFECT FOR NIGHT ROUTINES. PERFECT FOR MORNING ROUTINES.

⎯ as general, he doesn't have the hectic sleep schedule like dan heng, and he also does not have to wake up as early as gepard. he gets to sleep early with you and he gets to wake up and spend the morning with you as well.

⎯ sometimes yanqing likes to spend time with you in the morning. he goes in to remind jing yuan of something but he ends up staying for one hour bc you two strike up a conversation filled with widely various topics.

⎯ on mornings yanqing doesn't come in, you two just spend the whole morning talking about your plans for the day. your schedules are around the same length as each other, so you two barely have time to spend together during the day. but at least you two have your mornings and nights.

⎯ nights are great. you two like to talk about your days while you lay side to side, head resting on jing yuan's chest. your breathing is synchronized, not uneven. you feel safe, at peace, and calm.

⎯ yk that couples that fall asleep quickly together are chemically bonded? yeah that's you and jing yuan. you two are KNOCKED OUT after like 11:30 (old folk) because you two are chemically bonded.

⎯ whenever the other is not around, you guys have trouble sleeping. you guys sleep so early together, but when you guys are apart? you will be getting no sleep.

⎯ loves sleeping early with you. loves to have you in his arms as fast as possible. loves mornings with you. loves how you look similar to being iridescent in the morning. loves everything about you tbh.

NOT one of my best hcs but thats ok

#tana writes (∗´ ᨔ `∗)#honkai star rail #honkai star rail x reader #hsr #hsr x reader #dan heng x reader #dan heng x you #dan heng #gepard x reader #gepard x you #gepard landau x reader #blade x reader #blade x you #blade hsr #sampo x reader #sampo x you #jing yuan x reader #jing yuan x you #tana answers: request ver

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writingquestionsanswered · 8 months

Note

IDK how many people are running the account, but if you or a member of the team running the account has ADHD, do you have any tips for ADHD writers, particularly when trying to get WIPs done? Outlines don't work for me like 99% of the time ;_;

Tips for Writing with ADHD

Here's what works for me, but your mileage may vary...

1 - Know What Outline Works for You - You say outlines don't work for you 90% of the time, but what type of outline are you using? Many people hear the word "outline" and imagine an academic outline with roman numerals and bullet points, but that's not what most fiction writers mean when they talk about using an outline. For fiction writers, outlines can be anything from a beginning to end written summary, to a scene list, to a detailed timeline. My post How to Outline a Plot has some different things you can try. Ultimately, there's no right or wrong way to outline your story. Anything that works as a "road map" to guide you through your story can help.

2 - Pants When You've Got to Pants - Some writers are "pantsers" or in other words, they prefer not to go off an outline. Some don't even plan in advance. They "write by the seat of their pants" and let the story take them where it may. For some writers, it depends on the specific story they're working on. Some stories might require planning, others might work better if you pants them. What works for me is understanding my needs (what type of story I'll usually need to plan/outline ahead of time, and what type of story I can pants) and then planning/pantsing accordingly. If I spent time outlining a story that I could easily pants, it would definitely take the wind out of my writing sails.

3 - Schedule Your Writing Time... Sort Of... - For me, I can't just rely on myself to write when the mood strikes me. If I did that, I'd never get any writing done. So for me, it's important to have a dedicated writing time each day. That doesn't even have to mean my butt's in the chair writing from this time to this time, it just means I'll do my best to write during whatever span of time. So, let's say this week you're home every day from 2pm until 6pm and some of that time is free time. That's going to be a good time to write, so you could say you're going to sit down every day at 3pm to write. Or, you could do 10-minute writing springs every hour, or every other hour. Or you could say you'll write when the mood strikes you, but definitely from 5:30 to 6 if you didn't get it done earlier.

4 - Try Random Writing Sprints - Writing sprints in general can be a good way for people with ADHD to write. You can schedule them or you could do them when the mood strikes. Get a timer and set it to whatever works for you... 5-minutes, 10-minutes, 30-minutes, whatever. Then just set it and go when you have time. Even if you don't feel like writing, getting into that habit will make it easier to write as soon as the timer comes out.

5 - Don't Give Yourself a Hard Time - One of the most profound things I ever heard about writing resistance is that it's often the product of writing feeling stressful. In other words, the idea of writing causes you stress, so your brain says, "Avoid! Avoid!" and you sit down to write and nothing happens. One of the ways we make writing stressful for ourselves is by giving ourselves a hard time when we don't write or don't write as much as we wanted. So, just do the best you can and congratulate yourself on small victories. Find ways to make writing fun and relaxing rather than stressful and like a chore.

Bonus - Sometimes the problem isn't ADHD but something else. My post 5 Reasons You Lost Interest in Your WIP, Plus Fixes! has some other things to consider.

I hope that helps!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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sanspuppet · 4 months

Note

Hey! I know your hard hours are currently closed but you can take your time on this request I'll be patient hehe but i need YOU to write this because you're lowkey my favourite writer 🤭 but anyway could I request a san smut where y/n gets horny from reading a sex scene from a book 👀 hehe tanku ;))

San x afab!reader

W/T: lot of dirty talk (yay), kind of daddy kink, pet names (sweetheart, baby, kitten), unprotected sex (👎🏻), breeding kink

A/O: ahww thank you anon! i really appreciate it mwah <33 i hope you can like it!

Your legs shut intensely as soon as the novel you’ve been reading comes to an end. Fuck if it was a masterpiece that book, the chemistry between the two lovers caught your attention until the last sentence of the very last page. Less to say it, you almost forgot your own existence reading the scene when the two got finally to make out, they whispered little dirty things to each other ears, groped every part of their bodies, before having the most romantic and wild sex you could have ever experienced. You closed the book, placing it next to your side. Your legs were crossed and your stare lost in thin air.

“What got you so exited, sweetheart?” San was heading towards you, with a slight smirk growing on his face, his dimples popped out of his cheeks.

“W-What? What are you talking ‘bout?” you looked at him sitting next to you on the couch, lips parted because you were still regaining consciousness from the book.

“Look at you, baby” panic and shame flowed through your veins, as he pointed the dark stain on your gray shorts.

Fuck.

“You must have liked that novel so much, am i right?” his left hand rested on your inner thigh, caressing it gently. He wasn’t really expecting a reply, though. “Was the sex scene better than our personal ones, baby?” he enjoyed teasing you for sure.

Actually, you liked very much having sex with him, but at only the thought of him fucking you the way you just read, you were throbbing. Which he immediately noticed because of your light clothes.

“Tell me how should i fuck you, then.” he got close to your ear, his thumb rubbed against your lower lip. “Do it for me, kitten” he planted a kiss on your burning cheeks.

“Grope me San, please” you didn’t want to sound too much desperate, but the timbre of your voice couldn’t lie to him. San quickly picked you up so easily that you seemed weighting just as much as a feather.

He threw you onto the bed, his hands found their ways under you t-shirt. “Yeah i see, you want me to touch your soft skin, leave bruises and hickeys all over it?” San squeezed your tits, capturing your lips in his. “I can’t wait to be inside you, you’re so wet i can see it.” One of his hands went down your body, once he reached your panties, he slided one finger under them, rubbing it against your sobbing cunt. Pathetic mumbles left your mouth, your nails were already scratching his back.

“I need this pussy so bad, i wanna give you my babies and stuff you full.” The innocence in his voice was (to say the least) out of tune with the actual meaning of his words. San didn’t hesitate much to drag down your lower-half clothes and shove two fingers inside your sloppy hole.

“Fuck! San!” you breathed out, moaning at the feeling of his fingertips swirling inside your pussy. He spanked your hip harshly with his free hand. “You know how to call me”

He left a hickey on your pelvis. “Say you love me, baby” he kept biting on your skin, as he prepared your cunt to take his big cock, pumping in you with his fingers first. “Say you want me to be filled up by my cum.”

“Y-yes daddy, i want that. Want it so bad” you kind of hated how pathetic and needy you sounded, but oh fuck if he knew how to foreplay.

“Good girl. You’re stretched enough, ready to take it?” San pulled out and dragged his boxers down. His dick was extremely hard and you could tell he couldn’t wait any longer.

“Before you’re too fucked out to even speak, any other particular from the book?” he parted your legs to make room for himself.

“Just fuck me dumb, please.”

“Gonna drive you cockdrunk, kitten, i know you like to” San lubricated his tip, rubbing it against your soaking folds, before sliding inside you all at once. His hands pinned your hips down, stopping you from every move as he started to thrust in you with all of his force. His pounds were deep and decisive, searching for your g-spot.

“Fuck fuck fuck! Right there, t-there. Daddy” you whined out as soon as you felt his cockhead kissing your core. He sped up his pace, pounding rougher, making you tearing from pleasure.

“Take it, just like that. You’re tight pussy’s squeezing me so well” he leaned over you to inhale your sweet scent, the perfume you wear every day that he bought for you, he loved smelling it on you. San giggled in the crook of your neck, then he bit on your burning skin to repress a moan. “Fuck baby, it’s so wet that’s so easy to thrust into it, im not gonna last long”

Your hands cupped his cheeks, planting a messy kiss on his lips. “Please, cum with me, i’m so close daddy” He grunted highly in pleasure, his thrusts got faster but also sloppier. The squelching sound made him so fucking horny, your moans were like music to his ears.

“Yeah? You’ close? Then fucking take my cum.”

San did a few last thrust into your soaked cunt, before you could feel his warm seed flowing into you. He didn’t stop though, he kept pounding to spurt it deeper inside you. His hands caressed every inch of your body, as he murmured praises to your ear:

“Did so well for me, always taking it all. Such a good little girl, aren’t you? You’re so pretty like this.” he layed next to you, leaving sweet kisses all over your neck and face.

“Now tell me, was it better than that book?”

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slayingfiction · 1 year

Text

How I push through writing when I don't feel like writing.

Here are some of the techniques that I use to help me write more often or more consistantly when my laziness/depression/anxiety starts to take over.

I watch TV. I don't do it with the purpose of zoning out though. I watch something popular and well-liked such as the LOR or Harry Potter to get new ideas on how I can develop my story and apply their in-depth world-building ideas to help develop mine. Without plagarizing of course!!!!

Zoning out and daydreaming. As I have mentionned before, daydreaming is a huge part of my story outlining and world-building process. I'll stand in the shower, or take a walk and think about how my charcaters would act/react/behave in situations, mundane or not. Doing this gives me a better sense of my characters, and sometimes gives me ideas for scenes I use later on.

Work on writing related projects. These work well at keeping me distracted while still being productive on my writing goals. Example, I have one story I am working now, I made a new language (alphabet and numbers included) to include as a cool and fun component for the book. So, at times when I don't wan't to write, I continue creating the dictionary (very fun, 8/10 would recommend). Also, for the same book, my characters don't work off the Georigian calendar and 24 hour clock, so I've been working at creating a new calendar (harder than it seems, 2.5/10 dont recommend). These are side projects that help my story, without having to write.

Reading. You saw this one coming, I know. Reading is great, especially when you're editing, your writing style will unconsciously change to be more similar the author you were just reading. Also, most importantly, I'll be reading and think, "this story is really good, but you know what story I like even better? Mine." then change to writing.

This one is my biggest life saver!! I learnt about a year ago that sometimes I'll get bored of writing a story, and have difficulty keeping on track. That's why I finished my first book in 2016 and just started editing the first draft last week. The solution for me was to work on multiple projects at once, because it was much harder to be bored of multiple stories. I stick to 2, but will sometimes add a third. This is easy for me, because I have a list of over a dozen series I want to write. Don't abandon one project for another, use them as a distraction/ motivation for each other, so you're always furthering at least one project. I've never heard someone say, "oh no, i accidentally worked on this other writing project for three months instead of the other writing project I was doing. Dammit." No, we're just happy we have written something. Be sure to have well outlined story lines before starting, don't just start writing randomly or you'll reach a point where you don't know where to go from there.

Author/ writer projects. Maybe this is building a following, or community to share your projects and engage with. Tumblr, Insta, Reddit, whatever it is. My hope this year is to start up my website to offer publishing services (editing, graphic design, short writing courses) and build a following as a writer. (See what I did there? Never a bad time to self-promote ;) ) Having your own projects like this will help you in the future when you're going to try to publish and sell your books!

Talk with friends and a writing community. Never underestimate the passion that will burn inside you when talking about your story, or when others are talking about theirs. Surrounding yourself with a positive writing community can be the best thing for you as a writer.

Write or read (your story) every day. I'm not going to be one of those people that say you need to write 1000 words a day, that's a lot. But maybe try for 100? That could maybe only take 5 minutes, and at the end of the year that's still over 36 thousand words of a novel. Or just read your story, and I've always found it helped me get in the creative mood.

Make a playlist of songs that remind you of your characters, your story, or just puts you in the mood to write. Then play it ONLY when you're having trouble writing. Playing it while writing will not help, you'll get annoyed with the songs.

Just really can't do it today? That's okay, take a break. You deserve it. There's always tomorrow.

Does anyone else have ways they push themselves to keep writing? Let us know in the comments!

Happy Writing!

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thatdeadaquarius · 7 months

Note

imagine if reader is given an ancient scripture from around the time humanity founded out how to write and do the alphabet (somehow it was preserved so well that you can still see the words with no issue)

and it's the most heart wrenching, soul crushing, tear inducing, hyperventilating, sanity disappearing angst, misunderstandings, hurt/no comfort, it gets worse but never better, major character death, unrequited love story to have ever existed in teyvat.

and after reader goes through the whole thing, they can barely talk or breathe properly with how much they're crying.

(even better, it was smut not angst and reader is staring ar the scripture, jaw dropped to the floor with shaking hands.)

STOP- I avoid fanfics like that at all costs 😭 id stop reading it after the first angsty event LMAO

Im like... too emotionally affected by fanfics, esp angst ones 💀

Its just, ppl who write closer to my generation or just very psychologically honestly, are like fucking deadly writers. Got my day ruined and shit w/just fanfics 😭

LMAO THE GIF IS JUST YOU ON THE SPOT NOT EVEN HALFWAY THRU-

☆

Sun: Gender Neutral Reader (you/they/them)

Orbit: Short! Headcanons-ish

Stars: my first of the Fontians!! Fontainianes? Fontainains?? u get it

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: sobbing, discussion of vague smut/NSFW book at the end, okay for Teen/Mature audiences, & Trigger Warnings: none known.

no but it’d be hilarious if u got this crazy like hand-width deep tablet for each “page” of the book, like how every novel or info in genshin is like one page at a time 😭

Sumeru and other international academics are literally constantly harassing politely requesting your translation of these and sending them to you in whichever country you’re visiting at the moment

Fontaine was even more complex and pretty in real life than it could ever be in game and i can def see you at like Neuvillette’s office or a nice french fontaine cafe and just WHAM

huge ass tablet bc as much as the fic tortures you, you have to know what the fuck happens to these miserable idiots

Neuvillette, Clorinde, and Lynette are all the type to immediately try and dissuade you from reading it again, bc from their point of view you just pull out this huge old rock and start sobbing quietly about 10 mins into the read every time 😭😭

(unsurprisingly, Neuvillette would even go so far as to get the Marechaussee Phantom to sneakily steal ur most recent tablets of the story to hide them, which sucks for you LMAO)

Freminet, Wriothesley, Navia, Lyney, and Furina,all frantically try to distract you, and also theyre in order of who would be the most dramatic w/it lmao

NO BC I JUST HAD THE THOUGHT-

Ur tears absolutely are top priority to Neuvillette and Furina so when they inevitably find the memories in them (and the traveler too maybe)

of what the story is about, except its like all the feelings and stuff, so like its the best “translation” they get of the book so far, u best believe it rains for a week straight

it started out as a light drizzle, but as Neuvillette “read on” in ur tear’s memories if got worse HAHA

mans is out here trying to convince himself like, “this is a classic tragedy from eons ago, its about a human romance, im definitely unaffected, though im glad i could figure out what ails My Majesty so”

meanwhile the story gets worse and its just like that meme “ohHHhhhHH its got a little kiicckkk”

Neuvillette nearly floods the streets by chapter 5 when the miscommunication happens and then they cant get in contact with each other to fix it lmao

LMAO I JUST HAD A VISIONNN

ur in fontaine and while yes drinks were popular (like obv fonta)

business is rlly booming bc now everyone you know (like the Vision-users or archons Neuvill, etc) all have develop this habit of having a water bottle or drink on them to offer you when u start reading to rehydrate you 😭😭😭

Navia, Clorinde, Neuvillette, Wriothesley, Lyney, Lynette all have a handkerchief on them at all times too 😭😭

Good God-

the moment you translate the now instant Shakespearean-level tragedy classic, it is a known tear-jerker thruout all of Teyvat,

like theres trigger warnings and age limits and shit 💀

◇

on another note,

if its smut,

ur desperately combing thru all the tablets and wall carvings and cave paintings to try and lowkey cover it up LMAO

and its not like a story with a smut scene either, its like what anon said,

just fully like the ao3 tag “Porn What Plot/Porn With Plot”

STOP

not u yanking the tablets out of Neuvillette’s hands when he curiously picks them up one time lmao

(he is now invested in getting these translated too bc of ur reaction lol)

☆

consider supporting me with an iced coffee? :0

Spooky Season! Spooky Season!! Spooky Season!!!

still not dead btw

just got hired at my new job so ive been training and busy!! :)

im a host at Olive Garden lol its weird and kinda hard, my feet hurt a lot and i havent had a full shift yet ;-; its a brand new one so it opens the 23rd

dw that eldritch one shot is still coming btw, just talking with betas and editing it now lol

hope if you read this you have a great upcoming weekend!!

Safe Travels Anon,

💀♒

☆

If you wanna join a taglist, DM me what for! "Pspspsss, please tag me for [All SAGAU posts, Only SAGAU Language AUs, diff fandom, etc.]!"

(If you ever wanna drop, just DM me! "No more taglists/[specifically this AU/fandom] please!")

☆

♡the beloveds♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche / @chocogi / @fallen-starr / @areaderofbooks / @devilangel657

#hello #its me #reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated #if anyone was reporting my death #ironic bc of my user #<3 cant wait to post that one shot #hope u guys will like it #its the eldritch au 1000+ followers celeb if u remember #sagau #genshin isekai #genshin imagines #genshin sagau #genshin impact #aqua asks #my asks #genshin impact sagau #genshin self aware #genshin x reader #gender neutral reader

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cherry-leclerc · 3 months

Text

method acting ☆ cl16

genre: series - humor, strangers to friends/roommates

word count: 4.1k

*can you guess what film it's based off of? i practically laid the answer out in front of you guys lol

ch. one ch. two ch. three ch. four ch. five ch. six ch. six

Chapter 3

Life, as you fear, is falling apart as you're confronted with a serious case of writer's block that puts your career on the line. As a solution, you're roommate helps you plan a solo trip to the Amalfi Coast for a much needed break but it doesn't take long for you to meet a certain Monegasque who lays passed out on the beach.

The Spaniard shifts uncomfortably before taking a step back. You had read all about him - of course you had - but how were you supposed to know he would be here? For sure you were drooling by how in shock you were, but you couldn’t find the strength to pick your jaw off the floor.

And then it got worse.

“Carlos, you won’t believe what I just saw! A Stormtrooper just got slapped by some ballerina! I mean he was kind of asking for it - he grabbed her and she just…” He mimics a dramatic strike as Carlos chuckles. “Best night of my life.”

The brown eyed man quirks a dark brow towards the lousy looking Super Mario. “This is my friend, Lando.” He leans closer to your ear. “He’s not normal.”

“Hey,” the Brit warns as he fixes his overalls, then blushes. “I-It was such short notice.”

Bewildered, you let out soft pants as you pat your chest over and over. The two men share a concerned look. “Are you feeling okay?” Would it be the worst thing in the world to bolt out the door and fly back home? Eyeing the entrance, you contemplate it for a bit but then you hear the familiar accent.

“She's yeigh high, won’t stop talking even if you beg her to…”

“I’m fine!” The pair flinch at the sudden burst. “I’m just going to pop out and take a breather.”

“There you are.” Your stomach drops. Charles raises his brows in a curious manner at the back heads of Carlos and Lando as you weigh your options. You can deal with this - pretend none of this was actually happening. But instead you do what you do best.

“Where are you-”

Pushing past the crowd, you make your way out the door. Once you take a step outside, you look both ways before shaking your head and running down the street. You receive weird looks, but don’t bother to care. There wasn’t an exact destination in mind, but anything was better than dealing with whatever that was.

Loud footsteps make your spine tingle with uneasiness as you turn around. And this has to be some sort of nightmare because a Stormtrooper, heist man, and Super Mario chase after you. You sprint faster, often taking glances back as Charles tries to catch his breath.

“Where the fuck are you going? Are you crazy?” he shouts as Carlos and Lando stop, immediately recognizing his voice. You stop dead in your tracks as Charles inches closer. Grabbing you by the shoulders, he shakes you harshly. “What’s wrong with you? You can’t just run off like that!”

“I-I…” You spot the two friends as they mutter at each other, walking closer. Feverishly, you shake your head, headache coming in strong. “I needed air-”

Cold eyes narrow down like knives. “That’s fine, but couldn’t you have gone through a more sane route?” You’re a blubbering mess, jumbling out non-existing words as the Monegasque wrestles to decipher them all.

That sounds just like Leclerc, or am I going insane? Lando murmurs as Carlos nods silently. Kind of, but we should help her. What if he’s just some creep?

The duo are about to reach you and your roommate when you land on what seems like the worst idea, but reluctantly, saves you. Tippy toeing, you throw your arms around Charles’ neck before pressing your lips onto his. He stiffens.

“Oh umm…so…they’re not strangers.”

The Spaniard’ eyes grow wide. “Definitely not. We should probably leave them alone.”

Making their way back to the party, you sigh with relief against the brunette’s pink lips as you relax your feet down onto the pavement. But this only leads to the green eyed boy to angle himself lower and continue the kiss. Pushing him back sharply, you shriek.

“No!”

He jumps with high alert. “Wh-what’s wrong?”

Rosy cheeks flush furthermore as you rub your eyes harshly. “This…this is wrong.” A beat. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

The Monegasque lets out a small laugh before running a large hand against his stubble. “But I thought-”

“I know,” you chant. “But it wasn’t the right thing to do. I got lost in the moment and that’s my fault, but we’re friends, Charles. That was…weird.”

His heart stops from your sudden burst. Bruised is an understatement. He won’t say he has a crush - God, it’s only been a couple of days of knowing you - but it would be an outright lie if he said a kiss hadn’t crossed his mind. But did you have to be so unfazed by it all?

A raw cough rings through the air, only soft music being heard as you two awkwardly stare at each other. “It was kind of weird.” A forced chuckle makes its way up your throat as you rub your arm. “I also got lost in the gist of it all, don’t feel too bad.”

“We’re good then?”

He nods, lips stretched out into a knowing smile. “Yes.”

You whistle. “Thank God. I wouldn’t want things to get…”

“Me too.” He winks teasingly. “Just answer me one thing; Was I any good?”

Unable to keep eye contact, you softly smack his suit. “What are you tal- I was.” He wiggles his dark brows. Stop lying. You gape at him. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore!” He chuckles.

“Do you want to go back, or?”

“Or.”

Unlocking the door, the Monegasque steps aside as you thank him, brushing past his tall figure and making your way onto the couch. “I don’t think I could ever party again. Might just have to accept my fate.”

The white cloud plunges down as he takes a seat next to your tired state. “Which is?”

“That I’m old.” You sit up straight as you point an accusing finger up at him. He tilts his head. “Correction - we’re both old.”

A hand slaps your mouth shut as you squeal against it. “I think it might just be you.” Yoomphtoofth, you muffle as you try to wiggle free from his strong grip. “Let me know if you disagree.”

Licking his hand, he yelps as he pulls away, immediately drying himself against your tutu. You smirk. “Asshole.” He narrows his eyes. Shrugging him off, you curl your legs up to your chest. “Truce?” Glaring at your hand, he questions it for a second before hesitantly shaking it. Tugging it towards your mouth, he lets out a high pitched squeak as you lick it.

“You’re a heathen,” he shrieks as you throw your head back laughing. Relax. You’ve already kissed me. “You kissed me, let's not forget.” You blush. Suddenly I’m feeling very tired. Off to bed I go.

Staring with slight amusement, he waves you off. When you come to a halt, sleepy eyes reconnect with yours. “I know you said it’s fine for me to keep the bed and you the couch, but I’m willing to share now that I trust you.”

A playful scoff escapes. “I’m flattered.” You stick your tongue out, aiming your ballet shoe at him. He dodges it before comedically scowling. “It’s fine, you can keep it. Hopefully it helps tend to your nasty attitude. You should seriously get that checked out.”

You huff, foot stopping against the wooden tiles. “And I’m sure you’re getting a hump back, so by all means stay in your microscopic couch.” Green eyes bulge out with worry as he runs into the room.

“On second thought, I think we should share!”

So he’s a cuddler. You learn so very quickly when he instinctively drapes his hand over your belly. You try to wrestle free for a while before you realize how nice it feels. A few seconds tick by before you drift off to sleep.

The strong beams that slither past the curtains are enough to shake the Monegasque awake. Groaning, he squints his eyes as he analyzes his surroundings. It takes a second for him to register how close you are, and even worse, how his arm lays over your delicate figure.

Flinging it away, he scoots back. You toss and turn for a while before you lazily rub your eyes. Was there an earthquake? Charles opens his mouth, then snaps it shut. You raise an expectant brow. T’was my imagination? “Must have been,” he croaks, a raspy voice bouncing off the walls. “How about some breakfast?”

After a strong counter argument on your behalf, he eventually complies and strolls out the door, set to get some breakfast for you both. It should have been for the best to tidy up the bed, clean up a bit.

Definitely not hunt for a small journal.

Guilt resurfaces as you open the side drawer, finding it empty. What were you doing? Charles has been nothing but good to you - he was someone you considered your friend. Maybe it was for the best, it was a bit too invasive.

Your tummy grumbles as you glare at the clock, time slowly passing by and still no sign of the Monegasque. Dragging your feet to the living room, you shamelessly plop onto the couch when you spot an oddly familiar item. The brown diary.

You can feel the way your eyes sparkled with merriment as a delirious laugh ringed past your dry lips. It had been dug between the pillows begging to be let out. To be skimmed through. Analyzed. Soft fingers trace the front cover as your breath hitches.

This doesn’t have to happen. You didn’t have to do any of this. You could be honest, admit what you’re doing, that you know who he is and how that would change nothing between you two, and that you needed this. He would understand. But the thin pages were luring you in by every passing second he doesn’t walk past that door. A tiny peek won’t hurt.

You can’t tell how much time has passed, but the moment you hear keys jingling, you hurriedly stash it back in its original hiding spot and rush over to the terrace overlooking Amalfi. Strong accent calls out for you as you holler back. With a sheepish smile, he hands you a box of crepes. Grazie.

His green eyes flicker with evident panic, though he tries not to show it. “Hey, have you seen a small journal by any chance? It’s sort of important.” As quickly as you started, you stopped munching and immediately started to choke. A large hand pats your back as you inch away as if he held a deadly disease.

“N-no I have not.” You brush your hair back, suddenly hot. “Is it that big a deal?”

The brunette shrugs but reluctantly nods. “I write down my feelings sometimes. Helps me cope with lots of things.” An appreciated and honest expression maps itself between his soft features. “Though I think I found a new outlet.” Your heart stops as he glazes over the open scenery. “Still, I should go look for it.”

Left hollow and sick, you burn with fury towards yourself. You should have let it go, but God, why did you have to ruin everything?

The day settles with a drive around town with a navy Vespa. Charles had bought it on a whim when you gushed over the idea of adventuring in true old fashion. Just like Princess Anne and Joe Bradley. Snuggling your head with a hideous helmet, you pout as he clicks it securely before working on his own. “This is not what I had in mind.”

He clicks his tongue. “Rather be safe than sorry.”

“This is only going to mess with my hair. I planned this outfit to perfection, Cha! And look!” You give him a quick twirl as he rolls his eyes at the dramatic gesture. “Now you’ve ruined it.”

“Just get on.”

Bumpy road makes you squeal with hysteria as you cling on extra tight around his waist. You can hear his croaky laughter as he swerves to avoid crashing into a fruit stand. Scusa! “You’re going to get us killed, and contrary to belief, I would love to live!”

“Would you relax? I know what I’m doing.”

Once you make it out of the busy village, you’re actually able to enjoy the ride. You even try to convince him to play a round of i-Spy with you, though that later backfires when you accuse him of cheating. You’re in the heat of your one-sided argument when he pulls into an abandoned church. Hopping off, you lay your arms firmly against your hips. “What is all this?”

It goes unannounced, but he quietly makes his way over to creaky doors. “Would you like to find out?” With a decent round of skepticism, you begrudgingly follow. I don’t see what there could possibly be in here. Why don’t we just go for ice cream? Bringing a finger up to his lips, he signals for you to hush. Doe eyes flutter with curiosity as he makes his way to the altar.

As soon as he kneels down, you awkwardly kick your leg around as you puff your cheeks. You hum slowly as you watch the way he remains still for a while, eyes closed.

“Should I let you have a moment, or…” Be quiet, he hisses. You weren’t necessarily religious but you figured you should give him some space. The sound of old wood crumbles underneath your feet as you walk down the steps. I fucking got it!

You gasp loudly as you recklessly spin around to find him pulling pieces of wood, clearly destroying the already grubby floor. “I’m not that close with the man up above, but I’m almost sure you can’t say shit like that in here, even if it’s abandoned.” You slap your mouth shut as his eyes glimmer with amusement. Heat rises up to your cheeks. “I’m also sure you can’t be doing this! It’s private property.”

“Who’s going to stop me?” he childishly murmurs as he continues with his careless task. “Ouch,” he yelps when a splinter digs through his finger.

“Serves you right.”

Glaring up at your smug figure, the brunette waves you over. “Instead of just standing there, you should help me.”

“With what? There’s nothing valuable here! What are you even looking for?”

With a minor annoyance, he fiercely kicks through the board as it lets loose as cracks. Thunder rumbles as you shake your head with disapproval. You’ve done it. You made God mad, I hope you’re happy. Only, he’s grinning ear to ear as he shows off a small box. You tilt your head with clear confusion as he dashes up to you.

“I can’t believe it’s still here after all these years.” There’s a trace of disbelief and adoration as he takes in the dusty package. There’s a whole galaxy shining within his watercolor eyes when he looks up at you. Your breath gets stuck in your throat.

Blinking rapidly, you gently run your finger across it, skin instantly becoming a dark shade of brown as you scrunch your nose. “What is it?” Your eyebrows arch into a sympathetic peer. “Oh no…did you bury a hamster or something like that in there?”

Tears well up in your eyes as you tap the wood in a downhearted state. “No, you ghoul.” He tenderly opens it up. Pulling out a golden pin, your eyes widen as The Prancing Horse reflects back towards you both.

“My father left this here for me.” You heart swells at the sensitive mention. Charles had told you about his fathers death a few nights ago, so you were still new with deciding how to react. “He said he would, and he did.”

“That’s really sweet,” you whisper, hand pressing against his broad shoulder. “What does it mean?” And it takes you a while to realize that you weren’t asking for your benefit, but rather because you wanted to learn more about the Monegasque. Any crumb felt like a feast to you.

It appears as if he’s playing the words in his head as he runs his thumb against it. “My dad helped build this church when I was 6. It helped bring in a bit of money for the family.” Your eyes glimmer attentively as you nod. “When I had time to get away from boxing…yeah, boxing…he would bring me and my older brother to carry wood. Arthur was much younger.”

His Golden Goose tapped against the brown ground for further classification. “Maman would get upset at him, saying we were just babies, but we didn’t mind at all.” A gray cloud paints his eyes as he twists his lips. “I’m glad we did that, now that I’m older.”

“You must really miss him,” you mumble, glassy eyes shining back at him. He lets out a sorrowful smile.

“I do.” A beat. “But what am I doing acting like I’m the only one who’s had it tough?” Dark brows form a sharp V as he signals to you. “Oh, because of you and your relationship with your parents-”

“I got that,” you scowl with a lighthearted glare. The corner of his lips lift. “But my situation is nothing compared to yours. Sure, my parents and I aren’t close - not enough for my liking - but at least they’re alive.” He flinches slightly as you cradle his face. “I-”

“I know,” he reassures you with a small smile. “He was the best. Always put his family first; his son's dreams were his priority.” He raises the golden pin. “One night after dinner, he mentioned how he hid a small horse somewhere in the church, so that when the time was right, I would go back and look for it. I was covetous, wanted it right there and then. So, I worked up the courage to ask everyone around if they had seen a horse. They looked at me as if I was crazy.” He chuckles.

“He found out and sat me down. Told me it didn’t work like that. My biggest dream was to own a Ferrari, just like everyone in Monaco hopes to. He believed in me, swore that if I worked hard enough, then I could do it. Only then would I know where the mysterious pin was.”

“Lorenzo, my older brother, knew there was a key for…” He signals sheepishly at the wooden floor, a lock hidden in plain sight as he blushes. “I guess I never really learned how to be patient. I barely figured it out a few days ago, when you kicked the cabinet door open.”

You gape. “It was jammed.”

He snickers. “It reminded me of something he had said after he painted the walls. Only the toughest can kick without feeling any regret. He would have loved you, that much I know.”

Flustered, you twirl the hem of your dress. “You’re saying I’m a horse?”

“You’re definitely abnormal.” Your shoulders droop. “All I’m saying is that you helped me find the missing piece. And that means a lot.”

“But you don’t own a Ferrari yet,” you retorted, even though only you knew, you knew the truth, but he doesn’t bat an eye, only clips the pin onto your dress.

“One day I will.” He winks. “Until then, you can take care of this for me.”

“Two more weeks, huh?”

Forcing a spoonful of gelato into his mouth, you pout. He struggles to digest the berry treat. “That’s kind of sad. I think I’ll actually miss you, Charles.”

His lips curl. “I know I’ll miss you.” Brown hair flows against the summer breeze. “But it doesn’t have to end like this. We can still see each other. Right?”

“Uh…”

He would find out eventually once the article was published and he would hold every right to hate you. To not want to see you again. Your lack of response has him pinching his face. “You don’t want to?”

Scrambling like a clumsy giraffe, you fidle with a nearby pillow. “I do! But when would we have the time?” You’re going to be too busy racing and hating my guts, you want to spit out when he beams back at you.

“I would make the time just for you.”

Your heart clenches. Could he just be honest? Open up to you. You would gladly do the same, but he needed to do this first to give you the courage to own up to your secrets. Lips part, then purse. “Charles, I-” A ring lingers in the air as he tips his head, giving to the go-ahead. Excusing yourself, you march into the sunny room.

“Yes, hello?”

“How’s vacation?” Eleanor’s rich voice enters your ears as you squirm.

“Vacation?” you squeak.

She sighs. “I’m obviously kidding. Can’t you tell that I’m kidding?” A nervous giggle flutters as you hum back at her. She continues. “Anyways, that's not what I called you for. I just wanted to check up on you.”

“Oh. My injuries are much better. Doc says I can have the casts removed in a week-”

“Let me rephrase. I wanted to check up on your work. Progress.”

“Of course,” you say. “I actually have it done. It just needs a few more rounds of proof-reading, but I’m sure I can send it to you by…” You stare at the calendar. “Two weeks.”

Eleanor clicks her tongue in disapproval. “No, I need it by Friday. Nothing past that.”

Your stomach lurches. “Eleanor, I can’t.” And why not? Biting down on your nails, you peek over to where the brunette sun bathes, or naps, you can’t tell. I need two weeks because by then I’ll be gone and won’t have to deal with a certain driver detesting me. You understand, right? But you don’t say any of that.

“You said it was an exclusive. I need this,” she warns, subtle threat lacing his voice. “We’re talking about one of the most sought-out drivers in all of Formula One. Do you realize what this could do for your career? If you nail this right in the eye, you might even become my right hand. And you know it’s only up from there, sweetheart. Friday.”

“Friday.”

That same night, the sound of your digits hitting the keyboard are the only thing being heard. Charles tries to sneak a peek, but when you cry out stating you were helping a friend get over a break up, he took a step back and scrolled through his phone.

Stellar job…The most…Amazing…

A frustrated growl escapes you as you fist your hands. Taking a look, Charles can’t help but grin. Often misunderstood, the 26 year old deals with lots of… “Argh!” His eyes widened.

“That bad, huh? What did he do to your poor friend?”

“What?” you rudely retort, but quickly try to ease your breathing. “Right. Um. Yeah, men are shit.”

“Of course we are,” he replies warmly. “How about you take a break? If you’re getting too riled up, you won’t do her any good. Just refresh and come back to it. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.”

But the blank space has you stressed as you circle back to what Eleanor said over the phone. You had perfect this. “I have to do this. Help her, I mean. Now.”

“You’re too kind.” It’s as if a loving glow towers over his face as he sits at the edge of the bed. “I admire that.”

“You do?”

“Mhm. But seriously, let's go for a walk.”

Despite the sun setting, he of course wears his famous Raybans and a Boston hat lounged over his curly hair. His killer mullet was rolling in as you licked your lips at the dreamy sight.

Wait. No.

With a secretive glance, you find him whistling an unknown tune. Though he wears the darkest shade of sunglasses, you can still feel his warm gaze. Though his luscious hair is draped with an old hat, you can still distinguish his shampoo scent. His body next to yours is enough to make your inside flip as you shake your head abruptly.

This was Charles. Just a friend. A friend for the time being, at least. There was no room to form a crush now. You settled on the fact that he was just merely attractive. That you can do - admit.

“I was serious about what I said earlier today. I will visit you wherever you are.” Green eyes flicker over to you. “You’ve become one of the most important persons in my life. A good friend to have around.”

Your heart for some reason shatters as you squint your eyes at the golden sun. “Right after Amelia and Roman, you are someone I consider a friend, too. I’m glad we met.” A peaceful silence lingers between you two as your heart thuds against your ribcage. “Charles-”

“I know you read my journal.”

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