#chapter 3 had me crying it was so good | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

borathae · 4 months

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"Jungkook is always plagued with guilt when he has to leave you for a business trip. His anxiety that you might be angry at him for not being present is especially high this time around and only your safe embrace can help him calm down."

Pairing: CEO!Jungkook x f.Reader

Genre: married life!AU, mild Hurt & Comfort, Smut

Warnings: Jungkook is anxious, stressed & guilty, he cries, she is so comforting, hugs and kisses, needy sex, sloppy mutual masturbation, handjob, pussy fingering, penetrative sex facing each other, until he pushes her to her back and fucks her missionary, strength & muscle kink, he is so passionate and rough in missionary, I don't think that there are distinctive roles in this, I guess you can call it Top!Jungkook with a Mommy kink, she calls him Bunny at first before he fucks her to the state where she can only call him by his name, dirty talk, sensory deprivation in the sense that they fuck in complete darkness, they're so so desperate for each other, tears because it's so good, multiple orgasms for her, creampies, cockwarming as aftercare, with cuddles and kisses <3, they're fucking soulmates

Wordcount: 5.3k

a/n: i wrote this after kook's solo concert because he did it to me. i also reread THE angst chapter of aaol and i think this influenced me as well. i really want my kookie back

The plane wasn’t supposed to land this late. The plans were all ruined.

Jungkook scans his eyes over the kitchen. Empty. Clean. He abandons his suitcase by the stairs leading up and walks to the fridge. He opens it. His heart stings. The plans were all ruined. He wasn’t supposed to come home this late. You made dinner for him. The prettily plated food is still on its original plate for him. You put a glass bowl over it to keep it fresh.

“Fuck”, Jungkook presses out and closes the fridge. He feels so fucking guilty that he wants to throw up. He should have been there. He should have eaten your food and talked to you during dinner. He should have fucking been there.

You knew that he wouldn’t come home. He was aware that his text came way too late, but he still had hoped that you hadn’t started cooking yet. Of course you had.

It has been longer than a month since he last was in Seoul and you always cook the grandest things as a welcome home surprise. Jungkook doesn’t expect you to cook, you do it because you want to. Which makes him feel all the shittier right now. He wasn’t there to appreciate it. He had one job - the most important job of all - and he fucking failed you.

Jungkook walks back to his suitcase and lifts it. He will carry it upstairs and then do the laundry tomorrow. He can’t be bothered tonight. It’s already too late. He already wasted too much time being his shitty CEO self.

The dressing room is empty and clean. It faintly smells like lavender in here. He knows it’s because you cleaned this room recently. Jungkook discards the suitcase by the dresser and leaves the room.

He takes a shower in the upstairs bathroom. He didn’t want to go downstairs yet. He is a little scared to do so. He shouldn’t have arrived so late. He is scared of your reaction. He gets so sad when you are disappointed in him. He hasn’t decided yet whether it’s his anxiety disorder talking or the truth, but he thinks that you will be angry at him.

He is angry at himself. He’s a fucking shithead of a husband. That’s what he fucking is.

Jungkook manages not to cry in the shower even if he really wanted to. His feelings are eating him up alive. He feels so stressed. So tired. So exhausted. Work has been hell. And the fact that it was in a country he barely knew the language of and he had to be without you made it even worse. He feels so drained.

The shower doesn’t help. It cleans him, nothing more. Jungkook doesn’t put on clothes and leaves for downstairs. He uses the never ending city lights as his guidance. The wind carries the distant purring of the traffic to the windows. The slightly higher pitched pitter patter of his naked feet on marble floor is loud in comparison. The sound stops in sync with Jungkook stopping in front of the bedroom door.

His hand is shaking. He has to hold it to calm down. He is so scared. You will be so disappointed with him. He wouldn’t even be surprised if you told him to sleep on the couch tonight. You never did so before, but things can change. One month is awfully long and he left you hanging today. He wouldn’t blame you if you sent him away.

Jungkook takes a shaky breath for courage and steps inside. The room smells like home. Jungkook feels his throat tighten in emotion. This is what home smells like. And he was too late for it. He swallows down his tears and tries to walk it off.

The electric blinds are closed all the way, putting the room into complete darkness. Jungkook uses the light of his phone screen to tiptoe to the bathroom. He still needs to brush his teeth. He does so using his phone’s flashlight as the only light source. He didn’t want to turn on the big lights and risk waking you. Or maybe he didn’t want to look into his own eyes. He can’t bear to face himself tonight.

Jungkook leaves the bathroom door open and tiptoes to the bed. His phone screen gives off enough light that he can see you once he arrives by the bedside.

You are turned to his side, resting your hand on his blanket. Your cheek is squished as you are sleeping halfway on your stomach. Your lips are parted as soft breaths leave you. Jungkook looks back at your hand resting on his side and gulps down the painful lump in his throat. You shouldn’t have had to fall asleep alone tonight. You shouldn’t have had only his memory to hold.

Jungkook picks up your hand so he could slip under the covers. You react to the gentle nudge with a hum.

“Mhm”, you let out and roll over, now showing off your back.

Jungkook is aware that you didn’t do it on purpose, but it feels like it. You turned your back to him and it’s his own fault.

Jungkook tugs the blanket under his arm and touches your back. Up and down. Up and down. He feels you breathe. Your warmth is so familiar to him. He missed it so much.

He missed you so much.

His eyes start burning.

“I’m sorry”, he whispers shakily and turns his back to you. He can’t face you anymore. It hurts so much. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to cry.

The sheets ruffle as you move around again. Jungkook doesn’t feel the movement because you and he have separate mattresses and separate blankets to get the best sleep ever. You shared a mattress and blanket at first, but decided to upgrade your bed a year ago. Jungkook likes his mattress firm and his blanket thin, while you love to have a softer mattress and your blanket to be thick. And the little mattress movements as one of you rolled around or the blanket wars which once managed to wake you are gone as well. Changing one mattress and blanket for two was the best decision ever. You and he sleep like royalty these days.

Jungkook hears the sheets ruffle as you move around and then the sound of a hand sliding over soft sheets. Warmth touches his back. He tenses up, stays silent. You draw paths along his back, feeling him up. Seeing him. Just like he did all those years ago when you were still masked soulmates aching to be together. It became a little thing between you and him to trace the other in darkness as to make out if it was your other half. You became so good at it these days.

Your touch dances up to the nape of his neck after exploring his upper back. Jungkook shivers and aches to lean into your touch. He is scared to do so now. He already waited for too long to speak up. You’ll know that he is intentionally acting asleep to avoid talking to you.

You close the distance, taking him into your arms to pull him against your chest. You are propped up on your elbow, using the position to nuzzle your face into the crook of his neck so you could kiss him.

Jungkook exhales shakily, releasing all of his tension with a tremble. This just broke him. To be cradled and kissed. It broke him.

“Are you awake?” you whisper softly. The words swirl against his neck.

He nods his head.

“Sorry, did I wake you?”

He hesitates. Should he be truthful? Will you be hurt if he was?

He shakes his head. He can’t lie to you. Not like this. Not when you hold him so safely. Not when you have broken him with your embrace.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“I’m sorry”, he presses out and sobs softly.

“Hey”, you gasp, straightening up, “hey, are you crying? What’s wrong?” you babble and roll him to his back so you could cradle his cheeks. You wipe his tears away, keeping close by resting your chest against his’, “what’s wrong, Bunny?”

“I’m sorry for tonight. I’m so sorry for being late and, and not showing up. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“It’s okay, hey it’s okay. It wasn’t your fault. The flight was delayed. You couldn’t have known.”

“I saw the food”, he confesses and squeaks sadly, “I didn’t show up, I’m so sorry. I should have texted sooner, I should have-”

“How could you have texted me sooner if you didn’t even know that the flight would be delayed?”

Jungkook falters. He sniffles repeatedly, taking sharp gasps for air to regulate his breathing. What you say makes sense to him. He didn’t even think of it yet, despite it being the most logical explanation. So it was his anxiety disorder kicking in.

You caress his left cheek while your right hand guides your pointer finger up and down along the bridge of his nose. You call this touch your magic touch because there is some sort of magic in it to calm down any sort of anxiety Jungkook experiences. Jungkook flutters his eyes closed and sighs as comfort overtakes him.

“Now tell me how you should have texted me sooner, mhm?” you ask in a soft, comforting voice.

“I don’t know”, Jungkook whispers.

“Of course you don’t, it’s impossible. The flight was delayed. It was an unfortunate series of events and not your fault”, you assure him, “unless you intentionally stayed away. Mhm is that it? Did you not wanna see me already, you sneaky Bunny?” you add in a joking tone, making Jungkook giggle.

He shakes his head, “no Mommy, I wanted to see you.”

“Good”, you say in a fond voice and claim his lips in a smooch.

Jungkook gasps because he hadn’t expected it. The feeling finally seeps into his consciousness. He is kissing you. After thirty three days without you, he is finally kissing you again. Jungkook whimpers and hooks his fingers behind your head, deepening the kiss with trembling lips. He is kissing you again. He is finally realizing that this is happening, that he is back with you. He hooks his arms behind your head and pulls you closer, asking for your taste. You part your lips and meet his begging tongue, while your fingers explore the softness of his hair.

You feel a little dizzy from sleep. You didn’t have the deepest sleep tonight because you knew that Jungkook would come home and you subconsciously refused to find deep sleep. So when Jungkook got into bed, the rustling of his blanket woke you. The pull was instant. You needed to feel him, make sure that he was finally with you again. Your body didn’t expect to be in the current position for such a long time. Your arms are weak and your head is dizzy.

You break the kiss because exhaustion makes you do it.

Jungkook chases you, rolling you and him over so he was the one on top. His right arm rests around you just a little under your breasts, his left hand is cradling your cheek while his right hand is deepening in your hair as best as your texture allows it. He claims your lips in a kiss again, whimpering into it as his body seeks your closeness. Two layers of blanket are keeping you apart. Jungkook doesn’t think, he merely acts and pulls his blanket off of him. Next your blanket. He opens it and slides his arm under it. He takes you softly in his hand and presses you against him at the same time as his body sinks under your blanket. He trembles. It is so warm under your covers and from what he can feel, you are wearing one of his sleep shirts. He grabs a bundle of it and twists, needing you to be so much closer than you already are.

“Please”, he begs in a shaky voice, tugging at your shirt.

You sit up far enough that you can take off your shirt. You throw it to the side and fall back down.

“Thank you”, Jungkook whimpers and cradles you against his chest. He buries his face in the crook of your neck and places his right hand on the back of your head to support it for you.

You wrap your arms around him, letting out a sigh you didn’t even know you were holding in. You have him back. This is how your Jungkook hugs. Thirty three days without him are unbearably long. So long in fact that your skin started to unwillingly forget the warmth and softness of him. It comes rushing back again now that you are hugging without barriers.

“___”, Jungkook croaks and presses you closer, “oh god.”

“I missed you too”, you whisper, burying your hand deep in his hair. You pull him closer. Your breasts squish against his chest, the pressure feels like heaven. It gets easier to breathe and releases you of tension you didn’t even know you possessed. You have your Jungkook back.

Jungkook feels overwhelmed. He ached for your hug ever since he left. Thirty three days without you were hell. You are his constant in his life. When he comes home from work, you are there, hugging him and talking to him and falling asleep with him. When he leaves for work, you are right by his side, talking to him and kissing his cheek as he drops you off at university. When he has free time, he knows he can spend it with you. You are always there. You are his constant. The person who will always be by his side. The warmth he can always return to. So to go without you for more than a month was hell.

“I missed you so much”, he confesses.

“Me too, Bunny. Me too.”

You felt just as lonely without him. Years ago, you wouldn’t have batted an eye at the thought of being along for a month, but Jungkook changed you in the most wonderful of ways. He is your person, the comfort you most look forward to, the home you never want to leave. You have him by your side in the morning and have him back again by the evening. You share the last second of consciousness with him before sleep and share the first right after. And for the last month, you didn’t. You had to live without him and it was agony.

“Closer”, Jungkook begs, “I wanna be closer.”

“Closer?”

“Closer please.”

“Lie down on your side.”

Jungkook obeys, keeping his arms around you. You seek him and slide your hand to his length. You brush your fingers over his tip, eliciting a trembling gasp from him. A small whimper follows.

“This kind of closer?”

“Yes”, he squeaks and grabs whatever he can of your upper back.

“I missed this feeling. You’re so soft.”

“I missed you too. Ah please.”

“Kook…”

“Can I-”

“Yes.”

His left hand naturally dances down your body, trying to locate your clit. You drape your leg around him, giving him access. He connects his fingers with your heat, sending electricity through you.

“Holy fuck, I’m sensitive”, you get out and moan. You take his cock and begin jerking it. He grows hard rapidly. Just as you soak his fingers at a rapid speed. You want him. He wants you. Too long you had to go without each other.

“Me too. Ah mhm”, he gets out and buries two of his fingers inside you.

“Bunny….”

“Mommy…”

You cradle his cheek, rub your thumb over his face and stub his nose with your own. Your hands work desperately between your bodies, the tension is growing embarrassingly fast.

“Bunny, I missed you so much”, you keen and squeeze your eyes shut. It feels so good. His long fingers are filling you up while his thumb is rubbing circles on your clit. He is so sloppy and needy in his touch, which makes it all the better.

“Me too, Mommy”, Jungkook gets out and whimpers, “oh god.”

Your hand is fast around his cock. You are calculated on normal days, but not tonight. There is no coordination in how you touch him, just pure and honest desperation.

“I don’t wanna cum like this”, you croak.

“Close?”

“Yeah, it’s fucking stupid. Fuck”, you slide your hand to his hair so you could twist.

Jungkook moans, tilting his head back all on his own while his pouty lips brush against yours. You kiss without really kissing. Just featherlight touches, tickling moans and traces of your tongues. The tension between you and him becomes unbearable. You clench down on his fingers, feeling his cock throb in your hold.

“Bunny, I need your cock.”

“I need your pussy too, Mommy.”

“Good. Take out your fingers.”

Jungkook obeys, touching your hip instead. Neither of you care about the wet mess he leaves on your skin. It’s just another proof that you and he are finally reconnected again.

“Good boy”, you praise and shimmy down just a little so you can take his cock inside. There is no friction, no struggle, no pain. Just warmth and overwhelming pleasure.

“Holy fuck”, you whisper and push him in deeper. Past your entrance. Your warm walls engulf him.

Jungkook grabs you and accidentally scratches you. He couldn’t help it. He is with you again. No one feels like you. No one does.

“Ah!” the sound bounces off the walls. He trembles and pulls you closer, “Mommy.”

“Bunny.”

“Oh god, I’m home”, he whimpers and starts chasing you.

Your leg is still around him, his thrusts go so deep like this. You are so filled up with him, so stuffed. You are eye to eye even if the complete darkness prevents you from seeing each other. But you don’t need light to see each other. Not you and not Jungkook. You have your hands and fingertips to see. You started it back in the stuffy sex club room you met in and perfected it over the years in your loving home. You know exactly how he looks right now and in return he knows as well.

“Bunny, oh god, my Jungkookie”, you get out and shake, pulling him closer by his hair. The darkness makes it feel all the more intense as you claim his lips in a passionate tongue kiss. The sounds of it mix with the desperate rutting your hips are doing. The rustling of the sheets is audible as well, as are the needy moans both of you choke out constantly.

You are hot under the covers. Sweat has formed on the parts where you are pressed together. You pull each other closer regardless, basking in the heat because you had to live without it for far too long. This is the only way to melt with each other.

“I love you”, Jungkook gets out and kisses you again.

“-love- too”, is all you get out between your hungry kisses, but Jungkook knows regardless. Even without words he would know. From your kisses, your embrace and the way your pussy is convulsing around him. Jungkook knows every ridge, every bump, every inch of how you feel inside and being allowed to experience it right now is the only proof of love he needs. He is the man who you allowed to go in raw, even back when you pretended not to care. You claimed him and sealed his sweetest fate. You loved him enough that you wanted to be without barriers and you love him enough that you welcome him home right now.

“You feel so good”, you moan and rut against him before your lips suck on his lower lip needily.

Jungkook whimpers, spilling tears of ecstasy. He fucks into you, feeling his legs shake. He is so high on you.

This is fucking for the sake of reconnecting. This is emotional. Deeply, soul-consumingly emotional. Is it kinky? No. Will either of you last long? No. Will it stay in your minds as one of the most intense nights ever? Yes. Yes it fucking will. This is the kind of desperate, needy, passionate sex you can only have after you have been without each other for a long time. It is dumb. It is raw. It is carnal and it is the only good thing which comes out of having to be without the other. Because no amount of foreplay, kink or fetish will ever get you to the level of starvation than forced distance does.

And you are starving. Oh, you are parched and aching for each other. Jungkook fucks you as hard as he can, while you rut against him as roughly as you can. It results in these deep, fiery thrusts, which fills you with all his cock and in return makes him experience every inch of your pussy.

You are burning up today. You are hot around him, as if you had a fever. Jungkook can barely breathe because of it, gasping for air between his desperate moaning. And you are soaking wet. Soft too. So soft. Jungkook scratches down your back and pulls you closer. His left hand cups your buttock and stills your hips this way. He pushes. The kiss breaks with your needy moan. You roll to your back just enough that Jungkook can prop himself up on his right elbow and use the angle to finally bottom out. Truly bottom out because the position finally gives him a chance to do so. Your leg is still around him, while the other is under his weight. You can feel his sculpted thigh shift and tense as he fucks you. His thrusts are sloppy and so perfectly uncoordinated that they seem coordinated. The mattress shakes because of it.

You barely feel it because he is currently fucking the senses out of you. This is the kind of fuck which reminds you why he managed to steal your heart and the proof of why you could never want to leave him. It genuinely fucks every sense of control out of you and turns you into the neediest, wettest pillow princess in existence. Tonight it impacts you especially deeply, leaving you to arch your back and curl your toes.

“Bunny”, you moan embarrassingly high pitched, throwing your head back as best as possible while Jungkook shows off the strength of his hips, “Bunny, oh god. Ah Bunny.”

“Mommy. So good, ah Mommy”, Jungkook moans and drops his head into the crook of your neck. He pulls you closer until your head rests on his right lower arm and you have his biceps brushing against your nose. The gentle headlock he has you in heals you from aches you didn’t even possess before. You are so safe like this. He smells hot. As if he is burning up.

“Bunny…”

You are burning up yourself, grasping his broad, muscular back as your only connection to sanity. He is making you cum and it’s happening soon.

“Don’t stop, please”, you beg.

“Mommy”, he moans and continues because he won’t ever ignore one of your begs. You don’t beg often, so when you do, Jungkook is overtaken with the need to fulfill your every wish. Which means a lot because he always wants to fulfill your every wish.

“You’re making me cum”, you choke out and sob softly as you hug him against you.

“Holy fuck”, Jungkook gets out and squeezes you strongly as your body falls into the high. You are so tight around him, burning up and throbbing. No wonder you are sobbing. Jungkook has to grit his teeth from how intense your orgasm feels to him and he isn’t even the one experiencing it. And there is one problem right now. He still needs it longer. He doesn’t know if he is holding back because he is greedy for more or if his body is just working this way right now, but he isn’t done even when you are already coming down. He needs more. He wants you longer.

You are soaking his cock, pulsating around him as you slowly recover and it’s fucking messing with him. He needs you. He needs you so bad.

Jungkook uses his strength and rolls you onto your back completely. His cock leaves you for a second, but you barely feel the disconnection as the darkness and your passed high leave you disoriented. Your legs are spread open, giving Jungkook a chance to take his cock and push it inside again.

Now you feel it. Now you’re whole again. You whimper, tensing up around him.

“Not done yet”, he rasps with his hand twisting the pillow next to your head. He bottoms out and chases you instantly. Fast and hard. He fucks the juices out of you, filling the air with the sounds of it just as he fills it with the sinful sounds of his naked body impacting with yours. The bed is sturdy and yet still croaks. His throaty grunts and guttural growls fill your ears as well. You know for a fact that he is frowning right now, gritting his teeth because he always does so when he fucks hard.

“Ju-Ju-Jungkook”, he fucks his name out of you. He is fucking his cock right against the spots which steal your sanity. You can’t stop getting wetter because of it. Every second with him feels fucking orgasmic, “Jungkook! Ah! Jungkook!”

You grip his arm. His muscles are so tense, bulging under your fingers as he drills you like an animal.

“Jun-Ju-Jungkoo-ook.”

“Yeah, keep moaning my name Mommy”, he growls deeply and curses, “fuck, this is…fuck.”

“Jungkook, ah god Jungkook.”

“That’s it, Mommy. That’s it, keep moaning my name”, he encourages you and rewards you with harsher thrusts. Of course this wasn’t his final form yet. Not Jungkook. Not your husband. He will make you believe that the sex couldn’t get any better before showing you not to underestimate him. He fucks you deep into the mattress just as he fucks you deep into a blurred state of ecstasy.

You are utterly and entirely his right now. And you fucking like it, moaning his name as he rewrites your definition of pleasure one harsh thrust at a time.

“I missed you”, he is using his deep voice to talk, “I thought of you, urgh, of you being mhm being cockstuffed with me, ah mhm I’m going crazy, Mommy. Fuck.”

He could tell you everything right now and you would barely take it in. Your brain doesn’t work. You are so dumb right now. So utterly stupid. If you weren’t on your back, you would have drooled. Instead you sob his name and writhe desperately.

“Fuck”, Jungkook spits and growls. His hips stutter for only a second. This is how long he needs to find his composure again and then he is already drilling you again, pushing your body closer and closer to your orgasms, “have to go again?”

“Ye-yeah”, you keen, arching your back.

“Let go Mommy, I’m right here”, he tells you and cradles your cheek.

The touch is all that was missing. You break apart with a loud moan of his name and your fingers desperately twisting his hair. He fucked it out of you from the deepest parts of you, which makes it all the more intense. You can’t even moan as it happens. His name was all you managed to produce before your voice gave up on you. You can’t breathe either, lying there with your lips parted and your back arched as Jungkook drags heaven out of you.

Your second high gives him a hard time. The needy fucking he did brought him to the point where he has to let go even if he wanted to hold back longer. His cock aches, his balls feel tight and the tension in his stomach has reached a painful level. While your lungs aren’t working right now, his’ are working overtime, producing the neediest, quickest pants for air. He takes a deep breath and exhales it through his mouth, dropping his head into the crook of your neck.

“I’m gonna cum inside”, he moans in a pitched voice. His hips stutter, but don’t lose speed, “gonna creampie your pussy so hard. Holy fuck, Mommy.”

You wrap your legs around him, closing your arms around him as well while your left hand buries itself deep in his hair and your right grabs his tense ass. You are barely present yet, but the need to feel him paint your walls gives you enough strength to pull him close.

“I love you”, he chokes out and lets go. He isn’t silent like you were. He is loud. Oh so loud that after a few seconds he needs to muffle himself by sucking on your neck.

“I love you too”, you whimper, “my loving counterpart.”

“Oh”, he sobs and pulls you closer, “my soulmate”, he squeaks and tenses up again, “no-not done. Ah!”

“Let it all out, fill me up Bunny. Please don’t hold back.”

Jungkook paints you white until it drips out of you and his body’s strength forsakes him. The comedown is intense. Because Jungkook never stopped fucking you even after your high stopped, you never got to calm down and because Jungkook fucked himself to the point of ruin he feels just as needing for your embrace.

“Are you okay?” he whimpers.

“Yeah. You?” you get out.

“Yeah.”

He shivers and twitches on top of you, blanketing you in under his body weight and the real covers. They slipped off his back in the rough fucking so that now, they are only covering your lower bodies. You don’t feel cold because you have him keeping you warm.

Neither you nor him can talk for the first few minutes, sharing forced silence as your brains try to relearn how to speak. His ears are ringing, you can feel your pulse in your head. You are both sweaty, the heat grows in your bodies now that you are so melted together. His cock softens slowly, still filling you up and keeping most of his seed inside. Good. You don’t want him to leave yet.

You finally have him back after more than a month and you would be a fool to break the connection sooner than necessary. You know that sooner or later you will have to stop this. Not only because of your important post-sex pee, but also because Jungkook can’t fall asleep like this.

At least this is what you believe. Jungkook is in the midst of drifting off to sleep. Jetlag, stress and exhaustion are finally catching up with him. Now that his mind is cleared of that initial dulling desire for you, it is finally truly sinking in that he is back home. And being back home means comfort and sleep. Still being inside and having you cockwarm him while your fingers are drawing hearts on his back forces even more sleepiness to the surface. He is home. Sleep can finally come.

“Bunny?” you whisper, scratching up his back gently. Goosebumps follow your touch. He shudders as you drag shivers out of him.

“Hm”, the sound barely wants to leave him. It tickles your neck.

“Are you falling asleep?”

He nods his head slowly.

“Don’t”, you chuckle softly, shaking him by his back gently, “the post sex pee.”

“I’m tired”, he breathes and sighs, “so tired. Work…hell.”

“I know, Bunnybaby I know. But spending your break from it having an UTI is gonna suck.”

“Not yet. Please.”

You give up fighting him, exhaling deeply through your nose. He sounds so needing of what you currently have. You need it as well.

“Fine”, you say and fish for the blanket to pull it over your bodies, “a few more minutes.”

You hug him against you, cradling the back of his head. Jungkook sighs and relaxes on top of you.

“I fucking missed you, Kook.”

“I missed you too.”

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viennakarma · 5 months

Text

Everything I Wanted II.

LESTAPPEN X READER (PART 2)

Summary: Your journey to become a Motorsport legend wasn't easy, especially when your path clashed with your greatest rivals, Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc.

Word count: 8.9k

Tags: Driver reader, mentions of crash, angst, abusive parent, daddy issues, trust issues, character death (not reader), cursing, strong rivalry, misogyny in motorsport, invasive media, aggressive fans, reader suffers with cyberbullying and hate, smut, female reader, +18, unprotected sex, voyeurism, exhibtionism, edging, filthy, porn with plot, queer! everyone, polyamory lestappen, bit of dirty talking, pet names, not beta read

Relationships: Lestappen x Reader

Mentor!Kimi Raikkonen x Reader

Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton x Platonic!Reader

Notes: this is full of motorsport categories inaccuracies, just go with the vibes please. There are a few inaccuracies regarding other drivers' lives, but they are just to fit the story. This chapter is very angsty and none of it is an attack at the drivers nor their fans and personalities, please.

I know I KNOW, this got out of hand, AGAIN. I promise next part (and hopefully last) is more focused on the romance, and the happy ending reader deserves.

Find me on Twitter!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

You spent Christmas with your mom, sharing a lot of presents and watching a bunch of stupid Christmas movies. New Year’s was now a tradition to spend with the Raikkonen Family, joined with the closest friends for a little get together. It was a good opportunity to reconnect with Kimi’s kids who missed you a lot during the season.

Charles never contacted you during winter break, which you were sure was the best after that mistake. You hated each other too much and the only thing that could come out of that was toxicity from the both of you. You refused to even acknowledge what had happened and its implications, that wouldn’t and couldn’t mean anything.

During the pre-season testing in Bahrain, you and Charles were back to whatever your relationship was before that one lapse in judgment months before.

Nobody noticed anything.

One day, Fernando pulled you aside for a little chat. You two sat side by side on big moving boxes, sipping on energy drinks.

“There’s something I have been wanting to talk to you about since last year,” he started, seemingly pensive, distant.

“Is everything ok?”

“Yeah, yeah. Remember after we first met when you asked me if I had advice for you regarding your career?” Fernando said, and you remembered.

Right after you had gotten close, you asked him for advice, you always did, especially about racing. But one day, you were chatting about his career, and you asked if had any lessons you should never forget. He had laughed joking about read all your contracts then asking if you were calling him old, but he said if he ever had any advice, he would tell you.

“Yes, have you got my answer yet?”

“Sí, Nena,” he paused, looking deep into your eyes, “enjoy.”

You frowned and he saw the confusion on your face.

“I see much of my younger self in you, you know? The same passion, this fiery desire to win, your goal for the championship, to conquer the world…” Fernando paused, looking up to the clear sky, the sunset coming around, “And I did. But I wish I had enjoyed it more. I should’ve gone to parties, I should’ve visited the countries we went to and tried the food, I should’ve made more friends, I should’ve had more lovers… I was so focused on winning, on getting my hands on that trophy of champion of the world, that I missed out on a lot.”

You felt your eyes tear up, and you wiped it before the tears came down. Putting your hand on his shoulder, you smiled at him.

“It’s such an honor race with you. And an even greater honor to have you as a friend, Nano” you whispered to him, you two laughed as his eyes watered too, and slapping his shoulder you laughed, “don’t make me cry, you old softie!”

You took his advice to your heart.

You went to the parties, you met new people, and that’s how after two entire seasons, you managed to befriend Lando, your teammate. You two had to open your hearts a little bit and meet in the middle. Which proved to be great, the whole team loved the change in your dynamic. You still weren’t besties, but you were close colleagues, and that was great. Everyone noticed the change and it reflected on how you started racing as a team instead of individually.

The car was even better than the year before, and the first race of the season you got a promising win.

That win, Lando’s pestering, and Fernando’s advice was how you ended up in a party after the Bahrain GP. Wearing a skimpy mini dress and 5 tequila shots deep, swaying your hips to the sound of Rihanna. You were dancing and singing with Lando and a few of his friends, loudly screaming the lyrics.

When it was way too hot for you, you grabbed a water bottle and beelined your way out of the crowded dance floor. You found a corner of the VIP section where the AC seemed to be working better, and as you stumbled inside the small space, you ran chest first into someone.

“Sorry,” you said, taking a step back and pressing your back against the cold wall.

“Enjoying your win?” Your head snapped up as you recognised Max’s voice. You had run into him.

Lando had mentioned inviting Max to the party, he had gotten a P2 in the race but you doubted he would go to a party he knew you would attend. You were obviously wrong.

“You know I am,” the victory was so good that nothing could ruin your mood.

“Well, then enjoy it. I’m coming for the win, again.” He warned you but his voice was devoid of anything, just sounded like he was casually telling you about the weather. But you knew that he was implying his championship the year before, rubbing it in your face.

“Don’t be so confident, Max,” you finished your water, smirking at him, “Enjoy the view of my rear!”

You flipped your hair, feeling his eyes on you the whole walk back to the dance floor.

And yet-

Somehow-

You ended up back at that small corner, dancing with your body pressed between Verstappen’s and the wall, his hand holding your jaw firmly, you rolled your hips against him, feeling the way his body responded to yours.

“We can’t-” he said to you, still, his eyes hadn’t left your lips, like he was so oh so tempted.

You rolled your eyes, annoyed. Sober you would never do that, but then, that was a problem for later. Checking to see if anyone was looking at you, you hooked a finger around his waistband and pulled him towards the bathroom.

As soon as the two of you were inside, you locked the door and Max pressed your back against the door, latching his lips to yours in a very desperate open mouthed kiss. You hugged his shoulders, opening your lips to him, his hands went down your sides and he grabbed your ass, pulling you into him. But that wasn’t enough, so he held your thighs and pulled up, carrying you. You locked your legs around his waist, and he stopped the kiss to walk, sitting you on the marble side of the sink, still between your legs, forcing his bulge against your panties, and eliciting a moan from you.

He took a half step back to hike your dress up, palming your cunt over your panties feeling the dampness of it, he tried to press his hand under your panties, but the lacy fabric didn’t leave much space, so he simply tore the bottom of them, exposing you to him. He just ran a finger over your slit, collecting your wetness for a brief moment before pushing a finger into you. Max watched your face with concentration, studying your body’s responses. Your hips shaking at the movement of his finger, and when the second one joined, you got louder. He curled his fingers up, his thumb pressing your clit, and you had to use both hands to hold onto him, your head lolling back against the mirror.

“Take it and shut the fuck up,” he grunted between clenched teeth.

He was pressing your insides so good, the slick sound of his fingers going in and out, his heavy breathing, the loud music outside and his laser focused fingers had you coming against his fingers in minutes. When he noticed you close, cunt spasming against his fingers, he pressed the other hand against your mouth, covering your moans when your toes curled and you orgasmed on his hand.

Max barely let you recover as he opened his jeans and stroked himself twice before pushing his cock into you in one swift move, making you gasp at the sudden intrusion.

“That’s what you wanted, right? Fucking teasing me all night,” He pushed particularly hard, hitting your g-spot, making you see stars, “you’re a fucking menace, y’know that? Fucking insufferable,” then his words became a mumbling of something dutch you couldn’t quite catch anymore with the way his hips snapped against yours, taking all your focus away and turning you into a mess of moaning.

Max fucked like he raced, focused and relentless, brutal. He hugged you with one arm around your waist to keep you in place and the other held you face, tilting your head so he could kiss you, or whatever that mess of saliva, tongues and teeth was. Your orgasm crashed through you unexpectedly, and you only hugged him tighter, pressing your face against his chest, biting into his skin through the fabric of his T-shirt to silence yourself, your teeth sinking into him was enough to send him also over the edge, coming with moans against your ear.

That night, you went home with shaking legs and an incoming headache, as Max left with the scraps of your panties in his pocket and your lipstick stain on his shirt, above his chest.

It was the seventh race of the year, Monaco, and you absolutely hated that specific track since your years of F2. During your two first years in F1 you had awful experiences, the rookie year you DNF and the year prior you had barely managed a P7. You were trying to keep your head up, be hopeful that you could at least try for top 5.

But since you couldn’t catch a fucking break, an old video of your teenage years resurfaced.

You were walking to your first round of interviews when Amanda, your PR manager, started walking by your side.

“There’s something. An old video of a karting competition resurfaced, where Max and Charles pretty much call you stupid,” Amanda was always direct, you could give it to her.

“Let me see the video” you asked, offering your hand for her phone.

“We don’t have time, but everyone will ask you about it. I need you to be the bigger person and act like it isn’t important, yes? They will try to taunt you and get a bad reaction from you, I need you to dismiss everything they throw at you. Agreed?”

You sighed. You knew the stuff from your teens were pretty bad, you rarely badmouthed Max or Charles, but they always felt threatened by you, so there were lots of instances they attacked you. Honestly, you just didn’t want to come out of this victimized. So as you entered the first round of interviews, you decided you were going to downplay anything they asked you.

“Y/N, have you seen the footage of you, Max and Charles from your teenage years that resurfaced recently?”

“No, uh, I haven’t.”

Someone pushed an iPad in your hands because of course, they wanted a live reaction from you. You pressed play, reading the subtitles someone put on the video. It was an amateur recording like a post race interview made by another teenage guy. First as Max walked out of the track, the guy asked what he thought of your win.

“It was luck, she’s not bright enough to think of a strategy,” Max said, walking away, clearly pissed having lost to you.

There was a cut and the camera was turned on again when Charles walked toward the guy asking the question. He repeated exactly the same question he had asked Max.

“Y/N, I don’t worry about her long term. She’s not going very far in this sport anyway,” Charles shrugged, seemingly unbothered.

As the video cut again, it showed your face, you remembered when that was. You were 14, and your dad had dropped you a few months earlier, so you were working your ass off balancing school, work and karting.

“Hey, Y/N. What do you think of your result today?”

“Uh, I tried a new strategy I learned earlier this week, thankfully it worked in my favor,” teen-You dried your forehead with your coat’s sleeve.

“What are your plans for this competition?”

“Well, I hope to be good enough to get into F4 next year, and work my way up into Formula 1,” you smiled softly and walked away after a quick bye.

The video ended and you still spent a few seconds staring at the black screen of the iPad. This interview didn’t come to your mind in more than a decade, but it was nice seeing how you made your 14-year-old dream come true.

“So, what do you say?” The reporter extended his mic to you.

“I guess I proved them wrong, right?” You giggled a little, “don’t take it to heart, really. We were all hormonal teenagers, I’m sure if someone digs, they will find a video of me saying the same stuff about them,” you shrugged, despite that being a lie, sounded dismissive enough.

“So it doesn’t upset you?” The reporter insisted, and you knew he wanted a scandal you weren’t willing to give.

“Of course not. I’ve always known my worth, and I’m P1 in the driver’s championship as of right now. So I don’t really care.”

The interviewers soon let the video go, when they realized you didn’t care about it. You weren’t sure if anyone would also approach Charles or Max with questions about the same video, but you couldn’t care less, you wanted to avoid drama for the time being so you could focus on the championship instead of this bullshit.

On the morning of qualifying, you were in your room, trying to meditate and clear your mind, when a knock interrupted you.

“Guys, I asked for twenty minutes so I could-” you stop yourself when you realize it isn’t anyone from your team, but it’s Max and Charles, “what are you doing here?”

“We came to apologize about the video,” Max started.

“Did your PR teams send you here?” You looked around, trying to catch a camera or even a phone recording.

“No uh, we realized we were very immature with you, and this video is just proof of how silly that was,” Charles sighed, seemingly embarrassed.

“You don’t need to apologize, I mean- the two of you really had it out for me, you called me dumb a lot,” you pointed to Max, then Charles, “and you called me ugly countless times. I don’t know why it would make any difference now.”

You were just so used to being defensive, to protect yourself from hatred you found it hard to believe them, to give them a chance to apologize because you couldn’t believe it to be genuine.

“Even if you don’t take it, or believe it, I would like to apologize for that behavior. I was just a stupid kid.” Max looked deep into your eyes, which could’ve made you uncomfortable if he didn’t seem so honest.

“I’m really sorry, Y/N. It was too idiotic to be like that to you, growing up. You were just a kid too.” Charles added.

You understood where that apology came from, it was stupid and embarrassing for all three of you this teenage rivalry when you all were barely mid racers back in the day. Sighing, you looked around, dropping your façade for a second, allowing yourself to display the same honesty they showed you.

It was hard and required some sort of deprogramming because you could only see them as rivals, like your dad had whispered in your brain so many times before, like their actions towards you had cemented dad’s words. They had said things that were on your mind for so long, that had made you defensive and deflective.

“Look, don’t worry about it. Whatever happened back then, it’s water under the bridge,” You shifted on your feet. As they started walking away, you added “this doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

They only nodded before leaving. Your routine went back to the same, and as the next scandal went on, people forgot about the silly video, but a very specific part of the fans started shipping you and both your rivals.

The rivalry never died down though.

Then, out of nowhere, Sebastian pulled you and Lewis aside to a conversation. Then he told you that he was going to retire by the end of the season. It was the first time the two of them saw you cry, and Sebastian hugged you tight, shushing your crying softly.

“I’m so sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispered, petting your head.

“No, don’t apologize,” you let him go, drying your face, “I have listened to you talking countless times about how you missed the kids. Don’t apologize for choosing to be a great dad. I know Hanna and the kiddos will be ecstatic.”

“You two are my closest friends here, that’s why I wanted to tell you first, before my announcement.”

“Thank you, Seb,” you said, eyes still watering, “I’m going to miss having you around.”

“Thank you for telling us beforehand,” Lewis said, also visibly emotional.

The season was writing itself to be just as close as the year prior, but now you were slightly better at keeping the lead most.

That is until Zandvoort. This GP was always a nightmare to you, because it was full of Max’s fans, and they absolutely hated you for being his rival. You had been booed when you were on the podium the year before, so now, you and Amanda decided it was best to keep your head down during the whole week. Not out of shame, but more of a matter of safety, you didn’t know how far the crowd could go in antagonizing you. When you were booed the other year, Max had said it was part of the sport and dismissed the conversation.

The morning of free practice, you went into the paddock very low-key and kept to yourself. You arrived with a little cup of coffee and got mentally ready for a hostile environment the whole weekend. That, until you spotted a small group of people dressed with your color and wearing your number, waving wildly to you.

In a spur of the moment decision, you went there, getting close to the barrier to sign a few caps and take a few selfies. In retrospect, you knew you shouldn’t have done that, especially with only two bodyguards accompanying you.

You were finishing chatting with your fans when you felt something heavy hit the side of your head and the impact made you stumble backwards, you were confused as you heard the screams and felt one of the bodyguards pull you back, as the other jumped the barrier and started running. You patted your temple and something wet and sticky was dripping down the side of your face. You stared at the small group of fans who were looking at you horrified. Staring at the hand, you saw the red staining your fingers, and as the bodyguard kept pulling you away to somewhere safer, the thing flowed even more and got into your left eye.

You wondered if it was blood as you touched your temple but felt nothing, not a gash nor small cut. You covered your left eye as it started to sting from what you supposed smelt like paint.

“Hey, hey, what happened? You’re bleeding!” Max jogged up to you.

“Not blood, just paint” you muttered, trying to use your coat to clean your face.

“Someone threw a paint ball at her,” the bodyguard said.

“Fuck, it’s burning!” You exclaimed, feeling tears in your left eye.

“Come here, the RB hospitality is close,” Max said, holding your wrist, he stopped shortly pointing to your bodyguard, “and you, sort this and find the person who did it.”

You let yourself be taken by Max into the RB territory, the burning so annoying that you rather take whatever solution he was thinking of. He held your waist and placed you sitting on a sink, and then you felt water streaming down your face.

“Stay still,” Max commanded, holding a hose over your head, pouring water down your face, “now blink slowly, let the water wash it,” his voice soft as you did what he told you to. Slowly but surely, it washed the paint away, relieving your left eye from the stinging. Max held the hose up and held your chin, tilting your head up so he could check your eye, still letting the water stream down your face.

You took a few minutes, breathing and regulating your heartbeat from that scare, trying to come back to normal and understand fully what was going on. From what you gathered, you were chatting with fans when someone else came and threw something with paint at you.

“How does it feel?”

“It’s better, already stopped burning,” you told him, feeling your heart miss a beat at the close proximity you found yourself to him. You were sitting on a sink, Max standing between your legs pretty much like you two had done months before for entirely different reasons.

“Open your eye, let me see,” he asked, and you tried to blink it open, “can you see?”

“It’s a little blurry but I believe it will get better,” you explained, and he didn’t let go of your chin. Suddenly, he covered your right eye with the other hand, leaving you only with your left eye sight.

“How many fingers am I putting up?” He showed it to your left eye. The vision was a bit blurry but you still could make out the shapes very clearly.

“Four, Max. It’s just a little bit blurry, probably will get better in a few minutes” you sounded annoyed, you tried to move but he pressed a hand against your waist, keeping you in place.

“Now, what happened?” He asked finally. You ignored the proximity, and the hand still on your body.

“We’re in Zandvoort, that’s what happened,” you shrugged, really annoyed about it.

“What do you mean?” He was visibly confused. You scoffed because you knew it wasn’t something he didn’t know, since the year before he has dismissed the importance of how hostile people were to you.

“We’re massively surrounded by your fans, Max.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They hate me because you hate me, and they think because you hate me they’re justified in their hostility towards me,” You explained, with a sigh, you pushed away from Max, “this GP has been like this for me ever since Rookie year.”

“I don’t hate you,” he said, brows furrowed.

“You do. And they do too,” you pointed down at the paint that had also stained your shirt as proof.

“I don’t,” he insisted and you rolled your eyes, jumping off the sink, but he didn’t give you space, which made you stand chest to chest with him, “I promise.”

You stared at him, breathless. That wasn’t part of the game you played, being kind, sounding worried and making promises. None of that was part of this whole rivalry. Pushing his chest, you tried getting away but he caged you against the sink, body flush against yours.

“Do you believe me?” He asked and your eyes fell to his lips, and you allowed yourself to remember the desperate and chaotic kisses you had shared in a dimly lit bathroom, “I don’t support any of this behavior.”

You heard voices and steps approaching, which made you finally push him away, walking towards the door. Whatever little magic had been happening between those walls was undone the moment you remembered none of that would’ve happened if he had politely put a stop to it earlier.

“It’s part of the sport and I have to deal with it, right?” You returned the very same words he had said about you when you were booed by the crowd the year prior.

As you opened the door, you were faced with Sebastian. He stopped, taking you in and then pulling you in a hug.

“Are you ok? We just heard what happened!” He murmured, guiding you out of the bathroom. He held your shoulders and looked at your face, checking how your left eye was still a little red, “we should take you to see a doctor, come on.”

Lewis soon arrived at the entrance of the RBR station, he warned about the reporters crowding outside, waiting for a glimpse of you after the attack. The British man gave you a Mercedes coat so you put it over your head and avoid the cameras waiting outside. With the bodyguards and both Lewis and Sebastian leading you away, you ended up at the medical center, and after a quick examination, the doctor gave you eye drops to put throughout the day.

Your Principal suggested you sit the FP1 out, letting the reserve driver take your place while you recovered. By the middle of FP1, your eyesight was 100% and you went to get ready for FP2. The whole day you felt like everyone was being extra careful, tiptoeing around you. You hated feeling like you were being pitied, so when the inevitable round of interviews came, you knew what you had to do.

“We heard about your incident earlier today, how are you feeling about it?” Someone asked.

“I’m pretty upset, to be honest. Formula 1 is a sport loved around the whole world, and the paddock overall is supposed to be a safe place not only for the fans, but also the workers and drivers. What happened today is unacceptable and could’ve been much worse. I’m voicing my dissatisfaction and I intend to, through legal means, take this complaint to the FIA.”

Later that night, as you laid awake on your bed, scrolling through the repercussions of the day, you stopped when you saw a snippet of Max's interview.

“What happened today was dangerous and unacceptable, I don’t support this behavior and I stand with Y/N,” that was all he said, but Max usually was a man of few words, always knowing when it was enough.

You knew he should’ve voiced that much earlier in your career, specifically after the booing the year before, but still- He also could have opted to not say anything at all, and he didn’t.

Amanda also sent you the news that the fan who had attacked you was found and banned for life from Formula 1.

After calling Sebastian, you managed to get ahold of Max’s phone number and texted him a simple message.

Thank you. Twice. - Lioness

The text went to read almost immediately, and the three dots appeared from his side of the screen. You wait, and wait, and wait. And then the dots disappeared, and an answer never came.

After a solid P2 that weekend in Zandvoort, you went home for the summer break. You and your mom had planned to go to Monaco for a little while since you were planning on buying a place there. From there, you and your mom would go all around the French Riviera to enjoy the sea and spend a few days in a spa resort. Then, you would go back home and relax before going to Ibiza for a weekend to meet Lando and his friends to enjoy some partying.

Everything went according to plan, but one day when you came back home after the trip to the French Riviera, you found your mom passed out on the living room floor.

You called an ambulance, quickly taking her into the hospital. Everything was a blur, the tests and scans, your mom still unconscious on a hospital bed, and the results. The results that pulled the floor from under your feet.

Your brain couldn’t fully compute what was said. Cancer Stage 4. Surgery. Palliative care.

The world was muted around you as you sat on a chair in the waiting room, hands shaking when you tried to understand what was happening. You somehow ended up calling the one other person you trust.

“Y/N? What happened?”

“I don’t understand- she just- she just passed out and I thought- but- but they said- palliative care” you try to come up with words.

“Talk to me. Are you sick?” Kimi’s voice is so focused and a little soothing.

“It’s mom”

“Send your location, I’m going there,” that’s all he said.

Waiting for Kimi gave you some sense of purpose, because it’s Kimi. He could fix anything. He fixed your life when you were 14, he can do it again. He would get there and find a way to help. Your mind got so clouded when the word cancer was thrown in the conversation, that you probably missed the part about treatments and- and surgery and stuff.

In your mother’s room there was a comfortable couch where you tried to settle to sleep, but you only spent countless hours awake. You hoped to see the doctor again to try and get him to explain everything for a second time.

You wished you were smart and quick, but no, you just sat there holding onto the hope that Kimi had a way to fix this.

Kimi arrived early the next morning, knocking on the door before entering. You stood up, hugging him tight.

“What happened?”

“It’s pancreatic cancer, they said. We need to see more about surgery and- and treatments.”

You and Kimi found the doctor, who explained again, and in that moment you finally understood what he meant the first time around. She was in a late stage of pancreatic cancer, which was usually a very difficult illness to find before it is too late, due to the placement of the organ in the body and late symptoms. The only options were either to try a very risky surgery and chemo so she could extend her life for around 8 months to a year. Or she could go home to live her last few months the way she wanted.

You begged and cried and bribed and offered every single solution your brain could muster to try and save her. Kimi held you when you fell to the floor, sobbing.

When your mom woke up and you and Kimi told her the diagnosis, she cried too, sobbing in your arms as you tried to hold it together for her sake. It took a couple of days for her to choose to go home. The two of you spent the last days of summer break traveling around the world a bit more, visiting temples and statues, and seeing nature and everything good the world had to offer, going to places motorsport hadn’t taken you to.

Your mom went to every race week from there on, even when she felt especially weak, even when you had to hire a full time medical team for her.

Your focus on the season was solely on the moment between entering the car and leaving the car. You still managed to race like you’ve done before, calm and controlled, with the help of your engineers and team, you still could put the car where you wanted it, paving your way for a solid world championship that year. It was like your brain was seeing racing as the one thing in your life you had full control over, so sometimes you even felt like you and the car were one.

You didn’t tell anyone about her. Though every driver noticed how distant you were, even Charles and Max and the ones that weren’t very close to you noticed how you were only fulfilling your obligations and leaving, you weren’t even celebrating your wins, leaving the fastest you could after a race.

The Singapore GP was tough for you, having to leave your mom home alone with the medical staff and a couple of friends from her book club, since she wasn’t strong enough to travel anymore. Your attention was failing all throughout media day and free practices. Qualifying was shit compared to your performance the rest of the season.

In Q3 you did a reasonable sector 1 and 2 but you messed up sector 3 completely. It was a complete accident when you got in the way of a Ferrari when he was doing his fast lap, and you ended up messing his qualy too. Jace let you know it was none other than Charles Leclerc, who was setting the pace for a pole position. Out of 19 drivers, you had to ruin his lap. In the end, Max got pole, Charles qualified P3 and you qualified P5.

You went through the motions during the post qualifying press. You were about to leave after debriefing, when Charles Leclerc found you on the way to the parking lot. You pulled your coat tighter around yourself protectively as he walked up to you. You were hoping to escape his fury at least until after the race the next day. Before he could even get a word in, you started.

“Look, I know I messed up your pole. I know you won’t believe me, but it wasn’t intentional. I really thought there was no one doing fast laps on the track, I thought everyone was either still doing out laps or in the pits, so when you-”

“Calm down, breathe,” he interrupted you, “I’m not here to fight.”

“No?” You frowned, confused with the kindness in his eyes.

“We know you’re going through something, and I’m sure I’m the last person you want to hear this from, but you’re not alone. And you should really consider talking with someone on the grid. They’re all- we’re all worried about you.”

The words felt alien coming from his mouth, but the gentleness was so comforting you felt a lump in your throat.

“Why do you think I’m not ok?” You muttered trying to sound confident, but your voice failed, betraying you.

“You’re skinny and you look sleep deprived for a few weeks now,” Charles said directly.

“Damn, thanks.”

“I don’t mean it like that, you know it,” he paused, putting both hands on his pockets, “have you been eating?” Your lack of response made him press further, “have you eaten today?”

You pressed your lips together, not wanting to answer that.

“Let’s go, I’ll drive you to the hotel, we’ll stop on the way to grab some food,” Charles gestured to his car, a few meters away. You stood there, shocked as he started walking away, then he stopped looking over his shoulder, “come on, I don’t have all the time in the world.”

As you sat in his Ferrari, Charles put music on and you didn’t do much talking, but it was tranquil. He called the restaurant to order take out on the way, and 30 minutes later he dropped you off at the hotel with a bag full of food.

“Thank you, Charles.” You whispered before leaving the car.

You ate the food while on a video call with your mom.

You recovered well during the race, finishing P2, behind Max and ahead of Charles.

Your mom passed away a few days after the Japanese Grand Prix, the one you had won and dedicated it to her from the top step of the podium, even if she wasn’t there, just watching from home. You went home and stayed with her, holding her hands and hugging her as much as you could.

Some part of you knew she was somehow fighting, because she had promised you the year before she would be there when you became world champion. You could see she was hoping to make it to the end of the season, but you also knew she wouldn’t, and you rather she didn’t have to endure any more pain just for your sake.

“You don’t need to fight anymore, ma,” you whispered before she went to sleep, “you raised a strong woman, too. I will see you on the other side, ok? You can rest now, I love you.”

“I’m so proud of you, honey. I love you to the moon and back.”

You made it through her small funeral, following what she had written down before passing. An intimate funeral, full of flowers and a toast to her life. You cried the whole time, with Kimi and Minttu taking turns at comforting you as they could. Coming back to an empty home smelling of cleaning products made you almost lose your mind, and the sight of you in such despair was enough for Kimi to convince you to stay with them until you had to travel for the next race, in almost seven days.

The days passed in a crying blur, you let part of your team know about your mom’s passing. Only Amanda, Jace and your Principal. Jace tried to convince you to take a break and not go to the next race in Austin, but you quickly shut it off. Not only because racing was the one thing keeping you sane amidst the chaos, but because you were so close to the championship, and it was still close competition with Max and Charles, so you couldn’t afford to lose a race and the points that could come with it.

You had to honor your mom in some way.

That’s how you ended up on a plane to Austin with Kimi and Amanda. You knew Kimi had convinced you to let him go because he was sure you’d have a mental breakdown anytime along the weekend, but deep down you appreciated the company. Arriving there, Jace was the first to hug you and whisper his condolences, as well as your TP too.

You survived the entire weekend without breaking down crying in public, but that was your worst race in a few months, the first time out of a podium since Spa. You ended up P5, which luckily wasn’t too bad because Max finished P4 which you were grateful for as he was the one who was P2 in the driver’s championship close behind you.

After that week, you packed your stuff and moved to the new condo in Monaco you had bought during summer break. Despite loving your mom to pieces, you couldn’t manage to live alone in the house you bought for her a couple of years before, it was lonely and it hit you with overwhelming waves of sadness all the time. You distracted yourself a lot with buying furniture and decorations for the new place, and discovering Monte Carlo in a whole new way. The one comfort in all that, was knowing your mom wasn’t suffering anymore.

Then you went straight to Mexico for the next Grand Prix, this time, Kimi left you because he had to come home to Minttu and the kids. Amanda had been such a support for you, that you knew you had to give her something special for the holidays, out of gratitude.

Everything was going as expected until the press conference. You were there with Charles, Max, Sebastian and Lando. You suspected they were putting you always in the same group as Max and Charles because, as the season nearing the end, only three races left, they were your close competition.

While someone asked something of Charles, you were whispering with Sebastian, chatting about Mexican foods you wanted to try after the race. Then, something bizarre happened, and phones started to ping all around the room, between reporters, cameras and everyone else started checking their phones. It seemed like something out of a black mirror nightmare.

You reached for your phone but then remembered you left it to charge in your room.

“This question is for Y/N,” a reporter asked, reading something from his phone, “there’s a new article that just came out saying your mom passed away a couple of weeks ago, is that true?”

Your blood ran cold, and every sound felt like it was muted inside the room. Wide eyed, you searched for Amanda, who was somewhere on the opposite side of the room, and when you found her, she was pale. Then, there was a cacophony of voices and cameras and questions, that made you suddenly overwhelmed.

Swallowing, trying to reassess, you found Sebastian already standing, holding your shoulders. Looking around you noticed how the other three drivers had stood up, making some sort of shield around you, protecting you from the cameras and reporters swarming around.

“We can go, ok? Come on,” Sebastian was saying when Amanda caught up to you, leaning beside Sebastian.

“We can leave, right now,” she said, holding your hand.

Still a little confused, you nodded and let them both guide you back to your room.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry for your loss,” Sebastian hugged you, running his hands on your back for comfort.

“How- how did they find out?” You ask Amanda.

“An article came out, I’m not sure. Someone was probably digging into your life, but don’t worry, I put the team on it already.”

“How do- how we diffuse this? How do we proceed? We need to address this, right?” You started blabbering, trying to wrap your head around everything.

“That was very disrespectful of them to ask like that!” Sebastian exclaimed, making you two jolt.

“We’ll do whatever you’re comfortable with. Do you want me to release a note asking for privacy?” Amanda suggested.

“Can I write something and then run it by you?” You asked, she only nodded.

After a moment, both Amanda and Seb left you alone as you typed a note on your phone. You rewrote and deleted a few times before settling on something heartfelt and respectful but also, calling out the invasion of privacy.

My mom passed away a few days ago after battling with cancer for the past few months.

She had requested of me to keep it a secret until after the season was over, so I could mourn her without the weight of racing over my shoulders.

But obviously someone went digging and disrespected not only one of her last wishes but also disrespected my grief and my right to privacy. I love my mom but I’ll not be answering any more questions about her illness or death, please respect me and respect her memory.

All the love, Y/N

Nobody asked anything over the weekend, but again, it felt like everyone was tiptoeing around you. As soon as you first saw Nano the next day, he held you tight for almost a minute whispering his condolences, and it made you almost cry again. Lewis also spared you a hug, saying if you ever needed anything, to contact him.

You survived that weekend, and decided to go straight to Brazil for the next GP instead of going back to Monaco. In São Paulo you mostly slept your worries and fears away. You had promised yourself to try and focus on the season only, to make your dream come true, to fulfill your mom’s promise in some way.

With Ferrari’s bad strategy in Mexico, they had ruined Charles’ chance at the championship. Now your only competition was Max and the Red Bull rocketship.

You rewatched the race a couple of times as you usually did, to try and catch any mistakes you or your team may have made, to fix it for the next one. But also to try and notice any weaknesses of your rivals, if it was something you could use in your own favor.

You noticed right away in the FP1 that your car wasn’t adhering to the track, you were losing balance and needed more force than usual to keep yourself in place. By FP2, you managed to control your car better, but that caused your tyres to wear off way more quickly.

Quali was one of the shittiest you’ve ever done in your career, taking you out in Q2 for the first time that year, placing you for a start at P12.

“Listen, we’ll do better tomorrow, ok?” Jace told you as soon as you entered the garage, seeing Max still out with a shot at pole position.

“Give me a few minutes to unwind, please,” you asked, dropping your helmet, balaclava and gloves at a nearby table.

You went straight to your room, searching for your phone. Immediately calling Kimi, you waited for him to pick up.

“I watched it,” he said first and foremost.

“If I do bad in the race tomorrow, and Max does well, then I’m gonna lose the championship, Kimi,” saying that out loud made you shiver in horror, “FUCK!” You screamed, kicking a chair.

“First of all, even if you did bad tomorrow, you’d still have a chance to fight for the championship in Abu Dhabi. You know that,” Kimi warned you as if he was scolding a little kid, “second of all, I never taught you this loser mindset. You’ll have to find a way to work around the problems in your car tomorrow.”

“Shit, I’m so fucked! How? How could I even-”

“Remember when I first met you? Your kart was with almost this same problem, yeah? Remember you got P2? You went ahead and fixed it. That’s what I need you to do tomorrow, don’t focus on what you can’t do, only focus on what you can do.”

“I’ll try my best.”

“No trying. Do it.”

After spending the entire night crafting plan A, B, C and Z with you strategists and engineers, you barely got any sleep, but you forced yourself to rest. In the morning, you went to the track early to meet with your team again, to run your strategies one more time, when you had an idea. You’d still follow the plans you had carefully crafted with the team, but you decided to make a Plan Star, as you had called. Interlagos didn’t have any safety car in the last two years, so it was dangerous to fully count on one. But your plan star consisted in the case of a safety car in this one specific window of laps, you’d go to the pits for hards, counting on everyone else being on old softs or mediums at that specific point in the race. But for it to work, you had to be the first of the front field to go in.

As the lights went out and you accelerated, you got already three positions up, landing in P9, and luckily, the points zone. Jace was worried in your ears, talking about the car and the tyres management. With controlled calm and Kimi’s voice in your head, you managed a few more positions in the first 14 laps, landing P7. You lost a bit of time there, since Nando was P6 and everyone knew how tough it always is to overtake him. But you eventually managed to get the position. Unfortunately, it was the moment you had to go to your first pitstop. Due to the problems in your car wearing off your tyres, you would have to go for a two-stop, which ended up costing you three positions again. But you were patient and you were rewarded when the other cars had to pit, which gave you back the four places you had lost.

The race you went on and you barely moved up or down from your P5, but you managed to concentrate.

Jace, on the other hand was sounding more and more worried about your second pit stop, about the difficulty in get closer to P4, about the P6 trying to enter DRS zone behind you, with your tyres wearing off, with the-

“Jace, I love you but please shut the fuck up, I know what to do,” you were praying for a miracle when suddenly, there was a yellow flag, and the safety car went out during the perfect window of laps, “fuck, Jace, this is plan star.”

“Copy,” he paused, his voice sounding secure, “Box, box.”

You changed into hards, no one else went to the pits, and the race restarted after three more laps. The safety car had closed the gap between you and the P4, which made you overtake him easily.

Jace was still keeping quiet to help your concentration, he only interrupted to warn you about overheating your tyres, and your velocity per lap compared to the next position. You started overtaking like a madwoman as much as your tyres allowed.

“That’s P1, Lioness,” Jace told you.

“Copy that.” You said with your voice shaken.

As you managed your P1, you went back to be aware of your surroundings, seeing a Red Bull right behind you, trying to overtake but you managed to hold position.

When you took the checkered flag, you sighed with relief, Kimi was right.

“Congratulations, Y/N! That’s a brilliant, brilliant win!” Jace’s voice was sounding shaken too.

“You’re crying, Jace?” You laughed softly.

“It’s an honor to tell you that you, Y/N Y/L/N, are a Formula 1 world champion!” Jace shouts, and behind him you can hear more people screaming.

“What? Jace you’re fucking with me!”

“No, Lioness, you’re the 2022 champion of the world!”

“But- but how? There’s one race left? And Max was right behind me!”

“No, Verstappen DNFed during that one yellow flag. Behind you was Perez.”

You made the calculations quickly in your head. Max was P2 in the championship, but this DNF meant no points, and even if he managed to win the last race in Abu Dhabi, he wouldn’t be able to equal you in points. So-

“OH MY GOD, oh my god!” You screamed your lungs out, feeling the tears streaming down into your balaclava, “Fuck yes! I’m Formula 1 World Champion! Thank you, thank you so much guys! Jace, holy shit, I’m the champion!”

“You’re the champion!” Jace confirmed.

You felt joy in a way you hadn’t felt in a long, long time, as you stopped your car on the number one spot. Still a little dizzy from the thrill, you left the car, going straight to your team, heavily waiting for you. They all hugged you, hitting your helmet, saying congratulations and everything. You took a moment to hug Jace and Amanda, who had been of great support throughout the year.

After getting weighted and being congratulated by the other two on the podium, Perez and Hamilton, the latter hugging you tight as he took you off the floor, you drank water as you waited for the post race interview with Nico Rosberg.

You were giddy, barely holding yourself together with how happy you were feeling, how you wanted to hold the trophy, how grateful you were and more importantly, how you felt a great weight being lifted off your shoulders.

“Y/N, congratulations on becoming a World Champion! I have to say, as a girl dad, it is great to see you become the first woman ever to win this title. How do you feel? What do you want to say?” Nico offered, with a kind smile.

“To be honest, I can barely contain myself. It’s such an honor to be here and be the world champion. I look at the past and see my younger self who never thought would make it to Formula 1. It’s such a dream come true, after this year’s hardships, I’m glad to achieve the greatest dream of them all!” You said, kinda quickly, rambling as you tried to put into words all the emotions mixed with the happiness, “I’m sorry, I know I’m taking up all your time, I just want to dedicated this win, and this championship to three people who saved my life: Kimi, thank you for being the salvation of my career when we first met; And my mom, who’s not here anymore, thank you for being the light in my darkest days. And lastly, I want to thank myself for working my ass off and never giving up.”

You muttered a thank you as Nico only laughed at your rambling. Before you moved to the cooldown, you grabbed the mic back again.

“May I add one last thing?” You asked for Nico, who only nodded, pointing to the camera again, “This is to my father: I made it, you asshole.”

You wanted to send the middle finger too, but you knew you couldn’t because of the FIA’s guidelines, and you were already risking a penalty for cursing on live TV. In the cooldown room, you sat beside Lewis, watching a few highlights of the race on the screen. It showed a couple of your overtakes.

“Damn, you overtook like crazy,” Lewis muttered, seemingly amazed.

“I pulled a Lewis Hamilton in Interlagos last year,” you joked, and he laughed.

That podium felt like the culmination of everything you had worked for your whole life, felt like recovering your love for the sport for what it was, for the fast cars and the adrenaline. Being on that podium in Brazil as a World Champion shifted something inside you forever. During your anthem, you laughed, and when you got the trophy, you cried, pointing the trophy to the sunny sky with a silent prayer to your mom. You barely noticed, but you felt the champagne raining on you, and opened your arms to shower in it. Putting the trophy down, you splashed the other bottle, laughing and wetting everyone that was close to you, Lewis, Checo, Jace, who had gone up representing the team.

When the celebration ended, you stayed behind a little more, watching the crowd from the podium, and they started chanting. It took you a few seconds to realize they were chanting your name.

You raised your trophy at them, and they cheered even louder. Then you pointed it to the sky again.

“Look, ma, I made it” you whispered to yourself, feeling the tears streaming down your face.

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of-cauldrons-and-inkpens · 11 months

Text

You Missed My Heart: PART 1

PART 1 LINK | PART 2 LINK | PART 3 LINK

Description: Miguel had died months ago. At least, my universe’s Miguel had died. Maybe I should have noticed when I could feel him touching me in my dreams, but grief is a hell of a thing. That is, until I woke up in a house that looked just like mine, but somehow different.

Miguel had taken me from my universe and put me in one where he could relive his past, whether I liked it or not.

Word Count: 11,107 Author’s Note: I wrote this instead of doing my college work, but I also didn’t proofread. Hopefully there aren’t too many typos! I’ll probably add more chapters in the following days/weeks Content Warning: smut, mild breeding kink, reader is being held against their will, Miguel being manipulative and an ass, bit of angst (I mean his wife and child are dead so yeah)

Minors DNI! Story is below the cut

The dream was hazy. Miguel sighed as he began to inch toward the edge of the mattress, drifting out of the shared embrace that we had slept in. Arms and legs untangled from one another as he drifted away from me.

I reached my hand outward, catching onto his hand before he could slip away for good. “I need to go to work.” He whispered, his voice husky and warm from sleep. But, despite his protest, he lay back down beside me. “Don’t go.” I said. My hands worked their way through the darkness, moving to curl around his broad shoulders. I wanted to hold him. I wanted to feel his strong heartbeat against my chest and listen to him breathe one more time. It didn’t matter that this wasn’t real. I didn’t care that this was now a soft and distorted memory; this was all I had left of him. I had convinced myself weeks ago that if I dreamed of him enough, it would almost be like he wasn’t gone. “I have to. Alchemax is unveiling a new project today and I have to be there.” He leaned in, brushing the tip of his nose against mine. His breath was warm, working as a perfect antagonist for the frigid air of our bedroom. “Please Miguel.” I begged. He cut me off by pressing his lips against mine. The kiss was languid and wet. Our bodies were still naked from the previous night’s activities as he rolled on top of me. “Miguel…” I whispered. “Please don’t leave me.” “I’m not going anywhere.” He said. His lips slipped off of mine as he lowered his face, moving so that his mouth could graze the shell of my ear. There, he whispered the one thing I thought I would never hear again. “I love you…”

Something brushed the side of my face, pulling me from my dream. I jerked upward, searching for what had caused it. But I couldn’t see through the pitch black of the bedroom. In the darkness, I was so sure that I could smell him. He had been dead for months, but his scent still lingered in the walls and all of the soft places in the house. It was to the point that I was terrified of moving or washing anything; if I did, that last piece of him would vanish forever.

Hot tears slid down my face.

I had been crying again. But that had become such a common occurrence that I couldn’t even be surprised. Tears slid down my neck, soaking into the collar of Miguel’s Alchemax t-shirt that had been worn thin. Crying had become an every night thing since the funeral. Maybe if I could understand what the hell even happened to him, then I could be okay. But there had been no information about any of it. I had been told there was an accident at work and that there was nothing that could have been done to save him. But the term accident meant so many different things.

I lifted my hand to my cheek to wipe away the next batch of tears. But, as my fingers brushed my skin, I couldn’t help but notice the distinct warmth on that side of my face.

Had someone been here?

Had the gentle brush been entirely in my head?

I swallowed hard as my eyes searched the darkness. “Miguel?” I asked. But there was no answer. The delusional part of me wanted to hear him stir inside of the bathroom that attached to the bedroom. I slid my hand outward, searching through the sheets that would always remain cold.

The black out curtains that covered my window blocked out any light from the city. The only light in the room was from the small machine that Miguel had set up in the corner. I was never sure what exactly it did, but it always gave off a pale blue glow.

I glanced around the room, seeing that the pictures were all still lying face down on the dresser and bookshelves.

Nothing was different. He was still dead, and I was still alone.

I swallowed hard as I reached for the bottle of sleeping pills that sat on the bedside table. I had gotten them after stepping off one of the curbs in Nueva York without looking. But, before anything could happen, a man had grabbed me, jerking me out of the way seconds before my body had the chance to collide with the car that was racing down the street. Maybe if I hadn’t been so exhausted, then I would have thought before I walked.

The pills were my only chance at getting any rest these days. I unscrewed the top of the bottle, dropped one of the white pills into my hand, and then replaced the white plastic lid. I discarded the bottle onto the nightstand and then popped the pill in my mouth.

I just needed to go to sleep. If I could sleep, then I could see him again.

I leaned back against the sheets, watching the walls of the hallway through the open door of our bedroom. If I hadn’t known better, I could have sworn to God that I saw a faint orange and pink glow dance against the walls before being consumed by darkness.

No dreams came. My vision was dark, trapping me in a dreamless darkness. The pills always made my body heavy with sleep; it was almost impossible to open my eyes when I was like this. I didn’t see him in my dreams, but I could hear him. His voice was faint, speaking in delicate murmurs.

Fingers brushed against the skin of my face as he pushed several of my curls behind my ears. It was something he had always done, especially when I was sitting on the couch beside him. I had always wondered if he did it so that he could see my face or if it was just his way of getting my attention. But I guess that didn’t matter now.

I flinched at the reminder.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ve got you. I’m here.” Miguel whispered. He pressed a gentle kiss against my forehead. I felt the bed move under me, sinking on the edge as he sat down. “I’m gonna keep you safe.”

“You need to drop this.” A soft female voice said. Her voice was no more than a whisper.

“I can’t do that.” Miguel’s voice was firm; he had already made up his mind.

“Miguel, you’re torturing her. Just leave her alone.” The delicate voice pleaded. Behind my eyelids, I saw pink and honey color light flash. “Give her time. Let her mourn then let her move on. Maybe she could be happy. She could get married and have a good life.”

“Lyla, I’m not sure if you know this, but telling me that my wife is going to fuck someone else and that that’s why I should let her go has the exact opposite effect.”

“Let her be happy.” The girl pleaded.

“She should have died. I’m saving her.”

“Miguel, please let her go. Please, I really-” I heard him click something, making the second voice fall silent.

Warm arms slipped under my legs as I was overwhelmed by the smell of Miguel.

My Miguel.

He smelled faintly of cologne, sweat, and something else. He pulled me into his arms, laying my body against his strong chest. I felt him grab a heavy arm and place it on his shoulder. Beneath my fingers, I felt a weird material cover his skin.

What the hell?

I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn’t force myself out of the dream. The medication weighed me down, anchoring me into this strange haze.

Miguel bounced me in his arms a couple of times. I groaned, feeling him stand up. One of the blankets caught on my foot, tugging on my tired body. Miguel gently tossed the blanket onto the bed, offering a few more gentle bounces to my body as he started to walk.

“You’re going to be so happy.” He whispered. Miguel pressed a second kiss against my skin.

Blinding light came streaming through the window. I winced, lifting my hand to shield my eyes. I lay there for a moment before a thought occurred to me.

When was the last time I had been awakened by sunlight?

Miguel had always worked such random hours that we had hung thick blackout curtains over the window so that we had a chance at getting some sleep.

“What?” I pushed myself up in the bed, feeling my t-shirt drop down to cover the soft skin of my stomach. But the left side was caught on something, keeping that side of my abdomen exposed. I glanced down to see a thick bracelet that had been attached to my wrist. I pulled the shirt off of the bracelet, allowing it to fall and give me some sense of modesty as I glared at the contraption.

What the hell was this thing?

I glanced around, searching for some idea as to what was going on.

The only clue was a bright orange post-it note that had been pressed onto the bedside table. It was sitting between a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin. Plucking the note off of the table, I quickly began to read it.

‘Please don’t be scared. I’ll be back soon. Take this for your head. It will take a bit to get used to all of this.’ It had been signed with a name that immediately made me shutter.

Miguel.

No. No. No.

Did I die?

Or did I finally go insane?

I pushed myself out of the bed, searching for some clue as to what the hell was going on. This was my bedroom. At least, it looked like it was. The closet was the same, the bookshelves were the same, even the weird off-blue shade that Miguel had picked for the walls was the exact same.

It was then that something caught my eye. All of the pictures were sitting upright. I could see our mutual smiles behind the glass. They were photos of us on dates, photos of us at the weird events that Alchemax held, and even some of the more intimate photos we had taken of us in bed with our bodies barely covered by the thin ocean of sheets.

I stepped forward, moving toward the closet. I jerked one of Miguel’s button-ups off of the hanger and inspected it. The spot where he had spilled wine on the cuff was missing. Instead, the material was bleach white.

This was wrong. This was all wrong.

Everything was familiar, but still foreign somehow. There were sheets that were the same color but didn’t have soft faded patches that had been acquired from stains during love making. There were clothes that I remembered wearing, but they didn’t have the small tears or stains in them. Everything was put together from memory, but it wasn’t my memory.

If I didn’t look too closely at it, it could almost be perfect.

Slowly, I stepped forward. As I moved toward the dresser, I stopped. In my home, my real home, there was a creak in the floorboard. Miguel had spent an entire weekend trying to fix it after we had moved in, but it was all in vain.

Maybe I was just paranoid. That was the only solution.

I leaned backward, then forward again in an attempt to get the floor to creak.

A deafening silence filled the room.

I reached down and pulled at the bracelet. It was heavy on my arm. I slipped my fingers under the band, attempting to pry it off of me. But it was no use. It had been secured at the base, making it impossible to remove.

Then, I did the only thing I could think of.

I ran.

I bolted from the bedroom, moving down the hallway. When I reached the stairs, I took them two by two. Frankly, I was amazed that I didn’t slip and break my neck. But fear is a hell of a motivator. I sprinted through the living room, searching for the front door of our house. I threw open the front door and rushed outside, ignoring the fact that I wore only a thin t-shirt and underwear.

I needed to get the hell out of there; I didn’t care about being modest at this point.

It was Nueva York; the buildings were the same, so was the noise. Sounds of construction, traffic, children playing, and music blasting filled the air. But, I couldn’t help but notice the main thing that was missing: no people or vehicles.

“Hello?” I called.

But I was all alone.

“Hello?” I screamed.

Something grabbed my hand, jerking me backwards. I stumbled but was caught before I could collide with the pavement. Strong arms curled around my waist and hauled me upward. I flailed my arms and kicked out my legs in an attempt to get free, but it was no use. The figure turned around and began to carry me back to the house as if I was nothing more than a doll. “You weren’t supposed to leave the house.”

I knew that voice. It was the one that haunted my dreams and filled my every ‘what-if.’

Miguel.

“What the fuck?” I screamed.

“Stop trying to fight me.” His voice was flat. I glanced behind me to look at him. He wasn’t my Miguel. His eyes flickered somewhere between chocolate brown and blood red. The muscles on his shoulders were more defined and the line between his eyebrows was deeper. But maybe that was because of the dark scowl that he wore as he carried me up the small steps of the brownstone.

When he stepped inside of the house, he threw me onto the hardwood floor. As my head hit the floor, he reached behind him and flipped the deadbolt.

That was to make sure that I didn’t try and escape again.

Miguel wasn’t dressed how I was used to. My Miguel always wore some kind of standard, normal clothes. Nicer clothes for work, soft pants, and sweatshirts at home. But this man, the imposter, wore a red and blue costume that stretched over his hard muscles and accentuated his domineering frame.

“You were supposed to wait. I said I would be back soon.”

“Who the hell are you?” I twisted my body so that I was sitting up on the hardwood floor. I pulled my legs close to my body, attempting to hide my thin underwear from him.

“You’re joking right?” He asked. He stood over me, inspecting me with a look of both confusion and disappointment.

“No, I’m not. And what the hell did you put on my arm?” I shook my wrist, trying to loosen the device.

“Stop trying to take it off. If you do, you’ll die. Unless that’s what you’re hoping for.” He said as he studied me. I froze.

“What?”

“It keeps you alive in this universe. You’re not from here; you don’t belong here, so if you take that off, you’ll glitch until you die.”

I glanced around the room, taking in all of the little imperfections. The room was wrong, reminding me that I was in some kind of strange prison.

“What is all of this?” I asked. Miguel stared at me at if the answer was so obvious.

“It’s our home.”

“No… no, it isn’t.” I said. “What did you do to me?” I pushed myself off of the floor. As I did, I pulled at the bottom of the t-shirt. The man stared at me, his eyes dancing between the terrified look on my face at the pale skin of my naked legs. As his eyes drank me in, I could see them turning to a deeper shade of red.

“Who are you?” I asked. He let out a dark chuckle. As he did, I couldn’t help but notice that sharp white fangs that protruded from his mouth.

“Sweetheart…”

“Don’t call me that.” I said. He rolled his eyes.

“Look, I’ve been very sweet to you. But now you’re starting to piss me off.” His voice was sharper this time. He moved toward me and I stepped back.

“Why do you look like him?” I asked. He knew exactly what I meant.

“Because I am him… in a way.”

“I don’t understand.” I said. He once again tried to fill the distance between the two of us. I stepped backward, feeling my back hit the side of the couch. “You died… he died.”

“In your universe, yes. Please call me Miguel. I know this may be new to you, but I am your husband, just a different version of him. I mean you no harm.” The dull ache from being thrown on the floor said differently. “I did all of this because I love you.”

“You don’t know me.” I said. I slid my hands against the side of the couch in an attempt to find something to cling to. He let out a dry laugh.

“That’s where you’re wrong. I know you in every single universe. I’ve known more versions of you than you can imagine. Versions where you live, versions where you die. So, in a way, I know you better than you even know yourself.”

“If you knew me so well, then you would know Miguel and I never married.”

“Purely semantics. Besides, that’s something that I fully intend on correcting.”

“You’re insane.” I said.

“Don’t fucking call me that. You have no idea how hard I worked to fix everything for you; how hard I worked to make sure that everything would be perfect.”

“Miguel, where the fuck am I?” I demanded. “And I don’t want you to keep saying I’m home. This isn’t my home. Where am I?”

“You could be a little bit more grateful. You should have died.” He said. “You weren’t supposed to be pulled out of the way of a car and you were.”

Anger flashed through me. Just looking at him filled me with a mixture of rage and sadness that mixed together in a sludge that did nothing but make me want scream at him. “I’m supposed to be dead? You’re dead! I went to your funeral! There’s a goddamn sign in the Alchemax lobby for you.” My throat burned and my eyes stung with tears. “Was that all some kind of sick lie?”

“No, your Miguel did die.” His voice was matter of fact- almost cold. It was as if he had said this all a million times before. Hell, for all I knew, he had. Maybe this was some kind of sick game he liked to play. “But, that’s no matter. I’m here now. I made a little pocket universe for you; where you can live and where you being here won’t affect anything. You can stay here with me, and things will be exactly as they should be.” I glanced at the locked door behind him. “You being here won’t affect any other universe and it keeps you out of your own, making sure that all of the canon events happen exactly as they should. The canon is safe and you get to live. Two birds, one stone.” He was so proud of himself.

“Do I have a choice in staying with you?”

His face twitched at my question. “I’ve watched you cry for him at night. I’ve heard you scream and beg for him to come back. You wear his clothes and listen to his music and talk to yourself like he’s still there. For God’s sake, I’ve watched you touch yourself to pictures of him. I just assumed you would have had a warmer reception to me.”

“You had no right to spy on me.” I winced, remembering the feeling of my face being touched in my sleep. He had been there, watching me as I mourned. Besides, there was something in the way he emphases a warmer reception. He was hoping I would immediately adore him and drag him into the bedroom to screw until I couldn’t walk straight. He wanted us to immediately slip into some weird little habit where I pretended to be his loving wife. He said I died in other universes. Was I his replacement, just as he hoped to be mine?

Miguel sucked on his teeth before he stepped forward.

Without thinking, I twisted my body around and bolted toward the kitchen. I had no idea where I was even going; I just wanted to be away from him.

I got about five steps away before he reached outward and grabbed me. This time, his hold was harder. His arms crushed themselves against my body as he lifted me upward and began to carry me toward the stairs. This time, he was holding me so tight that I was sure he was going to break my ribs.

“You’re hurting me.” I gasped.

“Then stop trying to leave me.” He said. “You’re not going to get far and you’re just going to end up hurting yourself.”

He carried me up the stairs, his eyes dark red in the dim light. He carried me to the bedroom at the end of the hall. When he reached the room, he looked down at me.

“Say you love me.” It was a second chance. I paused for a moment, trying to find a way to fake sincerity.

He wasn’t my Miguel. He wasn’t my angel who I curled up with on the couch or who insisted on making me listen to old music that nobody but him would ever like. This man didn’t have that gentleness about him; he wasn’t sweet or loving.

“I love you.” I tried. I knew I sounded like I was faking it.

“At least I know you’re a shitty actress.” He muttered. He dropped me on the floor of the bedroom and then stepped outside before I had a chance to make another getaway. He slammed the door shut.

“Miguel, please let me out.”

“Ah, now you want to be nice to me.” He mocked.

“You kidnapped me. I’m sorry if I’m not the person you were hoping for. If you want someone better, just get a different me from some other place. I’m sure the universe is just littered with them.”

“I saved you. Your universe would have collapsed if it weren’t for me. I offered you the chance to live in a different place, where none of that can ever hurt you and you hate me for it. You want to be pissed? Be my guest. But in time, you’ll love me. I know you will. You always do.”

“Yeah, Miguel, it doesn’t feel like you’re giving me a choice in the matter.” I said. “Why can’t you just find another girl? Anyone else?”

“It has to be you. Because it always is, no matter what. Every time, we end up together so I can’t just grab some random person. Besides, there aren’t too many of you who aren’t already with some version of me. Stealing wives from other versions of me just sounds wrong.”

Yeah, that would be the wrong part. Not the whole kidnapping thing. He keeps flipping between lunatic and romantic who is waxing poetic about our deep love. Maybe I would have been charmed if I had actually known this man. Plus, there was something weird about the way he said it. Had he considered it? How did he find widows versus wives?

“Miguel, sweetheart, how about you let me out of here and then we can find some kind of arrangement that we both like?”

He rolled his eyes as he locked the door from the outside. “When you decide to be the version of you that I know and love, then we can talk.”

Bastard.

I kicked the door, but I knew it was useless. He was already walking away from the door. In the distance, I heard his voice as he began to speak to someone else.

“Lyla, I’m a little busy right now.”

“It’s urgent.” She said.

It was hours before he came back. I didn’t hear him when he was stepping toward the door. I only heard him when he unlocked the door and let out a low sigh.

“I brought you dinner. It’s in the kitchen. I expect you to eat dinner with me tonight.” He said.

“Thank you.” I squeaked out. I hadn’t eaten since the night before. I was starving. Besides, if this was his idea at a peace offering, who was I to reject. He obviously didn’t want to return me to my real home. Maybe I should just get used to this. “I’ll be down in a minute. I want to clean up a little bit.” I said.

“I’ll get everything ready.” He said. With that, I heard him step away from the door of the bedroom. At least he was receptive to me needing a moment, rather than dragging me downstairs to eat right now.

I sighed to myself as I pushed myself off of the bed. I couldn’t just wear a t-shirt and underwear. I already looked like an absolute mess. My face was swollen from crying and my curls had turned into a frizzy mess from being manhandled so many times in the last twenty-four hours.

My best bet was a shower to calm me down and hopefully take away some of the puffy redness around my eyes and nose. I didn’t want him to see that I had sobbed when I was alone; he may have carted me around in my underwear, but I still had my dignity.

There was a small bathroom attached to the room. It was one that I was familiar with. It was exactly like the one at my house; there weren’t any superficial tweaks that he had made. At least, none that I could see upon first inspection.

I quickly showered, scrubbing my body gently as I went. As I slid a loofah along the sides of my body, I winced. Dark bruises were starting to blossom across my ribs from where he had squeezed as he carried me.

Damn it, that hurt!

I winced as I washed my body, careful not to aggravate any new sore spots that I had gotten. I then washed my hair, making sure that it was nice and clean.

Stepping out of the tub, I realized that I hadn’t grabbed a towel. I was sure that he would put them where I always did. After all, that was really the only place for them in the bathroom. I quickly ducked down and pulled open the door to the bathroom cabinet. The towels had been stacked on one side, random trinkets and things he had brought for me rested on the other. I snatched a towel from the pile as I eyed the objects.

They were the usual fair, mixed in with a few oddballs. Tampons, deodorant, razors, women’s shaving cream, a perfume that I wore pretty often, a couple of bottles of hand and body lotion, a toothbrush, toothpaste, an eyelash curler, a new tube of mascara, hair gel, and a dozen or so other hair things. I sighed and quickly added several of the things to the counter. I needed to brush my teeth and do my hair. As I stacked those things on the counter, I couldn’t help but notice that there were more things resting against the very back of the shelf. Against the wall sat two small pink boxes that were still in their clear wrapping from the drugstore. I frowned as I pulled them forward, moving them closer so that I could see them. The first was a new box of pregnancy tests. I shook the box; sure enough, it actually contained what it said it did. Part of me expected the box to be a decoy and to either be empty or filled with something outwardly sinister, like a camera. Why did he buy me pregnancy tests? I flipped the second box over and was greeted by a bulk box of ovulation test strips, meant to check for when I was ovulating. I winced equally at both of the packages. I quickly shoved them back into the cabinet and closed the door.

Part of me wanted to know why those were what he chose to buy me; the other part was scared to know the answer.

I quickly stood up and began to dry off. It was a short time between when I finished showering and when I stepped out into the bedroom, my hair styled with my curls down, my teeth brushed, and my skin dried of any excess water.

Stepping to the closet, I noticed that all of the dresses in the closet were too formal. Most of the clothes that I typically wore were missing. No t-shirts, jeans, or even standard pajamas. Damn it, Miguel. I quickly walked over to the dresser and opened the bottom drawer.

Based on what was there, my best bet was the baby pink nightie that lay on the top of the pile of clothes. It was obviously new; a tag was still attached to the spaghetti strap and frankly, I had never seen it before, so I figured that it was something he had picked out himself.

I pulled the dress on, wincing when it stopped several inches above my knees. I pulled on a pair of underwear and then snagged a grey cardigan from the closet in an attempt to have a chance at being warm.

What I was wearing was closer to lingerie than actual clothing, but that didn’t seem to matter at this point. He had dragged me around twice in my underwear, on top of the fact that he said he had watched me touch myself to him. My face burned at that thought.

Besides, if he was right and we were always together, then none of this would be new to him. But maybe it would make him be nicer to me if he thought I was being nicer to him.

I stepped through the hallway, careful not to lose my footing in the dim light. As I went, I couldn’t help but notice one of the more glaring differences between my universe and this was. The door to the room that rested next to the bedroom wasn’t stained with its dark russet shade. He had painted this door yellow. That was clearly a recent change; the air still smelled heavily of paint. But why the hell had he painted it in the first place? Maybe he was used to it being a different color and was perfecting it to fit his little fantasy.

I made my way downstairs. He was sitting in the small breakfast nook that rested in the kitchen. He had set out the white plates and arranged the food so that I had easy access to everything. As I rounded the corner, he glanced upward. Something stirred in his dark eyes, but he didn’t say anything. Miguel was sitting at the table, pushing around an eggroll with a plastic fork. He had changed out of his standard red and blue spider suit into an old sweatshirt and flannel pajama pants.

Lucky bastard.

He looked tired. He had a dark stain of blood on his left cheek and I was sure that it wasn’t his. I didn’t want to think about whether or not the owner of that blood was still alive, because I knew there was a good chance they weren’t. I watched him for a moment before I stepped away from the table. He frowned, watching me closely. I was sure he was watching to verify that I didn’t make another run for it. I quickly pulled a washcloth out of one of the lower cabinets by the sink and then turned on the faucet. Once the water ran warm, I wet the rag, wrung it out so that it wasn’t dripping, and then I turned off the water.

I stepped back into the small dining area. “Miguel.” I said in an attempt to get his attention. His tired eyes drifted up to meet mine. The eyes that were once a burning red were now a warm brown. They were almost the shade of coffee. He watched me with such an intensity that it made my face turn a dark maroon. I was sure that he noticed, but he didn’t remark on it.

I leaned down slightly, moving so that my standing height could line up with his sitting size. God, he was so damn tall. “Miguel, here. You have blood on your face.” He reached up to take the cloth but was surprised when I gently pressed the warm material to his face. “Just hold still for a second.” I whispered. For a moment, I couldn’t help but wonder if he had changed out of his suit for comfort or if it was just as coated in blood as his face was. The idea made me shudder internally.

I gently wiped away the dried blood, folding the cloth as I went so that I didn’t rub old blood against his face. When I reached the hollow of his cheek, I slipped one hand under his strong jaw and had him tilt his face to the side in an attempt to give me a better angle. He closed his eyes, giving in to the gentle touch.

He was touch starved. I could tell by the way his breathing slowed and the hairs on his arm stood on end. He wasn’t used to being touched; not anymore. Not in any way that offered any kind of tenderness.

“There you go. All clean.” I said. He opened his eyes and he nodded. His eyes then dipped downward toward my dress.

“Nice outfit.”

“It would appear that most of my actual clothing is gone. So, I have plenty of clothing for the bustling city life outside and I have plenty of lingerie, but everything else is a bit sparse.”

A smile pulled at his lips with my comment. Then, he nodded. “I’ll bring you your clothes from your home universe.”

“Thank you.” I said. Miguel leaned forward and grabbed a container of orange chicken.

He had ordered us Chinese food. It was something that I couldn’t help but note was the same as we had had on our first date. I glanced at the label and confirmed that it was the same restaurant and everything. We had eaten there the night we had first met. We had dipped out of a party at Alchemax early. I hadn’t wanted to be there, but my father had worked there for so many years that it almost felt like an obligation. When I had turned to leave too fast, I knocked wine all over Miguel, but he hadn’t seemed to mind.

“Are you okay?” This Miguel asked. I quickly nodded as I was pulled from the distant memory.

“I am. Thank you for dinner.” I pushed a small amount of food onto my plate and then returned the container to the center of the table.

“You need to eat; really eat.” He said. His brown eyes danced over my face as he searched for something in my gaze. He was hoping to find some kind of love there; a familiarity or affection that I could offer him.

“I feel sick.”

“That’s just because you aren’t used to being in a different universe. Consider it like jet lag. You’ll get used to it in a few days.” He noticed when I didn’t move to eat. I stared into space, feeling my previous convictions about being sweet to him begin to slip away. “I could always make you eat.” He said.

“You wouldn’t do that.” I muttered. He let out a low sigh and then returned to his food. He wasn’t going to argue with me. Or maybe I was right; maybe there were some things he wouldn’t be willing to do to me. But he had walked in sporting horror-movie levels of blood on his skin. So, who knows?

“Is there anything that’s bothering you?” He asked. “You can always ask me.”

“Are you going to lock me up in my room again if you don’t like the question?” I asked. He didn’t respond.

Tread lightly, I guess.

“Why do you look different than my Miguel?”

“I’m Spiderman. Your Miguel wasn’t. He was close, but he didn’t quite get there before…” His voice faded off. He was trying to be sensitive to me, in his own fucked up way. Or maybe his own narcissism wouldn’t allow him to talk about his failures, even in a different universe.

“Do all Spidermen look like you?” I asked.

“Are they all so devastatingly handsome? Afraid not, sweetheart. They don’t usually look the same. Hell, they can look like anything. I found one that’s literally a cartoon pig. But appearances aside, they can mostly do the same things: climb walls, shoot webs, the whole lot.”

“Ah.” I said. “Do they all have the…” I tapped my finger to my teeth, motioning for the fangs that protruded anytime he spoke. He shrugged.

“That seems to be a thing entirely unique to me.”

Did I sense a bit of insecurity there?

He furrowed his brow as he turned his attention to the dinner plate. Damn it, now I felt bad.

Why the hell did I feel bad for hurting his feelings? He kidnapped me and had dragged me around like a rag doll. But I couldn’t ignore the guilt that started to brew inside of me.

I sighed as I moved closer to him. Even if he was my captor, I couldn’t help but see him as the man who I still loved. Even if that ended at the physical resemblance. I slid to the edge of my chair and reached my arm out for his face. My fingers slid against the rough stubble of his jaw, tracing the side of his face for a moment. He leaned his head to the side, moving into my touch.

“I’m sorry.” I whispered. He nodded, lifting a hand upward. He laid his fingers on top of mine, holding my hand there against his skin. God, he was burning up. Did he always feel like this? Maybe he was actually sick. My Miguel never ran this warm. Or maybe it was just a side-effect of the spider bite. I didn’t understand any of that well enough to question it and I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask about it.

Suddenly, something clattered to the ground in the kitchen, making me jump. I pulled my hand back from his face, feeling the reality of the situation settle in. I slid my hand back into my lap, watching as his eyes lingered on for entirely too long. His brown eyes swam with a deep want. He wanted me to keep touching him.

Maybe sleeping with him would knock him out of this lovesick spell. Or maybe it would only make it worse. He stared at me, moony eyed and desperate. He was Miguel, even if he wasn’t my version of him. Maybe he could genuinely love me, even if only in his own fucked up way.

“If you loved him so deeply, do you think you could ever love me the same way?” He asked.

“Miguel…” I said. His face twitched slightly. I couldn’t say no; maybe I could, eventually. Or maybe he would become crueler, and I would hate him every second of my life. I didn’t know what to tell him. He leaned back in his chair, his face twisting in an attempt to conceal a deep pain.

Change the conversation quick. Change it before the night could descend in chaos with either us screaming at one another or him locking me in the room again. Or maybe he would just send me back to my own universe to die. After all, if he couldn’t get what he wanted from me, then there was no use in keeping me here.

He made a low noise and then returned to eating, never saying anything about how I had dismissed him.

“Why did you paint the door in the hallway?” I asked. He paused, trying to think up an answer. Then, he swallowed his dinner and shook his head.

“Just decided that it looked better that way.”

“But why? What was wrong with the original color?”

“Does it really bother you that much that I changed one thing?” He asked. His voice had an edge to it now. I clearly was not supposed to ask about the door. But why? It was just a damn door.

“No, but it’s weird that that is the one thing you decided to change. I figured that there was probably a reason.” He rolled his eyes as he took another big bite of food.

“Can’t you just be happy? Most people would overjoyed if they had the opportunity that you do.”

“Yes, I’m quite sure that most people would just love to be stolen from their bed by their boyfriend’s psycho twin. Frankly, that’s every woman’s dream.” My voice was dripping with so much sarcasm that he rolled his eyes. “How long are you planning on keeping this up? This isn’t the Truman Show. You can’t just keep me locked up here for the rest of my life so that you can get your kicks spying on me. And I’m not going to act out some fifties sitcom for you.”

“You don’t have to. I just want you to be… you. Or, as close to it as possible.” He said. As close to me as possible… the words rattled around in my head for a moment.

“You want me to be her.” His face twitched. “I lost him and you lost someone who looks exactly like me.”

Dear God, that was exactly it. All of my suspicions were correct. I was supposed to play house with him, while pretending to be a very specific version of myself that he had once loved. I had to be the perfect version of his wife; the one who doted on and loved him, or else this was all for nothing.

“Have you ever read The Great Gatsby?” I asked. He stared at me, his gaze littered with something.

“Tread lightly, sweetheart.”

“The book is about a man who tries to relive his past. He is so sure that repeating everything and making little adjustments will fix his world.” I swallowed hard, trying to make sure he understood what I was saying. I wasn’t his toy; I wasn’t meant to be wound up to perform for him. “Miguel, you can’t fix things by redoing them. People die. You have to let them go. If your wife died, you need to let her go.”

“I don’t hear you saying that about him.” He sneered.

“That’s because I didn’t kidnap you. I was willing to let you… to let him go.” All of the terms were confusing. This man looked like my Miguel, but he wasn’t. He was a different version of him, which I guess could also make him him, just a different kind. God, I was confusing myself.

“That’s bullshit. I know you want him back. I can see it in your eyes. I can see it in the way you look at me.”

“I think what you’re seeing is a mixture of fear and your own reflection.”

“You love me.” He said.

“I don’t know you, Miguel. I don’t know who you are. I know who you look like, but that doesn’t really help your situation.” I paused for a long moment. “How did she die?” I asked. He shook his head.

“That’s none of your fucking business.” He snapped. I flinched at his words.

“I have the right to know how she died.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t even know how your own husband died and you think you have the right to pry into my life.” With that, he pushed himself up from the table.

He tossed the plate into the sink and it shattered against the metal of the basin. I heard him swear in Spanish under his breath. He was pissed but he hadn’t meant to do that. Maybe that was just an every day occurrence with spider strength.

He began to head to the archway that separated the kitchen from the rest of the house. As he stepped, I heard him swearing under his breath. I also heard my name several times.

“Miguel, where are you going?” I asked.

“You hate me so much, maybe it would be better if I wasn’t around.”

“Miguel, where are you going?” I repeated. He muttered more words under his breath. I watched as he pushed several buttons on the sides of his wrist device. He flipped a top piece on the metal bracelet.

“Lyla-“ he started.

“What are you doing?” I asked. I pushed myself up from the table, following him as he left the kitchen. He didn’t reply. I rounded the corner, following as he stepped into the living room. Upon entering, I was nearly blinded by a massive orange and pink hole that swirled and twisted in the center of the room. With every step he took, he drifted closer to it.

So, that was how he managed to leave and then come back. If what he wore on his wrist was capable of doing it, I wondered if mine was, too. No, surely not. The intent was to keep me here; giving me an opportunity to escape would defeat the entire purpose. He said that if I took it off, I would die. I had no choice but to believe him on that front.

“Miguel.” Still no answer. “Where are you going?” He stepped toward the portal without a sound.

“Miguel, where the hell are you going?” I repeated.

He rolled his eyes as he glanced down at the device on his wrist.

“If you leave, what the hell am I supposed to do? There aren’t any people outside. I’m going to have to guess that all of the buildings are empty. Are you coming back? Am I going to starve to death? What if I get hurt? What if I fall down the stairs and die? When the hell are you coming back? How am I supposed to contact you?” The words fell out of my mouth so fast that I didn’t have the chance to consider if these were stupid questions.

“That’s what you’re worried about?” He scoffed. But he didn’t offer me any kind of actual answer.

“Miguel, you said you were my husband. You can’t just abandon me.” He flinched, but he still did not turn around. “Please…” I begged. If he left, I was stranded. At least with him here, I was guaranteed human contact and sustenance.

“Miguel, I need you.” I said. As the words left my mouth, I did the only thing I could think of to get his attention. I slid my hand up to the cardigan and quickly slipped it off of my shoulders. He didn’t seem to notice or care when it dropped to the ground below me. I then reached upward and grabbed onto the thin spaghetti straps of the pink nightgown. Without hesitation, I pulled them over either shoulder, allowing the gown to slide entirely off my body and pool onto the floor at my feet.

“Miguel.” I repeated. This time, my voice was no louder than a whisper. That was enough to get his attention. Or maybe he had heard the dress gather on the floor at my feet. I swallowed hard, feeling the cold bite at my bare skin. I was standing almost naked in the middle of the living room, wearing only a thin pair of underwear that offered very little coverage.

Miguel glanced backward. His eyes caught expanse of my bare skin and I swore I saw him smile.

“Don’t leave.” I said. I lifted my hands and crossed my arms. It was a force of habit. I felt so exposed like this. Though, I quickly lowered my hands, knowing that getting his attention was my best chance at him staying.

He turned around to face me. “Please say something, Miguel.” I whispered. The longer I went without a reaction, the more I started to feel like an idiot for this. Maybe I had just made myself look stupid in front of him. Or, better yet, maybe this was something his wife wouldn’t have done; maybe this would make him send me back home to die.

He slunk forward, a predator approaching prey. I saw the portal swirl into a smaller and smaller hole in the universe. Then, it closed, leaving us alone in the dim light of the living room.

Miguel moved so that he was only a few inches in front of me. The material of his shirt grazed my naked skin, making me wince. The shirt was too rough against my goosebump littered flesh. He stared down at me. As he did, his eyes turned from warm brown to a deep red again.

His palm drifted up to cup my cheek. His skin burned to the touch. I swallowed hard, feeling his fingers stroke the side of my face. It was almost as if he was petting me; like I was a toy for him to play with. He leaned down. His lips grazed the shell of my ear as he whispered, “Let me know if I hurt you.”

“Huh?” He pressed his mouth against mine, hard. His lips were warm as he began to work them, moving them so that they forced my mouth open. I moaned, overwhelmed by it all. As his lips slid against mine, I was sure that I would be bruised tomorrow.

A fang brushed my bottom lip, making me gasp. “Gentle, Miguel.” I whispered.

“Sorry.” His warm breath covered my face. He smelled intoxicating. He straightened his stance, moving away from me. When he pulled away, I let out an audible whimper.

God, please tell me I didn’t genuinely want him. I swallowed hard, feeling myself getting slick between my thighs. I was sure that if he looked, he would see a spot forming in my underwear.

I wanted to hold him. I tried to grab his shoulders, but our heights were too off. He was too tall for me to grab hold of. I pushed myself onto my tippy toes, but even that wasn’t enough. I was still too short for him. Miguel noticed this and leaned downward, allowing me to curl my arms around his strong shoulders.

“That’s my girl.” He slipped his hands down and curled his fingers around my bare thighs. He jerked my body upward. I curled my legs around his hips. He was already getting hard, causing his pajama bottoms to strain.

Miguel stepped forward, carrying me up the stairs. I knew where we were going: the bedroom. I pressed a gentle kiss against his cheek. Even in the dark, I could tell he smiled.

He was getting exactly what he had wanted. But I couldn’t bring myself to make it all stop. I wanted him. I had craved him for so long and here he was. He wasn’t my Miguel, but maybe he wouldn’t die. He was stronger than my Miguel. Maybe that would allow him to stick around.

He twisted the door handle, leaving deep dents in the shape of his fingers in the cold metal. He was trying his hardest to be gentle with me, but I knew it was a battle he would most likely lose.

He tossed me on the bed, throwing me just a tad too hard. I landed on the opposite side of the mattress, groaning as my head almost collided with the wooden headboard. “Miguel.”

“I know, I know.” He teased. He flipped his hand over, shooting a fine web that caught my ankle. “Come here, sweetheart.” He rolled the webbing around his fingers, pulling it tight. I gasped, feeling my body sliding across the sheets. He dragged me down to the edge of the bed.

“Miguel!” I squealed. He smirked as he pressed his knees into the bed, pulling me so that I was only a few inches away from him. He pulled the web off my skin, making sure that it didn’t hurt me.

“Do you do that a lot?” I asked.

“As often as you, sweetheart. Next time, I can web you to the headboard.” My face flashed bright red. He chuckled.

Miguel reached down and grabbed the bottom of his sweatshirt. He hauled it upward, pulling it over his head before discarding it on the floor. Taut muscles danced under his skin. Every inch of him was bound in hard muscle, covered in perfect skin.

He leaned forward and pressed a kiss against my knee. His fingers wandered up my thighs, feeling my bare skin. He pushed his other hand into the mattress.

“Miguel, please.”

“Please what?” He asked. I took his free hand in mine and guided it up to my chest. He moaned, offering a soft squeeze.

Miquel scrambled up to my chest. He caught my nipple in his mouth and moaned, licking the sensitive skin as he sucked. His fingers kneaded my other breast, stopping every once in a while to offer the hard peak a gentle pinch.

I brushed my fingers through his dark hair. He smiled against my skin, releasing my nipple from his mouth. “What?” I asked.

“Let me know if I’m too rough with you.” With that he slinked down to the warm skin of my thighs. He traced his lips across the bare skin. As he went, he opened his lips to gently suck and kiss the bare flesh. Every so often I would feel a burst of pain that lasted no longer than a second. He mumbled something against my skin. I pushed myself up onto my elbows, moving so that I could see what he was doing.

Another sharp pain shot through my left thigh as he buried his face in my skin. Miguel glanced upward, feeling my eyes on him. His fangs had nipped my bare skin, making me yelp. “I’ll be more gentle.” His voice was warm and weighted with lust.

He slipped upward and slid his fingers under the waist of my panties. He bit the material with his teeth. I heard him snip the material and rolled my eyes.

“You can’t do that to all of my clothes. I barely have any to begin with.”

“I’ll buy you whatever you want.” He pressed a warm kiss against my bare hip. Then, he moved to the other side. He repeated the same action, slicing through the material using his fangs. He placed a kiss on that side, as well.

“You’re such a showoff.”

“Am not.”

“You could have just pulled them off of me the normal way.” I fought back a laugh.

“I can bench press a city bus. I don’t need to showoff to you. Besides, learn to have some sense of romance.” He threw the remains of the panties onto the floor. He immediately pressed a soft kiss against the mound that had been covered by my underwear.

He was extremely careful when he shifted downward. But the dull ache on the skin of my thighs where he had bit made me want to make my only request. “Hey, no teeth.”

“Funny, that’s what I always tell you.” He muttered. I rolled my eyes. “Lay back and hush up.”

“You’re so damn bossy.” I shifted on the mattress, spreading my legs wider for him. He placed his hand across my folds and gently spread them to expose my clit. He flicked his tongue across my clit. “Fuck, Miguel.” I lifted my hips off the bed, moving closer to his face.

He started to work, flicking his tongue over my clit as the index finger on his free hand traced my opened. He collected my wetness on his finger, sliding it around to make sure that I was good to go. Then, he slipped in his middle and index finger, sinking in until his knuckles touched my pussy.

I moaned, feeling his tongue work its magic.

Fuck, he was good at this.

He curled his fingers inside of me, brushing my sweet spot. I grabbed the back of his head, feeling his head bob under my palm as he licked.

Then, something occurred to me. He knew every inch of my body because he had fucked me thousands of times in the past. Even if it wasn’t me, it was a girl who was exactly like me. Maybe I was just that predicable. Or maybe he was just that good.

He picked up his speed, lapping between my folds as I curled my fingers in his hair. I was close and he could feel it. He could feel the twitches and miniatures spasms on his tongue as he worked. “Miguel, I’m close!” I whimpered.

He licked faster. Suddenly, pleasure shot through me, filling me with a white-hot heat. I moaned, spasming around his fingers as I came undone.

Miguel whispered something into my thigh as he pushed himself off the bed. Then, he pulled down his pajama bottoms, allowing for his cock to spring upward. It smacked against his lower stomach, heavy and decorated with a dark vein that ran along the underside. He kicked his pants off into the floor and then crawled on top of me.

He pressed a soft kiss on my lips. I could taste myself on his lips.

“This may hurt at first. I won’t move until you’re ready.” He said. He reached down between us. I watched as he grabbed his dick, stroked himself twice, and then lined himself up with my entrance. Without another word, he slid inside, making me gasp. I curled my legs around his hips, pulling him in deep as possible. “That’s my girl.”

I was overwhelmed with a stretching sensation. Arms rested on either side of my head as he stayed in place, waiting for me. After a moment, I leaned forward and kissed him, giving him the go ahead. One hand drifted up to my face. He caressed my cheek and his lips glided against mine.

He drew his hips back, sliding nearly all the way out. Then, thrusted upward, hitting deep inside of me. I gasped into his mouth. “I forgot how tight you are.” He murmured, his words slurring together.

My hands slid down his muscled back as he started to fuck himself into me. All the while, he kept his mouth on mine. I could feel his heart beating against my chest as he worked.

“Miguel…” I moaned, rocking my hips against him. I could feel my lower stomach tightening.

Suddenly, he whispered my name. It was so gentle that it was almost unsettling, considering the circumstances. I glanced up to meet his gaze. But as my eyes met his, he dipped downward. He buried his face in the curve of my neck so that I couldn’t see his eyes.

“Miguel, what’s wrong?”

He rutted his hips upward, burying himself as deep as possible. I gasped, digging my nails into his back. Despite how hard I had sunk them in, they didn’t break the skin. He was indestructible… at least, physically. I slid one hand across the skin of his back, moving to his dark hair. I could have sworn I heard him murmuring something into my neck. I could feel his lips moving against my skin, offering some kind of low prayer. But to who?

“Miguel…” He pulled his hips back again and then quickly slid inside of me again, grinding his hips against me to get a reaction. I gasped, tightening my hold on his hair.

“Say you love me.” His voice was dreamy, and his words slurred from pleasure.

“What?” I asked. It caught me off guard.

“Say it.”

“I love you.” I felt his hips still their movements. He was weighing the authenticity of my words. After a moment, he lifted his head from my neck.

“Say it again.” His eyes peered into mine. He was searching for something in my stare.

“I love you.”

“Good girl.” With that, he continued to beat into me, groaning when I would tense around him.

We were both close. I could tell by the chorus of whimpers and moans that were filling the room. That familiar tightening in my stomach was close to coming entirely undone.

He pivoted his hips, hitting the perfect spot inside of me. Miguel stared down at my features. He wanted something very specific from me before he finished. He ground his hips, making me gasp.

Fucking hell, Miguel.

With that, I felt myself come undone. Pleasure shot through me, making me clamp down on his dick. He grunted, never stopping his movements. “Miguel, I love you!” He groaned at my words. He kept hitting deep inside of me, making sure to grind himself against me every couple of thrusts.

His orgasm overtook him. He groaned my name as he gave one final thrust, hitting deep. I felt his body tense under my hands.

Slowly, we both came down from our highs. We were dragged back to the reality of the bedroom. The day had faded into night, leaving us in darkness.

He had finished inside of me. I could feel a deep warmth inside of my stomach. I also felt a distinct wetness that was hard to ignore. I sighed, relaxing into the mattress. I unhooked my legs, waiting for him to slide out of me. But, instead, he reached behind him and closed my legs again.

“No…” He murmured. Then, he leaned down and pressed a kiss against my lips. In this position, I could feel his heartbeat against my chest. It was so intimate; so loving. Maybe he really did see me as his wife. He pressed another gentle kiss against my mouth. I closed my eyes, giving into the softness of the moment.

“You have to do something for me.” He said. I opened my eyes to look at him.

“Okay.”

“I want you to love me like you loved him. I want you to look at me like I’m your hero and that I’m special.” He inhaled sharply before he reached forward to brush one of my curls off of my forehead. “I want you to care if I die.”

I nodded. What other option was there? I was trapped in his little universe; it’s not like I could ever leave or be with anyone else. Besides, we were still literally connected at the hip.

After what felt like an eternity, he slid out of me. He leaned back on the balls of his feet to inspect me. I immediately closed my legs, though that did little good. He reached forward and grabbed my knees, prying my thighs apart. Warm cum dribbled out of me, coating the naked skin of my upper thighs.

He smirked at his handy work before pushing himself off of the bed. He disappeared into the bathroom for a moment, turning on the faucet and grabbing a towel from the cabinet.

It was then that something occurred to me. “Miguel, I’m not on birth control.” I said. He nodded, acting as if I had just told him about the weather. He stepped out of the bathroom holding a damp washcloth. “Miguel.”

“What, sweetheart?” I stared at him, feeling my mind begin to race. He climbed onto the bed, moving to where I was laying. He sat down between my thighs and gently began to clean the remains of him off of my skin.

“You didn’t… you didn’t use a condom and I’m not on birth control.” I said. I could feel my heart beginning to race. Why wasn’t this bothering him in the same way?

“You’re my wife.” He said as he wiped my skin.

“Miguel.” I repeated. I wanted him to react.

“What are you wanting me to say?”

“Anything.” I said. I wanted some kind of actual reaction.

“Things are exactly as they need to be. Whatever happens, happens.”

“That’s not an answer.” I said.

“Maybe you need to learn to be happy with what you’re already working with.” He finished cleaning me up and then walked to the bathroom. He had made sure to only clean the skin outside of my body. He didn’t try to remove any of the fluid inside of me, despite how much there was.

He came back to the bed and quickly climbed in. “You should get some sleep.” He said. I stared at him, searching for some idea about what he was thinking. He offered a soft smile in return.

Was he fucking with me?

Did he really love me or was he just using me as a quick screw?

Did he actually want me to be his wife… or was this some fucked up mind game of his?

He leaned back against the pillows and then lifted his hand. He curled a finger toward him, motioning for me to come. “I’m not a dog.” I muttered.

“Then be a good girl and do as I ask.” He reached forward and gently grabbed my body. He slid me closer to him, moving me so that my head lay against his bare chest.

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Afraid so.” He said. He placed one hand on my shoulder and the other on my side. He slid his fingers up and down either side of my body, taking in every soft dip and curve. Every so often he would lean down and kiss the top of my head.

I couldn’t help but notice the way that his fingers traced over my lower stomach. He looked wistful as he traced the soft skin. I squirmed, feeling insecure.

“Stop wiggling and get some sleep.”

“Then stop feeling me up.”

“I’m not feeling you up. I’m trying to be nice to you.” He murmured against the top of my head. He pressed another kiss against my hair.

“You’re an ass.” I muttered. I rolled his eyes as he continued to pet my bare skin. His heartbeat played in my ear.

As I began to drift off to sleep, I felt him begin to play with my frizzed curls. He would coil a stand of hair around his finger and then let it go, satisfied with the soft curl that had formed.

It was something that my Miguel liked to do, as well.

Maybe they weren’t all that different.

I heard his strong heartbeat against my ear as I faded away from the room.

Before I fell asleep, Miguel pressed a gentle kiss against my forehead. “Please don’t leave me.” He whispered.

I love you...

#miguel o'hara #Miguel Ohara smut #Miguel o'hara smut #Miguel O'Hara x reader #miguel ohara x reader #Miguel ohara x you #Miguel o'hara x you #Miguel ohara imagines #Miguel ohara fanfiction #spiderman99 smut #spider verse smut

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going-to-ikea-for-the-fries · 2 months

Text

It's a Match! || 141 x reader

[ Chapter 8 ] || [ Chapter 10 ]

Pairing: Ghost x gn!Reader || 141 x gn!Reader Words: 1.2K~ Summary: While overcoming recent heartbreak, you decide to join Tinder in search of a rebound. Your friends advise to just Swipe Right indiscriminately... What happens when 4 soldiers from the same squad match with you? a/n: i think Ghost always steals Soap's hygiene products bc he cannot be arsed to buy some for himself.

Chapter 9: Drinks?

The moment the helo touched down, the soldiers descended, each of them parting ways as they went about their regular business, returning their gear to the armory, debriefing, showering, eating…

Almost a whole hour after their arrival, Simon threw himself down onto his bed, his skin dewy from the shower, his hair combed to the front and dripping over his face.

He popped open the top drawer of his nightstand and fished out his phone and charger. He set the charger up and turned on the phone as it charged up.

Simon didn’t often use his iPhone. Sometimes he forgot he even had it. The only times he did was to check Soap’s and Gaz’s insta/snap stories (because he liked being up to date on what they were doing) and when they were all on leave and had parted ways, so he could check the groupchat.

Once the phone turned on, he immediately beelined for Tinder and opened the app. The app lagged a bit at first but, open loading up, he saw it.

99+ likes, 99+ messages.

The big majority of them were girls, too young for him, thirsting for him, even with his face being hidden. He always knew he could attract people, so it didn’t exactly surprise him.

Rolling his eyes, he flicked his finger over the screen until he found your chat and clicked on it.

Simon: I’m back and in one piece. Simon: I think you need to wish me luck more often.

He didn’t expect you to answer him immediately, even if it was only 6 P.M. on a Tuesday and you’d likely be at home and free, considering the job you listed on your profile.

However, the Read notification popped up under his text almost immediately and your dm came right after without the app even announcing you were typing.

you: omg i was literally JUST checking to see if you had said anything you: welcome back!

The text made a smirk take over his scarred lips before he bit the bottom one and typed out a reply.

Simon: Have you been waiting to hear from me for 3 weeks? you: noooo Simon: That’s frankly adorable. Simon: Didn’t think I’d have gotten in your head that strongly. you: oh piss off simon. you: ur not that great. Simon: You’re still texting me. you: sooo???? Simon: So, I can’t be that terrible. Simon: Got your attention, didn’t I? you: oh piss off you: ur so cocky and for what Simon: Not cocky. Just sure of myself. you: no Simon. No? you: no 😤 Simon: Okay then. Simon: Suddenly not sure of myself because you deemed it so. Simon: I’m very insecure now. Simon: Is that better? you: stop being such a bloody smartass 🙄🙄🙄 Simon: You’re breaking my heart, sweetheart. Simon: I can’t take this. Simon: Going to go hug my pillow and cry some more. you: oh no you: i’m making the giant cry? 😱 Simon: Is that a dig at my height? you: YES Simon: My God, I’m going to cry even more. Simon: I’m being bullied. you: good!!! 😤 Simon: I’m making you pay for my therapy. you: pay for it yourself!!!! 🙄 Simon: How about I pay for dinner for the two of us one of these days instead?

You didn’t answer immediately after that. You always did that whenever he flirted with you and spoke about taking you out.

Simon had a shit-eating grin on his face, imagining that you were all annoyed at him behind the screen. He was right in guessing you were shy about going out, he assumed.

you: no. you: but you can buy me a drink tonight.

His jaw dropped and his eyebrows raised just a bit.

Simon: It’s a Tuesday night, are you sure? Simon: You know going out for drinks on a Tuesday is usually a sign of alcoholism? you: ur backing out now? you: wheres all that bravado of yours? Simon: Oh no, sweetheart. I’m not backing out, I’m asking if you’re sure. you: if i wasnt i wouldnt have invited you. Simon: Fair enough. Simon: Where? you: the same pub i met up with john at maybe? Simon: Rog. Simon: 30 minutes. you: i need longer to get ready. Simon: That’s fine. I’ll still be there in 30. you: are you going to be wearing the mask? Simon: 🤷‍♂️ you: SIMON you: YOU CAN’T BE PULLING OUT THE EMOJIS LIKE THIS you: YOU STARTLE ME EVERY TIME. Simon: Good. Simon: See you soon.

Setting the phone down on the mattress, Simon got up from bed and took off his towel, tossing it over the back of his desk chair before opening the top drawer of his tall dresser, grabbing a pair of black boxer briefs and putting them on.

Then, he rummaged through the other drawers looking for his one ‘going out shirt’™️ (which was actually a black long-sleeve compression shirt) which he put on along with a pair of dark jeans. It was a simple outfit.

Then he slipped on some black boots. He threw on a leather jacket over that and tucked a black neck gaiter into the neckline of the t-shirt, hiking it up to cover his mouth and nose.

Barely a minute later, he was making his way into Soap’s room and across the small space that separated him from the bathroom.

“Going somewhere, L.T.?” Soap probed from his spot at his desk, eyebrows raised and his eyes locked on the older man’s with intrigue. He rarely saw Ghost in civvies and even more rarely did he see him without a hoodie.

Unlike Ghost, Soap had made his officer’s quarters into his own living space, having brought in a gaming computer and chair, a small beanbag, and had plenty of knick-knacks around.

“Going out.” Ghost said simply as he grabbed Soap’s hair gel and squirted a glob of it into his hand before lathering them and using them to run through his blond locks which were exposed without the hoodie or signature balaclava.

“Out? On a date?” Soap asked Ghost as he quickly jogged up to the bathroom door, watching as Ghost fiddled with his hair.

“No. Just drinks.” Ghost replied as he tugged a bit as his hair to make it stand up straight.

“Is this someone you found on Tinder…?” Soap probed as he leaned his shoulder on the bathroom door, a boyish grin on his lips.

Ghost looked over at Soap out of the corner of his eye as he finished fiddling with his hair and rinsed his hands under ice cold water in the sink.

Soap took Ghost’s silence as an affirmative response. “Pro’lly a shag too, hm?” He joked, earning him another glance out of the corner of his eye. “Bloody hell, L.T. tell me all about it later, yea?” He laughed.

“Fuck no.” Ghost added as he grabbed one of Soap’s cologne bottles and raised it up for a sniff before scowling at the scent and setting it down again.

“Aw, c’mon L.T.!” He pleaded.

“Get your own date, MacTavish.” Then, he just made his way right out the door, forcing Soap to move out of the way, looking a bit like a wounded puppy.

“I’m not getting anything interesting on there!” Soap lamented with a sigh.

“No? Well, I’m sorry for you, then, Johnny.” Ghost quipped as he opened the door again and stepped out into the hall, leaving Soap behind.

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#ikea writes 💚#it's a match! fic #cod modern warfare #cod fanfic #captain john price #john soap mactavish #kyle gaz garrick #simon ghost riley #text story #cod x reader #call of duty x reader #cod smut #simon ghost riley x reader

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todomochi-uwu · 6 months

Text

Who (1/?) -J.Y & S.M

Pairing: Poly! Jeong Yunho x reader x Song Mingi

Genre: Angst, Smut

Warnings: This content is for a mature audience

Synopsis: You can't remember when was the last time you spent time with them, the last "I love you", the last time any of them kissed you.

Other chapters: Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

If you enjoy my work, please consider buying me a coffee ☕

"Mingi, please. I think we should talk; I don't feel good and…" He was quick to cut you off.

"Y/n not right now, I'm tired."

You are always tired these days…

"Yunho, love do you want to go out and check out that new cafeteria? I heard they have…" He was quick to cut you off.

"Y/n not right now, I'm busy."

You are always busy these days...

Things haven't been the same in a while, always in a rush, always in a mood. You can't remember when was the last time you spent time with them, the last "I love you", the last time any of them kissed you. It was a type of routine you had grown accustomed to, and even if it was killing you inside, the idea of being without them was way worse than the pain of their neglect. Cold, endless nights laying in a bed that was way too big for you; tasteless dinner plates that would end up in the trashcan or at the back of the fridge rotting. A home that was crumbling from its foundations, one that you had so desperately tried to patch up and fix by yourself. But in the end, you just had to face the cruel reality, that they don't care. You were not a priority; your relationship was at the bottom of their list.

That's how you ended up at Chan's apartment, in the middle of the night, with so much as your phone in your pocket and your heart in your hand. He had been your main support the last weeks, anything you wanted, anything you needed, no questions asked. Whenever you woke up crying, whenever you broke down in the middle of the day, Chan was always there to comfort you. And so, you laid there, in his chest, the aftermath of a movie night in which you had only cried twice, an important milestone.

The constant buzzing in the pocket of your pyjamas was making it quite hard for you to continue sleeping. You knew exactly who dared bother you so late at night, it had been the same callers every single night for the past month.

"Don't answer it." Chan's groggy voice filled your ears. He was right. You declined the call and turned off your phone.

But said-call had already done its job, you couldn't stop thinking about the phone, well the people behind it. Your phone was full of texts and missed calls, eight people behind them, because their friends were loyal like that.

They are so sorry.

Please talk to them.

Yunho is drowning himself in work.

Mingi doesn't even talk to us.

Funny it is. A few weeks ago, it seemed they could live perfectly fine without you; they could go on with their day without even glancing your way. You gave them every single piece of your being just to get crumbles in return. But at the same time, your heart is weak, it can’t help but break every time you read one of their texts, wondering if they miss you that much, if they are sorry, if maybe, just maybe, you should go back.

“Y/n… you are overthinking again.” Bang Chan said, pulling you out of your thoughts.

“I know, I just feel bad, Chan. Maybe I overreacted, maybe if I tried a bit harder to talk to them…” There you were again, trying to justify their actions. Chan gave you the same stern look he had been giving you for weeks, every time you blamed yourself.

He got up, not mentioning the subject anymore. Tired of going on about the same subject, “Hey, are you hungry? I can make you something or we can order in.”

It would be a lie to say you were not enjoying Chan’s presence. Having someone to talk to, someone to have a meal with, even someone who sits next to you without being on their phone or computer, you miss not feeling alone. And even though you were heartbroken, you felt warm on the inside.

-------------------------------------------------------

While you might be doing somewhat okay, the other parts of your relationship were not. The house was in complete silence, no matter the hour, no matter the day, no one would dare say a word, their mouths too busy sobbing every single time they remembered their sins, taking you for granted, neglecting you, breaking you.

Yunho would keep himself busy at the hospital, the idea of going back to a broken home simply made him nauseous, and even if the lack of food and the stress were killing him, he much rather endure that than face the harsh truth. Mingi wasn’t any better, endless nights spent in the office, acting as if he was reviewing cases, but the reality was that he just wanted a place to cry without anyone noticing him. Even the love between them was running cold. Fight after fight, they spat cruel words and thoughts trying to get all the hurt and anger out of their chests, blaming themselves, blaming each other. How did they not notice things were so wrong? How could they let things get so wrong?

“Oh, don’t act as if I'm the only one who wasn’t here, you slept at the office almost every day. I came home late, but you didn’t even come at all.” Yunho said, venom in his voice and a glass of whiskey in his hand.

Mingi scratched his forehead in frustration, he could feel the bile going up his throat. “Forgive me for trying to pay the bills, someone has to pay for the house, the student loans, the fucking food that’s on the table.”

“Fuck off, don’t you dare say I’m not bringing any money. Besides, you know that this is temporary while I finish my residency…”

And there the cycle began once again, a screaming match of arguments that never went anywhere, masking the true cause of their pain. Tears ran down their faces, their voices broke down more and more with each word they let out, Yunho's body trembled so much it hurt, while Mingi’s chest felt as if it was about to explode.

“I’m not okay, Yunho.” It was the first time any of them said it out loud, his voice was much raspier and heavier than the usual one.

“I'm not either, Mingi.” He whispered, fearing he would break down even more if he admitted it much louder.

“She left three weeks ago.”

Yunho could only nod.

“She’s not coming back, is she?”

“I don’t know, Mingi.”

#yunho angst #yunho smut #yunho x reader #mingi smut #mingi x reader #mingi angst #jeong yunho #song mingi #ateez smut #ateez x reader #ateez angst #ateez

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andvys · 8 months

Text

I knew you'd linger like a tattoo kiss | part 6

Warnings: angst, mentions of heartbreak, alcohol consumption

Pairings: Steve Harrington x fem!reader , Steve Harrington x Nancy Wheeler

Summary: Steve finally gets the answer to a question that has been haunting him for days.

Word count: 6k+

A/N: @belokhvostikova remember the ask you sent me about the idea with the denim jacket? I had to include it in this chapter, so thank you hehe <;3

series masterlist

Steve’s phone kept ringing all day, since the early morning hours. He doesn’t know if it was her or his mom, he didn’t bother to get up and check. At some point, the doorbell rang twice, he didn’t get up to open it either. He wanted to be left alone. He didn’t want to see anyone except for you. The thought of you just made him cry harder and made him feel more pathetic about himself – he kept reminding himself that it was him who fucked it all up.

He never felt such self hatred for himself the way he does now. All day, he laid in bed thinking about you and all the things that happened that led him here, getting drunk at a bar he used to hate, wallowing in self pity while he knocks back one drink after the other after throwing his fake ID on the counter.

How will he keep going?

Steve downs his fourth drink of the night and slides the empty glass over to the bartender, asking for another one.

The man gives him a look of concern, eying Steve for a moment.

“Just.. please,” Steve mumbles.

The bartender sighs, shaking his head, he mumbles something under his breath but still, he picks up the bottle and pours the whiskey into the glass, “you’re getting water after this one, son.”

“I have water at home,” Steve says. He reaches for the glass and slides it back towards himself. He leans his elbow on the counter and looks around the mostly empty room. Some rock song is playing in the background, one he doesn’t recognize. There’s a heavy cloud of smoke in the corner of the room where two men are sitting, laughing at some jokes that probably aren’t funny as they smoke their cigarettes and drink their beer.

The door opens and in walks the guy that is probably one of the most irritating people at Hawkins High – to him, at least. Steve bites back a groan when their eyes lock. He turns back around, avoiding eye contact. From the corner of his eye, he sees him walking towards the bar.

“Hey Tony.”

Steve lifts his head a little to see the Bartender smiling.

“Hey Ed, how’s it going?”

Eddie drums his fingers against the wooden counter, he looks around the room, “good, uh, have you seen my notebook? I’ve been looking for it everywhere but I can’t find it – I even cleaned out my van, can you believe it?”

Tony chuckles, “was about time you cleaned out that thing, boy.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, snorting, “yeah, well I’m busy.”

“With what?”

Eddie pretends to think as he raises his brows and looks up at the ceiling, “well, working my ass off so I don’t have to repeat senior year again, I recently found a good tutor,” Eddie smirks, “got myself a muse to help me write the song texts,” Eddie wiggles his brows, making the older man laugh, “working on a new campaign. Oh and of course, how could I forget, comforting the broken hearted – you know, just the usual,” he shrugs as his eyes flicker over to Steve for a moment.

“What a busy man you are, Eddie,” Tony chuckles, shaking his head. He throws the towel on the counter, “I’ll take a look in the back.”

“Thanks man,” Eddie smiles, watching him disappear in the hallways. He turns his head to look at Steve.

“What is King Steve doing at the Hideout?”

Steve turns to face him and Eddie raises his brows in surprise, “damn, you look like shit, man.” Eddie says. Taking in the puffy eyes and the dark circles beneath them, he almost feels bad for him. His hair looks messy, not as perfectly done the way it always is.

“Get lost, freak.”

“Always the douchebag,” Eddie mumbles, rolling his eyes.

Steve turns away, he raises the glass to his lips and takes a sip, swallowing the bitterness.

“Are you pre drinking for the dance tomorrow or are you just drowning your sorrows in alcohol because you finally realized what a piece of shit you are?” Eddie asks. Not being able to hold back.

Steve frowns, he turns to face him. There is something in Eddie’s eyes that Steve can’t read.

“What the hell is your problem?” He asks. Not understanding the anger that is directed at him. They never liked each other but they never attacked each other either. Steve avoided him, he never had the jock’s back when they bullied him but he never really did anything about it either.

Eddie looks at him for a moment. He opens his mouth to speak but decides against it. He sighs and looks away but Steve keeps staring at him. A weird feeling takes over him when he looks down at the jacket Eddie is wearing. His heart stops and his face pales.

It’s that jacket. The one that has been in your room all week. It’s just a normal dark denim jacket, it could just be a similar one, he tells himself. But the Metallica pin on the sleeve is the exact same one that he had seen on the jacket in your room.

Eddie smells like cigarettes and weed, the cologne that he can smell even from a distance is the same one that he had smelled on you. Realization floods through him in a cold wave.

Eddie Munson is the stoner Billy had talked about?

Eddie Munson is the guy you have been seeing?

How did you even meet him?

You never even talked to him when you were still with him.

“You got lucky, Ed,” Tony says, holding up Eddie’s notebook, “you gotta take better care of your things.”

Eddie chuckles, feeling relief. He takes the notebook and sighs, “I know, I know,” he mumbles and steps back, “I’ll see you on Tuesday, Tony.”

“Tell your old man to come by too.”

“Yes sir,” Eddie salutes, grinning at the older man, he takes another look at Steve, who stares into blank space as he holds the half empty glass in his hand. Sighing, he turns around and leaves.

Steve snaps out of his thoughts, he reaches for the wallet in his back pocket and picks out a fifty dollar bill. He throws it on the counter and puts his wallet back into place, he grabs his jacket and makes his way out of the bar, following Eddie.

“Hey! This is too much, kid!”

“Keep the change,” Steve mumbles before he stumbles out into the cold. He clumsily puts on his jacket. The cold air hits him harshly and he suddenly feels much tipsier than he did while he was in there.

Eddie stands by his van, the notebook is tucked under his arm, his hand is cupped over the cigarette that is between his lips as he lights it up.

“Hey!” Steve calls out to him. He stumbles through the snow. He blinks, trying to get rid of the blurriness in his eyes.

Eddie turns around to face him, a curious look residing on his face. He blows the smoke into the other direction and leans against his van.

“What do you want, Harrington?”

Steve stops in front of him. The wind feels harsh on his skin, not even the thick jacket does anything to shield him from the cold. How Eddie is able to walk around with a denim jacket and not freeze to death makes him wonder.

“W-Where did you get that jacket?” He asks. Not knowing what else to ask now that he stands in front of him.

Eddie stares at him with a serious look on his face, eyeing him up and down. “Why?” He asks. “You wanna buy it?”

Steve furrows his brows, he shakes his head, “no?”

“Why do you wanna know?”

Steve’s mind is a little hazy, he feels more drunk than tipsy, right now.

“You’re the stoner.”

Eddie raises his brows, his dark eyes flash with amusement and confusion, “the stoner?” He chuckles and takes another drag from his cigarette. “They usually call me a drug dealer but sure, I’m also a stoner – sometimes.”

Steve shakes his head. “A-Are you with y/n?”

Eddie tilts his head. “With y/n?”

“Are you hooking up with her?” Steve asks, angrily.

A knowing look takes over Eddie’s expression. He pulls back and sighs in annoyance.

“Not that it’s any of your business but no, I don’t take advantage of vulnerable girls. And not everything is about sex,” he glares at him. He feels irritated by Steve and by the way he looks so confused about this revelation.

“Then what is it about?” He slurs. Throwing his hands up.

“Jesus, you’re a real douchebag. Is that all you think about? Sex?” He asks. “Can’t two people that like each other just be friends?”

The look on his face tells him no. For some reason, Steve can’t comprehend that thought. How can Eddie be your friend and not want you? He always wanted you. Ever since you were little kids. He always loved you. He always wanted you to be his – until he didn’t.

Eddie shakes his head and rolls his eyes, he throws the cigarette into the snow and walks away. The sound of Steve’s keys jingling makes him halt in his tracks though. He closes his eyes, annoyance rushes through him. He doesn’t like Steve, he never did and after what he did to you, he started liking him even less but you are his friend and you still care about him. He takes a deep breath and turns around.

“Put those keys away, dude.”

“Huh?” Steve mumbles. Looking up in confusion.

“You’re not driving home like that,” he says. Pointing to his drunken state, he watches Steve trip over a small pile of snow. Maybe if things were different, he would’ve laughed at him. “Get in the van, I’ll drive you home.”

Steve looks at his car, knowing he is in no state to drive himself but he refuses to get into a car with Eddie Munson.

“I’ll walk.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, “don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone that you let the freak drive you home.”

It’s not about that, it’s about you.

Steve looks at Eddie, who stares at him in annoyance.

“Get in the car, dude. She’d kick my ass if she knew that I let you drive home like this.”

Steve looks down for a moment. He takes a few deep breaths and nods. He puts the keys back in his pocket and opens the door, careful not to slip on the icy ground, he looks down and gets into the van.

Eddie jumps into the driver's seat and closes the door. He throws the notebook on the windshield and puts the key into the ignition, startling Steve with the loud music when he starts the car. He scrunches his face up and turns down the volume, “shit, my bad.”

Steve’s heart is pumping in his chest, sighing, he opts to look out the window after putting the seatbelt on.

“Your music sucks.”

“The audacity you have, Harrington,” Eddie scoffs. “Here I am being nice, inviting you into my van and you dare to insult the best music that there is!” He says dramatically.

Eddie hits the buttons, turning on the radio instead, Heroes by David Bowie starts playing, “here, just for you, King Steve.” He snorts. Not knowing that this will turn out to be a bad idea. Steve tenses up when he hears the song but Eddie doesn’t notice, he is too focused on the street as he backs out of the parking spot.

The song takes him back to last year, back to you.

“If you had to give us – our relationship a song, which one would it be?” You asked him as you sat on his lap.

“A Song?" He asked, chuckling.

You nodded with a smile on your face as you looked through your new polaroid pictures that you have taken with him in the snow. He leaned his chin on your shoulder and tightened his grip on your waist.

“Uh– probably, Heroes.”

“By David Bowie?”

“Yeah.”

You nodded, humming. For a moment, it was silent between the two of you, you placed the polaroids back on the table and turned to face him.

“Isn’t it sad though?”

Steve shrugged, not thinking as deeply as you did.

“He sings,” you cleared your throat and looked at him shyly. “And you, you can be mean,

and I, I'll drink all the time. 'Cause we're lovers, and that is a fact. Yes we're lovers, and that is that. Though nothing will keep us together. We could steal time just for one day. We can be heroes for ever and ever. What d'you say?”

Steve was smiling at you, his heart was fluttering in his chest and you, you were blushing by the time you were done singing.

He poked your waist and leaned in to kiss your cheek, giving you one of his rare soft moments. “Exactly, he sings ‘we’re lovers’.”

“You are not listening to the rest of the song, Steve!”

“Then keep going.”

“No,” you giggled.

“Please,” he whispered, pouting. “I love your voice.”

You rolled your eyes, playfully. You kissed his cheek and began to sing again, clearly loving the sweet moment between the two of you when he watched you with soft eyes. He cleared his throat and picked you up, laughing at the squeal that fell from your lips, he leaned in to steal a kiss before he placed your feet on the ground. He grabbed your hairbrush from your desk and held it up to his lips.

“I, I will be king and you, you will be queen.” He sang.

You giggled and walked backwards as he began to walk you towards your bed.

“Though nothing will drive them away. We can be Heroes, just for one day.” He furrowed his brows as he tried to remember the rest of the lyrics. He wrapped his arm around your waist and pulled you back against him, “and we kissed, as though nothing could fall.”

“You forgot the rest of the lyrics–” he cut you off with his lips on yours, kissing you passionately. He pulled your body so close against his, he could feel your heartbeat.

Now he feels his heart breaking in his chest.

Maybe it’s the ache in his chest, maybe it’s the alcohol in his system or maybe it’s just a combination of both that makes him break down in Eddie Munson’s van. Startling the man who was bobbing his head to the music until he heard Steve’s quiet sob. Stopping at the red light, he furrows his brows and looks over at Steve.

“Uh– you good?” He asks. He feels a little stupid to ask him that, clearly, Steve is feeling anything but good. He taps his fingers against the steering wheel and presses his lips together. How does he comfort a man that he doesn’t even like?

Steve cries softly, the shame isn’t there yet, right now, he doesn’t care that he is crying in front of Eddie who could tell everyone that King Steve broke down in his car while listening to David Bowie.

“Need a tissue?” Eddie asks even though he knows he doesn’t have any in his van.

Steve just shakes his head, clearly wanting to be left alone.

Eddie nods to himself, taking a deep breath, he sighs. Eddie knows why he is crying, it doesn’t take him long to figure it out. The moment he saw him getting drunk at the Hideout, he just knew.

He doesn’t say anything for the rest of the drive over to Steve’s house. The music and Steve’s soft cries sound through the van. A part of Eddie pities Steve, the other part doesn’t – after all, it’s all his own fault.

He pulls up into Steve’s driveway, still remembering the way to his house from the last party he threw back in august when he had first talked to you. He stops the car and turns down the music a little.

“We’re here.”

Steve nods. He wipes the tears away and he reaches for the door handle but he doesn’t leave, not yet. His eyes fall on the note lying on the floor, it must’ve slipped out from his notebook. He instantly recognizes your handwriting and his heart drops a little when he realizes that you are writing them for someone else now. It’s not affectionate or romantic, the note only says ‘good luck on the test today. Can’t wait for the milkshakes you promised!’ Next to a smiley.

“I miss her.”

Eddie didn’t expect to hear those words from him. He leans back in his seat.

“I-I miss her so much,” he whispers. “I-I don’t know what to do without her. I want her back.”

“You have a girlfriend, man. You left y/n for her,” Eddie mumbles. “Do you even know what you want?”

Steve feels the bile rising in his throat. He feels sick.

“I do now, b-but it’s too late.”

Eddie glances at him. The look of sadness and the tears are genuine and so are his words but there isn’t anything that he could say that could make Steve feel better. He doesn’t deserve you, you are too good for him and you have suffered enough to give him another chance to break you again.

“I don’t know what you wanna hear, dude. You broke her heart and you did it in such a fucked up way too, there’s no coming back from that.”

Steve isn’t sure about what he wanted to hear but it’s definitely not that.

“Just leave her alone, you’re only making things worse,” Eddie sighs as he thinks about you. “Go home, Steve.”

Steve sniffles, he opens the door and nods.

“And don’t ruin the night for her tomorrow.”

Steve’s eyes widen, he looks at him through the tears. “She's coming?”

Eddie nods, “yeah, her friends convinced her to come.” He can see the look in Steve’s eyes, it’s the same one he sees in your eyes. He loves you, which makes everything so much more confusing. Why did he leave you for someone else when he loves you so much?

Steve blinks. He looks down for a moment, staring at the note that makes his heart ache. “Oh okay,” he whispers. “T-Thanks for driving me home.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, this is the most kindness he had ever shown to him.

“Don’t mention it,” he mumbles. He narrows his eyes at him. Steve doesn’t move yet. The look on his face tells him that he wants to say more.

“Spit it out, dude.”

Steve looks up. Tears continue to brim in his eyes, the words are strangled in his throat. He takes a few deep breaths as he tries to stay calm.

“T-Take care of her?”

Eddie wants to tell him that you are capable of taking care of yourself but he decides against it. He nods. Even though he can’t understand why Steve did what he did, he can imagine the self hatred and the sadness he is feeling. A flicker of sympathy flashes in Eddie’s eyes.

“I will.”

Steve almost breaks down when he thinks of your words again, of the way you cried when you begged for him to leave, when you called him bullshit.

He walks away when he feels like breaking down again.

He fumbles with the keys, almost dropping them when his hands begin to shake. He manages to open the door, he steps inside and closes it. Leaning against it, he drops the floor and buries his face in his hands, a broken sob leaves his lips.

He knows he has to let you go, the way you let him go but how?

How?

You stare at your reflection in the full length mirror. You apply the red lipstick that Chrissy convinced you to get when you stopped by the drug store after you bought the dress that you had caught your eye the last time you went shopping with them. A black, glittery dress. It’s not too tight but it’s not a wide one either, though it fits your body perfectly. The straps are thin and it has a cut on the side. You love it. It’s not something you would usually wear, you always opted for the colorful dresses but, you feel like it’s time to switch things up.

How you let them convince you to come to the dance after all? You have no idea but the thought of spending another night filled with tears made you feel miserable.

Heather is standing behind you with the curling iron as she finishes off the rest of your hairstyle.

Some Christmas song is playing on the radio, the room smells like a mix of hairspray and perfume.

“Can I ask you something?” You ask as you stop applying the lipstick.

She hums, glancing at you through your mirror.

Heather purses her lips, she pulls the curling iron away from your hair and twists the wave.

“Is it just me or is Chrissy being weird towards me?”

“What do you mean?” She asks. But you can see the knowing look in her eyes, you know she – they are both not telling you something.

She runs her fingers through your hair and smooths down your waves and applies more hairspray.

“She’s just, I don’t know. I feel like she’s keeping something from me,” you mumble. “And she seemed so sad when I agreed to go with you.”

Heather hesitates to speak up. You can tell that she is trying to come up with a lie.

“She’s probably just sad because she has to go with Jason Carver.”

You look down at your painted nails and nod, “yeah, I guess.”

“Which I totally get, who would want to go with him?” Heather tries to change the topic, you know she is.

“Literally no one,” you snort. “But he will probably be the new King of Hawkins High once Steve and Billy graduate and the naive freshman girls will throw themselves at him,” you say with a disgusted look on your face.

“God, that’s a disgusting thought,” Heather says. “Let’s talk about something else – look at you,” she smirks as she leans down, placing her finger under your chin, she raises your head, “queen of Haw–”

“Don’t say that,” you groan as you tilt your head up to look at her.

She chuckles and ruffles your hair a little. “You look amazing, now get your ass into that dress and let’s go. Maybe Munson will show up for you and steal you for a dance,” she wiggles her brows.

You roll your eyes but you can’t fight the smile off your face.

“Shut up,” you mumble. You reach for your half finished drink. Maybe it’s not a good idea to drink alcohol but you need it, right now. You don’t plan on getting drunk, just a little tipsy to make it through the night.

You both finish getting ready, you put your dresses on and take a few polaroid pictures in front of the fairy lights in your room. You throw a mint into your mouth and spray more perfume on yourself, hoping that your mom won’t smell the wine on you.

She doesn’t notice it or at least, it seems like she doesn’t. She takes more pictures of you and Heather in front of the Christmas tree before you leave.

The school hall is bustling with people, loud music is playing and everything is decorated in gold, red and green colors – fitting the Christmas season. Your arm is linked with Heather’s. She seems excited, you feel overwhelmed.

The lights are flashing, girls in colorful dresses rush past you with their dates. You look around, trying to spot Chrissy but you don’t see her anywhere. You sigh, the first few minutes of a big event are always the most awkward ones.

Where do you stand? Where do you sit? Who do you talk to? Is it too early to dance? Is it too early to leave?

“Hey, are you okay?” Heather asks.

You nod, smiling at her.

“You seem a little overwhelmed.”

“I’m fine, I-I just need something to drink.”

“A drink?” A deeper voice asks. One that instantly makes you roll your eyes.

Billy steps in front of you with a smirk on his face, he eyes you up and down before he looks over at Heather, checking her out as well. He is wearing a tux, the button down underneath the jacket is almost fully unbuttoned.

“You look slutty, Billy.” You joke, “you’re lucky Mrs. Myers isn’t around or you’d be sent home for violating the dress code.”

He chuckles darkly, leaning closer to you, he holds up one finger, “the slutty look is exactly what I was going for.”

“As always,” you snort.

“Do you wanna dance?” Billy asks you.

“No thanks but Heather wants to dance.”

She turns to you with wide eyes and red cheeks.

“I know you want to,” you whisper into her ear before you pull away and place her hand into Billy’s, who smirks at you.

“I’ll drown you in the punch if you don’t treat her well.”

He only laughs in amusement, clearly not taking the threat seriously.

“Y/n?” Heather glares at you.

“Have fun, babe.”

You know all about her not so secret crush on Billy – she is good at hiding it but you saw right through it.

You make your way over to the snack table. Waving at some of the girls from the cheer squad who are taking pictures with their dates.

A huge bowl is in the middle of the table, filled with red liquid and fresh fruit. You wonder if someone spiked it with alcohol yet. You pour some of it into a cup and take a sip. Definitely spiked. You down the rest of the drink and pour yourself a second cup.

“Hey.”

You freeze. You stare down at your drink. Yeah, you definitely need the alcohol tonight. You haven’t talked to him since that night, you sat next to him during English class today and you had submitted the essay together but you didn’t talk and you hoped that it would stay that way. You didn’t want to talk to him anymore.

“Careful with the punch, Tommy spiked it.”

You turn around to face him, his eyes widen a little when he takes in the sight of you. He looks you up and down, not in the same way Billy did but in a way that leaves your skin crawling and your heart racing.

He is wearing a black tuxedo with a red bow tie. His hair looks amazing as always but his eyes are filled with sadness.

“Good,” you mumble as you drink the spiked punch.

“Y-You look beautiful,” Steve says. His heart flutters, you steal his breath away. The dark eyeshadow makes your eye color more prominent. Your red lips look so kissable and the dress looks like it was made for you. You are perfect.

“Where’s your girlfriend, Steve?” You sigh. You refuse to look into his eyes, knowing that it will only make things worse.

He blinks, furrowing his brows. He looks over your shoulder to where she’s standing with Jonathan, smiling at him. “She’s uh–” he stops talking when he sees you walking away. He sighs, clenching his hand into a fist, “shit..”

You already feel like going home – you knew you would run into him, you still weren’t prepared, you never are. You are sick of the feeling he leaves you with whenever you see him. You are so over it.

You take a seat at your assigned table and look around, finally spotting Chrissy in the crowd. She’s dancing with Jason, you can see the forced smile even from a mile away.

You can’t stand him. You always hated the way he treats others – the way he thinks that he is so much better than everyone else and the way he thinks he can have anyone he wants. The way he uses Mrs. Cunningham’s liking towards him to force himself into Chrissy’s life, knowing that she doesn’t actually like him.

You relax a little when you see Heather heading towards Chrissy, pulling her away from Jason so that they can dance together. You lean back in the chair and sip on your drink.

You wish you would have stayed at home.

You wish you would have listened to Eddie when he said that this sucks.

You feel like a loser, sitting by yourself at this empty table, sipping one drink after the other as your eyes continuously move back to him. You see him with her and it breaks your heart all over again. By now, you should be used to it and you were – you have gotten used to this. To him not being yours anymore, to him loving someone else, to him being with someone else but then he turned everything upside down.

His confession left you in shambles. He had broken everything, again. All the strength you have gathered since the day he left you, he took it all away from you with a few words and a kiss that almost happened.

He loves you, that’s what he said. But he is here, holding her in his arms, kissing her as though he didn’t try to kiss you, two nights ago. He is dancing with her, whispering things into her and holding her tightly.

None of it makes sense to you.

If he loves you so much, then why is he dancing with her as though nothing ever happened?

Why is he still with her?

Is she a rebound now or were you just the backup plan all along?

The girl he’d come back to once things with her go downhill?

Are they already going downhill?

Is that why he told you he still loves you?

So that he has someone to come back to?

You feel so miserable. The longer you stare at him. You begin to feel worse and worse.

Not even a dance with your friends helps you lift your mood. Not even the compliments and the nice things that people have said to you tonight, make you feel better. Nothing makes you feel better but you force a smile on your face, a happy one. The way you always do and you dance with Heather and Chrissy, holding their hands and pretending to have the time of your life when all you wanna do is go home and cry yourself to sleep.

It’s when you find yourself sitting on the bleachers with a sad expression on your face, ready to say ‘fuck it’ and go home, that your night takes a turn for the better.

You don’t hear the footsteps coming your way, you are too busy looking at all the happy couples. Someone clears their throat.

“May the Master of Dungeons have a dance with the ethereal Queen of Hawkins High?”

Your eyes widen and a smile tugs at your lips, you straighten up and turn to look at Eddie who playfully bows in front of you with a smile on his face, getting a few weird looks from the other, which neither of you care about.

A giggle falls from your lips, “Eddie!”

“Come on, give me your hand, Queen.”

You laugh and place your hand in his. He pulls you up and smiles at you when your eyes lock. “Look at you,” he beams. He raises your hand over your head, “give me a twirl,” he winks.

You roll your eyes, playfully. Giving him the twirl that he asked for, you can’t help but giggle when he begins to whistle.

“You look beautiful, sweetheart!”

He grabs your waist when you stumble a little. He instantly smells the alcohol on you.

“Thank you, Eddie.”

He eyes you with a smile on his face, “love the smokey eyes and the dress – honestly, you look like a witchy fairy.”

“A witchy fairy?” You laugh, tilting your head.

He puts his hand over his heart, “I mean that as a compliment – a badass witchy, fairy, shit, I’m gonna have to create a character based on you now.”

You shake your head, laughing at the concentrated look on his face. He is wearing a white button down, a few buttons are left undone, one of his tattoos is peeking out from beneath the shirt, and a silver chain is around his neck. His curly hair looks as good as always.

“You look amazing, Eddie.”

He raises his brows in surprise, his dark eyes light up.

“Thank you, badass fairy witch,” he winks. “Look, I stole these pants from Wayne, I have none without holes in them,” he laughs, pointing to the black pants he is wearing.

You can’t even help but giggle.

“I thought this isn’t your thing,” you say. Gesturing to the dance.

He shrugs, “yeah well, I thought you could use a dance partner.”

Your gaze softens. A feeling of warmth and comfort rushes through you. “You came for me?”

He holds your hand tighter, “who else would I come here for?” He asks as he looks into your big eyes.

“My knight in shining armor,” you tease.

He snorts at your words, “come on.” He says as he pushes you in front of him and leads you into the middle of the dance floor, pushing some jock out of the way. You can feel the eyes on you, you can see the weird looks from the cheerleaders when they see you with Eddie. It only makes you scoff at them.

A squeal leaves your lips when Eddie suddenly twirls you again, laughing when you hold onto his hand tightly. He wraps his arms around you from behind and leans in, “let me guess, you had some of that spiked punch?” He whispers into your ear.

"Absolutely,” you giggle and turn around to face him. You place your hands on his shoulders.

“Bad girl,” he smirks, tapping your nose.

“I learned from the best.” You tap his nose back, making him laugh.

Steve watches you and Eddie with an irritated look on his face. You seem so carefree and happy with him. So familiar. Like you have known each other for a long time already. You melt into his touch so easily and laugh at whatever he is whispering into your ear.

The feeling in his chest is sickening. He knows it’s jealousy. He can’t do anything about it though. The girl in his arms is his, you aren’t – not anymore.

Every breath you take by The Police starts playing. Some leave the dance floor, some stay to slow dance with their partner. Steve pulls Nancy closer and looks over her shoulder to see what you will do.

Eddie pulls you closer and you wrap your arms around him, you lay your head on his chest, melting into him so easily. It breaks Steve’s heart a little. He feels tense, it’s hard to see you with someone else, even when Eddie said that there is nothing but friendship between the two of you, it certainly looks more than just that to Steve.

You don’t even notice the weird looks you are getting from the people around you. You are only focused on him. The thought of you and Eddie somehow hurts more than the thought of you and Billy. Because Billy would be nothing more than a hookup but Eddie? Eddie is a good guy, one who will treat you well and love you the way he couldn’t.

“Is everything okay?” Nancy asks as she lifts her head to look at him.

“Yeah,” he mumbles with a frown on his face. “Why?”

Her blue eyes are filled with confusion, she shrugs, “you seem tense.”

“I’m fine, Nance,” he says, softly.

“Okay,” she smiles.

When she lays her head on his chest, he squeezes her and looks back up. His breath hitches in his throat when his eyes lock with yours as you rest your chin on Eddie’s shoulder, who’s back is turned towards him. For a moment, you look at each other. Steve’s heart begins to beat faster in his chest, the longer you look at each other. He longs for you. This, all of this, feels so wrong. He shouldn’t be here with her and you shouldn’t be there with him.

But while his eyes soften, your eyes harden.

His are filled with longing and sadness.

Yours are filled with indifference.

You look at each other for a few long seconds and then you take one final look at him before you tear your eyes away from him. Somehow, that felt like a stab to his heart because that moment felt like the end. The realization that it is truly over makes his blood run cold. He feels paralyzed by the pain that he had caused himself.

Eddie tightens his hold on you when he feels how tense you are, he looks down at you with a look of concern in his eyes.

“Do you want to get out of here?”

"Yes, please."

next part

only tagging friends & mutuals

@mysticmunson @wroteclassicaly @corrodedseraphine @corrodedcorpses @screammunson @hellfire--cult @imjuststeddietrashatthispoint @sherrylyn628 @somethingvicked @nemesis729 @taintedcigs @take-everything-you-can

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington angst #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington fic #stranger things fic #stranger things angst

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sunrizef1 · 1 month

Text

Proper Scouser

pairing: Max verstappen x alexander-arnold!reader Trent Alexander Arnold x sister!reader

warnings: none, man united

authors note: guys I'm working on whiv I swear 😭 all the other chapters came out during break so I had time. But I already had this mostly finished and after that united loss I had to post it

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y/narnold99

liked by trentarnold66 andyrobertson94 and 308,068 others

y/narnold99 7 reasons to smile 😁

load comments…

user1 I love her

user2 TAKE THAT UNITED

user3 up the reds

user4 UNITED IN THE MUD

user5 the caption… Trent’s sisters lowk class

user6 warra top 4 for Liverpool

user7 keep crying mate

trentarnold66 😁

user8 United fans crying in the comments

virgilvandijk was it entertaining? 😂

y/narnold99 🙏 very

user9 7up

user10 ❤️❤️❤️

user11 tell your brother to defend better

darwin_n9 VAMOS!!!

liked by y/narnold99

user12 Trent’s so fit man

user13 the scouser in our team

user14 ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ

curtisjr 🔥🔥🔥

liked by y/narnold99

user15 I ❤️ y/n

user16 that’s embarrassing mate

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trentarnold66 replied to your story

we win and you’re out celebrating without me???

fake 😒

y/narnold66

you’ll get over it mate

trentarnold66

so…

who is it?

y/narnold99

none of your business

trentarnold66

what

I’m gonna tell Virgil you’re being mean to me

y/narnold99

He’ll be on my side

go back to dating my friends without me knowing

trentarnold66

that was one time!

and she sucked so

you really should be thanking me for revealing that she was a terrible person 🤷‍♂️

y/narnold99

my dates calling me

bye loser

tell Curtis I said his goal was really good

trentarnold99

don’t call me a loser

———————

virgilvandijk replied to your story

Do I get to know about mystery man?

y/narnold99

Yeah sure

It’s max

Don’t tell Trent though

virgilvandijk

I won’t haha

Nice kid though

He’s got the Dutch approval

y/narnold99

Thanks virg

Nice win today btw

virgilvandijk

Thank you 🫡

Have a good date y/n

y/narnold99

🫡

———————

trentarnold66

you told Virgil but not me??!!

———————

TWITTER

INSTAGRAM

y/narnold99

liked by maxverstappen1 judebellingham and 2,008,987 others

yourusername a proper scouser, he is

tagged: maxverstappen1

load comments…

user17 how… romantic?

user18 YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH

user19 I am fully convinced that max has not understood a single word that y/n has ever said

virgilvandijk congratulations 🎉

liked by y/narnold99

user20 just imagine 3-time f1 world champion, max verstappen, navigating the city that is Liverpool

user21 they all live in Manchester anyway so he's probably fine

trentarnold66 WHY DOES THE INTERNET GET TO KNOW BEFORE ME

judebellingham a barca fan 🧐

y/narnold99 why do you know that

judebellingham dw about it

user22 MY PARENTS

landonorris damn how'd he pull you

maxverstappen1 ???

landonorris 👋

user23 I LOVE THEM SO MUCH YOU GUYS DONT GET IT

maxverstappen1 is the caption a compliment

y/narnold99 yes

user24 the way Trent had no idea is actually so funny

trentarnold66 happy for u ig

liked by y/narnold99

maxverstappen ❤️

y/narnold99 ❤️

—————————————

Tags: @casperlikej

#f1 fanfic #f1 fic #f1 imagine #f1 smau #f1 x female reader #f1 x reader #f1 x y/n #f1 x you #max verstappen x you #max verstappen x reader #max verstappen x female reader #trent alexander imagines #football x reader #football imagine

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alessiasfreckles · 2 months

Text

amnesia - part 5 (ona batlle x reader, alexia putellas x reader, ona batlle x alexia putellas)

part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4

warnings: none

a/n: this is my favourite chapter so far!! twice as long as the other parts, hope y'all enjoy (also thank you to @codiemarin for plot help!!)

---------

You steeled yourself, leaning on your crutches, and rang the doorbell. Ona had suggested that she come to your place, so that you wouldn’t have to move too much, but you felt cooped up and restless, so you asked if you could meet at hers. Besides, you figured it probably made sense to go somewhere that you seemed to have spent a lot of time before the accident - even if you were apprehensive about seeing Ona.

When she opened the door, you were immediately struck by how exhausted she looked. As beautiful as ever, of course, but there were dark bags under her eyes, and they looked puffy, like she’d been crying.

“Hi!” she said, trying to keep her voice upbeat. “Was your journey okay?”

“Yeah, it was fine. Ale drove me,” you gestured to the car, where Alexia had been waiting to make sure you got inside okay. You knew that if you asked, she would have come inside with you, but you felt like this should be between you and Ona.

“Oh, good,” Ona waved to Alexia, who waved back before driving off. “You want to come inside?”

Nodding, you followed her through the door of her apartment building. The ride in the elevator was quiet, but as the bell dinged and you reached Ona’s floor, a memory appeared in your mind, of you and Ona. You were furiously making out in the elevator, hands desperately trying to touch anywhere they could on each other’s bodies, only breaking apart when the doors opened so that the brunette could take your hand and drag you into her apartment.

The mental image made you blush, and you felt that same urge to kiss Ona that you had in your apartment, just a couple days ago. You pushed it down, trying your best to ignore it, curious to see what her place looked like.

“Oh,” you said, walking into her apartment.

So, this was what home felt like. There was no other way to describe it. It was like every atom in your body heaved a deep sigh of relief, and you felt instantly as peace.

“Hm?” she gave you a questioning look, one eyebrow raised.

“Nothing, it- it just feels like home,” you explained.

As you followed Ona into her living room, your knees almost buckled underneath you as you were hit by waves and waves of memories. Countless nights spent cuddled up on the sofa, watching TV, playing games. Your arms wrapped around Ona’s waist as she cooked, placing soft kisses against the nape of her neck. Dancing to music in the kitchen, loudly singing along, bursting into giggles.

Your first kiss happened here. On the sofa, you’d been talking, flirting, drinking a little, when you leant over and kissed her.

“Are you okay? Here, sit down,” Ona asked, a concerned look on her face. She guided you to the sofa, one hand on your arm and the other on the small of your back, and you sat down with a soft thump. “Let me get you some water.”

Placing the glass on the table, she carefully sat down next to you. She watched your eyes rake over every inch of the apartment, waiting to see any signs of recognition.

“Do you remember anything new?”

“Yeah, I remember- so much,” you said, your voice thick. The onslaught of memories was making you choke up, your emotions soaking them up like a sponge. “I remember our first kiss, I remember dancing with you, I remember telling you I love you, I remember you trying to teach me how to cook your grandma’s recipe, I remember so many things.”

Ona’s eyes were wide and brimming with tears. She hadn’t wanted to get her hopes up, she had tried to prepare herself for you not to remember anything new, for you not to remember any of your relationship. She had been so focused on not letting herself even imagine the possibility of you remembering anything. And yet, here you were.

“You- you do?” she asked, her voice trembling.

You nodded, and wordlessly, Ona hugged you tightly, her arms wrapped around your shoulders. You could feel her body shaking, and when you wrapped your own arms around her, pulling her closer against you, it was like a wall in your mind was broken down. Feelings of love, comfort, and relief flooded through your body, and as she felt you pulling her closer, Ona’s body sagged against yours.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and even though you couldn’t see her face, you knew she was crying. “I’m so, so sorry. I never should have lied to you. I’m so sorry, I was so scared, but I shouldn’t have lied.”

“It’s okay,” you murmured, rubbing her back with one hand. “It’s okay.”

And it was. You were still upset about the lying, but you understood why she did it. More importantly, you knew that she loved you, and that you loved her. You had never been more sure of anything in your life - even without your memories, even if you still didn’t fully know who you were, you knew that you loved Ona, and nothing would change that.

“No more lying, I promise. No more secrets,” Ona said as she pulled back from the hug, wiping her damp eyes.

“That sounds good to me,” you smiled. Except… “There’s something I should tell you. Ale said, um, that she likes me. Romantically, I mean. She didn’t want to lie to me. But we said that everything will stay the same. I just thought you should know, since we’re being honest, and all.”

“Oh,” the brunette frowned. Her stomach was in knots, but she wasn’t sure why. She could recognise the feeling of jealousy, a voice in the back of her mind screaming ‘Mine!’, and surely it was you the voice meant. That would make sense. She was jealous that Alexia liked you, because you were hers, not Alexia’s. Right?

“Is that okay?” you asked gently, smoothing out the line between her eyebrows with your thumb. You weren’t sure why, it just felt like the right thing to do.

She smiled at you, leaning into your touch. “Yes. You always used to do that, you know? When I was worried, or upset. I wouldn’t even know I was frowning sometimes until you did that.”

“Really?”

“Mh-hm. You’re a very touchy person - you always want to have your hands on me, or be touching,” Ona said, nodding down to where your leg was pressed flush against hers, your other hand on her knee.

“Oh, sorry,” you quickly moved your hand, cheeks burning, but she caught it and put it back.

“No, I like it.”

You spent the next few hours talking about everything and anything, your relationship, your friendship, training. When your phone rang it made you jump, pulling you out of the conversation with a jolt.

“Oh, it’s Ale,” you said, looking down at your phone. “I told her I would message her when we were down so she could pick me up. I didn’t realise so much time had gone by!”

Ona’s face hardened slightly at the mention of the blonde, just for a second, before relaxing again. She watched you talk on the phone, telling Alexia you’d be right down before hanging up.

“I’ll walk you down,” she said, helping you up off the sofa. As the two of you walked, her hand was comfortably on your waist, like it belonged there. In the elevator, you thought about what you’d remembered on the way up, and blushed again.

“Will you kiss me?” you asked. “It’s okay if you don’t want to yet, I just-”

“No, I want to!” Ona quickly interrupted you. “Are you sure?”

You nodded, and she smiled with relief before leaning in. Her lips were soft against yours, and the kiss was over before it had even started, Ona worried about pushing you too far. You couldn’t help but smile as she pulled away, your body finally feeling somewhat at peace.

As the two of you walked to the front door, you could see Alexia waiting in her car outside. She waved to you, and as you started to leave, Ona grabbed your arm.

“Wait,” she said, and pulled you into another kiss. This one was harsher than the first one, more desperate, but over just as soon. “Okay, now you can go.”

“I take it the two of you made up?” Alexia asked dryly as she helped you into the car.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” you blushed, realising she’d seen the whole thing. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologise,” she said, a wry smile on her face. “I dealt with it before and I can deal with it now. I’m a big girl, it is okay.”

You nodded, but still felt bad. Something about your guilty conscience was off, though. It didn’t seem like it was just because Alexia had seen you and Ona, it felt like there was more to it than that.

When Ona arrived at training the next day, she was riled up. She had spent the night tossing and turning, thinking about what you’d told her about Alexia’s feelings, and had decided she was going to confront the captain. Admittedly, she wasn’t sure what she was confronting her about - it wasn’t like she could ban Alexia from having feelings for you, but she figured that she could decide exactly what to say once she was there.

The door to the changing room flung open, and Alexia looked up in surprise. She was always at the training grounds early, and it would be at least another 30 minutes before her teammates started to arrive. Ona stormed into the room, the door closing with a loud bang behind her.

“We need to talk,” she said, folding her arms and looking down at the captain, who was sat on the bench.

“Okay,” Alexia said. “Go ahead.”

“You have feelings for Y/N?”

Alexia nodded calmly. She thought it might be about that. “She told you?”

“Si,” Ona nodded curtly. “Why did you never tell me? How long have you had feelings?”

The blonde shrugged. “Why would I tell you? I didn’t want to get in the way. It started after she came here, I suppose.”

“Why? Why her?”

“What do you mean, why her? For the same reasons you love her, most likely.”

“No, but,” Ona huffed impatiently. “I just-”

“What is this really about?” Alexia asked, standing up. Ona suddenly felt very small as the captain stood, looking down at her.

“This is about your feelings!” Ona said, trying to stand her ground.

“But my feelings should not be a problem for you?” the blonde countered, one eyebrow raised.

“Well, they are, okay? They’re a problem because it’s making things confusing!”

“Oh? What things are my feelings making confusing?”

“Well, I- You-,” Ona stammered.

“Maybe it’s you whose feelings are confused,” Alexia said, her tone light, almost teasing, and Ona blushed.

“What? No, my feelings aren’t confused. Or, well, maybe they are, but it’s your fault, and-”

“Why are your feelings confused? Why is it my fault?”

Ona bristled, getting riled up again at the casual tone the captain was using. “It’s your fault because… because…”

“Because?”

“Because you used to feel that way about me! You used to look at me the way you look at her now, you used to look after me and take care of me and want to spend time with me!”

Ona’s mouth was open as she realised what she’d said, her eyes wide.

“Oni, I-” Alexia started to talk when the younger player interrupted her, realising that if she’d said all that she might as well keep going.

“It’s not fair! I want you to feel that way about me again!”

Alexia sighed, her heart hurting for Ona. “Oni, I do still feel that way about you. I care about you both, so, so deeply.”

“You do?” the brunette’s voice was small, her brows furrowed.

“Yes, I-”

Alexia was cut off by Ona reaching up and pulling her into a bruising kiss. She couldn’t help but wrap an arm around Ona’s waist, her other hand gently cradling her cheek. She had wanted to do this for so long.

A door opened somewhere with a bang, the sound echoing through the mostly empty training facility, and the two broke apart with a jump.

“Fuck,” Ona whispered. “What are we going to tell Y/N?”

#hannah writes fics #ona batlle #ona batlle x reader #ona batlle fanfic #ona batlle imagine #alexia x reader #alexia putellas x reader #alexia putellas imagine #alexia putellas fanfic #ona batlle x alexia putellas #alexia putellas x ona batlle #woso fanfic #woso #woso x reader #woso fanfics #woso imagine

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caesium-55 · 2 months

Text

—seven days. [ iii ]

pairing: max verstappen x manager! reader.

summary: as the third time world champion, max verstappen's manager, you function on the belief that whatever max verstappen wanted, max verstappen shall get. but this time, after four years of working as his manager, you can't give him what he wants anymore and that was to stay.

author's note: hi hello welcome to part three. i flunked the quiz. lemme know what you think. NOT BETA READ. NOT EDITED. this chapter kinda sux. can't believe i went through a breakup just last week and i still cant write decent post-breakup scenes.

tags: @whatamidoingwithmylife-ramdom @eugene-emt-roe @bellezaycafe @barnestatic @theseerbetweenus @wcnorris @notyouraveragemochii @lpab hope i didn't forget anyone.

masterlist.

you: *sent a link*

him: ?

him: what's this

you: benefits of crying

you: read it it's enlightening

him: some people do not cry over a breakup you know and that is totally okay

you: why crying helps.

you: 1. tears release toxins, stress hormones to be specific. it is good to let all the bad energy out.

you: 2. it aids sleep. no need for further explanation.

you: 3. crying releases oxytocin and endorphins. i know you don't know what an oxytocin or an endorphin is but they're happy chemicals.

you: 4. crying helps you receive the support you need from the people around you. EMOTIONAL VULNERABILITY is okay, max. stop treating it like an STD.

him: it feels like an std

you: pussy

you: emotional vulnerability is a thing and it's normal so stop trying to be a big strong man when you're barely holding it together.

you: you may look fine now but i know you

him: please stop

you: no

you: 5. crying has a self soothing effect. very nice actually. it activates the rest and digest system.

him: what even is that

you: the parasympathetic nervous system

him: ??

you: this is why you shouldn't have dropped out of high school

you: education is important yknow

you: youre already lacking in three forms of intelligence, academic, emotional n social intelligence

him: fuck you im smart

you: fuck you 2 and yeah you're smart but only in geography

you: you probably can't do your taxes

him: im dutch so the company's account department do it for me by default

him: the american system is just weird

you: cant argue w/ u there

you: also, 6. crying helps restore emotional balance

you: see? you need that

you: yknow now that i think abt it you should consider seeking therapy

him: what makes you think i’m not in therapy right now

you: well have you considered getting MORE therapy?

You stand in front of the body mirror, holding the Red Bull polo shirt against your body to see how it looks on you for one last time. On your right sleeve, the word MANAGER is written in bold, white text. Because that was what you were. Just a manager.

In another universe this is not the shirt that you’d be wearing. The MANAGER would have been ENGINEER. In another another universe where your family has been well-off enough to continuously send you to karting school and you would have been the one driving the fucking car by now.

You know, if Max has even tried talking to Horner and suggested that you should be moved into the engineering team, then you wouldn't be stuck wearing this god-awful polo that burned your skin every time you wore it for work. Everybody reduced you as Max’s American manager and because you are American, most of them kind of just assumed that you're dumb, you know?

Does the world even know how smart you are? That you graduated top of your class, got the best thesis award, and that you had finished your masters just this year? Did they even know that a Japanese car company wanted you on their research team? That a NASCAR team wanted you on board as one of their engineers? Does Max even know?

Fuck no. He only knows that you're the best at ironing clothes and organizing his Google calendar and memorizing his entire coffee order by heart. He knew you're good at extinguishing kitchen fires and kicking ass in YSL Opyum heels. You doubt he knows that you can do Calculus in your sleep.

You can take it if the world puts you down for your appearance. But if the world puts you down because of your intellect? That's a different story. You'll take any insult to the face but not to your intelligence.

You have four days left in Monaco so you have begun packing already. You're right, everything did fit into three suitcases. Also, you haven't told Max yet. For some reason, you’re too anxious. Which is shocking to say the least because you never ever gets anxious when it came to Max Verstappen. You wouldn't have lasted this long working alongside Max if you were a pussy.

Max Max Max Super Max Max—

“[Name] here. Need anythin’, champ?”

Hearing a sob on the other end of the line immediately activates your fight or flight response. Your eyes widen and you toss the Red Bull shirt aside. Your legs leads you to the nearly empty shoe rack stationed beside the front door, grabbing the pair of shoes at the very top of the tiny shelf and throwing them on.

“I’m comin’ there. Hang on, Max. You wait for me, okay?”

He doesn't answer, just continuing to sob and the sound absolutely breaks your heart.

You run to his penthouse at a speed that will even put the RB19 to shame. Not even bothering to knock, you barge in and yell his name in the empty halls of his penthouse. You search in the kitchen. He's not there. The living room. Not there either. The room where his simulations are. Not there. You run to his bedroom upstairs.

The door is locked. Dammit. Panic overflooded your system.

“Max, sweetheart, you there?”

No answer, but you can hear a faint sound behind the door if you press your ear against the wood. Firefighter training covered how to open a fucking door when it was locked so this once again becomes a situation where you're grateful that you did that tiring and borderline suicidal volunteer work.

Max keeps a fire extinguisher inside his penthouse as per your advice. There is one stationed in almost every room inside his house. You knew there is one inside his room and another one just at the end of the hallway. You make a quick run for it and once you have the extinguisher in your hands, you run back to his door.

“Step away from the door!” you instructed while your mind mentally calculates your payment plan as you hit the door knob with so much force, the walls tremble at your strength. You're functioning on pure adrenaline. Your instincts only yell one thing and that is: go to Max. No one and nothing in this world will keep you from him. It isn't long until his bedroom door broke down. With one last final kick, it crumbles down from its hinges and you forcefully pry it open and sprint inside.

Max tucks himself in the tiny space in the corner of his huge bedroom, his knees shoved up to his chest. A 181-cm tall man trying to make himself as small as possible.

This is it. This is the bottled-up emotions he's been storing since Abu Dhabi. You cannot say you have not anticipated this. Max is bound to explode sooner or later.

Panic attacks have made a home in Max’s body since he was a child. That's what one gets when they’re parented by someone like Jos Verstappen. He killed Max’s soul and made the boy a machine and for what? To shape a child into a man, a racer that he wanted to be but failed to become at the cost of Max's mental health and childhood.

When Max looks up with that heartbreaking look on his face, you almost crumble. Almost, because you cannot crumble. Not when Max needs you.

Sometimes, you forget what it took for Max to become the champion that he is today. A childhood sacrificed for his dominance on the tracks. A whole lot of hatred from the people to become a WDC. And now, a love lost for his third consecutive championship.

“You came,” his voice cracks towards the end.

Your eyes soften, “You called, Max. Course I’ll come.”

You barely brace yourself for the impact that is Max’s body wrapping around yours in a tight hug. The man have literally launch himself from the floor to you at sixth gear speed. You stumble backwards slightly, holding his bed for support so the both of you won't fall down.

“Max—”

“No,” he whispers and his grip on your tightens as if he's afraid that you’ll slip away if he even tried to give your lungs space to breathe. “Don't speak. Stay.”

What Max wanted, what Max would get. So you shut your mouth, shuffle slightly so he'll be in a more comfortable position and allow him take whatever he wants from you. This will be the last chance he’ll ever do it anyway because in four days time, you’re flying to Texas.

You stay for what is probably hours in that position. Crumbled together on the floor, leaning against the side of Max’s king-sized bed. Your shirt is completely damp from his tears but you cannot even bring yourself to care about it.

“Your shoes…” It's the first time Max has spoken since the start of his meltdown.

“Hm?” you turn your head and your nose nuzzles against his hair, making you scrunch it up a little. His hair is tickling your nostrils. If you lean a little forward, your lips will meet the skin of his temple.

“They’re mismatched.”

Brows furrowed, your eyes move to your feet and see that Max is right. Your shoes are indeed mismatched. On your left is one of your Adidas slides and the other is your slip-on Skechers. You ran from one building to another in mismatched shoes. Fucking embarassing.

“Ignore them.”

Silence.

“You good now?”

“No.”

“Okay,” you say. “If you want to talk, I’ll listen.”

You hear Max let out a shaky breath, “Just stay for a while. Don't leave me alone.”

“Okay.”

Eventually, you manage to talk Max out of the hug. You're beginning to feel claustrophobic but you do not want to say it out right so you try to negotiate instead. That's how you and Max found yourselves inside his kitchen again. You're trying to replicate your Abuela's cheesecake, which she was known for back in Austin, and Max is…well, he's Max and he’s trying to be helpful in any way he can. If it's some other day, you'd have shoved him out of the way because you prefer working alone in the kitchen. Having eyes on you gives you anxiety. But given today’s circumstances, you do not have the heart to make Max leave so you task him with doing the little stuff like mixing things and throwing shit to the trash can nearby. And he does so splendidly.

“Thank you, by the way.”

“For what, baby?” You internally wince at your own slip of the tongue. Damn that habit of yours of calling people with affectionate call signs. Thankfully, Max seems to have not noticed it.

“For coming here.”

You shrug.

“I only did what you did for me in 2021.”

Again, your breakup with Leo was bad bad. You spent a month crying for a love lost and Max was there for you. For the most part, at least. You want him to focus on winning and winning alone that you pushed him away a lot of times but you appreciated how he was more obedient to your commands, that he held his tongue so he wouldn't piss you off even though he was not liking your words, and that he was considerate of you.

“I hope you won't go into fights though,” you chuckle. “Like I did after my breakup.”

He smiles, shaking his head lightly and you know he's recalling the memory. 2021 is a hilarious year for you, the Red Bull manager. You went viral after getting into a cat fight with a girl and a whole fist fight with her boyfriend.

You and Leo called it quits a week before Monaco and even though it had been four races since then, your heart was still in a quite fragile state at that specific race weekend. One minor inconvenience was enough to ignite a wild blaze of fire within you and nobody could extinguish the flames.

After Silverstone FP1, you were leading Max to the cool down room to brief him with Horner’s relayed instructions and someone had thrown a glass bottle towards the both of you while walking. Originally, Max was the main target of the bottle but you happened to have moved towards the line of trajectory and the bottle landed on your temple, hard enough that you stumbled upon impact.

You barely heard Max’s shocked gasp and shout of panic over the sound of glass shattering on your foot because the only thing you could register was the terrifying feeling of a thick liquid trickling down the side of your face and you didn't even need to see it to know it was blood.

The only thing you saw was red and it was on fucking sight.

Fucking Hamilton fan. Fucking Hamilton. He’s in Max’s way. He’s in your way. He’s the wall that was dividing you from your dream position in the engineering team.

You shoved the iPad you were holding to Max’s hands and marched down to the woman wearing the Merc #44 merch, swiftly jumping over the barricade and grabbing her by the collar of her pristine white Versace top.

The events that followed were too fast. You grabbed her collar. She pulled your hair. You also pulled her hair. Someone pulled her away from you. You tried to grab her, clawing her bare arms with your manicured nails. She screamed. You screamed back. You pulled out some curse words in Spanish as well because cursing her in one language alone is not enough. Her boyfriend appeared. A quick punch to your cheek. You fell to the ground.

The world stood still. There was a sting on your palm because your skin got torn from the hard surface of the concrete ground. You let a bloodcurdling war cry and your Dad would definitely be disappointed at you for using the boxing techniques he taught you for self defense purposes only to fight a guy two times your size.

Everything was a bigger blur from there. But you did remember the sensation of Max’s strong arms around you, stopping you from lunging forward again. He was saying sweet words to your ear to calm you down but your brain failed to intercept them so you could hear the words, could hear his voice, but not understand any of it. You remember Christian Horner's disappointed face that haunted you even two years later. You remembered feeling so terrified as you sat outside Christian Horner’s office waiting for the final verdict while he and Max and a few of the Red Bull higher-ups argued about your future with the team. You remembered hearing Max’s loud snarl on the other side of the mahogany door: “Did you see her face?! There was blood everywhere! On her nose, on her mouth, on the fucking side of her head!” You remembered the girl taking the case to court. You remembered fearing that you’d be sent to jail. You remembered that she lost the case because it was ruled as self defense and your injuries were grave. You remembered discovering that it was Max who used all his power and got the best lawyer to fight your case. You remembered the atmosphere in the Red Bull garage shifting when you entered it a few weeks later and everyone stared the bandages and bruises. Everyone thought one thing: of course, it would also take a monster to manage a monster like Max Verstappen. You remembered Lewis Hamilton, seven-time world champion, apologizing personally for the fight caused by his own fan. He didn't need to but he was so sincere with it that you cried when he handed you the apology flowers. God, how could you even hate this man? Your anger towards him was misplaced.

You’d been living with the guilt ever since, that you were horrifyingly violent for a day, that you were capable of killing for a day. And it could happen again. One day. God, you hoped you wouldn't have to see that day. You knew all your coworkers have been careful with angering you ever since. They're terrified of you even. Max should be, too. But then again, why would he when he already saw the horrors done by his father’s hands ever since he was a child? He was used to it.

“I won't,” he says, smiling at you. “I wouldn't want to add anymore problems for you to clean up.”

But you will not be the one cleaning it up because you resigned. You didn’t tell that to him though. Not right now. He just had a meltdown over Kelly leaving him and the news of his manager leaving him too will destroy him.

The cheesecake is a little burnt when you take it out of the oven but it actually adds more flavor to it so yeah, that's a win.

“We should drink,” you suggest.

“It’s mid-afternoon.”

“We drank at mid-afternoon yesterday,” you give him a blank stare. “With Alex and Charles, remember?”

He doesn't say anything as you make your way to his fridge and pull out two bottles of beer. Max has champagne stored somewhere but you have enough of those expensive champagnes. You need beer. Beer is good. Beer is nice. You're a beer type of person and it is time Max becomes one, too.

“I’m no scientist,” you begin, biting off the beer’s bottle cap. “But according to chemistry, alcohol is solution.”

Well, technically, edible alcohol or ethanol is not a mixture. Rather, it's a pure substance that happens to be a liquid at room temperature and typical atmospheric pressure. Pure ethanol is not a solution. Hard spirits though? That's a solution.

Beer is not a hard spirit. It's more of a fermented drink. But Max doesn't know that, though, so you don't bother explaining the science behind it.

Somewhere down the road, the two of you move to his living room. You use the Youtube app in his TV to search karaoke video and have the bestest time of your lives. You're screaming along some Daddy Yankee and El Alfa songs and Max doesn't know how to speak Spanish so he’s just vibing to it.

At 5 PM, you pull out Max’s expensive vodka bottle. Now this is the real shit. The ten bottles of beer? Those are just pregame. Max is already drunk with just those because he’s a pussy but you’re no pussy, so the only right answer is vodka! Viva la vodka or whatever.

Your throat gets tired of singing and Max gets tired from dancing, too, so you both decide to just go entertain yourselves in other ways. First, you introduced Max to beer-pong. He loses, of course. He sucks at everything not racing. Then, the two of you move onto chess. Max gives up mid-game. He cannot understand the rules. Then, lastly, you move to the billiard table Max owned. He only used it when the other guys are over and you do not even know why he bought it when he sucked at playing billiards.

“You know what Kelly said the morning before the race?” Max suddenly says and you look up at him, brow raising slightly. He’s drunk; his skin is flushed and he is all giggly and smile-y as he sits on the billiard table’s side rail and using the billiard stick as some sort of support stand to keep him from falling. You hope he won't accidentally poke himself. You're no better, too. Ten beer bottles and a few glasses of vodka. But you’re not as drunk as Max, and you still have a straight vision and you can still sink the colored balls into the pockets of the billiard table.

“Hm?”

“That it was unfair for her.”

You raise a questioning brow, “Why?”

“I bought shoes and they don't fit her.”

You blink. He laughs at himself as if he has uttered the funniest joke in the world.

“Three years of relationship gone because of a single pair of shoes,” he continues. “She wanted those shoes, too.”

Kelly….what the fuck?

“But that's okay. She….She made me open my eyes, you know? She made me realize what I truly love.”

“Racing.” It's not even a question. It's the truth.

Max stares at you, long and hard, and you look away first because you fear that if you allow yourself to stare too long, you’ll drown in those beautiful blues. This is enough heartache for the day. No need to add more.

“Hey [Name],” he begins. “If I asked you to kiss me, would you do it?”

#manager!reader #max verstappen x you #max verstappen x reader #max verstappen #f1 x reader #f1 imagines #formula one #fanfic #angst #mv1 #mv33 x reader #mv33

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munson-blurbs · 8 months

Text

Single Dad!Eddie x Fem!Reader Series

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

Summary: Your weekend getaway to Indianapolis comes with a boyfriend who's trying to quit smoking, a five-year-old who has difficulty acclimating to new routines, and your own insecurities about your mothering abilities. What could possibly go wrong?

Warnings: angst, insecurities about motherhood, lost child, Eddie gets mad at us, discussion of menstrual period/PMS

WC: 7.7k A/N: There is a moment where someone refers to us as Harris's mom; however, she doesn't see us. There is no indication that we resemble Harris in any way.

Chapter 16/20

Divider credit to @saradika Eddie edit credit to @eddiemunsonsmum

The morning dew still kisses the grass when you arrive at the Munson apartment, hauling your duffel bag up to their half-packed car. Eddie’s leaning into the backseat, only his jean-clad legs visible from your vantage point. Harris stands behind him, watching his dad’s every move earnestly and intently. If you had a camera on you, you’d take a photo of this Kodak moment.

“Hi, boys!” you chirp as enthusiastically, tucking your lips into your mouth to stop yourself from laughing when Eddie bangs his head on the roof of the car. “You okay?”

“Y-Yeah, ‘m good,” he mutters, rubbing at his scalp with one hand, expression somewhere between a grimace and a smile.”Morning, Sweetheart. You sleep well?”

You nod, opening your arms as Harris races towards you for a hug. “What about you guys? Or were you too excited about our super-fun weekend?”

“Daddy snored!” Harris reports with a grin, overjoyed to share what he perceives to be a juicy morsel of gossip.

Eddie gasps in mock-offense, reaching out to take your bag and arranging it amongst his and Harris’s in the trunk. “I did not!”

“Did too!” Harris retorts, turning back to you and adding, “like, so loud!”

You crouch down, and hold a pinky out in front of him. “We’re gonna have to stick together this weekend if we’re going to survive,” returning his smile when he wraps his little finger around yours in a promise.

“Can’t believe my girlfriend is conspiring against me with my own flesh and blood,” Eddie grumbles, eyes widening when he realizes what he’s said; rather, in front of whom he’s said it. His panicked gaze meets yours, and you both anticipate some reaction from Harris, but he’s fortunately unfazed and too fixated on the utter silliness of his dad’s snoring. Eddie clears his throat, determined to change the subject before his son catches on. “I think we’re ready to ship out,” he offers, slamming the trunk shut and pressing down to double-check that it’s closed.

“Snacks?” you ask, running through a mental checklist of necessities.

Eddie holds up a family-size bag of pretzels. “Got ‘em.”

“Water?”

“Backseat,” he points to the floor to the left of Harris’s booster seat–a recent upgrade from his carseat. “Harris will be in charge of that, right, Har?”

“Right!” Harris confirms with a thumbs-up.

“Sounds good. Put him to work,” you tease. Eddie’s heart skips a beat at the playful relationship that you and his son have, swapping smiles and making each other laugh. “Music?”

Eddie juts his chin towards the center console, filled to the brim with cassettes. “Always.”

You cock your eyebrow knowingly before posing your next question, preparing yourself for some visceral response. “Nicotine gum?”

Eddie groans, patting the pack of Nicorette in his pocket. “Unfortunately, yes.” About a week and a half ago, Harris had come home from school crying after the school had put on an assembly about the dangers of smoking. Eddie had been meaning to quit for a long time, but his son worrying over real problems, using words like cancer and heart attack, was what finally pushed him to chuck every pack of cigarettes he owned into the trash.

“Okay,” you smile and clap your hands together, “I think we’re good to go!” You help Harris buckle his seatbelt before climbing into the passenger seat.

The sedan rumbles to life, catching on the second key turn and disrupting the otherwise still morning. “Gentlemen, start your engines!” Eddie roars in an exaggeratedly deep voice, and Harris giggles from the backseat. With Eddie’s hand on the gearshift, you seize the opportunity to squeeze it, light pink tickling his cheeks at your touch.

It’s only thirty minutes into the drive before it starts.

“Daddy, I gotta pee!”

You can practically feel the patience leaving Eddie’s body, fingers tightly gripping the wheel until his knuckles flush white.

“Har Bear, we just hit the road,” he tries, knowing his efforts are fruitless. “Can you hold it?”

“No, it’s a ‘mergency!”

“Fuck,” Eddie swears under his breath. The likelihood of it actually being an emergency is slim to none, but he’s in no mood to risk it. “All right, I’ll pull over at the next rest stop, ‘kay?”

Eddie takes the next exit, parking at a truck stop and nearly falling out of the car in his scramble to get Harris to the bathroom. “C’mon, c’mon,” he mutters, walking so quickly that Harris nearly trips over his own feet. You quicken your own pace just to keep up with them.

The scent of coffee grabs your attention as soon as you walk in the door, and you make a beeline for the tiny Dunkin Donuts tucked in the corner. The cashier looks as though they could use a shot or two of espresso, eyelids closing under their visor as you give your order. When the boys get back from the bathroom, you present Eddie with a large coffee with far more milk and sugar than your own, and hand a chocolate donut to Harris.

Eddie's eyes shift back and forth from the donut to you before he speaks. “It’s, like, 9 am,” he points out. “He’s gonna be bouncing off the walls if he eats that now.”

Oh. Obviously. What were you thinking, giving an already-hyperactive child pure sugar in the morning? All of the times you’d cringed when parents had sent their kids into school with Cocoa Puffs or some equally sugary cereal, and you’d given his son a chocolate donut for breakfast. “I’m sorry,” you sputter, shaking your head in frustration. “I should’ve asked you first, or saved it for later.”

“‘S fine,” he mutters, heaving an exasperated sigh as Harris takes a giant bite of donut. “At least there’s two of us to chase after him,” he adds with a weak smile.

Harris has devoured nearly the entire donut by the time Eddie’s buckling him back in, chocolate crumbs tucked into the crevices of his mouth. He’s oblivious to your faux pas, and you’d like to keep it that way.

“I really am sorry,” you say again, guilt gnawing in your stomach. “I should’ve known better; I guess I just got excited about our little vacation together.”

Eddie’s grin is more genuine this time. “Me, too, baby.” He sneaks a quick kiss to your cheek when Harris is focused on what remains of his snack. “The whole no-smoking thing has me extra bitter, y’know?”

You know. You definitely know, but you’re not about to point out all of the ways he’s been short-tempered lately. Instead, you relax into your seat and try to brush off your mistake as Eddie turns on the radio and guitar riffs replace the silence.

Eddie rolls down the window as the springtime sun warms the air, and you stretch as the rush of wind cools your body. His curls whip around the base of his neck, dancing in the breeze, and you can’t help but push them out of his face haphazardly.

Your stomach growls, and you’re grateful for the blaring music masking the embarrassingly loud noise. You’d forgotten to grab something for breakfast in your rush to leave your apartment, and coffee is a poor substitute for the most important meal of the day.

You reach down to the bag of pretzels nestled against your feet. “Y’want?” you ask Eddie, who nods and opens his mouth for you to feed it to him while he concentrates on the road. Laughter bubbles up from within you as he takes one from your hand by pinching it between his teeth.

Harris giggles, too. “Daddy, you look like a goat from the zoo!”

“Oh, yeah?” Eddie slides the snack into his mouth and bites down with a crunch, “and what sounds do goats make?”

“Hmm,” Harris ponders this for a moment before bleating a resounding, “maaaah!”

You swivel in your seat to give him a high-five. There’s donut residue on your hand when you pull back. “Smarty pants! I bet you know every animal sound there is.”

You and Eddie rattle off different species as you feed him more pretzels. Harris manages perfect impressions of each, until you call out, “sloth!” and effectively stump him.

“Ms. Sweetheart!” he cackles maniacally, partially because of his sugar rush, you’re sure, “that is so silly!”

“Y’just gotta do everything suuuuper slooooow.” You drag out the last two words to emphasize your point. “Like this: Haaaaarrisssss…caaaaan…youuuuu…haaaaand…meeeeee…aaaaa…waaaaterrrr?” This brings on a fresh round of giggles from the backseat; even extra-bitter Eddie manages a hint of a smile.

Harris grabs a bottle at a snail’s–no, a sloth’s–pace. “Heeere…youuuuu…goooooo!” His pace is far from hurried, and you feel the gentle tap of the plastic cap against your shoulder blade a full thirty seconds later.

“Thaaaaank…youuuuu!” You crack open the bottle of water and take a swig, quenching a thirst only made worse by the salty snack. “Wanna play again? See how many other animal sounds you can do?” you ask, grateful to have found a way to keep him occupied. Before you can close the bottle, Eddie reaches over and snags it, lifting it to his lips.

“Daddy, no!” Harris screeches from the backseat, little hand shooting out in protest, causing Eddie to slam on the brake. Water sloshes over the top of the bottle and onto his pants.

“Shit—what, Har?” he snaps, shoving the now half-empty bottle into the cupholder. He swipes haphazardly at the wet patch on his thigh, darkening the denim as it spreads along the fabric. He gives up with a mumbled, “whatever,” when he realizes he’s only rubbing it in more.

“You’re gonna get her germs,” Harris points out matter-of-factly.

Eddie huffs out a terse chuckle, slightly amused but still irritated. “Yeah, yeah, right,” he mutters, and you take that as a sign to reach back and get him his own bottle.

The remainder of the drive is uneventful, though Eddie has to dip into his Nicorette stash when a maroon Toyota Corolla weaves in and out of lanes at lightning speed and cuts him off. He instinctively reaches for the pack of cigarettes he’d always kept in the console, groaning when he remembers that it’s long gone.

“Good job, baby,” you murmur softly, giving his knee a quick squeeze in approval as he pops a piece of gum into his mouth. “‘M proud of you.”

You pull up to the hotel just after 10 AM, the morning chill has dissipated as the sun’s rays warm the air. The fair weather made the trip smoother, a small miracle if you’d ever seen one. Truthfully, you don’t think Eddie’s frayed nerves can handle a rainy day.

Eddie takes Harris’s hand as you all walk through the parking lot and up to the front desk. A middle-aged concierge greets you, the customer service smile plastered across his face faltering when he clocks Eddie’s ripped jeans and disheveled wind-blown hair.

“Reservation’s under ‘Munson,’” Eddie says to him, not making eye contact; your heart is a sinking stone when you realize that he also noticed the man’s shifting expression. “I called ahead and they said we could check in early.”

The concierge nods. You catch a glimpse of his shiny silver name tag, proudly proclaiming “STU, ASSISTANT MANAGER” gleaming in the overhead fluorescent lighting. “Room 325,” he grunts, handing you and Eddie keys dangling from matching logo-branded chains. Elation is a sunflower blooming in your chest; your first vacation has officially begun. Maybe it’s a little getaway only ninety minutes from home, but it’s a new adventure that you’re taking together.

Eddie flings his and Harris’s shared bag, then yours, onto one of the queen beds with a groan. “We made it!” he announces, flinging an arm over your shoulder. The pads of his fingers brush your upper arm, a tissue-paper light touch that has you soaring.

“Daddy? I gotta pee again,” Harris’s urgency breaks the moment. He’s hopping from one foot to the other, a potty dance if you’ve ever seen one.

“Go for it,” Eddie says, pointing towards the bathroom. He shakes his head when his son sprints the short distance.

Once the door closes, Eddie’s hands are on your hips, tugging you so close that your stomachs touch, your breasts pressed to his chest. His mouth immediately swoops down to your neck, nipping gently at the flesh along your collarbone.

“Hello there,” you manage to speak through a laugh. You’re unable to say more, as he’s pressing his lips to yours in a hungry kiss so fervently that your teeth nearly click together.

“Hi,” he breathes once he’s pulled back, brushing the tip of his nose against your own. “Sorry, y’just look really pretty.”

You wrinkle your nose in confusion. “I’m wearing sweatpants. I don’t even have makeup on.” Truthfully, you’d meant to at least swipe on some mascara, but you were preoccupied making sure that you’d packed everything you needed for the weekend.

“Don’t care,” Eddie mumbles, leaning in for another kiss, “still s’fuckin’ pretty. Don’t know how I’m gonna keep my hands off of you.”

The solution to that problem comes in the form of a flushing toilet and Harris calling out, “I’m done! Gonna wash my hands!”

Eddie throws his head back in frustration before burying his pink-tinged face in his hands. “This, uh, was not exactly how I imagined our first time in a hotel together,” he admits.

“At least he’s washing his hands,” you joke, trying to ward off the throbbing need building in your core. It fails miserably. You want him, need him, to relieve the ache in the way that only he can. You yearn for the way his fingertips dance across your skin, eagerly reaching under your shirt or dipping below your waistband, desperate to make his girl feel good.

The two of you break apart as the bathroom door swings open. You fly across the room and pretend like you’re rifling through your duffel bag while Eddie flops onto the bed. His shirt rides up slightly as he lays down, and you have to fight the urge to bite the exposed sliver of tummy.

“When are we going to the market?” Harris asks, catapulting himself onto the bed and landing next to his dad.

Eddie rolls over and checks the digital alarm clock between the two queen beds. “Doesn’t start for another few hours,” he says. “I was gonna try and take a quick nap before we—”

“I’m not tired!” Harris whines, and you can see in Eddie’s deflated, tense physicality that his already thin patience is wearing down further. “I wanna go now!”

“Hey, Har Bear,” you try, hoping you’re not inserting yourself into the dynamic too forcefully, “why don’t we go on an adventure while Daddy sleeps? We can wake him up when we get back.”

Harris hops down onto the floor and readily slips his hand into yours. “Bye, Daddy!” he calls out, dragging you towards the door. “Me an’ Ms. Sweetheart are having a ‘venture!”

Eddie gives you a weary but grateful smile as he scoots upwards to rest his head on the overstuffed pillow. “Godspeed,” he mumbles into the sheets, already beginning to doze off as he speaks.

The elevator dings and you shuffle into the small space, reaching for the “L” button to bring you down to the lobby.

“I wanna push the button!” Harris laments, and his sudden shriek has you instinctively pulling your hand back before regaining your composure.

Do you correct him? Let him press the button despite raising his voice? Deciding a consequence comes naturally to you in the classroom, but the anxiety of making the wrong choice serves as a massive roadblock. “You have to ask nicely if you want to push the button,” you offer, sending up a silent prayer that this staves off an impending tantrum.

He pouts for a moment before relenting. “Can I push the button?” It’s more grumble than request, but you accept it anyway.

His hand remains tucked safely into yours when you leave the hotel, basking in warm weather. You breathe in for three, breathe out for three. Okay. You can do this. Your job revolves around children; you can survive an afternoon taking care of just one.

Except that one happens to be your boyfriend’s son, and if you mess this up, it could ruin both Munsons’ perceptions of you.

“Where’re we going?” Harris asks, and you realize that you have no earthly idea; to be honest, you’re surprised that he so readily agreed.

”We can go for a walk?” you suggest, pasting on a smile in feigned confidence. “Maybe we can find a playground or something?”

“Okay!” he chirps. He’s fast for someone with little legs, and you have to remind him multiple times to use his walking feet. Yeah, this kid needs to burn off some energy, stat.

To your relief, there’s a playground just a few blocks away, fully equipped with a swing set and a jungle gym. Harris races across the grassy field onto the wood chip-covered area, assessing the space to figure out what he wants to conquer first.

You sit on the bench next to a woman who simultaneously reads a James Patterson novel and keeps an eye on the jungle gym, where a little girl is dangling from the monkey bars, putting one hand in front of the other.

She looks over with a sympathetic smile when you breathe out a long sigh, sinking into the wooden back like a weight has been removed from your shoulders.

“I hear that,” she says with a kind chuckle. “Mine will be tired for about…hmm, five minutes? Just long enough to get her home, and then she’ll be hopping around like the Energizer Bunny.” She shakes her head. “Is yours the same way?”

Yours. The term is peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth, and it takes a beat too long for you to respond. “Y-Yeah, I’m pretty sure he would sleep run if he could.” The stranger laughs at your joke, and you relax a bit. “Sorry, he’s really my boyfriend’s son, and it’s kind of…new to think of him as being mine, too.”

You expect her to pick up and move to a different bench, away from the weird woman who’s baring her soul on the playground, but she just closes her book and turns to you. “Carly is technically my stepdaughter,” she explains in a hushed tone, “but her mom’s not in the picture so, for all intents and purposes, she’s my daughter. No ‘step’ necessary.”

“Is…is it hard?” you ask, the question spilling from your lips in a desperate plea for answers. “Being a stepmom?”

She nods. “Oh, absolutely.” She brushes a strand of hair from her eyes, and you can see a sparkle behind them. “But, trust me, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

Her words, spoken freely of judgment and purely with empathy, alleviate the nervousness burning through you. “Thank you,” you murmur, gratitude forming a lump in your throat that you struggle to swallow.

“Ms. Sweetheart!” Harris shouts from the top of the jungle gym. “Look what I can do!” He hesitates for a moment before reaching out his arms and grabbing onto the metal pole. You stand up to call out a preemptive warning, to get to him before he can fall, but before you can, his chubby hands grip the pole. He hooks his legs around it and slides down expertly, not letting go until his sneakers are firmly planted on the wood chips scattered across the ground.

Pride warms your heart when his eyes lock with yours, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly as he awaits your approval. Anticipation reverberates within his little body, and before you can get in a word edgewise, he’s jumping up and down with an excited, “didja see me?”

“You’re amazing!” Your praise floats through the air and envelops him like a long-awaited embrace. “Super brave, too. I don’t think I could do that.”

He furrows his brows before a knowing smile forms on his lips. “Yes, you can! I’ll show you.”

Kind of walked right into that one, you lightly chastise yourself, but you dutifully shuffle towards where he’s already darting up the steps on all fours, hands splayed out for balance.

“C’mon, Ms. Sweetheart!” Harris cheers, waving his fists in the air in earnest, and you simply cannot let the boy down. He easily glides down once more, big brown eyes looking up at you from the ground. “Just like that, see?”

“Right, got it.” You give him a thumbs-up and emulate his movements, holding on tightly to the metal pole and sliding down. You grimace as it squeaks under your grasp, nails on a chalkboard, but your feet reach the ground soon enough.

Harris flings his arms around you, chin digging into your thigh as he gazes up in adoration. “I told you you could do it! Y’just had to try!” His admiration is fleeting; he soon spots another child leap from the swingset to play elsewhere. “Can you push me on the swings?” he pleads, already leading you to the equipment. “I just need a little help getting started, but then ‘m good.”

You hold the chain links dangling from the top of the structure, allowing Harris to maneuver himself onto the rubber seat. He scoots back so his bottom is fully supported and announces, “‘m ready!”

“Hold on tight,” you remind him, more out of routine than necessity, as you pull back the rust-covered chains. You move as far back as you can, double-checking that he hasn’t let go, and release the swing. His squealing giggles are music to your ears, and you push him a few more times before he’s able to take over independently.

His mop of curls defies gravity as he sails back and forth, pumping his legs to gain height. “Ms. Sweetheart?”

“Hm?”

“Do you love my daddy?”

You ponder the thought for a moment. You know exactly how you feel about Eddie; he simultaneously kicks up the butterflies in your stomach and calms every buzzing nerve in your body with just a smile, but you’re unsure how much he wants to tell Harris. You settle on the truth, direct and simple: “yeah, I do love him.”

Harris wastes no time asking a follow-up question. “A lot or a little?”

“A lot,” you answer quickly, realizing the magnitude of your enamoration as you say it aloud. The way Eddie’s kisses wrap you in an armor of safety; you hope your kisses have the same effect on him. “Definitely a lot.”

He hums his acknowledgement. “Grampa Wayne says Daddy loves you a lot, too, but I can’t ask you to be my mommy yet.”

You freeze in place so suddenly that the swing’s momentum nearly knocks you down; you step out of the way just before his sneaker-clad feet can make contact with your torso. “You want me to be your mommy?” you repeat dumbly, still half-convinced that you heard him incorrectly.

“Mhm,” Harris confirms, “but Grampa says that being a mommy is a big ‘sponsibility, and I gotta be patient. That means I gotta wait until Daddy says it’s okay to ask you,” he elaborates matter-of-factly.

This is clearly something they’ve talked about, extensively enough that Harris knows that he shouldn’t say anything about it. You’re temporarily rendered speechless, words failing you as you search for an appropriate response. Do you thank him? Act like you hadn’t heard him? Hope that a sinkhole opens up in the middle of the playground and swallows you whole?

“Th-That’s great, Har,” you manage, shoulders suddenly heavy with the weight of his statement. He goes back to focusing on pumping his legs, leaving you to tend to the anxiety gnawing at your insides.

Motherhood–the term stepmother seems arbitrary, given that Harris’s biological mother has all but dropped off of the face of the Earth–is a terrifying prospect. Any time you try to explain your fears, people just shrug them off, claiming that you’d be a ‘natural,’ that your years of teaching would ultimately ‘pay off’ when you had children of your own. As if teaching and parenting were remotely the same.

To you, the differences are as clear as day. When you’re a parent, there’s no ‘clocking out.’ Your obligations don’t begin at 9 AM and end at 2 PM; they’re twenty-four hours, seven days a week. It’s not the same thing. Not even close.

Before you became a teacher, you had to go to school and take education courses. Read your textbooks cover to cover. Had to do an internship for a semester. You’d had ample opportunities to determine whether or not it was the right job for you. Motherhood doesn’t offer that luxury: you don’t know if you’ll be a good mom until you’ve already chosen to become one.

“Ms. Sweetheart?” You jump out of your skin when you realize that Harris is slowing himself down, scuffed Reeboks scraping against the ground as he comes to a stop. “Can I get ice cream?”

You bite back a laugh. “You just had a donut, silly boy,” you remind him with a gentle ruffle to his curls, trying to keep your tone breezy, “but we can grab some sandwiches. Maybe even get one for Daddy, too?”

His lower lip quivers, making your heart lurch. “B-But–”

“And,” you interject, “we can go out for ice cream after the market. With Daddy.” You hope it’s a promise you can keep.

It was too good to be true. Deep down, you knew it, despite the fleeting victory of getting Harris to eat an actual lunch. His hands were sticky with peanut butter and jelly–you were making a mental note to reassure Eddie that, yes, some had gotten in his mouth–when you’d done the unthinkable. The unimaginable.

You hadn’t let him press the elevator button.

He howls and sinks down to the floor, knees slamming into the linoleum tile and making him scream even louder.

“Buddy, you’ve got peanut–”

“I wanted to press…the…BUTTON!” he shrieks, every minor inconvenience he’s encountered today culminating in what you can only dub the Tantrum of the Decade. The crash from the sugar rush, not going to the market when he wanted to, the lack of ice cream are represented in every fat tear rolling down his reddening cheeks, in every flail of his legs as you try to scoop him up and bring him into the elevator, in every heaving breath. He’s overtired, overwhelmed, and out of his normal routine.

Your own eyes get misty as the metal door slides shut, enclosing you in a small space that seems to shrink with each wail. The kid has the lung capacity of an Olympic swimmer, while you’re drowning in your own pity.

He’s still sobbing when you reach the third floor, and Eddie’s flying out of the room as soon as he hears the sound of his son crying. Curls disheveled from his nap, crust still at the corners of his eyes. I woke him up, you realize. Another nail in the coffin.

“Wh-What happened?” His voice is raised, not in accusation, but just to be heard over Harris yelling. “Did he get hurt?” He takes Harris from your arms, clutching him to his chest in sheer panic. Reflexively, he inspects his boy’s head, arms, and legs for bruising and blood.

You shake your head, afraid that any attempt to speak will have your voice fracturing into pieces, no better than the little boy’s meltdown.

Fortunately, Harris has no problem filling his dad in. “I–wanted–to push–the button–and–she–said–NO!!!” Each word is punctuated with a hitched breath and is angrier than the last.

Eddie looks at you, more puzzled than worried now that he knows his son is unharmed, and a visit to the emergency room is unnecessary.

“His hands were sticky from his sandwich,” you mutter, unable to make eye contact with either Munson. “Oh, um, this is yours,” you add robotically, handing him the bag containing his hoagie, now a darker shade of brown from the grease it’s soaked up. You wince at how stilted you sound, simply going through the motions, not at all like the enthusiastic presentation you’d planned on the walk back to the hotel.

“Thanks.” Not unappreciative, but far from enthusiastic, and you can’t blame him. “Let’s just, uh, let’s just get him in the room.”

The sleepiness consumes Harris after a few more arduous minutes in his dad’s embrace. Eddie rubs circles on his back to calm him down, tiny shh sounds passing through his teeth. Harris begins to catch his breath; hiccups like aftershocks ricochet in his chest, gradually subsiding into soft snores.

“Jesus,” Eddie whispers as he gingerly places him onto the unmade bed, still warm from where he was lying just moments earlier, “that was one hell of a wake-up call.”

You speak at the same volume as him, though you don’t even have to try. Shame buries your voice deep in your diaphragm. “I’m so sorry.” Your right incisor digs into your lower lip as emotion ravishes you. The absence of Harris’s tantruming creates a loud silence that neither of you have the energy to fill.

“I could say the same to you,” Eddie says with a soft chuckle, taking your hand and squeezing it tight as he sits down on your bed. “His meltdowns are no joke.”

“I should’ve just let him press the damn button.” You’re only half-serious, but your stomach sinks when Eddie says nothing; instead, he carefully unwraps the sandwich and takes a bite. A glob of mustard lands on the parchment paper with a soft plop.

He doesn’t disagree. You made a mistake—two mistakes, if you’re counting the donut fiasco—and Eddie saw it. Saw that you’d failed.

“Did you get enough rest?” It’s a feeble attempt to change the subject, and you both know it, but you go for it anyway.

He lets his knee knock into yours. “Never enough, Sweetheart,” he says with a smile, wiping his lips with the flimsy deli napkin. “But, yeah, I got some sleep.” He leans in and murmurs in your ear, “Would’ve been better with you next to me, though.”

You turn so that your nose brushes his. “If I was laying next to you, you wouldn’t be able to sleep,” you quip, stifling your laughter when he takes your cheeks in his hands and smacks a kiss to your lips.

“I would be a perfect gentleman.” He stretches and exposes the happy trail below his navel. “My eyes are up here,” he teases, catching you checking him out. “And you were worried about me.”

The dynamic shifts back to playful and lighthearted, his joke chipping away at the tension that’s been weighing you down.

“Shut up and eat your sandwich, Munson.”

“Yes, dear.”

You’ve showered and changed into a fresh set of clothes, jeans replacing the ratty sweatpants you’d donned earlier. You’d tried to wash the day’s stress down the drain along with the eucalyptus-scented soap suds, and though you don’t feel completely recharged, you’re ready enough to tackle the market.

Still, you can’t stop yourself from murmuring to Eddie, “d’you want me to stay here with Harris? Just in case it’s too much for him?”

He considers it for a moment before shaking his head, shrugging on his denim jacket. “Nah, he got his nap. Should be fine.”

The little boy in question slips one hand into yours and looks up at you with a grin. Eddie had talked to him earlier, reminded him about expressing himself in ways that didn’t hurt people–or their ears–and Harris apologized tearily. All is forgiven; at least between you and him. You still feel an uneasiness with Eddie, though it may be one-sided, as he’d quietly lamented that you two couldn’t shower together.

“We’re goin’ to the market! We’re goin’ to the market!” Harris chants, shuffling on the balls of his feet in a little dance. “Ms. Sweetheart, guess what?”

“What?”

“WE’RE GOIN’ TO THE MARKET!”

“Shocking,” Eddie mutters under his breath, a wry smile on his lips, and you use your free hand to swat at his stomach. “Okay,” he pats the wallet in the side pocket of his jeans, “got the company card, keys, handsome son, beautiful girlfriend…” He glances around the room; this time, he’s either unaware of his slip-up or is unbothered by Harris knowing your relationship status. “Looks like we’re good to go!”

The car ride isn’t too long; it’s only about a ten minute drive before you reach the market. And since you’d remembered to let Harris press the elevator button, it didn’t feel endless.

“Now, Harris,” Eddie says as his son climbs out of the car, hopping onto the parking lot pavement, “the market’s gonna be busy–”

“I know!”

“--so you have to hold my hand, or Ms. Sweetheart’s hand–”

“I know!”

“--the whole time. Got it?”

“Yes!” He’s far too exasperated for a five-year-old, and you have to bite your cheek to keep from laughing. “Can we go in now?”

Eddie obliges and takes Harris’s right hand; you take his left, the three of you walking towards the gigantic building together.

You’d figured it would be crowded, but you’re unprepared for just how overstimulated your senses become upon entering. Vendors shout advertisements for their booths, beckoning potential customers to check out their wares. Snippets of different conversations infiltrate your ears, and you swallow hard to clear your head, though the grainy muzak pumping through the overhead speakers doesn't help.

Immediately, you spot a booth selling secondhand books, and you look at Eddie with a hopeful gaze.

“Go,” he motions with a smile, laughing when you all but skip off to the stack of novels. You don’t want to take too long, as neither Munson has the patience to wait while you peruse your options. A weathered paperback copy of The Grapes of Wrath catches your eye, some pages dog-eared and smelling faintly of stale smoke, and you fish out two quarters from the bottom of your bag and place them in the vendor’s hand.

“Okay,” you breathe when you get back to Eddie and Harris, overwhelmed just by the short walk. You grip Harris’s hand even tighter, all-too protective of him in such a crowded space. “Let’s go get some records!”

Eddie finds a variety of vinyls that he knows will sell at Rock Records—from older classics like Louis Armstrong, Etta James, and Buddy Holly, to more recent gems from Van Halen, Queen, and Michael Jackson.

“Babe, check this out!” he announces gleefully, showing off a copy of Metallica’s Ride the Lightning. “I must’ve listened to this a hundred times when it was released in ‘84.” His enthusiasm is palpable, and you have to wonder if this purchase is for the store or for himself.

To his credit, Harris lasts a full twenty-five minutes before he starts asking for ice cream again. “You promised, renember?”

Eddie grins at him, then at you. “A promise, huh?” He clicks his tongue. “Can’t break that.”

“I think I saw a booth down there that’s sellIng some.” It’s a local shop, and you know one cone will probably cost more than a half-gallon at the grocery store, but you’ll risk the upcharge if it means avoiding a second meltdown today.

“I’ll be right there,” Eddie tells you, eyes flitting back towards a row of booths you’d passed by earlier. “Just get me something with chocolate?”

“What’s the magic word?” Harris interjects.

“Please.” He lays it on thick, throwing you a wink before turning around.

You grab a $5 bill from your back pocket, change from when you’d bought the sandwiches earlier, and approach the ice cream stand.

“Can I please get one cherry chip cone, one chocolate fudge cone, and…what do you want, Har?”

“That!” He points to a giant display of model cars displayed in front of a toy vendor’s booth. “I want the orange one!”

“We can look after,” you reassure him. “First, you have to pick the ice cream flavor you want.”

“Hmm,” he presses on tiptoes to peruse his options before pressing his forefinger to the glass, pointing to cookies ‘n cream, declaring, “that one!”

The vendor hands him his cone, then turns to you and confirms, “just the three cones?”

“Mhm.”

She punches some numbers into the register, expression far too serious for the gig. “That'll be $6.”

Exhaling, you hand her the bill in your palm. There’s no way the stodgy woman is going to cut you a break for the extra dollar. “Give me a sec; I should have a single in my wallet.” You let go of Harris’s hand, fumbling around in your bag until you pull out what you’ve been searching for.

The vendor takes your money and hands you the remaining two cones, already starting to melt with all of the body heat surrounding you.

“Thank you,” you say with a polite smile. “Okay, Har, let’s—” Your blood runs cold when you realize he’s nowhere to be found. “Harris!” you call out, voice shaking on the last syllable, unable to hide how frantic you feel. “Harris!”

Eddie, already on his way from his earlier errand, runs over to you. “Where’s—”

“He was just here!” You push your way through the crowd, accidentally brushing your scoop of cherry chip along someone’s jacket, but there’s no time to apologize.

You and Eddie take turns yelling out his name, bile rising in your throats with each unanswered shout, until you hear somebody ask, “is that your mommy and daddy calling for you?”

Both your and Eddie’s heads swivel towards the conversation, breathing identical sighs of relief when you see the familiar mop of curls in front of the toy car display.

“Oh, thank God.” It comes out in one breath, your chest deflating as you and Eddie rush towards him.

“Harris, what are you doing?” Eddie admonishes him, heart still racing as the surge of adrenaline tapers off. He picks him up, fingers digging into the shirt fabric as he holds him as close as possible, and presses a kiss to his scalp. There will be some sort of consequence later–revoking TV time and a lecture on stranger danger–but for now, there’s only the comfort of knowing he’s safe.

“I just wanted to see the cars,” Harris protests, trying and failing to wriggle from Eddie’s grip. “Can I get the orange one?”

Eddie huffs out an incredulous laugh, astounded that Harris doesn’t understand the seriousness of his actions. “No, you can’t!” he yells, attracting unwanted attention from other shoppers, “and you can’t wander off like that! I told you that you have to stay with one of us the whole time!” He flexes his palm before clenching it into a frustrated fist. “What were you thinking?”

Harris’s eyes fill with tears. “I j-just wanted to s-see them,” he tries again, taken aback by the anger in his dad’s voice. “An’ Ms. Sweetheart was right there!”

The mention of your nickname reminds Eddie of the other adult involved. “You were supposed to be watching him,” he spits, gritting his teeth to keep from raising his voice at you.

You wince at his tone, filled with venom for the first time since his comment about Grandma forgetting you all those months ago. The difference is that, now, you deserve it. Letting go of his hand was careless; at the very least, you should have reminded him to stay put. The early morning donut, the elevator button were menial indiscretions compared to this mistake. There’s no denying that you’d royally messed up.

“I’m so sorry.” Sorry for not keeping a closer eye on Harris. Sorry for waking him up from his nap via a screaming child. Sorry for waltzing into their lives and thinking you had a snowball’s chance in Hell of being a decent parent. The ice cream drips down the cones and onto your hands, pooling in the crevices between your fingers. You dump them in the nearest trash can, neither of you hungry anymore.

You can’t return to the hotel soon enough, and as soon as Eddie puts an episode of Rugrats on TV for Harris, you begin inconspicuously packing your collecting your toiletries from the bathroom to back in your luggage.

“What’re you doing?” Eddie asks from the doorway. He’s got his arms folded across his chest, perplexion wrinkling his brows.

“Going home.”

He presses his forefinger and thumb to his eyelids and shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like–”

“No,” you interrupt him, choking down your frustration, “you were right. You trusted me to watch him, and I didn’t.”

“Hey, hey,” Eddie steps forward and puts out a hand to stop you from grabbing your toothbrush, “it was an accident. Things happen in a split second, yeah?” He thinks back to the way Harris had tumbled off of the bed months ago. “We found him, and that’s what matters.”

He’s trying to comfort you, which somehow makes you feel worse. You lost his kid, but he’s focusing on making you feel better.

The next words out of your mouth shatter his heart into pieces: “I think it would be better for everyone if I leave.”

A small puff of air escapes his nostrils, unsurprised but hurt nonetheless. “‘S too much for you, isn’t it?” he mumbles, not even daring to glance in your direction as he says it.

He knows. He knows that you aren’t cut out for this, that you’ll never be the mom Harris needs or deserves. In his own words, he knows it’s too much for you.

You say nothing in return, and your silence is louder than the cartoon squabble just a few feet away.

“Fine, just…just go, then.” He slams one palm on the bathroom sink, the other raking through his hair so forcefully that a few strands come loose. “God, I need a fucking cigarette!” he mutters, jaw clenched.

“I’m so sorry.” It’s all you can think to say. You’ll repeat it over and over again if it rectifies the situation.

“Yeah, whatever.” He starts to leave the room, not even turning back around to say, “I’ll tell Harris you’re not feeling well.” He wants to ask you to call the hotel room when you get home but bites back the request. That’s something one partner asks of another, and you aren’t partners anymore, he realizes bitterly, and it’s his fault. He’d put the responsibility of parenthood on you far too quickly.

He could have insisted that Harris stay and nap with him rather than letting him go to the park. He could have kept Harris by his side while you got the ice cream, or the three of you could have gone together. Instead, he’d just assumed that this was a role you had no qualms about taking on. In his eagerness to build this little family, he’d squandered the foundation before it had even set.

Eddie watches as you walk away, the words wait and don’t go and we can figure this out lurking behind his molars, but he remains silent.

When the door slams behind you, he bites on his thumb. Go after her, some part of him—his conscience, maybe—nags, but he pushes the thought away. He can’t ask you to stick around and be a mom to his son if it isn't truly what you want to do.

He removes his finger from between his teeth and shoves his hands in his jacket pockets, temporarily confused when he’s met with some resistance. The tiny brown paper bag crinkles as his fingers make contact with it, and he pulls it out dejectedly.

He’d spotted the necklace while scavenging for record vendors and made a mental note to return to it when you weren’t there to see. A tiny metal heart on a chain that he’d planned to give to you at the end of the trip. It was the reason he’d left you alone with Harris; he’d wanted it to be a surprise.

“Well, that was a fuckin’ waste,” Eddie says to no one in particular, shoving it back in the confines of his pocket. He sits next to Harris, hoping Tommy Pickles’ shenanigans will melt his brain for just a few moments.

The next bus to Hawkins pulled up thirty minutes after your cab arrived at the station. It was the only way to get home, and an embarrassingly large part of you hoped that Eddie and Harris would swing by, enveloping you in a tight hug and promising you that you’re doing a great job. That you’re enough.

That moment remains a daydream, one that replays over and over as you lean your head against the window. It’s all highway from here to your small town, close to three hours on the road because of the intermediate stops, but you’re in no hurry to return. If it hurts now, you can’t imagine the pain when the loneliness sets in.

Of course Eddie wasn’t coming to rescue you; you’d let him down right when he’d needed you. It was all so superficial on your end, thinking that you could be a mother just because you’d taught Harris how to read and have dinner with him and his dad once a week.

Wallowing in pity is too indulgent, too pathetic, but you can’t keep from berating yourself. You’re a preschool teacher; how hard is it to remember to hold a kid’s hand?

Tears slip down your cheeks involuntarily and you swipe at them before your seat partner can notice. The last thing you need is to strike up an emotional conversation with a complete stranger.

And what is it with you and crying today? Getting choked up when Eddie had pointed out the donut mistake, feeling like you were going to have a meltdown alongside Harris, and now this? It’s like you have an endless supply of tears.

The most likely culprit is your run-of-the-mill PMS; you can always count on being overly sensitive on those select few days. You open your bag and take out the pocket calendar where you keep track of important appointments and dates, including your periods.

Today’s April 26. You flip back to March, rifling through the pages until you see that the first day of your last period was the twentieth.

You’re almost a full week late.

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