#i just realized that this is about a post I have scheduled for tomorrow morning so y'all are probably like

[noses-in-winter]

I guess my brain's just on the topic of that ex bc I saw some family tonight that I hadn't seen in several years, and they were like "oh yeah what happened with your whole 'moving super far to marry this girl' thing" and I was like. yeah about that

I'm at the point now where I'm able to remember the good time fondly without feeling sad so it's been nice revisiting these memories to make snzblr posts! I should just post about the various ways she would enchant me with her nose because I need my fellow lesbians to know that you WILL hit that Sneezy GF jackpot some day! I believe in you! Those girls are out there and they are beautiful and want your ATTENTION!

#i just realized that this is about a post I have scheduled for tomorrow morning so y'all are probably like #huh.... #it's just a post about a hot nasal time w her and I #a personal fav

[bookshelf-dust]

kiss it better

steve harrington x fem!reader

word count: 3,176

warnings: swearing, sick fic (sorta), steve not taking care of himself, anxiety, stress, mental breakdown?, best friends to lovers deal (let me know if i missed something)

a/n: hi! it’s been awhile. i’m sorry about that. this has been a very slow process for me. my mental health is shit, and that’s probably obvious. i hope it hasn’t seeped into this too much, but it probably will with the next few things i write. i apologize for taking so long to post, for disappearing, for not really making this the blog it once was. but i’m not the same person i was then. so we’ll see where this goes. i hope you enjoy this one a little. i love you.

————

The shrill sound of a phone ringing scares you awake, eyes flying open, heart pounding so aggressively you fear for a split second that it might burst. 

You sit up quickly, enough so that you make yourself dizzy trying to get your bearings. You roll onto your side, and reach blindly across the edge of your nightstand, grabbing for the green plastic that’s shaking with the force of which it’s ringing. 

You almost fall out of bed, just managing to catch yourself as you bring the phone to your ear. 

“Hello?”

Your voice comes out weak, thick with sleep and the longing for more rest. It startles you and makes you clear your throat. 

“Hey, it’s me.”

The voice on the other line is even weaker than your own. It’s quiet.

“Steve?”

Your eyes find the alarm clock on your dresser, bright red letters telling you it’s just after one in the morning. You might be half-asleep, but you’re conscious enough that your heart rate picks up, registering that this isn’t when your best friend normally calls. 

You hear him breathe, along with some shuffling. He’s nodding his head, but realizes you can’t see. 

“Yeah. Listen,” he drags a shaking hand down his face. “I’m sorry to call so late.”

“Hey, it’s okay. What’s the matter? Is something wrong?”

He goes quiet for a moment, but you wait patiently for him to continue. He must be trying to get something out, and you don’t want to pressure him, or cause him stress in any way. 

Steve huffs, frustrated with himself. 

“I-I’ve got an insane headache, and we’re out of goddamn medicine. My parents were here, and my mom was hungover and I guess she must’ve emptied us out, but it hurts too bad to drive, and…” He trails off, breathing heavily. 

His pause lends you a moment to process, and you decide to speak up. If his head is killing him, you know finding the energy to speak to you, let alone call, has to be draining. You wouldn’t want him to suffer anymore than he already is. 

“Stevie?” you start, happy to hear a small hum that encourages you to go on. He registers what you’ve called him, something you don’t call him often, and his chest aches. “I’ve got some I can bring you. I think all the drugstores nearby are closed.” 

You swing your legs out from under the covers, pushing yourself off the mattress. Pressing the phone between your cheek and shoulder, you pull on the pair of sweats slung over the end of your bed, trying not to bust your ass as you hop into them. 

“Is anything else hurting you?” you ask, gently as can be. 

“Honestly?” he responds. “I think I’m sick. I can’t be sick, can I?”

You stand upright once again, taking the phone firmly in your hand. 

“I think even King Steve can get sick from time to time. I’ll be there soon, okay?”

————

Steve’s not sure you understand him. He can’t be sick. He’s got shit to do. He has a shift tomorrow, and he’s pretty sure Dustin needs a ride one day this week because Claudia is on a “girls trip.” He has to keep working on his college essay, because he’d told you he was almost done, but really he isn’t. 

Steve doesn’t have the time to be sick. And he can’t have you ruining your own schedule to come and babysit him. He’s supposed to be the babysitter. Not the charge. 

He should be able to take care of himself, but of course, the one time his parents come home they clean out his mediocre supply of medicine. Something he’s always stocked up on, given his tendency to get the shit beat out of him, or the nasty string of tension headaches that just won’t quit. 

And his head is killing him. He has his palms pressed to his temples, trying (and failing) to dull the ache. There aren’t any lights on in the kitchen, where he’s sitting on the floor, back pressed to the cabinets. 

He’s trying not to move too much either, because he’s dizzy. This probably has to do with the fact that he skipped dinner, feeling too nauseous to eat. Now that Steve is hungry, he fears he won’t be able to get up and fix anything. 

Maybe you’ll be able to help, he thinks. But that voice is quick with a counter argument. No. I need to do it. 

He perks up at the sound of the front door opening. “Steve?” you call out, careful not to slam the door or yell too loud. It’s also why you hadn’t rung the doorbell. 

Steve raps his knuckles softly against the countertop, hoping it’ll be enough to clue you in. He can’t bring himself to shout right now. You follow the sound, taking the few steps toward the kitchen. 

When your eyes lock on his figure, see the way the heels of his hands press into his eyes, you realize how young he looks. He almost looks small, legs pulled up to his chest, big, lanky body compacted as much as possible. He looks vulnerable. You’re sure he hates that. 

“Hi, Steve,” you say, keeping your voice low. 

He looks up at you, and his face splits into a sweet grin. He’s happy that you’re here, even if that voice is screaming at him, wanting to punish him for asking for help. 

“Hey, honey.” You smile back at him, and his heart rate picks up. Sometimes he forgets how beautiful you are, and then you’re standing in front of him, snatching every last breath from his lungs. 

You set your bag down beside him and reach out, brushing his hair back from his forehead. He feels a little warm, but not feverishly so. 

You move away from him, grabbing a cup from the drying rack. You fill it up with water and crouch at his side. Steve takes the glass from you, head resting against the cabinet to watch as you grab him some medicine. You hand him a few pills, and he takes them quickly. If he doesn’t get this headache calmed down soon, he thinks he might just die. 

Steve keeps drinking the water you gave him, and you push his hair back again, watching the way it curls around his ears. 

He drinks about half of the water before he pauses, taking a deep breath. He looks at you then. It’s mostly dark in the kitchen, but the lamp on the table by the front door is on, so you’re a little backlit from it. Not to mention the moonlight seeping in from the window above the sink.

You look gorgeous. And you came over to take care of him. You got up, at one in the morning, and drove to his house, just because he asked you to. Hell, he hadn’t even asked. He hadn’t gotten the words out. But you’d known. You’d known exactly what he was trying to ask, and you’d offered your help with no qualms. 

Steve’s nose starts to sting, and that pressure from behind his eyes—it starts to release. Before he knows it, his vision is getting cloudy, and he’s crying. He can’t be crying, can he? 

You carefully remove the glass from his hand and move in between his spread knees. 

“Steve, it’s okay. I’m here, and I’m gonna take top notch care of you.” 

“I know you are,” he says, voice breaking. “But I should be able to do it myself. I always do it myself.” He presses his hands against his face, but you catch his wrists and gently pull them away. 

You hold your arms out, and Steve practically falls into you. He buries his face in your neck. He can feel the warmth of your skin, the cotton of your sleep shirt. You smell like soap, that fancy conditioner you use. 

One of your hands finds the base of his neck, nails scratching gently over his scalp, thumb dragging over the top of his spine. Your other rubs soothingly up and down his back. 

“But the thing is, Stevie, you don’t have to.” 

He’s not a loud crier. But he is sort of panicky, breaths coming quick and short, chest heaving against your own. “I know you’ve always had to do a lot by yourself, but you can ask for help, and you don’t have to punish yourself for it, either.”

You feel him nod against your collarbone. His hands are fisting the back of your shirt. Eventually, he pulls away, but keeps his eyes closed. He tries to keep his head turned from your gaze. 

“Hey. Look at me.”

He does, albeit reluctantly. Steve’s cheeks are flushed, lashes clumped together and lips parted where he tries to suck in a good deep breath. 

You reach up, fingers gently sweeping away the remainder of the tears on his face. He leans into your touch, and you let him. You lean forward and press a sweet kiss to his forehead. You’ve never done that before.

Steve recognizes that you’ve never done it before, even if it’s sort of fuzzy. Sure, he’s kissed the back of your hand and you’ve reciprocated, but he’s usually the one to initiate physical affection. You’re too shy most often, even if you ache to do it. 

Fuck, he wishes he were a little more coherent right now. 

“Can you stand for me? It’s late, and I think you need to rest.”

He runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah, sure.” Now that he’s thinking about it, getting in bed sounds so nice. 

You stand first, and watch as Steve pushes off the floor, gripping the countertop on the way up to steady himself. 

“Come on. The stairs are gonna be a pain.”

He reaches out for you, and you let him take your arm. He pads out to the staircase, and you watch each precarious step he takes, hoping he won’t get too woozy and trip. 

By the time he finally makes it up there, he’s wrapped both arms around your waist and buried his face between your shoulder blades. You soften beneath his hold. 

You walk slowly towards his bedroom, and he waddles behind you. You push the door open. “M’kay, Steve. Wanna change clothes and hop into bed?” 

He pulls off of you and grabs hold of his dresser. “I’m not givin’ you a free show.”

You snort. “I’ll go get some more water and be right back.”

His grin fades. “Please be fast.” He doesn’t want you to go. He doesn’t want you to leave him. 

“Steve, I’m practically The Flash.”

He laughs, pulling a pair of sweats and a t-shirt out of the drawer. Usually he’d sleep in less, but with you here he feels he should keep his modesty.

When you return, he takes the water from you, drinking it faster than he probably should. Steve feels like he’s had the shit beat out of him, and for once—he hasn’t. 

You’d sat down on the edge of the bed, not noticing the way he’s staring at you. You look up when he sets the glass down. He drags both hands down his face. 

“What’s wrong?” you ask.

He exhales. “I want you to stay here with me, but I don’t want you to get sick. The idea of you being on the couch, which is like, miles away, is driving me insane.”

“Steve?”

“Huh?”

“Can’t I just sleep on the futon?”

His eyes move towards the other side of his room where said piece of furniture is pressed against the wall. He’d bought it when group sleepovers became a thing after all they’d dealt with. Jesus, his brain really isn’t working. 

“Oh. Yeah, honey. Just don’t want you to go far.” 

You lean forward and push his hair back from his forehead. You’ll need to remember to take his temperature come morning.

“I’m not going anywhere, Steve. I promise. Not until you’re all better.”

————

When Steve wakes up, you’re not there. He starts to panic, thinking maybe he’d been too much, maybe he’d shown you a side of himself he shouldn’t have, that maybe you left. 

But you return to his room just as he’s about to start looking for you. There’s a thermometer in your hand. 

“Morning, sleepy boy. Are you coherent enough for me to check your temperature? Or no?”

He yanks the covers off of himself, and his shirt has ridden up. You catch a sliver of tummy before he sits up fully, and you miss it the second it’s gone. 

“Hit me, I can take it.”

You roll your eyes but stick the thermometer under his tongue when he opens his mouth. When you pull it away, you’re happy to see he hasn’t got a fever. He was warm last night when you kissed his forehead, but you’re thinking it was from stress or just overheating. 

“No fever. What’s buggin’ you today, Stevie?”

He flops onto his back, and his shirt rides up again. You mentally slap yourself for being so enamored by it. All your brain can compute is tummy. Steve’s tummy. “My head still, and my stomach. I feel like I haven’t slept in four years.”

His words snap you out of your reverie. “Four years? That’s incredible. When’s the last time you ate something?”

Steve stares at you for a moment, though it looks as if there isn’t a single thought behind his eyes. “Yesterday…morning. I think. Yeah, I had a banana.”

You stare back, rather appalled at his statement. “Steve.”

“Hm?”

“All you’ve had to eat in the past twenty four hours is a banana?”

“Yep.”

“Jesus christ. Get your ass up and come with me.”

Steve doesn’t move. Rather he watches you move, right out the door and towards the top of the stairs. You pause and turn around, crossing your arms. 

He huffs. And then he slides down the side of the bed like a child before crawling up and following you to the kitchen. 

Over the course of the next few hours, you manage to get Steve to eat, shower, and go for a short walk, weather permitting and all. He’s looking astronomically better than he did last night. 

Steve sits opposite you on the couch, his socked feet in your lap. “What do you think my deal is?”

You rub your hand over his calf. “I think you just had a little bug. Or maybe you let yourself get too stressed out and your body couldn’t take it.”

He blinks. “Is that…that's not a thing? Is it?”

“When’s the last time you gave yourself a fuckin’ break, Steve? When you just took a day for yourself rather than worrying about who needs to go where, or if you’ll have to cover a shift? You have to take care of yourself, or this is the kind of shit that happens.”

“Being overwhelmed about your parents, not eating, worrying about that application, all of that is fucking with you. That headache was probably a stress headache. They’re killer. I want you to be healthy and comfortable, Steve.”

You exhale, and close your eyes. When you open them, Steve has sat up, scooting towards you on your end of the couch. 

He might still be tired, but he can’t believe this. He can’t believe you. No one has ever worried for him in this way. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” you ask. 

He barely even registers your words, too busy memorizing every line on your face. You look so fucking beautiful. It almost makes him angry. 

“I’m thinkin’ about how bad I want to kiss you.”

Your face starts to burn. You shove his shoulder. He looks at the place where you’d pushed, quirking a brow, but grinning nonetheless.

“What?”

“Steve, you can’t say shit like that.”

“How come?”

“Because we’re friends.”

“Best friends.”

“Well yeah, but best friends don’t say that to one another.”

His grin widens. He looks more awake than he has this entire time. 

“Oh, but you haven’t said it.”

You blink. “Huh?”

Steve gets his voice up that little bit higher, doing a cheap imitation of you. “‘Best friends don’t say that to one another.’ Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but that implies you want a kiss too, doesn’t it?”

You drag your hands down your face and flop back against the arm of the couch. 

“So you gonna say it, or what?” He’s shifted, and you can feel him hovering over you, but you refuse to move your hands. 

“Of course I’m thinking about kissing you, Steve.” You suck in a breath and open your eyes, locking with his own. “But you’ve got cooties.”

Steve rolls his eyes before he backs up and yanks on your ankle so that you’re flat against the couch. 

“You did not just lecture me about self-care just to tell me I have cooties. I didn’t even have a fever.” 

“I didn’t even have a fever,” you mock, lowering your voice in what is quite possibly the worst impression of him you could do.

He’s quick about it. Almost stealthy, not that you’d ever boost his ego by telling him so. But his fingers are reaching for your sides, the tips dancing over your shirt, that tiny sliver of hip showing where it’s ridden up. 

Steve is practically drunk off of your laugh. It’s the sweetest sound he’s ever heard, and when he goes for your neck, when you tilt your head and trap his fingers between your cheek and shoulder, he thinks he could die. 

You and your laugh. The fact that you drove over at one in the fucking morning, without even thinking about it, just because you care. That you stayed the night, listened to his pitiful thoughts, took care of him…it’s too much. 

Never in his life did he think he’d find someone like you. Someone who makes him feel like he matters. You’d made him realize how smart he is, how capable. That he could do things for himself and not just to please his dickhead father. 

You have made him whole. 

He lets up when you start breathing extra heavily, only to tickle the underside of your foot before he quits, just to piss you off. You kick him in the side. 

“I think a kiss from my very favorite person might be the best form of self-care there is, honey.”

You sit up. “Wow. King Steve really never died.” He raises his hands like he might tickle you again, but you catch them before he can do any damage. “Okay, sorry!” 

Before he can register it, you’ve leaned in and pressed your lips to his. When he does realize, he lets out a surprised hum, and you can feel that smartass smirk forming on his face. 

When you pull away, he whines. 

“All better?”

Steve falls back against the couch, pulling you with him just to get that laugh out of you again. 

“I’m healed.”

————

please let me know if you liked this! feedback is always appreciated!! comments and reblogs mean more than you know. <33

#savannah’s fics #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x female reader #steve harrington comfort #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington fic #steve harrington fanfiction #steve harrington sick fic #steve harrington one shot #steve harrington fluff

[alleiwentcrazy]

Now with a part two!

There’s a guy that comes to the cafe Eddie’s working at. Every other day, he comes to the counter, smiles at Eddie and gives him a post-it with “hi, an americano with two sugars please :)” written on it. He has a different color of post-it assigned for every day. Eddie smiles back and makes the americano, trying to keep his heart from jumping out of his chest. 

Needless to say, the guy is insanely cute. He has swoopy chestnut hair, droopy, almost puppy-like eyes, and two moles on his neck that make him look like he’s been bitten by a vampire. Eddie’s not sure if he finds it more adorable or sexy; either way, he’s definitely developed a crush. And now, after months of trying to gather up his courage to say hi, after months of pining and staring from afar... He’s still nowhere near ready to talk to him. And Chrissy’s not letting him live it down. 

“You’re insufferable,” she whispers to him frantically when the guy comes through the door on the first Monday of December. “Do something more than smile dumbly or I’ll fire you.”

“You can’t fire me,” Eddie hisses back as he tries to dust pastry crumbs off of his shirt. 

“I’m the manager. I can do whatever I want,” she chirps back and goes on to cleaning the machines that don’t need to be cleaned, because Eddie did that twenty minutes ago. 

The guy comes to the counter. There are snowflakes in his hair, big and soft. Eddie thinks that they compliment his eyes—then he realizes that it’s a weird thing to notice about a stranger. 

The stranger smiles. Eddie smiles back. Today’s post-it is light purple.

Eddie makes the americano. It’s muscle memory at this point, he’s not even thinking about what he’s doing until he has to force a lid onto the cup and serve it to his customer. Hell, whatever. He grabs a sharpie and bends down to drabble something on the cup, trying not to spill the coffee. He manages to draw an ugly looking snake that was supposed to be a dragon, cringes, writes “Have a nice day!” underneath it and prays that it isn’t too weird.

Of course it is. But, miraculously, the guy looks at it, huffs a tiny laugh and smiles right at Eddie and – yeah, whatever, curse him – the whole room lights up. Yes, it’s sappy. Sue him. He could be sappy for this guy—if the guy wanted it.

He takes his coffee and leaves, but before he crosses the threshold, he turns back and waves at Eddie, using only three fingers. It’s a small wave, but a wave nonetheless, so Eddie sends him his best grin and waves back.

When he’s finally out, Eddie bends over the counter and groans. Chrissy pats him between the shoulderblades, mocking sympathy. “You’re on probation,” she whispers. Eddie groans once again. This is hell.

***

He has to call in sick on Wednesday. Now that he’s thinking about it, he kind of knew that the mayo smelled funny and it wasn’t good anymore. But he’s a broke college student and he had a choice: stale bread with mayo and a slice of tomato, or just stale bread with a slice of tomato. These weren’t even real choices. It was suffering or suffering.

Apparently, he’d chosen double suffering, and he had a whole night of hurling to prove it. Good thing he doesn’t have to send Chrissy any photos of what he had to deal with – when he calls, she cuts him off with “Just take my afternoon shift tomorrow and we’re even. You’ll miss out on your cutie, it’s a punishment in and of itself,” and goes on with her day.

Eddie’s so grateful for Chrissy. He wouldn’t get anywhere without her. 

***

Eddie doesn’t expect his guy to come on Thursday, it isn’t his regular schedule, so he’s in for a surprise when his morning shift ends and turns into Chrissy’s afternoon shift, and then, some time later, his guy comes in—and he’s not alone.

He’s with a girl. With a pretty, pretty girl, who has beautifully curly brown hair, inquisitive eyes and kind but determined expression on her face. There’s something quite unique about her; Eddie thinks, briefly, that she looks like she’s from another era. Like if they were living in the 80s, she would have a perm, wear bold lipstick and have a whole wall of degrees and certificates in her office. She seems to be destined for great things. She’s a badass.

Eddie’s nothing like her. He tries to swallow down the jealousy as they near the counter. His – his? – guy looks surprised, but smiles either way, his eyes lighting up in a matter of seconds.

“Hi,” the girl says. Her own smile is so nice and warm Eddie can’t stay mopey for too long. “I’ll have a latte with two shots of espresso, and…”

She turns to the guy beside her, but Eddie doesn’t have to know the answer. “An americano with two sugars. On it.”

Their eyes lock for a second. The guy seems a bit shy, but he’s still smiling. Eddie counts that as a win. But he’s still quick with their coffees. He can sense the staring contest they’re having even while he has his back turned to them. He kinda wants them gone, but they didn’t ask for to go, so he just tries to stay calm. Focused. Sharp.

Fortunately, he doesn’t spill anything. They get their order and sit in a corner. It doesn’t look like a date, they pull out books and notes, scribble and sign from time to time. The girl clearly knows more than just the basics of ASL, unlike Eddie. Since the guy started showing up, he’s been trying to learn more about it, but now he makes a mental note to enroll on a course. It’s time to commit – to what, exactly, he’s not sure. But he’s gonna make it happen.

Hours pass, but they stay in the same position. Eddie steals a glance every now and then, trying not to let his jealousy get to the surface again, but it’s hard. The guy is cute, the girl is smart and beautiful. He decides to call Chrissy on his way home – if he has to pine, she’ll suffer with him.

The end of his shift is nearing when he hears a giggle from the godforsaken corner. He looks up from the cups he’s been rearranging and sees that it’s his guy’s girl who’s laughing. She’s laughing at yet another girl, who’s standing outside and drawing hearts on the dirty window. She has a goofy grin on her face, one that makes her eyes and her prominent cheekbones pop even more, and it’s the same grin that the girl inside is wearing at the moment.

Now, Eddie doesn’t know a lot about love, but he definitely recognizes heart eyes when he sees them. He smiles to himself – don’t judge a book by its cover, huh?

His guy looks exasperated about being completely ignored, so he taps the glass a few times. The girl outside looks at him, shocked, like she’s only just seen him now, sticks out her tongue at him, and goes back to blowing kisses at her girlfriend. The guy looks truly wounded. Eddie snorts; the dynamic here is immaculate.

In the meantime, the not-his-guy's girl has gathered her things and prepared to leave. She kisses his cheek on her way out, but the guy stays put, bending over his papers again. Eddie thinks it’s quite interesting. Then, he makes a plan.

When he’s done with work, his guy is still there. Which is perfect. Eddie fixes his hair one last time, trying to gauge whether his outfit is metal enough (it is) for the occasion, and grabs the americano with two sugars he’s made.

It’s alright. Everything’s alright.

His wildly beating heart isn’t so sure about that.

When he gets to his guy’s table, he sets the piece of paper on it first. “Looks like you’re swamped – it’s on the house,” it says. The guy looks up, surprised, his mouth opened in a tiny oh. His eyes go wide for a moment and then he smiles. Something warm settles inside Eddie’s chest.

The guy picks up a pen and writes “Thank you!!!” on Eddie’s piece of paper, but before giving it back, he changes his mind. “I’m Steve,” he scribbles, and then gives it back with a flash of smile.

He smiles a lot. It’s an amazing sight.

“Hello, Steve. I’m Eddie. Nice to meet you,” Eddie replies. “What are you working on?” he adds after a second, because he’s feeling bold and he really doesn’t want to go yet.

The guy – Steve – sighs. He makes some room on the loveseat he’s occupying and pushes his books to the middle. Eddie takes it as a cue to sit down. Their knees bump, Eddie gets goosebumps, but he doesn’t move away. Neither does Steve.

“I’ve got an assignment on modern fantasy and its mythological origins, but I’m not as nerdy as my friends so I’m struggling a bit. Nance helped, but she’s not an expert either and my other nerdy friends went for a trip. Maybe you have any experience?”

Eddie’s eyes open wide and he bounces with excitement, nodding his head along the way. “YES,” he writes, all caps, and Steve huffs another laugh. They look at each other then, Eddie all hyped and ready, Steve—soft? There’s no other way to describe it. His gaze is gentle, almost caring. Eddie can feel his cheeks warm up.

His phone buzzes aggressively in his pocket. He checks it – it’s Chrissy. She’s got her period and she’s out of tampons.

“Shit,” he mumbles. Steve bumps their shoulders.

“What’s up?” he asks.

Eddie picks up the pen. “Tiny emergency, I’m sorry. Tomorrow?”

He knows that his hopeful stare must seem desperate, but Steve reads his reply, looks up and smiles, nodding. Eddie wants to scream victory, but he only nods back and gets up instead. When he’s about to turn and leave, he feels fingers wrap around his hand, delicate but firm. Slowly, Steve opens up his hand and writes something on it.

It’s a phone number. “In case you get sick again :)”

Eddie can’t hold back his dopey smile any longer. When he looks at Steve, the corners of his lips quirk up too. He’s lovely.

Eddie can’t wait for tomorrow.

#steve harrignton #eddie munson #nancy wheeler #robin buckley #chrissy cunningham #steddie #ronance #fic #stranger things #st4 #coffeshop au #hoh steve harrington #my beloved #i'm sure it's been done #but i haven't seen it so here's my version #it's probably the first time without any angst in a fic i've written in my life #fluff #and nothing else #modern au #is it even a fic? it's tiny #anyway i just love the pookies. let them be soft and mushy they can suffer later

[factual-fantasy]

Happy 1st Birthday Jangles!!

This post was originally going to be a humongous comic filled with lore, goofs, and even a bit of angst? 👀 And then have a funny/wholesome ending. Just like Bibi’s birthday comic.

But.. I ran into a problem. I didn’t know what to get for Jangles.

For Bibi’s present it was obvious what to get him. He wanted a real friend. Bringing Jangles to life was perfect and really tied the whole comic together.

But Jangles? What does he want? 

I wracked my brain for days. And when I finally thought of an idea? I only had 8 days left to make it happen. Sketch the comic out on paper, sketch it again in digital, line it, color it, backgrounds, dialogue.. I also had to make the actual present so that its picture could be used in the comic. All while having a very busy schedule for this week AND while working on Moon Malfunction..

I thought I could pull it off. So I got to sketching right away.

The comic would start with me in a big black blob. Locking myself away to try and get this project done as fast as possible. You know, like a total drama queen XD

Bibi and Jangles break in, and Bibi tries to talk to me but I ignore him. Meanwhile Jangles goes over to this goopy present by the wall. The present has a tag with Jangles name on it. As he goes to open it I do a spoopy jump scare and tell him not to.  Jangles and I then proceed to go back and fourth. “Why not?” Because its not good enough yet. “I’m sure its fine, what is it? What’s it for?” I cant tell you what its for because its not that day yet. “What is that day? And why cant we know about it?” “BECAUSE, its a S E C R E T-”

Bibi then says I need a break. I tell him I cant because I’m running out of time. I tell him that it needs to be posted on a specific day and that it has to be perfect but I don’t know what to do..

Jangles then deadpans “Its my birthday isn’t it?”

“...Yes. It is.”

“Okay? So what? I get wanting to post it on the day. But why all this pressure for the perfect gift?”

I explain that Bibi got a big special comic for his birthday. It had all the bells and whistles and it had the perfect gift. Jangles. And I wanted to do the same for him. I explained that the problem though was I haven’t really written enough of Jangles character to know what he would want.. I then wrote for Jangles response to be,

“Well what I dont want is you stressing yourself out over me.”

..I stopped sketching the comic at that point. I realized that I was stressing myself out way too much over this comic. It was 1 in the morning at that point. I was already pushing myself so hard to get this done on time and make it perfect that all the fun was just zapped right out of it. 

But I still worried a bit. I care about Jangles as my character and I wanted to do something cool for him. I wanted to post this at midnight on the dot, but that would require me to stay up until then when I’m still wiped out from the day before.. I also still wanted to get him a cool present.. But again I figured Jangles wouldn’t want me to stress over this “big comic” and “special gift” stuff.  So I just settled for a break. 

This entire post was prepared early, and posted when ever I was awake enough to post it. All the days beforehand I spent just taking my time with Moon Malfunction and focusing on my schedule. And on the day I’m posting it, I plan to draw nothing. Just relax and take a break from everything. I’ll get back around to all my projects tomorrow.

I think a post with minimal effort and day of no Tumblr, is probably exactly what Jangles would have wanted. So Happy Birthday Jangles! And thanks for the day off! XD

#bibi and jangles #my original stuff #Happy Birthday Jangles!

[looneyzune]

The 3AM Stream Incident

SOOOhbkabgsjf i haven't done something like this in a while, but I just go so inspired over in the discord @majimasleftasscheek with the streamer!kiryu idea that i had to write SOMETHING and i really loved this idea we came up with so here's SOMETHING!!! username cameos are all people from the server!!

if i had to put it somewhere, something post yakuza 3 pre yakuza 4. in order to make money for the orphanage, haruka and the kids introduced him to this streaming thing. he wanted to engage in their interests, and has always enjoyed gaming deep down, the money aspect also helps out a lot. he's formed a relatively decent sized community, but has yet to go viral. the streamers are pretty laid back and the children's identities are protected, but thanks to the younger audience of streaming in general, the chat has taken to calling him 'uncle kaz' like the kids do when they call for him off screen.

this is. short and silly and i didn't go too hard on it, but i hope it's fun!! kazumaji implied cause it will be with everything i write.

Kiryu doesn't stream off schedule, not often at least. Life gets in the way sometimes, but he's never done this before. It's quiet in the orphanage, he doesn't want to disturb the kids... but he also can't sleep. Not actually worth anything, at least. It's another all nighter, one that hopefully he can recover from while the kids are at school tomorrow. Today. If there's one thing he's thinking about this isn't the various people haunting him... It's Pocket Circuit LIVE. He figures that was something more productive to be doing than just laying here.

His steps are quiet as he makes his way into the small room that had been built in the rebuilding process of Morning Glory. This room was even in the process of being sound proofed, a gift from Daigo that was hard to refuse. With the door shut, he could be a bit more comfortable with his movements.

Hopefully, not too many people in the chatroom are up either. He thinks he remembers hearing talk about finals during these months. Still, it'd be worth going live, people liked him for his ''chill vibes'' and ''comforting streams''. There was always a twinge of a pride even he knew was a bit goofy, compared to the other things he was proud of. Perhaps he could help them sleep, much like a bed time story... But to the sound of Pocket Circuit LIVE dailies.

When Kiryu hits the 'go live' button, he skips through his starting soon screen, going straight to his face cam and gameplay set up. As the game boots up, a bit slower than usual from having to do it while he's live, the first few messages start to pop up

macthedragon: ayo cosmomemory: ??? tabbitha44: damn this game got you by the throat uncle kaz

"Good evening, chatroom." Kiryu smiles at the messages, the exhaustion painfully clear in his eyes he's sure. "I'm surprised other people are up at this hour. I can't sleep, and I can be quiet during this game to not wake the kids. So long as I don't pull." He adds the addendum before anyone in chat could mention that.

Through his months of doing this, he's learned that many of these 'stream chatrooms' have a sort of 'culture' to them. Each streamer has a different kind of audience they cater to, but many share a back and forth dynamic with their 'chatroom'. It was more work than he had ever realized, it was an interesting new world he had begun to discover.

The motions now are practiced and fluid. Daily missions were a walk in the park. Use a new wheel, win a race without a balance frame, win a race with a golem tiger. As the races began to blend, Kiryu quietly talks with his delayed chatroom, "I don't think I'll be streaming tomorrow, I'll announce on my social media platforms in the morning if I will or won't."

aquaortus: twitter. you can say twitter looneyzune: be nice to him, he's not wrong

Kiryu knew full well he could say 'Twitter', but people seemed to like his antiquated way of saying things as much as it grated on them. It was much like with the children in the orphanage, in that way. The chat was significantly slower, but that was nice for him. He didn't directly talked to them, more so just began saying how his day was, it had been a nice day off, he just might need another.

esutonia: take all the time you need uncle kaz cosmomemory: we all could use one i think looneyzune: you deserve the time off, uncle kaz! macthedragon: please don't say you're leaving to get milk- aquaortus: going to sleep to this stream, gnight everyone

It was nice to see the messages of comfort in the corner of his eye, even as they began to talk amidst each other other than just with him. Of course, he quietly wished the viewers going to bed good night, which ended up being a few of them when an hour had passed. Less than 50 people were watching him at that point. There's a few points where he has to quiet down, hearing something shuffling outside of the room, and he has to make sure he didn't wake one of the children. Thankfully, no such incident happens, and he continues on with the quiet stream.

Quiet for a good while, but by hour two, something goes wrong. A name that he had expected to be gone from this stream popped up, marked with a green sword and bright pink text.

gorogorogorochan: Kiryu-chan what the fuck is this shit looneyzune: uh oh esutonia: SCATTER brahkest: uncle majima moment! it's so over

"M-Majima-!" Kiryu jumped at seeing that familiar name, the chatroom having a similar reaction. He looked to the door, knowing he was a good while away in a hotel, yes, but like he could be there at any moment. "I just couldn't sleep, so... Why am I not surprised you're up at this hour too." He truly should have expected this. "I'll only go for another hour. You should get some rest."

He looks at his quest list. Dailies are done, but weeklies are nearing completion. He could go ahead and knock those out now if he's going to take a break soon. Kiryu gets to it, settling back into the rhythm of the game he found so addicting.

gorogorogorochan: Are ya fuckin' kiddin' me gorogorogorochan: TEN MINUTES mrbeefgnaw: oh rip uncle kaz tabbitha44: h u h cosmomemory: it's so over looneyzune: ...has he noticed looneyzune: uncle kaz are you with us

With chat going so slow due to so few people, now less than 20, Kiryu didn't notice it. Pocket Circuit LIVE was too temping. He keeps good on his promise to not pull, but ten minutes have gone by without him really saying a word. He was both too tired and too engrossed in the menial yet fun activities of his favorite pass time.

brahkest: TIME IS UP: UNLEASE THE HOUNDS tabbitha44: what did he Mean by this macthedragon: he never realized omg.....

The questions as to what he had meant didn't go unanswered for long. Kiryu looked over at the chatroom, finally seeing the sudden activity, "Chatroom, did something-" And is cut off by the door to his room swinging open. It just barely is held back from slamming by a tired, haggard, and ticked off looking Majima. He blinks in surprise at his sudden appearance, standing up and taking the same headphones the man had gifted him off his head, "Majima? What are you-"

The next moment, Majima is charging him.

Kiryu barely manages to understand whats happening in the mere second he's given before Majima's long legs get him across the room. He's still taken to the ground in the next second, but he knows not to start fighting back by then. All the camera sees in a yellow and black blur, and then Kiryu going out of frame.

brahkest: UNCLE MAJIMA MOMENT!!!! mrbeefgnaw: oh rip lol looneyzune: UFBKSD cosmomemory: JHDFKSDG macthedragon: HJDKFJDFHLD tabbitha44: LMAOOOO estunia: JHFKDSFKESJB

The last thing the stream sees is a gloved hand slapping around on the table to find the keyboard, and when it's found, the stream is shut off.

#yakuza #like a dragon #rgg #kiryu kazuma #goro majima #streamer!kiryu au

[h5llpyre]

↳ 𝐃𝐑𝐔𝐍𝐊𝐄𝐍 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐒 — vash the stampede

fem!reader, shameful masturbation, negative thoughts about masturbation, lowkey a lil breeding kink just a lil, negative post nut clarity emotions, vash is pent up and adorable

“i’ll see you tomorrow then,” vash whispers, leaning against the door frame of his room. his eyes are sleepy and soft as he speaks quietly with you in the empty hotel hallway.

after a long night of lingering touches under the table and drunkly stumbling over each other, having you here to himself brought him to another high. sure the alcohol is helping him, but standing here with you, still warm and bubbly, something is shifting inside him. he wants to run from it, yet capture it and swallow it whole.

“mhm, don’t sleep in too late. we’ve got business with the insurance girls tomorrow morning.” you remind him, yet you’re sure he didn’t forget. he was quite good at remembering and being on schedule. maybe it’s your pathetic excuse to stand here a little longer with him, so what?

“right yeah, of course,” and he flashes one of his sheepish yet charming smiles, except a little more nervous than usual. the same ones he had been giving you whenever he passed you another glass, but something seemed off about this one.

you can tell he’s still drunk, with the way he fiddles with the front of his shirt and the way his eyes seem to dash and skim over your face. like he’s not all focused or something’s distracting him..?

“okay w-well i better wash up now,” vash shifts on his feet, dress shoes clacking against the wooden floor. he can feel this coil of sensations unwrapping inside him. its starting to reveal something deeper. something embarrassing. it doesn’t help that his eyes are naturally drawn to your chest. he steps away from you and starts to close his door and somehow he reminds you of a deer in headlights.

“uh-“ you reach out, concerned, yet as soon as you do, he starts to close the door faster.

“yeah! goodnight to you too-“ vash shuts the door on himself. it feels rude to force you away from him, but that sensation is starting to spread to his legs, and he would much rather be out of your sight when his face starts reddening.

horrified and embarrassed, he shuts his eyes, in denial that he’s indulging in any of this. he leans his arm against the door and presses his eyes into his forearm. ever so slowly, his other hand runs down his stomach, over his belt, lower towards his crotch. biting his bottom lip, his shaky hand reaches to cup himself and- god, yeah. he’s rock hard in his pants.

“mmhg…” vash whimpers softly, he can feel himself throbbing against the tight fabric and its making him dizzy. all of his blood is rushing from his head and down his lower half. images of you from tonight flashes through your head; your dress riding up your thighs, your chest spilling out from the low v-neck, your red, flustered face he so dearly wished to see under him. it’s so humiliating yet he cant help the way he begins to roughly palm himself through his pants.

if you found out he was- if anyone found out what he did behind closed doors, the shame would be enough for him to pledge to never indulge in such selfish activities ever again. yet whenever he was finally alone after a night of being with you, he craved for you. his hands itched to touch you under your clothes, his dick jolted and throbbed at the mere thought of being inside you.

vash bites his lip, a pathetic attempt to hide his noises and soothe the tinge of shame. his hand rubs a little faster, his hips begin to grind along the pace, and vash realizes how fucking pent up he is. he can’t even remember the last time he touched himself. a month ago? a few months ago? god he doesn’t even know, but if he doesn’t cum his brains out at the thought of your dress hiking up your ass soon he might start crying.

vash is starting to drool a little on himself. instead of biting his lip to hide his sounds, he resorts to biting down on the fabric of his sleeve. but its useless because its rapidly soaking up his droll and now he’s imagining the wet folds of your pussy lips on his mouth and— oh god he’s moaning.

“a-ahh mmghf…” vash’s hips shuddering as he grinds into the palm of his hand, eyes rolling back whenever the leaking tip rubs against the tight fabric. god he can feel the wetness seeping through. he’s letting out little a-ah’s and mmh’s as he begins to lose himself.

it only makes him hump his hand faster when he starts to imagine cumming deep in your stomach, filling you up to the brim with his warm seed. he’s starting to twitch now, legs losing strength as his body begins caving in on himself. his blond hair falling over his shut eyes as he muffles his moans into his arm, sweat running down his face and soaking into his shirt. its so embarrassing, but he’s so close. just a little more…

vash presses his hand harder against his aching dick, gives one, two, three more rough strokes— and he’s gone. he bites down hard on his sleeve as his cock paints the inside of his pant leg with hot cum. his jaw dropped open as he shudders and groans. in a frenzy, his hand keeps on moving. pushing the last of the seed out as he pushes himself for more. his dick is softening and refusing, but he keeps on slowly rubbing the sensitive tip, imagining your wet tongue lapping up his spend before swallowing it.

vash gives himself a mere ten seconds to think about that soft, pretty mouth of yours again before he stops rubbing himself, instead wiping the sweat from his brow line. post nut clarity finally hitting him: ‘god i’m such a pervert.’ vash bites his lip as he relishes in the uncomfortable cooling of the cum in his pants. the sweat around his neck and underneath his shirt— and he feels like he needs to take a cold shower immediately.

but he doesn’t. maybe just for tonight he can keep on thinking of you. thinking about kissing you after you lick up the cum from his tip. maybe only for tonight he can do that. tomorrow morning when vash sees you again in the hall way, he’ll say good morning and you’ll say it back, and the thoughts from tonight will be shoved to the very back of his mind. he’ll forget about the way he visualized your curves under your dress and your mouth wrapped around his shaft. he’ll forget about all of this. no one will ever know what he does when he’s alone, hell, he’ll act like he doesn’t know either.

vash huffs as the disgust and shame finally pierce him deep in the gut. he wipes the sweat at his brow line and slumps against the door, sleepiness already making its way into his bones. but just as he settles against it, a weight on the other side door lifts off. vash stops breathing when he feels if. panic begins to sink in as he realizes how eager he was earlier. fuck. he didn’t even wait to hear you walk to your room before he started touching himself.

vash bites his lip and squeezes his eyes shut as he finally does hear your footsteps retreating away. ‘god i’m such an idiot.’ he didn’t think the shame and embarrassment he felt could get any worse, but oh it can, and it did. vash kicks off the door, walking straight to the bathroom to strip and soak in a a cold bath.

he prayed that you would forget all about it in the morning.

#tristamp smut #vash smut #vash the stampede #trigun #trigun smut #trigun maximum #trigun stampede #trigun stampede smut #vash x reader #vash x you #vash x y/n #vash imagines #vash scenario #vash headcanons #vash the stampede smut #tristamp vash #vash tristamp

[jennycalendar]

was going to crytype this whole post about how i feel like i'm doing so badly at everything before realizing i think i am just very upset i had to talk to my mother today again the day before i'm about to semi-solo run a workshop for 15 teenagers after like six months of zero teenagers and one celia who barely legally counted as a living person, AND i realized just today that i haven't emailed either of my grad school professors about the library conference that means i will need to miss class, not because i have forgotten but because i've been terrified that i shouldn't be talking to them when i haven't done enough of the grad school reading to talk authoritatively about anything they're teaching (i have so much reading i am behind on and need to do y'all have no idea), AND checking the schedule there is one class i CANNOT miss so i will have to figure out how to schedule attending that class within the conference, and i have to be up at eight in the fucking morning tomorrow, probably/definitely earlier! AND i am getting my state identification ALSO tomorrow after six solid months of avoiding doing it because i hate the thought of living anywhere but my home state and don't want to think of myself as someone who lives here, even though i will almost definitely be here for the next two years, probably longer, because moving is expensive! and actually typing all of this out maybe there are a lot of things i am stressed about

#musings #this is one of those days that's like. #Bad #it would be 200 percent easier if i wasn't having anxiety attacks every time i tried to do grad school homework #but a girl can't have everything ig!!!!!

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

Tl;dr: I have restocked my Etsy shop! If I sell out again, I won't be able to restock until Tuesday.

Life of me:

Spend months bringing embroidery patterns to sell at historical re-enactment events. Get a lot of admirers but average 3 sales per month. Ponder if this is because the chronic pain-and-fatigue multipliers of being at the event, dressed, with a table set up with stuff, and sitting in a chair for several hours, leaves you with the engaging salesmanship of a Galapagos tortoise.

Buy a roll of interfacing 8" wide and 9 yards (27 feet, 324 inches!!) long to print patterns on. Expect to run out at the end of the next Ice Age. Print 13" long strips because that's the longest size the printer will countenance.

Open Etsy shop. Wait several days. Get 9 visitors.

Post on Tumblr

Receive RAVENING HORDE of buyers on Etsy, like homg. When nobody else got me, I know TUMBLR got me. Sell out entire inventory in like 6 hours flat.

Realize that the item price with the coupon code discount is $2 less than the cost of shipping. Realize why so many people cautioned me against guaranteed free shipping. Make shipping the customer's issue.

Change prices, bc they were originally based around the marketing idea of "please oh god someone buy something I'm fucking desperate"

Package up first 5 Etsy orders around midnight; put hoodie on and walk to nearest postbox.

Occupy yourself with embroidering a little mushroom while winding down for sleep (necessary due to vibration of HOLY SHIT I SOLD THINGS)

Feel like a medieval peasant to whom a miracle has occurred

In the morning, decide to dump the seller manual and planned schedule of product release. Wander the apartment 5x looking for stray lengths of embroidery pattern that have gotten put somewhere weird. Print out patterns until only ONE PIECE of interfacing is left.

Order more interfacing, but the soonest it will arrive is Tuesday. Take inventory and calculate how many items are claimed vs up for sale.

Photograph every single blackwork handstitch pattern in the apartment. They are not very good photographs, but at least they exist.

Sleep for 6 hours in the middle of the day because apparently photography is exhausting and fibromyalgia is an ass

Realise right hand is inflamed and hurts to move because of embroidering a littol mushroom. Why are bodies.

List every single pattern on Etsy even if there's only 1 piece of it for sale. Ache from head to toe because apparently standing up to deal with the printer etc counts as like, intense physical labour?

Email 3 local print shops for quotes because this is. A LOT.

Tomorrow:

Have helper come over and package up orders to go out.

Print very last page of interfacing. Probably with more of the Cottagecore pattern, which just sold out, because it is STINKING CUTE.

Monday:

Spend whole day playing Stardew Valley and eating chocolate pudding and NOT THINKING about the provincial election. (Voted last week, the day advanced polls opened)

Now:

Walk from living room to bed. Why?? How?? Why are we put on this earth?? Just to suffer???

#haberdashery

[sunshinereddie]

i love workplace (romance) aus so so much and so i’m imagining an au where richie and eddie are coworkers in the same office, and eddie happens to be richie’s work crush but richie never actually makes a move bc he knows that it’s against company policy for coworkers to date, plus he doesn’t even know if eddie’s into guys, and he wouldn’t want to make things awkward. so he just admires from afar, and tries to keep his flirting to a minimum. 

except one night richie and a few other of his coworkers go out for dinner, and richie maybe has a few too many drinks. he doesn’t remember much after his sixth beer, except for one of his coworkers hauling his ass into a taxi and somehow getting richie to his apartment safe and sound. he gets not nearly enough sleep that night, and is rudely woken up only a few hours later by his alarm, and richie wakes up with the dreaded reminder that he has to go to work. he considers calling in sick, but then he remembers the important meeting that his boss scheduled for today, the meeting he knows he’ll get in major trouble for if he doesn’t attend, so he pulls himself out of bed and gets ready for work. 

he manages his way to the office, and figures that showing up ten minutes late is better than not showing up at all, and makes a beeline straight to the break room for some coffee. he’s so tired and he can barely keep his eyes open, so he doesn’t see the other person in the break room and accidentally bumps into them while trying to find the coffee machine, and as richie starts to apologize he finally opens his eyes wide enough to see the person... and is suddenly woken right up when he finds that it’s eddie. 

richie’s mumbled “sorry”s turn into a real apology as he starts to help eddie clean up the coffee that he made eddie spill, but eddie doesn’t seem to be upset. richie starts to explain his hangover, and that he may not may not still be slightly drunk, and eddie just laughs softly and replies like, “yeah, i figured as much.” 

richie looks at him, confused, and with the realization that richie doesn’t know what he’s talking about, eddie just takes a sip of the new cup of coffee richie poured for him, tells richie to check his phone, and walks out of the break room.

after hearing what may be the worst thing to hear after a drunken night out, richie immediately whips out his phone. he checks his all his social media, but there was nothing posted from the night before. he checks his camera roll, and again, nothing out of the ordinary there. richie’s starting to think that maybe eddie was just messing with him... until he opens up his texts, and sees at the very top, a conversation he drunkenly had the night before with eddie. 

1:07am

Richie: heyy edsei

Richie: eddie*

Richie: r u siingle 

Richie: do u likke men

Richie: you knoew you;re like the secondd cutest in the office... after me of coursse ;)

Richie: we should go out s ometime

Eddie: Are you drunk? 

Richie: nooooiioooo

Richie: may be

Eddie: You know you have work in the morning, right?

Richie: yessss

Richie: will u be rhere?

Eddie: Yes, I will be at work.

Richie: yaaaaaaaaaayy

Richie: see u tomorrow edsie

Eddie: See you tomorrow, Richie.

Eddie: Get home safe.

richie stares down at his phone in shock, completely, absolutely, 100% mortified that he actually said all that to eddie. he refuses to believe that he had a drunken conversation where, over fucking text, he confessed that he’s into eddie. to eddie himself, no less!!!! he prays that eddie only thinks it was a joke, that since he knows that richie was drunk that he will think it doesn’t mean anything at all, that they can both just forget that this happened and move on…

except, he’s not the only one panicking. while he’s worrying about the drunken conversation, richie doesn’t realize that he happens to also be eddie’s office crush, and now eddie is sitting at his desk, unable to concentrate all day long, because he can’t stop thinking about the texts that richie had sent him the night before. obviously richie was drunk, but did that make his words more truthful, or less? what was that saying, drunk words are sober thoughts? did that apply here? eddie didn’t really want to ask richie about it in case it was all just a drunken misunderstanding and richie really doesn’t feel that way, but…

a part of eddie can’t help but hope that it is true as he rereads the conversation, and hope that maybe richie will actually ask him out now… when he’s not drunk, of course.

#i need a reddie workplace rom com and i need it now #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #reddie #reddie hc #reddie headcanon #it #it au #it hc #it 2017 #it 2019

[ssprayberrythings]

Christmas Through The Years - Part One

The Start

‘Jake “Hangman” Seresin x female!reader’

Huge thanks to @fandomxpreferences for taking the time to read this over before I posted it!! <3

Approx. 1.6k words

Warnings: none, it’s all fluff. I’m a hopeless romantic I couldn’t help it !!

—

Meeting Jake Seresin came so unexpectedly but it’s not something I’d change for the world. When we met it was at the Hard Deck, I had been dragged out by some friends for a girl’ night. As we got to the bar, I told the group I’d get the first round despite the reluctance to actually go out. Regardless it was why I found myself at the bar waiting to put my order through for drinks. He came over to get a refill and right as our eyes met, there was just an instant connection that neither of us could really explain, we just knew we wanted to see where it could take us. Him being his usual flirty self, turned his body and after we got past the flirty introductions and pick up lines from Jake, we kept the conversation going. We didn't even realize that we both had our drinks, and exchanged numbers. By the end of the night I had two 2 messages from an unknown number

“Hey. It’s Jake”

“Send me your address, Im taking you on a date tomorrow. Dress comfy!”

Fast forward a couple of weeks, now into December and it was going great with Jake. We went on a couple more dates, got to know each other better, and had a couple lazy days together when our schedules were in sync. Overall, everything was going in the right direction.

To anyone else it would look as if we were a committed couple and even to us it felt that way. However we still hadn't had the talk of ‘what we were’ and so doubts about whether this was real lingered in the back of my mind. Last Friday I found myself sitting at home, ordering some last minute gifts for my family when there was a knock on my door. I put my laptop down and got up from my spot in the corner of my living room to walk toward the door. I opened it and saw Jake there.

“Hi, I thought you didn't finish work till later?” I ask as I step aside to let him in. “Mav let us leave earlier because its Friday. Plus I think he had plans of his own to get to.” he chuckled as he took his boots off. He turned to me, took a few steps forward and wrapped his arms around my waist before leaning down and giving my lips a sweet kiss that brought a smile to my face. “Well I am thankful for Mav and his Friday plans.” I tell him as we pull away and Jake chuckles.

I take his hand to lead him back to my spot on my couch and we sit down next to each other, getting comfy. “Did you have a good day?” he asked as I scooted closer, putting my legs over his lap as he put his arm across the back of the couch “Yeah, I went to the gym this morning, picked up some groceries while I was out, then came home and cleaned up a bit. I just now finished my Christmas shopping.” I told him, smiling as he listened to me ramble on.

That was one thing about Jake Seresin. Although he had a hard time keeping his mouth shut with everyone else, when it came to you, he could listen to your voice all day and never get tired of it. “Sounds like quite the productive day” he responded playing with a stray hair that had fallen from my messy bun. “I wanted to ask you something actually now that you bring up Christmas. Would you be interested in coming to a Christmas party Mav and Penny are having at the Hard Deck?” he offers with a certain glee in his eyes.

“Of course, I would love to! When is it?” I ask. “It’s December 23rd. So next Thursday.'' he answers my question, unable to hide the grin on his face knowing he’ll get to introduce his girl to everyone. “Sounds good, can't wait!” I told him, genuinely excited.

The rest of the night was spent talking about the holidays, sharing stories on how we spent the holidays growing up, and what our favourite traditions were. We continued the Christmas conversation as we made dinner together, laughing with one another at certain points in our stories and then ended the night cuddling on the couch watching Home Alone.

The week seemed to fly by and now I’m standing in front of my mirror observing the finished look for the Christmas party. I had gone out the day prior and bought the outfit I was wearing. I paired black leather pants that stopped right before my ankles with simple black heels and a dark red long sleeve bodysuit that showed off my shoulders. It contrasted perfectly with the gold jewelry I chose.

As I was touching up my lipgloss, there was a knock at my door indicating Jake was here. I opened the door and took a second to admire the man standing in front of me. He was wearing black dress pants and a deep maroon button up with the first couple buttons undone. His hair was still visibly wet from the shower he had taken and he opted out of styling it with his usual hair gel. It made him look even better than he normally did, which I didn't think was possible.

“You like what you see?” he smirked, pulling me out of checking him out. I just blushed in response and turned to get my jacket while he chuckled. He loved making me blush.

—

Jake was a gentleman through and through. When we arrived at the Hard Deck, he put the car in park and opened the door for me like usual. “Thank you.” I smiled as he shut the door. “Anything for my girl.” He winked while offering his arm and we walked to the entrance of the Hard Deck.

Once inside I saw the decorations Penny had put up and smiled. There was a tree in the corner and everything looked so beautiful. Jake led us towards the dagger squad who were all dressed just as nice as you and Jake were.

“Ayyye! Hangman joins us.” Coyote said once we were close, and Jake just chuckled at his friend. “Hangman, who's the pretty lady on your arm?” Rooster asked with a smirk. He was already 2 drinks in so his usual flirtiness was turned up a few notches

“Back off Bradshaw, she's here with me.” Jake said slightly possessive but not meaning anything rude by it. Rooster just put his hands up and chuckled. Jake introduced me to the rest of the group, and everyone took a liking to me almost immediately.

Throughout the night I got separated from Jake but I didn't mind, settling into a conversation with Natasha. She’s grateful not to be the only girl in the group anymore.“So how long have you and Hang-” she started but then stopped herself. “Jake, I mean. How long have you and Jake been dating?” she finished her question, and I made a face while chuckling.

“Well we aren't official yet.” I told her, taking a sip of the drink Jake had gotten me earlier. “Wait seriously?” she questioned, shocked you guys weren't official. “I’ve never seen him so head over heels before. There’s no way you're not his girlfriend.” she continued and I just shrugged.

“I mean I want us to be official, but I also don't know how to bring it up to him.” I shared with the fellow female, hoping for some guidance. “I would say just be upfront with him and ask him.” she advised. Before I could reply to her, Jake came over. “Sorry Phoenix, but I’m stealing my girl back.” he told her as he wrapped an arm around my shoulder and walked me to the other side of the room.

He stopped right in the hallway that led to the washrooms. “Is everything okay?” I had to ask, and he just smirked while darting his eyes above the two of us. I followed his eyes, and of course there was mistletoe hanging. I looked back at Jake and he was already looking at me.

I knew I had to ask him now or else I never would, which wasn't an option. As Jake started leaning in, I put a hand on his chest to stop him. “Jake, wait” I said, seeing the confusion in his eyes before continuing.

“I know this is about to sound extremely middle school-like but I have to ask you. What are we?” I asked, looking at him, and he still seemed confused by my question “I mean, are we boyfriend and girlfriend?” I asked more directly. He chuckled in response and now it was my turn to be confused.

“Babe what did you think we'd been doing this whole time if we weren't boyfriend and girlfriend?” he asked as he pulled me a bit closer. “I know we never said it officially, but I thought it was just an unspoken thing.” he told me smiling.

I didn’t know what to say to that and as I tried to think of something to say, he continued speaking. “I'm sorry I just assumed, I should've asked you earlier.” He apologizes. “ Will you officially be my girlfriend?” he asked, looking at me with pure adoration as he moved a strand of hair behind my ear.

I looked in his eyes and knew he was being sincere when he asked. Afraid to speak, I just nodded as a small smile made its way to my face. He smiled and leaned down, this time not being stopped by my hand and we shared our first “official” kiss as boyfriend and girlfriend under the mistletoe.

“You know I’ve never been kissed under the mistletoe before now” I told him as I wrapped my arms around his neck. Jake just smiled and leant down to kiss me again. This was something he could get used to doing.

—

Okay this is my first ever published piece of writing for a fictional character which is why I really hope this is good so please leave any comments you have!! I’m excited to share this series with everyone and will definitely work quickly to get the others out !!

#top gun maverick #hangman x reader #jake seresin series #jake seresin x reader #glen powell #top gun maverick x reader #jake seresin #jake seresin imagine #bradley rooster bradshaw #miles teller #natasha trace #topgun #Christmas Through The Years x ssprayberrythings

[ficthots]

Bonded: Chapter Two

A/N: Here is chapter two! I already had this posted on my AO3 as well, but since I decided to post these here on my blog, I'm uploading both at the same time. As always let me know what you guys think and enjoy!

Word Count: 4.2K+

Chapter One, Chapter Three

Despite being offered it, you didn’t take the spare day to adjust. Instead of sitting around your quarters all day, you figured you might as well just get started with what you knew was waiting for you anyhow. 

One of the most annoying aspects of your duties was how spaced out all of your work areas were. Most of your work days were spent in travel to your next destination aboard the Supremacy. That is, when you were there in general.

Choosing quite quickly that no true progressive work was going to be done from afar, your work ended up taking you to many interesting, large scale planets. Meeting with these individuals only made you realize how little you wanted to return to the ever roaming ship. 

Engaging in interesting and meaningful conversations was such a drastic difference to the mundane life you led on the Supremacy. The only interesting day had been the first one when your assistant, Kenzo, ran through your schedules and work responsibilities while touring you around the cold ship.

On that same day you had met what you could only describe as Supreme Leader Ren’s cabinet who called themselves his committee. His closest work confidants who had his ear and could very rarely sway his stances, tactics, missions. It was exceedingly rare when something like that happened, but it was not unheard of. 

General Waylan explained how every so often, Kylo would call his entire committee to a singular meeting where everyone was expected to attend. No if’s, ands, or buts about it. You needed to be planted in that chair for the duration of the meeting and never speak unless directly spoken to.

Of course you were shown your seat assignment and were startled to learn you had been placed directly to the left of the head of the table where he normally sat or stood during the meeting. He also informed you it was also not a normal occurrence, but to realize you were always on call in this role. 

If he needed you at any given moment in time, you needed to be there at the drop of a hat.

At first, the proposition frightened you. Having to be on guard in such a way, but as time dragged on and your appearances aboard the Supremacy were few and far between, your eyes never landed on his towering figure around the ship. 

Given it had been two months since your arrival and you had only crossed paths with him twice and both of those instances he did not spare a glance in your direction, your worries melted away about him calling on you.

It’s also how your scheduled travel day coincided with a committee meeting.

You had been gone for nearly a week at the time. Thoughts not even trailing off to the ship once. Your assistant was traveling with you which was not a normality, but given how jammed your schedule was, you were going to need extra help keeping things in order. 

How you both missed that on your calendar you still have no idea.

Docking your personal transport in the hanger, you offered a tired smile to Kenzo. “Thank you for being so great on this trip. We’ll reconvene in my personal office tomorrow. I’ll let you know the time in the morning once I recoup.”

Bowing towards you, he smiled widely. “Thank you, Empress. Enjoy your evening and I am just a signal away if you require me.” Chuckling, you and Tamsyn began your long trek to your quarters. “Not likely. Have a good night, Kenzo!”

As you two slowly made your way down the endless halls and the million doors, you two mindlessly chatted about the success of your travels. It had been a small journey, only two destinations, but extensive stays on both lands. 

It was all you were doing currently. Biting off what you could chew, trying to get your footing just right before fully diving in. Your feet ached from the heightened shoes you had worn all day, opting to stop and remove them, not caring how improper you looked walking barefooted through the ship.

Honestly, it didn’t matter, no one was ever in this sector of the ship besides your people anyhow. With your shoes clutched in one hand, you punched in your code to access your residence. Nearly falling over at the sight before you.

There stood the Supreme Leader, facing the doors. Waiting for you. 

Gloves removed from your hands, you quickly handed them and your shoes to Tamsyn. She took them and hurried off down the hall. “Supreme Leader Ren-” you were cut off by him raising his own gloved hand in your direction.

“There was an empty seat at my committee meeting.” His modulated voice had your blood turning to ice in your veins. Mouth going dry, you blinked rapidly as you tried to come to terms with the error you had made. 

“My apologies. I had an off ship meeting,” again, he stopped you. “Your frivolous activities are of no interest to me, but” it was your turn. Shaking your head, you stepped towards him. “Frivolous? My work today was not frivolous I assure you.”

His booming voice seemed to echo off the walls. “Your disregard for your responsibilities that actually matter placed me in a disconcerted position! Your duties are of little importance or interest to me. I only ask to know during these meetings which you missed today. Your first one. I know Waylan informed you of your responsibilities of being present and you failed.” 

Mouth hung ajar, you were in shock. “Sir, I-” he stalked towards you, causing your neck to crane to look at him. Instantly, your fear left and was replaced by hostility towards him. “I will not remind you of this again. Your excuses are worthless to me. Do not miss another meeting or there will be serious consequences.”

With that, he brushed past you and the doors shut behind him as he left. The draft of wind kicked up by his billowing cape hit you the second the doors closed, you shuttered in response, grateful he had not been there to see that. 

A mind splitting headache had rammed into you the moment he stepped towards you before departing, but somehow the moment he was gone it had disappeared, only a dull pain left in its wake. 

Tamsyn bursted out of the room as she heard him leave, watching you crumple onto your sofa. “Are you alright? My stars he is frightening. How is he so large?” Eyes shut, you only briefly shook your head. 

“I’m fine. Please send word to Kenzo and inform him to clear a section of my day tomorrow for a meeting with the Supreme Leader.” Her brow furrowed, but did as requested. “Did he state your need for a meeting tomorrow?” 

Standing and walking towards your chambers, you spoke as you removed your own shortened winter cape. “No, but I know I will be called on tomorrow.”

You were correct. First thing the following morning you had received word from him that you were to be in the conference room immediately for briefing. With Kenzo hot on your trail, you switched him materials, handing over the data pad and opting for your hand written notes instead, you thanked him before entering the conference room.

Sitting in your assigned seat, this was the second time you had been in here at all, the first by yourself. It had an uneasy feeling sitting heavy in the bottom of your stomach. Eerily silent due to the sound adjustments made to the high security room, you could only hear the blood rushing in the shell of your ear as you sat and waited.

To the right of your seat was a large one-way window. Overlooking the vast nothingness that sat out there, a mere dusting of stars plastered against the sullen landscape. Occasionally, a fleet of ships would zoom by, not an ounce of their loud engines being heard from your side of the wall.

Having gotten there a few minutes early to mentally prepare yourself for the uncomfortable meeting that was about to occur did nothing to ease the nerves in you. As the blaster doors opened and the behemoth of a man filled up the opening, drenching all possible light flowing in complete darkness, you swallowed thickly.

Standing, you bowed to him. “Supreme Leader Ren, thank you for allowing me to brief you today. Again, I apologize for missing yesterday. It won’t happen again.” He breezed past the large table, back to you, looking out of the picturesque window. 

“Begin.” Sitting back down, you looked at the first bullet point on your short list. After all, you hadn’t been here very long to have done an extensive amount that was worth reporting to him. “Okay, first, I would like to inform you that possible relations with Abelor are in progress and-” his robotic voice cut you off.

“Is your job so complex that you need notes to remind you what to say?” Your eyes bounced up from the page, taking in the back of his figure. Having not moved an inch from when he originally walked in, you weren’t expecting him to speak at all. “Sir?” 

Your quizzical tone only set him off. Quickly, he moved to stand behind you. He had spun on his heel, grabbing your book that sat atop the table, sliding it onto the floor by the doors. Watching it shoot across the room, your gaze instantly went back to his, nostrils flaring in anger at his action. Neck strained to be able to look at him from your seated position.

With him now leaning on the table, chest nearly brushing your right shoulder, your nerves were gone, now fury sat in its place. “Again.” He spoke, the mask so close to you the vibrations from it reverberated against your ear drum. 

Going off your memory as best as you could, it was quickly finished. As you went silent, his body once again by the window, he spoke up. “Anything else?” Shaking your head even though he could not see you, you crossed your arms over your chest. “No.”

Watching as he moved towards the blaster doors you spoke, gathering his attention to you and causing him to stiffen. “My notes, please.” Now standing, your chair pushed out behind you, your face was a mask. Not an inkling of emotion portrayed on it. 

Head snapping in your direction, you could hear his condescending tone seep into his response. “What?” Not relenting, your head dipped to where he was standing over them. “You threw my notes on the floor. Hand them to me, please.” 

It was a silent standoff. Seeing who was going to make the first move. How you managed to maintain your composure as another headache pummeled you, you had no idea, but you did. Offering a sincere smile as he knelt down and picked up the book. 

Setting it on the table, his visor still faced you. “Thank you, Supreme Leader Ren.” His fists balled at his sides as you watched as the pages began floating in the air. Eyes widening at this display, his lightsaber ignited, slicing through the material like butter. Jaw falling open, your shocked features morphed into confusion.

“How?” You had heard of the force or whatever it was called briefly before in one of your university classes. However, you had never seen it in action before. Of course you knew that there was much more that could be done with it, things more horrible you had heard described, but instead of instilling fear in you, it sparked curiosity.“Do not give your Supreme Leader orders again.” 

Snapping back to the moment, he left, but you went after the charred remains, observing the marking from it being cut. Knowing that most individuals would have been left terrified by the encounter, you felt as though their worries were quite silly in nature. Of course, him murdering you was out of the question given your ranking, but you knew there was no real reason to fear him.

At least, not to you.

Most of your time spent on the Supremacy was full of meetings and arrangements with varying sectors of officials on the ship. Yet, General Waylan was the only person to make an effort to engage with you outside of work matters.

In fact, whenever time allotted, you found yourself dining with him in your residence. Waylan was the first to suggest sitting down for a meal together, claiming to want to hear your story. The rest was history.

You two were eating a fine meal prepared by your chef, sipping on a bubbly cocktail that you had discovered on one of your recent trips, actually laughing and enjoying the company of another person. A friend, you considered him.

“General, may I ask your opinion on something?” You set your utensils down on the fine dinnerware, hands resting on the wooden table. Wiping the corners of his mouth with his cloth, he nodded. “Of course, Empress. What is on your mind?” 

Tongue poking your cheek, excitement sparked in your core at the thought. “I don’t believe the Order is doing enough to spread our message across the galaxy. Of course, with my constant travels I am trying my best; however, I can only visit one or two planets per trip. It’s not truly cohesive to our plans. Simply put, I do not think I am reaching our full potential here.”

His brow was furrowed in thought, listening to your words. “What do you suggest we do then?” A smile took over your face, lighting up your features. “An event. Send invitations to a slew of officials, royals, across the galaxy. An open house of sorts where they can come to us and we can reach a much larger group than my individual travels allot. Select a place where we can go and host, gain new alliances. I believe it could be a massive success if executed properly.”

As your words continued, your ideas laid out, his smile grew by the minute. “Empress, I think it is a lovely idea. I believe the committee would agree as well.” Eyes slightly narrowing, you spoke before thinking. “And Kylo?” You never called him by his first name, far too casual for your liking. Only ever referring to him in that way in the privacy of your residence, careful of who was around.

Typically, only Waylan heard you refer to him in such a way. A small sigh escaped his closed mouth. “I do not think he would mind. If you handle all of the arrangements, I see no reason why he would take issue with this.” Lips pursing, you broke into a smile. 

Standing from your seat, Waylan grinned at you. “Well then, it is official. The Order will be putting on an event for the galaxy to attend!” The general rose with you, letting you walk him to your door. 

“I cannot wait. Good evening, Empress.” His bow to you always felt off. Knowing it was a formality and must be done, given he was viewed in your eyes as a friend, it was always an awkward moment for you when he did such things.

Bidding him goodnight, you called on Tamsyn to meet you in your personal office. There was much planning to do.

You hadn’t left the ship for two weeks. A record for you since your original arrival. All travel halted until after the event. Hardly departing from your personal office, most of your meetings were held there, if not all of them.

Between food choices, decorations, selecting proper invitations, carefully selecting what to say on the invitations, there was much to be done and those were just the first items on the ever growing list. After getting a list from Kenzo of which Order officials and generals were going to be in attendance, you noticed one name missing from the list.

“Kenzo?” You called out as your eyes scoured the page. “Yes, Empress?” Looking up from the names, you saw him with his data pad in hand, ready to do whatever task thrust upon him. “I need you to request a meeting with the Supreme Leader. Preferably at his earliest convenience.”

He and Tamsyn exchanged a look, but as he looked at the pad in his hand, you could see confusion etched on his face. “Is there a problem?” You questioned, to which he attempted to figure out how to respond.

“Uh, Empress, I don’t, I mean I’ve never,” growing short tempered with him, your head cocked. “You’ve never what, Kenzo?” He adjusted his glasses sitting low on the bridge of his nose. “It is not protocol to request the presence of the Supreme Leader for a meeting. We are not taught how to do this and frankly, I am not sure there is a way to do this.”

Extending your hand towards him, requesting he hand the pad to you, you spoke. “Nonsense. I will do it myself. Actually, Tam, please retrieve my personal data pad from my chambers. I will do it on there.”

After searching through every possibility on your data pad, you realized that there truly was no means of contacting him. Leaving it to chance that you would happen upon him in the halls, or Kenzo. Sending Kenzo out to scour the ship for him and request a meeting, he left fearful of the task you had given him.

Knowing Kylo could not harm your assistant put you at ease. Technically he could do whatever he wanted, but everyone, including the Supreme Leader himself, knew it would be a poor choice. In the months aboard the Supremacy, your reputation had started seeping into the deep crevices of the ship.

You were not to be crossed. Not in fear of physical retaliation unlike your spouse, people were worried about the verbal and mental responses you were known to give. Instead of threatening their lives or severe punishments that could permanently harm them, you opted for intellectual warfare.

Having done so on more than one occasion where someone had crossed you, it was now known to all aboard the Supremacy to simply not test you in such a way. Being able to destroy their livelihoods in one single conversation was a different type of fear that was instilled to those onboard. 

Putting it simply, you did not stand for abuse of your personal company and those whom you worked closely with and had grown respective of. Sure, that was only a handful of people that you didn't even need all ten appendages for, but it did happen.

But you shut it down right away, possibly damaging them in the wake of your words, but it was a lesson you were not afraid to teach. Not those who were deserving of such a lesson. Even the Supreme Leader had heard rumors from his Knights of how sharp of a tongue you had.

That’s why when Kenzo bursted into your office door as you calculated the expenses for the event, he was pinkening and out of breath, quickly adjusting his skewed glasses. “Em-empress. He's coming, on his way, now.” You were the complete opposite of your employees who all scurried out of the room upon hearing the blaster doors open.

Calm and collected, he entered your private office and stood in front of your large desk. Standing, you dug through a pile of papers to your left. “Thank you for accepting my meeting. I do not plan to take up much of your time. As you have heard the Order is putting on an open house to showcase the new goals and wishes of the Order’s mission as well as your own to explain why it is important for them to join the cause.”

He hadn’t moved, clothing still, not a miniscule breeze billowing against him. Taking his silence as encouragement to continue, you did. “Supreme Leader, it would be wonderful publicity and a great help if you were to be in attendance.” Eyes finally looking up to see him still unwavering, he only gave a single word response.

“No.” Shaking your head, your hands rested on the top of the desk as you leaned inwards. “Sir, I don’t think you understand what this could do-” cutting you off mid explanation, he spoke through gritted teeth. Even through the modulator you could suspect his irritated tone. 

“I do not understand?” Sighing, you attempted to backtrack. “I apologize, that was the wrong terminology. What I meant to say was-” again, he stopped you. “I will not be in attendance at this or any of your ridiculous events. Do not ask again and do not request to speak with me unless it is in regards to a serious matter.” 

As he turned to leave, you finally bursted. “Why am I even here then? If you refuse to be seen in the public eye with me, your wife whom you married for this exact reason, why am I here? What is my purpose?” Your raised voice was startling to those in the hall listening in. No one raised their voices at him and Tamsyn grabbed onto Layana’s arm as fear wracked her. 

“That is your purpose!” His shouting tone did not startle you, expecting such a response. “To handle these things so I can do what actually matters, which is not attending these showcases the others want to hold!” Stepping towards the desk, you did not flinch or rescind as he leaned towards your face.

So close in proximity, the cool metal of the mask you could almost feel on your own skin. “The only reason you are my wife is to do this job. Nothing else. Do not bother me again.” The emphasis put on your terminology, wife, had a chill running down your spine. He was clearly seething, shaking in pure rage at your talking back, the migraine that hit you was almost entirely ignored. 

He stormed out of the room and then your residence, but outside of the doors you could hear him decimating your entryway to your home. Regaining your composure, your head fell, eyes shutting, before rolling your neck to release the tension sitting in your shoulders. 

“Tamsyn?” Your voice called out to the deadly silent hallway where you knew your people were hidden. She appeared quickly, eyes wide with fear. “Yes, Empress?” Sitting back down in your chair, you rubbed the bridge of your nose, fighting the pain sitting right at the front of your forehead. 

Never before in your life had you experienced such head pains and they had only begun once you were in contact with Ren and his people. Beyond annoying that he caused such disruption in your life to the point of grueling headaches that typically left you bed ridden for the remainder of the day.

Today was an exception, knowing you had far too much to complete and in far too little time. Kenzo sneaked in as Tamsyn waited for your orders, setting a large box on your desk. The top opened, you saw the invitations sitting there. 

“Please get me a cup of tea and Kenzo please bring me the correspondence list. We need to get these sent immediately.” Both responded with a yes, Empress they hurried out of your office to complete the tasks assigned to them.

Sitting in blanketed silence, you turned and looked out the massive window to your right. Many cruisers, ships, transports, anything you could think of went by in flashes of light across the dark background. Thinking of the term used to address you by everyone, you thought of the stupidity of it.

Empress.

A title that meant positively nothing. Held no true meaning. Not until Kylo would designate it to the Order. The same man who was your legally wedded husband. A man who refused to share the same air as you. Assigning you a job that he saw no importance to. Simply doing so to get you out of his hair. Doing this to keep you occupied. 

But you knew that your job held importance. Even if he refused to admit it, you knew and so did the committee. Having studied this in university and watching it be applied on Bar’leth, you knew what kind of an impact you could make.

Putting the Order out into the galaxy to share the mission and convincing others to join the cause. Diplomatic relationships, possible trade opportunities, it was an endless chance. As your eyes scanned the correspondence list delivered by Kenzo, you made notes. 

Some already a part of the cause who could talk to others and move them from neutrality or opposition. Others that had been in neutral territory for their entire histories, quite like your home planet. If you could speak to them, you knew you would be able to sway their viewpoints. The true challenge was getting the opposing forces to listen. 

As you sipped your tea, you made a decision right then. If Kylo wanted to treat you like a bored child who needed her days filled to keep her busy and away from him then so be it. He wouldn’t listen to you or anything you had to say.

By taking your duties in stride and performing the best you could, your name was going to be spreading across the galaxy like wildfire. Build up your reputation, become known not only in the Order, but everywhere you could go. So what did that mean?

You were going to make him listen.

#ficthots #kylo ren #kylo ren x you #kylo ren x y/n #kylo ren x reader #kylo x reader #kylo x y/n #kylo x you #star wars #star wars fanfiction #star wars imagine

[dumpster-fire-deluxe]

Y/N is mad and wants to sleep on the couch. Palpatine refuses to accept that. Based on this post.

"It's like you don't even care," you say, your face heated. You're already sitting in bed, trying to get through to Palpatine, who's getting ready for the night as well. "I'm always compromising for you. I'm always bending to your needs, but somehow you don't do the same. You always have your way and it's not fair."

"We will discuss this in the morning." Palpatine climbs into bed.

"No, we're discussing it now."

He turns off the lights.

"See? This is what I mean. You even decide when I can and can't be angry. You can't schedule my emotions however you see fit."

"Goodnight, darling."

"No!"

"I'll listen to your plight over breakfast tomorrow."

"I have had it." You get out of bed.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"To the couch." You grab your pillow.

"I don't think so. It's cold and it's been a long day. The only way you'll be sleeping, is in my arms."

"You should have thought of that sooner." You leave the bedroom, fuming.

###

You're plagued by threats and visions of horrors chasing you down. Thieves breaking into the apartment and seizing you. They demand to know where the secret documents are, even though you have no idea. No matter how hard you try to tell them, they won't believe you, and soon they start to hurt you to get the information they want.

By the time you realize that you're dreaming, you're covered in cold sweat. You wake, your whole body tense.

You listen for sounds of danger. Even if it was just a dream, every creak in the building has you clutching your blanket. You feel exposed, vulnerable, unprotected in the living room. You long for the bedroom and eye the hallway. You can barely move, frozen by fear.

It's just a dream, you try to tell yourself. And yet, your mind has you convinced that you have to stay still, or else you might get caught by an intruder hiding in the shadows.

You take a deep breath and jump up. You run down the hallway, your heart pounding, expecting to be grabbed at any moment. You don't slow down until you've reached the bed. You slide underneath the sheets and curl up.

"What's wrong, darling?"

There is still a flicker of anger within you, but it's suppressed by the fear that holds you in place. "Nothing..."

"You can tell me." Palpatine moves closer.

"I had a bad dream."

"Oh, sweetheart..." He wraps an arm around you. "What was it about?"

"There were burglars." Despite your simmering rage, you find yourself moving closer to him. "They tortured me for information that I didn't have. They wouldn't listen and they kept hurting me."

"That sounds terrible." He rubs your back. "Luckily, it was only a dream. You are perfectly safe."

You press yourself closer against his chest. "I'm still mad at you..."

"Try to let it go for now. I'd hate for you to get another nightmare because you're worked up."

You nod, sinking away in the warmth and safety of his embrace. Palpatine holds you close and his hands lazily roam your body. You let him, slowly calming down. Tomorrow, you'll give room to your anger again. But for now, he can have his way.

#sheev palpatine x reader #palpatine x reader #sheev palpatine #fanfic #darth sidious

[dazed-poltergeist]

A Tree of Fellowship and Love

Pairing: (LOTR) Aragorn x reader x Arwen

Summary: You collectively decide with the fellowship to go on a picnic! No more rings or fighting evil, just a picnic under a big tree with plenty of food to share. Also, you may or may not fall asleep under the said tree at night and get smothered with affection with a certain pair of fantastic people.

Warnings: None in particular

Add. Notes: I simply could not figure out where it would be an appropriate place to have a picnic, considering all the places the characters came from/went to, so I went with Hobbiton. At this point I'm both accepting and denying everything that happened in the story; Aragorn and Arwen walk around as if they aren't rulers of Gondor, Boromir isn't dead, and Frodo, Legolas and Gimli haven't gone to the undying lands, and yet everything in LOTR has already happened.

Masterlist ✧⁠*⁠。

> ✉️ <

{ Hello there! I decided to change this blog to the kind that posts about... anything, really. Since I "converted" into an all-fics-n-shits-blog, I changed the aesthetic aswell. To spice (not exactly) these messages up a lil bit, I'll start adding little things about myself; for example, I'm a cat person! }

- Eero, Jan 2023

It was a relatively uneventful day in Hobbiton, and Sam was describing to you the qualities of the plants he was currently tending to. It was bound to be simple and uneventful if you lived in a place like Hobbiton, but you weren't interested in books and gardening. You wanted to spend time with people, and certainly not like this.

You brainstormed along with Merry and Pippin about things you could possibly do with friends in a place like Hobbiton. You already told them at the start of the brainstorming session that stealing vegetables from a dismayed farmer is out of the question. Merry remembered a big meadow with a large tree - which conveniently happened to be near the village - and suggested that something could be done there. A picnic was the best thing that came to your mind, and the two hobbits loved the said idea.

After a quick trip to the rest of the fellowship's homes it was decided; tomorrow you would have a picnic under a large tree that you are yet to see. You asked Merry to take you to the meadow he had mentioned, and so he did. When the two of you made it there, you were surprised that you had never even noticed it; it looked like the kind you'd see in dreams. There was lots of tall grass and colorful flowers of many kinds, and in the middle of it all, there was a large, green tree that every child would wish to climb on top of. It was the perfect place to have a picnic with old friends.

The next morning you began to prepare food for the picnic you had arranged with the fellowship. Aragorn, Arwen and Legolas got the task of creating sandwiches, Boromir and Gimli had to make drinks, and the hobbits, along with you, were tasked to make desserts. You got plenty of help from the hobbits, for they had a lot of cooking experience thanks to the meal schedule average hobbits had. They decided to cook some blackberry pancakes and bake milk bread.

After a bunch of flour and dough spills, you had finished the bread and pancakes, and packed them up into a basket along with a few plates and a jar of berry jam. The four hobbits went ahead of you to pick some extra blackberries for the pancakes while you were taking your time with getting to the picnic spot. You had only now realized that it's the afternoon.

As you were waiting for everyone else with the hobbits, Peregrin told you about the ents that caused the almost literal downfall of Isengard. He said that although he was high off his pants after that and probably in the middle of it too, he still remembered how uncomfortable it was to sit on Treebeard's shoulder. Meriadoc recalled how Pippin was concerned about not being able to have any children.

While the two aforementioned hobbits bickered about what really happened, you noticed the faces of your dear friends making their way through the meadow. You pointed it out to the hobbits, and the five of you began waving at them in an exaggerated yet adorable way. Legolas was already jogging in your general direction alongside Gimli, while Boromir was carrying a basket with drinks he had made with the said dwarf. Arwen and Aragorn were delighted to see you waving at them like that, and began waving back as the pair walked to the tree.

Boromir realized that nobody had brought any blankets to sit on, so he proposed to go back himself to bring one. But he didn't need to; Gandalf was already coming to the picnic tree with a large, rolled-up blanket under his arm. Now the entire fellowship was together.

You all put the baskets and personal items in each corner of the blanket so it wouldn't fly away with the wind, although there wasn't much wind to speak of. Aragorn took some small plates out of his basket with a few sandwiches, and Boromir pulled out a bottle of apple cider from his own basket. Aragorn finished giving out the little plates as Arwen handed the rest of the sandwiches to everyone.

Boromir was telling Sam about the cider-making process as everyone ate and listened. Every now and then someone would chirp in, until something Sam said reminded Gimli of the stories his father, Gloin, would tell him. Eventually the dwarf retold the story of Thorin's company's travels to Erebor. Frodo felt very proud of Bilbo for traveling with dwarves all the way to the Lonely Mountain, although he himself had accomplished a major feat aswell.

As the hours went by and the sky began getting darker, the members of the fellowship would tell stories from their own lives and from others. Most of the group was becoming tired of the day, and it was becoming evident; lots of yawning and words turning continuously quieter and quieter could be heard.

You only now realized that Aragorn and Arwen had moved next to you, and the latter motioned you to relax and let her hold you. You listened to her without a second thought, and now you were sitting in Arwen's lap as her arms were wrapped around you. Aragorn moved closer to Arwen and put his head on her shoulder.

It seemed that the rest of the fellowship took that as a hint and now began to wrap up their long conversation. Gimli packed the now empty bottles into Boromir's basket, and Legolas put the remaining plates into yours and Aragorn's baskets. Gandalf asked everyone to get off the blanket and move their things, and then rolled up the said blanket like a carpet.

The hobbits also knew that you would stay longer, so they took your basket and left with it themselves. Most of your friends followed them away from the tree back to Hobbiton, leaving you, Aragorn, and Arwen under the big tree with stars.

The three of you sat back down on the ground, and tried to get into a comfortable position that would work for three people. You sat back in Arwen's lap, held by her bridal style, as Aragorn sat infront of her. You were now sitting between your lovers, unsure of what to do now; your mind began going to all sorts of places, until Aragorn gave a little kiss on your forehead.

Because you still didn't know what to do, you just froze in place as your face heated up from the move Aragorn pulled on you. Arwen grinned at your reaction, and gave multiple kisses onto your face, causing you to hide your head between your shoulders to get away from the kisses. That didn't stop Aragorn from giving a peck on the top of your head, though, and now you were back in your initial position, embarrassed that they saw you in such a state.

You thought that the "kiss wave" was over when Arwen helped you readjust your position to laying down next to her, but no; oh how mistaken you were. The elf gave you yet another peck on the cheek, and Aragorn came in from your other side and wrapped his arms around your torso, and also gave you a kiss after making himself comfortable.

Arwen put an arm around you aswell, and began whispering words to you in a language and manner you were yet to understand. Aragorn had already closed his eyes, and it seemed Arwen had aswell, although she was still whispering. You imitated them by closing your own eyes, too. You had fallen asleep to Arwen describing you in the best manner possible, even though you didn't understand a word she said.

The pair was actually still awake, and gave each other the look when they were certain that you were now in a sleeping state. Aragorn carefully lifted you up bridal style from the ground, and began carrying you away from the tree, while Arwen was right behind him with the remaining basket and personal items.

Unused paragraphs and things I didn't want to include in add. notes nor the "letter."

Instead of bringing you to your own house, Aragorn brought you to his, for it was closer to the tree and he didn't want to wake you up. Fortunately, nothing that they did disturbed your sleep. They changed into comfortable clothing after putting you into their bed, and then laid down next to you. They both whispered to you a "Sweet dreams, Y/N," and followed you to dreamland.

ー

One time Pippin told you about all of these mealtimes that Hobbits would have throughout the day; which aside regular meals included a second breakfast, an another, later breakfast, some afternoon tea, and yet another meal a few hours after dinner. When you needed something to zone out to, you liked to think of all the good food they would eat at those excessive meals.

To me, Arwen and Aragorn seem to be the kind of people that give the best forehead kisses, or any kinds of kisses in general, and whoever receives them would fucking melt in their hands like ice on a hot day. I definitely would've written their part longer if I was good with writing physical affection (⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠ ) im sorry

I only now, after finishing writing this, realized that all of my fanfics' endings so far involve either death or falling asleep. I have a guess to why my ideas end with these things but I don't want to go there.

#eero's fics #lord of the rings #lotr x reader #lotr aragorn #lotr arwen #lotr #lotr x you #aragorn x reader #arwen x reader #arwen x aragorn #lotr fanfic #lord of the rings fic

[eclairfromleclerc]

Hello people of tumblr! I am alive and no one kidnapped me. This chapter took forever to write because of uni duties and exams and summer in general. It’s super long (a good 14.2K words to be exact) and it has many different styles because it was written in many many different days. I felt like I needed to get this chapter to some point of the storyline so I can eventually develop it a bit more. I hope that you will enjoy it. I am sorry for the extra long wait and the extra long chapter (you can read it as 2-3 seperate ones). You guys keep me fueled to keep writing this story and I thank you all for waiting for this-if you were. Again I will remind you that english is not my native language so pardon any mistakes. Hope you will enjoy it and that I will be able to update the story sooner than I did with this chapter. All my love <3

All’s Fair

(Toto Wolff x Reader) Chapter 7

chapter 1 chapter 2 chapter 3 chapter 4 chapter 5 chapter 6

It is the first morning after many days that you can eventually wake up without an alarm and even though you traveled all the way back from Australia, you managed to reduce the jet lag by taking your sleeping pills.

You open your eyes and check the time. 1 pm. You always loved long naps. You ask Siri to open the windows for you, to get some light in the room. Thank you, Apple Home. You try to wake up, stretching while you are still laying in your bed. After you manage to open your eyes properly and adjust to the daylight entering the room, you check your phone notifications. As always, instagram and tons of story reactions and messages from fans and not, messages from your friends and other F1 related posts. You open your What’sApp and you see you have a new message. It’s Beth letting you know about your schedule.

Since the last time you saw Toto you kept reminding yourself not to get your hopes up about what is happening between you two. He promised that he would text but he still hasn’t. It’s not like you are going to beg him more than this. If he wanted to, he would have texted, you say to yourself and you stand up from your bed and walk down to the kitchen to have breakfast. You eat and go back to your room without seeing anyone from your family. You get ready and leave for the factory where you create your schedule for the next race week, alongside Beth. The next week goes away just like this. Going to the factory on a daily basis and trying to exercise, playing tennis and golf with your friends. Before you even realize it is time to leave for the next round of the championship, Bahrain. Still on your phone there’s radio silence. Toto hasn’t texted since you last talked in Melbourne. You had seen some of his statements, but you just read his words, not trying to analyze anything behind them or to justify why he hasn’t even bothered to look for you even though he said he would do it. Now your main concern is packing whatever you need for the race weekend. You look at your schedule to figure out if you have any events to attend that need any special attire. 

Red Bull Racing Bahrain Grand Prix 2022 Schedule (Ms. Horner)

Friday: FP1, FP2, Press Conference (Subject to Christian Horner’s schedule)

Saturday: FP3, Qualifying, Post Qualifying Interviews, Qualifying Debrief (Until 6 pm).

‘Grand Opening of the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Center’ organized by The Royal Family of Bahrain {Additional Charity Auction to help the “SHAMSAHA” foundation} (Event To be hosted at the newly built BIECC, Black tie attire is obligatory.) 

Sunday: Pre-Race interviews, Race, Post Race interviews, Race Debrief. 

Reading your schedule you realize you had not approved the Grand Opening Event so you text Beth.

You

Hello Bethy. I was just packing for tomorrow and I was checking the schedule to plan my outfits.

Beth the Lifesaver

Hello you. Is everything okay with the schedule? Are there any issues?

You

That thing about the Grand Opening of the BIECC. Is it obligatory, do we have to go or is it just an invitation that we can turn down?

Beth the Lifesaver

No, you cannot skip the event. Team executives and drivers are expected to be present in the events planned by the Grand Prix’s Organizer according to contracts. 

You

Isn’t this event planned by the royal family of Bahrain?

Beth the Lifesaver 

Isn’t the race planned by the royal family?

You 

Fair enough, now I have to find something to wear. No black tie dress for me

Beth the Lifesaver 

Come on, you have been to each and every FIA prize giving gala, you surely have something to wear to a Grand Opening

You 

I am not wearing what I wore last year to the prize giving gala

Beth the lifesaver 

You are such a diva, I hate you

You 

I’ll figure out something myself, hate you too, see you tomorrow

As soon as you lock your phone you feel the panic coming at you. You realize that you have nothing to wear to this event, plus everyone from the paddock will be there-including Toto and other really important people. Without being able to find out what to do, you text Max.

You 

You are coming to this Grand Opening as my date, no isn’t an option. 

Max Emilian Verstappen 

No. :)

Joking, of course I will. 

After that you lay in your bed staring at the ceiling trying to find a solution to your problem. And then it hits you. Lewis. The guy knows so many people in the fashion industry that he could probably get you a dress in the next 5 hours. Even though he is in a different team you loved discussing with him about your interests, music and fashion. He is a rival but he is nice. He had given you his phone number after Spa last year, where you had your first long encounter and discussion. And rumor has it that he doesn’t give his phone number to anyone, unless he likes them a lot. So you decide to text him, against your best judgment.

You

Hello Lewis, it’s Christian Horner’s daughter here. I am really sorry to be bothering you but it is kind of a fashion emergency that I am currently having and I hoped that you could help me. 

Five minutes later you open your phone

Read by Lewis Hamilton at 12:36 am

Well, he left you on read. Expected. He’s Lewis Hamilton, he isn’t going to help you.

You throw your phone on the couch opposite to your bed and it lands between the pillows as you turn your face on your bed’s headrest and start crying, letting the anger and the pressure from the past days take over. After 2 or 3 minutes your phone starts ringing. You stand up, get it from the couch and you look at the screen to see an incoming FaceTime call from Lewis. You accept the call.

“Oh My God Lewis thank you so much for answering.”you say and you hear him laugh

“First of all stop crying and freaking out about the Grand Opening, it’s really not that big a deal. Toto is in the same situation, totally freaked out. I remembered that you loved Chanel but I figured out it might be a bit too much for just an opening so I called Tommy.

“Tommy?” you ask

“Hilfiger. He said he’ll take care of it. I called and gave him your number. He said he already had something in mind since he has seen the way you dress and that he just needs your measurements. He assured me that he will have something sent to Bahrain by Friday morning.”

“You are top Lewis, thank you so much for helping me.”

“Always happy to help a friend. Hope you are glad.”

“Very. Thank you very much again.”

“Send me the designs as soon as you get them, I want to see them.”

“I will. Have a goodnight, see you soon in Bahrain.”

You hang up your call with Lewis and several minutes later you get a call from Tommy, where you discuss his visions so he designs the dress within an hour and you send the first draft of it to Lewis, who agrees with the concept. You thank him for working so late for you. Later on, you make sure that you have prepared everything you need for tomorrow and fall asleep. 

The following day you wake up and go to the airport where you take the first flight to Bahrain. It is already Wednesday, which means that you are 2 days earlier to the start of the race weekend. Your first days in Bahrain include a lot of relaxation, since you didn’t need to go to the track until Thursday afternoon for the team meetings. You enjoy as much silence as you can get before starting the race weekend. 

They say that time flies when you are actually enjoying yourself and the first two days of your stay in Bahrain are proof of it. Friday comes as fast as a blink of an eye and you wake up in this hot and sunny morning to hit the track for the first practice session of the weekend. Everyone in the team is anxious about the car performance since the day when the rear wing of your car was deemed illegal by the FIA and everyone back in Milton Keynes worked their asses off to fix it. Now what remains is to see if it performs as good on the track as Adrian has calculated. Max and Sergio complete several laps that help you compare data to the ones that you saw in testing earlier this year. They don’t top the session but they are giving the team significant data that make you optimistic. The second session of the day is completed in the exact same way. Mercedes is still the fastest, even though the simulator correlation shows that both the Red Bull and the Mercedes car have similar paces. After the practice sessions you do Press as scheduled by Beth and you conclude your day. Thank god Toto wasn’t there today. Something about his business in Vienna got held up and he had to be there so Mercedes let people know that he would only be there in time for the qualifying sessions tomorrow. 

The next day Toto is indeed nowhere to be seen during the third practice session, which Max tops, giving Mercedes a taste of what’s to come in qualifying. After FP3 you chill out in your office as usual until qualifying time. Christian comes and knocks on your door. 

“You in?” he says from outside

“Yes, come in dad” 

“It is quali time. Aren’t you ready?” 

“I am ready, let me take my iPad and I’m coming.” you say and you take your phone in your hands and scroll down on twitter seeing that he has eventually arrived and you feel slightly angry seeing him walking in the paddock so chilled. 

“Ah I forgot to tell you, the obnoxious guy from the garage on the left has arrived.” he laughs

If only he knew about what has happened between you and him, he wouldn’t be laughing right now but rather crying. That’s what he always does anyways. Lost in your thoughts you are stuck frozen with your phone in hand. 

“Are you coming?” 

“Yes, sorry. My brain just froze” you laugh 

“We want you on the top of your game today.” he says and you walk to his side as you leave the Red Bull Motorhome and get to the garage. You try to peek through the Mercedes fantasy island but you can see nothing but Bono’s ass. Damn Bono. By the time quali starts Beth messages you.

Beth the Lifesaver

The dress is in the hotel. Tommy also sent someone to do your fitting before the event

You 

Thank you. 

You lock your phone and look at the qualifying in front of you. Q1 is pretty much indifferent to you, no way that your drivers won’t pass through. Q2 is usually indifferent as well but out of the blue Yuki crashes his Alpha Tauri 2 minutes before the end of the session, triggering a red flag and leaving Max temporarily out of Q3.

“Is this the end of the session?” 

“It could be. Probably not, 2 minutes are enough for one more timed lap.”

“Can’t we ask the FIA to continue the session? Yuki shouldn’t have done this.”

“That was last year, honey. Helmut will have a chat with him later.”

Half a minute later the FIA updates you that the session will be resumed so Max gets his timed lap and goes through to Q3. In Q3 he manages to get pole. The whole team is celebrating for your first pole of the season. Later on Max comes to the garage and you have a chat with him. 

“Everything was perfect Max” Christian says

“The car is better than before thankfully.” you reply

“We did a good job back in Milton Keynes to be honest. I should go to my driver's room to relax a bit.”

“I’ll be in the media pen for post quali interviews so I’ll see you at the debrief.”

“My proposal is to do the debrief now and the interviews later so you can leave and get ready for the event.”

“Thanks dad.” you say and the three of you leave for the debrief. 

After a productive session you head towards the media pen. On your way there you check on your phone, focusing there and not noticing anything around you when you suddenly bump into someone. 

“Oh my god, I’m sorry” you say and the person turns on your way revealing a stressed Toto talking on the phone.

“Sorry, I gotta go. Paddock business, I’ll call you back later once I am done” he says and he ends the call then turns to you “Hello”

“Hello Toto.”

“How’s everything going?”

“It’s quite funny, you pretending to care. Have a nice day.” you say and leave him standing in the same place. “Wait” you hear him say

“What is it?”

“Will I see you at the Grand Opening today?”

“Sadly” you turn and leave for good. You do your interviews and then pick up all of your stuff and drive back to the hotel. 

When you arrive, you take a long and relaxing bath. You go back to your suite’s living room and Beth is already in there with the dress on a hanger. She opens the zipper and shows you the design.

“Try it on” she tells you and you walk back to your room to try the dress on. After 2 minutes you emerge from your bedroom back to the main area of the suite.

“How is it?” you ask feeling nervous about how the dress looked

“It looks amazing, probably the best dress you’ve ever worn to date” Beth replies and you feel a weight lifted off your shoulders. Half an hour later a team of hairstylists and makeup artists come to your suite to get you ready so you just sit on the chair and enjoy being taken care of. Once you are done you call Max and ask him to come by to your room to get you, which he does. You get in the hotel parking and enter Max’s Porsche and drive to the event. 

When you arrive there you see some fans before entering a high security zone. Max parks the car and someone opens your door and holds out a hand for you. You get out and you feel the flashes all over you. Max comes to your side and guides you to the red carpet that the organizers had set. 

“Why are there so many people just for a grand opening?” you ask

“I don’t know, just smile and pose so we can get inside please.” 

Following Max’s instructions you smile and pose together and then individually and as soon as you’re done, someone from the organizing team leads you inside, where you can spot several well known people from the paddock.   

“Who are all those people?” Max asks

“We aren’t the only ones invited Max, we will have to socialize today.”

“Isn’t like talking to Stefano Domenicalli enough socialization?”

“Not with F1 people you idiot. Company owners, that’s what I mean, think about the sponsorships” 

“Oh that kind of socialization. Aren’t you supposed to do that?”

“I am but Christian is not here yet so you will be the one assisting till he comes.” you say and hear Max shrugging. Meanwhile you see Lewis approaching you. 

“Hello Lewis”

“Hello, how are you doing?”

“Good, how about you?”

“All great, how’s the opening?” 

“Oh I wouldn’t know, I just arrived. How long have you been here?”

“Literally just arrived.”

“The dress looks amazing, better than it was on the design.”

“Tommy did a great job. I can’t thank you enough about it. Skydiving will be my treat” 

“I was just helping you out, but I am up for some skydiving if you want to.” he says and he looks at his phone which is vibrating. Toto’s name and his face pops up on the screen. “Gotta take this, it’s Toto. I’ll see you later.” he says and you say goodbye to him

“What does he have to do with the dress?” Max asks as soon as Lewis is far enough to not hear the conversation

“I asked for his help because I had nothing to wear”

“Couldn’t you just wear what you wore last year in the FIA gala?” 

“Oh Max, you are so annoying.” you say and you leave him. You go around and grab a glass of champagne while you discuss with people that have already arrived. After an hour or so you feel your phone ringing on your Hilfiger clutch and you open it to see that Beth is calling you

“Hey, could you please come by the main entrance? They are asking about some statements and Christian is busy chatting with some Bahraini millionaires, trying to talk them into a sponsorship.”

“Yes, I will be there in a second.” you reply and end the call excusing yourself from the discussion you were involved in. 

You get at the entrance and Beth is waiting for you, guiding you to the place where every journalist is. You answer the same questions about how amazing it is to be here and how great the place is. 

“Will you please tell us what you are wearing?” an interviewer asks

“It is a custom dress by Tommy Hilfiger. Mega thanks to Tommy for designing it and to Lewis for introducing me to him”

“Lewis who?”

“Lewis Hamilton.”

“He helped you get the dress?” the journalist asks impressed

“Yeah” 

“You look stunning, an amazing option indeed. Thank you for your time”

“You’re welcome” you say and you leave. As you turn you realize the majority of the invited people have moved inside at a certain place. You look a bit lost until your lifesaver comes into your rescue

“It’s the auction. It is about to start, shall we go?” Beth asks. You nod and follow her through the enormous place that is the exhibition center. You arrive at the auction site and someone from the organizing team asks for your name, then he guides you to your seat which is next to Christian and Max. You check your number, no. 45. The auction begins and people are bidding for some jewelry, paintings from locals, signed memorabilia and all of those things that are typically up for auction at a fundraising event. 

“Next up we have an amazing 5 day trip for 2 to Bali. Starting price is 4000 euros.”

You raise your placard “4100” you say 

You don’t even get enough time to lower it when you hear the familiar voice from the Mercedes table “4200” Toto says and the room goes a tiny bit silent. You get what he’s doing. He’s trying to get your attention and he’s managing very well. You don’t even know who you are going to take with you on this expensive trip but you have decided that you are getting it. Money is not the problem you think

“4500 euros” you state and then you glare at his side. 

“5000 euros” he says and does the same

“Okay, we have a nice little battle between the lady with the beautiful dress holding number 45 and the charming man with number 18. 5000 euros was the last offer, do we have another one?” she asks and you take some time thinking if it’s worth it. It is about a charity, it is about abused women, it is worth all the money you can provide. 

“Going once, going twice…”

Before she manages to get to number three you raise your number for your final offer. 

“6500 euros.”

“6550” Toto replies once again

“6600” you say back

“6600 euros, do we have any more offers?” she asks and you turn to look at Toto once again who smiles and shakes his head realizing he has no chance in getting the trip. That’s how stubborn you are. 

“Going once, going twice…Sold to the lady no.45” she says and then everyone applauds. The charity auction continues for another half an hour, and you do 2 or 3 more bids without actually getting something. Your dad does instead. 

As soon as it finishes you move to the main area where everyone is mingling. At some point while you are speaking with Stefano Domenicalli you spot Lewis and Toto alone, discussing. Lewis looks totally chill like he’s enjoying himself while Toto is much more tense and grumpy. You can’t understand what they are saying because of people talking and the music.

“Isn’t the dress crazy good?” Lewis asks as soon as he spots Toto staring

“Huh? What are you talking about?” Toto replies

“Little Horner’s dress. She called me the other day and asked me for fashion help. I called Tommy and he designed it.”

“Tommy as in our Tommy?”

“Yeah, Tommy Hilfiger Tommy”

“And she dared to call you to ask for fashion help?”

“Yes Toto, we are kind of talking to each other outside the racing track”

“So you are friends with her?” 

“I wouldn’t call it that but I guess.”

“With the rival? And you have her phone number?” 

“Yeah I do” Lewis replies slightly confused 

“I need you to give it to me” Toto says

“Why Mr Wolff? Do you fancy her?” Lewis laughs teasing Toto

“No Hamilton, I am just going to ask her to kindly stop calling my drivers for fashion advice”

“Don’t you dare do it.” 

“Give. Me. The. Number”

“No”

“Remember that bonus Million that I was supposed to give you by the end of the season? If you don’t give me the number, you can forget it.” Toto jokes

“Fine,” Lewis laughs. It’s not that he cared about the extra money, he just wanted to roast Toto a bit more. He takes out his phone and texts the number to Toto. As soon as he gets the text he greets him and leaves to socialize with the other guests. Toto stands there opening his phone tapping the phone number Lewis is giving him. 

Later on during the evening you discuss with your father and several potential investors and sponsors for the team, trying to convince them that you should reach a deal since the team is performing at the optimum level, going for not only the world driver’s championship but also the constructors championship. Max is by your side trying to show a good face to the investors as well. You have your champagne in hand when you feel your phone buzzing.

Beth the lifesaver

Seems like Mr. Boss Man didn’t like your little auction game.

You read the message as you tap on the attached link

Toto Wolff when asked about a small auction battle between him and Christian Horner’s daughter replied jokingly “The trip was a nice proposal, I would spend some time in Bali so that’s why I decided to bid. Clearly Ms. Horner wanted the time in Bali much more than I did so she did her best to get it. It’s okay, she can take Max, her date with her to spend some bonding time.”

You laugh out loud as you read his lines and everyone turns to look at you. Max especially peaks in your phone and you hand it to him. He laughs much more quietly and then turns to you

“Is this guy for real?” he asks

“Haha, I can’t even”

“Are you alright girlfriend?”

“Shut up” you whisper to his ear and you keep paying attention to the conversation you were in while your father is staring at you. After a while you decide to freshen your makeup so you excuse yourself and go to the bathroom. 

There are 3 more women in the bathroom so you get to the free mirror and start reapplying your makeup. The 2 of them stare at you and you can’t really understand why, but you let them do whatever they are doing and return back to retouching your makeup. Once you are done you check that everything is okay with your dress and go outside to the corridor that leads to the toilets. Before you can manage to take some steps you can hear the women in the toilet discussing. You stop dead in your tracks to listen to what they were saying. “She’s Horner’s daughter. She came here with Verstappen and they are most probably dating. That’s why she wanted to bid on the Bali vacation, she wanted to take him there for their holidays.” 

“Omg, I figured out they were dating, everyone’s been saying that since she started working for Red Bull. Although I believe that she’s been dating him for quite some time now.” 

Before you can even attempt to go back to the room, you feel someone grabbing you by your arm leading you to a dark room that you haven’t even noticed existed. 

“What the fuck?” you yell

“Shhhh. It’s me” says the familiar voice

“Why did you grab me in this room?”

“Because I wanted to tell you to stop messing with my drivers.”

“Is this about me asking Lewis to help me get this dress?” you ask 

“Yes, it is” Toto replies in a somewhat strict tone

“What, you thought that since I won the auction about the trip that I might actually defeat you by taking your drivers?” 

“Ha, you think you are funny? I don’t give two fucks about the trip to Bali, I can go by myself if I want to. I just don’t want you hitting on my drivers, collecting them like pokemon cards” 

“It didn’t seem to me that you didn’t give two fucks when you were bidding your ass to get the trip” you tell him trying to make him angrier than he already is. “And oh it also didn’t seem like you don’t give a fuck when you actually said that I did all of that to enjoy a trip with Max” 

“I was bidding because I was trying to get your fucking attention.” Toto says

“Well you did get it, congratulations Mr 5 year old.” you say and you turn to leave the room, they will be looking for you after all. 

“You should have fun with your boyfriend Max in Bali.” he says as you have your hand in the door handle. When you hear it you drop your hand and turn to him.

“Why are you so obsessed with Max, Toto?”

“I am not obsessed with him. You just paid for a trip to Bali, it’s not like you won’t take your boyfriend with you. I am just stating the facts.” 

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“You are going everywhere together, he came here as your escort. Of course he’s your boyfriend.” he says

But then it hits you and it sounds so funny in your head. You turn to him and ask him 

“Jealous much, Wolff?” 

“I am not jealo-”

“Save it Toto, you are not convincing me.” you stop and take a moment to laugh “Just so you know I would have taken you in Bali, but you didn’t even text me for a full week after you said you would.” 

He looks at you speechless to what you said to him. When he tries to tell you something you turn to him once again

“Right now I am going to walk out of this room as carefully as possible so no one will see me and I am going to get a multi million deal from this rich Bahraini guy. I suggest you do the same. If you want to give this any chance, please stop acting like a jealous high school chick and find a way. I am done with trying. Goodnight.” and you leave before he can even register what you told him. You leave and go back to Christian and Max. You spend the rest of the night feeling slightly irritated with the whole situation until you are finally able to leave the event.

You and Max are driving back to the hotel 

“Can you believe that Toto said we are dating?”

“He’s a joke. The guy is a joke.” 

“To be fair we do look like a couple sometimes.”

“Max, that's fundamental when your best friend is of the opposite sex. People always do that.”

“Yeah you’re right.” 

A few minutes later you feel your phone buzzing in your clutch, you open it to see that there’s a Message from an unknown number

Unknown Number

Up for a coffee pre race?

You try to understand who is this from

You 

Sorry, who is this?

Unknown Number

This is me trying.

Sorry if this is weird, I got your number from Lewis. He still thinks that I wanted it to scold you about asking for help from him.

You

Oh hey. 

Maybe I should snitch on you to Lewis.

You laugh at your phone screen loud enough to take Max’s attention from the road. You still can’t realize that he actually got the guts to text you. You navigate through your iPhone and save Toto’s mobile number, forgetting to wipe the smile off your face. 

“Who got you smiling like this?” Max asks

“No one, keep driving” you reply and you peak at your phone as soon as it vibrates with another notification

“Doesn’t seem like no one to me”

Wolff

I’d appreciate it if you didn’t. 

Anyways, are you in for a coffee tomorrow morning?

You 

Jk, I won’t do it. Lewis wouldn’t leave you at peace if he knew

What’s your idea about tomorrow?Paddock?

Wolff

I don’t know, paddock would seem like a random meeting, somewhere else would be a bit suspicious if fans find out?

You

Okay then, coffee on the paddock, pre race. 

Max keeps his eyes locked on the road but he talks to you

“Fine, go ahead, don’t tell me.” he whines

“I will tell you when I feel ready.”

“Whatever”

Wolff

You know what, screw the paddock,I have a better plan.

You 

So no paddock then?

Wolff

No, I’ll have someone to pick you up from your hotel at noon

Don’t be late

You 

See you then

You arrive back at the hotel and go back to your suite and fall asleep after a tiring day

The next morning you wake up at 10 am to get ready for your date with Toto. Well it’s not a date but if you think about it that’s the only thing you can call it. You take a shower and fix your hair, which thank god you had already gotten done from a professional yesterday. You open your closet seeing all of your clothes hanging in there including Toto’s shirt from Melbourne. You didn’t give it back but for some reason you still brought it with you in Bahrain. You stare at your clothes not being able to decide what to wear but you finally decide on wearing a louis blue midi floral sundress with a pair of matching high heels. Then you think to yourself that you don’t know where you’re going so the shoes might be a tad uncomfortable and you decide to text Toto.

You 

Hello, I am just doing some outfit planning for our meeting and I thought I should wear a pair of high heels, is this alright?

Wolff 

Yes, it will be really comfortable, just wear whatever you want.

You read his almost immediate answer and smile but before you can think of a reply he sends you another message

Wolff

Besides, you love to wear high heels so do whatever you please.

You 

So high heels it is then

Wolff

Good.

You smile again to yourself thinking how he remembered that wearing heels is your favorite. You dress up, do light makeup and check the time. 11:45am. You wait a bit more in your suite checking yourself in the mirror and thinking of how this meeting with Toto has affected you. Yesterday night you were telling him that you are done trying and right now you are acting like a schoolgirl on her first date with her crush. It’s not like you have a crush on him. You just feel different when he’s around, like he has something that instantly pulls you towards him. A magnet. That’s what he is. You cut your train of thoughts off and spray some of your signature Chanel perfume on your neck and hands. You take your purse and leave the suite. You go downstairs to the hotel lobby and outside to the hotel entrance where you spot the same man that drove you back to your hotel in Australia waiting outside an AMG SUV. Not so subtle you think to yourself

“Hello” you say 

“Hello Miss” he replies and opens the door for you. You get in the car and he does the same.

“Mr Wolff will be waiting for us with his own car.” he says

“Okay, thank you” you say 

He drives 5 minutes and you arrive at a place with no people or cars, desert, very Bahrain like. The only thing in the area is a black car that you are approaching. Once you get close enough you see Toto waiting outside the car, black Mercedes, GT63, of course. The car comes to a stop and the driver -you found out his name is Jonathan- opens your door. You thank him and step outside. 

"Who's chasing us?" You joke about the whole secrecy thing

"James bond, I'm the villain" he answers and laughs, you do the same. Toto waves at Jonathan and thanks him.

"Bye Jo!" You say and go to the passenger side of the cat where Toto is already waiting for you with an open door.

"Such a gentleman" you say

"Always"

Toto gets in the car joining you, reaching for the two cups on the board.

"The invitation was a pre race coffee, so I got some" 

"I actual-" you try to talk 

"Don't drink coffee unless I know it is really good or I made it, I know. That's why I got you tea"

"I d-" he interrupts you again 

"Black tea, iced, honey instead of sugar, a bit of milk. You're welcome" he says and hands you the plastic cup

"How'd you know?" 

"Got my information." 

 "Nice." You say trying to figure out what is happening. "Are we going to stay here or?"you ask slightly confused

"We are going to drive in Bahrain" 

“That’s your plan?” 

“Exactly. You don’t like it?” 

“No, actually it is a pretty good idea.” 

“Thought so myself.”he says and starts the car driving away to the streets of Bahrain.

For a while you sit in silence, drinking your iced tea, thinking about how he got to know everything about the way you like to drink tea. You had mentioned it in a really small feature in an interview several years ago, maybe he had read about this.

“What do you think will happen today?” you ask him 

“It’s going to be a nice day, pretty relaxed.”

“Easy win you believe?” 

“Oh, you are talking about race predictions.” he says, keeping his eyes locked on the road while he takes a sip from his coffee. “Yeah, I'm not discussing it right now.” 

“Why not?”

“Because I think about it all day long while I’m working. This is work, and I don’t want to work when it’s not the right time” he replies and you stay quiet.

Without asking you grab your phone and connect it to the car bluetooth to put some music on, hitting play on a spotify road trip playlist and Dua Lipa starts playing on the gtr’s speakers. 

“For christ’s sake” he says 

“What is it?”

“What are we even listening to?”

“I believe it’s Dua Lipa.” he turns to look at you with a confused face “English singer, reeeally famous nowadays, she has several hits, super viral on tiktok.” 

“I will never understand the taste that people of your age have.”

“Com’on, it’s a nice bop”

“Every single song sounds exactly the same.”

“And what do you want to listen to, old man?”

“Did you just?”

“I actually did.” you say “Just admit you’re old”

“I am old?” 

“Yes,Grandpa old to be exact” you tease him and he seems to understand but before you can say anything he accelerates the Mercedes, eyes on the road

“Let me show you some grandpa driving then.” he says while you sit petrified next to him

“Toto stop.” you yell laughing at the same time, thinking how dangerous it is driving like this on public streets. 

“Sorry? I am too old, can’t hear you.” he says and smiles at your reaction. He keeps driving fast for quite some time and you keep yelling at him for the whole duration but you can see he enjoys it. You actually do too. At some point he hits the brake, lowering the car’s speed and you mentally thank him for doing so.

“What was that Toto?” you ask once again feeling the rush of adrenaline running through your veins

“Showing you how old people drive, you should have seen yourself, you were scared to death.”

“I wasn’t.” 

“Yes, you were, you were yelling at me for 10 minutes straight.” he laughs “For a person so passionate with racing, I didn’t think you would be so afraid of the speed.”

“I am not afraid of the speed, I don’t quite like it when I don’t have control over it though.”

“Sure” he says ironically. 

“I won’t even comment on the fact that all this was done on public roads which makes it 100% more dangerous than it already is.” you say “Actually, I am going to prove it to you.”

“Huh?” he says and turns to look at you. 

“That I like speed.When you find a space that you can pull over to, please do it” you command him “I imagine you are okay if i drive the car right?”

“You really do want to drive?” “Yes, pull over.” you say again and he stops the car at the first chance he gets. “Get out.” you tell him and he does as you say, you hop on the driver’s seat and start the car. You feel the AMG engine roaring in your feet and you feel a little nervous. You have driven countless sports cars even though according to everyone you are too young. As soon as you get to the main road and have gained enough speed to drive safely you start to accelerate as Toto did earlier. He looks at you terrified. 

“Maybe you should not drive that fast.” he says

“Oh I am very capable of driving like this, thank you for pointing it out though.”

“I am not sure you are completely in control of what you are doing right now and that’s not very safe you know?”

“So what I am doing is not safe but when you’re doing it it is?”

“I was a racer back at the time” 

“You were, now you’re not. Plus, I have driven like this multiple times, especially sports cars. I used to kart as well.” 

“You were karting?” 

“Yes,I did but it turns out I love managment way more than I loved racing.” 

“You are not bad.”

“I know, I am doing my job really well, you seem so terrified that you wouldn’t even understand.”

“I am not terrified.”

“Whatever”you say and you reduce your speed. 

“How much time do we have?”

“I’d say nearly 2 hours before we should be on track.Why?” 

“Nothing, I am just bored” you say dead seriously even though you don’t even mean it 

Toto turns to you looking offended “You are?” he asks 

You start laughing “No, I am joking, I just wanted to do something while I am driving but we will need time, time that we don’t have.” 

“What is it?” he asks

“Do you have your Saudi visa on you?” you tell him

“This is not happening.” 

“Why?” 

“Because you are not driving us to another country while we have to be at the paddock in a while.”

“What if we didn’t have to go to the paddock? Would you come?” 

“I don’t know, I would think about it.”

“Com’on be a little spontaneous Toto.” you tell him 

“I’ve already said no” 

“If we win, I’ll drive us to Saudi Arabia and if you win, you will” you pause to think

“I will take you to dinner.” he says and you look at him “Bet.” he says and gives you a handshake to seal your deal. 

For the next two hours you and Toto drive carelessly in the highways of Bahrain seeing a lot of places that you didn’t have the chance to see during your past visits. Toto is trying to show you around a bit, using his little knowledge that he got in the past years while F1 was racing there. You discuss a lot of things about yourselves but you don’t say a word about what is happening between you two. This ride was more like getting to know each other. Like a good coffee with a friend. But you can always sense the underlying tensity between you two, just never acknowledging it out loud. After you finish your ride, he drives you back to the place that Jonathan left you several hours earlier. He’s still waiting there, in the Mercedes SUV that waits to get you back to the hotel. Both the car and Jo become more apparent as Toto approaches the site and the car stops. 

“So” you say

“I’ll see you at the track” Toto replies

“Thank you for the tea and the ride. And for letting me drive.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

You open your door and turn to look at him before getting in the other car. You see him looking at you, noticing every move of yours. 

“I had a nice time. Hope you did too”  he says and you smile as you stand up.

“It was nice, the bet payback will be better though” you say and you shut your door leaving him in the car getting in the SUV. 

Jonathan drives the same road that you did earlier. He doesn’t speak, that’s why maybe Toto chose him to pick you up from the hotel. You are too curious not to ask

“Jo, are you able to talk to anyone about this?” 

“No miss.” he replies “NDAs are involved here, my job is at stake as well so I wouldn’t want to discuss this with anyone. It’s like I've never seen it, a secret.” 

“Are you okay with that though?” 

“Even if I am not, it is part of the job. Toto hired me to drive him or people he knows privately. We have been working together for quite some time so I trust him and he does the same.” he replies

“I understand.” you tell him and you can see the hotel at the end of the road. 

“I really enjoy having you here Miss Horner. The people I am driving are really cold in general, no one’s ever called me Jo before but you did and you didn’t even know me.” 

“Sorry if it bothered you.” you say

“No no, my point is, I understand Toto” he says and he smiles friendly to you and he pulls over at the hotel parking lot. 

“Thank you Jonathan, you are really kind.”

“You’re welcome.” he says and someone from the hotel staff opens your door and you get out. “I guess I’ll see you around” 

You close the door and go back to your suite to pick your stuff for the race. After you chill for a while you drive to the track which is flooded by fans. At the entrance you see your father who comes to your side

“Where were you earlier?”

“Hello to you too father” you say feeling a bit angry that that was the first thing he said to you

“Were you sleeping?” he continues

“Yes” you reply to avoid the conversation. 

Just beside you you hear the well known sound of an electric scooter. The only two people moving around the paddock on electric scooters are Toto and Lewis. You keep walking alongside your father when the sound stops and the tall Austrian is next to Christian. 

“Christian” he says 

“Hello Toto, how’s it going?” 

“Really great Christian, had an amazing day so far” he says keeping his eyes locked on you “I am hoping it will get better later though” 

You don’t waste any time and before Christian can answer you decide to talk

“We’ll see about that, tough fight today.” you say and you smile, your father looking at you surprised that you decided to interrupt the discussion between him and his counterpart. 

“I really hope so, I enjoy a good race” Toto replies “Plus it makes the winning feeling a bit better.” 

“It sure does Toto, may the best team win” 

“Don’t look at me, she said it all for me” Christian jokes but really none of you find him funny, you are too invested in this little interaction.

“See you around” Toto says and drives off with his mercedes scooter. 

“I enjoy a good race” Christian repeats mocking the Austrian “And when we have a good race he bitches on every single pre and post race interview” 

“Oh please Christian you are the king of bitching, just leave him be '' you tell him and walk to the red bull hospitality center. You spend some time there discussing with the mechanics about possible outcomes of the race and then you go to the grid to see the cars getting ready and to give some pre race interviews. Max is on pole so it is the first time as an official member of the team that you will get to be there. 

“Let’s go dude” you say to Max

“I’ll do my best.” 

“You should absolutely win this, I have so much faith on you I even made a bet” 

“What do we win?” 

“You, a race, I, a superiority feeling. Go get em” you say and then Max gets in the car. 

You leave the grid and go back to the pitwall, sitting on your chair. The race starts and Max easily leads from Lewis. You squeal a little seeing that your team is winning but you stay relatively calm. Lewis stays right behind Max, pressuring him as well as the strategy team to an ultimate level. At some point Mercedes calls Lewis to pit, but knowing mercedes’ pit crew and Lewis’ recent luck the pit stop kinda sucked, leaving you a tiny but significant space to breathe. Max pits in the next lap, the red bull pit crew always fast and precise gives him enough time to come out of the pits just in front of Lewis, 2 tenths keeping them apart. Lewis’ tyres are already at temperature so he overtakes Max in the next DRS zone. However, 5 laps later Max fights back and retakes the lead from your rivals. A while after the overtake you take your phone on your hands

You

Is the GT ready for the trip?

Wolff

Nothing’s done yet

You

See you, at the podium in 15 laps

Also, tell Jonathan to pick me up from the hotel at 8 pm, post race celebrations, I will be late.

Wolff 

I am not saying anything until the checkered flag 

You  

Whatever

Max cruises at the front for the next 10 laps with 5 laps to go, Lewis increasing pace reaching him but at this point he’s not even a threat. Max keeps going until lap 53 when he comes on the team radio and yells

“No fucking pace,bro” 

Lewis is coming like a rocket behind him while GP tries to talk to Max to press some buttons on the steering wheel to get the PU working but nothing seems to fix this goddamn engine. 

“Max I am afraid we should retire the car, I am so sorry. We will discuss it in the debrief”

“Fuck” is what Max says as he strugles to steer his red bull at a place where the marshalls will be able to collect the car

Wolff

Sorry about that

You 

Oh fuck off

Wolff

I guess the trip to Saudi won’t be happening after all 

Just before replying you hear Crofty through the track speakers “And Lewis Hamilton wins the Bahrain GP”

You 

Just send me the details 

Wolff

Will do

Gotta go to the podium celebrations

You 

Congrats on the win though :)

Wolff

You’re classy

I like it

Thanks :D

You leave the pitwall heading inside to see Max

“I am so sorry” he says

“No, it’s not your fault, you were great”

Christian comes by your side “Let’s discuss the race at the debrief please.” and then he turns to you “You can go to the hotel after the debrief, I will do the post race interviews. We will be having lunch with the Bahraini investors tomorrow so I want you there and at the top of your game, the deal is almost done.”

“Yes dad.” When did he become so bossy? You’re his daughter, not his random employee. You act like everything is alright and just keep your day going. Before heading inside for the race debrief you step in the pitlane and watch the whole Mercedes team outside the garage celebrating the team’s 1-2. Toto is in the side using his phone

Toto Wolff

Hello Tommy, I found out that you designed a dress for Ms. Horner yesterday and I wanted to know whether you have her measurements at hand

Tommy Hilfiger

Hello Toto. First of all congratulations on today’s win. I do have her measurements, I don’t know why you need them though. 

Toto Wolff

Nothing significant, a colleague of mine has the same body type and she wanted a dress for a formal dinner that we will be having today so I thought that maybe I can find something to her size so that she can wear it. 

Tommy Hilfiger

That’s great. Lucky for you, I actually had a second dress made for Ms. Horner’s measurements that she didn’t wear yesterday. It is less formal though, not black tie like the first one was so i think it will match the concept. My fitting team has it at the Hilfiger house in Manama. I can have someone drop it off at the Ritz. 

Toto Wolff

Thank you very much. No worries, I will have someone to pick it up from the store.

Tommy Hilfiger

Glad I helped a friend out. 

The debrief is pretty quick, mostly analyzing the reasons why Max DNFd. PU failure, more details after the engine is sent back to Milton Keynes for further investigation. The team is relatively happy with Checo’s P4. After you are done you pack your stuff and check your phone

Wolff

I will have someone to pick you up from the hotel at 7.30pm.

Take everything you need to be comfortable with you

You 

Where are we going?

Wolff

Dinner, that’s all you need to know

Also request your package when you arrive at the hotel

You 

Package?

Wolff

You’re asking way too many questions

Just do as you are told. 

You read the last message and take everything you left in your office. You drive back to the hotel and as Toto told you you ask for the package.

“It is already in your room Ms.Horner” the receptionist says

As soon as you get in your suite you find a dress hanging from your closet door just like the one yesterday, inside the same Hilfiger case. You open it feeling kinda curious as to why yesterday’s dress is hanging from that door but when you see the dress inside it you smile to yourself. Another design is in the case, a totally different one than yesterday’s but a similar concept to a dress that Tommy was talking about. Toto got it for you just to wear it for tonight. You put on the black dress with a pair of matching pumps feeling like a princess. You fix your hair doing a chignon and you put some makeup on, wearing red lips. Your phone pings with a new notification

Max Emilian Verstappen

You up for dinner ?

You 

Nah, I will be sleeping from early on, I got an important business meeting tomorrow.

You lie to Max but you feel like he’s going to ask so many questions and he’s going to make you feel bad for yourself. He always brings people down but it’s Max. You ignore him and check the time. 7:20 pm. You head to the hotel lobby and outside where Jonathan is waiting for you for the second time today. You get in the car and he drives off but he doesn’t stop

“Where are we going? Isn’t Toto waiting somewhere?” 

“No, we are going to the final destination together.”

Somewhat of 10 minutes later you arrive at the Bahrain International Airport, the private terminal to be exact. The car doesn’t stop at the entrance, instead it goes in the airport area heading to a private jet that you had seen before. 

“Don’t tell me that we are flying” 

“No I just brought you here for fun” Jonathan jokes and he pulls over. 

You get out of the car, thank Jo and walk up the jet’s stairs. You get inside where you see Toto chatting with Mike. 

“Knew it” Toto whispers

“Hello gentlemen.”

“Miss Horner.” Mike says and offers you a hand, you reach for a hug instead, seeing Toto eying you for the move you just did. “Glad to see you again” he says

“My night just got better Mike.” you say winking at him 

“You have a flight to focus on” Toto turns and tells him and both of you stare at the floor. 

“I’ll see you afterwards.” Mike replies and gets back to the cockpit. 

“After you” Toto says and lets you go first in the main cabin. 

You eye the seat that Toto was sitting the last time so you sit there determined to be a brat today. He takes a sharp breath seeing what you just did and takes another seat. 

“Thank you for the dress.” you say

“Tommy had it made alongside the one you wore yesterday, so why waste it?”

“How do you know?” 

“It’s not your job to ask.” he replies

“Where are we going?” 

“Stop asking so many questions.” 

In the next minutes the airhostess locks the door and the jet starts moving. 

“Mr. Wolff, Ms.Horner welcome to our flight from Bahrain to Abu Dhabii. Our flight is predicted to be smooth and our arrival to Abu Dhabi is estimated in 1 hour and 10 minutes from now. Enjoy.” 

“We’re going to Abu Dhabi?” you ask

“December seems so far away and I couldn’t resist my urge to go to Hakkasan. So yeah.”

“What is this?”

“Fine dining restaurant, run by michelin starred chefs”

“Are you serious?”

“I told you I would take you out for dinner.”

“In like a normal restaurant”

“This is a normal restaurant, an exceptional one to be exact.”

“I don’t like fine dining.” you lie

“Did I ask you though?”

“I just said I don’t like it” 

“Then I’ll have someone to buy you a happy meal at McDonalds.”

You don’t react 

“Also I thought you were too impressed from Marko Pierre last December”

“Okay.” is your answer

“Thought so” he replies

For the rest of the flight you completely ignore Toto who has his iPad on the table checking data from the race earlier. He always lectures you for discussing work when it’s not work time but he does exactly the same so you decide to make him slightly angry by going to the cockpit. You stand up, adjust your dress when you feel Toto’s eyes on you. Instead of turning around and going to the toilet as he thought you head to the cockpit and you knock on the door

“Yes?” you hear Mike saying

“Hey Mike, can I come in?” you say

“Of course” By the time he replies you hear Toto standing and coming by your side

“He’s working” he says

“So do you.” 

“Sit down.” he whispers to your ear. You have never seen him this way before. Well you have but you were mostly drunk.

“If you stop working in non-work time I will.” you tell him “Otherwise I am going in. I haven't been in a cockpit while flying in ages, it will be nice to remember how it is.”

“Sit down.” he says once again and you go back to your seat while he follows you. You grab his iPad before he can and you put it in the bag that you brought with you

“This is mine for tonight”

“What are you going to do, spy on us and then go tell papa?”

“Do you really think that about me?” 

“Knowing Christian,yes” 

“Well Christian is a bitch, I am not.” 

“I didn’t say you are” 

“I’d like to think that I am a serious person, not someone that can be told what to do.” you say “Especially in my workplace.”

“I don’t believe that you follow orders, you were born to be the leader.”

“Tell that to Christian. He believes that I am his little employee, that he can boss me around, make me do things. I can decide for myself, you know?”

“Why don’t you talk to him?” 

“Because he's Christian, do you think he will understand?” 

“No frankly, I don’t” he says

“Christian is a bitch. I am pretty sure that I would dislike him if he wasn’t my father”

“You can’t choose your family right?” 

“Right” 

Just on time you hear Mike through the radio

“We will be landing at Abu Dhabi in 5 minutes, take your seats if you haven’t already” 

“Oh we’re here” you say  

Mike lands the plane smoothly but you are off the plane before he opens the cockpit door to greet you. Toto was in a rush, and you assume the young pilot who’s flirting with you is the reason why. After you get off the plane you immediately get on a black shiny Mercedes that has been waiting for you and Toto drives off the airport and to the main streets of Abu Dhabi that you have seen before, coming so many times for the season finale there. Half an hour later you arrive at the Emirates Palace where the restaurant is located and Toto leaves the black Mercedes to the parking valet. You go inside the enormous and glamorous hotel and head towards the restaurant where someone is waiting. 

“We have a reservation for 2, Wolff”

“Of course Mr. Wolff follow me”

The young man guides you to the outside area of the restaurant, a huge balcony with amazing views, everything is perfectly set, the people around you minding their own business, no one recognizing you, thankfully. Toto asks for the menu while people offer you some water.

“What would you like to eat?” 

“I told you I don’t really know a lot about fine dining and especially Chinese, I’ll take what you are having”

“But i don’t know your tastes”

“You should be able to guess them Toto.”

“Okay then.” he says “Should I decide on the drinks as well?”

“Yes please” you say and he reads the menu carefully while you look around you taking the view in. You grab your phone, open the camera app and snap a quick picture of Toto while he’s reading the menu, he notices you but he doesn’t say anything, instead he keeps reading but this time there’s a faint smile on his face. Once he is done choosing he leaves the menu on the table looking at you and then taking in the view around you just like you did before. 

“Can I see my picture?” he asks

“No” you smile

“It’s me in the picture, I can sue you for that”

“And then take me to court to solve the case? Everyone will find out that we were together at this dinner” 

“You are right, I haven’t thought about this” Toto says and you have the ‘I am smarter than you’ face on slightly pissing him off. By the time you get ready to talk to Toto about you being right once again someone from the staff stops by your table

“Should I take your order sir?” he asks

“Of course.” Toto smiles, handing him the menu “We would like one Crispy duck salad, one serving of dumplings and for the main course two Black Truffle ducks.” he shifts his gaze to you and asks “Is the food okay, do you like it?”

“You’ve only ordered it Toto but it sounds good, I’ll let you know when I actually try it” 

“Okay sir, have you decided on the deserts?” 

“No, not yet.” 

“Anything to drink?”

“A bottle of 2016 Meerlust Pinot Noir.”

“Excellent choices sir, exquisite taste.” the man says “Thank you, enjoy” 

Toto thanks the man who leaves the two of you alone in silence. You don’t even know what to say, what to discuss, but it doesn’t feel weird to you, it’s like it was meant to, a relaxing but expensive dinner after an exhausting day, neither of you need to say anything, however you feel like you have to discuss something with Toto at this moment, discuss anything. 

“That’s a really nice place Toto”

“It has become one of my favorite places during the past year. It’s not that we come here on a monthly basis but when I am nearby I feel like I have to come here”

“How did you find out about it?”

“I mean Hakkasan is really famous back in London, Michelin stars as well, but I hadn’t given it a chance until last year after the final race” 

“What about it” you ask

“It’s Lewis’ favorite restaurant in Abu Dhabi and he took us here the day after the race. No one saw us arrive nor leave, we were in the private section of the restaurant since Lewis didn’t want to see any fans”

“You know what, I am really sorry about what happened here last year.” you tell him 

“Us going to the private section?”

“Ugh no Toto. I meant Lewis being robbed of his 8th. I really regret doing that, celebrating the championship.” 

“Are you sure that you are Christian’s daughter?” he jokes

“I am positive.” you say feeling a little bitter, Toto notices immediately and before you can react your appetizers arrive on the table as well as the bottle of wine that Toto ordered. The young man pours some wine in your glasses. 

“Thank you” says Toto and returns to the conversation you were having. “You are so different to Christian, he is always so entitled, he’s afraid to lose, he does anything he can to make other people angry.” 

“How am I different?” you ask and you take a bite from the food that you just got on your plate 

“Let me see” he says and holds his palm up counting with his fingers. “You are not entitled, you are able to recognize other people’s achievements, you are not afraid to lose, and you are not afraid to show your softer side to your opponent”

“I shouldn’t show weakness to any opponent, that’s what our professors used to say.” you reply and take a sip from your wine

“Oh go off, those professors were shit.”

“They were teaching in Oxford Toto, I am sure they know something.”

“I taught at Harvard once, and I say we are all human and we should show our weakness to each other.”

“Thank you professor, I'll keep that in mind”

“You better do” he says and he turns his attention to the food in front of you two. 

You make small talk as you eat the salad and the dumplings, both of you downing easily your glasses of wine pouring another one and another one. Time passes and you finish your appetizers. As soon as the staff notices the empty plates are gone and replaced with your black truffle duck, which looks and smells amazing. Toto is a man of taste and this, this is just another confirmation. 

“Excuse me, can we have another bottle of the same wine?” Toto asks and the person serving you nods in acceptance. 

“Crazy how we already drank the first one.” you laugh 

“As you’ve realized we love alcohol a bit too much, both you and me”

“That’s right” you laugh with slight dizziness coming to your head. Only 2 and a half glasses but you already feel slightly confident. “The wine is good” you comment

“I thought so. Lawrence recommended it.” 

“Lawrence Stroll?” you ask and Toto nods, unable to talk due to his mouth being stuffed with a huge bite of his black truffle duck “Oh, right i forget you rich people have expensive tastes.”

“Your father has a net worth of 50 million, why do you consider me rich and not you?”

“We do have money but it’s not like we’re Stroll or Wolff rich.”

“So you have to be a billionaire to be rich?” he laughs

“You are a billionaire?”

“Yeah. Lawrence has twice as much as I have though”

“And you still did insider trading to get more” you tease him and you take a small bite off your plate

“That’s bullshit, who says we did?”

“It was all over twitter Toto.” you laugh

“Oh, big news for you, I don’t use social media.” he tells you and sips some wine

“I still know that you have a twitter burner.”

He lets out a laugh “That’s a really nice place, and really nice food don’t you think?”

“You are changing the subject” 

“I am because the subject is a joke”

“I am only teasing you Toto” you say and you smile at him

“Well, if you continue to do that I’ll get angry and you’ll have to swim from Abu Dhabi back to Bahrain” 

He’s not going to do that but in any case you stop, you keep drinking and eating until you finish your main course, Toto orders dessert and another bottle of wine. You are now on the third bottle and you feel tipsy. 

“Are you a bit tipsy or am I a lighthead?” 

“No, you’re not, I am tipsy as well” 

“Why did we order another bottle of wine though?”

“Because the night is beautiful, we like drinking quite a lot and we are enjoying ourselves.” he says and you nod 

Next you eat your dessert and drink the rest of the wine making jokes with Toto, seeing a side of him that you’ve never seen. Both of you get a little bit more dizzy than you should and decide to go back to Bahrain. Toto asks for the bill and several minutes later a man brings it to the table

“How much is it?” you ask

“It’s none of your business.”

“You are not paying for all of this.” you insist and reach for your wallet

“I brought you here, it was my choice. My decisions, my rules. Be a good girl and follow them.” Toto reaches for his credit card and pays for your dinner. 

“Thank you Wolff.” you say as you stand up grabbing his arm to steady yourself due to the alcohol dizziness. 

“Pleasure is all mine Horner.” he replies and you leave the restaurant.

You walk to the main lobby of the Emirates Palace and you remember that both you and Toto are drunk 

“How are we getting to the airport?” you ask

“I’ll drive” he says casually as if he didn’t drink 3 bottles of wine with you.

When you hear his words you leave his toned arm and walk to the reception of the hotel. 

“Excuse me, how can I help you?” asks the receptionist.

“I would like a room for 2, just for tonight” you tell her 

“Sea view, garden view or plain?” 

“Sea view please.” you turn to look at Toto who’s just standing by the door looking lost and confused as to why you are taking so long to go back.

“Can I have a name?” she asks

“Horner.” you reply “Can I pay now because tomorrow we’ll probably be in a hurry ?” 

“Of course.” she replies

You take your credit card from your wallet making sure that it’s the one in which Christian has no access so that he won’t be able to track you and ask you where you had been. 

“It's room 344.” she tells you and hands you the key card “Enjoy your stay.”

“Thank you” you reply as you turn and walk to Toto

“What took you so long?” 

“Follow me” you say and you hear him asking you where you are going.

You walk in the corridors of the luxury hotel until you are able to locate the place where room 344 is, Toto is still asking you where you two are going and you stop in front of the room’s door, you slide the card and get in. Toto stands still just outside the door. 

“We are both drunk and you can’t drive in this state. We are staying for the night and we will be leaving early in the morning.” you tell him

“Yes but”

“There are no buts, we are drunk, Mike is probably hooking up with that airhostess of yours and the room is already paid.” you tell him and he gets in the room closing the door behind him. 

The room is really nice with a huge window to the sea and a queen size bed with white and gold sheets, there’s also a desk where you put your bag.

“How much was the room?” Toto asks while he approaches you

“I can’t tell you, my decision, my rules.” 

“You are a pain in the ass.”

“I am only learning from the best Mr.Wolff” you tell him 

“Thought you only trusted Oxford professors.” he replies and you take a step back towards the wall

“I think Harvard professors are closer to my taste.” you tell him and smirk at him

“Oh” 

“Like the way they are teaching, more engaging, makes you wanna follow their advice.”

“I think they really like teaching to their students, answering questions, and giving them examples.” he replies and takes some steps towards you until you are trapped between his tall frame and the wall.

“Wanna know a question I would ask if I had someone who taught at Harvard in front of me? Management related always”

“I’m all ears.” he says and looks right in your eyes as you feel his breath on your face

“How should you react if you really crave your most hated rival who’s just across from you?”

“I feel like I know the answer,” he says and he inches closer and closer. You close your eyes as Toto leans in and kisses you desperately. You kiss him back in the same way feeling the heat between you two as you reach for his neck to pull him closer. 

“If that’s the professor's advice, I’d better follow it.”

“Agreed.” he says 

You lean and kiss him again grabbing the collar of his shirt as he pins you against the wall leaving you no space to breathe his tongue threatening to enter your mouth and he bites your lip. You don’t fight him, you just let him do what he wants, feeling his hand tracing your body. He grabs your thigh moving his hand to your ass while you wrap your leg on his waist allowing him to get closer to you. Your head touches the wall as he leans down and presses kisses to your neck and behind your ear leaving a wet trace and giving you goosebumps. His touch and kisses are soft, desperate and a bit sloppy as a remainder of the alcohol you consumed earlier but he makes you feel like no one ever has. He reaches your collarbone and he leaves a kiss there sucking and biting the area, a soft moan leaving your mouth. Surely this is going to become a hickey that you’ll have to cover up for tomorrow’s meeting but it’s the last thing that concerns you. Toto grabs you like it’s the easiest thing for him and leads you to the bed. You reach for Toto’s shirt, untagging it from his pants and opening the buttons one by one exposing his bare chest and you take a second to catch your breath. He reaches to the back of the dress trying to find the zipper and he realizes it’s on the side of the dress instead.

“You should have asked Tommy where the zipper was” you say slightly out of breath 

Toto gives you a devilish grin “I could have easily ripped it off of you” he replies

You pull him into another kiss as he removes your dress, dropping it on the side of the bed leaving you exposed with your matching underwear set. You hear him cuss under his breath and you try to undo his belt to remove his pants. Once you are both in your underwear Toto looms over you as you lay breathless on the huge bed, his hardness visible in his boxers. He pecks your lips and looks at you in the eye

“Are you okay with this?” he asks and for a while you stop to think. You can imagine the way your face changes because at the same time you look at Toto and you see him frowning at you while breathing. You don’t want to ruin this in any circumstance but you think about it and you reposition yourself on the bed, now sitting instead of laying, still on your underwear.

“No” you tell him softly and he sits down on the bed.

“Did I do something?” he asks looking concerned

“Look, we kissed twice and on both times either one of us was drunk. Now we are both drunk and we are making out but we don’t have the guts to do it while we are sober. I am not having sex with you while we are both drunk, and that’s not because I don’t want to because trust me I really fucking do Toto but we’re not having drunk sex. Not when you haven’t even kissed me while sober.”

“Well I guess you are not wrong”

“And you were supposed to be more mature on such issues” you joke

“I am not in the position to be more mature right now and I am not to blame here” he says looking at you cheekily

“Indeed.” you smile “Can we just sleep instead and wake up and fly to Bahrain tomorrow?” 

“Of course” he says as he stretches to reach one of the two pillows that are on the bed. “You can get the bed” 

“We nearly had sex Toto, I think we can share a bed.” you tell him as you look at him 

“Are you sure?” he asks

“Yes, I will be able to contain myself when I wake up and I am sober, it won’t be the shock you think it will be”

“Okay then.” he says and he lays on the left side as you lay on the right. “Goodnight Horner.” he says

“Goodnight Wolff, thank you for today.” you turn your back at him and the tiredness of the race day takes over as you drift off to sleep 

You hear the faint noise of your alarm going off in the morning and you open your eyes to see your room flooded by sunlight. You think to yourself that it can’t be too early to have so much light and you shift in the sheets while looking on your left. You see Toto and your brain registers what happened yesterday night. You climb off the bed and reach for your bag to turn your alarm off. As you do so you hear Toto moving and you feel a pair of eyes looking at your back. 

“Good Morning” he says, voice raspy from his sleep. 

“Good Morning Mr. Wolff” you say phone in your hands, turning the alarm off. You look at the time. Noon. 

The next thing that pops up is your calendar notification

12:00pm Dinner @CUT by Wolfgang Puck w/ Bahraini Investors 

“Fuck” you say as you realize what is happening. You look around the room panicked trying to find your bag with your clothes and shoes. You need to get out of here as soon as possible

“What is it?” Toto asks

“I am supposed to meet with some Bahraini Investors for lunch at noon” you tell him completely out of your mind “Christian is going to fucking kill me Toto.” 

He jumps off the bed in a rush trying to find his own clothes so that you can leave as fast as you possibly can. “What time is it?” he asks

“Noon.”

“Calm down, UAE is not in the same time zone as Bahrain. You still have an hour.” 

“Toto, the ride to the airport from here is 30 minutes, the flight is another 1 hour and 10 minutes and the ride from the airport to four seasons is another 15 minutes. I am going to be 2 hours late. I am fucking done. Christian is going to kill me.” 

“Get dressed as fast as you can and I’ll figure something out” 

“I am trying Toto, I really am” 

You see him searching on his phone “Mike, we need to leave from Abu Dhabi in 15 and I need the flight to be as fast as you possibly can, is this possible?” you hear him say “It’s already ready? Good. What’s the fastest we can get to Bahrain?” and after some seconds of silence he speaks again “55 minutes works just fine, thank you” 

“How do you plan to get from here to the airport in 15 minutes from now?” you ask

“Like this.” he replies as he has the phone on his ear “Hello, from room 344, is there maybe a helicopter available to Abu Dhabi International Airport?” after a while he says “We’ll be on the pad in 5 minutes. Charge it on the name Wolff. Made a reservation in Hakkasan yesterday, they should be able to give you my information about billing.” 

You look at him impressed 

“Are you done? The helicopter is waiting for us” he says and you look around to make sure that you took everything with you. 

“Yes let’s go” you say and you start walking fast in the corridors of the hotel, five minutes later you arrive at the helicopter pad and you get in and 10 minutes later you are already at the airport and heading to Toto’s jet. You get in and take a seat as Mike comes outside from the cockpit

“Everything alright? Did you enjoy yourselves?” he asks

“Yes ,but Mike it is imperative that we have left in the next 4 minutes” Toto tells him

“Of course sir.” he gets back to the cockpit, locks the door and the air hostess closes the cabin door. Soon after that you take off from Abu Dhabi, your stomach still tied from anxiety. Your leg bouncing as you look outside the window. 

“Stop bouncing the leg, you still have half an hour left.”

“We just took off, we need at least 45 minutes to be in Bahrain plus 15 minutes to go to the hotel and another good 5 minutes to look decent for this meeting. Which makes me 35 minutes late. At a business meeting. A business meeting Toto.”

“I am well aware.” he says “Let me tell you that and then I’ll have to make some arrangements. You look beautiful, the dress is amazing as much as I regret not ripping it off of you yesterday night, go to the toilet and get ready, stop panicking.” he says and you leave your seat with your bag on hand as you follow his advice. You try to get yourself as decent looking as possible and five minutes after you come back. 

“Another helicopter will take you from the airport to the Four Seasons Hotel, the ride will be like 5 minutes max. You’ll get there as soon as humanly possible.” 

“Thank you Toto, you are truly saving me right now, I will need a lot to pay you back.”

“No worries.” 

For the rest of the flight you close your eyes checking your phone occasionally until you feel the jet descending. You check the time. 12:16 already. 16 minutes late. You still feel your stomach tied and also the headache building from all the yelling that Christian will do to you. When the plane lands it’s 12:22. Once the door opens you unfasten your seatbelt and stand up.

“The helicopter is waiting next to the jet.” Toto tells you 

“Are you coming?” you ask him.

“I am not the one in a rush, I’ll drive to the Ritz. You go ahead, I hope you’ll get the sponsorship.” he replies

“Thank you Toto, I am sorry that we didn’t get to enjoy the Emirates Palace more.”

“We have plenty of time.” he says and you wave at him.

You get off the plane and on the helicopter and you fly to your hotel where your father and the investors are waiting for you. Once you arrive there you meet Beth at the lobby, hand her your bag and run to the restaurant. You check the time 12:36. You knew you would be late but now the only thing you can do is just play along and act as if you are not 36 whole minutes late to an important meeting.  You go in and spot the full table. 

“Hello” you say and everyone stands up to greet you. You take the empty seat next to your father ignoring your subconscious that was screaming at you not to because the first thing he does is turn to you 

“This won’t go unpunished. I am pretty sure you will regret whatever you were doing that made you late.”

“What do I have to do ?” you ask

“You won’t have to do anything, you’ll see at the next race weekend.” he smiles. But you know this smile doesn't mean anything good. 

“The gentlemen here were kind enough to wait for you before ordering. Shall we order now?” Christian asks and you nod. 

You take your phone and open it under the table, not wanting to be noticed

You 

Arrived at the dinner a good 36 minutes late, Christian is pissed, the Bahraini guys not so much. 

He even told me the punishment will make me regret whatever I did that made me late

Wolff

Typical Christian, Glad the investors weren’t mad

As a wise man named Daniel Ricciardo said 

No regrets, only memories

On a serious note, I really hope you won’t regret it

You

Danny Ric, being the philosopher we all need

I don’t intend to

Anyways I’ll have to see what the Saudi GP will bring

Wolff

When are you going to Jeddah?

You 

I plan on staying here till Wednesday

Hopefully I’ll have to sign some deals tomorrow 

If today goes well

Wolff 

I am sure you will

So you are not going back to England or Monaco ?

You 

No, I will be flying from Bahrain to Jeddah

Could have done a road trip to Jeddah if you stayed here

I don’t think you would be able to stand me for 14 hours though

Wolff

Flying is more comfortable 

And I am sure I would stand you 14 hours

I know how to handle you ;)

You 

When are you getting to Jeddah?

Wolff

I am thinking Thursday morning or Wednesday night

You 

I guess I’ll see you there

Gotta go the investors are waiting

Thank you for everything :)

Wolff

Always a pleasure

You leave your phone and turn back to the conversation in front of you to try and get the sponsorship. As much as your brain wants to focus on the discussions at hand you keep thinking about everything that’s happening. It is Monday already and it’s a new race week, and when the last one treated you as good as it did, you wonder what this race week has planned for you. 

#toto wolff #toto wolff x reader #toto wolff fanfic #enemies to lovers ig #f1 #all's fair fic #rbr managment

[satorisa]

To Infinity, Forever

Rating: T Summary: Detailed herein is the story of Dark Mousy’s one and only posthumous heist in which he, equipped only with a love that refuses to die, tries to steal a love that will continue to grow today, tomorrow, and in the future beyond. Ad infinitum. Alternate Reading: AO3

Inspired by a tumblr post (that I can no longer find but do have a screenshot of) created by @riewritten that is transcribed as follows:

"why am I thinking of a potential hurt/comfort and tooth-rotting fluff fanfic where grown up satoshi and risa is in an established relationship

but since satoshi can still remember dark, as well as risa's unwavering love for him way back, he still couldn't come to terms with the fact that the risa right now actually loves him to the core

then there comes subtle gestures from risa implying that 'the me right now will be choosing you under any circumstances, no matter what. that'd shake satoshi to the core bc 'does she have any idea of my current concerns or is she just doing this subconsciously'

then later on, satoshi realizes that the 14 y/o risa already hidden in her deepest depths of consciousness - the one who had this love for dark but wasnt allowed to remember it - was also trying to assure him somehow that she also chooses him this time around, and that he has nothing to worry about but stay with her."

Hope you enjoy, dear~

Their reunion at that group date in New York City could only be described as serendipity.

After Dark’s disappearance, Risa and Satoshi’s relationship never developed beyond being friends of friends; they naturally went their separate ways after graduating from high school. And yet they applied for grad school in the same city: a decision that landed them both mere kilometers from each other where, on top of their professional obligations, Risa dated a slew of terrible guys while Satoshi continued to turn down anyone interested in him.

Risa’s friends urged her to go on a group date to potentially break her streak of awful dates and ex-boyfriends, and Satoshi’s friends urged him to go just to humor them this once. The two of them gave in, eventually, and were surprised to see each other on what they thought would be yet another forgettable evening.

They exchanged their new contact information after the mixer, finding comfort in knowing someone from home, someone from before their life in New York City, amongst the sea of people. At their first meeting, fueled by a yearning for familiarity in a foreign land, they learned that they enjoyed each other’s company. And, as they spent more time together, Risa began to fall for Satoshi’s kindness after the parade of garbage men in her life (and the fact that he had become more toned since their high school graduation—oh mama), and Satoshi began to fall for Risa’s thoughtfulness regarding his feelings and boundaries that those who previously tried to pursue him lacked (and the fact that she had, somehow, only gotten prettier since their high school graduation—my word).

It took a visit to the MET, and unconsciously holding each other’s hand while admiring Claude Monet’s Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies, for them to begin dating.

And, surprisingly, their relationship flourished. They squabbled every once in a while, as usual in a relationship, but they always made up before retiring for the day. Despite their busy schedules, with her pursuing a PhD in East Asian Studies and him pursuing a PhD in History of Art and Archaeology, they carved time for each other, whether it was working on their own thing at a coffee shop or crying in the bathroom at four in the morning because grad school can go suck its own dick.

But there was one thing that Risa, unconsciously, would always remind Satoshi of:

The lingering remnants of Dark Mousy.

…

He didn’t think much about Risa’s obsession with all things Korean; after the Hallyu boom, such fascination became the norm. She never forced him to engage with it, but he knew that she loved indulging in the overly-produced music scene or modern rom-coms with increasingly ridiculous premises in the peripheries of their shared experiences.

One time, however, he had come over to her place, wanting her company while he read through some research papers, before they had dinner that evening. He arrived at her apartment, backpack slung over his shoulder, to hear music blasting from her TV.

“Hey,” she greeted.

“Hey,” he returned, taking off his shoes once he stepped inside.

“I’m cleaning up right now, so it’s gonna be a little noisy. Do you mind?”

Satoshi motioned towards his bag. “I’ve got my headphones if I need them.”

“Just to block out the noise?”

“Just to block out the noise.”

She shook her head with a smile. “Just use earplugs, you weirdo.”

He came into the living room and sat down at her coffee table, placing his bag on the floor next to him. Satoshi glanced at the men dancing on the TV, spotting someone who looked nearly identical to Dark Mousy, before Risa turned it off.

His heart fell.

“You didn’t have to turn it off,” he told her, hoping that vocalizing the sensible reaction to the current situation would calm him.

“Nah.” She motioned towards the countertop. “I have headphones, too. And I use them, yanno, like normal people. To listen to music.”

“Whatever.”

She laughed, returning to the kitchen while he got out his laptop. He watched Risa wash the dishes while it booted up.

“Who were they?” he asked.

“The group I was listening to earlier?”

“Yeah.”

Risa lit up, putting down the mug and sponge in her hands, before rushing towards him. She knelt beside him with her phone in hand, eager to share this with her boyfriend.

“They’re this group called ‘Black Wings!’” she said. “They just debuted this year and, oh my god, they’re so good.”

“You have a bias?”

“Of course! Hold on.” She tilted her phone back towards her, fingers quickly moving before showing Satoshi the screen again. “This is him!”

He looked almost exactly like Dark with the purple-black hair, the mullet-esque haircut uncommon in the K-pop realm, and those chiseled facial features. Somehow, despite the time that had passed and the memories that she had lost, Risa was still holding onto some semblance of her first love. Satoshi knew, logically, that she most certainly loved him more than that accursed phantom thief, but Risa fawning over this uncanny look-a-like disturbed him.

“You like guys like that?”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “Doesn’t help that most of them are assholes, though.”

“Yet somehow you ended up dating someone with the aesthetic of a college professor.”

She kissed him on the cheek before hopping back up and returning to the sink. “Because you’re the shining light in the darkness of my dating life. And you’re just as hot, if not hotter, than them! We could totally give you a makeover and—”

“Absolutely not.”

“Boo! You’re no fun.”

…

The next time she was unconsciously reminded of Dark Mousy was on their way to a Broadway show. They passed through Times Square so Risa could indulge in the noisy tourist attraction, taking photos of them that she would post on social media later that evening.

They were holding hands the whole time, partly because it was cold, partly because Satoshi didn’t want to lose her in the crowd, and partly because Risa loved holding hand. But, while he was engrossed in the ads on the screens surrounding them, he felt her grip slack.

Something entranced her.

He followed her gaze to see someone who vaguely resembled Dark Mousy chatting with someone who vaguely resembled Krad, and he could only respond to such a mocking sight with a bitter laugh. Risa was too focused to notice Satoshi’s discomfort.

It took a crying child to snap her out of it.

She then began to march towards Broadway, tugging him along while talking about her excitement for the show. He squeezed her hand, partly because it was cold, partly because Satoshi didn’t want to lose her in the crowd, partly because Risa loved holding his hand, and partly because he was terrified that he wouldn’t be able to overcome Dark’s imprint on her.

…

Satoshi began to have nightmares of him, Risa, and Dark.

Each one started differently, taking place in a myriad of settings, before converging to the same ending: Dark and Risa, holding hands with their backs towards him, as they disappeared from his line of sight.

Goddammit.

…

They encountered another doppelganger at the restaurant they ate at for their one-year anniversary. Their waiter came by, flashing Risa a stunning smile while he poured their wine into crystal flutes. She wasn’t as distracted as she was in Times Square because they had food and wine to reel her back in, but her eyes would always trail towards the waiter in the lulls of their conversation, punctuated by a contented sigh before she jumped back in with the same energy as before.

The look in her eyes haunted him on the way back to his apartment, as he made love to her, as she slept cuddled up next to him. Satoshi knew he didn’t have to compete with a first love that no longer existed in her life, in all the senses, and that it was hard to override the precedent set by said first love, but that niggling fear that Risa was only using him to soothe that phantom pain only grew louder each time he noticed.

He was far from Risa’s type both then and now. They only began dating because of sheer luck and impeccable timing. Any moment sooner, any moment later, and he knew that this serendipitous meeting would’ve never happened.

Slipping out of bed, he went outside for a smoke.

How pathetic was he for something like this to eat him up?

…

Despite Satoshi’s kindness and genuine empathy for the world around him, he was surprisingly closed off. While Risa learned a lot about him before he asked her out, he never divulged anything particularly personal. He had anecdotes and advice for anything and everything, but it was rare for him to share any thoughts or emotions about how it related to him.

He had a way to foster a sense of closeness with someone despite being so distant.

And Risa was excited to see how dating him would change that.

Satoshi’s true thoughts and emotions rarely surfaced in their day-to-day. Their daily interactions had clear indicators of their intimate relationship, such as their playful banters or their unconscious physical touches, but he maintained that casual familiarity while the sun was up.

She only became privy to his inner world during either intimate conversations, brought upon by late-night fatigue, drunken courage, or the general afterglow of sex, or crises in both his personal and professional lives. With everything she gleaned, she learned how to accommodate, to challenge, to adapt to him, just as he did to her, and she believed that their stark differences in most everything in their lives were but a footnote to how committed they were to each other.

Which is how she noticed when that distance began to return to their relationship.

She remembered the night in his apartment after their one-year anniversary dinner. He left the bed in the middle of the night and, despite his best efforts, returned smelling faintly of tobacco.

He only ever smoked when something bothered him.

It was a bad habit he picked up while working in Japan before coming stateside. That and heavy drinking.

She could usually pinpoint the reason why he would need a smoke: unable to get funding for his department, his PI rejecting this dissertation topic for the umpteenth time, the time he and Risa nearly broke up and so on. But she didn’t know what was bothering him this time.

And she knew that she couldn’t force it out of him either. He only shared his struggles with her when he was ready to, on his own terms, and never before that unless it was an extremely heated conversation.

So, when he returned to the bed, she wrapped her arms around him.

“I love you,” she lazily whispered.

“…I love you, too.”

And he hugged her, tighter than usual, before they drifted back to sleep.

…

Risa had a bad habit of zoning out around people. So many thoughts raced through her mind, both relevant and irrelevant to the conversations at hand, that she needed a pause to make sense of them before she could speak again. Either that or an attractive guy rendered her speechless.

Thankfully, it was a habit she mostly fell out of once she began to date Satoshi, but she still spaced out whenever she saw men that checked off features from an extremely specific list. They were always tall and lean, sporting a charismatic smile (if she saw it) and long, dark hair. For whatever reason, this specific combination always made her feel nostalgic yet wistful, and, oddly enough, conjured an image of black, feathered wings in her mind.

Her friends joked around about her getting tired of Satoshi whenever a guy caught her attention while they were out. And, while Satoshi didn’t seem to mind it all at first, asking if she had spotted a bias look-a-like or someone from the K-pop groups she followed, she noticed how his face began to fall in her peripheries whenever she’d snap out of it.

And then it happened during what was supposed to be a fun trip to the Strand.

Risa needed to stock up on some stationary while Satoshi wanted to browse the selection, hoping to add a couple of books to his ever-growing library. Pleased with the journals and pen she found, she weaved through the shelves to find Satoshi. She eventually spotted him with his nose in a book.

But she also saw someone who matched that dangerously specific set of criteria right behind Satoshi.

The image of black wings flashed in her mind, and those confusing feelings washed over her. And when she was able to break out of it, reminding herself that her boyfriend was a bookshelf away, she met Satoshi’s gaze.

He stood there, petrified, book still open in his hands. His eyes were wide, and his face was paler than usual.

Risa trudged through the quagmire of guilt as she scurried towards him, pulling him into an embrace. She dug her face into his chest, hearing his heartbeat, smelling the detergent and cologne on his clothes. He returned her hug as he rubbed her back with his free hand.

“Are you alright?” she whispered.

“I am,” he answered, his voice rumbling through her head. “Did you see another guy who looked like your bias?”

“He didn’t look like my bias,” she replied. “There’s just…something about the way he looked.”

“Because he’s your type?”

“Well, yes but…” She looked up at him. “I’m sorry. You probably hate it, don’t you?”

He shot her a smile to reassure her, but she could tell it was forced. “It’s not that I hate it. It’s a lot more complicated than that. Probably just as complicated as it is for you, right?”

She always wondered how he just knew things like this. How, even when they were experiencing any form of disconnect, he was always able to tie them back together. Validating her feelings when she couldn’t validate his. Seeing through whatever act she had put on that day because he didn’t want her to hide her true feelings from him, positive or not.

Risa nuzzled her head back into his chest. “I love you.”

“I know. I love you, too.”

And while she knew that he did, she heard the trepidation in his voice.

…

Both Risa and Satoshi began to spend more time at the other’s place than in their own apartments, alternating depending on their schedules that week. They were learning how to spend longer periods of time with each other, adapting to their partner’s living style, before they took the plunge into living together.

(It was something they wanted to rush into considering the price of rent in New York City, but they both knew they needed to acclimate to living together first. As appealing as the idea of cheaper rent was, they wanted to ensure that their domestic disagreements wouldn’t break their relationship.)

And so Risa had become acquainted to the silence in Satoshi’s apartment that amplified the noises of the city. And Satoshi had adapted to the constant stream of K-pop from Risa’s television.

Risa turned it on the moment she woke up, humming to the songs as she went about her business, and only turned it off before she had to leave or go to bed. She loved having it on as background noise and, even after Satoshi began to spend more time over at her apartment, she still kept it on because her boyfriend tended to keep to himself.

Somehow, she managed to get him to tolerate most of the music that she had on. She couldn’t sway him to liking visuals of their music videos, the looks of the idol members, or the quality of their choreography, but he came around to enjoying how the music sounded even if he didn’t understand it.

However, while he mostly blocked out the television whenever he was ever in the living room, she noticed that he would always watch Black Wing’s music videos. He knew immediately which songs were theirs due to the frequency that she played them, but he would always, for the three to five minutes they were on, give the television his undivided attention before returning to whatever he was doing.

And, after the incident at the Strand, she found it concerning.

The day after their date, she was at home doing chores while Satoshi worked on his research at the low table with printed copies of papers and textbooks, highlighted and annotated, radiating from where he sat. He had gotten into the habit of not using his headphones anymore, in case Risa had something to tell him, and his head had shot up immediately once Black Wings was on.

She stopped what she was doing before sitting down on the sofa behind him.

“Do you like them?” Risa asked.

“Not really.”

“But you’re always watching their videos.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You’re doing it right now.”

He turned around to look at her, and she prepared herself for a smirk and a quip. All Satoshi did, however, was meet her gaze.

“Why do you like Bam out of all of them?”

“Because he’s hot. And my type.”

Satoshi blinked. She expected him to take her answer at face-value before turning back around, but he didn’t. He kept her gaze, almost silently pleading for something.

But what did he want?

“Um, do you actually want to know why?”

“You like him for other reasons?”

Risa nodded as the group’s harmonized vocals filled her living room. “Like he’s super talented, too, right? And there’s just something about his charismatic personality that shines whenever the group’s on reality TV. But, hm, how do I describe this?

“Every time I look at him, I start to feel things. Like, I get giddy, but I also want to cry? And, for whatever reason, I start to think of black wings. Not the group of Black Wings, but an actual pair of black wings, feathered and all. So whenever I see guys that remind of Bam, all that just washes over me?” She sighed. “I don’t know; it’s weird.”

The song ended.

And the expression on Satoshi’s face broke her heart.

He turned around quickly before shutting his laptop. Satoshi shot up.

“I need some time to myself,” he muttered before rushing out the door, slamming it behind him.

And she sat there, staring at where he just was, while another upbeat song played from her television.

…

Satoshi returned later that evening to pick up his things before leaving again, citing some excuse about something coming up. She didn’t push him to explain the lie, deciding to give him the space he needed to sort out his emotions.

Risa expected that he would reach out to her within a couple of days. A week at most. But, after the second week of silence from him, she sent him a message before going to his apartment.

He didn’t answer the door when she knocked, but he had given her a spare key so she could let herself in if he wasn’t around. She didn’t want to use it, especially considering where their relationship stood at that moment, but she knew it was safer for her to wait inside.

And if he kicked her out the moment he walked in, then that was that. Their relationship would end because of that unknown demon plaguing Satoshi, and she would have to find a way to get over someone she legitimately wanted to marry one day.

C’est la vie, she supposed. All things had to come to an end one way or another.

“Excuse me,” she whispered, letting herself in. She slipped off her flats, leaving it in the empty spot reserved for her shoes, before walking into the living area.

It was a mess.

Satoshi wasn’t an organized person despite how he presented himself, but he managed to keep his place somewhat tidy if Risa decided to pop in unexpectedly. She tiptoed through piles of books and papers and laundry (whether clean or used, she wasn’t sure), before placing her bag on the countertop.

Risa checked her phone to see if Satoshi had responded to her message, but there was still no reply. She began to clean to pass the time, moving books and papers into cleaner piles based off their topics while she did his laundry.

Midnight had long passed when she finished, and Satoshi still hadn’t returned. He also hadn’t responded to her message. So she stayed up to wait for him, watching dramas on her phone, until sleep finally took her.

…

Risa came to, covered in a blanket, with someone holding her hand.

She leaned over to see Satoshi passed out on the floor, hidden by the other half of the blanket as he held her hand. He frowned before unconsciously tucking himself under the covers.

A smile erupted on Risa’s face, and she squeezed his hand before getting up. She went to the bathroom to tidy up and came out to Satoshi sitting up, eyes squinted, with a pout on his face.

“Why did you leave?” he whined.

“I needed to use the bathroom,” she answered. “When did you come back?”

“Late. Or early?” Satoshi yawned. “I just know the sun was already up.”

“Were you working late?”

“No. I was out with friends. Drinking.” He scrunched his face again. “Shit. My head’s pounding.”

“Well, how much did you drink?”

“A lot.”

She shot him a look. He groaned before climbing onto the sofa, curling up in a ball, and covering himself with the blanket. She chuckled seeing her usually aloof boyfriend act so childish, but this always happened after Satoshi had enough to drink.

(Risa was usually as drunk as Satoshi whenever he got like this. So, instead of watching on in sober amusement, the two of them ended up fawning over each other like lovestruck teenagers.)

“Do you need me to grab anything? To help you sober up?” she asked.

“No. I’ve got instant noodles in the pantry and kimchi in the fridge.”

She recoiled at the combination. “…are you sure?”

“Yeah.” His head poked out of his blanket cocoon. “Can you please prepare the ramen for me?”

“Of course.”

She navigated his kitchen, having made instant noodles for them countless times before. And, while she waited for the pot to boil, she turned around, expecting to see Satoshi tucked back into the blanket.

Instead, she saw him sitting up, looking directly at her with a serious expression on his face, possibly induced by his hangover-induced headache, that was seriously undermined by his ridiculous bed head. Risa cracked a smile.

“Headache’s killing you?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he grumbled. “How’ve you been? These past two weeks?”

“Tired. Stressed.” Risa shrugged. “You know, the usual.”

Satoshi kept his gaze trained on her, as if he was expecting her to say something else. She tilted her head in response, nudging him to continue, but he shook his head.

“It’s nothing,” he assured her. “Can you also get me some water?”

“What about coffee?”

“I’d like to hydrate before I dehydrate myself again.”

Risa filled a mug using the filtered water pitcher on his countertop before handing it to him. He chugged half of it, pausing for a breath, before drinking the rest.

“More water? Or is it time for coffee?”

“…I think coffee can wait for now.”

She refilled the pitcher before bringing it to him. He poured himself some more water before downing yet another mug. When she heard the water boil, Risa added the noodles and seasoning to the pot before setting a timer.

“You’re not making any for yourself?” Satoshi asked.

“I just had some yesterday,” she said. “If I have more today, I’m scared it might ruin my physique.”

“Says the woman who ends up eating more than me whenever we share a meal.”

Risa smiled to herself, relieved to hear the joking lilt in Satoshi’s tone. She took some kimchi out from his fridge and cut it into bite-sized pieces. The timer rang when she finished, and she poured the noodles into a bowl before delivering the food to Satoshi.

He slid off the sofa before eating, punctuating his elegant slurps with the crunch of the kimchi. And Risa sat across from him and admired the way her boyfriend, who usually pecked at his food, devoured the meal like he hadn’t eaten in days.

Although, if Risa had to be honest, there was a chance he probably hadn’t eaten a full meal in a while.

Only when Satoshi finished eating did he break the silence.

“Are you not upset over the fact that I haven’t texted you in two weeks?” he asked. “I figured you’d have some pointed words for me when the moment arose.”

“I know I can get like that sometimes, but I can’t do that to you. Not when I’m sure the whole thing’s been just as hard, if not harder, for you as it has been for me,” Risa answered. “I was actually bracing myself for you to break up with me when I came to your apartment last night.”

Risa’s words made him instinctively reach for her hand across the table. His thumb rubbed circles on her skin in a feeble attempt to comfort her.

“What’s wrong, Satoshi?” she asked. “What’s so terrifying for you that you had to leave my apartment like that? That you had to avoid me for this long? That you’re so scared of us talking about it?”

“…do you love me?”

She pulled away from him before looking down at their now disconnected hands. The centimeter between their fingers was painful enough. But if she saw his usual aloof expression on his face after asking such a loaded question, it would kill her.

How could this man, after all the time they spent together, the long nights spent either pouring their hearts out or cuddling or making love, think that she doesn’t love him? This was the man that she could imagine herself getting married to, and yet he didn’t feel the same?

Were his words about their potential future after graduation just empty promises?

“…how could you ask me that?” she said, feeling the tears bead at the corner of her eyes. “Why…are you asking me that?”

“Because of Bam. Because of all the other guys you’ve looked at that momentarily take you away.”

“But I don’t love them!” Risa could no longer contain her shrill voice. “Just because they’re my type and because I find them attractive doesn’t mean that I don’t love you! You’re—”

Risa’s throat constricted in terror, unable to tell him the words that she wanted him to hear. She felt the grip on her sanity slipping. If he dismissed her words of love as just a passing whimsy, hysteria would overtake her.

“…I know why you like guys like that.”

The shock of his words quelled the flurry of her emotions.  Risa’s head shot up to face him. Satoshi wasn’t even looking at her.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Remember when I met you at that lamppost all those years ago?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper. “When you were crying about being unable to remember the person you loved? That person…he looks exactly like your type.”

“How do you know that?”

“Dark Mousy was part of an artwork created by the cursed blood of my ancestors. And when he was sealed away on that fateful day, almost everyone except for a handful of people forgot that he existed—ah, can you hand me that scrap piece of paper and pen?” She did as she was asked. “Thanks.”

Satoshi gingerly took the pen from her hand, careful not to brush against her fingers, before sketching a portrait. And when he finished, despite how rough it looked, Risa’s heart both soared and cried just like it did whenever she saw someone who was her type. How strange it was for something to simultaneously look so familiar and unfamiliar.

“When you were fourteen, you fell in love with this dashingly handsome phantom thief named Dark Mousy, unaware of his true identity. You showered him with your unconditional love, continued to do so despite everything you learned about him, and he eventually reciprocated, falling just as madly in love with you.

“He is your first love.”

A tear rolled down Risa’s face.

She was so overwhelmed with this information, with all those feelings, that it paralyzed her. Satoshi stood up before leaving the peripheries of her view.

“I’ll leave you for a bit to process all that. And, when you’re done, feel free to leave.”

“…where are you going?” she squeaked.

“Out. Don’t wait for me to return.” She heard him slip on his shoes. “If you want to break up with me over this, I completely understand. Take as long as you need to make that decision, alright?” The door swung open. “Goodbye.”

When the door closed behind him, the finality in his farewell hit her. And, only when she was alone in his apartment, did she crumple onto the floor and cry.

…

Satoshi returned to his apartment after yet another long night of drinking with his friends. He abstained from most alcohol this time, unsure if he could contain what occurred earlier were he to get drunk, so he entertained pints of beer until they decided it was time to retire for the day.

Only then did he realize how neat his apartment was.

The piles of laundry that he had no energy to tackle were gone. And his research was piled in neat mounds, out of the way of any foot traffic. He was too preoccupied that morning to even notice what Risa had done for him.

He found a note on the low table, scribbled on the piece of paper that he sketched Dark on.

You’re an idiot and a coward, Satoshi.

I’ve made up my mind. I’ll see you tomorrow to tell you my answer in person.

Risa

Satoshi shook his head.

There was the Risa he knew. However, even he couldn’t tell whether she was joking or being as blunt as she could considering the precarious state of their relationship.

The exhaustion of the day finally caught up with him and Satoshi, one to adhere to his nightly routine, just passed out on the covers of his bed.

…

Satoshi had a dream that night of Risa, at fourteen, standing by that forsaken lamppost. He expected to see her crying, just like she was all those years ago, but she just turned towards him and smiled.

“Why are you crying, Hiwatari-san?” she asked, curious yet kind.

Only then did he feel the warm streak of tears on his cheeks. He stood, frozen, while Risa came up to him and pulled him into a gentle embrace.

“I know it seems like a terrible fate to have forgotten the person you’ve loved to the point that you can’t even put a name or a face to those feelings, but I don’t see it that way. Dark’s a part of my past, and that’s where he’s going to stay. Honestly, it’s a blessing that I have no recollection of him anymore.”

Risa let go of him and wiped the tears from his eyes. “You and I both know how difficult it is to let go of our first loves, but that’s all they were: our first loves. They’re not the people we’re in love with now nor the people we will be love with in the future. I’m still unconsciously holding onto Dark because he’s such an important part of those blindingly beautiful days of my youth. Nothing more.

“But, Satoshi, you’re my present. And I hope that you’ll be my future, so take good care of me, alright?”

Satoshi began to sob, and Risa hugged him once more.

For once, this was a dream that he didn’t want to wake from.

…

Satoshi woke up to banging on his door.

He ignored it, hoping that whoever it was would eventually leave him alone, but the knocks continued. Satoshi got up, anger rising with each step he took to the door, until he swung it open, ready to—it was Risa.

“Are you that upset to see me?” she asked, letting herself in.

“No. Sorry, it’s just—your knocking.”

“Well, someone wasn’t opening up when I was still polite about it,” she sang.

“…I just woke up.”

Risa nodded before plopping down on his sofa. “So, are you ready for my answer?”

“Honestly, I’m a bit scared. You’ll either give me some of the best or worst news I’ve heard in a while, and your current nonchalance is not reassuring in the slightest.”

“Ye of little faith.”

“Do you know how terrifying your cheerfulness can be?”

Her dulcet laugh filled his living room for what may or may not be the last time. And when she finished, she grinned which, unfortunately, was scarier than if she was taking this seriously.

“Marry me, Satoshi.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Well, I was trying to come up with something super romantic that would hopefully let you know how much I love you, but this was all I got. It’s corny and cheesy, right?”

“Risa, you’re not the one who’s supposed to be proposing.”

She rolled her eyes. “Woman have just as much of a right to propose in a relationship as a man does.”

“Yes, I’m aware, but that’s not the issue at hand right now.”

“Then what is?”

“We are far from financially stable to even think of a wedding right now. Completing our dissertations come first. Besides, we don’t even have a ring, so—”

“I know, Satoshi. I know,” she said. “Marriage is so far off that I shouldn’t even be thinking about it right now, but I’m telling you that I want to marry you because I see a future with you. That I love you so much that, right now, I can’t imagine anyone else by my side for the rest of my life. I love you so much more than you think I love that Dark guy, and I will continue to love you as best as I can for as long as I’m alive.

“The official proposal and marriage can wait until we’re ready. But, right now, I’m letting you know that I’m choosing you. I’m choosing you today, and I will continue to choose you tomorrow. Ad infinitum.”

This was playing so similarly to his dream the night before that he couldn’t believe the words coming out of Risa’s mouth. He had to be dreaming.

“Pinch me.”

She complied. Her sharp nails dug into his skin.

“So this isn’t a dream…”

“I’m offended that you thought my sweeping confession was a dream.”

“No, it’s just—I had dream similar to this last night. I wanted to make sure this was reality.”

“You’re just saying that because you think that’s what I want to hear.”

“No, I’m being serious.”

Satoshi took her hands in his. And, feeling the warmth of her skin through his palms, he began to tear up.

“I love you, too, Risa. And, when that times comes, I will get down on one knee with a ring of your liking to ask for your hand in marriage because I don’t want to imagine a future without you by my side. For now, all I can say is that I will continue to choose you today, and I will continue to choose you tomorrow. Ad infinitum.”

Risa pulled Satoshi into a hug, rubbing his back. “If my husband-to-be is already crying telling me how much he loves me now, how will he fare when he has to do it in front of all our loved ones?”

“He will cry just as much, if not more, in front of an audience because he cannot believe he gets to spend the rest of his life with someone like you.”

Their hands cupped their lover’s face. With their eyes locked onto each other, they had the perfect opportunity to seal their love with a kiss. But they didn’t.

Risa beamed, her delight so infectious that Satoshi, with his most content smile, just leaned his forehead on hers while his tears kept falling. She kept tutting about her emotional boyfriend as she giggled and wiped his tears away. That feeling of comfort, of safety, of their physical closeness, of their emotional intimacy, was love.

It was their love.

And it was one of the few things that the infamous phantom thief, Dark Mousy, and the cursed Hikari blood in his veins, couldn’t take from them.  

#dnangel #d.n.angel #dn angel #satoshi hiwatari #risa harada #satorisa #my writing #my fanfiction

[this-is-krikkit]

Hey Sunshine 💜💜💜

As I didn't annoy you yet today, I'm here to:

1/ remind you that I exist & I can be a pain in the ass in case you forgot 😈

2/ request 13 "Don't move" for the Drabble Prompts post 📝

3/ send you a hug 🫂

See ya!

Mwah 😘

VV !! 😏😉 thank you for the request 🤗

1/ i can't forget that you exist, i love you too much for that ♥️♥️ and you're never annoying 😘

2/ i technically don't have to honor that promise since my choice lost, but i couldn't resist writing it down anyway… and I'd already used that line before you even sent in the ask, so it feels like the stars were aligned for me to post whatever the f this is!!

3/ hugging you right back ♥️🥰 and i really hope you like this!!

send me prompts and i'll write a drabble

lingua (ao3 link)

Tags: modern au, nsfw, nsfw use of piercings, afab levi ackerman, amab hange zoë, t4t, trans levihan, don't like don't read, he/him pronouns for Levi, she/her pronouns for Hange, porn with feelings, don't do this at home (no really don't you're supposed to wait longer)

.

"Hey, pretty boy," Hange singsongs under her breath when she enters Levi's studio, the entire one room apartment bathed in a gorgeous sunset orange at this late hour of the day.

As she predicted, he's still out cold from his previous night shift as a nurse, and she hesitates as she closes the door as quietly as possible. It's hard not to feel guilty at the thought of waking him up, but she's got two major excuses she thinks will make it worth it.

The first one is silly, idiotic even, and if Levi doesn't approve, will turn into a total disaster of a surprise.

The second is slightly embarrassing. Hange's historical thesis has been keeping her way too busy lately, and both money and the ER team schedule have been so tight that Levi has needed to work double the usual amount of additional hours, which resulted in them not seeing each other for over a couple of weeks now. And okay, she's got that other trivial mission in mind for tonight, but if she's being honest, this kind of a gap between shared moments simply isn't something she can stand for a day longer. It has been eating away at her for a solid week now, and she realized today that she just missed him to fucking much not to cut her afternoon studying session short, promising herself to start earlier tomorrow morning, and sneak into Levi's apartment –using the key he'd pretended to have forgotten at her place, barely two months into their still blossoming relationship.

She takes off her shoes and jacket, throwing them on his beloved worn out leather chair in the corner of the room, easily dismissing the twinge of worry she'd felt about the earful she's definitely going to get for that later, before she goes to lie down next to him on his sofa bed. She lightly brushes the longest strands of his hair away from his eyes and looks down at his gorgeous, peacefully sleeping face, unable to resist kissing him lightly on the nose and chuckling when it crinkles in reply.

"The fuck you doing here, Four-eyes?" he asks without opening his eyes, voice barely audible through its sleepy grogginess.

He sounds as angry and grumpy as he always would to a stranger's ear, but his arms wrap around her body and drag her on top of him anyway, his hands traveling up and down her back and lightly scratching along her spine like he knows she loves.

"Couldn't stand to be cooped up in my cave like a hermit anymore, so I decided to escape and come see my boyfriend," she replies, only pecking his lips once before sliding down to kiss her way to his neck.

She pauses there, inhaling his usual comforting scent and losing herself in the enticing warm drowsiness he's cocooned into and almost deciding to fall asleep here and there -when did she sleep last, again, anyway? she can't recall- but she's got something to do, so she tears herself away from this heavenly spot and drops kisses downards until she reaches the years old scars on his chest.

"Tch, I was sleeping. So annoying," Levi complains, even as his hips immediately roll and start seeking friction against Hange's body.

But she's got a plan, a serious plan to surprise him with that new piercing she's so psyched over, and not even her growing arousal will deter her from it, she mentally scolds herself -no matter how uncomfortable her jeans are starting to feel and how much parts of her are begging her to respond to his movements right now.

"Is this annoying?" she asks, wrapping her lips around one of his nipple and only letting the tip of her tongue wet it, before moving to play with the other one the exact same way.

"Yes, it is," Levi speaks up, sounding much more awake now, glaring down at her. "You know how much I hate it when you tease.”

Hange's brain comes up with a dozen counterexamples to that statement, but she lets it slide.

"Relax, babe," she chuckles, leaving another trail of kisses down his belly, "I've got a surprise for you."

She hooks her fingers in his underwear's elastic and slides it down his legs when he obediently lifts his hips up to help her out. She takes a moment to allow her hands to roam back up his limbs, marveling at the powerful muscles she can feel right under his skin.

"I don't like surprises," he lies again, just as Hange finally settles between his thighs, her short nails still digging into the skin of his hips as her mouth hovers over him.

"Oh, you don't?" she asks, faking surprise and feigning to go and unhook one of his legs like she's about to get away. "Never mind then, I'll go–

"Don't move," he warns, using the force of his legs to push on her back and keep her where she is.

Hange grins at the lust in his voice and lowers her face enough that her mouth can part his lower lips gently, and a low moan escapes her through the intimate kiss when she realizes how wet he is already.

"Damn, what were you dreaming about that got you so worked up?" she wonders against him.

She's not even really asking, not when he's already panting and he somehow tastes even better than she recalled, not when she has to stop herself from ruining her big reveal by eating him out like he deserves right now, by drinking every drop of fluid his body can produce to quench her thirst and make him writhe some more beneath her newly accessorized tongue.

"You, actually," Levi confesses, sounding almost as shy as he does out of breath.

He's staring straight down and into her eyes as he says it though, looking both terrified and determined to get his point across, and Hange really doesn't know how she manages to hold back when he's pulling this brutal honesty barely hiding a mountain of vulnerability act on her -the very one she knows is too soon to reveal how it makes her heart hammer in her chest every single time she witnesses it.

Still, she somehow succeeds in reigning it in, only swallowing thickly before she replies.

"Ha! Never heard you admit that before," she half jokes.

And it's not actually untrue. She knows the physical effect she has on him, she's seen, felt and tasted it before, but Levi's hasn't been very vocal about this stuff so far –not unless they're in the middle of it and his brain gets foggy enough that he starts blabbering barely audible affectionate words to her she thinks she'll never get enough of. He's an action over words guy, much better at conveying how much he likes the way she's now slowly pushing the tip of her tongue in and out of him by threading his fingers through her hair and pulling her even closer, much more comfortable with tilting his hips towards her to try and get more of the contact he so desperately craves right now than by begging out loud for it.

"So, that's the big –fuck– surprise?" he asks between moans he can't keep in, "you driving me mad by edging me like this for hours? Cause that's hardly fucking surpri–

Hange opens her mouth wider and, before he finishes his sentence and her nerves get the better of her, lets the flat of her tongue and the hard metal of her now thirteen days old piercing come in contact with Levi's clit, lightly but firmly stroking it.

Levi startles and yelps at the unusual feeling, tugging at her hair in shock, but Hange's hands settle his hips back down before he can move again.

"Easy, easy," she chuckles, and lifts her head up high enough to proudly show him her new toy. "That's the surprise! You like?"

He freezes on the spot and stares down at her in silence, mouth agape and eyes open wide, and some of her confidence starts to wear off.

"You don't?” she asks instead, much less enthusiastic suddenly. “Shit. I'm sorry I scared you. You know how long I've wanted one of these, and I just thought this would be a funny way to show–

"You lied,” he cuts off her nervous rambling, frowning though his hand is now rubbing at her scalp gently where he pulled a little too hard before.

"What? How?”

“I'm obviously not the only reason you got out of your dorm in the last two weeks," he accuses, with a pout she almost can't tell is fake.

But there's a playful glint to his eyes that she's getting more and more familiar with as she spends more time with this relaxed, open side of him she loves so much, and she decides to mess with him right back.

"Who says I didn't do it myself?" she teases, wiggling her eyebrows.

His entire demeanor changes then, so fast she startles when he sits up and angles her head higher and away from where he needs her the most. He takes a deep breath and settles his free hand on her jaw to keep her mouth open, carefully studying the piece of jewelry.

"Hange Natsu Zoë, for the sake of your immune system and my sanity,” he starts as he looks back up and into her eyes, “you better swear to me that you did not pierce your own fucking tongue."

Hange barks out a laugh at the seriousness in his tone, shaking her head free and pushing him hard enough that he lies back down.

"Truth be told, I watched a couple of Youtube tutorials on the topic," she admits when she's back into position, gently and effortlessly sliding two of her fingers into him, relishing in the shiver she can feel spreading through his body at the smooth intrusion -and how well it works to make him forget whatever he was going to retort in reply. "But it didn't seem worth the risk to end up in the ER while you were on triage duty."

Levi clicks his tongue at her, but it turns into a hiss when she puts her lips over his clit and lightly sucks on it, twirling her piercing around it once it's trapped inside her mouth.

She releases it right when she can tell Levi was nearing his peak, and wordlessly apologizes by hooking and thrusting her fingers faster and faster in and out of him. She alternates between rubbing either the metal piercing and the muscle of her tongue on him, careful not too put too much pressure as he tends to get sensitive.

But Levi doesn't seem to remember that, and he cants his hips closer to her mouth still, his powerful thighs squeezing her head between them, stronger and stronger as she quickens the pace, her mouth and hand working in tandem as she ignores the building pain in her jaw and the need to breathe.

He comes with a loud strangled cry that vaguely resembles her name, and she almost loses focus as she realizes that. She doesn't stop swirling her tongue over him, avoiding his clit and gathering every drop of wetness she can feel leaking out of him to drink it hungrily. Her fingers fight against his squeezing walls to keep pushing against that sweet spot inside of him, drawing out his orgasm and making his entire body shake as he rides the tide.

"Fucking hell," she hears him sigh when he finally releases the pressure around her head, his legs falling heavily on each side of her body onto the mattress.

Hange takes a deep breath in when she's free, wipes her nose, chin and fingers on the sheets and grins up at him and his blushed, fucked-out face. He lazily reaches down and she complies, dragging herself upwards until they're face to face.

He kisses her without needing to think about it like he used to in the early stages of their relationship. His tongue ventures into her mouth immediately, languidly exploring and eager to play with the new addition, and Hange regretfully parts from that exciting enthusiasm when he tugs a little too forcefully at it.

"Careful! It's still sensitive. This shit needs like two months to heal properly."

Levi frowns again at that, and Hange has to bite her lips to stop herself from commenting on just how adorable he looks, trying to look all strict and serious when half of his brain is clearly not completely functional yet.

“Were you even supposed to do that so soon?" he worries, cupping her face into his hands.

It's almost too gentle a moment to ruin it, but Hange's never been one to refuse that kind of a challenge.

“Was it that bad? You know, you have to tell me if you don't like–

The rest of her sentence is muffled behind the hand he's just shoved against her mouth to keep her quiet. She loses tracks of whatever she was going to say anyway when she looks down at him in forced silence, at his rosy cheeks and nose, at his parted lips, at his dilated pupils and the odd determination she can see growing in his eyes.

“I love it,” he whispers softer than she's ever heard him speak, not even glancing down at her mouth.

He removes his hand, thumb caressing her upper lip as he goes, and she feels herself mirroring the gorgeous, easy smile that show on his own face, unable to tell if she's more frustrated or exhilarated at that maybe hint that he could have been talking about something other than her oral skills.

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