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mostlysignssomeportents · 10 months

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Autoenshittification

Forget F1: the only car race that matters now is the race to turn your car into a digital extraction machine, a high-speed inkjet printer on wheels, stealing your private data as it picks your pocket. Your car’s digital infrastructure is a costly, dangerous nightmare — but for automakers in pursuit of postcapitalist utopia, it’s a dream they can’t give up on.

Your car is stuffed full of microchips, a fact the world came to appreciate after the pandemic struck and auto production ground to a halt due to chip shortages. Of course, that wasn’t the whole story: when the pandemic started, the automakers panicked and canceled their chip orders, only to immediately regret that decision and place new orders.

But it was too late: semiconductor production had taken a serious body-blow, and when Big Car placed its new chip orders, it went to the back of a long, slow-moving line. It was a catastrophic bungle: microchips are so integral to car production that a car is basically a computer network on wheels that you stick your fragile human body into and pray.

The car manufacturers got so desperate for chips that they started buying up washing machines for the microchips in them, extracting the chips and discarding the washing machines like some absurdo-dystopian cyberpunk walnut-shelling machine:

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/desperate-times-companies-buy-washing-machines-just-to-rip-out-the-chips-187033.html

These digital systems are a huge problem for the car companies. They are the underlying cause of a precipitous decline in car quality. From touch-based digital door-locks to networked sensors and cameras, every digital system in your car is a source of endless repair nightmares, costly recalls and cybersecurity vulnerabilities:

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/quality-new-vehicles-us-declining-more-tech-use-study-shows-2023-06-22/

What’s more, drivers hate all the digital bullshit, from the janky touchscreens to the shitty, wildly insecure apps. Digital systems are drivers’ most significant point of dissatisfaction with the automakers’ products:

https://www.theverge.com/23801545/car-infotainment-customer-satisifaction-survey-jd-power

Even the automakers sorta-kinda admit that this is a problem. Back in 2020 when Massachusetts was having a Right-to-Repair ballot initiative, Big Car ran these unfuckingbelievable scare ads that basically said, “Your car spies on you so comprehensively that giving anyone else access to its systems will let murderers stalk you to your home and kill you:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms

But even amid all the complaining about cars getting stuck in the Internet of Shit, there’s still not much discussion of why the car-makers are making their products less attractive, less reliable, less safe, and less resilient by stuffing them full of microchips. Are car execs just the latest generation of rubes who’ve been suckered by Silicon Valley bullshit and convinced that apps are a magic path to profitability?

Nope. Car execs are sophisticated businesspeople, and they’re surfing capitalism’s latest — and last — hot trend: dismantling capitalism itself.

Now, leftists have been predicting the death of capitalism since The Communist Manifesto, but even Marx and Engels warned us not to get too frisky: capitalism, they wrote, is endlessly creative, constantly reinventing itself, re-emerging from each crisis in a new form that is perfectly adapted to the post-crisis reality:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/books/review/a-spectre-haunting-china-mieville.html

But capitalism has finally run out of gas. In his forthcoming book, Techno Feudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Yanis Varoufakis proposes that capitalism has died — but it wasn’t replaced by socialism. Rather, capitalism has given way to feudalism:

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451795/technofeudalism-by-varoufakis-yanis/9781847927279

Under capitalism, capital is the prime mover. The people who own and mobilize capital — the capitalists — organize the economy and take the lion’s share of its returns. But it wasn’t always this way: for hundreds of years, European civilization was dominated by rents, not markets.

A “rent” is income that you get from owning something that other people need to produce value. Think of renting out a house you own: not only do you get paid when someone pays you to live there, you also get the benefit of rising property values, which are the result of the work that all the other homeowners, business owners, and residents do to make the neighborhood more valuable.

The first capitalists hated rent. They wanted to replace the “passive income” that landowners got from taxing their serfs’ harvest with active income from enclosing those lands and grazing sheep in order to get wool to feed to the new textile mills. They wanted active income — and lots of it.

Capitalist philosophers railed against rent. The “free market” of Adam Smith wasn’t a market that was free from regulation — it was a market free from rents. The reason Smith railed against monopolists is because he (correctly) understood that once a monopoly emerged, it would become a chokepoint through which a rentier could cream off the profits he considered the capitalist’s due:

https://locusmag.com/2021/03/cory-doctorow-free-markets/

Today, we live in a rentier’s paradise. People don’t aspire to create value — they aspire to capture it. In Survival of the Richest, Doug Rushkoff calls this “going meta”: don’t provide a service, just figure out a way to interpose yourself between the provider and the customer:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn

Don’t drive a cab, create Uber and extract value from every driver and rider. Better still: don’t found Uber, invest in Uber options and extract value from the people who invest in Uber. Even better, invest in derivatives of Uber options and extract value from people extracting value from people investing in Uber, who extract value from drivers and riders. Go meta.

This is your brain on the four-hour-work-week, passive income mind-virus. In Techno Feudalism, Varoufakis deftly describes how the new “Cloud Capital” has created a new generation of rentiers, and how they have become the richest, most powerful people in human history.

Shopping at Amazon is like visiting a bustling city center full of stores — but each of those stores’ owners has to pay the majority of every sale to a feudal landlord, Emperor Jeff Bezos, who also decides which goods they can sell and where they must appear on the shelves. Amazon is full of capitalists, but it is not a capitalist enterprise. It’s a feudal one:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

This is the reason that automakers are willing to enshittify their products so comprehensively: they were one of the first industries to decouple rents from profits. Recall that the reason that Big Car needed billions in bailouts in 2008 is that they’d reinvented themselves as loan-sharks who incidentally made cars, lending money to car-buyers and then “securitizing” the loans so they could be traded in the capital markets.

Even though this strategy brought the car companies to the brink of ruin, it paid off in the long run. The car makers got billions in public money, paid their execs massive bonuses, gave billions to shareholders in buybacks and dividends, smashed their unions, fucked their pensioned workers, and shipped jobs anywhere they could pollute and murder their workforce with impunity.

Car companies are on the forefront of postcapitalism, and they understand that digital is the key to rent-extraction. Remember when BMW announced that it was going to rent you the seatwarmer in your own fucking car?

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/02/big-river/#beemers

Not to be outdone, Mercedes announced that they were going to rent you your car’s accelerator pedal, charging an extra $1200/year to unlock a fully functional acceleration curve:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474969/mercedes-car-subscription-faster-acceleration-feature-price

This is the urinary tract infection business model: without digitization, all your car’s value flowed in a healthy stream. But once the car-makers add semiconductors, each one of those features comes out in a painful, burning dribble, with every button on that fakakta touchscreen wired directly into your credit-card.

But it’s just for starters. Computers are malleable. The only computer we know how to make is the Turing Complete Von Neumann Machine, which can run every program we know how to write. Once they add networked computers to your car, the Car Lords can endlessly twiddle the knobs on the back end, finding new ways to extract value from you:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

That means that your car can track your every movement, and sell your location data to anyone and everyone, from marketers to bounty-hunters looking to collect fees for tracking down people who travel out of state for abortions to cops to foreign spies:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7enex/tool-shows-if-car-selling-data-privacy4cars-vehicle-privacy-report

Digitization supercharges financialization. It lets car-makers offer subprime auto-loans to desperate, poor people and then killswitch their cars if they miss a payment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U2eDJnwz_s

Subprime lending for cars would be a terrible business without computers, but digitization makes it a great source of feudal rents. Car dealers can originate loans to people with teaser rates that quickly blow up into payments the dealer knows their customer can’t afford. Then they repo the car and sell it to another desperate person, and another, and another:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/27/boricua/#looking-for-the-joke-with-a-microscope

Digitization also opens up more exotic options. Some subprime cars have secondary control systems wired into their entertainment system: miss a payment and your car radio flips to full volume and bellows an unstoppable, unmutable stream of threats. Tesla does one better: your car will lock and immobilize itself, then blare its horn and back out of its parking spot when the repo man arrives:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

Digital feudalism hasn’t stopped innovating — it’s just stopped innovating good things. The digital device is an endless source of sadistic novelties, like the cellphones that disable your most-used app the first day you’re late on a payment, then work their way down the other apps you rely on for every day you’re late:

https://restofworld.org/2021/loans-that-hijack-your-phone-are-coming-to-india/

Usurers have always relied on this kind of imaginative intimidation. The loan-shark’s arm-breaker knows you’re never going to get off the hook; his goal is in intimidating you into paying his boss first, liquidating your house and your kid’s college fund and your wedding ring before you default and he throws you off a building.

Thanks to the malleability of computerized systems, digital arm-breakers have an endless array of options they can deploy to motivate you into paying them first, no matter what it costs you:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers

Car-makers are trailblazers in imaginative rent-extraction. Take VIN-locking: this is the practice of adding cheap microchips to engine components that communicate with the car’s overall network. After a new part is installed in your car, your car’s computer does a complex cryptographic handshake with the part that requires an unlock code provided by an authorized technician. If the code isn’t entered, the car refuses to use that part.

VIN-locking has exploded in popularity. It’s in your iPhone, preventing you from using refurb or third-party replacement parts:

https://doctorow.medium.com/apples-cement-overshoes-329856288d13

It’s in fuckin’ ventilators, which was a nightmare during lockdown as hospital techs nursed their precious ventilators along by swapping parts from dead systems into serviceable ones:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3azv9b/why-repair-techs-are-hacking-ventilators-with-diy-dongles-from-poland

And of course, it’s in tractors, along with other forms of remote killswitch. Remember that feelgood story about John Deere bricking the looted Ukrainian tractors whose snitch-chips showed they’d been relocated to Russia?

https://doctorow.medium.com/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors-bc93f471b9c8

That wasn’t a happy story — it was a cautionary tale. After all, John Deere now controls the majority of the world’s agricultural future, and they’ve boobytrapped those ubiquitous tractors with killswitches that can be activated by anyone who hacks, takes over, or suborns Deere or its dealerships.

Control over repair isn’t limited to gouging customers on parts and service. When a company gets to decide whether your device can be fixed, it can fuck you over in all kinds of ways. Back in 2019, Tim Apple told his shareholders to expect lower revenues because people were opting to fix their phones rather than replace them:

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/

By usurping your right to decide who fixes your phone, Apple gets to decide whether you can fix it, or whether you must replace it. Problem solved — and not just for Apple, but for car makers, tractor makers, ventilator makers and more. Apple leads on this, even ahead of Big Car, pioneering a “recycling” program that sees trade-in phones shredded so they can’t possibly be diverted from an e-waste dump and mined for parts:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks

John Deere isn’t sleeping on this. They’ve come up with a valuable treasure they extract when they win the Right-to-Repair: Deere singles out farmers who complain about its policies and refuses to repair their tractors, stranding them with six-figure, two-ton paperweight:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it

The repair wars are just a skirmish in a vast, invisible fight that’s been waged for decades: the War On General-Purpose Computing, where tech companies use the law to make it illegal for you to reconfigure your devices so they serve you, rather than their shareholders:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/

The force behind this army is vast and grows larger every day. General purpose computers are antithetical to technofeudalism — all the rents extracted by technofeudalists would go away if others (tinkereres, co-ops, even capitalists!) were allowed to reconfigure our devices so they serve us.

You’ve probably noticed the skirmishes with inkjet printer makers, who can only force you to buy their ink at 20,000% markups if they can stop you from deciding how your printer is configured:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/07/inky-wretches/#epson-salty But we’re also fighting against insulin pump makers, who want to turn people with diabetes into walking inkjet printers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/10/loopers/#hp-ification

And companies that make powered wheelchairs:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/08/chair-ish/#r2r

These companies start with people who have the least agency and social power and wreck their lives, then work their way up the privilege gradient, coming for everyone else. It’s called the “shitty technology adoption curve”:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/#solidarity-or-bust

Technofeudalism is the public-private-partnership from hell, emerging from a combination of state and private action. On the one hand, bailing out bankers and big business (rather than workers) after the 2008 crash and the covid lockdown decoupled income from profits. Companies spent billions more than they earned were still wildly profitable, thanks to those public funds.

But there’s also a policy dimension here. Some of those rentiers’ billions were mobilized to both deconstruct antitrust law (allowing bigger and bigger companies and cartels) and to expand “IP” law, turning “IP” into a toolsuite for controlling the conduct of a firm’s competitors, critics and customers:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

IP is key to understanding the rise of technofeudalism. The same malleability that allows companies to “twiddle” the knobs on their services and keep us on the hook as they reel us in would hypothetically allow us to countertwiddle, seizing the means of computation:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

The thing that stands between you and an alternative app store, an interoperable social media network that you can escape to while continuing to message the friends you left behind, or a car that anyone can fix or unlock features for is IP, not technology. Under capitalism, that technology would already exist, because capitalists have no loyalty to one another and view each other’s margins as their own opportunities.

But under technofeudalism, control comes from rents (owning things), not profits (selling things). The capitalist who wants to participate in your iPhone’s “ecosystem” has to make apps and submit them to Apple, along with 30% of their lifetime revenues — they don’t get to sell you jailbreaking kit that lets you choose their app store.

Rent-seeking technology has a holy grail: control over “ring zero” — the ability to compel you to configure your computer to a feudalist’s specifications, and to verify that you haven’t altered your computer after it came into your possession:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/30/ring-minus-one/#drm-political-economy

For more than two decades, various would-be feudal lords and their court sorcerers have been pitching ways of doing this, of varying degrees of outlandishness.

At core, here’s what they envision: inside your computer, they will nest another computer, one that is designed to run a very simple set of programs, none of which can be altered once it leaves the factory. This computer — either a whole separate chip called a “Trusted Platform Module” or a region of your main processor called a secure enclave — can tally observations about your computer: which operating system, modules and programs it’s running.

Then it can cryptographically “sign” these observations, proving that they were made by a secure chip and not by something you could have modified. Then you can send this signed “attestation” to someone else, who can use it to determine how your computer is configured and thus whether to trust it. This is called “remote attestation.”

There are some cool things you can do with remote attestation: for example, two strangers playing a networked video game together can use attestations to make sure neither is running any cheat modules. Or you could require your cloud computing provider to use attestations that they aren’t stealing your data from the server you’re renting. Or if you suspect that your computer has been infected with malware, you can connect to someone else and send them an attestation that they can use to figure out whether you should trust it.

Today, there’s a cool remote attestation technology called “PrivacyPass” that replaces CAPTCHAs by having you prove to your own device that you are a human. When a server wants to make sure you’re a person, it sends a random number to your device, which signs that number along with its promise that it is acting on behalf of a human being, and sends it back. CAPTCHAs are all kinds of bad — bad for accessibility and privacy — and this is really great.

But the billions that have been thrown at remote attestation over the decades is only incidentally about solving CAPTCHAs or verifying your cloud server. The holy grail here is being able to make sure that you’re not running an ad-blocker. It’s being able to remotely verify that you haven’t disabled the bossware your employer requires. It’s the power to block someone from opening an Office365 doc with LibreOffice. It’s your boss’s ability to ensure that you haven’t modified your messaging client to disable disappearing messages before he sends you an auto-destructing memo ordering you to break the law.

And there’s a new remote attestation technology making the rounds: Google’s Web Environment Integrity, which will leverage Google’s dominance over browsers to allow websites to block users who run ad-blockers:

https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity

There’s plenty else WEI can do (it would make detecting ad-fraud much easier), but for every legitimate use, there are a hundred ways this could be abused. It’s a technology purpose-built to allow rent extraction by stripping us of our right to technological self-determination.

Releasing a technology like this into a world where companies are willing to make their products less reliable, less attractive, less safe and less resilient in pursuit of rents is incredibly reckless and shortsighted. You want unauthorized bread? This is how you get Unauthorized Bread:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/amp/

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

[Image ID: The interior of a luxury car. There is a dagger protruding from the steering wheel. The entertainment console has been replaced by the text 'You wouldn't download a car,' in MPAA scare-ad font. Outside of the windscreen looms the Matrix waterfall effect. Visible in the rear- and side-view mirror is the driver: the figure from Munch's 'Scream.' The screen behind the steering-wheel has been replaced by the menacing red eye of HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.']

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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kupwaratimes-fan · 2 years

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Class 10th student, auto driver killed in separate accidents

Class 10th student, auto driver killed in separate accidents Srinagar, Aug 31: A teenage girl and an auto driver were on Wednesday killed in separate road accidents that took place in northern districts of Kashmir. In Pattan, an Army vehicle collided with an auto along the national highway, resulting in on spot death of auto driver, identified as Nisar Ahmad Bagat, son of Muhammad Maqbool Bagat…

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#auto driver killed in separate accidents #Class 10th student

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thisapplepielife · 2 days

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Written for the @steddieholidaydrabbles pop-up Graduation challenge.

What's A Little Grand Theft Auto Between Friends?

Prompt: Graduation | Word Count: 1000 | Rating: T | CW: Language, Nudity for Comedy, Smoking, Brief Mention of Underage Drinking | Tags: Post S2, Class of '85 Graduation Party at the Quarry, Randomly Teaming Up, And Then Having Fun Together, Steve Gets an Alternate Introduction to Eddie's Hot-Wiring Skills, Steve Ain't Body Shy, He Spent Too Many Years in Locker Rooms, Pre-Steddie

Coming tonight was a mistake, he's realized, because Steve isn't comfortable with this crowd, not anymore.

Decision made: He's leaving.

He places his plastic cup down on the open tailgate of a truck he's passing by.

"Thanks for the trash, Harrington," comes the snapping snarl, and Steve stops. He hadn't realized there was anyone sitting in the back of the truck. But there's Munson, in all black, blending into the night. The only thing visible, the cherry on the end of his lit cigarette.

"Sorry, man," Steve says, leaning up against the side of the pickup, "I didn't want to just, you know, throw it on the ground."

"How noble," Munson says, dripping with sarcasm.

Steve's too tired for another snotty showdown. Graduation party at the quarry sounded neutral enough, but he was wrong. He's done dealing with everyone, and everything, from Hawkins High.

Except Henderson and the kids. But they haven't started HHS yet, so they totally don't count, and tonight he can hate everything about the place.

Including the crown prince of shitty attitudes, Eddie "The Freak" Munson.

Steve takes the few steps back, grabs the cup, slings the beer that was mostly untouched into the grass. Holding up the empty cup to show Munson he's corrected this horrible offense.

"That's more like it," Munson says, cigarette dangling from his lip.

"Well, that's my cue," Steve says, and keeps walking.

"Wait! Wait a second," Munson asks, no demands, and Steve has no idea why he even thinks about going back, let alone does it.

But he does.

Backpedaling the few steps until he can almost see Munson again.

"What?" Steve asks.

"You leaving already?" Munson questions, and Steve just bobbles his head, because yeah, obviously.

"Can I get a ride back to town?" Munson asks, and Steve arches an eyebrow.

"Is this not your truck?" Steve asks.

"Nope," Munson answers, and Steve's hand flies up to toss the empty cup right at Munson's forehead.

Munson bats it away, laughing, as it clatters around noisily in the truck bed.

"You're a dickhead," Steve says, but then just wheels his arm around, silently telling Munson to hurry up if he's coming. Munson grins, wide and wolfish, hopping over the side with ease, landing on both feet with a resounding thud.

Then he holds out his arm in a sweeping after you gesture. Steve shakes his head and starts walking back to his car, hoping like hell he's not blocked in.

He is.

"Well, shit."

"I got this," Munson says, trying the doors of both cars boxing them in, nearly touching bumper. Billy and Tommy, of fucking course.

The Camaro is locked, but Tommy's isn't, and Munson slides into the driver's seat. Curious, Steve sinks into the passenger seat.

Munson pulls out a multi-tool of some kind, and before Steve has a chance to realize exactly what he's doing, Munson has the cables pulled out from under the dash.

"Holy shit," Steve says, leaning closer, "where'd you learn to do that?"

"Well, when the other dads were teaching their kids how to fish or play ball, my old man was teaching me how to hot-wire. Now, I swore I wouldn't wind up like he did, but they wanna be dickheads? We'll all be dickheads. What's a little grand theft auto between friends?"

Friends. They aren't friends, and Steve's aware of that fact, acutely. But he'd be lying if it didn't feel kinda nice to hear from someone, even as a lie.

So, Steve grins, "Not a thing. Friend."

Eddie backs up Tommy's car, then pulls the wires, killing the engine. Afterwards, he stuffs everything back up under the dash.

"Won't that-" Steve starts.

"Yup," Eddie answers, "gonna be deader than shit and he's gonna have no idea why."

"My man," Steve says, holding up his fist, and Eddie eyes him, but eventually bumps it back. "Thanks. This is hilarious, and he'll never suspect me. Like, I can't do that, and Tommy knows it."

"That's why it's good to have shady characters on your side, Harrington."

"Guess so," Steve agrees, and once they're back in Steve's car, Steve backs up, pulling away, easily.

Eddie digs his cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, "Can I?"

"Only if you light me one," Steve answers, watching as Eddie slides the cigarette along his own bottom lip, into his mouth, puffing as he lights it, then reaches over to place it between Steve's parted lips.

Steve feels funny about it, in a way he doesn't exactly understand, just for a second, before shaking it off.

"So, why was King Steve bailing so early tonight?" Eddie asks.

"Eh, I don't know. Guess I realized I'd graduated and had no interest in seeing any of those assholes again."

"Well, I didn't graduate, but same."

"You didn't graduate?"

"Nah, maybe the third time will be the charm," Eddie answers. "Going from King Steve, to running as fast as you can. I'm proud of you, big boy."

It's so unexpected, Steve's sure he looks stupid, before he busts out laughing, "Well, that's a new one."

"Really? Are the rumors not true? I'll be so disappointed," Eddie asks, looking dramatic, feet now resting on Steve's dashboard. Steve doesn't have the energy to tell him no.

"What rumors?"

"About your big dick, man. Girls talk. I listen."

What? That's. What?

"Well, I gotta piss, so you can take a gander for yourself, I guess," Steve banters, parking and hopping out of the car along the dirt road.

He knows Eddie doesn't actually wanna look, but two can play this game.

So, Steve doesn't go to the trunk, to the cover of darkness. No, he heads right up front, illuminated by headlights, and takes his dick into his hand. Lays it on his palm, like he's presenting it.

He looks through the windshield, but can't really see Eddie's reaction. Bummer.

But, then Eddie's hand pops out of the passenger window, giving him a big thumbs up.

And Steve tosses his head back, laughing.

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @steddieholidaydrabbles and follow along with the fun!

If you want to see more of my entries into this challenge, you can check them out in my Steddie Holiday Drabbles tag, right here!

#steddieholidaydrabbles #graduation #steddie #steddie ficlet #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie fic #thisapplepielife: short fic #thisapplepielife: steddieholidaydrabbles

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some-pers0n · 1 month

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My favourite thing ever about LITWTC is that it sounds completely and utterly bizarre to anyone who doesn't listen to it. What do you mean that music artist I heard on TikTok has a podcast where he and his friend talk about the apocalypse.

Anyways some of my favourite bits are

Tommy Lasagna, a fully Korean man with a thick Brooklyn accent, will own a fast food combination auto repair shop, wherein he'll mix up your order and put burgers on your tires and serve you a fistful of wires instead of fires

Will getting harassed by a ghost prostitute named Mama Doo-Wop for like seven minutes

Chris and Will stopping their car (they were driving around in this episode) and laughing at a decaying house for like five minutes

Will larping as Tom Waits for an entire episode

Leopard Planet is the only band still left in the apocalypse, wherein the lead singer and rhythm guitarist and Rock God, Zap Gorgeous, will have leopard print clothes as they play on top of a leopard pyramid

Will and Chris try getting their Wendy's order and it takes 20 minutes because the Doordash driver kept circling a graveyard

Will will save Jordan Peterson from the manosphere grease pit (where any manosphere person is greased up and tossed into a pit where they have to kill everyone else to survive) and turns him into a parrot-like pet that he listens to for hours on end

Chris Dunne Won't Go To Therapy I/II

ROLL!! THEM!! BONES!!

Bobby Sugarbones dying because the recording program closed and they didn't notice because the laptop had a picture of Chester Cheetah inflation art covering it (this was because Chris was trying to get Will into the kink so they could fuck the podcast, which is a gutter clown with that kink)

"Yes! And–"

Chris and Will spending an entire episode parked in front of a school because Will's car broke down and they were waiting for the repair guy (yes there are two episodes where they're in a car)

The Bug Woman

#sp-rambles #litwtc #life in the world to come #will wood

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robinfrinjs · 3 months

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Always There, Women in Motorsport: The fast women of la belle époque

Women's history in motorsport is rich, and that has always been the case. Most of these stories however aren’t well known and aren’t spoken about enough. Women have always been in motorsport and always will be.

Three French women, Hélène van Zuylen, Camille du Gast, and Anne de Rochechouart de Mortemart are some of the fastest women from France’s La Belle Epoque (circa 1880-1914).

In 1898 Anne de Rochechouart de Mortemart (1847-1933) (also known as the Duchess of Uzes) became the first woman in France to obtain her driver’s license. While getting out of the car she announced with delight that woman had just overcome a new barrier. Not long after she also became the first to be caught speeding for which she had to pay a five franc fine.

in 1926 she founded the first female Automobile Club, L'Automobile Club féminin de France (ACFF)

The Duchess of Uzes in 1927

Hélène van Zuylen (pictured on the cover image) was a French author but also the first woman to compete in an international auto race. Baron Etienne van Zuylen, her husband, was the President of the Automobile Club de France

She entered the 1898 Paris–Amsterdam–Paris using the nickname Snail, while her husband used the nickname Escargot. She successfully competed the trail and entered the Paris-Berlin race in 1901 but was stopped by technical failure.

That year Hélène, a lesbian, would meet Renée Vivien with whom she would have an affair. Vivien's letters to a confidant revealed that she considered herself married to Hélène. Most of Vivien's work is dedicated to "H.L.C.B.," the initials of Zuylen's first names.

Just over a decade before she died, Hélène van Zuylen created the Renée Vivien Prize, Honoring the woman she loved and intending to give encouragement to female writers.

Hélène van Zuylen - Nouvelle Revue internationale illustrée, December 1908

Camille du Gast (1868-1942) finished 33rd (19th in class) out of 122 participants in the 1901 Paris-Berlin race. Du Gast, achieved the results despite driving her husband's 20CV Panhard-Levassor which was not designed for racing. She had to start the race in last because she was a woman. The race did mark 2 female competitors with du Gast and van Zuylen. She loved several extreme sports such as mountaineering, parachuting and frencing.

In 1902 she competed in the Paris-Vienna race and also wanted to compete in the New York-San Francisco but was refused entry because she was a woman.

In 1903 she would start the Paris-Madrid race. Which she would enter with a proper racing car, a works 5.7-litre de Dietrich car. It was a chaotic race with 207 competitors which unfortunately saw several deaths. Camille started in 29th and gained 9 positions in the first 120 km. She had climbed up to P8 before stopping to give medical aid to a fellow driver, Phil Stead (also driving a de Dietrich) involved in a near-fatal crash.

Camille du Gast in her 30 hp De Dietrich with starting number 29 during the 1903 Paris-Madrid Race

Later one of the leading drivers at that time, Charles Jarrot said that if Camille had not stopped Stead likely would have died. After an ambulance arrived she continued the race eventually finishing 44th or 45th in the shortened race.

The French government would stop the race at Bordeaux, as over half of the field (275 cars) had either crashed or retired and several drivers and spectators had died.

Open road racing was banned, so in 1904 Camille wanted to participate in the French elimination trial for the Gordon Bennett races, as the Benz factory team offered du Gast a race seat. But the Autosport Club France (ACF) banned women from racing. Du Gast published a letter in protest but the ban was defended as the ACF could not risk a woman getting injured or killed in a racing event.

Because of this she ventured to boat racing. One of those races was caught by a big storm which saw most competitors either abandon their ship or they sank. She was rescued and later declared the winner of that race.

Eventually she had to put a halt to her adventurous life when she survived an assassination attempt by her daughter. Nothing was ever the same for her after that. From that point she devoted herself to animals. She would serve as president of the 'French Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals'

NEXT UP > More female racing drivers from the early 1900s

#Hélène van Zuylen #Camille du Gast #Anne de Rochechouart de Mortemart #Women's Motorsport History #*History Series #*History Series: Always There Women in Motorsport #Women in Motorsport #Also a little bit of queer motorsport history !#international women's day

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seat-safety-switch · 10 months

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Driving through our cities means that we don't actually interact very much with our cities. I'm not some kooky urbanist who believes in things like "farm to table India Pale Ales" and "marked crosswalks," but I do love to go for a walk. And that's a good thing, because my cars break down often enough that I get a lot of shoe miles in, too.

Most of my city is pretty dull. Industrial yards. Long expanses of highway with nothing in between. Haunted backroads. I try to avoid these parts nowadays, even when I'm in my car, lest the inevitable failure of an electrical system means that I have to walk back through them. No, sticking to the older neighbourhoods is what I'd prefer: tiny houses, Little Free Libraries, coffee shops, plaques commemorating the site of famous serial killings. You're not just walking through there on your way to the auto parts store, you're experiencing your city in a whole new light.

Back in the day, everyone had an unreliable car, and so the city had a lot more stuff in it. Tiny little groceries to get a popsicle from when your cooling system burst. Charming gas stations to push the car into, so that you could be ripped off by the proprietor. Now, with the advances in technology, modern cars are miraculous vehicles that can run up to the half-million-km mark without you so much as giving them a decent carwash. So there's no reason to, say, stop 9.5 km into your 35km commute to work, and hoof it towards the nearest mom-and-pop shop capable of grinding you a new distributor rotor.

If you ask me, that's very depressing to think about. Life should be full of unexpected opportunities for you to meet exciting new people who aren't tow truck drivers. Maybe that dude who watches your front suspension fall off after hitting a pothole will become your best friend. You'll never know, though, because your car's control arm is bolted on all the way by robots who weren't even a little bit drunk. Sad.

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capricorn-0mnikorn · 7 months

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Streets [in the 1920s-'30s] weren't well organized, and didn't have features like crosswalks, turn lanes, and traffic signals. You had streetcars, horses, pedestrians, and the new kids on the block: the automobile, all mixing on increasingly crowded streets. The biggest conflicts were between pedestrians and drivers. And the results were often deadly. Pedestrians, including children, were being struck and killed by cars. In those early days, motorists were held responsible, and the public was horrified by all of the deaths. You have to remember that, in cities, kids played in the street. People couldn't comprehend the idea that you'd have to keep kids off of the streets all day long to keep them safe. Everyone realized that speed was the real problem. cars could go [much] faster than the flow of traffic in 1920s cities. Some cities wanted to do something about it -- something more than just speed limits. They wanted to mandate speed governors on all cars to ensure they couldn't go more than, say, 20 or 30 miles per hour within city limits. It was at this point that the auto industry realized they needed to fight for the right to own the street.

Should jaywalking be legal? YouTube. 20 November, 2020 (human-edited from a transcript of auto-generated captions)

I really think this may be a way to create walkable cities without banning cars altogether, for the people for whom cars are an accessibility need -- without discriminating against those who simply cannot use cars.

I mean, if folks were thinking up this solution 100 years ago, surely we have the tech to make it work today. Right?

#walkable cities #accessibility #YouTube video link #jaywalking #word invented by the Auto Lobby #an excuse to arrest POC #<- discussed in the full video

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fluentmoviequoter · 6 days

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Two of Them

Requested Here!

Pairing: Jim Street x fem!reader

Summary: When Hondo asks you to help catch a car thief, you meet Jim Street. As you get to know one another, you learn that you have a lot in common, but balance each other out perfectly.

Warnings: r loves cars/owns an auto shop & is sarcastic and makes jokes (very similar to Street), mentions of robbery and murder, fluff, softie Street

Word Count: 4.7k+ words

A/N: There's so many things I love about this request and a ton of (personal) references! I hope you all enjoy!🤍

Masterlist Directory | Jim Street Masterlist | Request Info\Fandom List

Someone wolf whistles as the garage door opens, and you walk faster to see what is worthy of such attention. When you step into the garage if your auto restoration shop, your jaw drops.

“Is that a ’59 Impala?” you ask breathlessly.

“Sure is,” Joel, your righthand man and drivetrain expert, answers. “She’s here for a tune-up. I know you’re busy, boss, so I can handle this one.”

“Yeah, right!” you exclaim. “All of my childhood dreams are under that hood.”

“You dreamt about reconstructed motors as a kid?”

“Do you talk to your wife like this, Joel? Because she’s never going to let you buy a C-10 with that attitude.”

He chuckles before he waves toward the office. “Impala owner is in there. Wants to talk to you.”

“Thanks, Joel. Don’t start without me!” you call over your shoulder.

As you enter the lobby, you put on your best customer service smile and straighten your shirt.

“Good afternoon,” you greet. “You must be the owner of that beautiful Impala.”

“Yes, ma’am. My friend Rick Castle told me that you were the person to see. I had the car restored by a guy in Texas, a ground-up rebuild, but it’s not riding as smoothly as it was before. The passenger side – sorry, I’m not very good at explaining these things – it almost feels like it’s bounding while I drive,” he explains.

“Okay, that’s really helpful. It sounds like it’s probably an alignment issue. We can look at it today and give you a call when we find the issue,” you suggest.

“That would be great. Thank you.”

You review the paperwork he completed with Joel quickly before telling him bye. After putting his contact information into your computer system, you rush back to the garage.

“Let’s find out what’s causing the involuntary hydraulics,” you tell Joel.

“Hondo, get 20 squad in here!” Hicks calls.

As they gather in the situation room, Lieutenant Lynch queues a video pulled from a security camera. Street recognizes the location as the building they raided a few days earlier but remains quiet as she begins speaking.

“This is, of course, the building you raided. If you’ll recall, we hoped to locate an unidentified subject tied to several car robberies, assaults, and more recently, carjacking with deadly force. He killed a driver during a carjacking gone wrong and has continued to get more violent with each crime. We still haven’t identified the perp, courtesy of his never-ending vehicle supply and seeming knowledge of traffic cams. He didn’t seem to think about the security camera across the street from the parking garage before the raid, however.”

She presses a button on the tablet in her hand, and the video begins to play. Several cars come and go, but there’s nothing unusual. Hicks raises his hand to point to the time stamp, and the guys watch, waiting for some smoking gun or clear picture of the guy running from the cops. All that happens, though, is a man leaving in a convertible. Lynch pauses the video again and looks up expectantly.

“Was that a Triumph?” Luca asks excitedly. “Those are still rare in the states, even decades after they stopped manufacturing them.”

“It’s not stock,” Street adds with a shake of his head. “That’s not standard suspension, and the paint is too new to be original. Whoever brought that over had a lot of work done to it.”

“Which is great, makes it easier to find,” Hicks agrees. “Except there’s no plates, no registration, and no one has reported it missing. There’s not even a T3 in that color registered to anyone through the California DMV. We have something to look for, but no more information on who we’re looking for.”

“I know someone who can help,” Hondo says. “Classic cars, new paint, rebuilds…”

“You have a car guy?” Deacon asks. “Why?”

“Of course, I have a car guy,” Hondo scoffs. “My dad may have introduced me.”

“That makes more sense,” Luca says, nodding with Deacon.

“Hold on, guys,” Lynch calls. “The tech team thinks they may have found another lead. Consensus is this video is the same driver.”

She plays a new video, this one taken from a gas station camera. Another newer sports car pulls in, but no one exits the car. It sits for nearly three minutes, then pulls out.

“I’m not as versed as these guys, but that looks like a Lamborghini,” Tan comments. “Can’t be too hard to trace those in Los Angeles.”

“It is when they don’t have the original drivetrain. The back tires spun out way too far in that turn. It’s been modified, too,” Luca points out.

“He’s either got a thing for modified sports cars or he’s someone who’s flipping them to be completely different cars after he steals them,” Street hypothesizes.

“Your car guy gonna be able to help with that?” Hicks asks Hondo.

“Oh, yeah,” he answers. “This case’ll be closed in a week.”

“Then get out of here. You’ve got a rare car to track down.”

“One more thing,” Lynch says. “Really, I promise this is the last thing. None of those cars have been seen again. Seems like he drives them once and then ditches them.”

“He has to have his own garage, then,” Street says. “One that I wish I had.”

“Then it’s a bigger target,” Hondo declares. “Let’s roll.”

The chime connected to the front door of your shop rings loudly and you tell Joel to go check on the customer. You are under a 1977 Chevrolet Nova and elbow-deep in the engine bay. Even if you’d wanted to be the first face they saw, given that it is your business, you wouldn’t be able to get out from under the car before they assumed no one was here.

“Ah ha,” you murmur.

You pull the broken mounting bracket down past the ballast. It falls to the floor with a loud ting before you roll out from under the car. As you sit up and wipe your grease-covered hands on your coveralls, you see Hondo looking at you with his brows raised.

“Hello,” you greet.

“You got a little something right… everywhere,” he jokes.

“Funny,” you reply as you stand. “If your eyesight is that good, it’s no wonder you made SWAT.”

Someone laughs behind him, and you lean to the side. His entire squad waits in the lobby, and you wave before returning your attention to Hondo.

“I take it you’re not here about your dad’s car then,” you muse.

“Not today. We need some help with a case, if you have the time,” he explains.

“Sure. I’ll have Joel take you to my office. Let me clean up and I’ll meet you – all of you, I guess – in there in a minute.”

“Thanks. I owe you one.”

“You owe me an entire car at this point, Hondo,” you call as you walk out of the garage.

Once you’re out of your stained overalls and have washed all of the grease and car-related grime off of your skin, you return to your office. Hondo and three other men wait beside your desk, and you invite them to sit. Hondo introduces you to Tan, Luca, and Street, and you shake each of their hands before you sit across from them. Hondo rolls his eyes when you smile at Street, but you’re not sure why.

“So, what exactly does Metro SWAT need from an auto shop?” you ask.

“Long story short, there’s a guy stealing sports cars; classics, fresh off the floor, and everything in between. Then he’s customizing them, driving them once, and ditching them for a new illegally obtained ride,” Hondo answers.

You nod as you think, then lean on your elbows on your desk. “Why customize them?”

“To make them untraceable, we think,” Luca answers. “You can’t report a car missing if it doesn’t exist anymore.”

“That tracks,” you agree. “But then the question becomes, how do you ditch them? You can’t leave something like that at a chop shop, the parts would bring more issues.”

“Private garage,” Street says. “Or maybe he’s selling them out of the county. Lots of possibilities.”

“It takes an incredibly rich, incredibly dumb person to treat cars like that,” you comment.

“We deal with criminals,” Hondo interrupts. “Rich and dumb is kind of our thing.”

“No, Hondo, cars aren’t like people. They fight back, they don’t just disappear without a trace.”

“She’s right,” Street adds. “These cars are more than property to be stolen.”

“What are you saying?” Hondo asks.

“Ever read Christine?” you joke.

“Or heard of Decepticons?” Street adds.

You smile at him again, and he nods before he winks quickly.

“So, can you help us or not?” Hondo inquires.

“Yeah, of course. What do you need me to do?”

“We’ve got some security cam footage of the cars he’s altered. We need to know where he’s getting the work done, or info on where a private garage big enough for a collection like this would be.”

“I’d be happy to look. I can’t promise anything, though. My clientele is more of the rebuild this classic or fix this issue not the I want to make a rare sports car even more unique off the books.”

“That’s why we’re here.” Hondo looks at his phone quickly and huffs. “Uh, Street, you stay and go over the videos with her. Deac said he and Chris need backup.”

“You got it,” Street answers.

Hondo thanks you quickly before he, Luca, and Tan leave. You’re left alone in your office with Street and aren’t sure how to start a conversation after joking together while Hondo filled you in on the case.

“Uh, here’s the videos. There’s only a few on this, but it should be enough to get an idea of what he’s doing,” Street says as he passes you a memory stick.

You take it from him and insert it into your computer. As the videos begin playing, you rewind it, pause it, and take a few notes. The cars in it don’t have anything in common, other than the fact that they’re stolen and modified.

“Well, I can say for sure that my guys didn’t do this work. Nobody I work with did, either. I’ll ask around and see what I can find,” you tell Street.

“I appreciate that,” he replies. “You know, when Hondo said he had a car guy, I was expecting…”

“A guy?” you guess.

“I mean, yeah. Middle-aged, beer belly, his name on the sign. The usual.”

“Sounds like my shapewear is doing its job if you don’t see a beer belly,” you joke.

“Please, you know how pretty you are,” Street replies.

“Seems like you think so.”

You lean forward and smile as you return the video drive to Street. He returns your smile and opens his mouth, likely to make another joke, before Joel knocks on the door.

“We’ve got another customer, boss. With a ’73 Corolla,” he informs.

“Excellent timing,” you mumble.

Street stands as you do and says, “Call Hondo, or me, whoever, if you find anything. Thanks for helping.”

“I will. Thanks, Street.”

He leaves through the lobby, and you take a deep breath. Joel smiles as he watches you, but you tell him to get back to work before he can comment.

“On what?” he yells behind you.

“Hondo, we’re not even doing anything,” Street groans in HQ the following morning. “Just let me go make sure she doesn’t need help or anything!”

“She knows more about cars than you do,” Hondo answers.

“That’s not what I mean. C’mon, man, she has an auto shop. Are you really going to make me sit here when I could be solving a case in my dream garage?”

“Hondo!” Deacon calls. “We’ve got another video. New car this time, but it doesn’t look modified.”

Street looks toward Hondo expectantly, and nearly cheers when Hondo sighs and tells him to go. He accepts the video and rushes to his motorcycle. Work will be more fun with you, he thinks.

“You’re back,” you say when Street walks into the garage.

“And you’re working on a 1960s Mustang,” he says dreamily.

“1964,” you tell him. “Want to take a look?”

“I’m supposed to be working. We have a new video with a different car.”

“Surely it can wait a few seconds, so you can look at the new 289 sitting pretty under the hood.”

“Yeah, we can wait,” Street agrees as he follows you to the hood of the car.

After Street takes a few minutes to admire the work you’ve done on the Mustang, you lead him to your office and bring up the new video.

“I haven’t seen it, but the people in the lab didn’t think it had been modified,” Street explains.

“Okay. Let’s see,” you say, turning the screen toward him.

Your shoulder presses against his arm as you watch, but you’re both too interested in the sports car on the screen to notice that you’re in shared space.

“I don’t see anything,” Street says.

You drag the video slowly and pause it when the wheels turn.

“That car shouldn’t be all-wheel drive. It’s a minor conversion compared to the other work you’ve shown me.”

“Who makes a Datsun 240z all-wheel drive?” Street murmurs.

“Who steals a Datsun 240z?” you counter. “They stopped making them for a reason. Short of a complete overhaul, they weren’t worth their weight in metal.”

“As right as you are, that doesn’t bring us any closer to finding this guy.”

“No,” you agree. “And none of my friends have heard anything. We’re getting the word out, though, so as soon as it reaches the right person, I’ll have more information for you. It’d be great if he decided to switch garages and was my next customer.”

“It would be easier.” Street leans back in the seat and looks at the pictures on your wall. “Best and worst customer to date, go,” he asks.

“Ooh, okay,” you say excitedly. “Best? A writer who lives up in the hills has brought me over 20 different rare classics to restore from the ground up. The worst was last week. Kid came in with a brand new, stock Lambo Huracan and wanted the double-clutch tranny switched out for a 4-speed automatic.”

“In a Huracan?” Street repeats incredulously. “I… I feel like I just aged twenty years.”

“Tell me about it. I asked him if he could drive it the way it was and never got an answer.”

“Did you do it?”

“Are you kidding? No! I’m in this business for the cars, and that’s just sacrilegious.”

Hondo knocks on your open door, and he’s leaning against it with his brows raised when you look up.

“There’s two of them!” he exclaims dramatically as he looks back at the rest of the guys. “I thought you and Street were bad enough separately, but this isn’t fair.”

“Can I help you Hondo?” you ask, ignoring his comment. Although, you don’t hate him viewing this as you and Street, together, as one.

“I just came to see if anything came of that video,” Hondo says.

“Nothing inherently helpful. Your smoking gun is still lost.”

“Keep looking,” Hondo requests, tapping his knuckles against the doorframe before he leads 20 squad away.

Street watches him leave, shakes his head, and turns back to you to ask, “How’d you get into cars?”

“My, uh, my home life wasn’t great growing up. Cars were my escape. From the time I was old enough to realize that walking out into the driveway to mess with the cars got me away from the fighting, I was out there constantly. Then it became a love for cars and everything they mean to people. This isn’t just my job, it’s my passion.”

“I lived in foster homes for too long,” Street says. “When I met my brother, Noah, he got me into motorcycles, which led to cars. We dreamed about getting a Ducati someday.”

“See? Cars mean something, they’re more than electronics and gas to get you from A to B. They’re life itself for some of us.”

“And you treat them like that. When I get that Ducati, I’ll bring it to you.”

“For what? Those are perfect as is.”

“Maybe it’ll just be an excuse to see you.”

You smile and shake your head, but you know that you’d welcome him in, anytime, with or without a Ducati.

“… And then after the toe, caster, and camber are matched up on both sides, we can move on to complete the diagnostics,” you finish.

“Okay,” the young girl says. “I need to call my dad really fast. Can I come back in and let you know after that?”

“Of course. Take your time.”

As she walks out, you notice Street standing in the doorway to the garage.

“That happen often?” he asks, gesturing toward the girl standing outside.

“Occasionally. Mostly with younger customers,” you answer. “Must be nice to have a parental relationship like that.”

“Tell me about it.”

“So, what can I do for you, Officer Street?”

“Are you ever going to call me Jim?” he asks.

“I like cars, so Street is more fun,” you reply with a shrug.

“I actually came to give you a break. Hondo said you’ve been sending him updates day and night. You have to step back from it all before you burn out,” Street explains.

“I can’t. I have cars to finish, and some of my contacts have leads that seem promising, but they have to go through a chain of different garages, and…”

Street steps to you and lays his hands on your shoulders. He waits until you look into his eyes and relax to say, “You need a break. Trust me.”

“I need to finish with her,” you whisper. “Five minutes?”

“Five minutes,” he agrees. “And then I’m dragging you out of here if you won’t go willingly.”

Five minutes later, you follow Street into the small customer parking area outside the lobby. He walks to a motorcycle, and you eye it in admiration.

“This is your bike? It’s gorgeous, Street,” you say, running your fingers over the smooth metal body.

“It’s fast too,” he replies.

You accept a helmet and put it on as he climbs onto the bike. The Cardo logo on the side of the helmet catches your attention, but as you sit behind him and wrap your arms around him, you’re more than happy to ride in silence and decompress.

When you get back to the garage, you climb off the bike and hug Street before he can swing his leg over.

“Thank you,” you say softly. “I did need that.”

“I’m not just a pretty face, you know,” he jokes as he returns your hug.

“Neither am I. And you shift into fourth too soon. That’s why it revs harder.”

“I knew coming to see you would embarrass me eventually,” Street laments. “But at least you’re pretty and really close to me.”

“I can move,” you say against his shoulder.

“No, thanks. Not until I have to go back to work.”

His phone rings in his pocket and you laugh as he grumbles, “Hondo always has to ruin the moment.”

The phone on your desk rings again as you lower the new L1 engine into a C-10. You roll your eyes at the sound but refuse to answer it.

“Somebody else answer the phone!” you call. “I can’t answer another stupid question today!”

Joel salutes you as he walks through your open door. He returns a moment later with the cordless phone in his hand and smiles.

“It’s Street. Would you like me to pass along your message?”

You extend your cleaner hand and tuck the phone between your ear and shoulder to say, “Hey, Street.”

“Can you remove the hemi from my Charger?” he asks. “It’s too loud when I drive.”

“I will hang up on you,” you threaten.

The line beeps and you pull the phone from your ear with pinched brows.

“Not if I hang up on you first,” Street says from the doorway. “Which is rude, by the way.”

“Have more videos for me to watch?” you ask loudly as you lean into the engine bay of the truck.

“No, just wanted to drop by. Nice body… the truck, I mean.”

“Sure, you did.”

You grunt as you stand and pass a screwdriver to Street.

“I don’t work here.”

“Yet you’re here every day,” Joel says from inside the cab of the truck.

“Not my fault your boss freelances for my boss,” Street replies.

“I told Hondo this morning that I hadn’t heard anything,” you interrupt as you wipe your hands on a rag.

“I know. I just wanted to drop by. I got off early, so, here I am.”

“Hmm. I was hoping you’d say you were undercover or something.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to believe this is how you dress when you’re not in uniform,” you joke.

“You’re covered in-“

“I’m at work,” you defend. “Hazards of the job. And don’t bring up the fact that my laundry room smells like motor oil because you can’t prove that.”

Your phone buzzes on the workbench behind you, and you apologize as you walk past Street to get it. He watches your eyes widen as you press the screen a few times.

“Call Hondo,” you demand.

“But-“

“I know who your car thief is. He’s on his way here right now with the Triumph T3.”

“How? Why?” Street questions.

“The guy he hired to do the work thought they were really his cars. Apparently, my name came up and with the message about him going through the automotive grapevine, his former mechanic recommended me for a modification tune-up,” you explain quickly.

Hondo arrives less than ten minutes later with the rest of 20 Squad. He asks what is so urgent as he looks between you and Street, though there isn’t much room between you.

“He isn’t ditching the cars. He’s still driving the cars because the Triumph slid last night and now he’s bringing it here to be repaired,” you tell Hondo.

“Okay, it slid and he’s bringing in one stolen car. What does that mean for me? And no automotive speak,” Hondo replies.

“Could I interest you in the Cybertronian translation?”

“Tell me what my bad guy did.”

“If I can convince him to list every car he may want me to work on in the future, could you get a warrant? I’ll try to get an address and a name for him, though they may not be legitimate.”

“We can certainly try,” Deacon agrees. “But he doesn’t seem like the type that will answer questions.”

“I have a way of getting people to talk. Especially car people. Guys like him like to brag, so if I one him up, he won’t have a choice but to tell me what you need to know.”

“Just be careful,” Street says. “Don’t let him get so cocky he thinks he has to prove himself in any way except talking about cars.”

“I won’t. But you guys need to get out of sight. He’ll want to see the garage and get a feel for the security.”

“We can pretend to be security,” Street argues.

“Nah, you got a cop face, man,” Joel says from inside the truck.

“Joel, I’m going to marry your boss and ask her to fire you,” Street shoots back.

“I want to hear more about that later,” you interrupt. “But seriously, get out of sight.”

A few minutes later, a Triumph T3 stops outside of the lobby entrance. The man who enters looks like the driver in the security videos, but you have to get more information before anything else can happen.

“Hi,” you greet. “You must be the gentleman Josh told me about. He said you had a classic, but I was not expecting a ‘50s Triumph. That’s a gorgeous car, sir.”

“I appreciate it. She’s my baby, but the steering is a bit off since I hit a wet patch last night and the back end slid.”

“That sounds like a simple enough fix. If you can just fill out some information-“

“Josh said you’d do this off the books for me, like he has. Cash upfront.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” you agree. “Go ahead and pull her into the garage.”

He nods and exits the front door. You sigh and move into the garage, planning how to get him to talk about the other cars he has stolen and where he keeps them.

“Nice facility,” he compliments as he enters your garage. “Yeah, well, I’ve got a couple incredibly rare classics that I work on often, and those customers deserve the best.”

“Rarer than a 1953 Triumph T3?” the man asks, defensive and growing insulted.

“Oh, yeah. I’ve had a Model T in here, several European cars, including a T2, plus modern sports cars.”

“I’ve got a garage full of classics that make those seem like Hot Wheels.”

“I don’t know,” you murmur as you lift the hood of the Triumph. “I’ve had my hands in a 1931 Bugatti Type 41. I don’t think it gets much better.”

“My collection is worth a dozen of those outdated bugs!” he exclaims. “The Triumph, a Lamborghini Aventador with custom drivetrains, and I’d bet this car that you haven’t seen a Datsun 240z in mint condition with all-wheel drive. If your little dump of a garage could handle even that! My 25,000 square foot garage has cars you’ve never even heard of.”

“LAPD SWAT!” Hondo calls as he and his team enter the garage. “You’re under arrest for grand theft auto, carjacking, assault and battery, murder, and about fifteen more charges that I don’t have the patience to list. Now, when an arrest warrant goes through without a name, you know that’s a bad person.”

“Do not push him up against this car!” you demand as Hondo grabs his shoulder. “Toolbox, wall, anything other than a pristine T3.”

“Thanks for the help,” Hondo calls over his shoulder as he leads the thief out of the garage.

“It’s a shame such a pretty car has to go into evidence before it returns to its owner,” you tell Street.

“Yeah. Listen-“

“You didn’t hear a word I just said, did you?” you ask.

“Do you want to go out with me?” he asks.

You smile as you answer, “I’d love to.”

“Trust me, you’re gonna love this place,” you promise as you take Street’s hand. “All of the food is served in trays that look like classic cars.”

Street laughs as you bounce excitedly and uses your joined hands to pull you close.

“If you could buy one classic car, what would it be?” he asks.

You answer without hesitation before asking him the same question.

“Car? Probably an Aston Martin or a ‘60s Impala. Something sleek, classic, dangerously fast,” he answers. “Motorcycle is still a Ducati.”

“You’d suit an Aston Martin or an Impala,” you agree. “Or you can just ride shotgun in mine.”

“I was born to drive,” Street says dramatically.

You laugh at him as you slide into a booth in the restaurant. Street follows, setting the tray of food before you as he sits beside you.

“Are all of our dates going to be car-themed?” Street asks.

“You’re the one who already planned our wedding, and I’ll go ahead and tell you now that I’m not firing Joel, so you tell me.”

“I don’t care what we do as long as you’re there,” Street decides.

You smile as you turn toward him, and when you raise your chin, Street kisses you quickly. You momentarily forget about the car-themed trays holding your food, too distracted by his affection to care about which model you got. But then he tells you he got the better one and you push him away from you to check. Street laughs as he pulls you close again, and you’ve never been happier to have so much in common with one person. Maybe there are two of you, but the balance and love Street brings is perfect.

#jim street x fem!reader #jim street x reader #jim street fluff #jim street fic #jim street imagine #jim street #swat x reader #swat cbs #fem!reader #requests #hanna writes✯

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totothewolff · 6 months

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Grand Prix Elite Academy (3/10)

+18 | professor!Toto x reader fem!student, sewis, carlos x reader, collegue au | romance, smut, comedy, gossip, betray

Summary: Your life turns 180 degrees after receiving your acceptance letter for the Grand Prix Elite Academy, the most exclusive and prestigious Formula One College, designed to shape the future drivers of the motorsport world. You will try to navigate your new life among the Monaco elites, survive the campus dynamics and rivalries between the faculties, and try to win this year's Elite Cup to beat an undefeated Mercedes, all while befriending your eclectic classmates, join the wild parties, have a couple of make-outs under the racing circuit benches, lose your v-card and get over that stupid crush you have on professor Toto. Will you make it alive to graduation? Race to Greatness! Author's note: This is a Formula One college AU fic set in an elite academy in Monaco, where the F1 Teams are Faculties, their Team Principals are professors, the FIA is the college board, and all the grid drivers are your classmates. You are accepted under a scholarship program called WomenOne and have lots to catch on to after years of putting your racing dreams on hold. Becoming the outcast new girl is always challenging, especially when all of you live on one campus.

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Chapter 1: Hi, Society

"Everyone who lives in Monaco is filthy rich."

Well, that's a half-lie that people say; the working class also lives there - and the families of the people who work for the rich - just on the outskirts of town near the border with France.

Yours is one of those: a middle-class family of three (you, dad, and your dog). So, a chunk of your day goes to commuting downtown to attend school and help with the auto parts shop, your family-run business.

You had the misfortune (now you call it that!) to have been raised by a hardcore motorsports madman in what you consider one of the most F1 households of all time in the most F1 city in the world.

That madman is your dad, a middle-aged man who is apparently good-looking (judging by the attention he gets from female customers; okay, he is in shape; you get that part) but has remained single for the longest time.

He is a hard-working mechanic who invested all his inheritance in opening an automobile repair shop and a twin business, an auto parts and components store located on the same street, which seems logical.

You are one of those households that loves everything related to cars and motorsports, a trait you inherited in your cells from birth.

Yes, yes, you are a "daddy's girl." It's embarrassing, but he's your hero.

Thanks to him, you were that "weird" little girl at elementary school who could name all the parts of a car's engine and their exact functions. By high school, you could explain the mechanics and physics behind a motor, and you were able to repair and customize cars and motorbikes by your senior years.

Daydreaming was a fundamental part of your childhood and still is, but nowadays, the therapist calls it MaDD or trauma coping.

Back in the day, you loved sneaking into the driver's seat of any expensive sports car the clients took to the workshop for repair. You imagined it morphing into a racing car as you drove it to high speeds on a race track.

Of course, you always ended up winning the Grand Prix! And that fantasy lasted until either one of the mechanics or your dad got you out of the unit.

By the time you turned eight, your family made an effort to take you karting. It's costly, way more complex than you expected, and also heavy on the body!

You always ended up exhausted after practice or racing, but you didn't care because you were killing the game, impressing people along the way, and winning piles of trophies!

After several years of success, you got sponsored and made it to Formula Renault, where you winning was also a regular thing.

Then, you continued to Formula 4, where you started to succeed, too. By that point, you were utterly invested in your racing career, working hard to make your dream come true and make your parents proud.

But that sad September, your mom got sick.

After her passing, nothing was quite the same, and your racing dreams got buried along with her, leaving you and your dad an emotional and financial wreck, with a lot of debt in the bank due to her treatments.

"Time heals everything,"

That's another half-lie people tell.

You never get over a loss of that kind, but you learn to live your life the best way possible and try to find joy after it.

So, as you go through your teen years, you feel as if your life is starting over, as someone else has lived your past.

You choose to help more with the family business after noticing your father is tired and stressed every day and wanting to be there for him.

You take full responsibility for running the auto parts and components store. After school, you go there, and that's where you practically live.

The shop is in an old part of town; it used to be a cheap neighborhood, but it's not anymore, still not the most luxurious town area, but the location is excellent.

As the business grew, the shop underwent several remodels - more like improvements - made by your uncle Marco (your late mom's brother), your godfather, who works in construction.

The store is now bright, clean, and organized. It has tall white walls with blue accents (the ones you helped paint), a neat grey polished concrete floor where you can almost watch your reflection, and pendant lights in the ceiling over the aisles full of product racks. Several pennants and large posters give the place character.

Most of the time, you are behind the long counter with the cashier and computer by the entrance, where you run the stock, attend customer payments, do your homework, and watch Netflix (on slow days).

Next to you is always your dog - with his bed and bowl - and behind you is an entire wall of shelves with premium products.

The store's most recent and exciting acquisition is a new set of automatic slide doors and a large welcoming rug with the business logo.

God! How boring is your life?!

Still, you are grateful for those; before that, on busy days, you wanted to tear your ears off at the nonstop sound of the bell atop the door.

The store is at the corner of the street, and the large workshop is two buildings away across the road.

Both are different from your usual mechanic's spots; yes, there is still oil in some parts, but this is Monaco, after all! If you want to attract clients in this city, you must look nice.

Your dad lives and breathes at the workshop.

Your household is one of those that leaves the family home very early in the morning and returns at night to sleep.

As things get financially healthier again, your dad and godfather work hard to renovate the shop's attic slash old storage space into a tiny apartment for you.

It's a simple but cozy open-floor concept: a one-bedroom with a kitchenette and counter bar for two stools, a sitting area with a bulky love seat and a TV.

Your desk is next to the bay window facing the street, which offers a sky view, making this your favorite spot to study.

A queen-size bed with a nightstand completes the space, along with the door leading to the world's tiniest bathroom.

You love this rabbit hole so much.

Your dad and godfather allowed you to choose the style of decor and furniture (you went for minimal and boho), and now you love this place more than your actual home (a more spacious two-and-a-half-bedroom apartment with a small balcony nearer the mountains).

As you grow older and reach legal age, you start doing everything at the shop by yourself, saving the money spent on extra hands.

From cleaning to stock control, acting like a sales lady and the store influencer, posting social media content, updating the website once you convinced your dad to sell online, and taking care of your dog, now the business mascot.

People love him! He always gets pats on the head from customers, and some return just for him. He is a lazy old basset hound named "Diesel."

You must ensure that Diesel wears his bandana with the shop's logo daily, as it is his official employee uniform. He is your childhood dog, and the idea of losing him makes you anxious.

By this point in your life, you speak fluent "mechanic" which should be considered an entire language, thanks to growing up surrounded by them.

Depending on the photo, you may smile or laugh when you open your childhood photo albums.

There are many pictures from your birthday parties held at the workshop. In them, you appear surrounded by alpha males with tattoos, beards, and muscles wearing girly birthday props as you blow the candles off a Barbie-inspired cake or whatever was trendy with girls back then, with the entire place usually decorated in glittery pink party decor.

That's your life in a nutshell.

Nowadays, since you are a full-grown woman in their eyes, they act overprotective of you, especially when a boy your age tries to flirt with you while buying something with their parent's credit card.

But they get it so wrong! You don't recall when or how, but you started to get attracted to men, not boys, older men.

That middle-aged group of guys that make you beg, "Please run me over with your sports car," as you stare at them driving as they pass across the store's big windows facing the street.

You love the roaring sound of the engine, but you love the view of the handsome man driving it even more.

Still, it's just a fantasy; those guys are completely out of your league, and well, you haven't had a social life, not even a suitor in all these years, and you have never had a boyfriend. Maybe it's your shy nature or your looks that you feel so insecure about.

In the last couple of days before graduation, many universities show up to promote their college programs in a sort of Open Day.

You avoid the Grand Prix Elite Academy people like they have the plague, knowing that's a dream you can't afford.

And they know it, too!

You can tell by the look the extremely hot model-looking Student Affairs ladies give you when you succumb to the temptation to get closer to their stand.

You nervously step in front of them without saying a word and leave after they rudely and unwantedly hand you a brochure with all the information about the program, tuition, and more.

They both look annoyed at their employers for making them attend a school without potential clients.

You remove your shoes and drop your backpack on the floor when you arrive at your loft. As you get cozy on the bulky, puffy couch, you muster the courage to read the brochure.

"Grand Prix Elite Academy is the ultimate path to success in the world of motorsports.

Our program is an exclusive Formula One college degree designed for aspiring drivers who dream of pursuing a career in professional racing.

This program offers unparalleled training and mentorship from seasoned professionals, personalized coaching from world-class racing experts, access to state-of-the-art facilities and cutting-edge simulators, and networking opportunities with industry leaders.

This degree aims to cultivate the skills and mindsets of future champions. It's the ultimate platform for developing the aptitudes, knowledge, and connections necessary to reach the pinnacle of motorsports.

Drive to Greatness. Race with us."

After reading the entire brochure a hundred times and eyeing all the pictures, subjects, and prices attached, you can't help but cry until you fall asleep.

After several texts to your number, getting no reply, and two missed phone calls, your dad goes up to the shop's loft to look for you, now worried.

The day is over, and you two should head home soon to avoid traffic. He always texts you when it's time to leave, and you rush down to the shop's exit to get in the car.

As he approaches the sofa to wake you up, he notices the GPEA brochure on the floor next to you and places it inside his leather satchel.

He doesn't mention anything to you about it at dinner or later.

The summer break begins, and soon, you will become a college freshman.

You applied for several engineering college programs within your budget, in town, or nearby.

You still want to work at Formula One, and if you can't get a driver's seat, you aim for a team's chair.

You have been nervous the entire week, knowing the acceptance letters will soon arrive. You are crossing your fingers they aren't rejection ones.

You get accepted in three out of four!

A part of you expected a positive outcome since you have always been a nerd with good grades; plus, you felt you scored the admission tests and nailed the interviews.

However, when the postman appears at the store again, you look at him perplexed as he hands you a fancy and unexpected additional envelope.

It's good your dad is having lunch with you at the counter at that exact moment to clarify your doubts.

—What is this?! —your voice goes all high as you walk fast and nervously to him, showing him the Grand Prix Elite Academy logo stamp on the envelope.

—Listen, don't get mad at me —your dad puts down the fork and stops eating for a moment to face you. —Wait to get your hopes up high yet —He starts to calm you down, noticing how you are hyperventilating now. —Read it first.

—WHAT?!!

—Y/N, breathe, easy...

You tear the envelope with shaky hands and quickly scan the letter's content.

—AH! —a funny scream comes out of your mouth, and you look at your dad with wide eyes before pushing him into a tight hug, a bit brusquely. —I GOT IN! I GOT THIS YEAR'S SCHOLARSHIP!! —you fucking can't believe it. —BUT HOW!?!!

—I applied for you, well, I pretended to be you; I disliked being an annoying girl —he rolls his eyes at you, joking. —After that, I sent the board an email explaining our situation; as your father now obviously —he looks a bit embarrassed at his confession. —It's good that I documented your entire and promising racing career. I know how important this is for you. I'm sorry that we cannot afford it on our own. I know you have the talent and deserve that scholarship more than anyone! Thank God they went all charity on your ass!

You laugh, and happy tears run down your face. Your dad hasn't seen you this happy, not since mom...

—OH GOD!

—What?! —your dad's heart skips at your words.

—It says I must register ASAP for the virtual classroom since I didn't attend the in-person summer program. Jesus! I just got in, and I'm already behind! —you rush to the computer, and before logging in, you say: —Dad, I love you; you have nothing to apologize for!

As the countdown to the start of the academic year goes on, your nervousness levels increase.

You get more hysteric each day, and your dad already regrets his actions.

Billions of thoughts cross your mind daily: What if they don't like me? What if I end up failing? Am I good enough? What I'm going to wear? This attire list is so pretentious. What's a smart-casual look? I don't own any gowns!

OH GOD!

A heavy box arrives at the shop by mail.

It's your welcome package to the academy. Inside, you find a gorgeous and expensive-looking varsity jacket, the college's cashmere sweater, and many more branded items.

It also contains an extensive list of things you need to do before the start of the year, instructions for your first day, and a textbook of rules.

Your scholarship sponsor is WomanOne, which supports girls around the globe in completing their college degrees.

You feel so empowered that you swear to do your best and conquer the game!

Your grades and performance are crucial for them, so you must win the most Elite Cup races you can.

Two days later, another envelope arrives; this time is an invitation for the Homecoming Gala; the paper feels fancy as fuck!

The event is scheduled two nights before the start of the course, and it's mandatory, which you find hilarious.

You have never been obliged to attend a fancy party before.

A few days later, a push notification informs you you have two new DMs on the GPEA app (the official college app they requested you to download and register on).

After filling out and completing the procedures to set up your profile for the driver's market, the Ferrari and Aston Martin principals want to interview you on the virtual platform since you now appear available to be picked or to apply for a faculty slot.

Shit is getting real!

—She looks too sweet for this brutal land; I hope she survives here —Lewis says as he leans closer to peek at Sebastian's iMac screen.

They volunteered at the Student Affairs Department this year to obtain the mandatory extra credits. Well, Sebastian applied for the job and dragged Lewis along, as usual.

As they both look at the student picture you upload on the platform; then, Seb starts to copy out your data to print your access badge.

—Is she on the market yet?

—Yes. All the faculty principals have received her profile, but so far, only Ferrari and Aston have booked an interview with her. She applied to join the McLaren faculty, though.

—Interesting. So, no words from Zack?

—Not yet. You know how it is, my dear scholarship king. Y/N looks really promising. Are you feeling nervous about it? Now someone wants to take the full scholarship prodigy title away from you —Seb teases.

—By this rookie, you wish! —Lewis tenderly slaps Sebastian's face, a bit sexual still. —Everyone is after my titles anyway, as well as my sexy good looks. Are you feeling nervous about it?

—You wish! She doesn't have what I give you —it's Seb's turn to state; that light touch was enough to turn him on.

—Oh, please, could you remind me what you give me? —Lewis teases, a bit aroused.

—Oh, I can show you —Seb gets dangerously close to him, slowly pushing him against the office desk.

You are so grateful the full scholarship covers the on-campus living fee and secures you a dorm room.

The GPEA is so far from your house that commuting there would be a nightmare. Thanks, Google Maps, for the info!

Now you know you have to leave tomorrow with time to spare to be on time for the Homecoming Gala.

That night, you struggle to fall asleep. It's the anxiety about tomorrow's party. You pray to God that somehow you fit in.

As the moonlight dances upon the glistening waters of Monaco's coastline, the college's luxury campus emerges with opulence.

Tonight, the GPEA is hosting the most glamorous Gala to mark the commencement of a new school year; to your eyes, it's a scene of total excess and splendor.

Nothing as you have seen before!

Party lights dance and illuminate the facades of the campus buildings, casting vibrant and cool designs on the walls.

The garden's magnificent palm trees sway gently under the warm Mediterranean breeze, their leaves aglow with the enchanting hues of the illuminations.

The campus's modern architecture, a seamless blend of money and elegance, looks like an oasis adorned with meticulously manicured gardens, flowers, and fountains.

The soft sound of water cascading brings a sense of tranquility amidst the muffled DJ's set music coming out of the celebration.

As you are about to reach the building entrance, you notice the long parade of the most luxurious cars, gracefully chauffeuring guests who descend with elegance, sporting breathtaking gowns from renowned designers and dapper men wearing impeccably tailored tuxedo suits.

This homecoming Gala looks straight out of Gossip Girl.

As you step onto the red carpet, you can feel the electric buzz, radiating a contagious energy that sets the exhilarating tone for the party.

It looks like it is going to be a wild night.

And you are correct. The clinking glasses of champagne get louder as the evening progresses, and the party ensues.

The crowd consists of beautiful, fit, and effortlessly stylish students exuding an air of confidence and superiority.

Despite your striking look in a fancy dress, you can't shake the feeling of being an outsider among the elite.

As you move around in the ballroom with a glass in hand, you notice a figure that stands out: Toto Wolff, wearing an impeccably Brioni tuxedo and exuding charm and charisma.

His striking features, towering height, and muscular body immediately command your attention. Your gaze draws towards him, entirely captivated by his physical features and confident presence among the sea of people.

You can't help but stare at him; he is pure eye candy.

"So, this is what genuine attraction feels like?" you think.

You go all red when you notice a stunning set of clear eyes are watching you, lusting for Toto.

—No worries. It's the usual reaction Toto gets. We've all been there, I guess. I'm Leandra de Vries! I'm a Ferrari somophore —a stunning, lean girl with legs for days and perfect hair greets you.

Wow, that's having a face card! Her nose is to die for, and Jesus, those eyes! She looks tan, and her "gold" skin is silky and shiny.

"I need to moisturize!" you think instantly, comparing yourself.

—I'm Y/N Y/LN —you quickly add. —That's a beautiful dress, Leandra!

—It's vintage Dior; they don't make them like this anymore —she shows you her breathtaking embroidered gown, extending her long, athletic leg. —You look good, even with that thing you are wearing! No offense; you better get used to these kinds of comments. Let's say this place requires thick skin; my advice: never take it personally.

—Oh, thanks, I guess?! —you both laugh.

—Is it from Zara? —Leandra comes closer to whisper to your ear, curious and disgusted at the time, but with comedic timing.

—Yes! —you answer, holding a giggle.

—Oh god! Please remind me to get you in my wardrobe; I have a couple of pieces you so desperately need —she smiles at you and intertwines her right arm with yours.

—Please! —you beg and smile at her.

—Let's walk around! —she invites you.

So far, you like Leandra. Although she may look like a mean girl, she is well-intended, empathic, and honest. She doesn't hold back, and that's your type of person.

She tells you she got transferred here from the Italy campus the year before - after her older brother passed away in that polemic crash at Monza, and because her parents wanted to start fresh, trying to run from what happened - she states it was tough for her to settle in and be accepted here.

She also explains that the social circles here are very airtight, so she wants you to experience something other than what she went through.

—This place loves gossip, and you are the talk of the moment, "the charity baby who got the Lewis scholarship" —Leandra lets out like it was a bother, almost rolling her eyes while walking you to the bar area.

—So that's the new "Charity Baby"? She's cute!

—Where!? —Lando pops his head behind Oscar after his comment.

—There, with Leandra —he points.

—How does that woman get even hotter each year?! Fuck, she looks so fuckable in that dress! —Lando undresses Lea with his eyes.

—Getting an erection this early on? That's a new record for you —Max jokes, staring at him.

Leandra starts to lead you both in their direction. The group is gathered around the large velvet sofa in the fancy sitting area near the bar.

When you two arrive at their side, you overhear George leading the conversation.

—She is still out of your league, mate —George mocks him. —But how did it go with Arabella?

—Oh, she was delicious; I fucked her in the gym's pool. Her ass feels terrific! —Lando lets them know the gossip.

—Arabella is the blonde with the great tits? —Max inquires.

—No, no, that's the Mercedes girl, the one I fucked in the library.

—And you also fucked the librarian.

—And the trainer's assistant.

—And the Human Resources lady.

Everyone keeps adding.

—Better be getting ready for Lando's disappointing dick game —Carlos jokes with you as soon as he notices you standing there in complete silence and addressing you for the first time.

Everyone turns their head towards you.

You go all red.

—I mean, if you want, I'm available tonight —Lando shoots his shot, shamelessly flirting with you and reaching for your hand.

—And welcome! —Sebastian jokes from a distance, comfy wrapped in Lewis's arms on the sofa.

—Lando, you fuck everything that breathes —Yuki states impressed.

—It's cus' I got dick game, to Carlos' jealousy.

Out of nowhere, you notice Lance standing right to your left. —I heard you are working class and got here under a full scholarship like Lewis did. Is that true?! —Lance inquires, curious and with a sweet voice, but his wording is not the best.

—Yes, I'm from a middle-class family —you shyly reply. —We own a car repair workshop, and I work there.

Lance's face looks amazed. Sebastian notices his and your expressions and doesn't waste time.

—Lance, you can't ask people that! You know some people work for a living? God, you are so out of touch! Excuse him —Seb joins in.

—Yeah, unlike you, the people's people —Lewis mocks Seb, pointing at him and roughly combing his hair, then Lewis gives you a "these guys" face and winks at you. —They don't mean it —Lewis lets you know. —Welcome, welcome! I'm L-

—Lewis Hamilton, yes, I know, you are a legend —you look at him in awe.

He is the only one who gets it, who gets you.

He is as rare as you. His family famously worked their butts off to get him here before he got offered a full scholarship like yours and became the scholarship program and the GPEA prodigy.

No one has won more trophies and cups in the history of the college than him.

Mercedes already hired him as their reserve driver and offered him a contract as the future of their F1 racing team, the most expensive deal ever for a rookie. They are just waiting for Michael to retire.

After lots of chatting, dancing, joking around, and getting to know a bit of everyone in that little group, Principal Zack reaches you. —Miss, Y/LN. Can we have a word, please?

—Of course! —you interrupt your conversation with Oscar and go to him.

After walking around and casually chitchatting a bit, he informs you: —I appreciate your request to join our faculty, but unfortunately, it's impossible for us now. We noticed your career resume has a long hiatus, which puts you behind our other candidates. However, we will closely watch your performance this year, and maybe you can ask again next year —Zack politely kills your dream to drive for them momentaneously. —You have a promising future, you are talented, and I wish you the best.

—Oh, bummer! But I understand, sir. I will do my very best!

You make it back to the group, but since they love to dish, they all were observing the scene from afar and interpreting your expressions, betting their money wasn't good.

—And? —Yuki asks.

—Not McLaren.

—I'm sorry, it's their loss! —Mick comforts you. By far, he is the most kind and polite of the bunch. It must be tough to grow up under his dad's shadow; maybe that's why he is so empathic with the outcasts.

—I haven't heard from Aston or Ferarri after my interviews either —you look slightly concerned now.

—Give it a time —Seb reassures you.

—Oh god, it's too early to endure a Masi speech. No one is drunk enough yet! —Lewis cuts the chat, looking straight at the man getting up on the fancy and tech stage, lit out under professional lightning; a massive state-of-the-art Samsung screen is behind him, showcasing the academy and its sponsor's logos.

—Does anyone feel like powdering their nose in the bathroom before the speech begins? —Carlos offers.

—Count me on, babe! Do you want to join us? Being high as a kite is the best way to enjoy this party —Leandra addresses you.

—Oh! No, no, thank you —you quickly deny with your arms.

—Hey, don't go hard! I brought mushrooms for all of us later —Max adds, and they nod in sync.

Okay, this is going nothing like you expected.

"Good night, esteemed faculty, staff, and enthusiastic students. As the Dean, I am honored to address you at the start of this new academic year at the Grand Prix Elite Academy. We are here united by a shared passion for speed, engineering, and the excitement of Formula One racing.

Our college stands as a unique institution dedicated to preparing the next generation of brilliant minds and innovative professionals in the motorsport industry.

This academic year holds incredible opportunities for growth, learning, and discovery, and I encourage each and every one of you to embrace the challenges, cultivate your skills, and push the boundaries of knowledge in this exhilarating field.

Let us fuel our enthusiasm, collaborate synergistically, and pave the way to new frontiers of excellence together. I extend a warm welcome to all and look forward to an extraordinary year ahead.

Thank you."

A lazy round of applause comes from the crowd, but minutes before that, about the middle of the speech, Leandra stands by your side. —Do you want to know all the tea about Toto? —noticing how your eyes went all over him once more.

He is up on the stage with all the principals from the different faculties. It's nothing new, but you are experiencing it for the first time.

—Well —you hesitate. —Yes.

—He has remained single for a while now, more like fucking around, actually. Toto has a type: blond bombshells, the supermodel type, you know, with insane bodies. I'm friends with two of his conquests, and one told me he fucks like a bull. He likes it hard and rough, and the other let me know he has a delicious fat cock but that he hits it and quits it; he left her begging for more.

You blush at her words, which she instantly notices, before continuing: —Last I witnessed with my own gorgeous eyes, Toto was hooking up with Anitta at that fancy Ferrari's anniversary party; she was all over him; it was a great party, we all got smashed! I ended up cowgirling Dani on the back of his car, oops.

You hit playfully Leandra in the ribs with your elbow while looking at Ricciardo standing meters away. —Daniel is hot!

—And a moron! Ah, right! Toto went through a very public divorce about a year ago; it was the talk of the town. The Wolff's splitting, OH! The elites went wild! His ex-wife is a counselor here, so you will see her around; they have a weird relationship. I think they still fuck.

Okay, this is a lot of information, but one thing is sure: you are different from his type.

—By the way, he's a very demanding professor and one of the very best. His subjects are challenging to get accepted into, and it is hard to obtain good grades in them, but if you achieve them, you gain a lot of respect; he has an eye for talent, so think twice before choosing him. Many girls try to add his class to their schedules to get closer to him, but it never ends well. He is a dream crusher. Do you want me to introduce you to him? I'm one of his favorite students.

—Oh, no, no —you get all nervous. Leandra laughs at your answer and how you go full panic within seconds.

—So you are the type who only likes to stare? —she mocks you. You softly push her, joking around.

Oh, yes, and he looks so fine! That suit is tight in all the right places!

The party gets better and wilder as the night progresses, and the alcohol takes a toll on your systems.

People are dancing around to DJ Lando's sensual set and hooking up everywhere; the lights are dim, and neon lasers pulsate to the beats.

Bodies move in sync with the rhythm as you all gather on the packed dance floor. Max offers the mushrooms around, and a "Fuck it! I deserve to feel alive!" feeling overpowers you, and you join them as they cheer you in, feeling now more like part of the pack!

Amidst the blur of Carlos's body dancing around you - he became your companion for the night - you start feeling everything on your skin: the energy, passion, and thrill.

You can feel your pupils dilating and his firm chest under your hands. Your vision gets distorted, and a tall man with dark hair and intense eyes forms in front of you, and you fight that urge to slide your hands down.

You needed so bad this tempting display of youthful freedom and uninhibited release, begging for your inhibitions to fade temporarily after years of sadness and solitude.

You can't wait for the course to start and for this new chapter in your life to begin.

Please don't let it just be a fantasy! To be continued... < Previous chapter | Masterlist | Next chapter >

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thefanboyhub · 25 days

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More random HeadCannons for the SBG gang because yes:

Aiden has two different music tastes. The goofy kind (party rocks for example) and then the "oh shit, he's depressed" kind. Think Pierce The Veil, Melanie Martinez, Get Scared, any kind of "I'm fucked up" kind of music.

Ashlyn listens to a lot of classical and instrumental music or like indie alternative kind of stuff. Think James Marriott, Fish in a Birdcage, ECT.

Tyler listens to guitar heavy stuff (like I said last time I did this shit) but he really likes rock/metal kind of stuff. Think Get Scared, Limp Bizkit, Three days Grace, Pierce The Veil, that kind of stuff.

Taylor listens to more upbeat things. She also likes classic pop (Gwen Stacy, Shakira, ECT.) Think Britney Spears.

Ben listens to everything and anything. It depends on his mood how much energy he has the vibes he feels ECT.

Logan shockingly listens to rock. He'll say he's a Fish In a Birdcage girly (which he is but he likes Get Scared and Nickelback more) but he is lying. He wants that head bangers that drown out everything while he zooms into shit.

Tyler would be the worst with road rage when driving.

Logan would be the most normal about driving.

Taylor would be scared at first and relax afterwards while Ben is not relaxed and generally hates driving.

Aiden is shockingly the best driver???

Ashlyn is actually decent at driving when a giant monster isn't trying to kill her and her friends.

Tayler tried to become friends with Ashlyn when they were little but it uh... Failed.

Creator has confirmed Ashlyn is autistic and has kind of said Logan has OCD and Aiden has ADHD I believe. I would like to add to this by saying: Ashlyns autism is more on the social aspect, less on the texture and touch, and HEAVY on sound aspect. Logan's OCD gets worse the more stressed he is, his obsession is intrusive thoughts and the need to be perfect at anything academic, his compulsion is auto cannibalism(chewing not his nails but the skin around them, his lips, inside his mouth, and time took a tiny chunk out his hand) and finding work to do. Aiden's ADHD is very low in the aggression and anger, he does still have it but his ADHD is more on the social and focus stuff. Aiden also has an adrenaline addiction and depression. He also has an addictive personality.

Taylor and Tyler are intersex. It's only on the hormonal level but it's still there. (Do you see the vision???)

Ben hates that he's mute. He does and doesn't have a choice in it. He wants to speak often but something just stops him, it's like a part of him has his hands around his throat just like the day he lost his voice.

Logan is actually really competitive but it has to be something he's good at to really get him going. Tyler found that out during trivia game in the back of one of these classes (they decided to not pay attention and okay a random Kahoot. Logan won.)

It is also confirmed Tyler would be in cosmetology if it want for the scholarship baseball gives him. SO. He dyes Aiden hair, he and Taylor has dyed purple hair at one point. He knows how to do piercings, he did his and his sisters. He has more than her (nose and all ear pericings possible).

None of the group is hetero. None. Ashlyn is the closest to it and that's just cuz she's be Demiromantic and heterosexual. Ben comes in second place for that and that because he's bi but female leaning cuz men scare him. (He be the opposite of most people lmao) Aiden is Pan but doesn't really understand it. Tayler is unlabeled cuz she just likes whoever the fuck. Tyler is a literal raging Bi but doesnt think about it cuz he be busy. And Logan is most likely gay or that one thing that's attracted to like masculinity.

Remember that one scene of Ashlyn popping her bones? Tyler has that when he wakes up in the mornings. He does sports. He gonna snap crackle pop.

Aiden has only had four hospital visits before, he actually more careful then people give him credit for. That and Ben stops him a lot.

Ben sticks closer to Aiden even more now because he heard and saw him die.

Aiden and Ben's sister bully each other.

Tyler once had someone ask him out randomly and he was so confused so he was like "Uhm... No? I think?" Because he was up late trying to help his mom pay bills the night before and didn't understand what she said. The baseball team would not stop bullying him for that the rest of their freshman year.

Taylor had an emo phase in middle school which made Tyler follow suit. They were emos in middle school, I know they were. The hair says it all.

The group has two sets of matching outfits that they wear randomly and somehow always wear on the same days without even communicating it. S

Ashlyn becomes a big baby on her period and me willingly let's Adien and or Tyler carry her around. Taylor just gets really mean and aggressive (becomes Tyler 2.0 frfr) or just cries randomly and it stresses our boys out.

Ashlyn knows baby sign language so she can understand some stuff Ben says to Aiden when they us ASL thinking the group isn't paying attention.

Logan writes fanfiction. I'm not elaborating.

Tyler and Taylor both were princesses one holloween and literally everyone thought they was a third one, making them triplets. People from their middle school that go to their current school still ask if their other sister is doing okay and Tyler dies inside a little every time.

Tyler hates mayonnaise. I feel like he'd hate it.

Ashlyn hates Tartar sauce. Like she will punch anyone who tries to give it to her.

Aiden forgets to eat a lot and has to eat timers to remember.

They all share clothes but Aiden and Ashlyn share more than everyone else. Specifically with each other. They trade a lot.

Logan is constantly missing his sweaters because of Ashlyn stealing them.

They all signed each other shoes on the inner left ones with their initials.

Ben tried not to stick out as much as possible because of trauma.

Logan is edging into his emo phase soon. He'd be the fancy emo, more like and e boy but less cringe.

Aiden worships Lady Gaga. No further explanation.

Everyone gives Aiden the side eye when he plays party rockers (party walkers). He just vibes. (He's actually trying to keep the memory of Ashlyn face in his brain so he doesn't fail her again.)

Taylor has a middle school relationship with a girl one time. It ended cuz she moved away and Taylor was like a sad puppy for two weeks.

That's all bye now

#thefanboyhub #thefanboy #thefanboyhub rambles #the school bus graveyard #sbg ashlyn #sbg aiden #sbg logan #sbg tyler #sbg taylor #sbg ben #sbg #sbg (webtoon)

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kazukazuhas · 1 year

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˗ˏˋ ꒰ 💌 ꒱ old friends, lloyd garmadon.┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ ☁️

˗ˏˋ ꒰ 💌 ꒱ act one ;; scene two┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ ☁️

୧ ⎯⎯ DRIVE

୧ ⎯⎯ WARNINGS ;; longing ;; lloyd being not human, so real

୧ ⎯⎯ NOTES ;; um, i don't know how to feel about this chapter lowkey

୧ ⎯⎯ PREVIOUS ┊MASTERLIST┊NEXT

୧ ⎯⎯ 1 IMAGE ;; TEXT [CLICK FOR BETTER QUALITY]

there was a sore feeling in lloyd's heart when they finally departed from the girls' place, one that made him long to be at his sisters' for at the least a few more moments or even just a second. disappointment dragged down his lips into a frown before he decided on shifting to make himself comfortable. green eyes set onto the stationary road beside him, mindlessly watching the bystanders in his life move along in their own without much worry for his.

not that they cared any more if they knew it was him.

lloyd subconsciously leaned against the door, tired eyes still were kept trained on the now blurry roads of the city streets while he consciously fought back a yawn threatening to break his attention. he swallowed down the yawn with some successful effort before sighing quickly after. the blond then moved to lean against the seat instead of the window, moving his head to rest on jay's shoulder who laid his own on the younger's.

the muffled and soft sound of the older boy's heartbeat calmed his thoughts, subtle but effective enough to bring him back to his very much normal-at-the-moment reality.

"soooo?" jay whispered above a breath to make sure he didn't wake anyone up (cole sat in the front passenger seat to keep zane company while he drove but he fell asleep after kai did a little after when they left the road the girls were staying). he ruffled lloyd's hair before dropping the hand to the boy's lap to hold one of his own. "how you doing?"

lloyd squeezed the brunet's hand softly, lightly purring into the jacket covering his shoulder with a nuzzle of his nose. "okay," it was a soft mumble, but jay hummed back in a delicate tone.

he didn't think his disappointment was worth the mention. of course he would feel so, lloyd only found his old friend after years and all that time lost needed some catching up. he felt something similar when they first left the outskirts, but the shadowy emotion lurked in something else while beside his thought of disappointment.

the boy peeked over jay's shoulder to catch a quick glance at his phone. jay smiled while sparing a quick glance down to lloyd, tilting his phone to lloyd to show the flashy colours belonging to edits of the secret ninja force the public managed make from the choppy clips filmed during some attacks and some better ones from impromptu interviews all courtesy of NGTV news.

jay himself never really understood why, but he enjoyed watching the silly edits of the city's ninja from time to time. it did kill time and he did have an addiction to the incredibly addictive tiktok.

the bright blues and white swirled back and forth, the edit was of the lightning ninja that switched back and forth from good old fighting to some interviews, the one in question was particularly a popular vlog, done by some kid that managed to show up at all the right times.

"hey, aren't those nelson's videos?" lloyd quietly asked, shifting to see the phone a little better. jay hummed, agreeing quietly before opening the comments and mindlessly scroll through them. "yeah, he has some of the best quality clips when yk? we are fighting nine out of ten times we do show up." lloyd nodded slightly, going back to watching whatever edit played next.

"aw, they like me!" jay quietly exclaimed with a wide and happy smile at the thought, informing the driver (who seemingly went into auto pilot for a moment) of a random comment from the following video's comment section he liked before giving it his own verbal one and going back to scrolling aimlessly. the soft phonk music turned to gentler ones and back, switching to and forward between all sorts of genres before stopping shortly and starting up again.

the feeling didn't leave while lloyd tried hard to concentrate on whatever was playing on jay's phone even if most of it was bright, flashy colours. it lingered and mixed with the tiredness marching through his body uninvitingly.

lloyd sighed again, choosing to close his eyes and enjoying the peace of the trip back home after the light began to lose its hold on his attention. the eye hurting array colours mixed with dark that surrounded his closed eyes. fortunately, it didn't bother him too much. slowly he finally succumbing asleep on jay's shoulder, still partially attached to his brother's side.

"g'night, kid," jay murmured, knowing lloyd barely heard him in his sleepy daze, before switching his phone off and resting his head against lloyd's again and trying to catch up on his lack of shut eye himself.

maybe if he slept, lloyd thought, that pit in his gut would go away?

୧ ⎯⎯ PREVIOUS ┊MASTERLIST┊NEXT

୧ ⎯⎯ TAGLIST ;; @spoopy-fish-writes // @spoops-inliyue ;; @decaffeinatedcloudkryptonite // @shaantiofher ;; @sunangelstears ;; @comicbookweirdo ;; @cl0udyw4ter ;; @chamille-trash ;; @candy884422 // [pm/send in an ask to join]

˗ˏˋ ꒰ 💌 ꒱ kazukazuhas copr. 2023 darling┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ ☁️

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gambitxrogue11 · 4 months

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Caligator AU one shot .. Neil, Billy and Max moved to North Dakota instead of Hawkins, where it is run by the sheriff Roy Tillman.

🔞 WARNING: 🔞

Explicit language, mention of slurs, Gator Tillman and Billy Hargrove, minors do not interact.. IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT SCROLL AWAY.

Billy drove Max to her school in the morning before he starts his shift at nearby auto shop.

It's been 6months since they move to North Dakota, Neil was assigned here for "higher paycheck" ..

It was a very normal morning or so Billy thought .. when he saw the sheriff's son Gator in front of the school as well.. it looks like he's waiting for someone .. maybe they're doing some routine check?..

He knows the sheriff son is complete douche based on the conversations he had with him a few times in the sheriffs office and in his bed ..

Gator knows what he is, but will never publicly out themselves since Roy, will kill them if he realize his boy is bisexual.

Gator might be a douche but Billy can't deny that he's sexy .. he watches Gator from afar as this hot moron spits everywhere like a garden sprinkler ..

Billy can't help but imagine what if Gator, would've spit in his mouth instead? and rearrange his guts? ... Having those thought made his pants a little tighter.

Billy's thought process was interrupted when he notice Gator is walking towards him.. he didn't realized he was staring long enough..

"Well look who'tis? .. Mornin' shitbird." Gator greeted Billy

"So what is Neil's fruity little bastard doin' here?" Gator continued

"Just drove my sister to school, shitbird! What do you want? Did daddy sent you back to middle school?" Billy rhetorically answered ..

Gator inches closer to Billy "I told ya' not ta give me those 'fuck me eyes' on public" Gator whispered.

Billy felt Gator's warm breath tickle his ear, his face heat up suddenly ..

"What are you gonna do about it fucker?" Busted, Billy, teases Gator he knows he's gonna get laid if he continue getting under Gator's skin.

"Ya think that's funny Hargrove? .. I can arrest ya fer disrespectin' an officer of the law" Gator pointed to his badge.

"Alright, I'm sorry pretty princess, deputy" Billy sarcastically said still trying to get on Gator's nerves..

Gator eyes darkened, licked his lips and smiled lustfully "I guessed have'ta shove my cock later in yer' pretty little mouth, all the way down yer throat until ya gagged on my cock, make a mess and drool like a lil' baby..

that'll shut ya up.." Gator's voice became a little threatening yet soft and full of lust

Billy felt an electricity course through his body and his half hard cock earlier was full rock hard now, at the thought swallowing Gator's girth.

"Yeah that's right.. ya love that fag?" Gator fist Billy's buldge under his tight pants, he gulp as he felt Gator large palm on his buldge

"I'll see ya around Hargrove" Gator says smuggly as he walks away slowly leaving Billy speechless..

Gator went back to his patrol car where another deputy is now on the driver seat ..

Gator hops on the passenger seat and they drove away.

#gator tillman #joe keery #fargo #fargo fx #fargo season 5 #gator #billy hargrove #dacre montgomery #stranger things season 5 #stranger things #harringrove #caligator #caligator one shot

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iprefertheterminsane · 3 months

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Take me Home (Where I Belong)

I'm almost finished with my domestic perryshmirtz 5+1, which I'm gonna upload to ao3 soon so here's a tease in the form of the first chapter!

Rating: G

Relationship: Perry the Platypus/Heinz Doofenshmirtz

Tags: Human Perry the Platypus, pre-slash, domesticity, Perry's moved in before they even stopped calling themselves enemies, it's normal to want to kiss the homies sometimes, right?, long suffering Charlene, Perry's got 4 kids actually and that fourth one is Vanessa, haha Perry the Platypus you are dating my father.

Even after having his plans foiled for the day, Heinz doesn’t let him drive home.

“Look at yourself, Perry the Platypus, you’re barely standing on your own two feet.” The scientist points out. He’s right, of course, not that Perry will let him the satisfaction of agreeing with him. It seems to mean less than little; Heinz had already buckled him back into the passenger seat of his truck with the tenacity of a father, and Perry is just barely conscious enough to comply- a bit dumbly, but the taller man does not seem to mind-without much of a fuss. He’s still talking, naturally. Perry has gotten so used to the chatter the droning had begun to take on an ambient sort of feeling, like brown noise. “-practically an accident waiting to happen. Honestly, you’d think Francis would want to try keeping his best agent alive-that agency is gonna do you in better than I would, one day.”

Perry considers giving up a token protest-he had gotten here with the hoverjet on auto-pilot; the routes between the lair and Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc. has long been keyed in as his defaults-but decides otherwise. He really was quite exhausted, surely it would be no bother to let Heinz drive him back to Evil Inc. where he’s parked. Why waste fuel when a cheaper of transport was on offer? The Major has particularly been going on and on lately about turning the office more green and saving energy, no doubt one of their latest efforts to cut costs-so he was doing the agency a favor, really. He trusted that Heinz was a reliable enough driver when they’re neither forced to undergo the serial killing obstacle course that was the Drusselsteinian Driving Test Route.

He would sleep in just until Heinz gets them back home. Decision made, he lets himself rest his eyes.

00..00

“Up, up, up, Perry the Platypus you don’t really expect me to carry you up the stairs do you-,”

“-Ok, here we go, sit here-no, no, don’t lay down just yet you need to take your shoes off Perry the Heathenpuss-,”

“-I am not letting you sleep in the corset of a waistcoat Perry the Platypus, wow is this Kevlar? No wonder you can stand my Titanium punches-Ok uppies, I should probably help you take this tie off too, huh? They could strangle you in your sleep, y’know, nuff said, if nuff was-y’know, me-it’s so weird to see you so biddable, Perry the Platypus-,”

“-ok, last thing Perry the Platypus, yes I promise, just need to help you get under the covers, alright? Now, isn’t that better? Aw, look at how cute you look, Perry the Platypus, like a little angel-,”

“Good night, Perry the Platypus.”

00..00

Perry snorts awake in the penthouse guest room with the covers pulled up to his chin, blinking against the light of the setting sun from behind the half-shaded curtains facing east of Danville.

He isn’t sure what’s woken him, but finds himself unable to go back to sleep. This was probably a good thing-he’s never stayed behind in Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc. for so long without making his excuses before, and the clock shows that he’s nearly late for dinner back at the Flynn-Fletcher’s household. He’ll have no trouble flying home now, he feels perfectly well-rested.

Rising to his feet, he finds himself underdressed. His hat rests on the right-hand nightstand, right next to his sleeping head, and the rest of his clothes-vest, tie and shoes-draped carefully over the chair that looks like it’s been dragged over from the kitchen, positioned right next to the room’s entryway, deliberately left ajar. He shoves the hat back over his head and toes his shoes back on, but blinks deliberately at the rest of his attire. They are, of course, crucial parts of his armour, but what was to fear for stepping out without them? Heinz’s scheme was thwarted for the day, and lest the man was suddenly overcome with another plan while Perry was out, which he sincerely doubts, Heinz would not have reason to attack him out of the blue, and certainly not out of armour. He was obsessed with playing fair, and acting by the book. As far as they are both concerned, they were now both off the clock.

Perry decides to take the clothes and fold them over his arm, but he steps out without putting them on- the vest tends to cinch, which he tolerates, but not without reason-and goes to search for his host to make his goodbyes.

It’s easy enough to find him; Heinz is in the kitchen, naturally, making dinner for himself, with Norm at the dining table carefully slicing vegetables and making prep; something doughy, it seems. Perry wonders if it’s pie-Heinz makes wonderful doonkleberry pie. He rests his hips against the doorjamb, and chatters his teeth to make his presence known, a noise Heinz is well familiar with. It cuts off the man’s mindless chatter, and he beams. Perry can’t help his own answering smile.

"Ah, Perry the Platypus!” He crows. “Just in time for dinner! I don’t suppose you mind setting the table, just need to give me another couple of minutes-,” he cuts himself off as he sees Perry shaking his head, and Perry signs, regretfully, that he has to make himself scarce.

“YOU AREN’T STAYING FOR DINNER?” Norm asks, as despairingly as his cheerful-sounding robotic voice could make it sound. His mouth is down turned.

“Yes, it’s already so late, Perry the Platypus, surely your report could wait a couple of more hours.” Heinz adds, cajoling. “I worry you know, a man has to eat homemade meals every couple of days, else you tend to get sick to the stomach. I don’t know if you cook. I’ve made lemon pie for dessert.” Heinz sing-songs enticingly at the end, and Perry has to admit it’s persuasive. The man really does have a knack for baking.

But he’s already missed out on family dinner yesterday, due to making up for Agent G’s maternity leave, and the Flynn-Fletchers would worry if he missed out on another. He knows for a fact Linda’s made her award-winning meatloaf tonight, and hedgehog cake for supper. He’d hate on missing out on the treat for the world.

He’s halfway through realizing he’s said it out loud, ‘I have homemade meals at home,’ before he freezes, taking in Norm’s and Heinz’s curious blinks, and his hands pause abruptly, letting the sentence trail off awkwardly. He could see from the look on Heinz’s face that he was curious, mouth opening as if to pose a question, but seems to ultimately decide against it. They’ve both scrambled enough of the expected norms of their Villain-to-Spy nemesis-ship today, and crossing the line to figuring out Perry’s home life seems a midge too far, even for them.

Heinz hums, and changes the subject. “Are you really driving home fully dressed like that?”

Perry looks down at himself. ‘What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?’

“Nothing, which is my point. You could just leave them here, you know, they’re all dirty, Norm can run them through with the rest of the day’s laundry, and you can pick them up tomorrow. It’s weird to see you all dressed down, you know, but not bad weird, a good weird, makes me feel like a good host. That’s how you know you’re an adult sometimes, ugh, just listen to me talk about good hosting etiquette, Vanessa never has to worry about that sort of thing you know, even though she should. I hope Charlene’s teaching her.”

Perry’s wandered over to the coffee machine at this point, using context clues to figure out how it works and avoiding the large red button in a transparent case on the right-hand side of it’s case. He taps it, and churrs again.

“Oh, coffee! That’s a good idea, Perry the Platypus, some strong caffeine to help drive you through that traffic, I bought this travel mug for you!” Heinz hands him a short and stout chrome and teal travel mug with a silicone top and an anti-slip base. “I saw that color while scrolling through Etsy while I was looking at bento-boxes for this scheme I’m cooking up next week-oop, forget I said that Perry the Platypus, no spoilers! It reminded me of you! But the travel mugs aren’t related, it was just in the same shop, I love travel mugs, especially these newer novelty ones, you know there were never any novelty items back in Drusselstein, on account of the state largely frowning on any sort of color or patterns-,”

Perry churrs again, twisting the top of his cup back on and pointing out the door. Heinz visibly deflates.

“Oh, right, yes, leaving, of course, Perry the Platypus, let me just let this simmer and walk you to the door-and leave the clothes with Norm, Perry the Platypus, I’ve told you, you can come to fetch them tomorrow.”

Heinz helps hold the mug for him while he gets himself settled back in the hoverjet, and the clock on his dash informs him he should reach the house just in time to reach the Flynn Fletchers begin dinner if he rushed. Heinz leans forward to hand him the travel mug, leaving them close, just close enough that Perry feels the ridiculous urge to-maybe-leave a soft kiss on the other man’s cheek, the way Lawrence does when Linda was about to leave the house for the errand of the day.

Heinz doesn’t seem to notice, mumbling about setting the mug just right into the cupholder behind the handlebar, because it was hot, Perry the Platypus, we wouldn’t want a repeat of the driving test incident, do we? When Perry switches the jet on, Heinz waves. Perry, inexplicably, tips his hat back in return.

It isn’t until he’s 15 minutes away from the house that he realizes he really had left his vest and tie behind at Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc. He hopes Heinz doesn’t plan to do anything inadvisable with them.

For some reason, Perry doesn’t believe that he will.

#perryshmirtz #human perry #fic tease #perry the platypus #heinz doofenshmirtz #phineas and ferb #domesticity #5+1 type fic

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