#~week old sketchie

[dinoserious]

this thing sucks

[sketchy-saram]

Not to be that guy, but I've seen some people acting like the entire team from DAO, everyone who worked on Origins, was completely absent from making Veilguard...and that is just not true. Maybe it makes you feel better, to think that the people who made the original game would have nothing to do with this? But that's just false. Certainly it is not the exact same team, but that's not really how games work.

So you have to work into your brain somehow that maybe, just maybe, the vision of this game fits the artistic and storytelling vision of some of the people who have been making them since the start...even if it doesn't fit yours.

The entitlement of fans to thinking they own a story or characters they didn't create is kind of getting on my nerves. Sure, if you don't like what an IP has done, you have the right not to pay money to interact with it! But stop trying to force them to do what you want with it. Either take things as they were made, say thank you to the people and artists who worked hard on it, and maybe write some fanfiction to help it meet your head canon as god intended, or just go away. Make your own game, so that people can then tell you you did it wrong and that you don't know your own characters or setting or artistic vision and see how it feels. I'm sure the members of the team who have been around since Origins LOVE hearing that none of them could have possibly worked on this franchise, or it would meet your PERSONAL expectations.

[marzipanladyart]

Hojodegger + cheek kiss

[cornsarts]

happy valentimes!

[dormiloncito]

YES!!!

[shinmiyovvi]

Angelina Bow for @thousandsonny

[jamiethebeeart]

⊂⁠(^‿^)⁠つ⊂⁠(⁠･⁠ω⁠･⁠*⁠⊂⁠)

[3amsnek]

fire man :] latest edition in my redraw series of the first finished digital thing I made on an ipad- top is now, then december 2019 & december 2017

click for better quality

reblogs >> likes

[fappellmoan]

OH MY GOD also guys. please literally go to any amateur theater or whatever that u can near u. i went to a live performance of the it's always sunny ep where theyre doing the nightman. or whatever. it was soooooooo silly and so fun and in that room i could feel centuries of people gathering in rooms to laugh together. this is what can save humanity

[k3yreviewer25]

wanted to watch one of my old horror movies but my computer just about fucking choked on every disc i put in her :(

[thebibliosphere]

Whenever I post about house stuff there’s always some well meaning people and the occasional vindictive shit head who thinks we didn’t have our home inspected before we bought it.

We did. It passed the private inspection we paid for in order to get our mortgage and two inspections done by the city.

The problem with my house is that it was owned by a landlord who did all kinds of illegal and sketchy shit to maximize capacity and resale value but also would require you to take down walls to find. And for those of you unaware, they don’t let you walk around with a saw and cut holes to inspect behind the drywall.

The shithead hid things behind fake walls. Literally. He put a bunch of chemicals and paints into a crawl space then drywalled over it. There is drywall on top of drywall (or there was before we took it down). He put carpet over the asbestos tiles—which is technically fine. It’s safer to seal asbestos away than remove it… except he also covered the drain for the house so the basement floods and then the carpet rots and in turn starts breaking down the asbestos tiles, making them into a hazard. He built the basement himself so that the drywall was sitting on the concrete slab—something we couldn’t see without removing the trim—causing them to wick moisture from the floor and rot until we had black mold everywhere.

The electric parts that were visible were all up to code, but again, anything that could be hidden was done so, hiding shit like a dishwasher that had been hot wired into the wall through a light plate fixture under the sink. Or the 240v socket that used to power an electric stove which had been pulled through the floorboard to power the tumble dryer. (Or the gas stove that we swapped for electric because it kept trying to kill us and then we realized he’d run a gas pipe from the water heater to power it. The plumber swore a lot about that one when he finally realized that one.)

Plumbing all looked good until you realized some of the new pipes were just pvc cut to go around the old lead pipes. Something you couldn’t see unless you got up close and personal during the inspection, and we’re talking up on a ladder jiggling the pipes around which is also generally something don’t let you do. Not to the extent we would have needed to.

The man was unhinged. And there’s very little we can do about it because we signed an “as is” thing on our mortgage thinking most of the repairs we’d need to do would be minor. Only to find out the house which looked fairly modern and well kept on the surface was actually a fucking Saw trap. And now because of all the shit we’ve uncovered, we have to fix it before we can sell it because no one in their right mind will buy a house with declared asbestos—even predatory developers hesitate on that one.

So if we’ve got to fix this place up, we’ll fix it up for us because god knows, even if we managed to sell this place, we can’t afford the mortgage rates right now. (And while yes, apartments are an option, they make my MCAS a lot less stable because you can’t control the shit your neighbors use, nevermind things like a shared laundry facility where everyone wants to smell like “a spring summer breeze” that to me smells like death by fragrance induced anaphylaxis.)

So yes, we’re stuck with this place. For now. A place we had inspected multiple times and were still let down by the reality that people hide things and will do so in the most imaginative ways possible if it means they can make a profit.

The furnace dying the instant we moved in wasn’t a good sign, but shit happens. That’s home ownership. The gas leaks we had last week? Also home ownership. It had passed yearly inspections up until now. Appliances break down and require maintenance, especially gas ones. In an ideal world we would have gotten another five years out of the furnace, but alas, it chose death so we had to yeet it.

So, yeah, if you’re the shithead currently going off in my inbox about “stupid people winning stupid prizes” I’ll take that apology now.

[headspace-hotel]

This year has, so far, been for me a series of rapid realizations of what I have been unlearning.

I went to the library. This was a couple weeks ago. I knew I needed to read a book, fiction. I hadn't done so in over a year and it was the longest period of time I had ever gone without doing so. I made a rule: I would only pick books I had never heard of, by authors I had never heard of, and I would not do any preliminary research or even bother to look at what the book was about. I would make my decision on whether to read or not purely on my impression of the title, cover and opening lines.

The book was The Connoisseur by Evan S. Connell. It was kind of a random selection. I sat down with it in a corner of the library and straight up devoured it. I tore through the book within a few hours, without taking a single break. I was captivated. I couldn't put it down.

It is a book about a guy who buys a Mayan figurine in a knickknack shop while he's on a business trip. and becomes obsessed with pre-Columbian sculptural art. There isn't really much of a plot apart from this. He goes to sketchy antique shows, has conversations with museum curators, wealthy art dealers and forgers, and seeks to learn how to distinguish a genuine pre-Columbian piece from a fake one. It was written in the 1970's, so the views on Native Americans are antiquated and sometimes offensive, and there is the troubling thread of the very concept of looting another culture's treasures and treating them as collectibles, though the book is not without commentary on this.

All the same, it was a completely intoxicating read. The vicarious experience of becoming fascinated with a topic and having it unfold a whole world for you was ferociously gripping, and so was the intrigue of the art collecting world itself. The frauds, forgeries, smuggling, museums, academics, aristocrats, auctions and seedy flea markets. Will he ever be able to tell if a piece is "real?" Does it matter if it's "real?" Why does he want to own and possess a piece of art, and how does its "realness" affect that desire? The book leaves you not knowing what to think.

It is a book about curiosity, portrayed in the narrative as a totally unreasonable lightning bolt that strikes a man who has never been fascinated by anything and changes him forever. Why? Why does a Mayan figurine, in particular, speak to him? Why does any piece of art, or any fascinating thing in the world, speak to anyone? It is unknowable.

I went to the library again. I picked a new book using the same rules. This book was Fragile Beasts by Tawni O'Dell. Just like the last time, I was totally captivated. I couldn't put it down.

Did I have a couple major problems with the portrayal of some important aspects of the story? Yes. (It would make the post much longer to discuss.) Was I completely captured by and invested in the story for the time I was reading it? Also yes. The book braids together several very different strands-- the story of a legendary Spanish bullfighter and a wealthy American woman that he loved, two brothers stuck in an ugly family situation after their father's death in a car accident, and a rich old heir to a Pennsylvania coal mining fortune and to the sinister underbelly of her family's business.

There was a lot about baseball, which I know nothing about, and bullfighting, which I know nothing about, and I certainly don't know anything about being a teenaged boy who resents and mistrusts his estranged mother, or an aristocratic old lady who lives in a mansion and eats fancy Spanish food. It was fun to experience so much unfamiliar stuff and to care about things I wouldn't normally care about. Once again I couldn't stop reading until I had finished it.

I don't know that either book was "good," though I thought they were both well written; I just know that reading them was like being hooked up to an IV of something essential and life-giving and feeling it reanimating my body.

It had been a year since I had read any fiction, but it had been much, much longer since I had loved to read. As I became an adult I had become picky and critical about books, and developed a highly sophisticated sense of my taste and the books I considered good- which were very rare. My taste in books became so sophisticated, eventually, that I didn't like books at all anymore.

I had almost withered away from deficiency of that essential nutrient known as STORY. I'd almost crumbled myself into dust from pretentiousness! I may have been terribly wrong about the kinds of things I liked to read, on top of it. And I certainly hadn't realized that story was such an essential nutrient.

"Just entertainment" the pretentious sorts of people might say of a book they think is useless-- but what is entertainment but to absorb your mind in something, and what is absorbing your mind in a book but to experience things you would never have experienced? It expands you and makes you more complicated. It is the study of human existence itself.

Now all I have been able to think about today is finishing my work and going to the library again...

[33forthew1n]

⋆.𐙚˚ bent out of shape ⋆.𐙚˚

🏎️❣️ charles leclerc x pilatesyoutuber!reader 🏎️❣️

trope: fake dating

SMAU- faceclaim: alexandra st mleux

synopsis: due to recent rumors swirling around about charles's relationship ending due to infidelity, ferrari's pr team is scrambling to fix his image. enter: yn, a popular pilates youtuber in need of more subscribers. whose to say they aren't a match made in (pr) heaven?

WARNINGS: swearing

a/n: hope you enjoy 🥹 interact however you please!

˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆

everyone in the paddock knew how it went with charles and his relationships. he dates a girl for a few years, gives her a bullshit excuse that ends the relationship, then runs to their best friend. it was a tried and true method, really.

so, why was this time so different? well, his ex-girlfriend alexandra amassing over two million followers meant she had become popular both in the paddock and online. with popularity came fans and with fans came the inevitable hive mind. said hive mind was now commenting on every one of his instagram posts with hate.

now, did charles really care about the hate? no, not really.

on the other hand, ferrari's pr team made it quite clear they did care.

after all, the prancing horse had an image to maintain and it wasn't one of two timing and scandal.

˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆

"we saved your ass the last two times this happened, charles. what the hell do we do now?", exclaimed mia, charles' pr manager.

"is it even that big a deal? so what, they took pictures of me and her friend kissing? like you said, it's happened before. we can just wait a few weeks and everyone will have forgotten about it by then", replied charles in exasperation, clearly not seeing the big deal the team did.

"you know how popular she has become, charles. she has serious brand pull and we can't lose out on any sponsorship money at all", mia said, rolling her eyes at his idiocy.

now the team were at a stand still. what do they do regarding charles' image and the team's brand pull?

"e-excuse me?", a pr intern interjected, raising her hand as if she was still in grade school.

"uh...yes?", mia asked.

"how about we bury this scandal by faking a relationship with someone popular and well liked. not an a-lister, but someone that the press would be more interested in than a nobody", said the mystery pr intern.

"you know what...that's not half bad."

"wouldn't be the first time you've started dating an hour after breaking up with your previous girlfriend", said mia, dragging charles as if it was a pastime. "geez, thanks. i don't know how i feel about dating someone random just for likes. what do i tell my family?? my friends? i don't think this is a great idea at all", charles said, obviously hesitant to participate in the intern's master plan.

"it's either this or we put you on a strict no dating ban. you pick", mia threatened.

"ooook, looks like we're being extreme. fine. fake dating it is".

˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆

throughout the next few days, charles' pr team looked for a possible "girlfriend".

yet, they struggled to find someone perfectly suited to the job.

that was until charles jokingly suggested a pilates influencer with a steady 5 million subscribers on YouTube (in hindsight he should have known better than to even jokingly suggest anything to help). a 24-year-old spanish woman who goes by "ynlates" on all social media.

ynlates

Liked by 865,537 users

ynlates hey angels 💕 long time no workout so...new video's up on on my channel @ynlates! 30 mins of full-body pilates for all my baddies 🧘‍♀️

view comments ⬇️

madfit LOVEEE what a good sweat 😅💦

^❤️ by author

fitwithjojo bbg what a bod ❣️ good one!

^❤️ by author

randomuser092 the only workouts i'll do :)

˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆

and so the ferrari pr team went through all her social media profiles; from looking for a sketchy background to seeing if she had been in any public controversies. after a 2 day long search, yn came up clean.

now it was time for them to contact her.

To: ynlates@business.com

Cc/Bcc, From: mia@ferrari.pr.com

Subject: PR Opportunity

Greetings, Yn Ln. This is Mia, Charles Leclerc's head of PR. If you are unaware, Charles Leclerc is a Scuderia Ferrari Formula One driver and we would be pleased to see the two of you collaborate together on a project. With this project we aim to boost your following and improve Charles' image. We would like to see you in person on 26/1 at Maranello, Italy. If you are interested we will send you plane tickets, book your hotel, and pay all expenses. Sinceretly

Mia (Head of Scuderia Ferrari PR)

and so Ferrari waited. and waited. six days after mia had sent that email, she got a response.

yn was more than happy to. if mia was just 1% more pessimistic, she'd question yn's sanity. but, whatever. she had to get charles out of these murky waters and fast.

˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆

yn had never been much of a sports fan. her best friend, hannah, on the other hand never stopped yapping about formula one. lando norris this, DRS that. yap yap yap.

so when she got an email from a mia individual she clicked on it and to her suprise it was f1 related. ok, maybe not "here are some race tickets from a mysterious sugar daddy" but it was still about the motorsport. just seemed like a scam, but she still decided to respond by accepting the offer to go to italy out of sheer curiousity.

when the "mia" lady sent her the tickets and all the information she started panicking. "what the hell is this "pr opportunity" and how is it worth a whole ass italy trip?" yet, before she could truly freak the hell out, she called hannah. "han. i think i'm going to meet CHARLES LERCLERC in a week??", she stressed into her phone.

"h- WHAT THE HELL?? CHARLES FRICKING LECLERC??? WHAT DO YOU MEAN?", hannah yelled into her ear.

there goes her hearing.

"his pr lady sent me an offer for a collaboration of sorts, i don't know!!! i mean, what can a pilates youtuber have to collaborate with a formula one driver for?"

˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆

turns out, a lot.

a whole fake relationship lot.

after a tour of ferrari headquartes in maranello, mia got right down to it in a conference room.

"liking italy so far?", mia asked yn innocently.

"oh, yes. thank you so much by the way! it's all wonderful, i'm not quite sure how i can pay you all back", yn responded, wide-eyed and confused at how this even happened.

"by dating our driver for a few months and helping us clean up his image? haha, just an idea!", mia said, throwing the idea out there as if she was asking for a simple favor.

dating their driver....as in charles?

she hadn't even met the guy.

she must have said that aloud as mia's next words were "we can arrange a meeting tomorrow if you accept our offer".

and so the next day, yn arrived at a little ristorante by the seaside. she wore a casual letterman jacket and jeans to meet her new potential boyfriend. "God, this is so strange", she thought to herself.

"ciao. are you yn?", she heard a male voice ask her as he sat in the chair opposite to hers.

"ciao, yes. yn ln. you're charles, i assume?"

"oui. uh- so my team told you about their offer? what do you think of it?", charles asked her.

"it's certainly an offer. may i ask though, what does a formula one driver gain from being seen dating some youtuber?", yn asked him in return.

"i have sponsors willing to pull out because of this stupid scandal. my team can't afford it and it is not fair of me to not do anything i can to keep the sponsors happy. not after all they have done for me and my career", charles said with all the genuinety a man could have.

now she sees why he's her best friend's favorite driver.

"look, i'm willing to help you out. but, in return i just ask that you protect me from hate. i've seen how badly sportsmen's girlfriends are treated and its unfair to them. can you do that for me?"

"yes, of course. would you like to order?", charles offered.

and so they ate dinner in lighthearted chatter under the moonlight.

then, as charles offered to drive her to her hotel they both heard the unmistakable sound of cameras clicking pictures. "fuck", said charles.

"let's go before they catch your face", charles whispered to her.

deuxmoi

Liked by pierregasly, cl16hq, and 3,016 others

deuxmoi New WAG? Charles Leclerc spotted in Maranello eating dinner with a smiley woman. Looks like someone's getting over their ex quite quickly. Who do you guys think @charles_leclerc 's new girl is? Another friend of an ex's? view comments ⬇️

user1644 already? damn he's faster than the SF25...

charlesfan16 what an invasion of privacy 😬 yikes...

f1fangirl092 "liked by pierregasly" WHAT DO YOU KNOW THAT WE DONT FRENCHIE 😞❌🥖

leclercfanboy09 bet this one won't last the season

randomuser0286 why does she look like @ynlates??

randomynfan09 omg...ur not wrong 😅

𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆

yn had barely met the guy and already she was the talk of social media. every new story she posted, she got dozens of replies about charles and if they were dating.

at least, she got tons of new eyes on her page.

on charles' side of the equation, he was panicking. he wasn't over his ex and he worried if this was too fast for him to be moving on (though his subconciousness kept reminding him she was his FAKE girlfriend).

yet, charles knew this must have been much scarier for her than for him. after all, he was used to the crazy attention from fans and yn was certainly not. and since a few eagle-eyed fans had put two and two together, he knew she must have been getting DMs about their "relationship" already.

Charles Leclerc

charles_leclerc

Bonjour, Yn.

How have you been since the paparazzi pictures?

Hey, Charles. It's been scary but not horrible. Just something to get used to I guess, haha.

I've been meaning to ask you something.

Uh-oh. Already breaking up with me?

Lol, no. 😅

Would you like to come with me the Monaco Grand Prix?

Monaco? As in the crazy rich place?

Monaco as in my home country. It's a big deal for me. It would mean a lot if you came to see me race.

Oh! I see. I could try to move some things around. Could I stay with you?

Yes! I'll send you the details when we get closer to the date.

𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆

leading up to the race weekend, yn and charles got much closer. they texted, called, and sent each other little gifts. yn sent charles some music sheets she found at a vintage shop while on a brand trip once while charles sent yn a new pilates set from a sponsor brand.

next thing they knew it was the weekend of the monaco grand prix.

yn arrived in monaco shortly before charles' media day duties began. he picked her up at the nice airport and drove her to his apartment in monte carlo.

"oh wow, charles. this is stunning. thanks for letting me stay with you this weekend. i know your probably overwhelmed and have to be laser focused, but you still took the time out of your week to tend to me", she smiled through her words.

"it's nothing, really. thanks for coming and supporting me. you'll have lots of fun at your first grand prix," charles promised her.

and that she did. come friday, yn made her paddock debut.

kymillman

Liked by ynlates, charles_leclerc, and 7,892 others

kymillman YN LN, CHARLES LECLERC'S NEW LADY?

Today, at the Monaco Grand Prix (evidently also Charles' home race) we have the pleasure of seeing Charles Leclerc's rumored new girlfriend stun the paddock. Yn Ln is a 24-year-old Spanish fitness influencer who Charles was recently photographed with. Would anyone like a video on her?

view comments ⬇️

annapetra902 very pretty 💕😍

f1fan02834 why is everything about their partner's these days?? so annoying and tabloidy

asmleuxfan0283 LOL she's trying to be alex 😬

overall, she was well recieved by charles' friends and coworkers. yet, how his family reacted to her was what truly interested her. though she wasn't his real girlfriend, something deep inside her heart wanted to be loved by his family.

at the ferrari hospitality, she saw a man around her own age that looked strikingly like a blonder charles. she heard charles call him over to where they were sitting, "thur, c'mere".

"oui. hello. and you are?"

"hi. yn...uh charles'...."

"my girlfriend. thur, meet yn ln. she's a fitness youtuber and we've been together for a few months", charles said, smiling all throughout his reveal.

the shock on arthur's face was evident. "had he not mentioned me at all to his family?", was the only thing yn was able to think at that moment.

then an older lady walked up to charles and snuck in a quick hug, "cha, ça va? (how's it going) qui est ton ami? (who is your friend?)"

"yn, this is my maman (mom). maman, this is my girlfriend- yn ln", charles said introducing the two most important women in his life. well, hypothetically the most important women of his life.

"oh! dear, sorry tor assuming. how are you, dear? cha didn't mention a girlfriend to us, but i'm glad to meet you", his mother said, fumbling over her words a bit.

charles blushed, clearly embarassed. in that moment his engineer called him over and he left yn with his family. he sheepishly smiled and mouthed a "sorry" to her as he was forced to go prepare for the race that starts in just a few hours.

yn herself felt a bit awkward too but decided there was no better time than the present to spread her social butterfly wings. and so during the lead up to the race she got to know charles' mother and younger brother.

she learned his mom, pascale, was a hairdresser in monaco and that she was the kindest soul she could ever meet.

she learned that his younger brother, arthur, was also in motorsport and that he was very much like charles but much snarkier and bolder.

she very quickly got on with the both of them and they told her it would be their pleasure for her to stay with them to watch the race together.

she texted charles, "good luck. you can win this one!! 😌❤️" and put her phone away promptly to go back to their conversation.

honestly, yn didn't know what to expect from the race. she hadn't watched a full race ever, but she does know enough to not make a complete fool of herself. her best friend had quizzed her on basic facts and little tidbits she should know before she left to monaco so she hoped that would come in handy.

yet, she hadn't expected to see her "boyfriend" win his home race. arthur and pascale were overjoyed and she could see charles' pure bliss when he was up at the top step of the podium.

after media duties, she congratuled charles and gave him a hug. maybe not the type of hug that established couples give, but it was a hug that gave her butterflies and charles another reason to smile.

"dinner, mon chéri (my darling)? i can get us in anywhere tonight. you say it, we go there", he said with the biggest grin on his face.

yn hadn't really expected a dinner invitation, instead thinking he would go party with his mates. "really? you wouldn't prefer to be with your friends at a club tonight?"

"pfft. as if. i have the prettiest woman in my monaco on my arm during the best day of my life. why would i spend it without her?", charles said, looking into her eyes like they were oceans he could drown in. the moment was intimate, that much they both knew. their relationship went from one of favors to friendship to...whatever this was. they weren't official but it was obvious to the both of them that they cared for each other so much more than they ever meant to.

𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆

dinner was marvelous.

if yn wasn't already falling for charles, she certainly was now.

he pulled her chair out for her, ordered her favorite wine (how did he even remember that??), complimented her more times than she could count, but most of all he listened. he would ask her questions about herself that would leave her talking and talking and talking, yet he never once complained or made her feel like she was too much.

it was as if they were actually dating.

as they walked out of the restaurant, arms so close she could feel his jacket on her skin, she said to him, "you know, charles. this is like my ideal date. nice restaurant, good food, and even better company. you really know how to make a girl feel special."

"it's not hard to make an already special person feel their worth", he replied with sincere honesty in his eyes.

"if you keep saying things like that i'll think what we have is actually real", she mumbled, more to herself than to him.

"and what if i wanted us to be real?"

"i wouldn't say no", she said, now looking into his eyes.

"then, yn ln, would you like to be my real, not at all publicity stunt, girlfriend?", charles asked her with the biggest smile on his face.

"don't have to ask me twice. yes, cha, a million times yes", yn replied.

then charles leaned closer and held her face with both hands. he smiled down at her and then kissed her with the most beautiful amount of emotion and passion that yn had ever experienced.

though they may not have been actually dating the past few months, there was no doubt in either of their hearts of where they stood together. they were in love. through all of his bad race days, media speculation, her burnout, and their joint support for the other; they had grown to care for each other in a way neither of them had ever expected.

𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆

the next day, yn woke up in charles' bed unexpectedly alone. she had been staying with him for the past two weeks, ever since she had arrived to see the grand prix.

then, when she rubbed her eyes to get the sleep out of them charles appeared.

"mon ange, good morning", charles smiled to her.

"good morning, cha. you're quite happy for morning time", she giggled.

"of course. i'm with you, why wouldn't i be?"

"charmer. what are we doing today?"

"well, before we do anything, could you check your phone for me?"

"you're acting suspicious, cha", she said, jokingly side-eyeing him.

charles_leclerc

Liked by ynlates, maxverstappen1, and 2.2 million others

charles_leclerc With my girl ❤️ @ynlates

view comments ⬇️

ynlates my love 🥹💕

^❤️ by author

charles leclerc mon ange 😘

scuderiaferrari loveliest couple in the paddock ❤️

user1644 they've only been in the paddock once??

scuderiaferrari ok and? point still stands 🙄

pascaleclerc 🤩🤩 un si charmant couple

^❤️ by author

"oh, cha. you didn't have to", yn said happily.

"non, i did. now that we are really together, i feel like screaming your name over the rooftops", charles insisted.

𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆

two months later, it was the summer break and yn and charles had decided to spend it in monaco.

very recently, yn had started spending time with lewis and roscoe at the garage and loved every second of her time with the pup.

every day she would say to charles, "cha, you know you looove roscoe. wouldn't you like one of those?"

just last week he had said, "mon ange, i think YOU want a puppy. but, you know i'm not home often and taking care of it would end up just being your responsibility which i don't want to put that on you."

"charlie, i would be okay with caring for it! i need a friend for when your not around", she begged with puppy dog eyes of her own. they left the conversation there but little did she know that charles' masterplan had just begun.

he got in contact with the local rescue center and visited them on an off day. he hadn't really felt a connection to any of them until he saw a miniature long haired daschund with the name "leo" on the cage.

after signing the papers, he took little leo home to surprise yn.

"baby, close your eyes. you remember how you kept asking about a dog and i said no?"

"yes. sheesh, way to rub salt in a fresh wound, cha", she answered.

"non. open your eyes", he said with a smile on his face.

upon opening her eyes, she instantly fell in love with the pup in front of her.

"charles, oh my God. he's so cute! what's his name?"

"the rescue named him leo but we can change it if you want", he said, happy with her happiness.

"oh, leo leclerc. it's perfect. thank you, thank you, thank you charles!"

"you're welcome mon ange. he's worth the smile on your face", charles grinned.

ynlates's new story posted

ynlates

lando HES SO CUTE

charles_leclerc proud dog mom 🤩

monacorescue thank you for adopting this doggo!! ❤️🐾

lilyzneimer omgggg hes the cutest 🥹🥹🥹

𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆｡☆

the season had been...eventful to say the least. charles and yn got together but also ferrari finally got their shit together. when the drivers got back from summer break, the grid quickly realized that ferrari's latest upgrades worked like a wonder and turned their dumpster into a rocket. and as if just he was just waiting for the moment to arrive, charles seized that opportunity and began to build a decent gap in the championship.

now that it was abu dhabi weekend, charles was 15 points ahead of oscar who was valiantly fighting to get ahead.

charles qualified first that weekend and oscar was just .006 seconds behind in second.

he knew he had to give it his all to win to this race and take home the championship.

yn was at the race, too. he wanted to show her that all her support wasn't for nothing. all the nights away from each other and the late days he spent training were worth it.

and that he did. oscar and lando in third had decided that fighting between themselves was more fun than getting the win so he went ahead and built a gap that he couldn't lose.

and once brian told him there was just one lap left, tears built up in his eyes. memories of countless laps in go karts as a kid, sleepless nights where he wanted to just fall asleep instead of go on the sim, and the heartbreak of missing that top step all came to mind.

most of all, yn came to mind. all the support she gave him and the love she showed him was what got him through all the rough times in the past year.

yet, now his moment to shine had come.

brian's voice came up in the radio, "CHARLES, SEI CAMPEONE DEL MUNDO. FERRARI IN CIMA!"

"YESSSS. FERRARI IN CIMA. GRAZIE A TUTTI", charles yelled into his radio in utter bliss.

in the garage, yn was in tears. she had heard charles go on and on about what it would mean to him and his family if he would win a championship. but, to come home with both the constructors and drivers' championship was a dream he hadn't let himself imagine that year.

in parc fermé, charles ran up to yn and she placed a kiss on his helmet. "i knew you could do it, my love. world champion!!!!"

"i couldn't do it without you, mon ange. é tutto grazie a ti", he said with tears as big as his smile in his eyes.

ynlates

Liked by f1, charles_leclerc, and 300,893 others

ynlates 🥹🥹❤️ MY LOVE DID IT. Number One in the world! In red! World class act @charles_leclerc

view comments ⬇️

charles_leclerc ❤️ could not have done it without you

^❤️ by author

scuderia ferrari our champion has never looked so good ❤️🏎️

f1 2025 WDC in red! 🏎️🏎️🏎️

lewishamilton Mighty year, mate. Congrats 🙏🏾

it may have all begun with a pr stunt, but it ended with a relationship that had as much love as it did good publicity.

[leo-in-the-pitt]

Until The End

This is Chapter 3 of the Beginning to End series !

Summary: With your 2 year anniversary coming up with Dr. Jack Abbot, you’re trying to figure out his secret plans and see if you can get over the final hurdle in your relationship before it's too late.

Warnings: Established relationship, age gap (unspecified but reader late 20s, Abbotts an old man), beginning is all fluff but the end is something else, strong language, sexual tension, unprotected p in v sex, fingering, handjob/blowjob, all the dirty stuff tbh 

Word Count 8.8K+, was shooting for 10k but I'll take it

Until The End 

Monday

You caught Jack talking to Robby that Monday afternoon. Both of you were busy obviously planning something for your 2 year anniversary. He was the absolute worst at keeping secrets but, apparently when it came  these plans he had nothing to say.

He ordered some pizza that night for dinner and you two sat next to each other on the couch. He seemed on edge, not making much conversation. He usually never shuts up during movies. He kept checking his phone and you could see him typing but, didn’t bring it up.

“You sure you’re alright Jack?”

He had a mouthful of pizza. “Yeah why?”

“You’re acting really sketchy.”

“I’m just trying to eat my pizza.”

“Mhm, so what exactly is the plan for Friday?”

“I already told you, it’s a surprise. Stop trying to spoil it for yourself.”

“Well you know that I hate surprises. I’m a planner Jack. I need to know what we’re doing. What am I supposed to wear?”

“I already told you I picked an outfit out for you.”

“Okay but what if it doesn’t fit? Or I don’t look good in it? There is an outfit right? You’re not just trying to get me naked?”

“Well, now that you mention it, that’s not too bad of an idea.”

“You’re just full of jokes tonight aren’t you Abbott?” 

Everybody called him Abbott, only you called him Jack, unless you were annoyed with him.

“Oh, now I’m Abbott?” He nodded his head in disbelief. 

“Until I know what we’re doing Friday, you’re Abbott.”

“Look who has the jokes now.”

You let the topic go for the rest of the night. But if there was one thing about you, you weren’t going to let this go. He would hear about it again.

———————————————————————

Tuesday

It was always a bit of a habit to go out for food together at least once a week. You both hated cooking and doing the dishes so this ended up being one of the easiest compromises in the past 2 years.

You typically ended up at your favorite diner, which he was most definitely tired of but, it kept you happy so he kept going. It was around noon when you arrived to the diner with him. Both ordering your usual without even needing the menus.

“You want to spilt a milkshake?”

“But you never want one?”

“Yeah but, I know that you do. And I’m feeling extra nice in this moment.”

“What are you doing? Making sure I don’t leave you before we hit 2 years?”

“Yeah I’m just buttering you up since there’s actually no plans for Friday.”

“You’re really pushing it Abbott, you know that?”

“You know you love it.” He said with his crooked smirk that drove you wild even after all this time.

You said nothing just shook your head at him. But don’t worry, you got your milkshake. 

Once you got home it was already time to start getting ready for a nap since you’d be working 2 night shifts back to back with each other before your anniversary. Maybe you could find out if he told anybody else about his secret plans.

You were dragging after your 3 hour power nap. No amount of sleep was ever going to be enough for you. But Abbott, of course, was already bouncing off the walls ready to leave. 

“We’re going to be late because of you.” He yelled from the kitchen. 

“Forgive me for wanting to cover up my under eye bags Abbott.”

“You gonna call me Abbott at work too?”

“Depends, are you going to tell me the plans?”

He rolled his eyes, “I’ll be in the car waiting for you.” And he walked out of the apartment.

Once you got to work, of course you had to go say hi to Langdon.

“What’s up kid?” He put out his hand for your handshake.

“I’m on a mission tonight.”

“Oh god that’s never a good thing.”

“First of all the last mission I went on here was to get Abbott, and I succeeded so I’m trying again tonight.”

“Wa- wait, did you just call him Abbott? What happened?” His eyes widening. 

“He’s Abbott until I know what Fridays plan is.”

Yet another man rolling his eyes at you tonight. “Why are you trying to ruin the fun?”

“I hate surprises Langdon, like I despise them. It’s eating me alive slowly and painfully. Like look at him over there whispering with Robby.” You looked over and squinted while waving at the two of them. 

Robby waved back laughing and Abbott just shook his head without cracking a smile. “They’re probably talking about it. Do you know anything?” You turned to him with puppy dog eyes. 

“I already told you, no. You’re my best friend and Robby is his best friend, why don’t you go ask him?” He shrugged. 

“You know what? You’re right. Maybe I should, I’ll be right back!” You skipped over to Robby and Abbott.

“Oh shit, I was just kidding.” He yelled but, you were already gone. 

You marched yourself over across the ER to the nurses station they were standing behind. Basically skipped over, smiling like a child.

“What’s the hot gossip boys?”

“I know nothing. I have nothing to say. I’m going home to my wife. Have a good night you two.” He waved directly at you, smiling. And he was gone.

You glared over at Abbott. “What did you do tell everyone not to talk to me until Friday?”

“That’s exactly what I did. Nobody knows anything anyway but, I don’t want them putting ideas into that mind of yours.”

The rest of the night was hectic. No more chances to trick anyone into spilling details. Not even a chance to sit down. You decided to give a rest, at least for the night.

———————————————————————

Wednesday 

He seemed different on the drive to work, glancing out the window, his mind racing with plans and details of the Friday plans, before forcing a calm smile as you asked him if he was okay. He was feeling guilty for not letting you in on the secret yet, but you had no idea.

“I’m telling you, I’m so ready for this week to be over.” 

Each night that you worked together, when things would slow down, even just slightly, you find each other to sit down for a quiet moment to catch up on charting.

Jack taps his fingers on the desk nervously, the clock ticking by slowly. He’s been planning the surprise for weeks, and now, the moment is almost here. But his mind was all over the place. He starts typing up a note, clearly not paying attention to what keys he was hitting.

You glare over at his screen. Words underlined in red and blue. Mistakes written all over the page.

“Hey, what’s up with you?” You sat back and glared at him. His mind clearly somewhere else. 

No response. For a moment, he’s lost in the thought of how his life is about to change.

“Earth to Abbott?” You waved your hand directly in front of his face. 

“What happened?” His head sharply turned to you.

You pointed to his screen. “What’s going on there? Forgot how to type?”

He rubs both eyes. Took a deep sigh. “Guess I’m just really tired tonight.”

“Wow, you tired? Never.”

———————————————————————

Thursday 

Tomorrow’s the big day. 2 years down, hopefully forever to go.

You were absolutely exhausted after the past 2 nights. But to flip your sleep schedule you were only planning a quick nap. Abbott on the other hand was basically ready for another shift.

“I will never understand how you require so little sleep.”

“And I don’t know how you need so much.”

He cooked you dinner, dishes are still in the sink. Sitting on the couch, a candle flickering on the coffee table, soft music playing in the background. Music from a playlist you’ve been adding to since you were a teenager in high school. It was filled with cheesy love songs, songs that you wanted at your future wedding.

“Can you believe it’s been almost two years?” You said laying your head on his chest.

“I know. Feels like it flew by yet also like I’ve known you my whole life. I still remember our first official date, how nervous we both were.” He caressed your hair out of your face. 

“You kept fiddling with your napkin the entire time."

“Hey, I was trying to impress you. Clearly, it worked well enough to keep you around all this time. I was trying so hard not to mess anything up. You were just sitting there, looking as beautiful as ever. It was intimidating.”

"I was nervous too! But honestly, the moment you started talking, I felt so at peace. Like I knew I was in the right place with you. I didn’t think even for a second that we’d end up here, like this, happier than ever.”

“I think that was the moment I knew. Something about you, just made sense. Just remember thinking, 'I really hope this isn’t the only date.'"

“And here we are, two years later.”

"And I wouldn’t trade a second of it. That night changed everything. You changed my life in all the best ways. I didn’t even know what I needed that until I met you.”

“I feel safe here in your arms. I could stay here with you forever and be completely okay.” You leaned up to kiss him. “So tomorrow’s the big day. Got anything special planned Abbott? This is your last chance to tell me!” You said while looking into his big green eyes.

“Those big beautiful brown eyes of your will get your anywhere if you try hard enough. But not tonight babygirl, not tonight.”

“I don’t quit Abbott!”

“I’m just gonna keep it simple. Just us being together. Nobody else.”

———————————————————————

Friday 

You slept for 12 hours straight Thursday night into Friday. You were woken by the smell of breakfast cooking. 

Still half asleep you said, “Oh god he’s going to burn the apartment down.” You quickly hoped out of bed. Wearing his clothes already, you grabbed a pair of socks out of his drawer, of course, and headed towards the kitchen.

As you walked out of the bedroom, the morning light streamed through the windows of the apartment. The clinking of plates and kitchen utensils filled the room. Your eyes light up at the sight in front of you. 

Pancakes, fruit, freshly brewed coffee, and the biggest bouquet of red roses you’ve ever seen. Balloons tied all around the apartment. A gift box in the middle of the kitchen island. And Abbott standing there smiling at you, ear to ear. His silver curls shined in the rising sun beaming through the shades. Still in the same clothes he went to sleep in. White t-shirt and gray boxers. 

God, how are you going to get through the day with him looking like that? You thought to yourself. 

“What’s all this for?”

“Haha you’re so funny.”

“I got jokes too. But really, happy anniversary to my favorite guy on the planet. I love you.”

“Happy anniversary babygirl. Love you more than you know.”

“Homemade breakfast? On our anniversary? You really are a professional at this ‘romance’ thing huh? Why do I feel like there’s more going on here than just pancakes?”

Next thing you know his hands were on your neck pulling you for a kiss. It was passionate. The type of kiss you don’t want to ever stop. But he pulled away first.

“I wasn’t done with you.” You said. 

“You’ll get more later, don’t worry.”

“You’ve outdone yourself already Abbott”

“Still Abbott huh?”

“Maybe you’ll earn your name back by the end of the day.”

“Oh, I plan on it.” In a lowered tone, “I’ll be hearing it nice and loud tonight.” Again with that smirk.

“What did you just say?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Oh you heard him loud and clear. You just wanted him to say it directly to you.

“Here.” He picked the gift box up off the table and handed it to you. “Just a little something to start the day with. Don’t worry, there’ll be way more later.”

You unwrapped the box slowly. A small jewelry box. Oh shit, this better not be a ring right here, right now.

You opened it. A necklace. Golden with his initial and birthstone.

“So everybody knows that you’re mine. Needed you to have something special, something you can keep close to your heart.”

“Oh my god. Put it on my right now.”

You took the necklace out of the box, handed it to him and turned around. He brushed your hair out of the way, gently rubbing the back of your neck. Shivers went down your back. You could feel him just centimeters away from you. Nothing separating your bodies except the thin fabric. 

God you were touched deprived.

You turned back around to him while holding onto the necklace. “I love it Jack.”

“Ah, I get my name back.” He smiled.

“For now at least.” You tilted your head at him.

“Wait let me go grab your gift!” You ran back into the room to get his present.

"Whispering as low as he could get, "I'll be hearing my name loud from you tonight." You could here him laughing from the kitchen.

"What did you just say?", you yelled from the bedroom. No response.

“Here!” You were so proud to hand it to him.

Two small boxes. “Which should I open first?

“This one! Not as poetic as your gift but just open it."

He opened up the box to reveal the watch.

“Holy shit!” He looked up at you. “You shouldn’t have.”

“New salary is treating me well I guess. Take it out! Look at the back!”

He took it out of the box to see the dates engraved. The day you met and the day you started dating. 

“I figured no matter where you go, you’d have a little piece of us with you. Plus, I just thought it’d look amazing on you."

“Can’t wait to show this off at work.” He immediately put it on his left wrist.

“Well, just don’t get blood all over it though. Come on open the other one!”

This one with a last second buy when you were leaving the jewelry store. A chain to perfectly match the watch. You’d been telling him since you got together how good he’d look with one on but, he never got one.

“I guess great minds think alike huh?” He winked at you. “Well now you have to put it on me.” He handed it to you and turned around. As quietly as he possibly could, he muttered, “You’ll be seeing this up close later.”

“Why the hell do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?” He laughed.

“Mumbling under your breath! It’s driving me crazy! What did you just say?”

“Are you going crazy? I didn’t say anything!”

Rolling your eyes at him you said, “So, now what’s the plan Abbott?”

“Really with the Abbott again? Really?”

“Stop mumbling and speak up then.”

“Well the plans don’t start until later, so I just want us to spend this time together, enjoying each other’s company, away from all other distractions.”

“Sound perfect to me!”

The day went on, spending time watching each other’s favorite movies, listening to music while dancing around the apartment. Time slipped away with him. 

He stretched as he got up off the couch, “Should probably start getting ready now.”

You went to shower first. Then he went. 

“So where’s this special outfit?”

“I left it hanging on the closet door. Shoes are in there too. Let me just go grab my clothes and then you can get dressed in there and I’ll get dressed out here.”

You went into the bedroom and took the dress out of the bag it was hanging in. 

“Abbott!”, you ran out into the living room where he was getting changed.

He was pulling up his black dress pants, blue briefs underneath. Leaving no room for imagination and showing you everything you have been missing. Zipper, button, and belt all still undone. His undershirt was still lying over the couch. You’d seen him shirtless all the time but, right now, your mind began to wonder. 

You licked and bite your lip not realizing that you were just staring at his bare chest. His hand slid into his pants to straighten out his briefs. 

“Did you come here to say something or just to see me half naked?”

You were able to rip your eyes away from his body for just one second. “Both apparently. Uhm when did you find the time to go get this?” You held up the dress.

It was dress you saw a woman wearing a few weeks earlier and became obsessed with, even asking her where she got it from. White with blue flowers, thin strips, open in the back, slit down the right leg. You never found the time to go see it in person. But he did. 

“I knew you wouldn’t go back for it. So I did. The day after you first saw it. Figured it’d be perfect for the occasion.

You turned around to start walking away. “Well you’re gonna be taking it off me tonight.” You whispered. 

Abbott started laughing. “What’d you just say to me?”

“Nothing!” You ran into the bedroom and shut the door behind you. 

Since he decided to surprise you wet the dress, you put on a surprise for him underneath. 

He even laid out your white sandals with a slight heel. He was still a whole head taller than you. 

“Can’t believe we’re finally going out. I’ve been looking forward to this all week."

Glancing over at you, grinning, “Wow, you look incredible, I think I’m going to have a hard time keeping my eyes off you tonight."

Laughing lightly, turning to face him, “Oh really? Well, I might need to make sure you’re paying attention to where we’re going, because you might get distracted."

He stepped closer, lightly touching your arms, “I think I’ll be okay but I might need a little reminder of how lucky I am to have you by my side." "Well, I’m lucky to have you too. Just don’t be surprised if I end up stealing all of your attention tonight.”

His eyes on you "Trust me, it won’t be hard. I don’t think I could ever take my eyes off you."

"Let’s see if you still feel that way after a whole night.”

He looked down at the time on his new watch. “Shit, we better get going to make the reservation. You might want to take a sweater or something, probably going to be a little chilly out later tonight?”

“Oh, so you’re going to take me somewhere outside then?”

“You’re killing me babygirl.”

“Let me go grab something then.”

You ran back into the bedroom, opening the closet door. Scrambling for one specific item. Putting your arm all the way in you found it. 

The Beers of the Burgh zip up sweater. 

Jack shoved it all the way in the back corner of the closet after your assault, making sure you wouldn’t have to see it. But you were ready to wear it again tonight.

“Okay, I’m ready!”

“What is that?”

You walked up to him and held out the sweater.

“Are you sure?”

“I feel completely safe with you Jack. I’m ready to fully move past it.”

He gave you a light kiss on the cheek, “Let’s go then babygirl.”

All the way down to the car, you pestered him to tell you where it was exactly you were going. He wouldn’t budge. 

“Maybe I’m taking you somewhere completely unexpected. I guess you’ll just have to trust me."

Laughing, playfully narrowing your eyes, “I do trust you more than anything, but now I’m really curious. Should I be excited or nervous?"

He smiled mischievously, “Definitely excited. Trust me, you’re going to love it. But I promise, it’s not whatever you’re thinking."

You leaned back in the seat, raising an eyebrow "You’re making me even more curious now. Are we going somewhere fancy? A secret restaurant? Or are you about to whisk me off to a secret adventure?"

"Maybe a little bit of everything. But tonight is about enjoying the surprise and you’re going to have the time of your life.”

Excitement took over your body. "Okay, okay, I’m all in. I guess I’ll just enjoy the ride and see where it takes me."

He reached over and giving your hand a squeeze "That’s the spirit. I can’t wait to see your face when we get there."

He parked the car and you finally underwent he was excited for you to find out the surprise. 

“Wait, is this the place? Oh my fucking god Jack! This is the place I’ve telling you about for months now!”

Smiling and glancing over at you, "Yeah, this is it. I knew you’d love it. Trust me, you’re going to be impressed."

“I talked about it so much but never even looked at their menu!”

"You’ll find out soon enough. All I’m saying is, they have some of the most interesting dishes. I couldn’t wait to bring you here."

Holding out his hand to you, “Come on, let’s go inside. And I promise, this is just the beginning of a perfect night."

You took his hand with a smile, "Okay, I’m officially excited. If the food is half as good as the surprise, we’re in for a treat."

You’ve were seated at an elegant table inside the restaurant, and you’re both soaking in the ambiance.

You looked around, amazed, "Wow, this place is gorgeous! I can’t believe you got a reservation here! They literally have a Michellin star Jack!”

Smiling as he watched your reaction. "I’m glad you like it. I thought it would be the perfect spot for tonight. I wanted the night to feel just as special as you are.”

Looking at him with a soft smile you said,  "You really know how to make a girl feel special. I’m already having the best time, and we haven’t even started eating yet."

Softly laughing, “That’s the plan. Just wait until the food comes, trust me, it’ll make the night even better."

“If the food is as good as the surprise, I’ll be asking you to pick all our date spots from now on."

“I’m happy to take that responsibility if it means making you smile like this all the time.”

After spending 3 hours in the restaurant, you could see the sun beginning to set outside.

"That was absolutely incredible. I can’t believe you did this. It was perfect!”

“I’m glad you liked it. But, the night’s not over yet. There’s one more surprise I’ve got in store for you."

Your eyes widened. "Wait, another surprise? I’m not sure I can handle any more excitement tonight Jack!”

“You can handle it, trust me. I promise you’re going to love it.”

“God, I hate surprises but, I think you’re beginning to change my mind.” 

He took your hand as you walked out the door. “Good. You deserve it. Just wait  it’ll be worth it at the end”

Right before he opened the car door for you, he stopped. 

“I need you to do something for me first.”

“I’m listening.”

“I need you to put this on.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a long strip of black fabric.

“A blindfold? Really Jack?”

“I’ll be worth it. I promise you. Trust me babygirl.”

“Fine but, you have to put it on me.”

You turned around. He reached around and gently tied it. He whispered , “Maybe we can use this later.”

You turned around to face him, and bit your lip. “I don’t know how you can top any of this, but I’m ready to watch you try.”

You could feel him smiling confidently as he opened the car door and guided you inside. His hands gliding across your body sending shovers down your spine.

“You’ll see soon enough. Trust me, this one’s going to be unforgettable."

He drove for what felt like forever. 

“Are we there yet? People are going to think you’re kidnapping me!”

“Perfect timing, we’re here.”

He put the car in park and turned it off. 

“Can I take this off now please?”

“Not yet. Let me come around and help you. Take your sweater, it got pretty cold out.”

“Jack, I swear if I walk into something-“

“I got you babygirl, don’t worry.” He held his hand on your lower back which was left exposed from the dress. You both walked a short distance from the car. Breeze slowly past you.

“We’re here.”

He stood in front of you, reaching his hands slowly around you to untie the blindfold.

You blinked hard to refocus your eyes. You looked to your left and right smiling. “You know when you said we were going somewhere special I didn’t exactly have the hospital in mind.”

You were standing at the entrance to the emergency department.

“Do you remember the first time we met?”

“The day you told me my excitement to be here would be short lived? I’ll never forget proving you wrong.”

“You know,” he took a deep breath, “I was struggling to come back here day after day, loss after loss. I wasn’t seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Not until you walked in and brought the sun with you into every shift. You’ve become my favorite part of every day. Even the hard days feel lighter with you in them. So yeah, this place will always be special. It’s the place where I found my forever. “

You went up on your toes to kiss him.

“Come on let’s go for a walk.” He grab your hand and lead you across the street into the park. After walking the path for about 20 feet, you saw tea light candles on both sides of the path with flower petals in between. 

You stopped right in your track. Tears already filling your eyes. Face becoming warm. 

“Jack, what is this?”

He smiled softly as you. “Come on. Let’s keep going to our spot. Want to show you something.”

You kept walking until you reached the middle of the path by the bench you two had sat on when he asked you to be his girlfriend. A bouquet of red roses sat on the bench in front of you.

“This is where I made you my girlfriend. And where I told you I loved you for the first time. Felt like the right spot to do this next part too.”

He pulled out a small piece of paper from his pocket. “You know, I did have this whole speech planned but, things never go according to plan anyway so…” 

He crumbled up the paper and shoved it back into his pants pocket. 

And lowered himself down onto one knee. 

“Two years ago today, we walked into this park as friends and left as a couple. Everyday since then has made me the happiest man on earth. You’ve been my partner in everything, my safe place, my challenge, my home. My forever. 

Tears filled your eyes as your hand covered your mouth. “Jack”, you said as your voice broke.

“You’ve taught me more than being a doctor ever could. You showed me that love isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s quiet. It’s in the way you look at me when you think I’m not watching, the way we laugh at things no one else would understand. It’s in how we argue, but always come back to each other. You’ve taught me what real love is. You make me brave. You make me a better man. And I want to spend my whole life figuring out how to love you even more than I already do. I’ve seen so many versions of happiness in my life but none come close to what I feel when I’m next to you The more I think about it, the more certain I become.”

Tears streamed down your face.

 “So I guess I just have one question for you.”

He slowly reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small red box. With his hands shaking, he opened it gently. He revealed a simple yet elegant ring.

“Will you do the absolute honor of marrying me?”

A mixture of awe, laughter, and happy tears beginning to fill the space between you. You fell into his arms as he knelt before you. Wrapping your arms around him and letting the full weight of your body lean into him. 

He leaned back, “Is that a yes?”, he said laughing.

“You could’ve asked me this the day we met and I would have said yes and 2 years later, the answer is still yes! I’ll always choose you Jack”

Still both kneeling on the cold, hard ground in each other’s arms laughing, crying, holding each other like no one else exists in the whole world.

He gently placed the ring on your finger. The outside world distant, everything had stopped except for you and him. The promise of a future.

He lifted you up and held you in his arms. You could stay in this moment forever. You glared down at the ring in full for the first time since he opened the box.

“I wanted it to be perfect. I spent weeks choosing it. Even brought Robby to the jewelers with me. I know it’s not just about the diamond or anything but I wanted you to have something that felt as special as you are to me.”

You couldn’t peel your eyes off of it. Slowly turning the ring on your finger, mesmerized by its beauty, feeling the weight of it, both literally and metaphorically.

“You picked the perfect one. Not just the ring. This whole night. Just you and me here together”

You took a deep breath you looked up into the cloudy night sky. A slight breeze flowing in between you both. Taking in the full moment for all its worth.

You heard more then just the wind rustling in the trees, before you could even realize what was happening, all your favorite people appeared. 

Robby, Collins, Langdon, Mel, residents, nurses, at least a dozen people closest to you two.

“Surprise!” You heard it from every direction possible. Cheers for the both of you. 

“You two are going to be so great together. You know we’ve all been rooting for you since day one, right?” Mel yelled excitedly. 

Hugs from all around for you both. You lost track of just how many people he brought to support you.

“Come on let’s see that rock!”

You put your hand out for everybody to see. Thankfully, you got your nails done earlier that week. The ring catches the moonlight just right, a subtle sparkle, not flashy, but full of meaning. Love. The kind of shine that doesn’t scream for attention but, the type that draws eyes to it.

“You did good.” Robby put his hand on Jacks shoulder. “Really good brother.”

You lost track of time as everyone was gathering in conversation. Almost everyone had left for the night already.

You saw Langdon standing off to the side and walked up to him. 

“So you did know huh?”

“Of course I did.” He nudged your arm, “Make sure you ask him about that note he put back in his pocket. You’re going to want to hear it.”

“I will. So, who are you going to be bringing to our wedding?”

He glanced down at you with a slight smile. “Mel.”

You started jumping up and down. Almost as excited as you were just earlier. “Oh my fucking god! I know it! I knew it this whole time!”

“Yeah I knew that you knew. That’s why I never explicitly said it.”

“Langdon, oh my god. I’m so happy for you two! She’s so good for you!”

“Trust me, I know.” He looked over at her smiling. “You’re not mad that I didn’t tell you about any of this? Or about her?

“I’ll never be mad at you Langdon. Jack might be my person but, you’ll always be my best friend."

“I’ll take second place I guess.”

“Mind if I steal her away for a moment?” Robby came up from behind him and put his hands on his shoulder.

“She’s all yours Robby.”

“You knew about all of it huh?” You glared over at him. 

“He unfortunately tells me everything.” You two laughed. “But on a more serious note you both deserve all the love in the world, and I can’t think of any two people better suited for each other. Watching this chapter of your lives has been a pleasure and I’m excited to see what comes next for you two.”

“Thank you Robby. It really means the world coming from you. I’ll always appreciate you and everything you do for us both.”

Jack and Collins came up to you two.

“Let the man have some time with his fiancé, Robby.” Said Collins while intertwining her arm into Robby’s.

“Uh fine. Congratulations to you both again! Excited already for the wedding.”

You exchanged hugs with them and they were off. 

“You put the sweater back on?” Jack looked down at you. 

“Makes me feel like I’m wrapped in your arms. And there’s no safer place in the world Jack.”

“Come on, let me get my fiancé home.” Jack winked and wrapped his arm around you. 

You grabbed your flowers off the bench before realizing that all the flower petal and lights were gone.

“Dana picked them up, gonna get them back Monday night. Could use them at the wedding for something.”

“Jack.”

“Yeah?”

There’s a short silence, just looking at each other. The mood shifts more tender, more intense. 

You put your hands onto his chest before crashing your lips into his. Hard. Lips moving rhythmically around each others. Desperate, aching, like you’ve both been holding your breath for years waiting for this moment. 

When suddenly you feel water dripping onto your face. It’s starting to rain.

“Could not have planned that out better if I tried.” Jack laughed. 

The walk back to the car was peaceful. Just you two in each other arms. The way it’s supposed to be. Rain falling around you.

Streetlights flash across the windshield. The silence is heavy. The tension during the car right home could be cut with a knife. He kept his left hand on the steering wheel and his right hand in yours softly caressing your thumb. Every chance he got he glanced over at you.

The ring still shines faintly as his hand is in yours. Rain tapping lightly on the windshield.

“Do we think the rain is good luck?”

“Maybe it’ll rain on our wedding day too.” You turned your head to see him smiling softly. “So fiancé, you got anything else special planned for tonight?”

“I could tell you or I could show you.”

The tension from the drive followed you too all the way upstairs. It didn’t snap, it deepened, filling the empty space all around you.

As soon as the elevator doors closed, he immediately turned around. His hands wrapped around your neck as your hands went up to his chest. He pinned you against the wall as his lips crashed into yours. Tongues swirling in each other mouths. Moans filled the elevator until the ding that you had arrived to your floor. He quickly pulled himself off of you. 

He pulled away breathless, panting already, he ran his hands through his silver curls. 

“Fu- fuck, let’s go before I rip your clothes off right here.”

As soon as you both stepped off the elevator, he stopped. 

“I can’t believe that I get to marry my best friend.” 

“Thought Robby was your best friend?”

“Oh you beat him for that title within a week of us meeting. Now come on, I got to give my fiancé what she deserves.”

He wrapped his arms all the way around you and threw you over his shoulder. You kicked your feet up into the air. 

“Oh my god, fucking finally! Yes!”

He carried you down the hall to the apartment door, fighting with the keys in his pants pocket to get into the apartment as quickly as he possibly could. Finally behind closed doors.

Before you know it his jacket hits the floor, shoes kicked off lazily, fingers tracing familiar lines around each other bodies Every movement is slow and deliberate, not just passion, but raw intimacy. The kind that screams, I want all of you and I’m not going anywhere.

“God you look so fucking good in this dress but, I need you out of it right now. Fuck”

He grabbed your hand and lead you into the bedroom. 

“Let me see what I’ve been missing out on.”

He pulled your body against his as his hands slid behind you untying the dress, never breaking eye contact. He gently pulled the straps on your shoulders down around your arms. Underneath a surprise. 

Not only did you go and buy him a gift earlier that week, you stopped at the lingerie store to pick up something extra special. A red set. Lace. Tightly wrapped all around your body. 

He trailed his fingers down the fabric on your stomach. “Fuck, you’re driving me insane already babygirl.” You watched his eyes roam your body, up and down as you unbuttoned his shirt, getting down to his belt buckle.

Hands went to your waist, pushing you back against the bed. Wrapped his arms around you, lifted you up, and threw you down onto the bed. His eyes went dark. He was starving for something only you could give him.

He stood at the edge of the bed, undid his own belt, pulling his pants off in a hurry. Tight black briefs that showed his excitement. He ripped off his socks before crawling on top of you. 

Fingers tracing every inch of your body. You squirmed under his touch. 

As he came face to face with you, you whispered, “Take me.” 

He hand slid effortlessly underneath you, untying your lingerie. Sliding in fully off your body as if he’s done it a million times before.

He lightly kissed you before making his way down around your neck as his hand began to explore your body. You felt his hand on your stomach, instinctually, you open your legs for him. 

“That’s my good girl.” You threw your head back letting a soft moan leave you as he sucked on your collarbone. You felt his hand go lower. 

“Jesus fucking christ, so wet for me already. He growls lowly, the possessive need in him taking over him completely. 

“Been waiting for you all night.” You panted out. 

“Is that right?” He didn’t hesitate, his middle finger was inside of you. 

“Oh fu-fuck Jack. Please.”

“Patience my sweet girl. You’ll get what you need soon enough.”, He leaned into your ear, “We’re going to do this how I say. You’re going to finish on fingers, then on my tongue, then we’re going to finish together.”

His fingers slid easily through your juices as he began sucking on your breasts. Gently biting your nipples. Fingers curled inside of you while his thumb did circles around your clit. The sensation of his breath against your skin made your head spin, the anticipation building as he curved his finger into you, finding that spot that drove you wild. 

Before you knew it, another finger was inside of you. The sounds of your wet pussy filled the room. He knew exactly what spot to hit each time. 

“Ja- Jack, I’m gonna, I’m gonna-“

“Give it to me babygirl. Cum on my fingers.”

You arched your back as your legs began to shake under the pleasure. There were sounds leaving your body you didn’t know you could make. 

“There we go, that’s my girl.”

You let go completely. A wave of pleasure took over your entire body. Your first of many orgasms tonight. His fingers still inside of you, slowly moving. 

“Gotta taste her now.”

“Fuck Jack, ju- just give me a second.” Legs still trembling, you struggled to catch your breath. You covered your face with both hands. Embarrassed that you were already struggling to keep up with him. 

“Damn you missed me that much huh?”

You didn’t respond.

“Are you alright?”

“Fuck I can’t believe I can’t keep up with you and your like twice my age.” You laughed. 

He grabbed both arms off of you dragging them to your sides before wrapping his left hand around your neck. His veins in his hand bludging out. You look down to see his new gold watch. What a good idea. 

“First of all, I’m not twice your age. Second, I know what my girl needs and how to give it to her.”

You glared up at him, chain dangling right in front of your face. You bite your lip and said, “Oh god, just shut up already and clean the mess you made.”

“Anything for you sweetheart.”

Before you knew it, he was leaving a trail of saliva down your body. Kissing every inch of your body. “You want this?”

You grab his hair and pushed him down into your cunt. His lips latched onto your clit, sucking hard, sending a jolt of electricity through your body. Your fingers tangled in his sliver hair, gripping tightly as your legs trembled, and he groaned again into you, the vibration making you whimper.

"God, I could stay here forever.”, He mumbled against you. “This pussy is all mine tonight. You feel that? You hear that? This pussy's mine."

You could hear slurping sounds as he devoured you, his mouth greedy and desperate as if he’d been starving for this moment forever. Your breath came out in gasps, moans, your whole body burning under his relentless attention to you and your ever need and desire. 

Your body began to pull back from him. He reached up and grabbed your hands, pulling you back into him. 

“Where do you think you’re going sweetheart?”

“Fucking hell, Jack, ah Jack!” You wrapped your legs around his body. “Oh my god!”

Once again, he sent an orgasm crashing through your entire body. Leaving you gasping for air as he crawled back up to you to admire his work. 

“Come here, want you to taste yourself for me.”

He crashed his lips onto yours, shoving his tongue all the way into the back of your throat. 

He pulled off of you, “You need a second before we keep going?”

“No but, you’re going to when I finish with you.”

You pushed him off of you and onto his back. You leaned in, brushing your hand softly, over the strain in his briefs, the curve of seven-and-a-half inches compacted against the fabric of his briefs. 

“Lets get rid of these.” You pulled his briefs down to see his cock springing out, slapping against his stomach. You were drooling for him. 

You grab him with one hand and spit on it. Rubbing your saliva up and down his already throbbing cock.You kiss the tip before sucking on his head. 

“Just like that sweetheart, keep going for me.” Seeing Jack beg was a rare occurrence and you were eating it up. “Fu- fuck, oh god please.”

You pulled your mouth off and grabbed his cock with your hands, feeling every vein in him pulse against you. 

“You gonna finish for me baby?”

He grabbed all your hair in one hand. “Put me back in your mouth right now and I’ll show you.”

You moaned onto his member, fighting the urge to swallow him whole and suck every last drop of his cum out of his cock. You brought your hand to his balls, gently squeezing them, making him push himself further down your throat.

“Sh-shit, I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum!” He pulled your hair tight, letting out noises that you’ve never heard from him before. He came hard, shooting himself into your mouth. You bobbed your head up and down once more before crawling up to him, his cum dripping from the corner of your mouth dow not your chin. You wiped yourself with your thumb and sucked on your fingers while he watched. 

“You taste so good for me.” 

“Fucking hell babygirl.” 

“Yeah? You need a second?”

“Fuck no.” He flipped you over with no hesitation. Like you were nothing to him. The weight of his body fully on top of you. His sweat mixing with yours.

“Remember, I stopped taking my birth control Jack.”

“I don’t fucking care, I need to feel myself inside of you right now. I’ll go slow,” he promises, lips kissing yours, “You won’t have to worry about a thing babygirl. You just tell me if it’s too much.” Your heart flutters at his words. 

He holds his frame above you, both arms holding himself up around you. You can feel the heat radiating off his body, and you want it closer.

You lift your mouth and kiss him, his tongue licking the insides of your mouth. His hands move down your body, knees digging into the mattress to keep himself steady.

“Tell me you want this.”

“I want you to fuck me Jack. Please. I need you inside of me.”

One hand reached down to grab his cock. He positioned himself at your entrance, slowly sliding just the tip in. Your moans filled the room as he slid further into you. 

In and out. Your body’s syncing up perfectly as he thrusted himself all the way inside of your soaking wet pussy. You dug your nails into his back. You threw your head back, closing your eyes as he pounded himself into you. His balls slapping against you with every thrust. 

He wrapped his hand around your throat once again. “You want me to keep going, you better keep those pretty fucking eyes on me.”

You opened your eyes to find in staring into you. His eyes dark. His chain swinging in front of you, hypnotizing you. 

He leans his head back, almost like he's fighting the orgasm, trying to make the moment last as long as his body will allow. 

“Fuck, baby, you're going to make me cum," he groans.

"Want you to cum, Jack. Want you to fill my pussy," you whine. Your words whimpering, practically begging, music to his ears. 

"You want me to fill you up babygirl?” his hands tighten their grasp around your neck. "You want me to cum inside you?”

“Please Jack, I need it. Put a baby in me," you say, not even thinking twice about it. You need him, all of him.

“You want me to breed you, babygirl? You want me to fill you up and give you a baby?"

As your whimpers gets louder he takes your hand and guides to your lower belly, pressing together with his hand on the place where his tip bulges from inside of you.

“Ah, fuck babygirl, come on, cum with me.” 

“Ja-Jack, oh god!”

He fall onto your body, his thrust became sloppy as he groaned into your ear. His breath hot against your flesh.

With his last thrust, he gently kissed your lips. “You’re so good to me babygirl. There you go, so glad I finally got to cum inside you”, he places a kiss on your forehead. “Think I’m going to have to start working out more to keep up with you babygirl.”

“Wish you could just stay inside of me forever.”

“I’m sure we could arrange that.” He laughed. 

He sucked on your neck some more while you could feel his cock soften inside of you. He finally pulled himself out of you. He lowered his hand and put it on your cunt. 

“Wanna keep her full. Don’t want you to ever forget how she feels with me swimming inside of her.” He dragged the dripping cum back up before putting a finger inside you once more. You let out a loud moan before he pulled out of you. 

He threw his body next to yours and let out a sigh. “Jack, I don’t think I can even walk right now. Trust me you don’t have to worry about me forgetting who I belong to.”

“I thought about this since the last moment we were in bed together. Guess all that waiting was good for something.”

“You could let the do all the work next time, you know?”

“You got a deal babygirl. Shit, I would’ve proposed a long time ago if I knew I was going to get the best sex of my life out of it.”

You crawled onto him, resting your head on his bare chest. 

“You know, not to ruin the mood or anything but, Langdon mentioned the paper you shoved back into your pocket earlier. Don’t know if you want me to read it.”

“Yeah I figured he would.”

“So are you gonna let me read it? Is it the same thing you said tonight or?”

“Well yes and no. It’s not technically a proposal written on there. Might actually be better if you read it the day we get married.”

“You want me to wait until the day of our wedding to read it?”

“I mean, I’ll hide it if you don’t trust yourself to not read it. But please, for the love of god, don’t go around asking what’s in it.”

“No, it’s okay, I think I’m starting to like surprises now.” You laughed. 

With his crooked smile, he said, “I love you.”

“I love you too Jack. Until the end.”

———————————————————————

Six Weeks Later

You’d be feeling off the past few weeks. You chalked it up to the stress of realizing you were going to have to plan out a whole wedding while working as a full time night shift attending. And now Jack wants to go house hunting. 

“Hey! You alright in there? We gotta go before we’re late!” Jack knocked on the bathroom door. 

“Jack, I don’t know if I’m going to make it in tonight. Can you come in here please?”

He slowly opened the door, peeking his head around first. You were sitting on the floor against the shower tub next to the toilet. Fully dressed and ready to go to work.

“Jesus Christ, are you alright??” He ran up to you. 

“Well, I just threw up and feel slightly better but, this nausea is just something else right about now.”

“You think you’re alright to be going to work like this?”

“Yeah I think I’ll be fine just need to take some Zofran or something and I should be able to push through. Don’t want you guys to have to work short tonight. I don’t know maybe it was your cooking.”

“You said it was good…”, he sighed as he helped you up off the cold bathroom floor.

“I don’t know just nauseous really. That’s it. This wedding planning is going to give me an ulcer Jack.”

You somehow made it through the entire shift without vomiting on a patient. But by the time handoff came around, you were struggling just to breath. 

Once you were done, you sat at the nurses station in the corner, waiting for Jack. You put your elbows on your knees and your head down into your hands.

“God you look so pale. Don’t go passing out on me now.” He walked up to you. 

“Can you just help me to the bathroom before I throw up all over the floor please?”

He walked you over and as soon as the door was open to the single stalled bathroom, you ran inside. Swinging your arm back to shut the door before he could see you throwing up yet again.

He could hear you in there and immediately followed you inside. “Fucking hell, again. Are you pregnant or something?” 

You glared up at him, “I don’t know but, something’s wrong Jack.”

“Are you late?”

“Jack I don’t know. I’m never even regular. I don’t fucking know.” You looked up at him and wiped the cover of your mouth.

“Hey, hey, hey, calm down, we’ll be okay no matter what’s going on.”

“I think we need to go buy some tests.”

“Shit.” His eyes widening as his jaw practically fell to the floor. 

———————————————————————

Woooo! Chapter 3! Wrote most of this while watching the MET Gala looks and honestly all the hot people make it so much easier to write lol. But I really hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I loved writing it! Keep an eye out for the next chapter to find out where this one is going! ;) 

Thank you to the like 4 people that asked for more! This one is for you guys!

[noctiva]

Seeking An Immediate Response

X-Virus x F!Reader [NSFW!]

-

-

WC: 17.4k

Summary: As a college student struggling to make ends meet, an ad for a medical trial in your local newspaper promising big bucks for minimal work seems like a sign from heaven. Maybe, you should’ve read the fine print.

CW: 18+ content, explicit sexual content, dubious consent, CNC I guess??, mentions of noncon, dead dove very dead dove, use of needles and medical tools, aphrodisiacs, spit and drool, medical kink? I guess? Is there a word for that?, overstimulation, wet and messy, vaginal fingering, oral sex (male receiving), sort of kind of mocking, degradation, slight dummification, unsafe sex, hair pulling, kind of rough handling, misuse of medical equipment, coercion, dacryphilia, power dynamics, dom/sub undertones, kidnapping, again - DEAD DOVE. THE DOVE IS DEAD!!!! don’t come at me I don’t wanna hear it

-

NSFW under the cut! Minors do not interact!

-

‘Wanted: A willing participant to partake in a trial run of a drug soon to hit the market.

Driving expenses will not be covered, but any adverse reactions will be compensated for - as well as a payment of $1000 USD for every day the participant is active in the trial.

If interested, or for any further questions, contact at the email below.

Seeking an immediate response.’

You skimmed over those words for what felt like a million times over. Sat hunched over your kitchen table, the waxy feel of the newspaper you held slipped against your fingers. Your coffee cup has been abandoned, steam long dissipated, a wrinkle in your brow as your eyes traced over the letters before you yet another time.

It just didn’t seem real. Didn’t seem plausible. You had heard of instances like this before - partaking in some lab trial to earn a hefty chunk of change. Hell, your old roommate had even done it herself, spending a week at a lab getting poked and prodded at, just to return a couple hundred dollars richer.

But this? Your eyes are wide as they hone in on the dollar amount. One thousand dollars a day? Was that a typo? Or was it just a scam designed to easily lure in people like you?

People who were currently eating plain, dry bread for breakfast, because most of the weight of your paycheck had gone into student loans. It was easy for you to see the payout offered and immediately go slack jawed, a half-chewed bite of bread falling out of your mouth and hitting your dining table. If you participated for just one single day it would be enough to lift a pretty heavy weight off of your shoulders. If you participated for more than that (a week’s worth of that kind of money almost made you feel dizzy) maybe you’d actually be able to go eat out at a restaurant for once. Maybe, you’d be able to buy a brand new pair of jeans, instead of sewing up reoccurring holes in your old ones.

It was the opportunity of a lifetime. Something that seemed as if it was written just for you. Too good to be true, almost.

’A trial run for a drug soon to hit the market’. You purse your lips together. ‘Any adverse reactions will be compensated for.’ There weren’t a whole lot of details. In fact, there was really barely any. No name of the drug, no expected duration of the trial, no location or name of the company that was supposedly conducting this entire program. Just a small wall of text, barely more than a paragraph, but words picked out just meticulously to entice.

It seemed horribly sketchy. Barely any ounce of trustworthiness encoded within those words. It was almost like a taunt. Who’s going to be stupid enough to agree? Who’s desperate enough to turn a blind eye towards the jarring inconsistencies?

You. You were.

You could feel it in your bones. Taste it on your tongue. That desperation that was clawing its way up out of your chest, nearly drooling at this opportunity - dangling money over your head like you were dog on a leash too tight. It made your fingers itch, twitching and jolting with the desire to race over to your laptop and send an email as quickly as you could.

You were smarter than this. You knew you were. But desperation is the ultimate demoralizer. So, despite the clear danger, you find yourself rationalizing.

Maybe, the only couldn’t give the name of the drug due to copyright purposes.

Maybe, they didn’t name themselves because they’re too big of a company. Wanting to retain anonymity in order to not sway responses.

Maybe, that’s the same reason they didn’t give the location of the study right away.

They’d probably answer all of your questions, if you just shot them a message.

Besides, what was the harm in just… Asking? All you needed to do was satiate your curiosity a little bit. Give it a morsel to pick at, so that it wasn’t left to scratch at the bars of your mind - leaving you shaking where you sat. You don’t even know how long you just sat there, your coffee cooling beside you and your lacklustre breakfast all but completely forgotten about. Long enough for you to memorize the ad complete, having read over the words so many times that your eyes started to feel dry. You don’t even know if you’ve blinked. Breathed. Absolutely shellshocked by what the universe had decided to present you with today.

Was this fate? It had to be. Maybe, god had seen you struggling, and decided to extend a hand out towards you. All you had to do, was take it.

You don’t message back right away. You fold the newspaper back up on your kitchen table, pour out your freezing cup of coffee into the sink, and do your dishes. You walk back to your room, go through your closet, and find a comfortable outfit to wear for your classes that day. Brush teeth, brush hair, make sure you have a pair of headphones in your bag before you leave. Going through the motions of the day, actions that you’ve repeated so many times that you feel as if you’re on autopilot.

On a normal day, but today its increased tenfold. You barely even feel mentally present as you tug a pair of jeans over your hips, eyes far away and foggy as you stare blankly at yourself in the bathroom mirror while brushing your teeth. You just couldn’t stop thinking about it. At the vagueness of that message. Of the opportunities you’d be presented with if you went ahead and did it.

On your walk to class you’re doing math in your head of how much wiggle room you’d be left with if you sent half of the money over to paying for your schooling. Maybe, you could just keep all of it and continue sending over your paychecks instead. Maybe, if you kept finding listings like this you could just… Quit.

In class, you’re worse. Your professors words aren’t even reaching your ears. Just a monotonous drone that barely even sounds like the English language as you sit stewing in your thoughts. Maybe you could buy that nice sweater you saw when you were out window shopping last week. It was only $100 - that was barely a dent. You could fill your cart at the grocery store too! Fill it to the brim with items you’ve had to pass up on time and time again because they just didn’t make it into the budget. Fresh meats, ice cream, the good bread that’s nice and fluffy instead of stale before you even get it out of the bag.

By the time your classes are over for the day, you’ve all but convinced yourself. It’s just hard not to. Not to think about how much better your life would be if you participated. How quickly your quality of life would raise just but barely lifting a finger.

When your old roommate did it, all she had to do was let herself get pricked with a needle once and she was rolling in cash. You could only assume it would be a similar situation for you, and the idea of that is pretty much the definition of enticing. Free money. You’re being offered free money. And a lot more than you had seen other people make from something like this in the past.

Maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe the risk is higher.

Regardless, you’re pulling your laptop out of your bag mere minutes after stepping back through the front door of your apartment. Kicking off your shoes lazily, you scurry over to your couch with such urgency that you nearly trip over your rug. But, you make it, stanching the newspaper off of the kitchen table where you left it before you flop down onto the worn cushions. With your laptop perched in your lap, your flip the paper back open to the page where you had first seen the ad. Right at the back, squished in with a whole bunch of other advertisements that had paid to be there. So unassuming. No pictures, or logos, just text. Easily skipped over.

But not by you. You’re typing up an email in record time, eyeing the email address printed to make sure you get it correct.

’To whom it may concern,

I came across your listing for a medical trial in my newspaper, and I’m very interested in participating.

Could I ask for a few more details? Are there any specific requirements for being in the trial? What sort of drug is it? Any known side effects?

And, who are you exactly? A research company, or is this a university study?

Regardless, I’m interested. I could really use the money haha’

You’re not quite sure why you tacked on that last little line at the end, but it must’ve been your desperation seeping through. A little bit of candidness in the hopes that whoever was reading your response would realize that they were talking to a real, living and breathing human. Hopefully, that would encourage them to be just as honest with you as you were being with them.

You hit send, and let out a deep breath. Again, no harm in just simply asking.

Knowing not to expect a response right away, you set your laptop on the coffee table before you and stand up once more. Socked feet padding against carpeted flooring as you mosey over to your kitchen, searching for something to warm your stomach after a full day of stress and overthinking. You already know what you’ll be eating, and one quick look within your cupboard confirms that notion.

Instant noodles, again. God, you really did need that money. Hungry, but your appetite is barely excited to be fulfilled with the same damn meal you’ve eaten for weeks on end. You can taste it on your tongue before you even make it. Bland noodles. Broth that has far too much salt in it. A sprinkling of dehydrated vegetables that turn to mush the moment they meet the water.

And yet, you pull out a pot anyway. Fill it with water life you’ve done so many time before. Set it on the stovetop and turn the burner on to high heat because of your impatience. Monotony. Something that might just be fixed if you can get a little bit more cash in your pockets.

Money wasn’t everything, and you knew that, but it sure as hell helped.

The water barely comes to a simmer before you hear your laptop chime. Almost too soon to be from who you were hoping it would be, and yet you’re racing back over to the couch immediately - fuelled by hope and desperate desire. Knowing its pathetic, but not caring in the least. The more you thought about it, the more you knew you needed it. The more you hated the situation you found yourself in. The more you wanted something better.

And maybe, life decided to be on your side for once.

Sitting in your inbox, bold lettering that makes you eyes widen to an almost painful degree.

’Drug trial inquiry.’

You click on the message so quickly it makes your finger cramp, the meal you had been cooking completely forgotten about even as the pot on the stove reaches its peak. Steaming and sputtering drops of water over the edge, but you couldn’t care less. You were too busy obsessing.

’Hello, thank you for your interest in our study.

No specific requirements are required for the trial, besides wanting someone between the ages of 18-24, with no pre-existing medical conditions,

Do you meet those perimeters? We’d love to meet you if you do.’

That was all it said. Short and sweet, only answering one of the five questions you had inquired about. And the one they picked, required the least amount of information to be leaked. It was avoidant. Barely professional. It made goosebumps rise on your arms and trickle down to your fingertips, which had begun to tremble.

Everything just seemed… Wrong. Too much money, too little information. Too good to be true. So many warning signs. Like they were giving you ample time to see that this was a trap just lying in wait. But, they (whoever they were) had struck gold when it came to you, because you were just too curious.

Just too desperate.

‘Hi,

I do meet those requirements, but you seem to have missed the rest of my questions? Do you think you could clarify on those fronts? I’d much rather know what exactly I’m getting into before I take the plunge.’

You type out the message with a frown tugging at your lips, your heart thudding to a frantic beat in your chest. Your skin feels cold, head feels fuzzy. Worry and dread swirling together in your skull to create a whole new emotion - one that wreaked havoc. One that made you feel a little nauseous as you hit the send button.

One that had you needing to close your eyes and take a deep breath as you awaited a new response.

You get one even quicker this time.

Your laptop chimes again mere moments after you had sent your last message. If you had timed it, you wouldn’t have been surprised to see that it was less than a minute of wait time. Like they had been sat at their own computer, just as eager as you, just as frantic as they waited for a response.

The sirens in your brain just blared louder.

’Hello,

I did not miss them. If you’re still interested, the address below will have all of your answers.

Tomorrow, nine am sharp. No earlier, no later. If you miss your chance that is on you.’

You could throw up. You feel like you might do just that, as you sit on your couch with bated breath, your mouth feeling drier than a desert. If you were getting bad vibes before, now they were horrible. The words of that email were desperately clinging to the facade of professionalism, but it wasn’t working. Not at all. Admitting to their own avoidance of important questions. Odd ambiguity. A bad idea all wrapped up in a concise paragraph.

You don’t recognize the address. It’s not somewhere close by. Not somewhere in the city, if you had to guess. One quick google search revealed that it was far off of the beaten trail, not a single laboratory in sight as you scanned the images on street view. Nothing but dirt trails and jagged trees. The photos staticy and blurry, like they had been taken ages upon ages ago.

Like no one had been there in a very, very long time.

You gulp thickly, Swallowing back the bile rising in your throat as you try to regulate your breathing. The pot on your stove boils over, water hitting the burner and evaporating instantly. You don’t even look at it.

But you do send another email.

’$1000 a day right, that wasn’t a typo?’

Short and sweet. Just like they had been.

And even though you’re expecting now, an even quicker response sends a chill down your spine. Mere seconds after you’ve sent your own correspondence now. Like an echo of your own message, bouncing off of the walls of cyberspace and straight back to you in a fraction of a minute.

’$1000 a day. Nine am. I will be here.

Will you?’

A beckoning call. That’s what that was, and you knew it. It didn’t sound like a confirmation for an appointment, something they were scribbling down within a calendar. It sounded like a taunt.

I have what you want. Are you brave enough to come get it?

That’s what it sounded like. It sounded cruel. Sarcastic, even. Like they knew what you were going to respond with before your email even pinged on their end.

And well, you just play right into whatever sick twisted game this was. Scared, apprehensive, but hopeful. Hopeful that this was what you were hoping it would be. Something easy and quick, something that would leave your pockets heavier without much distress.

Something that you wouldn’t regret.

‘I’ll be there. I want to see the cash up front when I get there.’

You barely even get the words typed down properly, fingers flying across your keyboard like you were trying to respond before you could think about the situation fully. Hands trembling, the message is wracked with typos that you have to go back and correct, giving you one more chance to really mill it over before you bit the bullet.

This wasn’t smart. You knew it wasn’t. Everything about this - from the grandiose benefits to the strange communication with whoever was leading the entire thing. They didn’t sound like a researcher, or a correspondent of one.

They sounded like someone who was trying to trap you.

You send the email anyway. Eyes squeezed close as you hit the send button with more force than you needed to. Like you were ripping off a bandaid.

And the response you get back, just pours salt in the wound.

One word. One simple word. Packing within it more than the person on the other side of the screen could ever know. Or maybe, they did know. Maybe that’s why they said it.

‘Greedy.’

And you know right then, that you aren’t talking to someone who has your best interests in mind. You’re talking to someone who’s toying with you - tugging you around like a marionette on strings. Someone who was finding a sick pleasure in knowing that they had something you would quite possibly endanger yourself over.

Someone who was mocking you, and making sure that you knew it.

Sitting behind their own screen, probably grinning like a madman as the glow of their computer lights up their features in a cool virtual blue. Waiting for you to respond, because they know that you will, even if they only sent you one simple word. That one word was bait, the worm on a hook for a gullible little guppie like you, just taunting you with the promise of salvation. All you had to do was bite.

You do.

‘Who are you?’

You’re far past formalities, far past pretending that this was a professional correspondence. This conversation had devolved. Devolved from the fallacy of a patient and a doctor, to the king and his jester. And boy, did you sure know how to dance.

‘Who do you want me to be? A doctor? A researcher? Some undergrad student?

Does it matter, at the end of the day? You’re still going to be wishing you said yes, if you don’t. You’re still going to be sat in your shitty little apartment, wondering what you could’ve been doing instead if you had a couple more bucks in your pocket.

We both know what this is.

You, are someone so desperate for cash that you’re willing to keep talking to me even though I’m sure you’re having second thoughts by now.

I am a person looking for a participant to test something I’ve been working on, and I’m willing to pay to make that happen.

This is my last message to you. I have said to you everything that you need to know. If you want to know more then meet me at nine am.

Ask for Cody.’

The message reeked of annoyance and frustration. Like whoever this was (Cody? Is that who you’re speaking to right now?) was peeved for your undying curiosity. Growing more and more irritated at the fact that you weren’t just rolling over so easily. Receptive, clearly, but too damn nosy.

And so, they dropped the act. You hadn’t noticed it until right then - but the pronouns they had been using had switched after the first message they had sent you. “We” swapped for “I”. A slip of the fingers, maybe, but it spelled out the truth for you regardless, even more than the email you had just read did.

This was not some easy, cut and dry drug trial. This wasn’t a professional lab, with protocols to follow, and controlled environments. This was just… Some guy. Some guy searching for an ignorant slew of people to test his homemade concoction on. Like a child in his basement, mixing up ‘potions‘ for his parents to try out. You had known from the beginning that this was something fishy, but you felt far over your head now. Staring at this wall of text before you, slack jawed and wide eyed, your rumbling stomach is long since forgotten - replaced by a sickening wave of nausea that you were sure would’ve weakened your knees if you were still standing.

So bad, that you lift a hand to your mouth, as if to try and catch the vomit you could feel churning in your gut. You could feel your mouth start to water, feel a cold clamminess bead up on your palms. Your body somehow too hot but too cold at the same time. Ears ringing, the room spinning around you as you reread those same few paragraphs over and over again. Your free hand finds the trackpad and you scroll, going over each and every message the two of you had bounced between one another. The pool of dread in your gut just growing headier and headier every time you pass your eyes over what you had said. What they had said.

How they had just dropped the persona completely, once they knew that they had hooked you.

Maybe, it was your own fault. If anything, they had probably known they had gotten you from the very first message.

‘Regardless, I’m interested. I could really use the money.’ A try at honesty to gain trust, and yet all it had done was place a target on your back. From the start, it had been clear just who you were.

Someone so desperate for cash that you were willing to keep talking to them. They had read you like a damn book, front and back. Maybe you should’ve made it a little harder for them.

You barely sleep that night. You don’t eat the dinner you had been planning to. You let the water in the pot evaporate all the way down to the bottom - leaving white water stains on the stainless steel, and the ceramic of your stove top where it had boiled over. You simply shut off the burner, place the pot in the sink, and head towards your room - dead eyed and dreary. You shut your laptop, and leave it on your coffee table. Something about bringing it to bed with you that night felt wrong. Like maybe, they would be able to hear you. See you. Maybe they already had been.

How else would they have known you were messaging them from your little shoebox apartment? Assumptions, easily made, but there was such an unshakable itch of uncertainty under your bones that it felt difficult to listen to rational thoughts right now.

You had opened a can of worms that you were sure couldn’t be as easily closed. Even if you didn’t show up tomorrow, would that be the end of it?

Or had you doomed yourself, just because that dollar amount looked so delicious?

Hedonism, at its finest.

You toss and turn, your sheets feeling itchy and uncomfortable. Your pillow too stiff. The air around you too cold, but the air beneath your blankets too hot. Closing your eyes for mere seconds at a time before they’re fluttering back open again, blinking against the darkness to stare up at your ceiling. Your brain fills in the gaps of stimulation, formulating swirling shapes of colour that you know don’t truly exist, and yet you watch them anyway. Watch them twist and turn, ebb and flow. Fluctuate in shape, form, and colour.

You spend most of your night that way. Sprawled on your sheets - half of your body covered in your blanket and the other half bare - only blinking when your eyes began to burn and twitch. Honing in on the make believe, as a distraction of what you had forced yourself into in the real world.

You didn’t have to go, you knew you didn’t. You could delete all of those emails, throw that newspaper in the trash and forget it all existed. You could worry, but you doubted whoever this was would actually track you down for refusing their offer.

They had even said it themselves. ‘If you miss your chance that is on you.’

If you said no, they’d probably just find someone else. Someone just as hopeless as you, looking for salvation in places that you definitely shouldn’t.

Maybe someone worse than you. Someone who wouldn’t even ask questions. Someone who would just abide and obey, so long as they got the cheque at the end of it all.

That’s probably what you should’ve done. It would have saved a whole load of stress.

You’re still lying on your back when the sun rises. Still bleary eyed and breathing shaky when the sun starts to peek through your curtains, cloaking you bedroom in warm tones of gold and pink

The worst part, wasn’t the fact that you knew you were being toyed with.

The worst part, was that you knew you were just going to give in.

A recipe for disaster. Red blaring lights surrounding the entire interaction. The only thing positive, was the money. That damn price tag. So you had to ask yourself, was one thousand dollars the dollar amount you were going to place on your life? Was that all that you thought you were worth?

You’d like to say no, but your empty pockets were still beckoning you otherwise.

If things turned out being too strange, you’d just turn around. You could even bring that pepper spray your mom had forced you to pack when you first left for university. You could send your location to all of your friends, make sure to keep your cellphone on and close by at all times. You could take precautions.

See the cash for yourself, find out if it's all a farce or not.

And so, you do the same as you always do in the morning. You roll out of bed on the left side, drag your feet to your closet and pick out the same outfit you wear every single day. A different pair of jeans, a different hoodie, but you’d doubt that anyone who wasn’t you would be able to tell. You pull your hair up into a haphazard bun, splash a handful of cold water on your face to try and wake yourself up more, and rinse with a mouthful of mouthwash before you spit it out in the sink.

You walk to the living room and don’t spare a glance at your laptop - like it was guilty, not you. Shunning it as if it were the one who had done the damage, for it just couldn’t be you and your greedy fingers, could it?

Your phone is fully charged, and you stuff it in your bag. That, along with a can of pepper spray, and a box cutter you had kept around after you had first moved in. Two weapons that were definitely quite dinky in the grand scheme of things, but it was better to have something to benefit you than to show up empty handed. Besides, you were hoping that you wouldn’t even have to use them anyway.

You could always turn around, and forget it all happened.

You just needed something a little bit more to feed your curiosity. Once you got that, you could just go back to daily life.

And so you step through your front door, and lock it behind you. Your keys jingle as you stuff them back in your pocket, the soles of your sneakers squeaking against the linoleum flooring that made up the entryway of your apartment building. Through the hall, down the stairs, skipping the elevator because it always got stuck. Your feet were moving so quickly that you felt more so as if you were floating, rather than actually stepping on solid ground. You can barely even feel the warmth of the sin beating on your skin when you step outside - like you aren’t even truly inhabiting your own body. Just a jumble of disorganized, self-destructive thoughts and plans, so disconnected from everything else around you.

The drive is a blur.

You don’t remember sitting in your car, or setting the gps. You don’t remember driving. Don’t remember analyzing each and every minute detail of your surroundings.

You were at home one minute, and sat outside a decrepit looking building the next. Like somebody had reached within your skull and ripped out a handful of your memories.

With your car’s engine still running, you just sit there for a moment. Staring through your windshield with wide eyes and laboured breathing, in a state of both awe and complete bewilderment that you actually brought yourself here. That you actually did it. Some beast who lived within you - one who was fuelled by nothing more than greed and morbid curiosity - took the reins and tugged your body towards this… This death trap.

That’s what it looked like, at least. The building you stared at was far off of the beaten trail. Right at the end of a dirt road beginning to be covered up by grass regrowth. Bare, spindly trees surround it. The middle of spring, and yet they bare no leaves. Dead. Rotting. Hollow corpses that played the part of what they used to be.

The building itself, sends a shiver down your spine. It looks abandoned. If not, then whoever owned it couldn’t care less about upkeeping appearances. The brick of the outer walls was cracked and chipped. One window shattered, one boarded up, and the others cracked beyond all repair. Weed and shrubbery overtook practically the entire front lawn, with just one foot trail of stomped down grass cutting through all of the chaos.

Showcasing that somebody had been here. Recently at that.

Was probably in there right now, waiting for you.

A quick glance down at the clock on your dashboard made it more than clear that had to be the truth. 8:57.

Even with your brain clocked out for the greater half of the journey, you still managed to be punctual.

You’re not quite sure what it is - the time constraint, the desire for knowledge, maybe the fact that you were already here - but you find yourself pulling the key out of your car's ignition. Find yourself unbuckling your seatbelt, and opening the side door. Feeling much the same as you had just a few hours before.

Floaty. Not in control. Like you were living a dream.

If all of this went well, maybe you really would be.

You grab your bag before slamming your car door shut, slinging it over your shoulder and taking a deep breath in before you force your legs to move. Leaves and rocks crunch under the soles of your shoes. The sun is warm and yet the breeze that brushes past you still sends a shiver down your spine. The breaths you take are short and shaky, just like each step you take.

One foot after the other. Hands gripping the strap of your bag so tightly it makes your knuckles go white. You don’t even notice that you’re gritting your teeth until your jaw starts to ache.

When you reach the front door - which looks as if you could break it down with barely any effort - you don’t even hesitate. If you do, you know that you’ll just end up thinking too much and turning right on your heel.

Maybe, the issue was that you weren’t thinking enough.

Regardless, you knock. Three sharp raps against the wood, sounding so loud in the otherwise vacant scenery you found yourself in. You don’t check your phone to look at the time. If you were late at all because of all of the stewing you had been doing, then so be it. You would take that as a sign.

But of course, no sign from god. One from the devil instead.

You hear the sound of glass breaking. Muffled voices, and then footsteps. Growing louder and louder with each one. Approaching you.

You start to feel lightheaded.

When a lock clicks, and the doorknob turns, you feel queasy.

The door opens barely more than a sliver. Just enough for whoever is on the other side of it to be able to get a peek at you. You can’t see much of him. Just the side of his face and part of his shoulder, but just that is enough to unnerve you. You can’t see his eyes. Can’t see his mouth. A pair of bright orange goggles and a muzzle-esque mask hides those features from you. The sunlight glints off of the lenses of his goggles, making it impossible to try and discern what may lay below them. Even if you could, a shaggy mop of brown hair falls over his forehead and obscures them ever further.

Definitely not a researcher.

You’re not quite sure how long you just stood there staring at him. How long he stood there staring at you - neither one of you saying a word. Like some unspoken game of chicken, seeing who would crack and cave under the pressure first.

Surprisingly, it's him.

”What d-do you want?” His voice is low and raspy, muffled partially by the mask he wore. He still doesn’t open the door further, but you do notice the way his neck sharply cracks to the side before he’s letting out an annoyed grunt. “You got-gotta be pretty damn stupid to come knocking at a place like this. Even i-if you’re lost.”

”I’m not lost.” You mutter back to him, straightening your back and letting out a shaky breath through your nose. “I’m here for the lab trial? This is where the directions lead me.”

The man on the other side of the door stills completely. In fact, you’d swear he completely stopped breathing for a moment. Then, he opens the door a little further. Your eyes scan across him, his attire, cataloguing each tear and stain on the hoodie he was wearing. Some, definitely just dirt caked in deep, other were dark enough to spike a wave of panic within you. Your eyes drift back up towards his face and your mouth goes dry.

A crudely bandaged hand comes up to lift the goggles off from over his eyes, pushing them up into his hair. His eyes are darker than you’ve ever seen on anyone before, with even darker bags beneath them. His eyes are sharp. Scrutinizing. Looking more so like they belonged on a bird of prey, than a human being.

So stunned, it would be easy for him to sink his talons into you.

”L-Lab trial?” He asks, raising an eyebrow. His gaze is unblinking, making your stomach twist and turn with an uncomfortable queasiness. You don’t think you’ve ever felt so sick, so often, within such a short span of time.

You don’t answer verbally, can’t force yourself to without fear of your last meal crawling up your throat. So you just nod, hands starting to tremble where they still grip the strap of your bag. The man lets out a soft hum, seeming to think on it for a few more seconds before he opens the door completely. “Alright. Sure. L-Let me show you to the lab then.”

He lets out a snort of laughter, like he knows something you don’t, before he’s turning on his heel - clearly expecting you to follow.

You do. Through the doorway, into the darkened exterior of the building. Lighting was sparse, in the main entryway it seemed as if the only source of it was daylight coming through the windows. The floor was littered with broken glass and old pieces of scrap. Any furniture was either broken beyond further use, or stained to all hell.

You were starting to think that this man may be right. You’ve got to be damn stupid. “Who’re you he-here for?” The man asks from before you, not bothering to turn his head to meet your gaze. He walks leisurely, hands in his pockets, feet kicking up debris with each step. Through the main area, now down through a hall. Further and further from the front gate. Further and further away from your car.

You’re making a mental map within your mind of the floor plan already. Just in case you need it.

”Uh, Cody?” You try, your voice coming out much shakier and much hoarser than you had meant it to. You clear your throat and let out a little huff before continuing. “I don’t… I don’t really know. That’s the only name I was given.”

”O-Oh you’re fucked.” The man lets out a harsh laugh, a sound that rips from his lungs and splits through the air - like he just couldn’t hold it back no matter how hard he tried. “Sorry, sorry.” You can see his shoulders shake, still very clearly attempting to hold back another bout of laughter. “Yeah, C-Cody’s the guy you’re looking for alright. It’s his lab after all.”

You know you should turn around. You should turn around right now, and book it towards the entrance before you get in too deep. This guy wouldn’t chase you down, right? He wasn’t even the one who was expecting you.

And… You could probably outrun him even if he did, right? All you had to do was make it to your car.

“That right?” You mutter, lips tugged down into so deep of a scowl that it made your jaw quiver. The air around you felt stale. So much so that your lungs ached and your chest felt tight with each breath in. Everything within this building seemingly honed to make you as uneasy as physically possible. Especially the man before you, and the way his limbs spasmed and jerked in an unpredictable pattern. Joints cracking. Soft grunts slipping from his lips every now and then. “Then who are you? His assistant?” It’s a stupid question and you knew it. You were far past believing that any of this had even a semblance of professionalism to it.

But playing the game was a lot easier to stomach.

“Assistant?” The man rounds a corner and starts down a flight of stairs - skipping down the steps without an ounce of care. You can’t do the same. Your legs are trembling with each step you take, joints turning into goo as you descend lower into the maw of the beast. It gets darker. One singular lightbulb at the bottom being the light source for the entire journey down. It would be easy to trip up and lose your footing, if the man before you wasn’t so confidently leading the way - like he had done this trip a million times before. “Sure, I g-guess. I help him out here and there.” For the first time during the entire trip, he glances back at you over his shoulder. “Like right now. You w-woulda probably been standing out there for hours knocking if I wasn’t he-here. He’s deaf to the world when he’s d-down here.”

”Well, he said he was expecting me.” You breathe back out. “Nine am sharp.”

”He’s been up since four.” The man snorts before hopping off of the last step and turning towards you. “Probably d-doesn’t know what time it even is right now.” He waits for you to join him on the landing, concrete beneath your feet, before he’s reaching out to the door at the bottom of the staircase. This one looks a lot more heavy duty. Solid metal, and you can pick out at least three different sets of locks.

Stepping through that door had to be the worst idea thus far. “Crazy that the g-guy with no internal clock is trying t-to make appointments.” His hand closes around the handle of the door, and he turns it before giving it a little tug.

To your surprise, even with all of the security measures, its not locked. It gives way on the first pull. “C-Cody, there’s some girl here for ya’.”

The man steps into the room, but not before reaching out to you and taking a rough hold of your arm. He pulls a yelp from your lungs when he drags you across the threshold with him, finally answering the question you had been wondering about throughout your entire interaction.

Was he as dangerous as he looked? The strength of his grip answered that pretty quickly. Tugged into a new room, with your assailant kicking the door closed behind him, you feel as if one wrong move would have him breaking your arm on accident. (Or, on purpose? You didn’t even know anymore.) “You g-gotta start paying attention. I got my own shit to do, y’know?”

”Huh? Is it nine already, Toby?” A new voice has your head snapping in the direction of it. You had been fruitlessly struggling against the hold you had been trapped in, but that sound had your motions ceasing completely. It was soft, monotone, and smoother than silk. The exact opposite of the other man - ’Toby’, you suppose.

The differences really stop there though, because you feel as if you’re feeling double. A choppy mess of brunette hair, pushed off of his forehead by a pair of goggles with blue lenses this time. Dark circles just as prevalent, like he hadn’t slept in days.

It sure looked like he hadn’t. He was curled over a microscope, absolutely abhorrent posture in the swivel stool he sat hunched. He didn’t look up. Gloved hands switching between slides to observe, his knee bouncing absently - like his own internal metronome. “Set her on the bench and get out. Close the door behind you.”

He - Cody - spoke like you weren’t even there. Like you were an object, not a human being just like he was.

Toby seemed to find no issue with that.

”S-Sure, dick.” He snorts out an amused laugh before tugging you over to what looks to be a bed, the same kind you’d find in a doctor’s office - complete with the waxy sanitary sheet to cover the surface of it. With one rough shove, Toby’s pushing you onto it - but not before snagging the strap of your bag in your shocked stupor, ripping it from your body. “Don’tcha worry.” He laughs when you immediately shoot back up and reach for it, holding it high above your head and lifting a leg to push you backwards with his foot. “You’ll g-get it back. You just don’t need it right now. R-Right, Cody?”

”Uh huh.” Finally, the man looks up to you - bright green eyes glinting under the overhead lighting of the lab. “Stop making a fuss, would you? Toby didn't drag you all the way here against your will, did he?”

Something about his gaze paralyzes you. One look from him and you were turning to stone, your heart rate kicking up a few notches in your chest. The way he was looking at you… It wasn’t like one human to another. It was far less connected than that. As he watched you uselessly try to grab for your bag back, he looked at you with all the interest of someone watching a trail of ants scurry past.

Curious, but with no empathy behind it. Just pure, unbridled, scientific fascination.

“No.” You choke out, and lower your arms. Cody tracks each and every movement. Especially when you fold completely, and take a few steps back. Letting Toby just turn around and walk away with your bag in hand, snickering to himself as he makes off with your phone, and every single weapon you had brought to try and avoid a situation like this.

Your entire ‘plan’ was going downhill extremely quickly.

”That’s what I thought.” Cody stands, letting out a little sigh through his nose before he removes his goggles completely and sets them on the lab bench before him. Then, he’s rounding it. Approaching you. Gloved hands folded behind his back as he does so. “You decided to contact me, you decided to come here, and you decided to follow some strange man all the way down here.” He comes to stand before you, and cocks his head to the side. “You’ve got no reason to complain, do you? You could’ve avoided this all.”

He nods his head towards the bed you had sat on for a total of five seconds before leaping back up again. “Take a seat. Let’s talk.”

You barely even hear the sound of the door closing off to the side. Definitely don’t hear the sound of a lock clicking shut. It’s like he had you under some sort of spell, exuding a cool - almost clinical - form of confidence that made your entire body feel cold. You felt like a patient, just blindly believing everything their doctor says because they must know best.

You take a seat, the sheet crinkling loudly beneath you. “Good.” He doesn’t say that like a genuine praise, more so just an acknowledgment of something he had expected. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t move. Just stares down at you through his bangs, his gaze unwavering. “So, why did you come?” He asks. “You sounded awful wary over email last night.”

So it was him. This was the man who had been messaging you. Taunting you. You supposed that you shouldn’t be shocked by his apathetic attitude.

”I still am.” You murmur, fingers curling into the fabric below you. “You lied in your ad.”

”Lied?” Cody raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t lie. Everything I wrote there was the truth.” He takes a step closer, and tilts his head down a little bit. “Besides, you would’ve come even if I had, right?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “Why? Why are you here?”

His gaze is piercing. Like he’s staring through you rather than at you. Like he’s got you under a microscope, staring down at your bare essentials. Cells and all.

“I need the money.” You mutter, shifting where you sit. “Real bad.”

”Well, I bet you do.” Cody lets out a soft snort through his nose. Barely a laugh. Like a hollow imitation of one. “But that can’t be all it is, right? What’s the use in money if you won’t leave here alive?” He leans down a little bit further, and raises an eyebrow, his face still completely monotonous. Not a single change in his expression that you could pick up on. Like he was wearing a porcelain mask that would crack if his lips so much as twitched upwards. “Money’s useless to the dead, you know.” When your eyes widen in panic, his eyes flash with something you can’t quite decipher, before he’s taking a few steps backwards again.

This was a game to him. It had been from the start. “Not that I’m threatening your demise, I’m just saying. You took a pretty big risk.” He casts you one last look before turning back around and slowly walking back to his lab bench. “Just for money? I doubt that. If you’re truthful with me, I’ll be truthful with you.” You watch as he slowly peels the latex gloves from his hands, before dropping them in a wastebin right at the corner of his desk. Mere seconds later, he’s reaching into a drawer to pull out a new pair. “I’m going to ask one more time, and what you say is going to determine how easy this is for you.” He pulls the new, sterile pair of gloves on with a snap that rings through the air. “Why are you here?”

With no weapon, no phone, and no easy way to escape, what other choice did you have than to just submit? For all you knew, Toby was stood at the other side of the lab door - waiting to catch you if you tried to make a break for it.

”I was curious.” You bite out, casting your gaze off to the side. “That’s it.”

Cody stills, his shoulders tensing and relaxing where his back was turned to you. And you can’t see it, but a grin stretches across his face. Wrinkling the expression you were sure was impermeable.

”Right answer.” He hums. He rounds the lab bench once more before reaching forwards and reaching for a breaker of something you couldn’t discern. It was a cool purple tone, near fluorescent. “Curiosity is a good thing, you know? It’s what keeps humans going.” Out of a drawer, he grabs a syringe. Your breath catches in your throat. “If humans weren’t curious, we’d never have evolved. We’d still all just be mindless monkeys, picking bugs out of each other’s fur.” His nose wrinkles a little, but he shakes it off quickly. “I’m curious. That’s why I do what I do.”

”Yeah?” You watch with rapt attention as he dips the tip of the syringe into the beaker, before pulling the plunger upwards and filling the chamber with the mystery substance. “And what is it exactly that you do?”

”I study.” Cody answers shortly. Once the syringe is full to the brim, he places the beaker back where it once was. “Humans. Our reactions to things. How fragile they are.” His gaze flicks up to meet yours. “What our limits are.”

He reaches forwards and places the syringe in a holder - clearly to lie and wait for further use.

”Did you go to school for any of this?” You choke out. “Like, do you have qualifications? Or are you just some nutcase with a homemade lab?”

”Lets not start name calling.” Cody sighs softly, his lips twitching into a frown. The way he looks up at you, it’s like a disappointed parent scolding a child. Not really mad, just barely irked. “I think I’ve been pretty nice to you, can’t you do the same?”

”Not until you tell me what you’re going to do to me.” Your response is immediate. Snippy. Packed with enough annoyance to make Cody’s brow wrinkle. “What’d you just put in the syringe? Is that what you’re using on me?”

Cody pauses completely, his movements still as his gaze locks in on you. Again, he takes a moment to just stare, to analyze you, before he’s letting out a soft sigh.

He makes his way back towards you, this time wheeling his lab stool back over to you before taking a seat. He leans forwards, knees on his elbows, as he stares up at you through the messy strands of his hair.

”Yeah, it is.” He answers back to you matter-of-factly. “Want me to tell you what it does?”

Immediately, you’re nodding. You’re realizing at this point that getting pricked seemed to be unavoidable, so you’d much rather know what you’re getting into than go in blind. “It’s a… Stimulant.” He hums softly. “I don’t know, I guess you could call it an aphrodisiac. I want to see if it’s as effective on humans as it was on my rats.”

”Your rats?” You choke out, eyes wide. Definitely not what you should’ve been focusing on, out of what he just told you, but you think that dwelling on what else he had just said to you might just make you pass out.

”Yeah.” Cody lets out a soft chuckle. “My rats. Darwin and Remy. They took it like champs. Curious to see if you’d do the same.”

”What…” You shift uncomfortably on the bed, your mouth feeling extremely dry all of a sudden. It almost hurts to swallow. “If I let you,” You begin, stressing that fact, “What’s going to happen to me?”

Cody merely smiles, as if this conversation was nothing more uncommon than speaking about the weather.

“I’m not 100% sure.” He breathes back out to you, tapping his fingers absently against his knee. “That’s why you’re here, after all.” He notices the way your entire body tenses at that, and lets out a little hum. “But if I had to guess, it’ll probably go a little something like this;” He scoots his stool a little closer to you, wheels squeaking against linoleum. “You’re going to feel really hot. Feverish. Probably going to wish you could crawl out of your own skin.” His eyes stay locked on yours, watching the way they turn glossier with each word he speaks. “Your mouth is going to water. Drool accumulating like a faucet’s turned on. And then all that heat? It’s going to travel down low. Right where you want it the least.” You nearly flinch, and he smirks. “Think… A cat in heat. That’s what you’re going to be, if all goes well.”

”Why?” You choke out, scooting back on the bed a little bit to try and get away from him. “Why would you want to see that?”

”Same reason you’re here.” Cody hums back to you. “I’m curious.” He kicks off of the bed and pushes the stool backwards, sending him right at the edge of his lab bench again. “And I’ll let you know this - You can say no, but either way, you won't be going home.” He reaches behind him, snagging the abandoned syringe between his fingers and showing it off to you. “You sealed your fate, the moment you knocked on my door. I can’t just let you leave now that you know what I do here. Now that you’ve met me, and Toby no less.” Using his feet, he wheels himself back over to you. “I don’t think anyone’s ever met us and lived to tell the tale.” He snorts. “Not unless they stay.”

You feel dizzy. So much so that you need to grasp at the sheets below you as an attempt to ground yourself. You had known from the first message that this entire thing was a trap, but having it all laid out for you? There were black dots spotting your vision. “So, two options.” Cody holds the syringe between the two of you, his eyes glinting. “Let me experiment on you, and earn a couple bucks - as I said before, I’m not a liar.” You take in a shaky breath. “Or, say no, and I’ll throw you over to Toby. I can bet he’d find something useful for you to do.”

”That’s a lose-lose.” You mutter back to him softly. “I was going to use that money for student loans.”

”Well, then it's actually a win, no?” Cody raises an eyebrow. “Won’t have to pay for loans if we keep you here. You’d be gone. Off the grid.” He taps the syringe impatiently. “So? What’s the plan?�� He points the syringe towards you, and you can’t help but flinch. “I’ll warn you though, Toby’s not known for being hospitable.”

”And you are?” You bite back, narrowing your eyes.

”I’m nothing but respectful to my specimens.” He gives you a sickening smile, one that sinks into your bones like a toxin. “I’ve had Darwin and Remy around for years.”

”Your rats.” You clarify, raising an eyebrow.

”Yes, my rats.” Cody lets out a soft chuckle, and it seems as if he’s resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “I’m a good caretaker, I promise. This is a fairly ethical lab.”

“Kidnapping isn’t ethical.” You point out, lips twitching down into a frown.

”Good thing you came here of your own volition.” Cody scoots closer, hovering the syringe close to your skin. Close enough to make sweat bead up on your brow. “I’ll be nice to you, I swear it.” He murmurs. “I just want to… Document you.” He cocks his head to the side. “Will you let me? I think it’ll be worth it.”

It’s the illusion of choice. Tricking you into believing that you had any semblance of power in the matter. You didn’t. You were just a pawn to be played now.

”And there’s no chance of me leaving?” You can’t help but ask just one more time. That fact doesn’t feel real to you, won’t sink in properly. To think, that just yesterday you had your life completely planned out for you. Now, you just had to float along, playing into the whims of two clearly ill-intentioned men.

One of them seemed… A little bit kinder though. If kind was even the word you should be using in this scenario.

”There’s no chance.” Cody nods back to you. “Not alive, anyway. That’s what we do, make people disappear.” He pauses. “Well Toby does, for the most part. I just like toying with them before we throw them in a ditch.” His eyes flicker with something unhinged, his fingers tapping against the glass of the syringe. “You’re my first living specimen in a while, that’s how you know I’ll be careful. Don’t wanna break you.”

He shifts his hand, letting you feel it when he just barely scrapes the tip of the needle against your neck. Your entire body tenses up immediately, your muscles locking up in fright. “You really don’t have to be so scared, you know.” His other hand reaches up, the coldness of his latex glove cupping your face in a gentle hold. Barely even squeezing, just enough to tip your head to the side a little more. “This is probably… The least scary drug I’ve created in a long time. The fatality rate is less than 2%”

”There’s a fatality rate?” You squeak out. With the huff he lets out, you don’t even have to look to know that Cody is rolling his eyes.

”Too many questions.” He mutters. “Some of the shit you buy off of the shelf have even worse percentages, so don’t go latching onto words just because they sound scary.” His fingers give your jaw a light squeeze. “So? Say it. Yes, or no. Or I’m picking for you.”

With such a rigged outcome, you feel as if you just have to go with your gut on this one. Even though he’s quite literally holding a needle to your neck right now.

”Yes.” You mutter out the word so softly you wouldn’t have been surprised if he missed out on it completely. But, he was close enough that your whisper meets his ears like a soft breeze. Just one simple word, and yet it was the most lovely thing he had heard in a very long time. Your eyes flutter closed in silent resignation, so you can’t see it - but Cody’s lips curl up into an incredibly self-satisfied smile. Little dimples appearing in his cheeks, his eyes crinkling up at the corners.

He had known you’d say that.

”Good. You’re going to feel a slight pinch, that’s all.” That’s all the warning he gives you. After that, he’s pricking you. Piercing your skin with the needle and making sure it slides right into a main vein. “You’re probably going to feel… Tingly as it circulates.” He murmurs as he presses his thumb down on the plunger, slowly dispensing the full volume of the drug right into you. He watches in fascination, how your body just drinks up his creation - watching the fluorescent liquid disappear beneath your skin. “It’s nothing to worry about, it just means it's working.”

You can already feel what he’s talking about. Your veins feel warm. Starting in your neck at the injection site, down your arms and shoulders. Swirling in your chest, pooling in your heart to pump the rest of the way through your body. You try to keep your breathing even, even as Cody’s hands slowly pull away and the needle is dislodged from your skin, but it's incredibly hard to stay calm.

Even though Cody’s voice is soft and soothing. Speaking to you like any kind doctor would. Calm, collected, knowledgeable. Giving you any detail you’d like to know about your procedure.

Sure, he only told you once he had you trapped, but regardless.

You were counting your small wins. “Okay.” Cody pushes his stool back off of the bed frame again, wheeling his stool back over to his work station once more. He reaches over to drop the used syringe into a sharps bin, before once again removing the gloves he had been wearing. It was almost comical, the way he felt a need to change them between each and every little thing he did.

Another small win. At least he was sanitary. You wouldn’t be getting sepsis from this, hopefully. “Now’s the fun part.” Cody doesn’t grab a new pair of gloves this time, instead he reaches for a clipboard and a pen - collecting both items before wheeling back over to you. “I just get to watch you.” He grins. “How are we doing now? Feel anything yet?”

Short answer, yes. The sensation was strange. It was as if you could feel every ounce of blood flowing through your veins. Like when you drink something cold, and you can feel it travel all the way down to your stomach - giving you a pretty clear reminder that you were just a machine made of fleshy parts all working together to keep you breathing.

You were more aware of that than ever. You could feel your blood rushing around, feel your lungs expand with each breath you took. You could feel your eyelids move over your eyes with each blink, could feel your throat contract each time you swallow down the saliva that had begun to accumulate in your mouth.

But, you’re not quite sure how to put that all into words, So instead you just say,

”I feel…” You breathe out a shuddering breath, curling your fingers into the sheet beneath you. Looking up to meet his gaze, but your vision swims. Cloning the man before you into double right before your very eyes. “Jesus Christ this stuff works fast.” You gasp, before bringing one hand up to prod at your face. Rubbing your eyes to try and clear up your vision a little bit, pinching and pulling the skin of your cheeks to try and ground yourself with that sharp sting. It doesn’t work.

”Yeah, I probably should’ve mentioned that.” Cody snorts, observing your pathetic state with one eyebrow raised and an amused smile tugging at his lips. You’re shifting and squirming, unable to sit still for the life of you. Breathing so heavy you’re practically panting, but he’s sure that you don’t even realize that. There’s a flush beginning to creep onto your cheeks, so potent that it's spreading down your neck too. Sweat beads up on your brow, fingers fiddling with the hem of the sweater you were wearing. “Try and put it into words, though. Are you hot? Do you feel restless?”

”Hot.” You agree immediately, slumping forwards a little where you’re sitting. You're definitely panting - damn near hyperventilating - saliva pooling in the corners of your mouth that you have to swallow back down. It’s just replaced by more as soon as you do though. “Fuck- Can you…” You let out an involuntary whine, so disgruntled that your body barely knows what to do than to act like you are at your core - a scared little animal. “Is there AC in here?” You gasp out. “There’s gotta be, right? I feel like I’m dying over here.”

”No AC.” Cody snorts, shaking his head in amusement before scribbling something down on the clipboard perched on his knee. “In fact, it’s pretty cold in here already. Usually is.”

”You’re fucking with me.” You grit out, a shudder going down your spine as you reach up to dab at your forehead with the sleeve of your hoodie. It comes back to you drenched. “This isn’t fucking funny.”

Cody seems to think otherwise, because right after you speak he’s letting out a soft huff of a chuckle that he can’t bite back. He scribbles down something else, all whilst gnawing at his bottom lip to try and stop any other small bits of laughter from slipping out.

”I told you this was going to happen.” He hums, before meeting your gaze once more. “Why don’t you take your sweater off? You might make yourself overheat.”

If he had said that to you the moment you had walked in, you probably would’ve had a lot more fight left in you. Probably would’ve cut him a harsh glare and called him a ‘creep’ within a fraction of a second. In your current state, you’re stripping the heavy material off of your body before he can even finish his sentence.

It lands as a crumpled heap on the cool laboratory floor, and the relief is immediate. The sweat on your skin meets the air around you and cools, giving you a slight reprieve from the hell you had been enduring beforehand. Your chest is heaving with each breath, and Cody can see now that it was even worse for you right now than he had expected. It definitely did work faster on humans than it did on his rats. Or maybe he flubbed the dosage a little bit.

Regardless, you looked like you were melting.

That pink flush he had noted extended down your neck, over your collarbones, and swept across your chest - which was rising and falling to an uneven rhythm. It was creeping down your abdomen, hell even down your arms and up to the tips of your ears. You looked like you were burning up from the inside out. Your skin was glossy with a sheen of sweat, hair sticking to your forehead because of it. Your lips are parted as you breathe raggedly through your mouth, eyebrows scrunched together in discomfort. “You’re not in any pain, right?” Cody asks you softly, his eyes scanning across your body as you shift and squirm - as if you were trying to wriggle out of your own skin. “Just uncomfortable?”

”More than that.” You gasp out, your eyes near pleading as they flicker up to meet his. Pleading for what? You didn’t even know. Anything that would cool you down. “I feel like I’m.. I’m burning up. Melting.” You learn forwards a little, and extend a shaky hand out towards him. “Do you have water? Anything?”

”I don’t.” Cody frowns, his eyes flickering between your hand and your reddened face. Such a pitiful sight really. He scribbles down a couple more notes. “You’re really struggling, aren’t you?”

”Yeah.” Your brain feel foggy. Like the heat you’re consumed in has melted it into a pool of goop. Every logical thought you try to form fizzles out before it comes to fruition, evaporating into the air. Right now, there were only two certainties.

You might just combust, or pass out if you don’t receive anything to help your situation.

Cody can help. It’s his lab, after all.

And so you’re left grabbing at him, fingers clawing at his knee through the fabric of his jeans, the contact making him jolt and scoot his stool back a couple inches. “Cody, please.”

“Please, what?” Cody raises an eyebrow, keeping his gaze trained on you - dodging your advances when you try to get your hands on him once more. “Hands to yourself.”

You ignore him.

”I can’t stand it.” So overwhelmed, that tears spring to your eyes. Blurring your already hazy vision before they’re breaking free and rolling down your face. Just like the rest of you, they feel hot as they streak your cheeks, your entire expression crumpling in complete and utter defeat. “You said-“ You sniffle. “You said you’d be nice.”

Cody’s eyes slowly widen, his gaze tracking the trail of a teardrop before it rolls off of the tip of your nose and hits your thigh - leaving a small stain on your jeans. Your face was wrinkled in discomfort, your entirely body trembling where you sat. Your heavy breathing had turned into strained, choked off gasps - devolving more into a state of panic than anything else.

You were a mess. Melting in a pool on the bed before him. He wasn’t quite sure what he had expected, but it definitely wasn’t this. When he had tested it on his rats, the effects had paled in comparison - it just made them more eager to mate. You were falling apart right before his eyes.

”Jesus-“ Cody breathes out, his lips pursing together for a moment as he decides exactly which route he was going to take with you here. It’s not that he hadn’t expected something like this to happen - in fact that was the entire point. But having it right before his eyes, having you begging with tears streaming down your face… That was something else entirely. He had seen many, many people sob to him before - begging and pleading for him to spare their life.

He wasn’t quite sure what you were begging for. His eyes scan across your face, narrowing slightly in thought. “I’m not going to touch you.” He finally huffs out, before dropping his clipboard on the ground beside him and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Why not?” You ask, leaning forwards on your palms and peering up at him. Desperate, definitely. But had you not been from the start? Cody watches as a bead of sweat rolls down your temple, and lets out a soft, disbelieving snort.

”Because that’s not what this is about.” He chuckles softly. “You’re supposed to sit there, and just let me observe you - regardless of how uncomfortable you get.” He cocks his head to the side. “You’re not going to make me strap you down, are you?”

He watches as your eyes widen, how your irises flicker with something so far removed from the fear you had walked into the room with. Pupils blown out wide, your gaze was heady - practically heating up the air around the two of you with just one look. He knew what you were thinking, could see it in the way your gaze trailed from his face, down his neck, across the length of his arm to settle on watching his fingers fiddle with the pen in his hand. Nearly drooling. There was a glossy sheen on your lips, saliva bubbling in the corners of your mouth.

And you just can’t sit still. Shifting, trembling, rubbing your thighs together in a way that was far from discreet.

Cody lets out a short huff of breath, pinching his eyes shut before reaching up to rub them.

It wasn’t even that you were difficult to handle, his brain was. He should just make true on his threat and tie you down - watch you wriggle and squirm in discomfort for a couple hours until the effects wore off. But for some reason, that just didn’t seem as… Appealing. Not with how you were looking at him like he was a God. The answer to every single trouble you were facing.

And maybe… Maybe you weren’t too far off with that. Maybe he could be.

And so finally, he moves. Stands up slowly with you watching each and every little movement. How his hair looked so feathery soft as he reached up to run a hand through it. The sound of his sneakers squeaking against the floor as he made his way back over to the lab bench - unhurried, dragging it out. Making you feel even more pathetic than you already did, because he just seemed so indifferent. So apathetic towards your situation, while you were sitting behind him falling apart at the seams.

He doesn’t say a word when he turns on the faucet at his sink. Doesn’t make a peep as he washes his hands clean, before drying them off and retrieving yet another new pair of gloves. Pulling them on just as he had done with the last two pairs, before grabbing a couple other things out of the drawer that you couldn’t get a good look at.

Then, he’s back over to you, staring down at you with that same gaze he had before. Clinical, detached. Like you were nothing more than a pitiful animal. “Open your mouth.”

It takes a few seconds for the words to register - your mind so clouded that every sound around you sounded far away and foggy. But he was looking at you expectantly, one eyebrow raised, making it quite clear that he expected you to listen.

Which was fair. You were his experiment after all.

And so you do. You swallow back a mouthful of drool before parting your lips - your breathing ragged and your limbs trembling as you stay that way, waiting for his next move. “Good.” Again, such hollow praise. “Now stick out your tongue.” You follow that command just as easily as the last one, your heart thudding against your rib cage in anticipation - excitement - for what he had in store for you. You can feel saliva pool in your mouth again, but you don’t move a muscle. Not until he tells you to. Not even when it begins to drip off of your tongue, staining the fabric of your jeans even further.

Cody wrinkles his nose and purses his lips, but he reaches forwards regardless - pressing two fingers down against your tongue. “Such a mess.” He mutters out, right as you let out a soft whimper and jolt at the contact. The latex of his gloves felt so cool in comparison to your body. Like he had dropped two ice cubes into your mouth.

You can’t help but savour it.

Your lips close around his fingers, a soft moan rumbling from your chest when you suction to them and suck. Licking up that rubbery taste like it was a lollipop, your eyes fluttering as you take in a shaky breath through your nose.

Cody, nearly stops breathing completely. Your mouth is so warm and wet, so eagerly sucking his fingers in like it was a gift he had bestowed upon you. Barely even doing anything, and yet you were eating it all up eagerly. Greedily. Grateful for any sliver of physical contact he was allowing you. “Did I ask you to do that?” He asks you, and yet he doesn’t retreat. In fact, he pushes further. Sinking his fingers into your mouth until his knuckles are hitting your teeth - the tips of his fingers grazing your throat.

And that’s when he realized something quite… Interesting. You weren’t gagging. Even when he pressed a little further, far enough that any average person would have been choking and sputtering by now. But you? You were just taking it - jaw slack, your throat welcoming the intrusion happily.

Were you always like this? Or was it a product of what he had done to you?

He pulls his fingers from your mouth slowly, ignoring the way you whine and try to suck them back in, before he finally has you releasing them with a wet ‘pop’. “No gag reflex.” He comments quietly, looking down to eye his gloved hand - fingers now drenched and glistening with your saliva. “Is that normal for you?”

You swallow thickly, lips glistening and chin smeared with your own saliva, before you slowly shake your head. It was hard to deny how empty your mouth felt now that Cody’s fingers were keeping you satiated. You just can’t take your eyes off of them, licking your lips at the memory of how they had felt against your tongue. Imagining how they’d feel elsewhere.

”No.” You whisper back to him, as you shift closer to the edge of the bed. You reach out again, and this time he doesn’t stop you. Letting you curl your fingers around the hem of his hoodie to tug him in closer. “But that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

Cody eyes your hand as it paws at him, tugging at his sweater almost frantically with trembling fingers. His lips twitch up at the corners, a wry little smirk stretching across his face. “Well, I guess it could be, yeah.” He hums. “I just didn’t expect it, is all.” He extends his hand out to you again, and you part your lips on instinct, but he doesn’t humour you - instead snorting out an amused laugh before his fingers curl around your throat instead, smearing your own saliva against your skin. Just barely squeezing, enough to really feel your pulse beneath his fingertips. Fluttering like a bird in a cage, so frantic he would almost be worried. Almost. “It must act as a relaxant, just as much as it does a stimulant.”

His thumb rubs against your throat, the smooth latex of his gloves collecting your own sweat against it. You really were burning up. It was even more evident now that he was actually touching you. Warmed to a feverish degree, heat radiating off of you even from a few inches away. No wonder you had started crying about it so quickly. “Didn’t plan for that, and yet I think you’re right. It’s a good thing.” He gives your neck a gentle squeeze, watching how your eyes just go hazier when he does so. Your pupils are practically swallowing your irises now, the colour of your eyes barely even distinguishable. “A little two for one deal.”

He uses his grip to tilt your head upwards. His eyes warming at the sight of you - just being pushed and pulled around so easily. So pliant. Happy, so long as he’s touching you.

He’d bet you’d let him do quite literally anything to you right now. The perfect little lab rat. “In fact, I’d say I outdid myself.” His hand slips up and back, sliding into your hair cup the back of your head whilst your fingers tangle within the strands. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Uh huh.” Your answer is mindless, voice choked off and shaky - struggling to keep your watery eyes open as you lean back into his touch. “Cody-“ You say his name like you’ve known him for ages, all sweet and soft, like you have the right to beg for his attention. He doesn’t seem to mind though, if anything you’d swear you saw his gaze soften. “I need…” You take a moment to take a breath, so overwhelmed that you’re beginning to feel lightheaded. “Please, just keep touching me.”

“Yeah? Is that what you need?” His fingers curl into your hair, the latex of his glove squeaking when he tugs your head back. Not harshly enough to hurt, but enough the pull a gasp from your lungs. “I don’t normally take orders from my rats, you know.” His smirk widens into a toothy grin. “But then again, they usually can’t talk.”

You let out a pitiful whine, tugging him in closer by the hold you still have on his sweater. Close enough now that you’ve got him right between your thighs, staring down at you with such a subjugating gaze it makes your joints feel like goo. Was it the drug that was melting you, or was it him? “So difficult.” He mutters, before reaching up with his free hand.

You don’t truly realize what happening until you feel a cold, hard object slipping past your lips. It feels as if it expands, forcing your jaw open wide - leaving nowhere for your drool to go except to drip past your lips and slide down your jaw.

You let out a surprised whimper that comes out sounding gargled, your eyes widening like a deer in the headlights as you look up to shoot a questioning gaze. “If you want me to help you, I’m going to need you to just sit back and relax.” You hear a click, and then Cody’s hand is retreating. “No more asking questions, no more whining, no more begging.” He leans his head down a little, soft tufts of brunette hair tickling your forehead. “So, here’s the deal. If you want me to touch you, you’re going to hold these forceps snug in your mouth.” He reaches up to tap them, watching how your jaw quivers. “If you drop them, I stop.”

You let out a watery sounding whine, eyebrows scrunching together as you try to swallow back all of the dool accumulating in your mouth. You fail miserably. You can feel it trailing down your skin, leaving your chin slick. “If you don’t want to play, then we won’t. But if you want me to touch you that badly, these are the rules.” His thumb smooths against the skin right below your ear. “What do you think?”

At this point, you think you’d do quite literally anything if it meant he would soothe the ache in your bones. And so you nod - slow and shaky, as you breath raggedly through your nose. This earns you a smile, and Cody’s grip loosens minutely. His fingers scratch against your scalp, a soothing sensation that sends a shiver down your spine. “Good.” His hand slips out of your hair and trails down your neck, sweeping over your collarbones before it ventures lower - cupping your breast so gently you can barely even feel it. But its enough. Enough to have you jolting. “You know,” His fingers graze over the lace of your bra, a soft rumble of appreciation slipping from his lungs. “It’s been awhile since I’ve had a partner, especially one so pretty.”

His fingers squeeze, kneading the supple flesh beneath them - watching the way your eyes flutter when he does so, listening to the strangled whimper you let out. “Never have time. Too much to do.” His other hands smoothes down the expanse of your body, settling on your waist, his thumb rubbing soft circles against your skin. “I never… Search it out. Never really have a reason to. There are much more important things to focus on besides such… Primal desires.” He gently peels your bra strap down your shoulder, then the other one, before he’s tugging the material completely below your tits - baring you to him. You hear it when his breath hitches. “But I suppose I am human too. To fight what my biology desires, that’s just an insult to the work that I do, isn’t it?”

You don’t know if he’s genuinely expecting an answer, but you can’t give one regardless. Choking on your own spit, your mind swims as your feel a gloved finger roll your nipple beneath it, before he’s pinching it softly. “I wonder… What would you be like if I hadn’t dosed you? Just as reactive?” He repeats the action, toying with your nipple, palming the fat of your chest until your tits are quite literally tingling from sensitivity.

Before, his hands felt like ice compared to you, but now it seems as if the heat is coming from him. Instilling a warmth that stemmed from his fingertips, travelling down low, swirling in your gut, before it reaches your core. And so you’re shifting and squirming, your whole expression crumpling as you attempt to placate yourself even just a little. You can feel it, how your panties have just grown wetter and wetter - you’d bet they were completely soaked through by this point. Clinging to your folds, making you let out a gargle whine every time the fabric of your jeans brushes up against you. “I really did outdo myself, hm?”

Cody knows why you’re so restless. He can practically smell it, for fuck’s sake. The arousal radiating off of your body, charging the air with an electricity that sparked every time his hands met your body. And well, you’ve been well behaved. You haven’t once let the forceps so much as slip, even as you sputter over the drool flooding your mouth.

You had been so good. Such a fine specimen. It would only be fair to reward you.

And so his hand slides down lower, fingers curling below the waistband of your jeans - your hips kicking upwards immediately at the contact. “Ah-“ Cody shoots you a look, raising an eyebrow at you. “Be patient. Take what I give you.”

Slowly, he undoes the button of your jeans, popping it before the zipper comes down in quick succession. Then, he’s tugging at the fabric. “Poor thing, you’re so warm.” He keeps his right hand occupied with your tits, switching between the two to make sure each got an equal amount of love as he toyed with them. “Lift your hips.”

You don’t even hesitate, letting him peel your jeans off of your without an ounce of pushback. The fabric was damp with your sweat, clinging to your skin before he removed them completely and threw them to the ground. “And these too..” Your mind is hazy when your panties come off too, goosebumps pebble your thighs as the cool air of the lab hits your glistening cunt. “That’s better.”

Your underwear joins the rest of the clothing om the floor, and now you sit before him - practically completely bare with him fully clothed, shivering under his gaze - drool leaving your face and chest glistening whilst your inner thighs shine with your own slick. “Such a pitiful thing.”

Cody takes a step back, but not before he’s reaching up and finally removing the forceps from your mouth - making you let out a soft sigh of relief as your aching jaw is finally given a chance to relax. “Swallow. You’re making a mess.” Cody drops the forceps to the ground with a metallic clang, and you do just as he asks - gulping back all of the saliva that you were indeed making a mess with. “You have any idea what you look like right now?”

When a gloved finger meets the centr of your chest, your breathing hitches. It trails down the line of your sternum, down lower and lower, until it’s resting just below your belly button. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so pathetic.” He presses into your skin, right above your womb, like he was feeling the shape of your insides through the layer of your skin. Then, the journey continues. Inching down until his gloved hand meets your cunt, cupping it gently. “Can’t even think. I’ve turned you into a little doll.” He grins when his thumb presses down against your clit, watching how your body all but crumbles - a look of such unadulterated relief taking over your expression. You hadn’t been lying, you really did need this. “I wonder…”

He rolls your clit beneath the pad of his thumb, rubbing slow deliberate circles that make your breathing go shallow - your mouth dripping open slack as gasps and moans catch in your throat. “Do you even know how you’re acting right now?” Your slickness collects on the latex of his gloves, to which he smears it against your folds with an amused grin. “Would you be ashamed of you did?”

All he gets in response is a soft whimper. Just about the response he expected. “I’ve killed people, you know.” He murmurs, his voice low and gravelly as he slowly sinks a finger into you. He can’t help the shudder that wracks his shoulders as he feels your inner walls wrap around him so deliciously. Somehow even hotter than your mouth was, and so much tighter. So incredibly relaxed though, sucking him eagerly, just like your throat had. You entire body was begging for it. “Ended countless lives with the hands you’re letting touch you right now.”

He gently pumps the digit into you, feeling you just go even more pliant with each movement. Struggling to stay upright, you’re nearly falling into him now, using your grip on his sweater as an anchor. When he adds another finger, you really do crumble. You nearly double over, falling into his chest and smearing drool against the fabric. Gasping into him as you leave his sweater stained and damp, helplessly rutting your hips back to meet his movements. “You don’t even care though, do you?” He scissors his fingers open, stretching you open even wider, and you sob. “Even if you weren’t drugged beyond all hell, you still wouldn’t, am I right?”

His other hand slides down to grip your waist again, tugging your hips back to meet him as he plunged his fingers into your cunt over and over again. Curling them in just the right way to leave you choking out moans to be muffled against his chest. “You knew it was a bad idea, but you kept talking to me. You showed up here, pushed further even though your gut was telling you something was very, very wrong.” The pads of his fingers rub against your gspot, prodding at the bundle of nerves until he could feel your tears wetting his hoodie. “You fell right into my arms. You wanted this, didn’t you?”

Verbal communication is completely lost on you now, too busy drowning in a pool of ecstasy to form a single word. Too brainless to even truly process what he was saying. So, you just nod. Bucking your hips, fucking yourself on his fingers as the heat within you reaches a fever pitch. “I know.” He hums softly. “I know what type you are. You just want someone to take care of you, don’t you? Someone to make it all easier for you.”

He can feel it when your cunt starts twitching around his fingers, hear how your breathing was getting more and more frantic. Building and building, until- “I could do that for you.” Until it all snapped.

You let out a broken sob against Cody’s chest, clawing at him near frantically as your release hits you with such a force it makes your ears ring. Makes your vision white out. Leaving you to do nothing but completely melt into Cody like he was the only thing keeping you grounded. He was. It felt like his body heat was the only thing to exist to you right. The only thing that was real.

“Cody-“ You gasp out, pressing your face further into his chest - almost as if you were trying to crawl beneath his skin, curl up snug in his ribcage to hide from the overwhelming intensity of what you felt. And yet, the heat persisted. You felt like you may just combust all over again if his hands ever left you. “Don’t- Don’t stop-“ You plead, still rutting up onto his fingers even when the overstimulation made your gut twist. “More-“

“What did I say about begging?” Cody tuts softly, ignoring your wishes as he pulls his fingers from your sopping wet cunt - before delivering a sharp slap to the inside of your thigh. “I’ll turn you back into a tool holder again if you keep whining.”

You sniffle softly and shake your head. Hair sticking to your face, moist with sweat and drool, you peer up at him as your bottom lip trembles. “I’ve given you more than enough, but you’re going to act like this?” He scoffs softly before grabbing your hips with both hands and tugging you to him. “I thought about just strapping you down and setting a camera up.” He murmurs, before releasing you - only to reach for the buckle of his belt.

Your heart leaps in your chest. “I’d let you cry your heart out, and no one would be around to hear you.” He slowly undoes his belt, eyes on you the entire time he pulls it from the loops of his jeans. “Not anyone who cares, anyway.” Your eyes are wide as you watch the button of his jeans come undone, before he’s tugging down the zipper and the waistband of his boxers rather quickly after. Freeing his cock with a soft hiss, he reaches down and curls his fingers around the base, giving it a few languid strokes. “What would you have done, hm? Beg me to let you go? Or would you do the same as right now, and beg for me to touch you instead?”

You know the answer, but to say it would drag you down even lower than you already are. So instead, you wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him right to you - the length of his cock sliding against your slick core. Cody lets out a near startled moan and immediately reaches down to grab your waist and still you. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He breathes out. His other hand comes up to cup the back of your head, holding you close to his chest as he ruts up against you languidly. Slipping through your folds, the head of his cock catching on your entrance every so often. It makes your breathing stutter every single time. “S’alright though. Told you already, you won’t have to worry about much here.”

Finally he gets himself lined up properly, taking a deep breath in as the hold on your hip tightens. Then, he’s pressing in, slow and steady for both of your sakes - though he’s probably the one who needs it the most. He had known that the feeling of you around his fingers was just a taste. So tight and warm it nearly makes his knees buckle, his eyes fluttering with each inch in. “Oh, that’s good-“ He groans out, hips bucking forwards even more, getting a couple more inches enveloped in your sweet velvety heat. “You.. God, you were made for this.”

With one last nudge, he sinks all the way in - his hips meeting yours in a motion that had you both moaning into each other, sparks zapping up your spine. “I might just-“ Cody’s hand slips from your waist downwards to grasp at your ass instead, latex clad fingers digging into the soft flesh as he draws his hips back. “I might just keep you this way.”

Your arms come up to wrap around his neck, clinging to him as your thighs tremble around his hips. He just filled you so good. You didn’t know if it was from the drug swirling around in your veins, or if he really was just an incredible lay, but you didn’t really care. As his hips start to rock, you’d swear you could feel your brain melt out of your ears. Static filling your skull with each nudge of his cock against your walls. “You’d let me, wouldn’t you?” His voice is deeper now, raspy, strained like he was having to dig in deep to pull the words from his lungs. “Let me get you all loopy, begging for my dick day in and day out?”

He’s pulling you back against you with each thrust, leaning down to press his lips against the crown of your head - soft groans muffling into your hair. “You’d never have to worry about anything again. You wouldn’t even know how to.”

The rusty metal of the bed frame creaks every time your body jolts, the once quiet lab filled with the sound of absolute depravity. Your broken moans and whimpers, his absolutely filthy threats accompanied by panted breathing. Skin on skin, growing louder as the pace of his thrusts picked up - losing himself in you just as much as you were in him.

You can feel him throb inside you, pulsing with desire as your cunt does the same. Tightening up around him, sucking his cock in so good he’d swear he couldn’t pull out even if he wanted to. Your body was just pulling him in like a magnet, all control lost as he fucked more and more slick out of you - dirtying the front of his jeans and dripping down your thighs. So wet, every thrust was punctuated with a squelching sound that made his stomach flip. Made his ears burn hot. “So wet.” He murmurs out. “You feel incredible.”

You claw upwards to latch your lips onto his neck, drool smearing against his skin as you clumsily attempt to suck at his skin. It doesn’t work well, not with how uncoordinated you are, and so you’re left just leaving sloppy open mouthed kisses against his skin as you muffle your moans against him. He’d swear you were downright chanting his name too, breathing it out between each sweet whimper. Like a mantra. Like he was the only thing you knew existed. Moaning out your devotion, sealing it with the spit you left his skin slick with. “But you’re so messy.”

Cody’s hand curls back into your hair, tugging your head back and away from him - a thin line of saliva connecting your lips to his neck before it breaks. Then, it slips down and around to cup your face, fingers pressing into your jaw. “So dirty. Drooling all over me, making a mess on my cock.” His fingers squeeze your cheeks into a pucker, his hold keeping your hazy eyes trained on his face as his hips snap into yours. Harder. Deeper. Rough enough to make your eyes roll back and your legs twitch. “But you don’t care.” He mutters, huffing out ragged breaths as he tries to fight off his release - dreading the moment he had to peel himself away from your addictive skin. “I bet I could throw you over to Toby and you’d let me.”

“No-“ You whine, squirming in his hold as your squeeze your eyes shut.

“No?” Cody lets out a soft laugh, releasing his grip on your face just to land a couple light slaps against your slick cheek. “Just me?” You nod weakly, moans growing higher and higher in pitch as he brings you to the brink once more. Thighs locking around his hips, whole body trembling as it moves against him. “You really are stupid.” And then he’s grinding the head of his cock against your gspot, catapulting you over the edge with barely even a second to blink before it happens.

So overwhelmed that the tears just double, wetting the latex of his glove when he smooths his thumb against your reddened cheek. You arch up into him completely, your bare chest meeting the soft fabric of his sweater as stars dance behind your eyelids - the moans that slip from your lips so loud, and yet you can barely even hear yourself. Barely even bring yourself back to reality.

All you can focus on is the pleasure that buzzes through your veins and washes over your skin. His cock still pumping into you sloppily, fucking you through your release as your cunt convulses around him. His breath against your skin, hot and heavy, his composure having far too many cracks to stay intact.

His grip on you is near bruising, his moans strained, sweat beading up on his forehead to roll off the tip of his nose.

He hadn’t been lying when he had said it had been awhile since he last got to lose himself like this, and so to break that streak with someone like you? This soft, supple body that just took everything he gave you with no complaints? You were heaven sent. Like a gift from god, dropped straight onto his doorstep.

He fucks you until your moans turn into sweet little satisfied whimpers, and then he’s pulling out - backing up and pulling you along with him. Letting your weak knees give out just so that you crumple to the floor in front of him, staring up at him bleary eyed and confused. “Your mouth.” He huffs out, reaching down and grabbing you by the chin. “Open it.”

And of course, just as last time, you oblige.

Jaw dropping slack, your eyes flutter closed in complete submission. A sight that nearly has Cody’s buckling before he even nudges his cock against your tongue.

His teeth are grit from the effort it takes him to reel it back in, his entire body trembling from the strain of it all as he cradles the back of your head and pulls your mouth down onto him. Slipping into that wet heat so easily, sliding down your throat with not even an ounce of resistance. Even when he started bucking his hips into it, his soft grunts ringing through the air each time your nose pressed into his pelvis.

You really were like a doll, just sitting there and taking it, bare skin against the concrete flooring as your lips suction around him - sucking him back in eagerly every time he pulled out. Moaning every time his length pressed into your throat.

So perfect, he’d feel incredibly cocky over the overwhelming success that his creation turned out to be, but he can’t focus on that right now.

He was too busy falling apart before you.

He doesn’t get to fuck your throat for nearly as long as he’d like to before his hips are stuttering. Nails scratching against your scalp as his fingers curled into your hair, pulling you right down onto him as he finally let go. Hot release shot straight down your throat, you could feel the heat of it settle low in your stomach. Almost too much to gulp down, sputtering as he lazily rocks his hips to ride it out.

When he pulls out, your eyes flutter back open - hazy and unfocused - ears ringing from the intensity of it all.

And Cody looked… Lovely. Red faced, hair slick with sweat, his chest heaving as his expression melted into one of pure unadulterated bliss.

You almost wished you could’ve dwelled on it, appreciated it more, but - you are only human after all, and there’s only so much a human can take.

So you get one last look at him. At those green eyes, sparkling with what almost looked like adoration towards you, before your body crumples. Stars in your vision before your vision blacks out completely, leaving you to be nothing but a pitiful heap at his feet.

When you awake once more, your body feels heavy. Weighted. Your eyes burn as you blink against the bright lights above you, your limbs feeling as if they had been replaced with lead blocks. You can feel something beneath you. Something soft, and yet when you shift - it crinkles.

The bed. In Cody’s lab.

You’re still here. Of course you would be.

You force yourself upwards with a pained groan, the movement immediately enticing a brutal headache to rip through your skull.

Your hand flies up to your head, to your temple - a hiss of pain breaking up the silence in the room.

“Ah, good morning.” You have your eyes squeezed closed, the lights in the lab too bright to bear, but you know that voice. It was the last one you had heard before everything went back. “You slept for… About twelve hours. It’s almost midnight.” You feel a hand come to rest on your back, warm and absolute, like a soothing salve for your discomfort. “I was a little worried, but it wasn’t exactly a surprise. You definitely needed the rest.”

His hand smooths across your shoulder, and it's then that you realize that you’re still bare. It's then that you notice how cold you are, compared to him. “You look like you’re in pain, is the comedown truly that bad?”

You barely manage a weak nod, and you hear Cody let out a soft hum. “Hm. That’ll be something to work on. I’ll get you painkillers.”

Then his hand retreats, leaving behind a warm handprint against you goosebump pebbled skin. “Oh-“

A pause, and then there’s a thud on the bed before you. Curiosity getting the better of you, you peel your eyes open - squinting against the harsh lighting. And you don’t know if you should’ve expected it, but the sight of a wad of cash before you nearly makes you laugh. You probably would’ve if you had the energy to. “Your pay. Told you, I didn’t lie.”

You don’t even reach for it, though it was the driving force for you even coming here in the first place. It just seemed so insignificant now.

So… Stupid. What was the point even, anymore? It was useless to you now. Just a stack of paper that meant nothing.

Money’s no use to the dead.

And for all intents and purposes, that’s practically what you were right now. Dead to the world, at least. Dead to everyone outside of this lab.

And so you simply shake your head, scooting back further on the bed to distance yourself from it further.

“Keep it.” You force out hoarsely. “I don’t need it.”

And Cody smiles.

He had known you would say that.

————————————————————————-☆

holy FUCK I did not mean to make this so long. oh my god. looked at the word count at the end and my eyes bugged out of my skull

whatEVER cody debut on my blog in the nastiest way ever LOLLLL

thank you for reading!

[couldeatthatgirlforlunch]

I really loved your scenario of The Justice League AND The Ill reader,Lmao, poor reader they only need a rest.

Anyway, ever since I read the first part I was thinking about the kids, you know, the League Sidekicks, obviously The Reader knows them, due to work (I can really imagine Batman introducing His kids to the Reader to force a bond , And obviously The rest of The League does the same) So I had the headcanon that the reader really likes the children, they talk to them after missions, sometimes they buy them some gifts for their birthdays, they listen to them when they complain about their father figures (Therapist Reader), etc. But at the same time I can imagine The Reader being totally uncomfortable with his parents, so I can't help but think of a scenario in which The Reader is talking to the League kids in a good mood, but the League members walk in. to the room (They obviously saw the Happy Reader, so they want to gain some advantage) And The Reader just turns off, goes into business mode and is curt as always with the league, and when he finishes talking to the league, he goes back to talking to the children and their mood is happy again. Man I would love to see the league's reaction to the obvious reader favoritism

PD:I really love your work, you are amazing

Pd2:If The kids are yandere, ITS UP to you

A Week in Life: Take Your Kid to Work Day

Synopsis: A week in your life where you get a lot of new little friends, even if you know something’s sketchy about it.

Pairing: Yandere!Justice League X Assistant!Gn!Reader; Platonic!Yanderes! Robin (Dick), Superboy (Konner), Miss Martian, Kid Flash (Wally) and Aqualad (Kaldur'ahm)

Tw: A single implication about Hal’s past dub/non con incidente (blink and you miss it); Implied emotional manipulation, I guess? Justice League using kids as a manipulation tactic; A little angst, I think we all hate how Superman treated Conner, so I added that, so technically not a healthy relationship between them here, could be interpreted as Superman manipulating him or Superboy trying too hard to make his bio-dad like him; The kid’s ages are definitely not accurate canon wise, but what is canon anyway? I mixed their personalities and origins from Young Justice (along with their age gap) and for Superboy it was mainly the animated movie Reign of the Supermen; English is not my 1st language.

Word count: 3,3k

Requested? More than once.

Extra notes: Dick is 10, Kaldur'ahm, Conner, Megan and Wally are 13. I wish I knew more about the Wonder Girls to write about one of them, I felt bad for not adding them, but I would’ve felt worse writing for a character I have no idea how to write.

General masterlist | A Day in Life - Series masterlist

— I wasn't aware that there was a Take Your Kid to Work Day on schedule... — You said in a surprised, maybe taken aback, tone, if not a little strangled and sarcastic, even if a little happy. You rubbed your forehead, you knew your hunch was right…

Monday…

You’ve heard the rumors Gotham media was spreading for months now, you even asked Batman if you should prepare the marketing team in case of an emergency, he denied everything.

So why was it that now you were staring at a 10 year old dressed as a traffic light?

— Miss/Mister/Mx (Y/N)... I’m hungry… — Worst of all? The kid was cute.

You smile in a friendly manner.

— Okay, okay. Just give me a second, buddy, I need to talk to your… Dad…?! — You just now realized you didn't know their actual relationship. Batman only told you his name was Robin, that he was his partner, and that he was in the watchtower to observe. You didn't know superheroes accepted 10 year old interns, but whatever. The kid just stared blankly at you, not giving an actual answer to if you got your assumption right.

— Can I go with you? — Robin fiddled with his fingers. So cute. You nodded with a small smile. The kid jumped off his too big chair and ran towards you, surprising you by taking your hand. He had small hands. So cute.

You walked slowly, to accommodate to his height, in the direction of the door to the briefing room, where Batman was talking to John Stewart. This other Green Lantern was a breath of fresh air. The other one (the one who shouldn't be named) was away, working on another district of the universe since that whole… Less-than-consensual situation. You were happy and surprised when the League didn't just brush it off, and even compensated you for it, alongside making him go away. He either agreed to that, or caused the 3rd World War against the Justice League. It was a temporary predicament, but happier nonetheless, since John wasn't obsessed with you, unlike the rest of them, and easy to work with.

You cleared your throat so they would turn to you.

— Does Robin have any restrictions? He said he's hungry so I'm gonna take him to the kitchen. — You said politely. Batman shook his head.

— Just don't give him sugar. He needs to sleep before patrol tonight. — You raised your eyebrows in surprise and nodded your head. Batman looked at the boy. — Behave, chum. — You blinked, Robin nodded solemnly.

As you walked in the direction of the kitchen, the kid showed to be very happy and talkative. You were surprised, considering who his dad was, but it warmed your heart. At least it seemed he wasn't mistreated.

At some point, he let your hand go and started cartwheeling and doing acrobatics all the way there to show off his abilities to you. You gasped and clapped, praising his talent along with other workers from the crew who were passing the hall. You were slightly worried that he would fall and get hurt, but the kid was really confident in what he was doing (but they always are, until they fall).

When you got there, you were impressed that he wasn't even the slightest out of breath.

— Do you have games on your phone? — He asked, sitting down on a table while you rummaged the fridge for some sandwiches or any healthy snack, since you didn't know how his home diet was, but guessing by his build, which was a lot more athletic than kids his age are, he was probably pretty healthy. Son of the Bat.

— Hmm, I have Dress to Impress, Pou and Candy Crush.

— What is Pou? — Your heart panged and you sighed, feeling old.

— When were you born? 2010? — You walked towards him and settled a plate with a sandwich in front of him, before pouring a cup of juice.

— 2014. — Your mouth dropped, speechless. — Wait, so not even Stardew Valley? — You cleared your throat and shook your head, sitting beside him, while he started eating.

— Wait, can I even let you play? Does Batman let you have screen time? — He nodded.

— I have a phone. I just couldn't bring it with me today… He said he would show me around the tower, but he got busy with work… — He deflated a little at the end of the sentence, your heart broke. — Anyway… He told me I could distract myself. I just need your permission. — You bite your lip.

— Okay. How about we go to the recreational room and you can play some videogames while I work from the computer. — Robin nodded eagerly.

— Damn, you can't even play with me? Working sucks. That must be why adults are so boring. — You took a napkin and cleaned some food from his cheek.

— It's not that bad… You can do whatever you want. — He perked up.

— I guess so… — He looked you up and down. You prepared yourself for one of those moments where kids are so blunt that they don't know they could offend someone. — But you're not boring, (Y/N), you're cool. Must be why daddy likes you so much. And he doesn't like no one.

Tuesday…

Wow, what a weird coincidence. Just yesterday Batman brought his kid, and now Martian Manhunter brought his niece.

Miss Martian looked older than Robin, but again, she was a martian, her appearance was shifted to whatever she wanted to look like. All you knew was that she was young and new on Earth.

Right now, she looked very human. She had freckles and auburn hair. The only thing that made her stand out was the green of her skin.

When she presented herself to you, you got startled by her voice in your head, but you and Martian Manhunter softly explained to her that on Earth people didn't communicate through their minds, and it was kinda like an invasion of privacy. Kinda funny hearing him say that, but whatever.

Like Batman the day prior, Martian trusted the girl in your hands. So many coincidences, right?!

— So, honey, how old are you?

— Oh, on my home planet I should be about 39. But converting to Earth years, I’m 13. — She said with a shy but friendly smile, you smiled back.

— You’re pretty young then. How are you settling on Earth? Planning to go to school maybe? — She nodded.

— I just started the school year… I wasn't too sure about that, but my uncle said it would be good to learn human behaviors. — You nodded.

— American school is nice, I recommend you should take part in clubs. And don't feel pressured to make a billion friends. It's better to have one good friend, instead of 10 people you know but can't rely on. — She nodded, biting her lip.

— I already know some of the other sidekicks, I just don't have any civilian friends… I was thinking about joining the cheerleading team. — You gasped, excited.

— Oh, that's really good! I always wanted to join, but was never the sporty type. You’re sweet, I think that already gives you some points. — Her green cheeks got darker.

— You think so?! — Her voice got louder with excitement.

— Of course! Now let me give you some tips about the jocks, honey…

Wednesday…

Today, Flash brought Kid Flash. You haven't met him until now. The sequence of days the older heroes brought in their sidekicks was starting to look weird… But not that weird. Batman said he would give Robin a tour but became unavailable. Manhunter wanted Miss Martian to meet civilian people and have a good role model — you don't know why he decided that that role model should be you, but it made sense, so… —. Flash Said they would spend the day using the lab to experiment some more on Kid Flash’s still recently acquired powers. So. Coincidences, right?

The boy was 13 too, he had messy red hair and green eyes. Flash didn't specify their relationship, but their personalities definitely matched a little. Both a little hyperiperactive and smiley. Although that could be more of a speedster thing, especially the first part.

Like promised, they spent half that day on the lab, occasionally calling you for snack breaks. However, at some point, Flash gave an excuse and left you with the kid.

Huh.

— Sooo, what do you do around here? — Kid Flash asked, spinning around in a chair he found somewhere and rolled to the middle of your office in the blink of an eye. You half-smiled. It was nice not being crowded by those weirdos and being around fresh and youthful people, but it was starting to feel weird.

— I plan schedule appointments, organize team meetings, prepare agendas and itineraries, book meals and travel arrangements, handle record keeping and documentation, and make sure a project stays on budget. — The ginger blinked and stopped spinning.

— Uhh, you went to college for that? — You blinked.

— I did, why? — He chuckled slightly.

— Nothing, it's cool, sounds boring, though. — You nodded.

— What do you want to work with? — He looked to the side, thoughtful for a moment.

— I think I want to be a scientist.

— Oh really?

— Yeah, I like physics, mechanics and a little bit of chemistry. — You smirked.

— Chemistry? Sounds boring. — Kidflash froze for a second, wide-eyed, then relaxed and started laughing loudly. His chuckling prompted you to chuckle alongside him.

He used his feet to push the chair around your table and stopped at your side.

— Hey, can I see how much people get paid here? If I'm gonna be a member of the League one day, might as well optimize time and just work here. — You slapped his hands away when he reached for your computer, he pouted.

— Wouldn't that make it difficult to keep your secret identity hidden?! — Kid Flash stretched his arm, then draped it across your shoulders, you lifted an eyebrow.

— Babe. I'm a superhero. I could change clothes really fast right now and you wouldn't even notice. — You scoffed and lightly pushed him and his chair away.

— A phone booth would be more appropriate for that.

— What's a phone booth?

Thursday…

Superman brought Superboy.

Why the fuck are they doing that, bro?

You didn't even know they were close! Sure, Superboy is Superman and Lex Luthor’s clone, the whole world knew that, and that Superboy took to Superman's side. But they were never seen together, unlike Flash and Kid Flash, or Batman and Robin, for example.

Worst of all? It looked like the mood between them was… Weary. Especially on Superman’s part. Did he not trust Superboy? You could understand that… But look at his puppy sad face!

And not even five minutes later, Superman just flew away, saying something about a hurricane in Texas, AND SUPERBOY STAYED!

The silence was awkward for a few seconds. You thought back to the personality he showed when he was first announced by LexCorp, when Superman was considered dead. He was all over the media (Lex’s marketing team was good) with his charisma and flirty personality. Although he kept the leather jacket, his quietness surprised you.

You cleared your throat.

Superman brought Superboy.

Why the fuck are they doing that, bro?

You didn't even know they were close! Sure, Superboy is Superman and Lex Luthor’s clone, the whole world knew that, and that Superboy took to Superman's side. But they were never seen together, unlike Flash and Kid Flash, or Batman and Robin, for example.

Worst of all? It looked like the mood between them was… Weary. Especially on Superman’s part. Did he not trust Superboy? You could understand that… But look at his puppy sad face!

And not even five minutes later, Superman just flew away, saying something about a hurricane in Texas, AND SUPERBOY STAYED!

The silence was awkward for a few seconds. You thought back to the personality he showed when he was first announced by LexCorp, when Superman was considered dead. He was all over the media (Lex’s marketing team was good) with his charisma and flirty personality. Although he kept the leather jacket, his quietness surprised you.

You cleared your throat.

— So… Are you hungry? Wanna play videogames? — You grimaced slightly. He looked at you again, a little hesitant.

— Uh… I think so? — He blinked. — You guys have videogames here?! — He exclaimed, surprised. You chuckled.

— Oh yeah, for such a serious and stern guy, Batman really invested in the work environment. — You chuckled together, walking towards the recreational area.

You were curious about the earlier weird vibe, but didn't want to prod.

At first, you just let the boy play by himself, just sitting beside him and working while talking, that was until he paused the game between missions and stretched, then looked at you.

— Are you guys involved? — You looked at him with your eyebrows raised.

— You guys…? — He pursed his lips.

— You and Superman. — You grimaced slightly.

— Oh no, he's my boss, and not my type at all. — He nodded, looking pensive.

— He likes you. — You kept a blank expression, waiting for him to continue. — I like you too, so I can imagine why he likes you. — You stared at him, exasperated. He widened his eyes. — Not like that! — He raised his hands to deny. — It's just- I feel comfortable with you. I felt comfortable with some of his friends before, I didn't even know why, but I think it's because half of me is from him. Like I have some things from Lex since I was… Born… — He looked to the ground for a second, pouting lightly. — That's why Superman doesn't like me. — You widened your eyes.

— I'm sure he likes you! — Superboy looked at you like he didn't believe you.

— No, it's okay… He's polite, I guess. And took me in as his family, just not… As his son… More like a brother, or… A cousin… I mean, I can understand, I'm basically a hate baby, created by his biggest enemy to outdo and destroy him… — You shook your head.

You didn't know what to say, since you didn't know how their dynamic was like.

— H-He brought you here to spend time with you, didn't he? He just had an emergency to take care of… — He looked to the ground and then at you again. He didn't have the heart to tell you that's the first time they ever “hung out”, and that his genius brain clocked hours ago that Superman's plan was to create a connection between you both by orchestrating a connection with you and him. He also didn't want to bad mouth Clark. A part of him always would have hope that Superman would want to be closer to him one day.

Superboy looked at the clock and then at you.

— Don't you have a break? I can hear your stomach, I'm hungry too.

Friday…

This madness has to stop now.

— Nice to meet you, Aqualad. — You nodded at the boy with a small smile. You were a little mesmerized by his exotic appearance. He had brown skin, blonde hair in braids (where are his roots?) and blue eyes. His arms were also covered in tattoos that you knew had something to do with his abilities.

— I was showing him around the Watchtower, but now I have a meeting with Wonder Woman, why don't you two hang out for a while? — Aquaman, always the most obnoxious one. Their intentions were 100% clear now.

Aquaman didn't let you say anything else and left the room with said hero. You heard her murmur something about having to find her own apprentice to bring to the watchtower as soon as possible.

You looked at the boy, not knowing what to say.

— Have you ever been to Atlantis? — He surprised you by speaking first, his tone was gentle, if not a little monotonous, but he looked at you with interest.

— Uhhh, no? I’m not that good of a swimmer and I can't breathe underwater. — Aqualad smirked lightly.

— You wouldn't need to worry about breathing, there are multiple ways for humans to do that, from magic to technology. As for swimming… I'm sure we can find some sort of solution for that, also. And I doubt my king would be opposed to the idea of teaching you. — You nodded slowly. So much for subtly.

— … My vitamin D is low enough as it is, I’d rather stay on land, no offense. — The atlantean opened his mouth to speak but you beat him to it. — Aqualad! Do you like the food here? I've always been curious about your culture’s cuisine…

You kept talking for hours, eventually, Aqualad and you ended up in the training room, he offered to show you a little of his control over water bodies, and you, still a little fascinated over the convivence with superheroes, and this being the second time you met someone from Atlantis, accepted eagerly.

— This is just like H2O… — Kauldur’ahm blinked.

— It is water… — The boy confirmed, hesitantly. You laughed.

— No, no, not water. It's a TV show, it's about mermaids. I guess it isn't exactly accurate, but they can control water, just like you! — He nodded, slowly, contemplating. You looked at your watch, noticing your lunch time was due. You looked at him, shyly. — If you're up for it, we could watch it now… — That seemed to make him perk up a little and he nodded quickly.

— I would like to.

Monday…

— I wasn't aware that there was a Take Your Kid to Work Day on schedule... — You said in a surprised, maybe taken aback, tone, if not a little strangled and sarcastic, even if a little happy. You rubbed your forehead, you knew your hunch was right…

There they were, in the meeting room, all seated around the big roundtable, almost double the number of people who usually sit there.

Now, the food order they made, made sense.

You pushed the food cart forward, one for Flash. You came back and pushed another one, this one for Kid Flash, you ruffled his hair. Then, you walked back and pushed the 3rd food cart around the table, delivering each meal for each hero.

— Steak for Green Lantern. One black coffee for Batman. One meat sandwich and chocolate milk for Robin. — You squeezed his cheek. He smiled brightly at you. — Toast for Martian Manhunter and a slice of strawberry cake for Missy Miss Martian. — As you put the plate in front of her, you whispered that you wanted to know how the cheerleading team was going. She nodded happily. — A burger with fries for Aquaman, a smoothie and salad for Aqualad. Oh, did you change your hair? I like it! — You smiled brightly at the boy and his cheeks burned, he nodded. — Ice cream for Wonder Woman. Another burger and fries for Superman and another for Superboy. I see you followed my advice, your style really matches with those piercings. Tell me how you did it later. — You laughed carelessly and went to the door. — Need me for something more? — Your bosses shook their heads, stunned. You left and closed the door.

— Can't believe you guys actually did it… — John shook his head, disappointed at his teammates.

— I knew it would work. — Batman said, sipping from his drink.

— That's why we stole your idea when we knew about it. — Aquaman chuckled.

— I really need to find a sidekick. — Diana huffed.

Batman turned to Robin.

— You did a good job, chum. — Dick chuckled.

— Yeah, I even asked for a sandwich without the crust. Now (Y/N) think I'm the cutest here. — He smirked smugly. Wally scoffed.

— Yeah, right. She totally doesn't think you're an annoying kid. — The duo stared at each other. — I, for example, made them laugh. — The redhead puffed his chest proudly.

— Are you sure it wasn’t a pity laugh?! — Superboy snorted at Robin’s retort.

— Although Robin might be physically more adorable, and Kid Flash, in his words, made them laugh. (Y/N) and I started a TV show together, my king. — Aquaman nodded at his apprentice’s words.

— You did a good job.

— But (Y/N) actually said they wanted to talk to me later! That usually oficializes human’s friendships! — Megan said, softly.

— They said the same to me, the other day. That I could talk to them whenever I wanted… — Superman looked at Superboy, surprised. He felt awkward praising him, so he just nodded his head and looked away. Superboy pouted slightly.

— Because you told them your sob story, now they think you're a loser. — Conner glared at Dick. — Their physical language showed that they loved me, B! I honestly deserve an Oscar after that performance! They're gonna be ours before you suckers know it!

As a screaming match raised inside the room, the adult heroes looked at each other, lost for words, not only had the kids gotten you roped a bazillion times faster then they could ever dream, but also you were so amazing that they were enamored with you too.

Comment, like and reblog 🥰

DC taglist:

@wandalfnation @vadersassistant